Four releases that surprised me in 2023
Records that exceeded expectations, let me down, or just plain shocked me
McFly - Power to Play (BMG)
McFly is a radio-friendly pop rock band from England who’ve broken sales records in the UK but never managed to find success across the pond. They’re also my girlfriend’s favourite band. They dropped a new record in 2023, and my initial hopes for it were not high. This year marks McFly’s 20th anniversary, so they’ve firmly entered “legacy” status. Their last album, 2020’s Young Dumb Thrills, was also pretty bad. To make matters worse, the lead single off Power to Play was “Where Did All the Guitars Go?”, a very boomer-esque lamentation of rock music’s shrinking status in the music industry. Hearing the rest of the album, I think that track might be a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour, but Power to Play leans heavily into pop rock’s commercial heyday of the late 70’s and 80’s. It evokes the sounds and feelings of contemporary classic rock radio, with big, clean guitars, glitzy vocals and over-the-top drum fills. I could have thrown this in my AOTY honourable mentions. It was great for road trips to and from the cottage on hot summer days, just like the stuff it draws from.
Missing Link - No Saving Grace (Never Ran Never Will)
My friend Lucas is always dropping beatdown recommendations in our band group chat. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of that genre, to be honest. I fuck with some of the classics, but this new wave of shit seems so oversaturated. Let’s face it, there are a million bands in Southern Ontario aiming for some permutation of drop-tuned, slamming heavy hardcore. I get enough of it here at home. I’m not interested in sussing out what’s happening elsewhere. Something compelled me to check out Missing Link when Lucas recommended it. Maybe it’s cuz I recognized the name from Tied Down. I’m glad I did. My favourite part about this is how the musical pace doesn’t dwell in that mosh quagmire where the songs keep getting slower and slower. I’d say this is honestly pretty fast for beatdown. It also doesn’t have any of that 808 bass-drop, waka waka deathcore vocal bullshit that immediately reminds me of being forced to listen to Dr. Acula in college. Nor are there any 130 pounders screaming their area code over a ring out. When it comes to beatdown, No Saving Grace is everything I like and nothing I don’t.
Poison Ruin - Harvest (Relapse)
This album was one of my most anticipated going into 2023. I think Poison Ruin’s first two tapes contain some of this decade’s best punk music, mixing obscure oi, dungeon synth, classic metal and a fetish for the medieval. Harvest wasn’t a bad record, but it lacked the airtight songwriting of the band’s earlier material. There are a couple good tracks on here, but when revisiting in a few years, I’ll probably be going back to the prior releases. Nothing on Harvest rips with the same ferocity as “Paladin’s Wraith”. There’s only a couple big, banging riffs on par with the one that opens “Carrion”. I can’t remember any fist-pumping singalongs in the vein of “Not Today, Not Tomorrow”. Expectations are a bitch. Maybe mine were too high. I gave this record plenty of tries, but in the end, I wanted to like it more than I actually did. This still made my honourable mentions, but I was hoping for an AOTY candidate.
Balmora - With Thorns of Glass and Petals of Grief (Ephyra)
I was taken aback hearing this Connecticut band’s debut EP. First off, I’m astounded people are making this brand of melodic metalcore again. Second, I’m shocked at how well it’s been received. Well, maybe not shocked. Many current hardcore kids found their way in through metalcore, so Balmora’s acceptance makes total sense. I just can’t get over it on a personal level. Balmora might have done well on Hellfest alongside Terror and American Nightmare in 2002, but by the time I started going to shows, bands like Shai Hulud and The Chariot were strictly for Christians with swoop hair and snakebites. Even right before the pandemic, when Code Orange were at the height of their powers (doing something spiritually similar), nobody was ballsy enough to try this. In 2023, it doesn’t just fit in — it actually makes sense. Balmora pull directly from obscure, DIY weirdo music we all left in 2004. That’s a time-honoured formula for groundbreaking hardcore acts. I just can’t believe this particular revival finally happened, or that I like it.