BravePicks 2023 - The Scribes Speak!
Greg Pratt

Top 20 of 2023
1) GRIDLINK – Coronet Jupiter (Willowtip Records)
2) AGELESS SUMMONING – Corrupting The Entempled Plane (Dark Descent Records)
3) SUFFERING QUOTA – Collide (Tartarus Records)
4) ROTTEN SOUND – Apocalypse (Season Of Mist)
5) REBAELLIUN – Under The Sign Of Rebellion (Agonia Records)
6) GELD – Currency // Castration (Relapse)
7) PUSTILENCE – Beliefs Of Dead Stargazers And Soothsayers (Memento Mori/Rotted Life)
8) ASTRIFEROUS – Pulsations From The Black Orb (Me Saco Un Ojo/Pulverised)
9) CANNIBAL CORPSE – Chaos Horrific (Metal Blade)
10) SORROW – Death Of Sorrow (Xtreem Music)
11) AUTOPSY – Ashes, Organs, Blood And Crypts (Peaceville Records)
12) FUMING MOUTH – Last Day Of Sun (Nuclear Blast Records)
13) CRYPTOPSY – As Gomorrah Burns (Nuclear Blast Records)
14) HELLWITCH – Annihilational Intercention (Listenable Records)
15) UNDEAD – Putrefacttio (Redefining Darkness Records)
16) CADAVER – The Age Of The Offended (Nuclear Blast Records)
17) DEFILED – The Highest Level (Season Of Mist)
18) FULL OF HELL + PRIMITIVE MAN – Suffocating Hallucination (Closed Casket Activities)
19) KAAL AKUMA – Turiya (Nuclear Winter)
20) DISTORTED INFLUENCE – COLD (Supreme Echo)

Top 5 Brave Embarrassments
KATAKLYSM – Goliath (Nuclear Blast Records)
This band's track record of consistently forgettable records—after a few early-career masterpieces—never fails to frustrate me.

DEF LEPPARD WITH THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA – Drastic Symphonies (UMe)
It just never works, okay? The songs always sound better without the orchestra.

BARONESS – Stone (Abraxan Hymns)
Every year, some band that I love ends up on this list for putting out some album that I literally can't even remember listening to. Like Baroness, and...

U.D.O. - Touchdown (Atomic Fire)
I mean, I remember it sounded good while it was on, and I recall a lot of cool guitar solos, but why can't I remember any of the songs?

HELMET – Left (earMUSIC)
Helmet have made some of the best, most important noise rock albums of all time. Just not for a while. Gotta say, this has a few great songs, but just... how do you ever compare to Meantime and Betty?

Thoughts On 2023
Gridlink absolutely killed it with Coronet Jupiter, filling in a much-needed gap in post-Discordance Axis grindcore. Absolutely epic release, but taking a look at my top five, man, lots of grind out there, with Suffering Quota (until now, unknowns to me) and Rotten Sound (always reliable) rubbing shoulders with the grimier death metal of Ageless Summoning (as always, hails to Dark Descent Records for being the friend with good taste we can count on) and Rebaelliun's blinders-on DM blasting. Elsewhere, there's the noisy punk of Geld, Cannibal Corpse's always-reliable DM, the return of Sorrow's death/doom, Cryptopsy kicking it up a notch, Hellwitch tearing faces off again, Undead, Defiled, Autopsy, death metal, death metal, death metal, and it's all so good. And I must say, Fuming Mouth actually would have wormed their way up my list had I more time to sit with their crusty, experimental DM hunk o' glory Last Day Of Sun. Great record, and a great year of extreme sounds.

I say it every year, because with the sheer quantity (too much, to be honest) of heavy music being released each year, it ain't hard to find 20 that absolutely rule.

What/Who Needs To Stop In 2024
I mean, at this point, 2024 will probably be another year where bands quantify and digitize and suck all the life out of their recordings, but I sure wish they wouldn't. Give me some danger, some excitement, some push and pull. This is extreme music, it shouldn't sound like approximations of what plastic would sound like created by AI, it should sound like you're holding on for dear life. Keep the humanity in metal, and keep the art in metal. I also have really seen enough of the petty and bitter fighting among bands: KK's Priest may rule, but I still just can't even based on the name alone (ahem, not that I'm petty).

Metal Predictions For 2024
Over the past few years, we've seen an excellent new crop of young-pup death metal bands; now, with Fuming Mouth's new record, what we're going to see is those bands opening things up a bit, bringing in some new influences that the old masters could never have had, and really blowing things up with a burst of creativity.

Read our BravePicks 2023 countdown where Obituary's Dying Of Everything took the throne at #1 here.

More Scribes Speak!:
Mark Gromen
Aaron Small