33 great 2023 albums from indie / alternative legends

The full-length solo debut from half of Outkast might not be the André 3000 album that you expected or even wanted, but André wouldn’t release something if it wasn’t quality work, and New Blue Sun definitely is. He made it with three regulars from the modern indie-jazz world–percussionist Carlos Niño, guitarist Nate Mercereau, and keyboardist Surya Botofasina–and it sounds like something that could’ve come out on International Anthem…Having “first-ever André 3000 solo album” attached to it gives it so much extra baggage, but if anything, it sounds on this album like André is trying to free himself from the baggage. He wants to make what he wants to make, regardless of what people expect or want from him.

Richard D. James seems to be mellowing with age. That’s not a bad thing. You can’t constantly be making tracks like “Come to Daddy,” and for the last 10 years he kept thing glitchy, but melodic. Compared to his last major release, 2018’s Collapse, the least friendly thing about his new EP is the title. But even when at his most convivial, like on “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f,” it’s still miles away from anything you’d actually call pop. It does however feature many of his glitchy trademarks, but is grounded in melody with an infectious, danceable beat that never flies totally off the rails. “zin2 test5” could even be described as “four on the floor” and it works! Middle age suits him well.

Thirty years into his career, The Roots’ lead MC Black Thought remains at the top of his game, and seemingly nothing can stop the creative hot streak he’s been on since officially launching his solo career in 2018. His latest album is a collaboration with El Michels Affair, the retro-soul group known who came to prominence after “reverse-engineering” Wu-Tang Clan songs on such albums as Enter The 37th Chamber and Return to the 37th Chamber, and eventually went on to work with Wu-Tang Clan members themselves. For this album, El Michels Affair leader Leon Michels would write and record entire vintage-style soul songs, and then chop up and loop his own music the way hip hop producers like his hero the RZA did back in the day. It’s a perfect setting for Black Thought, who came up in that same era and whose voice goes great with dusty soul. On Glorious Game, Thought sounds as athletic as ever, darting around the El Michels Affair instrumentals with curveball rhyme schemes and knockout punchlines. And unlike last year’s Danger Mouse-assisted, guest-filled Cheat Codes, no features; just Black Thought commanding the ship and reminding the world he’s one of the best to ever do it.

Britpop icons Blur’s first album in eight years was born of unique circumstances: offered to play two nights at Wembley Arena, frontman Damon Albarn wanted those shows to have more purpose, so they decided to make single which turned into a whole record. Unlike 2015’s off-the-cuff, piecemeal The Magic Whip, The Ballad of Darren was made with all four members in the studio together and it’s clear they knew they were onto something special. This is the band’s finest batch of songs since 1999’s 13 and a few — “Barbaric,” “The Narcissist,” “Avalon,” “St. Charles Square” — are instant classics. You might think this would signal the band’s full-on return, but Albarn recently said that after a summer’s worth of touring for the album, Blur are back on hiatus. There is an air of finality on songs like “Goodbye Albert,” “Faraway Islands,” and “The Heights” that give this album serious Swan Song feels, but The Ballad of Darren shows there’s still distance left to run. This would make a great end, but let’s hope it’s not.

While memories of NYC in it’s grimy early-’80s glory provided inspiration for Bush Tetras’ first album in 11 years, They Live in My Head feels like a very now record. You can definitely dance to it, but they’re not just rewriting “Too Many Creeps” ad infinitum. Part of this also comes from Cynthia Sley whose voice has never sounded more pure and full. There are times, like on “Another Room,” that they are closer to Siouxsie & The Banshees than their old selves, but it’s still obviously Bush Tetras. The album’s fieriest moment is “2020 Vision,” that lets loose on the last three years of insanity across three wailing minutes of pure pissed off release that acknowledges that the creeps still need to be put in their place. Bush Tetras remain a force.

Dance music is a young person’s game but Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons prove they still have the magic touch on their 10th long-player. It’s got everything you’d want in a Chemical Brothers album: classic Big Beat bangers, flights of fancy, inspired samples, and a few choice guests including Beck, and rising French artist Halo Maud who appears on four tracks. Plus: the whole album plays seamlessly like a DJ set. For That Beautiful Feeling is a great example of what The Chemical Brothers do, what you expect them to do, how they continue to expand their sound, and how they do it better than almost anyone else.

Ever since Martin Gore took over as Depeche Mode’s chief songwriter in 1982, most of the band’s material has been about god, sex and death. (Songs of Faith and Devotion could’ve been the title of any of their albums.) But even by Depeche Mode standards, their 15th album is obsessed with mortality, so much so they named it Memento Mori — an object or image that serves as a reminder of the inevitability of death. Gore says most of the songs were written during the pandemic, not long after turning 60 in the summer of 2021 but there’s no denying that they took on new meaning in the wake of founding member Andy Fletcher’s sudden death last May. Whether it was Fletcher’s death, Gore’s birthday, or just a bout of lockdown inspiration, Memento Mori is the most inspired Depeche Mode have sounded in a long time.

