Swim Into The Sound's Staff Favorites of 2023
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I won’t beat around the bush too much, but before we get into our staff’s favorite records of 2023, I’d just like to take a moment to brag about them and what an awesome year we’ve had.
Back in January, I put out a call for new writers and the response was greater than I ever could have hoped for. A couple dozen people reached out to me, and about half of them went on to become regular contributors over the course of 2023. Reviews, premieres, single write-ups, interviews and more all flowed from the minds of these incredible writers, all of whom are doing this purely for the love of the music.
Aside from those more traditional bits of music writing, we also established a regular monthly column called Haters Delight, which took this blog in a more timely, goofy, and gripey (but still good-natured) direction that fell outside our usual perview. While I was a little nervous about wading into such negative waters at first, I soon discovered that pretty much everyone loves a communal bitch sesh.
These writers also helped widen the scope of this blog and the music we cover. Through expansive quarterly roundups (including the one you’re about to read), they honed raw passion into thoughtful write-ups, making the case for artists that I typically wouldn’t be able to speak eloquently on or even know to cover. Who would have guessed that bringing in a talented slew of people also meant a wealth of new passion and perspectives?
At the time of writing, we’ve published 69 articles this year (nice), amounting to a little over 100k words total. About half of those have been penned by our talented team of guest writers, and I think that goes to show just how much these people have helped make Swim Into The Sound feel like a real music blog, not just some dork typing about emo music into his Macbook.
When we published our first-ever Staff Favorites roundup back in 2021, I talked about how lucky I felt to have this talented team of writers at my back, and now that feeling is amplified tenfold. I couldn’t be more proud of this team or their work; they make me want to be a better, more well-rounded music writer. Scroll down to read about their favorite albums of this year, then go follow them on social media, and support all of their projects. Each and every person in this article is talented beyond belief with taste to match, I have no doubt you’ll come away from this with a list of incredible new music to check out.
Without further adieu, here are Swim Into The Sound’s Staff Favorites of 2023.
Nickolas Sackett | Greg Mendez – Greg Mendez
Forged Artifacts / Devil Town Tapes
When I was younger, my childhood home was often blanketed by the background hum of a random radio station or TV show. I didn't have a strong concept of actors or fiction yet, so there were times when I would fall into the conversations of Law & Order or Sex and the City and believe I was listening in on real people out there somewhere. The songs on Greg Mendez remind me of that (perceived) window I thought I was stealing looks through as a child– stolen glimpses into a world far away from my own, hushed confessions and painful stories told in a whisper from behind a lit cigarette in an alley. And yet, despite how bleak these stories can unravel, their mere existence reminds you that although all of this can be quite painful and terrible, there's still so much beauty to be found.
Other Highlights:
Indigo de Souza - All of This Will End (review)
Field Medic - Lightisgonept2
André 3000 - New Blue Sun
Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor’s Version)
100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
Olivia Rodrigo - Guts
billy woods & Kenny Segal - Maps
Chuquimamani-Condori - DJ E
Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE
Jungle - Volcano
The Drums - Jonny
Hotline TNT - Cartwheel
Joe Wasserman | phoneswithchords, Ben Sooy – phoneswithBen
Start-Track
I’m not sure I believe in love at first sight. Frankly, I don’t give the notion much thought. I do, however, believe in AOTY at first listen. That moment for me this year was when I first heard “If Time,” the lead single off phoneswithBen, the collaborative album by phoneswithchords and Ben Sooy of Denver rock band A Place for Owls. There is not much more that I can say about this record than what I already have on my Substack. I’m in love with its sounds and melodies, the way it speaks to me about my anxieties and worries, and the way it makes me feel comforted and okay. Before listening to this album, I felt alone with age and time. When I listen to it, all I can think about is the warmth that surrounds me.
In alphabetical order, here are five more albums that spoke to me this year:
Broken Record - Nothing Moves Me: I can’t wait for the 10-year anniversary of this album just so I can produce a podcast doing a deep dive on everything that went into it. I have so much to say about it.
Go Home - Bug: This album haunts me with its beauty and storytelling. Like stories reread and films revisited, Bug is timeless.
Hurry - Don’t Look Back: I love power pop as much as I love emo, and Hurry continues to hone the platonic ideal of Power Pop© with this record. I never want him to stop making music.
Plain Speak - Calamity: This album doesn’t make me feel like a teen or college student again; I would hate that. It does, however, recall all those big feelings of yesteryear. Even though my prediction earlier this year was wrong, Calamity remains inimitable.
superviolet - Infinite Spring: “Big Songbirds Don’t Cry” is a perfectly written song. The way Steve Ciolek plays with the motifs of colors, emotions, birds, and mores is just so fun.
