Jack Rafferty’s Favorite Music in 2023

By Jack Rafferty

Gonna preface this one by saying that I am woefully behind on music from this year, and just cannot realistically get to it in a time that is fair to the artists while also trying to get this list done in a timely manner. I have no one but myself to blame for this. I will include an “honorable mentions” section below, which I hope to write about and will share my thoughts on later. For now, though, I will focus mostly on what I did spend the great majority of the year listening to. 

The Pogues, Red Roses for Me / Rum Sodomy & The Lash / etc.

I spent a lot of time with The Pogues this year. They were basically all I listened to in January and February, and then once again after Shane passed for about a month. I wrote a piece for Shane (https://tickleyourtaint.blogspot.com/2023/12/for-shane.html), which was one reason I had not focused on this list as much as I would have liked. The Pogues have been and will continue to be an immensely important part of my life. 

Show Me the Body, Trouble the Water / Body War / Dog Whistle / Corpus.

Show Me the Body is just kind of a constant for me at this point. There’s hardly a week that goes by where I don’t listen to at least a few tracks from them. They sustain me through my bleak moods and more bitter days. 

Colter Wall, Colter Wall.

Basically, the same point I made above for SMTB can be made about Colter, except Colter occupies my melancholic and despairing moments. Specifically, his self-titled album. I dabble with his other work on and off, but I always consistently return to his self-titled. That album, to me, does not have a bad moment on it, and I don’t think there is much that captures that same sense of weariness and sorrow displayed there, other than a couple Imaginary Appalachia tracks (notably “Caroline” and “Living on the Sand”). 

Joe Heaney, The Road from Connemara/Say a Song.

Discovering Joe Heaney this year was like being struck by a bolt of lightning. Heaney is a prominent and irreplaceable source of a recorded repertoire of traditional Irish songs, sung in traditional ways, most of which he learned by eavesdropping on his father, his grandmother, and others of his family as a child growing up in Carna, County Galway. A master of sean-nós (old-style) Irish singing, which developed largely as a result of British forces confiscating all the Irish instruments they could in an attempt to disrupt and erase Irish culture through suppression of their music. This type of a cappella singing was a way of combating ethnic cleansing and asserting the preservation of culture. Heaney’s voice is beautiful, full of sadness and resilience.  

Lisa O’Neill, All of This Is Chance.

The haunting first words spoken by Lisa on this album are the opening lines from Patrick Kavanagh’s tremendous poem, “The Great Hunger,”

Clay is the word and clay is the flesh

Where the potato-gatherers like mechanised scarecrows move

Along the side-fall of the hill

I must admit that at first I struggled to get on board with this album, because I loved Long Gone Song so immensely, and this record differs quite a lot from it. However, I knew what was here just needed getting used to, because it was obviously fantastic, just different. I’m glad I have revisited it as often as I have, and gave myself the chance to acclimate to it, because it is truly great. Lisa has constantly renewed and enhanced herself as a songwriter, poet, and artist over the years. All of This Is Chance is lush, austere, enigmatic, and deserving of much praise. This is Lisa’s most complex, dense, emotional, and raw record yet. The more time I spend with it, the more I realize how synthesized the long list of Lisa’s influences is. She is truly eclectic and filled with wonder for life, for all its many hurts and things worthy of love. This one requires one to sit and steep in its dark yet moonlit waters. It’s a fucking masterpiece. 

Kneecap, “Its Been Ages.”

This is only a single, as Kneecap’s releases are rather sporadic, but I listened to this song so many goddamn times this year. There’s nothing on this Earth like Kneecap. The Belfast hip hop trio blends Irish Gaeilge and English, with staunchly republican politics, rowdiness, irreverence, and working-class life and struggle. Importantly, their music also grapples with the complexity of the history of Ireland’s resistance, and how they fit (or don’t fit—their name refers to the punishment certain republican paramilitary groups would at times inflict on drug users) into that. They’re tackling the messiness of this lived experience, and the human imperfections involved in these movements. They are trailblazers for Irish music, straddling the blurred line of the youth and traditional music and culture. There’s a lot more I’d like to say about them, but I imagine I’ll write a larger piece on them soon, so I’ll save it for that.

