2023 Number 1: Peter Gabriel

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 1
Peter Gabriel - i/o

Being a fan of Marillion or IQ, who take five or six years to write an album, can be frustrating. Then, there’s Moon Safari and Unitopia, back after a decade of absence. But Peter’s 21 years between UP and i/o makes them all look like King Gizzard by comparison. An album over two decades in the making better be fucking worth it. Well, here we are. The reviews are all glowing, and they are correct. This is really something special. What a privilege to be there for the release of a new Peter Gabriel album. 

There isn't a song on this record that isn't magnificent. The interesting thing about i/o, apart from all those different versions and the monthly release cycle and all that folderol, is that it’s a pure pop album, his most accessible since SO. I mean that in a positive way. It’s a big tent. Whereas US and UP, as wel as his orchestral works, often retreated into hermetic darkness (i.e. plodding), here is an album explicitly made for everyone to enjoy and celebrate. There’s a lot of nods to his previous work while still sounding fresh. It’s full of hope and joy whilst also bringing that mature sense of intimate melancholy that runs through Peter’s later work. What really makes this one is the immaculate songwriting, the incredible, layered Gabriel/Eno production and his voice, still as warm, rich and powerful as ever. I’m particularly partial to the lyrics, an ode to life, love and nature. Apparently the songs are even better live, but that’s Peter Gabriel for you.

An entire generation has been born and come of age between Peter Gabriel’s previous album and this one. It’s hard to imagine the 73-year-old having many more albums left in him – this is only his eighth! But if this turns out to be it for him, what a note to go out on. Play it often.

 

 

2023 Number 2: Moon Safari

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 2
Moon Safari – Himlabacken vol. 2

Back again to Sweden. It’s the land of Opeth, and the land of ABBA, both the moodiest and happiest music always comes from Sweden. I’ve always got a lot of moody stuff on my list, but ultimately the upbeat stuff wins out. I don’t think there’s a single more profoundly likable band in the progosphere than Moon Safari. You’d need to be a pretty big cynic to not be swept up in this bouncy, cheerful, high energy sugar rush rock music full of massive vocal harmonies – they are not just a band, they are also a choir! Even if you’re not a prog person I think it’s impossible not to like Moon Safari on some level. It’s just so pure. But it’s not an empty confection, there’s plenty of musical depth to it, too.

This is the third album of theirs I’ve heard and by far my favourite, it really feels like they’ve taken it to the next level. In addition to the classic prog influences there’s a bit of Queen in there, some Beach Boys and Beatles, some ELO, some Van Halen, yes, some ABBA. Just endlessly enjoyable bouncy music, only this bounces in odd time signatures. If there’s one album on my list that I’d recommend to anyone no matter who you are, easily this one. Listening to volume 1 is not necessary, though it certainly wouldn’t do you any harm (oddly, I never got into that one). Even that twenty minute apocalypse song will bring a smile to your face. The most addictive album of the year. 

(Many apologies if your name is Emma)

2023 Number 3: Unitopia

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 3
Unitopia – Seven Chambers

Unitopia are back after a long absence. I’ve always liked this Australian band, especially their classic song “Tesla”, the song with the best chorus in prog history. But I never fully loved them, until now. An album that starts with the literal beat from Genesis’ Duchess knows the way into my heart, especially when they have an actual Genesis alumnus, Chester Thompson, on board. And reunite him with his old buddy from Weather Report, Alphonso Johnson. To have that legendary rhythm section working together again in music like this is a great thing in itself.

The Big G is obviously a big influence on this one, but Unitopia keep things contemporary. They are more of the Big Big Train school of modern pastoral prog, although this album is harder and more mischievous than BBT. They throw everything but the kitchen sink at this one. Mellotron, metal riffs, violin, hip hop, flutes and synthesizers, with the occasional left-field musical twist and a fistful of satisfying epics. Expansive anything-goes prog, do anything, go anywhere, but you still get a fully whole and coherent album out of the deal. Everything just goes right on this one.

Like last time, the lyrics are more or less the weakest link here, with the words - about the effects of ageing and illness - heartfelt but the poetry on display often basic and on the nose. Let it not rain on your parade; this is a winner. Your finest kitchen-sink prog from the Land Down Under.

2023 Number 4: Monika Roscher Bigband

NIELS'  TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 4
Monika Roscher Bigband – Witchy Activities and the Maple Death

I’m quite happy with this find: the German Big Band with the charismatic leader. Jazz prog fusion at its most exciting, and singer-guitarist Monika Roscher is one of the few people on my list who I’d describe as a proper rock star. A mercurial, intriguing presence. Her voice has been described as Bjork-like, but the comparison isn’t really fair to either.

