Tone Madison’s favorite records of 2023

These albums and EPs helped define what 2023 meant for Madison music.

Every year, Tone Madison painstakingly tracks incoming releases from Madison bands, admiring and interrogating their varying strengths. More often than not, there are a handful of records that immediately stand out as favorites. In 2023, that didn’t change, but the amount of releases we put under the spotlight—either via our reporting or quietly behind-the-scenes—skyrocketed. By the time December wound to a close, the total of new releases that came across our metaphorical desk had more than tripled most previously-measured totals.

In our three-part songs collection, we celebrated 45 of our favorite tracks from 2023. As was the case in previous years, none of the tracks in those lists belonged to a record that appears on this one. All told, our year-end coverage this year—between records, songs, music videos, and a forthcoming odds and ends rundown—touches on more than 100 local releases. Madison’s music community, as ever, is thriving on its own terms, with relatively little attention from local media (though Isthmus Calendar Editor Bob Koch’s entry into the local year-end category this year was a genuinely welcome and appreciated balm).

There were triumphs in a lot of different genres, and a handful of our favorite records this year were united by way of subverting the barriers of genre. From darkly-tinted metal to sunny, sprightly pop (and the many stylistic areas between), there was—clearly—a lot to celebrate. Each release that appears here was vetted via internal discussion between our editorial staff and freelancers, some voting, and a good deal of private effort.

All 20 of these records made an unshakable impression, resonating with various Tone Madison writers and editors. Each became emblematic of what Madison’s musicians can offer. More than that, these records will stand as testament to one of the most inspired overall years for new releases that Madison has seen in some time. And that’s more than worth an extended celebration. 

Without further ado, here are our 20 favorite Madison records of 2023. 

Baby Tyler, Imposter

Caught between power-pop and a jagged place, Baby Tyler’s Imposter gives us permission to scream. A collection of songs that forces us into a snappish introspection, it’s a vessel for the commoners’ tormented daily confusion. “I think I’m faking / I think I’m faking everything I knew about this” is a line that heightens the title track‘s strong emotional stamp. Tyler Fassnacht—who masterminds Baby Tyler—enhances that stamp further with a melancholic guitar progression that ultimately invites a state of despondency as he repeatedly exclaims “IMPOSTER!”

“Tree In The Road” is a delicacy served with an edge of annihilation. It’s Fassnacht’s many musical styles blending into one: a spastic, bouncy number interrupted by a heavy doomscape before going back into the gleeful pop favored by Proud Parents, one of Fassnacht’s several other bands. 

Pushing through the heavy towards joy is what keeps Fassnacht at the top of Wisconsin’s indie rock scene. Fassnacht handled the majority of Imposter‘s recording and production himself (though Cult Of Lip‘s Ronnie Lee mastered the album), providing a reminder of what we can be capable of when left to our own devices. Imposter is a clarion call that reminds us all to embrace and confront life’s mundanity; personal evolution rarely comes without a fight. —Luis Acosta

Blue County Pistol, Under Cold Country

Under Cold Country, the debut EP of indie-folk/rock act Blue County Pistol, is a release defined by its winsome familiarity. Right from the opening lead guitar passage of the breathtaking “Like You Always Do,” the quintet offers nods towards their influences. At no point do those moments of recognition become overbearing, instead propping up the EP’s five tracks with an admirable resolve.

Guitarist/vocalist Jasper Nelson, guitarist Gunnar Schmitz, bassist Vincent Dunn, drummer—and Tone Madison contributor—Luis Acosta, and additional vocalist Mac Saunders blend perfectly on each of the EP’s tracks, demonstrating a rare connection. Every element of Under Cold Country works in blissful tandem with the others, lending to a feeling of familiarity so pronounced that it occasionally blurs into a sense of nostalgia.

