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?

 

 

2023 Number 8: Seven Impale

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 8

Seven Impale - Summit

 

Apart from the UK, I always think of Sweden as the spiritual home of progressive music, but let’s not foget Norway: the land that gave us Gazpacho, Airbag, Wobbler, Leprous and Motorpsycho. Also from the land of the fjords comes Seven Impale, a heavy jazz/progmetal outfit that places itself in the wake of Van Der Graaff Generator, Zappa at his darkest and King Crimson around the Red era. The winter is dark in Bergen, it’s a much more confrontational and hostile album than the friendly hippie dippie prog I usually gravitate to. Droning verses, screechy brass, sudden instrumental chaos and occasional pure noise. The vocals are not prominent on this one, but the singer is good value, he’s a first degree operatic ham, playing the villain. A certain retro bent keeps things warm enough to remain inviting. Very cool, but not for everyone.

 

 

2023 Number 9: Silent Skies

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 9
Silent Skies - Dormant

Every year needs an album to boo hoo to, and 2023’s coveted Music To Listen To While Feeling Fucking Miserable Award goes to Silent Skies. An album of downbeat piano-and-synth weepies needs to try pretty hard to keep things interesting and the American-Swedish duo Silent Skies, featuring the guy from Evergrey, manage it so admirably that I’ve gone back and listened to their back catalog. Extremely beautiful music for when I’m in the mood for something depressed (which, let’s face it, is basically all the time).

 

 

2023 Number 10: Lazuli

pation.  

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 10
Lazuli – Onze

It’s hard to believe Lazuli are eleven albums in. Lazuli still seem like a bit of a newly-uncovered secret. Known for their unusial instrumentarium, antics around the xylophone, poetic French lyrics and penchant for dreadlocks, they are this singular presence in the rock world, a colour you can’t get anywhere else. I think this is the third or fourth of their albums I’ve heard. It is just as good as their others, and Dominique Leonetti is one of the best singers under the sun. Apparently he’s a great lyricist too, even though as a non-French speaker I’ll have to take that at face value. It does sound a bit less eccentric in comparison to older albums. The album is bit more ballady and melancholy perhaps, and a bit less rough, but it serves Domi’s voice well. And no other band has a Léode player, for the simple reason that only one exists, like Tigger. Beautifully poetic music.

Niels' Top 10 Albums of 2023: Honourable Mentions

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023

Honourable mentions

 

Winter Solstice means there are eleven days left in the year. The Top 10 Proper will begin tomorrow. But this was an interesting year for me, music wise. As I said before, I had lost my capacity to get excited about music for a while, and I was not very interested in a music list for a couple of years. I did make them, but only half-hartedly and I had trouble filling them up with music I was truly excited about. This year it all came back in a big way, and making my top 10 list was never easier.

 

As a result, there were a lot of albums I enjoyed this year that I had to leave off. So let’s give an honourable mention in no particular oder to RPWL, Haken, Jantra, Motorpsycho, That (gestures vaguely and rolls eyes) Joe Payne, Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate, Lars Fredrik Frøislie, Bult For The Future and Advent Horizon. Trevor Horn gets one just for letting Steve H sing Drive. Have you heard these albums?

 

 

Also a semi-honourable mention to Yes, who aren’t coming anywhere near my top 10 but at least succeeded in not completely embarassing themselves. It’s Christmas, ding dong high ho folderol.

And there were albums I didn’t really enjoy, too, but this is a time to keep things positive. Number 10 of my Top 10 will be revealed tomorrow! I’m sure you’re all shivering with anticip