Metal Academy Awards for 2023 Announcement - Best Release by Clan

Ladies & gentlemen, after much deliberation, it brings me great pleasure to announce the nine Metal Academy Clan Releases of 2023:

THE FALLEN

FVNERALS - "Let the Earth Be Silent"

THE GATEWAY

Katatonia - "Sky Void of Stars"

THE GUARDIANS

Cirith Ungol - "Dark Parade"

THE HORDE

Horrendous - "Ontological Mysterium"

THE INFINITE

Ne Obliviscaris - Exul

THE NORTH

Panopticon - "The Rime of Memory"

THE PIT

Hellripper - "Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags"

THE REVOLUTION

August Burns Red - "Death Below"

THE SPHERE

Godflesh - "Purge"

I still can't get on board with all the Hellripper hype. It's enjoyable enough and nothing more than that.

Fvnerals, Cirith Ungol, Katatonia and definitely Panopticon are decent picks, but I didn't much care for the Horrendous album (although it isn't exactly horrendous!) I must get round to the Ne Obliviscaris at some point as I have enjoyed their other stuff.I

A decent set of results, though, considering we have such a small pool of raters.

The Fallen was a really tough decision because the Great Falls album was the clear winner if you took four or more ratings as the threshold but there were only three releases in that category which I didn't consider to be a large enough pool. FVNERALS only came into contention at a three-rating threshold & just edged Great Falls out which had twice as many ratings as FVNERALS & was very highly rated by a couple of our senior members (including myself) so it was a bit of a toss-up as to which way we'd go. In the end I could see that the three ratings for FVNERALS all came from our regulars so I decided that its result was reliable & went with that. The Great Falls release was my Release of 2023 so it was with mixed feelings in the end to tell you the truth.

Katatonia & Klone had the exact same scores for The Gateway but I awarded it to Katatonia given that it had several more ratings than Klone.

Cirith Ungol was a clear winner for The Guardians.

The Horde presented me with a major conundrum but I ended up electing not to award Neuropath the win for ethical reasons, despite it having the highest overall site rating average. The fact that "At Damnation's Core" is a compilation of old demo material also came into it. That left just three contenders when I used the five-rating threshold with Horrendous being the frontrunner but when using a four-rating threshold it would see Insomnium coming out on top which is a release that not a single member of The Horde has rated & that just didn't sit well with me. Horrendous was second there as well so elected to go with it as the overall winner.

When I had a look at The Infinite with a 5 rating threshold I found that there was only three releases with the King Gizzard album being the frontrunner. When dropping the threshold to four ratings it became very clear that Ne Obliviscaris was the site preference with very strong scoring indeed so I decided that it was the best option.

The North was a little difficult as when I chose a five-rating threshold there were four contenders which is kinda borderline with Hellripper being in the ascendency. Given that I'd already decided that Hellripper would win The Pit I thought it was worth looking at a four-rating threshold. Panopticon came into the running at that point &, given that I know it's the been pretty much the favourite release for several of our regulars for most of the year, I thought it best to stick with four ratings.

The Pit saw the Demoniac, Hellripper & Enforced records all coming out exactly equal on average ratings but I selected Hellripper based purely on the greater numbers of ratings it had received i.e. six over the four the other two had received.

The Revolution saw August Burns Red coming out in front on average clan ratings with the site ratings being a dead heat with the Will Haven album.

The Sphere was only very sparsely contested with the Godflesh & HEALTH releases finishing on equal site ratings but Godflesh winning due to its superior average clan rating.

I still can't get on board with all the Hellripper hype. It's enjoyable enough and nothing more than that.

I agree with you that the Hellripper release isn't anything particularly special but, even though I'd place it slightly ahead of Hellripper, I'd say the same for the Demoniac record so it really wouldn’t appear to have been the strongest of years for The Pit from what I’ve seen.

I still can't get on board with all the Hellripper hype. It's enjoyable enough and nothing more than that.

I agree with you that the Hellripper release isn't anything particularly special but, even though I'd place it slightly ahead of Hellripper, I'd say the same for the Demoniac record so it really wouldn’t appear to have been the strongest of years for The Pit from what I’ve seen.

I don't completely agree about the Demoniac album, it's not as good as So It Goes, but it is still a strong album for me. Unfortunately I think it is just a simple fact that the Pit's best years are behind it and it consistently struggles to produce outstanding material so many years on from it's heyday.

I feel a bit bad now for not staying as plugged in to new releases in 2023 as I usually am, but there was just so much else to get through, with my Horde clan challenge in particular taking up a fair bit of time in the first half of the year.