Queens of the Stone Age, In Times New Roman.

I’ve been a huge QOTSA fan for a long time. I know some folks who only really care for the heavier stuff from their early days, but …Like Clockwork is my favorite album of their discography next to Songs for the Deaf. Their 2017 album, Villains, had its moments, but was the first real dud for me regarding the band. It’s not a bad album, it just didn’t strike me like the others did. That one has grown on me since then, but I still regard it as such. Since then, much has happened in the world, including a lot in frontman Josh Homme’s personal life. Given this, I was intrigued if there would be another iteration of an album akin to …Like Clockwork, as that album is their darkest to date. In Times New Roman is, well, it is interesting. I’m having a lot of the same feelings toward it that I had for Villains, unfortunately. I don’t think it is a bad album, it’s just not a great album. In particular, I take issue with certain decisions regarding the production. The guitar tone, the mix, certain things about it just don’t click with me. I will say that from my first listen to the fifth, I did experience the same thing I did with Villains, which is that it is growing on me. I think there are genuinely good tracks here, like “Paper Machete,” “Carnavoyeur,” and “Sicily.” However, nothing here really reaches the raw energy of their first three albums, while also not ever approaching the depths of sorrow of …Like Clockwork, the disorienting, fuzzed-out tracks of Era Vulgaris, or the eerie melodies of Lullabies to Paralyze. Overall, I’ve tried to sit with this one as much as possible this year, to really challenge my initial opinion on it, and it has improved with more listens, but it still feels as though it lingers in the shadow of previous work. 

Lankum, False Lankum.

Lankum is easily one of my favorite bands. Their long-form, traditionally inspired yet radically new way of folk music and storytelling is wholly unique. The Livelong Day is one of my favorite albums, full stop. They have a level of respect and seriousness for these songs and stories that bleeds through every slow note they play. Each Lankum song is like navigating the dark and ancient forests that once filled Ireland’s landscape. Filled with ghosts and whispers of moss. False Lankum follows in the dark, swelling sound they have cultivated and honed, but it has gained an even deeper sense of grief, fragility, and dissonance. The songs here feel like long breaths taken in silent rooms, of reminiscing alone on lost dreams, and momentary lapses into overwhelming woe. 

The opening track, “Go Dig My Grave,” is their rendition of the folk song “The Butcher Boy.” Already one of the most tragic songs in existence, Lankum takes it to new levels, with the concluding minutes of the song filled with wailing strings meant to mimic caointeoireacht, keening, a nearly extinct and ancient form of traditional vocal lament. It is nearly unbearable in its depiction of the grief of the father finding his daughter after she had hanged herself. 

Every song on this album could have its own paragraph, so I’ll resist writing about all of them, but another notable track is their cover of Cyril Tawney’s “On a Monday Morning.” Daragh originally covered this song solo during the pandemic, and it perfectly captured the feeling of despair, loneliness, loss of time, and disappointment in a life imposed upon so many trapped working-class people trading every aspect of their being and potential to make profits for capitalists. False Lankum is another incredible triumph in Lankum’s discography. I like this line in Pitchfork’s review about them, as I think it sums them up well, “They take songs that trace back to lost worlds and make them sound instead like a future built on the ruins of today.”

billy woods and Kenny Segal, Maps.

I say this basically every year at this point, but it is borderline absurd the frequency of output billy woods has, and the fact that he maintains a consistent level of quality. It is damn admirable. Maps sees another collaboration with Kenny Segal, the previous being Hiding Places. Frankly, there isn’t much to say here that I haven’t said. Billy’s enigmatic and near-spoken word delivery and lyricism is at full force here, and it is a force to be reckoned with. The features on this project are pretty notable, as they stand out a good deal and are integrated very well. From billy’s Armand Hammer counterpart, E L U C I D, to monoliths like Danny Brown, Aesop Rock, and Quelle Chris. It is hard to compare billy’s projects, but this is certainly one of my favorites. Kenny’s beats here have a bit more umph and presence than Hiding Places, and billy’s lines are at their height. 

