EPISODE 221: 2023 YEAR END AWARDS
EPISODE 221: 2023 YEAR END AWARDS
It's a long substack this time around, so open it in your browser.
PHOTO: OSCAR RODRIGUEZ
Another year gone by…
Check out the podcast episode here, here, or here and check the playlist here or here.
It’s been more than two years since shows came back post-Covid shutdowns. I’d say hardcore is still riding its biggest wave that I’ve seen in my 27 years or whatever the count is now. When will the dam break? Who knows. I still think HC is being propped up by two main things making it artificially seem more popular than it is: the “hardcore adjacent” bands and TikTok clips of aggro behavior that people either want to witness live or participate in. Maybe I’ll write about that more sometime when I’m more motivated. Onto the show…
Look dude, I know a hardcore award show is stupid. It’s just a silly thing we do annually to celebrate some of the best stuff from my favorite genre of music. The previous two years I just picked the winners but this year I put the awards out to a small elite academy of hardcore luminaries, plus Bedge. Let’s get into it…
Best Album Art
This is a critical category for punk and hardcore and one that I’m happy hasn’t fallen off even in the digital age. This year had some awesome ones.
G.U.N. took this one with 41.9% of the vote and let’s be real - it’s an all time classic. The ability to use that color scheme on an album and to still be able to have it come off grimy and punk as fuck is wild. Plus, they have the tunes to back up this cover.
Other notables:
Chain Whip - Call of the Knife
Electric Chair - Act of Aggression
Stigmatism - Ignorance in Power
Best Album Production
Dead Heat won this category with 38.7% of the vote. The album sounds gigantic. This drum sound is where its at for a slick recording - huge and natural. I interviewed Armand John Anthony, the engineer, about it on the pod so check that out.
Other Notables:
Home Front - Games of Power - Many peoples’ favorite record of the year. A fresh modern take on an electro-post-punk sound.
Illiterates - No Experts - A savage recording that captures that 1985/86 early youth crew sound. Can we get a straight edge hardcore band to go record where these dudes went and hire them as consultants? Imagine if the Mindset LP had this production.
Bayway - The Newport Sessions - Like many of the best records this year, this record is a love letter to the past. In this case, it’s that mid/late 90’s NJ sound captured iconically on the first E-Town Concrete full length.
Zulu - A New Tomorrow - What a project. This thing seamlessly flows from metallic mosh-core to chill interludes to hip hop to spoken word. Truly a killer record and a huge part of it is the production and sequencing. Plus, they will always get an extra point for triggering the “fuck your feelings” crowd with a t-shirt.
Best Demo
Scarab won this category with 58.1% of the vote. It came out in March and we could’ve called it then. Fast. Hard. Short. Zero bullshit. 100% hardcore. Hell yea.
Other notables:
Collateral - If you liked Floorpunch songs like Not For Me, how could you not like this? Scissor beat, breakdown, out. LFG!
Colossal Man - This demo came out early in the year and we never got around to talking it even though it was shortlisted almost every month. A killer demo that definitely nods to Where the Wild Things Are-esque NYHC, topped off with great art and a great band name.
Modern Man - Killer demo from the LA area that I thought pulled from Side A My War era Black Flag or Bl’ast and Dan thought sounded like Pissed Jeans if they were more punk.
Mentalite 81 - Ripping demo from the country that has gifted us with so much great FrOi! in recent years. This thing mixes early USHC with Scandanavian Jawbreaker-era Anti-Cimex and never takes its foot off the gas. Can’t wait for more songs.
Best EP
Big Boy took this category with 35.5% of the vote. A killer EP that showcased super confident and unique vocals sitting on top of some chunky, bouncy, fresh sounding hardcore.
Other notables:
Outta Pocket - Waste of a Man - One of my most played records of this year. Along with the Speed Plans LP, it was my ultimate pallet cleanser when I just needed something gnarly and monotone to clear any thoughts out of my smooth brain. Moshcore is so oversaturated and boring right now in my opinion, but Outta Pocket found a way to make it fresh. A lot of it is in the recording - with a metal-zone’d out thinner guitar sound and an igno snare tone - but a lot of it is in the playing too. This is palm mute city and the performances shine through because it’s not buried by a wall of distortion. To top it off the singer has pretty nasty voice that doesn’t sound like every other grunter out there. I love this thing.
