Less movement. More melancholy. Still loud.
Seriously—2023 just vanished. Two years ago, I started this blog as a tentative metal experiment, and somehow I’m still screaming into the void. Less regularly than I wanted to. But still here.
So. What actually happened?
Spotify Wrapped is a Lying Bastard
My Wrapped this year was chaos.
Apparently, I listen to Compositional Ambient now. Sure. Why not.
Also Soundtrack? I don’t remember any. Unless “moaning about life while typing in the dark” counts.
Thankfully, Metal still took the top spot.
Followed by Rock—shoutout to Pentagram and The 69 Eyes.
And Black Metal in fourth.
Finally, some sense.
Top artist? Peter Steele.
Of course. Anything else would have been a scandal. Me and Peter spent every spare moment together this year in a gloriously doomed spiral of goth communion.
From Walking Off 10kg to Sitting It All Back On
I reread my 2022 post and had to laugh—
"In the first four months of 2022, I lost 10kg just by stomping around the neighbourhood with riffs in my ears and rage in my heart."
Yeah, well. They’re back.
2023 was—less active. More desk. Less walking. More typing.
More time glued to a chair and emotionally bonded to snacks.
It started okay—I kept up the music, the blog, the routine—until Wacken collapsed in August.
Didn’t go. Didn’t get in. It wrecked me more than I expected.
I stopped listening to music. I didn’t write a single thing for two months.
Then another concert disappointment hit—and I almost packed it in completely.
Dragged Back to the Surface by a Friend and a Ghost
Enter: Florian, with a playlist of his favourite bands.
That tiny spark reminded me: There’s still so much I haven’t heard.
So I didn’t go to Wacken.
So I missed Iron Maiden.
So the Alcest concert emotionally flatlined.
So what?
I realised I’d gotten lazy.
Just looping the same bands, again and again.
But one moment brought me back:
Lying in bed in a cottage on the Danish coast, wind howling, rain slamming the windows, and October Rust playing like a séance.
That was it. The emotional highlight of my year.
From that night on, there was hardly anything else in my headphones.
October Rust remains my favourite Type O Negative album.
Closely followed by Life Is Killing Me and Dead Again.
(Yes, I’m ignoring Bloody Kisses. Fight me.)
Return of the Black Metal Spiral
By October, I found myself crawling back into Black Metal.
Still not fully back on the horse—but I’m getting there.
There’s a whole forest of subgenres I haven’t wandered into yet.
But I will.
For now, I feel pretty good where I am—a bit tired, a bit gloomier, but definitely still loud.
Concerts That Actually Happened
Despite the setbacks, I saw some good live stuff this year:
- Kreator, Lamb of God, The 69 Eyes (March)
- The Riven (May)
- Windrose (July)
- Alcest (October – meh)
- Sólstafir (November – healing)
Looking Toward 2024 with Slightly Lower Expectations
Already lined up:
- Skálmöld in Bremen
- Klash of the Ruhrpott – finally seeing Sodom live
- Wacken (yes… again)
This time, expectations are lower. Maybe they’ll be met.
I want to get more adventurous again—stop looping old favourites and start dipping into unknown waters.
The blog lives on. I’m still here. Just a little more worn down.
But I’m not done.
Not by a long shot.
Stay tuned. Stay loud. Stay strange.