I would have been shocked and offended if sleep token's Take Me Back To Eden didn't take the prize and many of the songs on the record weren't in the top 20 songs. Such an excellent album and the most creative thing to hit the mainstream in many an age. Great job and I appreciate the hard work you did throughout the year to make this list happen. Good on ya! Rock on!😊
Happy to hear someone else say that Euclid was the best track off of the TMBTE album, I think so too. I was driving to work in the a.m. listening to the 6 unreleased tracks off the album the day they dropped ….I was so amazed and transfixed on the music I don’t even remember the drive, only the music. The tone, the lyrics, and the call backs, the feeling of resolution in Euclid….I had a feeling of euphoria. I sat in the parking lot at work and listened to Euclid 2 more times before going in. This album IS my favorite album of all time, and that ending track the most memorable thoughtful, meaningful, emotional song I have heard in a long time. Loved watching your reactions this year, you put me on to some other great bands including Beartooth! Merry Christmas and happy new year! Keep up the great work!
My Top 5 Albums 1. Heavener - Invent Animate 2. Take Me Back To Eden - Sleep Token 3. War Of Being - Tesseract 4. Fatalism - Polaris 5. Moments Elsewhere - Johnny Booth
The song I enjoy the most on the Sleep Token album is Aqua Regia. Probably not representative of the album as a whole , but It's so elegant and stately. Fantastic keys, beautiful solo. Great lyrics. An unexpected diversion down a smokey jazz alley.
My wife and I just got married in November, and Euclid was our song that we chose to have our private final dance to, to end our wedding. It has to probably be one of my all time favorite songs without a doubt and it will likely almost never be topped. She introduced me to Sleep Token, and I'll never look back. They are a truly astounding band, and very deserving of everything in these lists.
Wooooow that’s an awesome first private dance song. Good move! Also, is that you in your profile pic? I love track days myself but I am nowhere NEAR that close to the ground 😅
Lots of great albums and songs on here! I think my favourite discovery from this video is ALL GAS by Bilmuri. Such cool production, catchy chorus and suprisingly heavy guitars. Merry christmas to you and your family!
Yeeaaaah buddy! I imagine that for some the pop vocal styling may be a bit much but I absolutely love it. Such a tightly packed song of melodic satisfaction throughout.
Yup! This sums up perfectly what I’ve listened to on your channel this entire year. In other words, I wasn’t too surprised by your choices ;-) I was definitely expecting Sleep Token, Beartooth and Resolve to show up at the top of your lists. I was so ecstatic to see Bilmuri on your top 10 songs of the year! I’m quite proud of this one, haha! At the moment, I can’t think of another album that has had such a monumental success as Sleep Token’s Take Me Back to Eden in the past couple years. It’s a rare thing. I think you really put alot of thought into these lists. As much as it’s all subjective, I have to say that you’ve chosen strong, influential and timeless albums that have definitely changed the sound of metal this year. Good job Steve!
Thanks a million M-E! Yes Bilmuri is amazing. Thank you so much for your part in that. He’s super high on my list of people I hope to interview in 2024 🤞🏻
Great lists here and as someone who watched your live reaction to TMBTE, this comes as no surprise. I think it just HAD to be AOTY for 2023. It’s been far too impactful for so many people. As an aside, I also wanted to mention Sunk Loto. I think the reason you hadn’t heard of them is because their last release was literally 20 years ago lol. They had one big hit called Everything Everyway that is quite good tbh, but they’ve put out nothing since that album. It was quite a surprise when I learned that new single had dropped seemingly out of nowhere. And I agree, it’s absolutely banger list worthy. For some reason, I had forgotten to subscribe after watching your TMBTE react, but I’ve corrected that now. Looking forward to reactions and new tunes in 2024
Steve! What a great year it was for music. Very happy to have discovered you this year. Your explanations always feel so natural, and I look forward to your thoughts as new music gets released. Apparently, I wasn't subscribed until now. Sorry about that! Here's to 2024!