Ne Obliviscaris, Exul.

Ne Obliviscaris has been one of my favorite metal bands for many years. It has been a long time since we have heard from them, a result I’m noticing often due to the pandemic. Their 2017 album Urn had them continuing an established formula that is very much their own, but each of their albums has had its own distinct measure of awe to it. The first thing I need to mention regarding Exul was my initial bad impression of it, which resulted from the awful cover art. Ne Obliviscaris has always had a penchant for fluid, ethereal cover art, but it has always worked for me. Exul’s, however, basically just looks like a bad cover for a Playstation 3 video game. 

Luckily, a book shouldn’t be judged by its cover, and neither should an album. Exul, in many ways, is just as excellent as the other albums. I will say, this one does fall short, though not by much. There are more sections of Exul, for example, that tend to drag on, and really don’t contribute much to their typical long-form style. There are incredible moments here, though, many of which made me stop what I was doing to simply revel in them and replay them. That is what I expect from this band. So, while it may not be my favorite record from Ne Obliviscaris, they continue to keep me enraptured in what they are doing, as they consistently have done for over ten years now. 

The Mary Wallopers, Irish Rock n Roll/The Mary Wallopers/A Mouthful of The Mary Wallopers.

Not much I can say about the Mary Wallopers at this point that I haven’t in previous year-end lists or my piece I wrote on them earlier in 2023 (https://tickleyourtaint.blogspot.com/2023/12/why-i-am-glad-mary-wallopers-exist.html). They are another constant presence in my life, and their new album, Irish Rock n Roll, is just excellent. If I were still ranking my albums each year, this one would be up there. With each release, they merely seem to improve and hone the foundations they have established. They’re rowdier, more energetic, more political, with better mixes/production each time. They just get fuckin’ better every year and I can’t wait for more. 

GEL, Only Constant.

I loved Violent Closure, and I was really looking forward to Only Constant. GEL does an amazing job of maintaining the energy and power of hardcore punk, while also challenging certain tropes of the genre and breathing their own unique message and life into it. They are communal, exhilarating, and filled with catharsis and rage. 

Lana Del Ray, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel under Ocean Blvd.

I wasn’t really a huge fan of Lana until NFR released. That album really showed a profound step in the maturity of Lana’s songwriting, and she seemed to be much more comfortable in her music at that time. I am happy to say that her new record is a continuation of that, with even more strides toward a richer, more varied, and serious approach. This is really a gorgeous album and shouldn’t be missed. 

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Petrodragonic Apocalypse, or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation.

It is actually staggering how many albums King Gizzard have released. Twenty-five in one decade is almost beyond my understanding. I think my love of their records has waxed and waned, as I think some have certainly been better than others. However, given their sincerely overwhelming output, this is to be expected, and I would say they have more good ones than bad. It is especially shocking that their album output has been so diverse from a genre standpoint. I’ve always admired their clear love for all things music, and their willingness to experiment and explore. Petrodragonic is their second release that has a specifically metal approach, and yet another where the themes surround environmental devastation, the downfalls of capitalist hubris, etc. 

Personally, I liked this one more than Infest the Rats Nest. Petrodragonic seems to have more urgency to it, more energy and vitality. The playing is tight and dialed in, the tone fuzzed out, the vocals and drums often reminding me a lot of Motorhead. Hard-hitting, dense, aggressive. I love this band, and even if I don’t love every release they put out, I look forward to each one. Petrodragonic is one that really resonated with me, though, and I highly recommend checking it out. 

Dean Johnson, Nothing for Me, Please.

The first time I saw Dean Johnson and his shaggy mustache was on Western As Fuck, a veritable paradise for any fan of county and folk music. He was playing in an old tavern, and his personality immediately won me over, and he just felt like someone I’d known for years and was having a beer with. Once he started singing, and I heard his melancholy tenor voice, I was hooked. Nothing for Me, Please is Dean’s debut album, and he has only gotten better since I first heard him. “Faraway Skies” is one of my favorite songs of the year. 

