#spectral lore

403. III - Spectral Lore (Atmospheric Black Metal/Ambient, 2014)

2023 threatened for some months to be a marginally less awful mess than the several years before it, but then came autumn, and the Cop28 Conference turned into a massive lobbying event for the fossil fuels industry; and Geert Wilders pulled off his dismaying political success in the Netherlands; and the paranoid style in American politics was further entrenched (witness MTG’s juice as a figure of national political import and Mike Johnson holding the House gavel); and Gaza was reduced to blood-soaked rubble; and there is the ever-increasing, mind-flaying certainty that yes, 2024 will be dominated in the States by a presidential race between two completely unacceptable choices: a frail Boomer largely coasting on the fact that he is not his principal rival for the office, and that principal rival, whose absurdity increases in direct proportion to the hazard of his petulant, narcissistic rage.

No wonder much of the music on this list is so steeped in fury, contempt and sorrow for the continuing idiocy and grinding horror of the human condition. Some of that music is memorably grim, or ferocious, or both. See the records below by Gravesend, Lucifixion and Spirit Possession, all of which cut viscerally violent paths through your senses. Eardrums are subjected to scorched-earth treatment. I dig it.

But those aren’t the only feeling tones available on records I listened to a lot this year (still the dominant metric for how records get on this list: How often did I play them?). On “Bananas,” a great song from Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You, Will Oldham’s gentle strumming and the song’s duet of hushed vocals dramatize lovemaking, to achingly gorgeous effect. On “Quiet World,” the best track on Home Front’s excellent Games of Power, the band commits to the sad-boy, New Romantic postpunk that some of their other songs flirt with a good deal less certainly. And while no one would ever wish to accuse the Sleaford Mods of anything other than sardonic smarts, “The Rhythms of Class” may be as close to pop music as the band has ever gotten, and it’s a terrific tune.

So maybe that’s why Gel’s Only Constant got so much play in my world this year: it’s “hardcore for fucking freaks,” as the band likes to insist, and it rips. But that’s not its only tone. The songs are also affirming, like the hand on your back at the edge of the pit that doesn’t shove but seeks to steady you on your pins. You can hear plenty of anger in the songs, but it’s not the sort that sends you out to score coke or oxy (more likely it'll mostly be fentanyl—careful out there, kids) or prompts you to set fire to random objects in the public square. It’s music to dance to, along with the other freaks, and to gather and sing in support of something you believe in. And thank goodness there is still great punk rock that wants us to feel that.

So Only Constant is presented below, first, as the album I am most grateful for this year, and all the other records are alphabetical by artist.

SPECTRAL LORE

Auriferous Flame | Ardor For Black Mastery | 6th October, 2023

Greek Black Metal

Artwork by Gilded Panoply

From Ayloss of Spectral Lore, Mystras fame...