“And so long / Oh Rosie, don’t you weep / I’ll be around your way again / And hold on to all the things we used to say / How could I ever forget?” goes the closing chorus of “Oh, Rosie,” just one of several passages that tie into a fitting, EP-wide emphasis on our individual relationships to time. And, in time, it’s not difficult to imagine a new generation of emerging artists turning to Under Cold Country‘s impressively polished Americana as an influence of their own. —Steven Spoerl

Carisa, The Soul Is Deep Water

Over the past few years, mononymous singer-songwriter Carisa has made herself a consistent presence in Madison’s folk and jazz circuits. The Soul Is Deep Water, the multi-instrumentalist’s follow-up to the debut 2020 EP Microcosm, is a perfect blend of both genres. “Ghost In The Machine,” a track built on a snazzy bells figure, layered background vocals, and a tasty jazz guitar lick, also boasts a straight-ahead melody and overall structure. It’s a perfect demonstration of the songwriter’s understanding of how to work the connective tissue between one of music’s most experimental major genres with one of its most traditional.

Numbering 16 tracks and clocking in at over an hour, The Soul Is Deep Water is an early, definitive artistic statement from Carisa. Bold, ambitious, and teeming with moments of startling clarity, The Soul Is Deep Water captures Carisa’s growth as both an instrumentalist and a lyricist. With a diverse musical background to pull from—something likely bolstered by Carisa’s past home, New York City—the lyrics never feel beholden to an individual genre’s standards. “I must be masochistic / Because I let you get away with it / I wonder when you’ll realize / The song I’m singin’ / And the words I’m stringin’, weaving, knitting / Are all about you,” Carisa sneers on the quick-witted, side-eyeing “Tongue Twisted.” In terms of both music and lyrics, it’s a bit folk, a bit jazz, a bit musical theater, and massively enjoyable. It’s a small moment of emerging mastery placed alongside too many other moments to effectively single out. —SS

Chants + Dane Law, Gurum Triads

Put this calming force in your headphones when you have time for a long, introspective walk. Although this record is a cross-Atlantic collaboration, it feels like two people mind-melding in a room. Rhythms ride the waves, both organic and manipulated, as Jordan Cohen‘s scattering percussion flavors dive loosely through too many touchstones to pin down. Electronic manipulations turn field recordings, reverbs, and hums into instruments. Dane Law‘s sliced and splintered guitar reminds me of Jeff Parker‘s light touch or Mary Halvorson in her more meditative moments. 
Grurum Triads opens with a few deceptively simple-seeming tracks driven by melody, then gently slides back and forth through sound collage and ambient while keeping a steady foot in the ‘90s post-rock of my youth. I don’t think it’s nostalgia when I say this is the local record that impacted me the most on an emotional level; the calm and simple reassurance it offers is a healing ritual. —Dan Fitch

Cicada The Burrower, Blight Witch Regalia

“Artist therapy” is how Cicada The Burrower’s Cameron Davis described the construction of Blight Witch Regalia in a conversation we had in March. And the description tracks. Free-ranging, unbound by stylistic barriers, and often indulging a seemingly stream-of-consciousness approach, Blight Witch Regalia is plainly unafraid of testing limits and convention. Swinging wildly from extreme black metal to peppy chiptune to introspective ambient at the drop of a hat, Davis’ batshit masterpiece—and Blight Witch Regalia is a masterpiece—is unlike any record I’ve heard in my time listening to music.

A manifestation of artistry, personality, and conscience, Blight Witch Regalia grapples with a series of complex emotions over its eight extraordinarily unpredictable tracks. Love, trauma, hope, community, self-realization, and the contextualization of interpersonal interaction all color the throughline of Blight Witch Regalia‘s unceasing exploration. “Make Still This Beating Heart” is one of Blight Witch Regalia‘s most definitive moments, switching from no-holds-barred aggression to quiet introspection before combining the two in a dynamic not dissimilar to someone furiously working towards a complex understanding. Davis communicates something beautiful through all of Blight Witch Regalia‘s brutality and serenity: we must work towards understanding competing elements if we ever want to feel truly whole. —SS

Cult Of Lip, Marsha

Following a move from Minneapolis to Madison, shoegaze act Cult Of Lip finally put out a proper debut album in Marsha. Cult Of Lip’s central duo—guitarist/vocalist Ronnie Lee and bassist/vocalist Hannah Porter—began recording Marsha in 2019 at their former home studio. Drummer Eric Whalen and synth player Miles McClain round out the band’s lineup for Marsha, a towering achievement and the fullest realization of the band’s musical identity to date.