Haha no worries! Better late than never my friend, thanks for joining me here. So glad that you resonate with how I talk about music. Here’s to 2024 indeed! 💙
Great stuff Steve! Wishing you & your family a Merry Christmas & a big thanks to you for having such a great reaction channel. You do it in such a humble, non egotistical way that it makes people really like what you do. All the best for 2024 brother.. 🎅🍻🤘
Of course! I mean of course! If it's the #1 album of the year, it's just common sense that there'll be more songs from it that will make the soty list. Great list, man. I got a couple of bands mentioned here that I haven't got to listen yet. Thank you and hoping for the best of everything for you this 2024.
You like Sleep Token then 😂 snap. I was introduced to Sunk Lotto a few weeks ago by a friend that lives in Sydney, he saw them live the other month. That single is amazing!
Chokehold is my standout favorite. When it dropped, I couldn't stop listening, playing it 40 times in a row. Witnessing them live the day after, opening with Chokehold, was a perfect moment. The emotional impact of hearing Euclid for the first time brought many tears. Going back to Sundowning, my all-time favorite album, I don't believe they can surpass its perfection.
TMBTE is AOTY for me as well. i was sure it would be as soon as i heard it. Im also so glad that sleep token exploded the way that they did. I was a little late to the ST train, getting into them through TPWBYT, but to see them over 10x their spotify listeners in 1 year is truly encouraging for both them as a band as well as, imo, metal as a whole. bringing a lot of people in and letting them see the true range that exists inside the genre. i am so pissed that i missed the wembley gig, the tickets were released at an unconvenient time for me and they were all gone by the time i tried to find them. saw them at the apollo earlier in the year but the atmosphere at wembley must have been insane. While i havent heard every song or album you mentioned, ill be sure to give them a listen. and from what i have heard, your list does encapsulate alot of what i think of this year musically.
2023 was such an UNBELIEVABLE year in music. I really want to thank you for convincing me to give Beartooth another chance. I couldn't stand their first couple records, and I still can't. But The Surface just hits different and I LOVE it. And Sleep Token was a no brainer album of the year for me too. I trust your thoughts on & taste in music, and you are legit one of my favorite reactors out there. Keep up the incredible work my friend, and I hope you have a magnificent 2024 ahead
So glad to hear you were able to revisit Beartooth through this channel. It’s a fantastic album, truly. And thanks so much for the kind words and for watching my lil channel this year. Means the world 💙
Steve me encanta tu canal creo que principalmente por tu preferencia por Sleep Token. Este año ha ganado la música sin lugar a dudas con tan buen álbum que sacaron, felicidades por tan buen trabajo, abrazo fuerte 👍
Glad to see Johnny Booth on your list. I just saw them live and they do not disappoint. Wall to.wall energy and they created a bunch of sounds like I had assumed were production.
I can really resonate with your choice! Nice :D I'd like to know though if you have listened to the album Urian of the German band The Hirsch Effekt? If not, you definitely should. Well worth it 🤘🏻
Take Me Back to Eden, as you alluded to, is possibly the best overall album I’ve ever heard. I challenge all artists to put that kind of creativity and heart into a record that Sleep Token did.
Funny how my wrapped looked like shit, whole year listening to random playlists, genres... Right after the wrapped I got in touch with Sleep Token and my Spotify hasn't played anything else since.
There's some good stuff here, but basically every one of these records is very squarely within the "mainstream" sphere of metal (or as mainstream as metal tends to get). There's nothing from lesser-known or underground bands, and in my experience, the best music almost every year comes out of the underground. Bigger bands with more exposure will almost never be produce the best material. I can think of at least a handful of metal/core records that are better than anything on this list. GridLink easily dropped the best of the year with _Coronet Juniper_ and also blew the entire genre of melodic grind wide open. But GridLink isn't an Octane Radio band or similar, so nobody has heard of them because nobody searches for music beyond what is put in front of them.
I love a mainstream sound myself. I just had a listen to the first couple of songs off that album you mentioned and honestly it’s not for me at all. Drumming is super impressive technically, but the frequency of blast beats minimises the potential for groove, also the vocal scream tone isn’t to my taste, and the lead guitar work sounds like a very advanced high school student is trying to show off to his friends. Just a bit much in my estimation. Appreciate the recommendation though!
