The honorable Stephanie Zalta had been baking her heavy cookies on her DoomCakes Instagram for quite some time before joining Scott Spiers on his CleanAndSoberStoner site. Soon after, she joined the Doom Charts and since then has whirled through the Heavy Underground like a mixer at full speed. Singing or screaming praise of whatever album or EP that tickled her fancy… Which lead to the inevitable start of her very own Screaming From The Heavy Underground just this January… Go follow her there as well and dance with those 25 goodies featured on her Favorites of 2023 list!
We’re honored to present it here as a list of Favorite Albums of 2023 by one of the Doom Charts Contributors… There are many Contributors as you might know; and many already posted their list of Favorite Albums of 2023 on their own sites or the sites they write for. Some of those lists will be published here as well. And for all the others we advise you to check out all of their personal sites… Cause it might just contain your next very favorite album!
“It all comes to this.
“The culmination of a year’s work for most of my peers, and the culmination of about 4-7 months’ work for me, depending on how generous and official we want to be with timelines. I started on Instagram in May of 2023, just some chick posting about obscure music for no particular reason. Come to find out, people actually value my opinion and like my taste sometimes, and now here I am making these lists that people actually read. Pretty cool. Even though I’m still a bit of a newbie around here, choosing a mere twenty-five underground releases to represent the best of 2023 was no easy task. Well, let me rephrase: choosing them wasn’t too difficult, but ranking them? Oof. I had a vague idea of what was going in the top ten area, but there was one obvious choice for number one album of the year for me…”
“The rules here are pretty lenient; to qualify for this quaint little list, an album or EP simply has to be released in 2023 (a huge portion of the releases I chose are EPs, way too good not to recognize). These are the albums that I played over and over this year, and they all genuinely resonated with me. I think some of my choices will be quite predictable, and others may surprise you a bit.”
Without further ado, my Top 25 Releases of 2023:
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
Duskwood – The Last Voyage
Omega Sun – Roadkill
Blackwülf – Thieves and Liars
Formation Ritual – Doors to the Dead
Saltpig – Saltpig
Grand Atomic – Beyond The Relam Of Common Sense
Isolation Tank Ensemble – Heliography
Sedona Crystal Bitch – Sympathy For The She Devil
TOP 25 UNDERGROUND RELEASES OF 2023 (in descending order):
25. Stoned Jesus – Father Light
24. Humulus – Flowers of Death
21. Acidsitter – Make Acid Great Again
20. Goat Explosion – Threatening Skies
19. Howling Giant – Glass Future
18. Stone of Duna – Moonsplitter
16. Sonic Moon – Return Without Any Memory
15. Warcoe – A Place For Demons
14. Nomestomper – Mossy Cobblestone Candlelight Pagan Nomestomper
11. Firmament – We Don’t Rise, We Just Fall
10. Blessed Black – Seasons, Vol. 1
8. Beastwars – Tyranny of Distance
5. Dismyth – Forest of the Sorrow
4. The Heavy Minds – Beyond Gloom
2. Yeast Machine – Rise of the Yeast
And there you have it, the best of 2023 according to DoomCakes! And my brand new site: Screaming From The Heavy Underground
I want to say a huge thank you to the stoner/doom community, bands and fans alike, for always being awesome. I appreciate each and every one of you more than you know! 2023 has been an amazing year for underground music and, by default, for me. I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store!
I hope everyone had an amazing New Year’s celebration!
🖤 Much love,
Stephanie
Screaming From The Heavy Underground
Doom Charts 