Opener “Kissing Embers” immediately establishes the album’s bleary, whirlwind tone and emphasis on volume. An ambient hum cascades into a blanketing wall-of-sound as Porter maintains an icy cool demeanor as a vocalist, Lee ceding and taking the foreground of the track as needed. A steady, insistent mid-tempo drumbeat keeps everything on the rails, even as “Kissing Embers” threatens to tip over its sizable weight.

Marsha boasts a handful of head-turning moments over its nine tracks, each sharply-executed and perfectly placed. From the opening guitar washes of “Waste” to the primal, trancelike drumming on “Convene,” Cult Of Lip deftly avoids stagnancy and genre-specific pitfalls of repetition. In its totality, Marsha seems (and feels) like a beautiful dream. In striking a perfect balance between aggression and tranquility, Cult Of Lip affirm their status as a truly great band. —SS

Daddybear, I Am Alien

Skittering and sultry, Daddybear’s I Am Alien is best summed up by the droll delivery of “I wanna get fucked up with you” on “Can’t Calm Down,” a title that feels similarly representative of the EP. I Am Alien is the product of Daddybear (aka Matt Fanale of Caustic and Klack) and the France-based producer Grabyourface (aka Marie L. Dragonface) teaming up for four tracks of darkly hypnotic electro/industrial goth-punk. It’s a pairing that proves immediately natural, with each artist bringing something refreshing out of their partner. Both Fanale and Dragonface contributed to the music and lyrics on I Am Alien, making it hard to pinpoint real specifics, but both sound reinvigorated and come at these four tracks with their all.

Dragonface’s vocals, in particular, prove a perfect complement to a more seductive side of Fanale’s production work, providing this particular run of gothwave with a twisted romanticism. “Kudzu,” the EP’s coy, restrained closer, captures this dynamic to perfection. “I’m a stalker / Seducer / Welcome to my web,” beckons Dragonface, as Fanale’s slow-burn production makes a potentially sinister invitation sound impossible to deny. —SS

Def Sonic, Anthropia

Def Sonic’s “addiction to creativity” continues on this sloping, muffled pop examination of the darker corners of life. Admittedly, I’m not very familiar with modern folk strains, and I heard Def Sonic first live, so I experience this music as coming from an introspective, shoe-gazing space. Anthropia‘s vocal tracks are drenched in effects and bent around, textures sliding calmly into place and soothing listeners, even as they overdrive into lo-fi reds. Def Sonic bandleader Johan Petty explains Anthropia as an intentional exploration of the space between depression and what comes after.

Petty’s description makes a bunch more sense than the wordless feelings that grip me when listening. Nostalgia for something that could never happen. Regrets for something you’d do again in a heartbeat. Anthropia rolls over you like a sweetly crushing soundtrack to a tough life, but it covers like a warm blanket instead of cutting in and surgically implanting its message by force. Sit down by a cold lake and listen to the single “Arctic Yearns” to ride the frozen waves. —DF

The Faith Hills Have Eyes, The Riffth Element

All apologies to everyone else, but The Faith Hills Have Eyes are near-peerless in the titling department. The Riffth Element, the endearingly unhinged metal band’s first album in nine years, is chock-full of memorably excellent song titles. Pleasantly, those titles are matched by brutal, technically-proficient, and headbang-inducing runs of extreme metal. “Dio de Janeiro… Larry King, The Punishment Due” also demonstrates the band’s knack for unlocking stoner-metal grooves that act as counterweight to the album’s penchant for wild-eyed, atonal aggression. It’s a surprisingly delicate balance but the quintet—vocalist Aaron Miller, guitarists Gordon Dale and Jeremy Wisdom, bassist Blake Franklin, and drummer Brian Martinez—manage it with ease.