To me, this album hits that sweet spot between left-field and weird but still song-based and juuust accessible enough. It’s extremely driven and high energy, often very dissonant but there’s moments of great beauty, too. It’s also allowed me to explore my latent love for large brass sections. Hooray. Big Big Train was a gateway drug. I’ve gone back and listened to some older Roscher work and in comparison this latest one is more focused, warmer, more melodic and, whisper it, less jazzy, more proggy. Jazz musicians make the best prog, it’s just how it works, ask Thank You Scientist. The real hardazz jazz is alienating to me, this feels more musical. But it’s still a riot.

In fact, I had this album pinned as my no. 1 for a while, but no fewer than three late arrivals in the year, all of them big comeback albums, meant that Monika will have to content herself with fourth place.

2023 Number 5: Steven Wilson

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 5
Steven Wilson – The Harmony Codex

There’s developed this strange sense of unpleasablility around the Steven Wilson fanbase, like he’s only allowed to make one particular kind of music. As if the man hasn’t completely changed his entire sound every five years or so, from the space-rock beginnings of Porcupine Tree up until now. The enigma from Hemel Hempstead just follows his muse wherever it leads, and you gotta respect him for it.

That said, The Future Bites was a bit naff, and there was some cred to win back. He’s done so with his trippiest album since Up The Downstair, bringing his career more or less full circle, though it doesn’t sound much like early Tree. It doesn’t sound much like anything else. It’s a singular little thing, a cold, alienating, labyrinthine, foreboding, bleak electronic album that occasionally gets its warmth from an accoustic guitar, some vocal harmonies, strings or chords on the piano. The album has a lot of groove, with nods to those microrhythms and microtonal textures that are so in vogue right now with the musos. There’s some parallels with Peter Gabriel in the production, though Steven’s music is obviously a lot darker. The pieces can be quite soundscapey and content to kind of exist in their sonic space rather than be traditional songs. It’s all stubbornly resistant to easy categorization, though Impossible Tightrope and Staircase feel like he’s throwing the prog people a bone.

This was actually the hardest album to place on my list. There’s a case to be made it could be a deserving number one, equally that it doesn’t belong on my personal top ten list at all. It’s probably the most breath-takingly impressive album of the year, but it’s impressive like a piece of imposing architecture that you wouldn’t actually want to live in. Ultimately, I’ll place it just outside the top four. It doesn’t really feel like an album “for me” (he made one for me in 2015). It’s hard to connect with emotionally, but it is truly an overwhelming listen that occasionally leaves me gasping and actually filled with emotions, some of them uneasy ones. There’s a lot to enjoy, admire and pick apart here and, in my eyes, he’s definitely won back whatever cred he lost with TFB. He remains a fascinating enigma, and this is his most enigmatic album yet.

 

2023 Number 6: Southern Empire

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 6
Southern Empire – Another World

I was late to the Southern Empire party. I didn’t get to digest their 2018 album Civilization until a few years after the fact, so I was the last one to appreciate that album for the stone-cold masterpiece it is – looking back on my 2018 year-end list, it would have easily made it to first or second place. Civilization showed prog(-metal) where its post-Haken future lies, and the Aussies have returned five years later.

Another World is not a masterpiece on quite the same level. It is simply very good. Complex, bombastic and unstoppable, here’s a slice of contemporary melodic prog that occasionally veers towards metal and occasionally towards pop. The fact that this made my top ten and Haken (who really are the standard bearers for this kind of stuff) did not should also tell you something. It’s top quality in its genre, endlessly listenable and full of energy, brimming with classic songs and instrumental explosions. It’s great when I’m in the mood for BIG music. Also mellotrons.

It’s merely destined to be my second favourite Southern Empire album, and also my second favourite Australian album this year.

 

2023 Number 7: The Flower Kings

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 7
The Flower Kings – Look At You Now

 

On this blog, I need not further prove my credentials as a huge Flower Kings fan, just look at my archives. I don’t think anyone has written more about the music of The Flower Kings than I have, but as time goes on (and I’ve gotten to know some of them) writing about them has become harder. In the grand scheme of their career, here we have an album that is a bit more mellow and ballad-focused, though it’s also the first TFK album in a while that has a song on it longer than ten minutes, which I kind of wish they’d start doing more often again. Nobody does it like them. After some darker albums, this one is hopeful, occasionally sublime and notably more than the sum of its parts. Watching them play live, the new songs stand up well among the older material. They could have stood to play more of it, I think.

Roine is visibly ageing. I get the feeling that The Flower Kings are slowly becoming a legacy act, which may not be a bad thing. Still, Roine has things to say and the new albums are coming in pretty fast again, just like they used to. I have not rated all of their albums in the past few years, but this one has connected with me again, which makes me hopeful. Next year will be another Year of the Dragon, always significant in TFK-land. I wonder what’s going to happen? Surely Roine has another masterpiece left in him?