There is a gentleness to Dean, in the way he sings and plays guitar, how he sways while he performs, his laugh and the brightness of his eyes. Everything about his music just takes me to good thoughts and memories, even if the song is woeful. The production on this album is also notable. It has the perfect amount of airiness and space, and the warmth to balance it. Really great stuff. Cannot recommend Dean highly enough, and I cannot wait to hear more from him. 

Model/Actriz, Dogsbody.

Ever since Daughters released You Won’t Get What You Want in 2018, nothing has really filled the same space for me musically. Nothing sounds even close to the sound on that album, and Model/Actriz is no different. However, I think Model/Actriz is one of the closer approximations I’ve heard. Dogsbody is their debut, and it is an explosive one. Teeming with complicated and dark feelings of desire, fear, visceral noise, sex, deranged howling, and more. I like how Pitchfork described it as an “exploration of hedonism’s rot and underbelly.” A torturous and vivid cabaret. 

Larry & Joe, Nuevo South Train.

I happily discovered Larry & Joe through Gems on VHS. Larry is introduced as a heavy machinery operator from Monagas, Venezuela, who works to build retaining walls. He then goes on to play an unbelievably beautiful version of “Se Murió La Fundadora,” a Venezuelan folk song by Freddy Salcedo, which he accompanies with a harp. With his brightly colored safety vest and radio still on, he plays this entrancing song in the parking lot nearby. 

Joe Troop is a bluegrass musician known for his band Che Apalache, who has shifted focus to playing music and working with migrants. They are both talented multi-instrumentalists, and that experience is shown here in its wonderful diversity. Nuevo South Train is the duo’s first album, and it is rather remarkable the spectrum of sound and genre present. There’s harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, upright bass, and more, not to mention the various types of folk music. This is an incredible first record by two musicians that I intend to follow closely. 

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, Saved!

Sinner Get Ready ended up being the final project that Kristin Hayter would release under the identity of Lingua Ignota. Kristin put out a statement claiming that much of this has to do with moving on from a project and music that was rooted in a time and experiences of immense pain, and to leave it behind was a part of a process of healing. 

While I was disappointed to know I wouldn’t hear any new material in that same vein, I was very happy for Kristin, and felt supportive of whatever they decided to do in the future. Enter Saved!, the first record for Kristin’s new artistic endeavor. With the first single that I heard being “All My Friends Are Going to Hell,” I initially had some trepidation, as it just did not have the same elements that I loved. 

However, now that I have gotten the chance to listen to the album, I must say that I like it a lot. It is certainly different. I’ve always had complicated feelings about Kristin’s religious themes with Lingua, and those are utterly forefront here. There are even multiple songs that are straightforward gospel in the old style. 

I do find it intriguing to hear Kristin’s take on this style, though it is the songs such as “Idumea,” “I Will Be with You Always,” and others that resonated with me the most. While different, mainly in the instrumentation and production, these tracks do remind me a lot of the gentler songs on Sinner Get Ready, such as “Pennsylvania Furnace,” and “Perpetual Flame of Centralia.” I can see the ways in which Kristin was making the transition to a new sound that was subtle, but profound. 

Interestingly, the very jangly sound mix on this was achieved by recording the songs on a 4-track and feeding them through broken cassette players, mangling them. This is quite the unique artistic decision, especially when on traditional Christian songs and devotionals. It produces an unnerving quality over Kristin’s haunting and pained voice. 

A notable point to make here is just how expertly each song flows into the other. It has been a while since I have heard an album that threads together so naturally. I honestly would have to check the track currently playing often to realize whether the song had changed. 

There are also moments on this album that are surprisingly some of the most disturbing and at the same time most beautiful that Kristin has ever done. Specifically, the eight-minute-long closing track, “How Can I Keep from Singing,” where Kristin softly sings in the foreground while also speaking in tongues in the background. The song builds to the point where the tongue-speak builds to wailing, wheezing, and sobbing as though under possession. It is deeply disconcerting and heartbreaking. The track fades and ends in white noise accompanying Kristin crying, and chills crept through my body, as they often used to when listening to Lingua.