@@SteveOGRock Why would there even be a groove? It makes no compositional sense for the song to break down into a groove. That's what lazy songwriters do when they can't think of anything interesting to write, just break it down into a boring groove. The fact that is doesn't is to its credit, it's not a fault. Your comments on the guitar work are obviously just trying to find fault in something that has none. It's head-and-shoulders better than 99% of all music that exist in any genre both in its technicality, as well as its compositional affect.
I would have been shocked and offended if sleep token's Take Me Back To Eden didn't take the prize and many of the songs on the record weren't in the top 20 songs. Such an excellent album and the most creative thing to hit the mainstream in many an age. Great job and I appreciate the hard work you did throughout the year to make this list happen. Good on ya! Rock on!😊
TMBTE is just epic.
Thank you very much indeed! 💙
Perfection is the best and only way to describe Euclid. Spot on. Worship.
Happy to hear someone else say that Euclid was the best track off of the TMBTE album, I think so too. I was driving to work in the a.m. listening to the 6 unreleased tracks off the album the day they dropped ….I was so amazed and transfixed on the music I don’t even remember the drive, only the music. The tone, the lyrics, and the call backs, the feeling of resolution in Euclid….I had a feeling of euphoria. I sat in the parking lot at work and listened to Euclid 2 more times before going in. This album IS my favorite album of all time, and that ending track the most memorable thoughtful, meaningful, emotional song I have heard in a long time. Loved watching your reactions this year, you put me on to some other great bands including Beartooth! Merry Christmas and happy new year! Keep up the great work!
So glad I was able to introduce some great music for you this year. Thank you very very much indeed for watching! 💙
My Top 5 Albums
1. Heavener - Invent Animate
2. Take Me Back To Eden - Sleep Token
3. War Of Being - Tesseract
4. Fatalism - Polaris
5. Moments Elsewhere - Johnny Booth
Acensionism and Euclid still make me tear up. And I’ve listened to that album every day since it came out.
The song I enjoy the most on the Sleep Token album is Aqua Regia. Probably not representative of the album as a whole , but It's so elegant and stately. Fantastic keys, beautiful solo. Great lyrics. An unexpected diversion down a smokey jazz alley.
Found it! Watching now man very keen
Euclid was realy good when i listen to it again 👊🏻🤟🏻 Merry Christmas
Yeaaaah buddy! Glad to hear that. Thanks, and Merry Christmas to you too!
@@SteveOGRock we can always change for some songs 😁
My wife and I just got married in November, and Euclid was our song that we chose to have our private final dance to, to end our wedding. It has to probably be one of my all time favorite songs without a doubt and it will likely almost never be topped. She introduced me to Sleep Token, and I'll never look back. They are a truly astounding band, and very deserving of everything in these lists.
Wooooow that’s an awesome first private dance song. Good move! Also, is that you in your profile pic? I love track days myself but I am nowhere NEAR that close to the ground 😅
yesss some beartooth love!!! honestly one of the best albums i have heard ever i adore it too much!
Lots of great albums and songs on here! I think my favourite discovery from this video is ALL GAS by Bilmuri. Such cool production, catchy chorus and suprisingly heavy guitars. Merry christmas to you and your family!
Yeeaaaah buddy! I imagine that for some the pop vocal styling may be a bit much but I absolutely love it. Such a tightly packed song of melodic satisfaction throughout.
Yup! This sums up perfectly what I’ve listened to on your channel this entire year. In other words, I wasn’t too surprised by your choices ;-)
I was definitely expecting Sleep Token, Beartooth and Resolve to show up at the top of your lists.
I was so ecstatic to see Bilmuri on your top 10 songs of the year! I’m quite proud of this one, haha!
At the moment, I can’t think of another album that has had such a monumental success as Sleep Token’s Take Me Back to Eden in the past couple years. It’s a rare thing.