Nick Webber | Vagabonds – The Pasture & The Willow
Self-Released
I’m very bad at picking favorites, but The Pasture & The Willow is the album that has snuck up on me the most this year, and I love a grower. The record begins with “Sungazer,” a mantra: “It won’t happen like you think.” There’s something ominous and mystical in the atmosphere, like a prophecy. As foretold, the song blooms from hushed slowcore to shoegazey/yelly post-hardcore in barely 3 minutes, an anthem for grief prolonged and an apt prologue for the fevered, contemplative vision to follow.
The album’s title evokes something literary and bucolic, and the lyrics are often painting impressionistically: pastoral scenes, trees that weep, just noticing the beauty of simple things. Interspersed are these earnest, personal vignettes of everyday life; “The Checkout Line” describes a breakdown at work, where the backroom becomes a sanctuary for the grieving grocery clerk. The infinite crashes into the ordinary.
There’s also joy in the fullest, most mysterious sense: the peaceful reassurance of waking up next to someone you love, the hope for a future out from under the thumb of the forces that conspire against your flourishing, perseverance in the pain and uncertainty. It won’t be like this forever; visions of settling down somewhere quiet in the country, longing for rest. “The peace comes to visit / But never to stay.”
The Pasture & The Willow is gentle in its heaviness, wrapped in some of my favorite guitar work of the year. I found myself reaching for it when I felt weary, anxious, or reflective. It’s the one thing that felt good to listen to when I was driving to the hospital last week (everything is fine now). It’s equal parts calm and cathartic; I’m still caught off guard at how massive the arrangements get. And at the center of it all is this preoccupation with connection. Can we cut through the curtains that separate us from each other (and me from myself) and climb on through?
Elizabeth Handgun | Water From Your Eyes – Everyone’s Crushed
Matador Records
Goofy yet profound, experimental and artistic yet grounded, Water From Your Eyes delivered one of the greatest albums of 2023 and possibly all time. The musicianship! The humor! The daring to go where few musicians have ventured before! It’s all there on Everyone’s Crushed. From the flurried and chaotic lead single, “Barley,” through “14,” which is mellow and shot through with longing, to the thumpy, punky closer, “Buy My Product,” the album delivers a bewildering yet beautiful tour through the minds of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos. The album also gets more interesting with each consecutive listening, rewarding close attention and an open mind. The whole project is strange and remarkable but with a little current of tender jokiness running throughout. I’m crushed!
Logan Archer Mounts | Lydia Loveless – Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again
Bloodshot records
To be fair, I must admit this is my second favorite album of 2023. I am rolling out my entire list of 100 albums on my Instagram (@sleeps.with.angels, shameless plug), and I don’t want to show off my top pick just yet. But I have a trend that seems to ring true every year: my top spot is occupied by what I think is objectively the year’s greatest musical experience, and the runner-up album is usually what I listened to the most. My bootleg third-party app streaming stats for my Amazon Music account may say otherwise, but Lydia Loveless’ sixth studio album was a cornerstone soundtrack to my year. The only two times I’ve seen the Ohio-based, alt-country singer-songwriter were in 2023, and they were at the exact same venue just eight months apart. In March, she appeared for a pop-up acoustic set at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, coincidentally enough, my second favorite venue in the city. The show mainly contained new, never-before-played material from her upcoming album that had yet to be announce. I was thrilled to hear these tracks in such an intimate setting and couldn’t wait for the final product to be unveiled.
Nothing’s Gonna Stand… arrived in September, with Lydia returning to her Chicago label Bloodshot in conjunction with her own imprint Honey, You’re Gonna Be Late. It’s a concise, ten-song collection that showcases what Loveless does best: twangy guitar rock with unforgettable hooks and melodies. Besides the excellent singles “Sex and Money” and “Toothache,” the entire record is full of no-holds-barred honest pop, like the self-effacing “Poor Boy” or the wall-crumbling breakup anthem “French Restaurant.” The track “Ghost” features the album’s title in its chorus: “Now that I’m dead, nothing’s gonna stand in my way again.” You can bet I listened to that song over and over again as I was preparing to, and successfully did, quit my job. The spring of anticipation and the late summer of constant rotation led into the fall of presentation: I soon found myself at Loveless’ tour opener back at the Empty Bottle on Black Friday, this time with her full band and a record out in the world. I stood right up against the stage again as they burned through most of the tracklisting of Nothing’s Gonna Stand…, as well as fan favorites like “Head” and the return of the oft-requested “Wine Lips.” I got her to sign my concert scrapbook, including the setlists I was able to grab from the stage at each show, and thanked her for the brilliant record. So even though it didn’t take the coveted number one spot, on a personal level, I could not have gotten through this year without it. And for the first time all year, I truly feel like nothing’s gonna stand in my way again, thanks to Lydia Loveless.