Elements of hardcore, psych, and even surf-punk bleed into and inform The Riffth Element, which packs more than a few surprises across nine tracks. Effectively self-produced, the album sounds extraordinary, and is given ample space to breathe, even at its busiest. There’s virtually never a dull moment on The Riffth Element. Dedicated to their late bassist, Ryan “Woody” Davis, who passed away in 2018, The Riffth Element is a formidable beacon of perseverance and love. —SS

Graham Hunt, Try Not To Laugh

Try Not To Laugh, Graham Hunt‘s latest solo effort, is a piercing reminder of the songwriter’s acumen. “Scraping up the scraps from the wreckage of your whirlwind” is a knockout of an opening line, teeing up the record’s titular, opening track—and the record itself—with an immediately arresting sense of both modesty and alertness. Hunt’s ears-perked, eyes-open assessments of the world around him continue to be whip-smart blends of black comedy, empathetic tenderness, exhausted deflation, and defiant determination.

As for the music, Try Not To Laugh is as loose and freewheeling as anything in Hunt’s expansive discography. Importantly, it sounds like he’s having an absolute blast, no matter how serious the subject matter turns, and that sense of enjoyment is infectious. No moment on the album is more representative of this than an absolute stunner of a stanza from “Emergency Contact“: “There’s an old man blasting slow jams / At the stop sign / As you catch me up on your life since your dog died / Well, Molly’s in heaven / With a rope in her mouth / Growling and daring God to pull it out,” sings Hunt, effectively contending with various forms of mortality in a knowingly matter-of-fact manner. Graceful and exuding a comforting warmth, Hunt’s delivery paints that moment and many others across the record as recognizably relatable. Virtually all of Try Not To Laugh is infused with the curious, hyper-specific brand of thoughtful, slacker charm that’s become a signature of his songwriting. —SS

KASE + Tiffany Miller, Live At The Jazz Estate

While, admittedly, a more Milwaukee-leaning project, KASE‘s healthy relationship to (and partial membership in) Madison has made them an integral part of the local music community. On Live At The Jazz Estate, the trio—bassist John Christensen, trumpeter/beatmaker Jamie Breiwick, and dedicated DJ/Producer Jordan Lee—teams up with multidisciplinary artist Tiffany Miller. Miller provides the album’s incredible lyrical narratives with a mix of singing and spoken word. “I want to be someone’s decision / To love, to spend time with, to adore with / Their everything / I wanna be someone’s manifestation of the love they desire for themselves,” details Miller in the sharply bittersweet “I Ain’t Ask,” before essentially pleading to an invisible force: “I ain’t ask to fall in love.”

One of Live At The Jazz Estate‘s most endearing qualities is the vocal interplay between band and audience that punctuates key passages, with Miller’s arresting prose earning wordless exclamations of support. All the while, KASE’s jazz-heavy trip-hop creates a blurred sense of time and place; an unholy communion of past, present, and future, with Miller’s timeless wistfulness adding to the equation. One of the best live releases in recent memory, Live At The Jazz Estate is a love letter to the boundlessness of art. —SS

Erik Kramer, Where The Fish Are As Fine As The Color of Colors

Multi-instrumentalist Erik Kramer bids adieu to Wisconsin on Where The Fish Are As Fine As The Color Of Colors, his first record of wispy ambient folk since 2017’s A House, Floating In The Middle Of A Lake. Pulling from strains of Primitivism, Americana, and drone, Kramer crafts cozy compositions around field recordings in the expanse and narrows of Wisconsin landscapes. Perhaps the record as a whole can be lovingly framed as a Madison soundscape—with all its natural beauty and seasonal peculiarities through the city’s changes (and his own) over the past half-decade, lockdown times included.