Torena - Evil Eyes - Another powerhouse band emerges out of Oxnard to join Dead Heat on the national stage to represent for the home team. They went to Taylor Young to get a killer recording, trimmed the fat and put out a great 5-song 12” EP. All killer, no filler. Hell yea.
Bloodstains - Anti-Social - Like I mentioned in the Bayway write up, a lot of the best stuff this year was musical love letters to bygone scenes. This Bloodstains record will take you back to OC, CA 1981/82 without sounding LARPy at all. 3 killer songs including the title track which is an all-timer.
Rifle - Under Two Flags - Like I said on the pod, if you don’t like the title track of this record - fuck you. This is rockin’ punk that only the biggest poser wouldn’t bob their head to. Have you blasted this EP cruising around town with your windows down? If not, that’s your homework for the week. This thing hit late in the year but was a no-brainer for the short list of EPs of the year.
Best Riff
The opening riff for Outta Pocket’s song Despair won riff of the year with 32.3% of the vote. This thing meets at the intersection of Skills Boulevard and Ignorance Drive - a riff so good that you’re bobbing your head before the drums kick and the payoff is big when they do.
Other notables:
American hero Mike Durt melts your face and your brain with this opening riff. Sunami is on top for a reason and it’s right here.
You think Scarab is winning 185 demo of the year with no riffs? Surely you jest.
The opening and final riffs on this thing are spectacular. Maybe the final riff would’ve won.
Like the Outta Pocket riff, here’s one where you’re bobbing your head before the drums kick. Nardcore 4 Life.
Best Breakdown
Ends of Sanity won this category with 32.3% of the vote for their final mosh sequence on Last Rites (starting at 2:08 - shoutout to the time stamp king, Posi-Chris). They do a great job of working the opening riff back into the mosh part and then building to an epic triplet final sequence.
Other notables:
Best Track
Home Front’s Nation ran away with this one garnering 51.6% of the vote. Although it hurts my soul a bit that a Roots Hardcore or Hard Style song didn’t take it, I gotta admit this track is an all-timer. It’s just a spectacular track that exemplifies punk and its offshoots are the best music genres in the history of the world.
Other notables:
Restraining Order returned in 2023 and put out another great hardcore punk LP. If you’re going to do that, and your record is going to be longer than 11 minutes, you’re going to need to change it up a bit. This band can shine whether they are fast or playing mid-tempo, but this track really stands out as a weirdo anthem that gives me driving-through-the-desert vibes. Usually I want bands to stay in the pocket but Restraining Order is one band that I’d really like to see where they could go pushing out the boundaries like they do on this track.
Best demo, best riff, best track - you sensing a theme here? Scarab rules, nerd.
More than just the best breakdown of 2023, this is a straight up great SONG. There’s an actual chorus which seems like a rarity sometimes in modern hardcore. Shit gets boring without vocal or guitar hooks - this has both.
If you don’t like this song…
Best LP
I’ll be honest with you all - I only put up two albums for LP of the year: Stigmatism & Blow Your Brains Out. Both are fast. Both are hard. Both are short. Both have the roots of HC running through them. That’s what I need for an album of the year that I want to attach my name to. So much of modern hardcore has the short songs and the energy nailed but when you really boil the albums down, they’re mostly mid-tempo and lacking speed - the thing that made this music hardcore in the first place.
Both these LPs are exceptional. Stigmatism Ignorance in Power is a time capsule to New York City 1982-1984. This thing is the total package. The songs, the recording, the vocal delivery, the packaging. 13 songs in 11 minutes with zero throwaway trash you’d expect from a record with that song/time ratio.
Blow Your Brains Out lands in one of my favorite zones of HC - right between Age of Quarrel and Best Wishes. It’s probably the best example of this sound other than the Ekulu LP. I wish hardcore went more in this direction opposed to crossover in the mid-80s, but why cry over spilt almond milk now?
Stigmatism got 51.6% of the vote. BYBO got 38.7% and 9.7% of the academy submitted a salty protest “no vote.”
Other Categories
Rounding out the year, we wanted to give love to some categories not always in the year end cannon.
We will be back in two weeks with a Super 7 on our favorite songs of 2023 and next week with a Christmas version of Beauty & the Beast on Patreon. Thanks for reading. Hardcore rules.
- Zack