Overall, this is an exciting new project that, while perhaps never reaching the heights for me that Lingua did, I am still enamored by. At the end of the day, Kristin is a singularly incredible vocalist, and a deeply creative artist. There is a dense musical heritage of American folk, blues, gospel, and more on display here in ways it beforehand has not been conceived. I am glad that Kristin is healing, and evolving as an artist, and cannot wait to see what else they do in the future.

Anohni and the Johnsons, My Back Was a Bridge for you To Cross.

Possibly the most heartbreaking album of the year. Every syllable on this album aches. Anohni’s voice is impossibly sad and beautiful, and each line of each song is purely devastating. What space is there to grieve for a world of life being systematically extinguished while the death cult of capitalists ushers everyone to an early grave without time to even process it? Everything about this album is crushing and needed. 

Sprain, The Lamb as Effigy.

Much of this album defies explanation. It is like crossing a desert with a broken leg and a swollen tongue seeking revenge on an unknown entity. The ugly heaviness of every step, the incendiary delirium. Slowly going mad. It trudges across thresholds of familiar territory into places of no return, and it doesn’t look back as it does so. Transcendent and vastly unsettling.  

Nick Shoulders, All Bad.

Nick continues to be a staple in my everyday listening. He is inimitable. His echoing whistles and yodels reverberating off Ozark cliffs. All Bad showcases Nick’s best songwriting to date, with a much greater emphasis on a holistic writing style that encompasses each element of his band, who all play wonderfully on the album. This album also features the band’s punk sensibilities in its most sincere form yet. Nick has always had that rare ability of dealing with topics of hardship and sorrow in an upbeat, joyful manner that seems in no way contradictory. It reminds me a lot of Roger Miller and Michael Hurley for those reasons. Nick has a very disciplined and extensive knowledge of the roots he pulls from, joined with a deep sense of empathy and care. Some of my favorite tracks include “All Bad,” “Whooped If You Will,” and Won’t Fence Us In.” There are so many great lyrics throughout the whole album, I couldn’t possibly highlight my favorites, but I’ll settle for sharing this from “Won’t Fence Us In.”

There once was land endless land

Under starry skies above

But they fenced it in

Now it’s interstates and interchanges

Monocrop and truckstops

‘Cause they fenced it in

I wish that every golf course became a WMA

And every politician knew the rent that we paid

Just to drink ourselves to death

And go to jobs that we hate

Oh to be fenced in

Turn us loose and let us rattle off our chains

And lift the pain from all our faces

And every hour on the clock or in a classroom

Or a cell could not contain us

I just don’t see any glory in industrial cattle

And truckers’ bodies twist from a life in the saddle

Is it freedom ringing in your ear or just a death rattle?

You won’t fence us in.

Carnosus, Visions of Infinihility.

I had actually finished the list, and had to come back and add this after the fact, because holy shit what the fuck is this. From the first ten seconds I was completely won over. If you like tech death at all, you must listen to this. If you want demented, throat-ripping vocals that are basically a gnarlier Trevor Strnad, blistering riffs, chunky 7-string bass vibrating through your skull, blast beats blast beats blast beats, this is top tier. And tight, the playing and the production are tight and immaculate. Oh, by the way, it’s fucking self-released (yet still has possibly the best production I’ve heard this year). By two songs in, I was like, oh look, my favorite metal album of the year (even though I have around 45 other metal albums to check out still). Fucking do not skip this.

Honorable Mentions That I Will Hopefully Write About Later:

Kassi Valazza, Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing.

McKinley Dixon, Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?

Poison Ruin, Harvest.

Fit For an Autopsy/Thy Art Is Murder/Malevolence, The Aggression Sessions.

Armand Hammer, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips.

Cattle Decapitation, Terrasite.

Thantifaxath, Hive Mind Narcosis.

Jesus Piece, …So Unknown.

Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.

Fuming Mouth, Last Day of Sun.

Cryptopsy, As Gomorrah Burns.

Ulthar, Anthronomicon.

Tomb Mold, The Enduring Spirit.

Geese, 3D Country.