Track after track, one the year’s most luminously pacifying listens comes into focus. Kramer’s approach speaks across this span through the stirring, wistful interaction of prerecorded elements and the spontaneity of live instrumentation (keyboard, finger-picked acoustic guitar, banjo, makeshift percussion, and even six-part vocal harmonies dot “Rain For The Field“). Particularly on the B side, Kramer persistently conjures evocative senses of time and place.
“Gates Locked At Sunset” builds upon Roland-generated gamelan-like percussive scales, heightening them with swelling pump organ drone and his acoustic guitar’s understated intimacy. The following “Night Patrol” audibly renders a peak Madison music experience, the Saturday night jam session on a porch just off a main artery. Sounds of subwoofer distortion and tricked-out cars drag-racing in the streets ripple out into the gentle mingling of Sawyer Gee’s nylon-string guitar and Kramer’s banjo. A quintessential document. —Grant Phipps

Mickey Sunshine, Mickey Sellout, Pt. I

Mickey Sunshine hits the ground running with this sharp, three-song punch to the mouth. Mickey Sellout, Pt. I feels and sounds like a no-holds-barred glimpse into singer/songwriter Andrea Di Bernardo’s diary set to gritty, driving, somewhat depressive grunge-rock. With an enticing, dangerous drawl that evokes ‘90s-era frontwomen like Courtney Love or Mary Timony, Di Bernardo takes her place as Mickey Sunshine’s messy-tough center. Di Bernardo’s now-husband Chris Di Bernado’s brash drums, Skylar Nahn’s piercing guitar, and Tony Duvall’s heavy bass round the band out.

“Best Dad” opens with its hands around your neck, but in a kinky way. It’s a clear-eyed assessment of a sexual relationship for pay with an older man, zeroing in on both what it is and is not. Lines like “Tell your daughter you’re the best dad / I’ve ever fucking had” cut with blistering humor and clarity through the potential bullshit of such an arrangement.

It feels like a logical next step, then, that “Road” offers up the struggle to feel ready to trust a new potential romantic interest. To see Di Bernardo’s protagonist for who she is, and not the other person’s invented fantasy. “I promise, I care less than you,” opens the mid-tempo, dirge-like rocker, in a line that feels like both a challenge and bluff. 

In the EP’s final, hard-charging track, “Rock God” takes a pointed swipe at the long history of lionized, badly behaved men of rock n’ roll. “Yeah I want my dick sucked,” Di Bernardo repeats, and if this isn’t done in the spirit of foremothers like Courtney Love and Kathleen Hanna, I don’t know what is. Frankly, it’s fucking great to hear this kind of give-no-shits, spit-in-patriarchy’s-face grunge rock finding a new wind. Mickey Sunshine is doing right by those that came before, while injecting their tenacious, throwback sound with deeply personal, vulnerable, but tough-as-nails songwriting. —Emily Mills

Mission Trip, Expect That

No Madison record caught me more off-guard this year than Expect That, the jaw-dropping debut EP from Mission Trip. Boasting members of the impressive, shoegaze-tinted post-punk act Interlay and indie-folk project Blue County Pistol, Mission Trip bridges the best stylistic elements of each of those bands to create something mesmeric. “Rapid City,” Expect That‘s towering second track, demonstrates this in kind with a blisteringly cataclysmic, noise-heavy bridge that masterfully dovetails into a gnarly half-time outro. Those closing minutes provide an eye-popping end cap to a song that otherwise leans heavily on restrained, minimalistic verses and a simple (but wildly effective) chorus guitar riff. 