I think you really put alot of thought into these lists. As much as it’s all subjective, I have to say that you’ve chosen strong, influential and timeless albums that have definitely changed the sound of metal this year. Good job Steve!
Thanks a million M-E! Yes Bilmuri is amazing. Thank you so much for your part in that. He’s super high on my list of people I hope to interview in 2024 🤞🏻
Great lists here and as someone who watched your live reaction to TMBTE, this comes as no surprise. I think it just HAD to be AOTY for 2023. It’s been far too impactful for so many people. As an aside, I also wanted to mention Sunk Loto. I think the reason you hadn’t heard of them is because their last release was literally 20 years ago lol. They had one big hit called Everything Everyway that is quite good tbh, but they’ve put out nothing since that album. It was quite a surprise when I learned that new single had dropped seemingly out of nowhere. And I agree, it’s absolutely banger list worthy. For some reason, I had forgotten to subscribe after watching your TMBTE react, but I’ve corrected that now. Looking forward to reactions and new tunes in 2024
Thanks so much for this message Eric. And welcome! Yes indeed very much looking forward to what 2024 will bring 🤘🏻
Steve!
What a great year it was for music. Very happy to have discovered you this year. Your explanations always feel so natural, and I look forward to your thoughts as new music gets released. Apparently, I wasn't subscribed until now. Sorry about that!
Here's to 2024!
Haha no worries! Better late than never my friend, thanks for joining me here. So glad that you resonate with how I talk about music. Here’s to 2024 indeed! 💙
Great stuff Steve!
Wishing you & your family a Merry Christmas & a big thanks to you for having such a great reaction channel. You do it in such a humble, non egotistical way that it makes people really like what you do. All the best for 2024 brother.. 🎅🍻🤘
You’re very kind, Josh. Thank you! And thanks again for introducing me to the banger that is “The Gallows Wait”! 🤘🏻💙
Of course! I mean of course! If it's the #1 album of the year, it's just common sense that there'll be more songs from it that will make the soty list. Great list, man. I got a couple of bands mentioned here that I haven't got to listen yet. Thank you and hoping for the best of everything for you this 2024.
Yes, absolutely. An incredibly album ought to mean lots of incredible individual songs. Thanks for the kind words 💙
You like Sleep Token then 😂 snap.
I was introduced to Sunk Lotto a few weeks ago by a friend that lives in Sydney, he saw them live the other month. That single is amazing!
Yessss Sara. That Sunk Loto track is epic. And Sleep Token, I mean what more can I say… they are untouchable.
@@SteveOGRock Can't believe how much of an impact Sleep Token have had on me. A healthy obsession!
Chokehold is my standout favorite. When it dropped, I couldn't stop listening, playing it 40 times in a row. Witnessing them live the day after, opening with Chokehold, was a perfect moment.
The emotional impact of hearing Euclid for the first time brought many tears. Going back to Sundowning, my all-time favorite album, I don't believe they can surpass its perfection.
TMBTE is AOTY for me as well. i was sure it would be as soon as i heard it. Im also so glad that sleep token exploded the way that they did. I was a little late to the ST train, getting into them through TPWBYT, but to see them over 10x their spotify listeners in 1 year is truly encouraging for both them as a band as well as, imo, metal as a whole. bringing a lot of people in and letting them see the true range that exists inside the genre. i am so pissed that i missed the wembley gig, the tickets were released at an unconvenient time for me and they were all gone by the time i tried to find them. saw them at the apollo earlier in the year but the atmosphere at wembley must have been insane.
While i havent heard every song or album you mentioned, ill be sure to give them a listen. and from what i have heard, your list does encapsulate alot of what i think of this year musically.
Yeah, incredible year for Sleep Token and for metal music. I was at the Apollo gig as well. It was incredible. Northlane were also brilliant.
Chokehold is definitely my 5 year old’s favorite song😅🖤 so many wins for Sleep Token, I love to see it!🙌🏼
I am with you on #1.