If that sounds good to you, you may enjoy some of my other favorites I’ve selected:
Sincere Engineer - Cheap Grills (Chicago folk-pop-punk international touring sensation returns with her best and catchiest release yet.)
The Mountain Goats - Jenny From Thebes (John Darnielle’s prolific catalog expands with this theatrical sequel to the 2002 classic All Hail West Texas. In some ways, it’s sort of the anti-album to its lo-fi companion, but I think that’s what makes it one of the band’s best among their last handful of titles.)
Dave Hause - Drive It Like It’s Stolen (The Loved Ones’ frontman burns through ten songs in 28 minutes, a more compact, but just as fulfilling, version of the heartland punk he’s perfected over the years.)
Ben Sooy | Gia Margaret – Romantic Piano
Jagjaguwar
Last night, I felt a panic attack approaching. Car trouble, money trouble, difficult day, underlying grief, and mental instability. I was trying to breathe deeply, get to sleep, and remember I’m okay. I’ve learned a few practices to help in a time like this. I can kneel down and put my face in the carpet, I can lay on my back and slow my breath, I can count all the things I’m grateful for, I can listen to music that helps center and calm me down.
When asked about her very good (mostly instrumental) 2023 album Romantic Piano, Gia Margaret said, “I wanted to make music that was useful.” This is music that is of great use to me, personally. There are sounds from the natural world, piano songs filled with longing and peacefulness, touched by melancholy. The squeak of a piano bench, the sound of cicadas at night. It’s useful the same way walking outside and being surprised by a thunderstorm is useful; I forget about my troubles, wrapped up for a few moments in something bigger than myself. This album improves my quality of life and my mental and spiritual health in ways I can’t begin to articulate. I think it would be helpful to you too.
Other 2023 favorites:
Nick Webber - All The Nothing I Know (A thoughtful and beautiful exploration of what it means to realize that you don't know anything about anything, but that's okay! Written and painstakingly self-recorded by universally beloved human Nick Webber.)
Josaleigh Pollett - In The Garden, By The Weeds (Josaleigh and her musical partner Jordan Watko created a masterpiece, one of my favorite records of the last ten years. Dark and lonely, hopeful, heartbreaking songs for when you feel insane and need a friend.)
Plain Speak - Calamity (Plain Speak writes and records the kind of songs I've always attempted to write and record. Earth-shatteringly good indie rock in the vein of your favorite Death Cab record.)
Broken Record - Nothing Moves Me (Denver emo band Broken Record was created in a lab to make the exact kind of music I like: emo made by people who obsessively listen to Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day, and the Cure. I would die for Denver emo band Broken Record.)
Elliott Green - Everything I Lack (Crushingly good songs about addiction and heartbreak written by a very kind human being. If you like any of the boygenius crew, for the love of God, check out this record.)
Jason Sloan | Glia – Happens All the Time
Candlepin Records
Consider the wheel. Invented in Mesopotamia, or maybe Eastern Europe, or China, or perhaps in each location independently, the wheel was seismic upon impact, perfected almost as soon as it was conceived. Millennia of human ingenuity may have added component parts here or there, but the underlying technology has remained fundamentally unchanged. You’ve heard the one about wheels and reinvention.
The beauty lies therein—a well-made wheel is still a hell of an instrument. And on Happens All the Time, Glia fashions one hell of a wheel. While they may not be inventing new textures out of whole cloth the way Kevin Shields did way back when, Glia polishes up the familiar into 41 minutes of blissful shoegaze; the shuffling drums and psychedelic guitar crunch of “Tumble” alone are worth the price of admission. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; just make sure you make it really fucking good.
An off-the-top list of old (new-to-me) songs that meant a lot this year:
Yard Act - “100% Endurance” (2021)
Silkworm - “Couldn’t You Wait” (1994)
Breakwater - “Five” (1995)
Hard Girls - “If They Never Find Out” (2012)
Gangsta Blac - “Down wit Clique” (1998)
Prefab Sprout - “Appetite” (1985)
Thurston Moore - “Benediction” (2011)
Red Red Meat - “Gauze” (1995)
Swervedriver - “Never Lose That Feeling/Never Learn” (1993)
Connor Fitzpatrick | Lankum – False Lankum
Rough Trade Records
Irish music reigned supreme in 2023, well, for me at least, seeing great albums from John Francis Flynn’s contemporary twist on folk standards to Lisa O’Neill’s orchestral storytelling to Øxn’s experimental doom. But among all these towering achievements, one album stands out as a titanic classic. That album is Lankum’s False Lankum.