These days almost no reunion is surprising, but when Drop Nineteens announced last year that they were not only getting back together but were also working on their first album in 30 years, the sound of 40-and-50-something music nerd jaws hitting the floor could be heard in used record stores around the world. The classic lineup of the band — singer/guitarists Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley, plus bassist Steve Zimmerman, guitarist Motohiro Yasue, and drummer Peter Koeplin — are all back, which is amazing in and of itself, as most of the members stopped playing in bands or making records in the ’90s. That makes Hard Light all the more remarkable as it’s a genuinely terrific record, no qualifiers needed, one that nods to the past but isn’t beholden to it.

There was always a little bit of baroque folk lurking in Emma Anderson’s songs with Lush, and for her long-overdue solo debut, Pearlies, she worked with Maps’ James Chapman as producer and collaborator to help bring those elements to the fore. “I didn’t want to form a traditional four piece band to record these songs, so I needed a producer who was a whizz-kid programmer and arranger and James is just that,” Anderson says. Chapman adds synthesizers, but never makes these songs sound anything like Maps; they add background shading and atmosphere, an ethereal cloud of autumn foliage swirling around Anderson.

Back when rising superstar DJ Fred again.. was just a teenager, he began his career working with Brian Eno, and now that Fred is one of the most visible names in electronic music, he reunited with Brian for a collaborative album, Secret Life, released via Four Tet’s Text Records. It’s a genuinely gorgeous record and not exactly what you might expect from either Fred again.. or Brian Eno on their own, though its uses of field recordings and spare piano samples puts it more in Music for Airports territory than Actual Life. As Four Tet succinctly said, “it is the most beautiful album of 2023.”

No one expected Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt to announce they had made a new Everything But the Girl album, their first in over 20 years, but it was no shock it was this good. Born out the pandemic, FUSE picks up right where 1999’s Temperamental left off, blending elegant electronica and sophisticated ballads, while delivering a few new tricks as well. This may be the ultimate lockdown album, imbued with loss and mourning but embracing a “let’s make the rest count” energy. “Kiss me while the world decays,” Tracey Thorn sings on “Nothing Left to Lose,” her voice still EBTG’s greatest instrument and star attraction. FUSE should be a blueprint for any artist attempting a comeback and everything you could want in an Everything But the Girl album in 2023.

“The album distills my years of musical, political, and artistic life with these genre-breaking songs,” says The Raincoats’ Gina Birch of her first-ever solo album, I Play My Bass Loud. “It’s a personal diary using sounds and lyrics, full of fun, rage, and storytelling.” That, and the title, about sums it up. Producer Youth has a way of coaxing the best out of artists, creating a comfortable atmosphere that allows them to be themselves, and it’s clear that he and Birch hit it off. I Play My Bass Loud is terrific, funny, whipsmart, angry and never less than entertaining — a protest album that doesn’t forget to dance. Songs play like signboards, but feel more inclusive and defiant than didactic, even on a JAMC-ish, hissing force-of-nature song like “I Am Rage.”

Robert Pollard releases so many albums with his various bands you’d be forgiven for losing touch with Guided by Voices’ voluminous output, but there’s never been a better time to check back in with these indie rock lifers. The current group ranks up against any of their “classic lineups” and the production these days embraces high fidelity and brings out the arena rock band that’s always been there under the tape hiss. All of that is evident on Nowhere to Go But Up, the most ambitious GVB album in years that connects on almost every big swing. It’s also one of three albums they released in 2023 and the first of those, La La Land, is nearly as good. Next up will be the band’s 40th album and it will be interesting to find out what Bob has in store.

Jeromes Dream’s late ’90s and early 2000s material is some of the most influential screamo in existence, but if you don’t have an ear for the very harsh, very lo-fi recordings they put out back in the day, the entry barrier to their music can seem a little high. With The Gray In Between–Jeromes Dream’s second reunion album following 2019’s rust-polishing LP and their first with Loma Prieta’s Sean Leary on guitar–they’ve made an album that captures all of the power of their classic material and tops it off with the most accessible production of their career (recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jack Shirley). The sonic clarity does nothing to dampen the effect of Jeromes Dream’s aggression; it only makes them hit harder. It’s a dark, powerful, uncompromising album, and it really doesn’t sound like anything else in JD’s discography. For a reunited band that put out their first demo 25 years ago, that’s no small feat.