2023 was such an UNBELIEVABLE year in music. I really want to thank you for convincing me to give Beartooth another chance. I couldn't stand their first couple records, and I still can't. But The Surface just hits different and I LOVE it. And Sleep Token was a no brainer album of the year for me too. I trust your thoughts on & taste in music, and you are legit one of my favorite reactors out there. Keep up the incredible work my friend, and I hope you have a magnificent 2024 ahead
So glad to hear you were able to revisit Beartooth through this channel. It’s a fantastic album, truly.
And thanks so much for the kind words and for watching my lil channel this year. Means the world 💙
Great list, a bunch of stuff I haven't yet heard here aswell, so I've got some stuff to check out, yaay!
Also, we have the same nr 1 album 😊
Haha glad to hear it 💙
Steve me encanta tu canal creo que principalmente por tu preferencia por Sleep Token. Este año ha ganado la música sin lugar a dudas con tan buen álbum que sacaron, felicidades por tan buen trabajo, abrazo fuerte 👍
Thank you!
Glad to see Johnny Booth on your list. I just saw them live and they do not disappoint. Wall to.wall energy and they created a bunch of sounds like I had assumed were production.
Would love to see them live
I can really resonate with your choice! Nice :D
I'd like to know though if you have listened to the album Urian of the German band The Hirsch Effekt? If not, you definitely should. Well worth it 🤘🏻
I have not! Thanks for the recommendation 💙
Take Me Back to Eden, as you alluded to, is possibly the best overall album I’ve ever heard. I challenge all artists to put that kind of creativity and heart into a record that Sleep Token did.
Yuuuup
You could literally just make the 12 songs from " Take Me Back to Eden " the top 12 songs of the year. That entire album is an absolute masterpiece.
It was genuinely hard not to do that 😅
Anunnaki is so sick
GALLOWS WAIT
Yeeeessss. Fuckin’ love this song. Unquestionable banger. Introduced to me by one of your fellow Aussies.
Damn I'm really surprised with Beartooth as 2nd album of the year
Did you listen to Luminaria by Aviations?
Not heard that song, no
Looks like I’ll be listening to the intersphere
They are absolutely sublime
Euclid gotta be number 1
Sleep Token sounds like Tool and Snow Patrol got a baby 😊
I enjoy both of those bands immensely 😄
1st banger Invent Animate Elysium
Funny how my wrapped looked like shit, whole year listening to random playlists, genres... Right after the wrapped I got in touch with Sleep Token and my Spotify hasn't played anything else since.
Haha yes the Sleep Token obsession is real.
If sleep token keeps winning every one of these i s2g lol
There's some good stuff here, but basically every one of these records is very squarely within the "mainstream" sphere of metal (or as mainstream as metal tends to get). There's nothing from lesser-known or underground bands, and in my experience, the best music almost every year comes out of the underground. Bigger bands with more exposure will almost never be produce the best material.
I can think of at least a handful of metal/core records that are better than anything on this list. GridLink easily dropped the best of the year with _Coronet Juniper_ and also blew the entire genre of melodic grind wide open. But GridLink isn't an Octane Radio band or similar, so nobody has heard of them because nobody searches for music beyond what is put in front of them.
I love a mainstream sound myself.
I just had a listen to the first couple of songs off that album you mentioned and honestly it’s not for me at all. Drumming is super impressive technically, but the frequency of blast beats minimises the potential for groove, also the vocal scream tone isn’t to my taste, and the lead guitar work sounds like a very advanced high school student is trying to show off to his friends. Just a bit much in my estimation. Appreciate the recommendation though!
@@SteveOGRock Why would there even be a groove? It makes no compositional sense for the song to break down into a groove. That's what lazy songwriters do when they can't think of anything interesting to write, just break it down into a boring groove. The fact that is doesn't is to its credit, it's not a fault.
Your comments on the guitar work are obviously just trying to find fault in something that has none. It's head-and-shoulders better than 99% of all music that exist in any genre both in its technicality, as well as its compositional affect.
@@alondite215 lol
Beartooth and Sleep Token no way better than Invent Animate- Heavener
It’s ultimately a subjective decision