The Dublin doom folk quartet’s fourth album feels like a masterpiece in the truest sense as it crystallizes the band's elements into a singular, haunting tome. Lankum infuses their Irish folk with drone music, creating an atmosphere that is as menacing as it is tranquil. The stories in these songs often feature characters who live hard and wretched lives, doomed for some sort of tragic death. “Go Dig My Grave” tells the tale of a woman who ends her own life after being spurned by the man she loves. Fun stuff, right? But it's the way the band brings these stories and characters to life that makes the album so enthralling. They're at their best when Radie Peat takes on the lead vocals backed by traditional instruments like uilleann pipes and bayans as she describes the lives of the meek who did not inherit the earth. False Lankum is a dense album that rewards those who return to it, and I intend on returning over and over so I can savor every minute of it.
Katie Wojciechowski | Bully – Lucky For You
Sub Pop Records
I am trying to wrangle this blurb into something that’s not jarringly tragic. And honestly, it might be a futile effort. After all, Lucky For You is about a dead dog, about breakups, about the end of the world as we know it. When you lose your dog, your marriage, or your career, there’s grief, of course, and also, there is rage. A sensation that resonates with hoarse yelps, the slamming of cymbals, chugging, distorted electric guitar chords. With Lucky For You, Alicia Bognanno of Bully has turned the shards of grief and anger into grunge-pop melodies that are as unflinching as their subject matter deserves: she lost her beloved dog Mezzi last year, after more than a decade together. These songs are the sound of her attempts to process life’s stock-in-trade heartbreaks—romantic wounds, crippling self-doubt, and the horrors of living in America—without her best friend by her side.
There have been days this year when singing along to “Days Move Slow” in my car at the top of my lungs has felt like a conversation with a friend who understands: a friend who’s a step ahead of me, who’s cracked the code of alchemizing despair into melody. Even before I knew that “A Wonderful Life” was about a dead dog, I felt Bognanno’s warm, punchy words in my bones: “What a wonderful life / my heart’s breaking on the bathroom floor” quickly became the refrain, this last summer, for my own life falling apart in real-time.
Bognanno’s vocals have a retro quality, evoking charismatic pop-rock voices from the early 2000s, like Michelle Branch or Sheryl Crow in her louder moments. But she’s not content to cash in on basic pop blueprints: like its 2020 predecessor SUGAREGG, Lucky For You leans into distortion, thick bass riffs, and, at times, full-on yelling, like in the Bikini Kill-esque final track “All This Noise.” The last two songs of the album zoom out on the sociopolitical factors that tally among Bognanno’s sorrows: the latter torching the American government in a blaze of rage, the former, “Ms. America,” a soft, piercing reflection on the improbability of the dream of motherhood in a rotten country like ours, where there’s endless funding for weapons manufacturing and none for healthcare or schools or even clean water. I listened, a hundred times over, when she sings, “All I wanted was a daughter / try my best to raise her right / but the whole world’s caught on fire / and I don’t wanna teach a kid to fight.” All that we’ve lost this year, so many of us. All that 2023 unceremoniously stomped against the curb. I’ve watched it all slip through my fingers, and I’ve carried my dog’s old collar in my backpack when I’ve bounced between temporary homes, and I’ve listened to Bully like a prayer, knowing that despite how it sometimes feels, I’m never really alone.
My other favorites:
Black Belt Eagle Scout - The Land, The Water, The Sky
Paramore - This Is Why
Kara Jackson - Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
Hotline TNT - Cartwheel
Russ Finn | Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – Dancing on the Edge
Sophomore Lounge
Leading his band State Champion, Ryan Davis crafted cinematic songs about bar bands and barflies, using impeccable vocabulary and wit like some sort of art-school-educated Hoosier John Prine. Since his last album with State Champion, 2018’s Send Flowers, Davis has spent a lot of time painting, drawing, and writing the seven songs found on my favorite album of 2023, Dancing on the Edge.
The atypical country-rock structures and long-winded rambling found on Dancing on the Edge feel like the natural continuation of State Champion, even if it’s rebranded as a solo album. Davis’ time spent making visual art perhaps informs the striking imagery and minute details within his songs. His ability to effortlessly put the listener in a “piss-stop town,” a “shipyard plumber’s band,” or a “junk drawer heart” is unmatched. Beautiful lines like “there’s a blackened space between the back of my head and the back of my face” are found so frequently on Dancing on the Edge, it would be impossible to summarize all of the best lyrical moments in a short blurb. Instead, I suggest you listen to the opus “Flashes of Orange” and give the lyrics serious attention. For the literary-minded singer/songwriter fans out there, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band’s Dancing on the Edge is an essential album and one of the best of 2023.
For what it’s worth, my second favorite album of 2023 is My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons. Below are some releases from friends, acquaintances, and obscure corners of the internet I feel deserve more attention:
Spirit Furnace - Spirit Furnace EP
Heavy Quitters - Heavy Quitters
Riley Parker - Discover EP
Bailey Allen Baker - Grab a Bucket
Perfect Angel at Heaven - EP
Chief Broom - Hidden in Plain Sight
Taxiway - This is Permanent