Mercy is Velvet Underground founding member John Cale’s first album in a decade and one of his least obtuse. This album is elegant and very modern sounding, and not just because it features contributions from Animal Collective, Weyes Blood, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Actress, and Fat White Family. In fact his collaborators mostly are doing subtle under-the-hood work on this album that feels seamless in concept and execution, like a drop of mercury gliding across polished stainless steel. If tracks didn’t say “Featuring” you probably wouldn’t ever wonder if there were guests at all. It’s Cale’s show all the way, with a spotlight on his still soaring, sonorous voice, backed with lush electronics, taking current hip hop and R&B production and bending it to his will.

Lloyd Cole sounded impossibly suave and sophisticated on his 1984 debut album, Rattlesnakes, when he was just 23, so it’s no surprise he’s aged gracefully over the last 40 years. He’s older and wiser but still making mistakes and getting by the best he can, and singing about it all with his distinctive, literate style and smoky croon. Cole is a quiet innovator too; 2019’s excellent Guesswork found him remodeling with synthesizers, and he continues in that direction with On Pain, his 13th full-length. For this one, Cole worked with producer Chris Merrick Hughes, who was behind the boards for Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair, as well as his former Commotions bandmates Blair Cowan and Neil Clark, for an album is both confident and comfortable. On Pain marries old and new while rarely looking back.

Lol Tolhurst and Budgie both played drums in two of the most iconic bands of the gloomy ’80s UK “alternative” scene (The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees, respectively). That takes your mind one place, while the addition of mega-producer/song doctor Jacknife Lee (U2, REM, The Killers, etc) is a wildcard that throws most preconceived notions out the window. Then there’s the impressive list of guests, including LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, The Edge, and more. Los Angeles, exceeds whatever expectations you might have all while being a warts-and-all ode to the city the three call home.

73-year-old outsider artist Lonnie Holley released his second proper album for the label, and this one’s loaded with guests from the indie music community. Bon Iver, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten, Moor Mother, and Jeff Parker, along with Malian artist Rokia Koné, assist Lonnie as he tells stream-of-consciousness tales of personal hardships, like growing up poverty-stricken in the Jim Crow South and being beaten at the Mount Meigs juvenile corrections facility. His world-weary delivery often blurs the lines between singing and spoken word, and it makes for a remarkable contrast with the familiar voices of his guests. Made in collaboration with producer Jacknife Lee (R.E.M., U2, Bloc Party, etc), Lonnie’s stories are propped up by a backdrop informed by jazz, ambient music, the avant-garde, and more, taking you on a journey that is both otherworldly and inspiring.

Having broken up at the end of the ’90s, undersung NYC indie rock band and college radio faves Madder Rose came out of hibernation for 2019’s To Be Beautiful, their first record in 20 years. It was the mellowest record they’d ever made, with elements of jazz and a few traces of their trip-hop-influenced third album (really), but Mary Lorson and Billy Coté’s bond and the band’s hazy sound was still there. Four years later, Madder Rose are back and sound like they mean it this time. No One Gets Hurt Ever, which also marks the return of Matt Verta-Ray for one song, is the Madder Rose you remember: smeary indie rock with strong songwriting and atmospheric playing courtesy Coté, and Lorson’s still heavenly voice at the center.

Madness are National Treasures in the UK and have been for more than 40 years, with 16 Top 10 singles and many #1 albums over the years. Still featuring almost the same lineup that gave us their classic 1979 debut One Step Beyond, the band have proven to be remarkably resilient. Like an issue of MOJO magazine, Madness have got “remember when” baked into their DNA — songs reminiscing about their youth on the streets of London — making their records evergreen. Coming off the success of their 2019 biography Before We Was We and subsequent three-part documentary series of the same name, Madness regrouped early in 2023 to record their 13th album, which they say was the most harmonious studio experience they’ve ever had. “For us, recording it was the perfect antidote to the chaos of the past few years,” the band say. “We were all there, properly in the zone.”

One of the quirkiest indie cult artists of the last 40 years, Lawrence Hayward has held dreams of becoming a pop star since his adolescence watching Top of The Pops in the 1970s. He’s a genius but also a genuine oddball, and as brilliant as his records have been, from Felt to Denim, Lawrence is just too left of center to actually make it happen. And that’s ok! His latest incarnation, a spin-off of his previous Go-Kart Mozart moniker, is not likely to finally give him that time in the spotlight but you have to admire the fully realized end result. Much like the last GKM record, this one blends his main obsessions — the ’70s, stardom and money (or lack thereof) — into one shiny, earth-toned package. Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping is as meticulously crafted as any record in his discography and loaded with very catchy, very quirky songs. A work this eccentric does ask the question, “Who is this album for?” The answer: Lawrence. Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! is his world and we can only window shop.

Forty-five years into their career, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark aren’t here trying to reinvent the wheel but Bauhaus Staircase is a rare beast, loaded with catchy songs in the band’s signature style that still sound modern, engaged and not treading water or simply tweaking their greatest hits. Bauhaus Staircase is not just good for a band who formed in 1978, it’s one of OMD’s best-ever albums.