Dynamic interplay and impeccable production—courtesy of Disq‘s Isaac DeBroux-Slone—is at the heart of what makes Expect That so absurdly invigorating. As is the case with Blue County Pistol, the members of Mission Trip complement each other to a degree that is genuinely rare for relatively new bands. On the penultimate, seven-plus minute “Drivers Seat,” the band really puts that connection to work. Guitarist/vocalist Sam Eklund, guitarist/vocalist Jasper Nelson, bassist Zachary Vincent Dunn, synth player Reegan Franzmeier, and drummer Henry Ptacek expertly ride a gentle crest of momentum  that’s built meticulously over a loose, ambient-heavy intro. As is the case with the rest of Expect That, everything’s kept on the rails, and massaged for maximum impact, with the members’ innate understanding of their artistic strengths ultimately conjuring up something that verges on the unforgettable. —SS

Seasaw, Projecting

Eve Wilczeski and Meg Golz have been making music together as Seasaw for more than a decade, establishing themselves as a local synth-pop institution. As is the case for any band who spends that much time together, Wilczeski and Golz have cultivated a near-telepathic artistic connection, a trait that’s in full swing across the peppy, grin-inducing Projecting. Over 11 characteristically playful tracks, the duo taps into a mode of pop that’s both immediately accessible and carefully considered, resulting in a litany of single-worthy tracks that will keep listeners’ head bobbing as they work their way into their memories.

“Like I Love You,” a mid-album track that was released as a single, nicely encapsulates the record’s abundant charm. A driving rhythm track, propulsive guitar riff and progression, and spaced-out synth all coalesce around Wilczeski and Golz’s unfailingly bright (and unceasing) vocal harmonies. In the process, the track ties together a number of instrumental and vocal hooks into something catchy, cohesive, and complete. Both members of Seasaw’s understanding of each other as artists and what they can achieve in a seamless marriage of those identities remains Seasaw’s beating heart. Projecting is a lovely testament to that heart’s resounding health. —SS

Sigra, Scavenger
These five songs are gems of vulnerability set in frameworks of heightened ornament. But not too much ornament. Sigra has a lot to work with—vocals that spiral across octaves, an array of bowed and plucked stringed instruments, software production techniques, synths, a musical perspective from which opera, hyperpop, and chunky art-rock don’t seem so far apart. Scavenger, her second EP as a solo artist, pares it down to upright bass, voice, keys, and not much else.

In her lyrics, Sigra constantly invites us to look behind her own curtain of classical-goth-pop artifice. “I’m always raising far more questions than I can answer,” goes the first line of opening track “Alexander.” Sigra delivers this line with an assured and stately voice, setting up a contrast that powers the whole EP. (She’s also funny: “I’d been too preoccupied with being artfully woeful.”) Even under the plucky menace of “Scavenger” and “Saving Worms,” Sigra unpacks tenderness, doubt, and wanderlust. “April Achingly Begins,” a series of reflections set amid the whirlwind social life of Madison twentysomethings (no, you’re getting emotional at a song that name-checks the Rotunda Café), concludes the EP and elevates it to a rare level of incisive self-awareness. —Scott Gordon

Solid Freex, Solid Freex

The punk trio Solid Freex writes at a maniacal pace and somehow grows more tuneful as it incorporates more strange, dissonant fragments into its sound. Guitarist Josh Coombs-Broekema, bassist Evan Coombs-Broekema, and drummer Steve Coombs (also Evan and Josh’s dad) dig further into three-part vocal arrangements on Solid Freex’s third album. Their voices create unabashedly beautiful swells of harmony on “Paper Savior” and “Thieves’ Candle.”

Still, noise and mischief abound, as you’d expect from the elder Coombs’ time in ‘90s no-wave outfit Xerobot and then the peerless one-man band Trin Tran. You’d also expect that after hearing Evan and Josh’s work in the recently formed Chicago outfit Half-Scratches. All three have more than enough technical skill to navigate the chaos of ramming sugary hooks against noise-rock on “Hope I Never Lose It.” By the time “Bird Expert” (with its harmonized chants of “He’s a bird expert! He’s a bird expert!”) and “JetSkis” (with its harmonized chants of “Jetskis attack! Jetskis attack!”) come around, the listener has to surrender to a certain delirium. Solid Freex is great fun the way that Slim Pickens riding the bomb at the end of Dr. Strangelove is great fun. Here’s to family, and to oblivion. —SG

The Spine Stealers, River Teeth Tapes

I first heard self-described “spooky folk duo” The Spine Stealers—Emma O’Shea and Kate Ruland—in a shaded spot by the Yahara River in waning autumn sunlight, not unlike the lakefront photograph that adorns the cover of their crisply produced four-song debut EP, River Teeth Tapes. Their patient music pulls from alt-country and slowcore acts like Angel Olsen and Cowboy Junkies. Those touchstones lend a quality that seems to emanate from a bygone time without constant surveillance and social media bombardment.

Which is the long way of simply praising their songwriting as heartfelt and authentic, dipped in the rustic experience of constant gigging on the road without a way to touch down in a place to call home. Those feelings are embodied in the lyricism of the closing track, “West Texas Sun,” which pairs steady electric and acoustic guitar instrumentation with O’Shea’s twangy vocal timbre perceptively painting this scorched portrait of a community along Southern ranches in the middle of nowhere.
“Lilacs” leaps to a more verdant setting, by contrast, and comes together as a plaintive expression of withered love, complemented by elegantly layered electric, acoustic, and pedal steel (courtesy of peripheral band member James Grenier). With one deep sigh during the opening seconds of “Lake Life,” The Spine Stealers convey a journey’s worth of pining, before launching into one of their strongest pieces of songwriting on self-doubt and the complexities of influence. —Grant Phipps

Spy The Night, The Problem Of Other Minds

Singer and producer Jen Wilson creates a luxurious shadow world on The Problem Of Other Minds, her debut album under the name Spy The Night. Balancing suave synth-pop with harsher industrial textures, Wilson builds her original songs around charismatic, propulsive vocal melodies. She also knows how to evoke complex themes with few words, drawing a seething, scathing portrait of fascism on “No Bliss” and hinting at madness over the grisly groove of “The Lighthouse.” The synths and drum samples build up a wealth of atmosphere without ever crowding out the vocals.

When “Then Fall” shifts from somber drones to crackling noise, it just ends up heightening the eerie humanity of Wilson’s voice. The album begins with a cover of  “Willkommen,” from the musical Cabaret, and closes with a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Waiting For The Night.” Somehow that choice just makes the album feel more distinctive and focused. Wilson twists “Willkommen” into a haunting intro. She inhabits the lonesome comfort of “Waiting For The Night” so fully that it’s hard to imagine a cover slotting in better amid original songs. Wilson’s music shows us how monstrous and how beautiful the dark really is. —SG

Vanishing Kids, Miracle Of Death

Five years after the release of their last album, beloved Madison metal act Vanishing Kids came roaring back into the spotlight with Miracle Of Death. Vocalist and keys player Nikki Drohomyreky, guitarist Jason Hartman, bassist Jerry Sofran, and drummer Nick Johnson combine to create the band’s latest epic, a seven-song run of unrestrained, doomy metal bombast. Opener “Spill The Dark,” arguably the best song in the band’s incredibly impressive discography, lays out the album’s modus operandi in earnest. Enormous riffs, soaring vocals, a heavy dose of foreboding tension, and deliberate, slow tempos are the engine that powers Miracle Of Death, and the band’s collective command of how to enhance those elements is held firm in a white-knuckle grasp.

A number of genuinely breathtaking individual elements pepper “Spill The Dark” and Miracle Of Death as a whole. Whether it’s Hartman’s emotive soloing, Drohomyreky’s impassioned wails, or the band’s rhythm section locking into unexpectedly thunderous moments, each of these seven tracks offer a treasure trove of individual riches that are elevated by an awe-inspiring sum total. Occasionally, as is the case on the final few measures of “Only You,” all of those individual elements combine simultaneously, and produce a transcendental piece of music potent enough to grab the attention of even the most metal-adverse listener. —SS