Inspired by the remixes and reworks on last year’s Orbital 30 retrospective compilation, Orbital conceived their 10th album with guests on nearly every track. They’ve had vocalists on previous records — good (Goldfrapp) and less good (David Gray) — but Optical Delusion is their collab-iest record yet. Albums like this often sound good on paper but come off lackluster in the finished product, but Paul and Phil Hartnoll sound genuinely inspired here and, despite the remote nature of the album’s creation, neither they or their collaborators (Sleaford Mods and Penelope Isles among them) could be accused of ever phoning it in. Optical Delusion is easily their best record since 1999’s The Middle of Nowhere.

Peter Gabriel has never worried much about deadlines but i/o was an especially long time coming — his first album of all-new original material since 2002’s Up. “If I was a butterfly, 21 years would be an eternity,” Peter Gabriel told The New York Times. “And if I was a mountain, it would be a little flash. So it’s all relative.” Made over many years with his regular band (guitarist David Rhodes, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Manu Katché) and featuring contributions from Brian Eno, Richard Russell, the Soweto Gospel Choir, the New Blood Orchestra and more. The rollout for the album was also unique, with new songs released every month in 2023 on the full moon, and available in two distinct mixes: Bright Side and Dark Side. i/o is just as grand, anthemic and inclusive as you’d expect from Gabriel across these dozen sweeping, gorgeous songs.

PJ Harvey says that she and her longtime collaborators John Parish and Flood continue to work together because of a shared goal: “to challenge ourselves and not repeat ourselves.” Even if she didn’t say it that bluntly, that goal would come across loudly and clearly on I Inside the Old Year Dying, her newest album and first in six years. The album sounds like nothing she’s ever released, while also sounding distinctly like PJ Harvey, and it does sound like she’s challenging herself and her audience on this often-experimental LP. Several of the performances on the album were improvised and recorded the moment they were created, and that process really lends itself to these more meandering, less traditionally structured songs. It’s an album that rewards patient and repeat listens; it might not pop out at you right away, but the attention-grabbing moments are plentiful and they gradually reveal themselves.

“Relentless” is the perfect name for The Pretenders’ 12th album in 40+ years, as well as an apt descriptor for Chrissie Hynde’s spirit. She’s got plenty of swagger, sharp teeth and tenacity to spare — just like the eyepatched toddler pugilist found on the album’s cover — on this record she made with producer David Wrench and guitarist James Walbourne (her finest axeman/collaborator since original Pretender James Honeyman-Scott). Relentless is both a comment on and a reaction to aging and mortality as it relates to her stock and trade. On “Losing My Sense of Smell” she sings, “I don’t even care about rock and roll / All my favourites seem tired and old / My whole collection now feels like a waste / I’m losing my sense of taste” but on great single “Let the Sun Come In” she counters, “We don’t have to get fat / We don’t have to get old… We don’t have to fade to black”. Relentless is proof Hynde, at 71, is far from fading.

Public Image Ltd’s 11th album is, like band founder and frontman John Lydon, full of contradictions, many infuriating. But there’s also many moments that remind you of Lydon’s rightful place in punk/post-punk/alt history. The current lineup of the band — Lydon, guitarist Lu Edmonds (The Damned, Mekons), drummer Bruce Smith (The Pop Group / Slits) and bassist Scott Firth (Spice Girls!) — is rock solid as they continue to swim in the dancey, dubby and Celtic water in which PiL have been floating since the late ’80s. Lydon is more successful as a lyricist when he’s looking inward, facing his own mortality. “Hawaii,” a love letter to Lydon’s late wife, is the high point, but “Walls,” “Strange” and “Down on the Clown” make the most of appealingly low-key grooves and Lydon at his most quizzical and humanistic.

Robert Forster has never shied away from using his own life as the basis for songs, be it with The Go-Betweens or his solo career. But The Candle and the Flame is the most deeply personal record of his 40+ year career. It was recorded after his wife, Karin Bäumler, was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and features his whole family, including son Louis (formerly of The Good Sax) and daughter Loretta. The Candle and The Flame became a way for the family to bond and for Karin to fight. No song is overly adorned but the care given to them is apparent. The circumstances around it could not be more difficult and personal, but the result is effortless and universal.

The Rolling Stones are one of the most iconic rock bands in the world and have never been “indie” themselves but are very much legends within indie and almost every other artist on this list owes a sonic debt to them. Caveats aside, we just didn’t expect this album to be as fun to listen to as it is and we wanted another chance to talk about it.

Mick and Keith have been side by side for literally over 60 years, a feat that would’ve been unthinkable when they emerged as leaders of youth culture in the 1960s, and they’ve still got it. They still strut around the stage and sound larger-than-life at their in-demand stadium shows, and Hackney Diamonds sounds like something they could’ve put out in the ’70s. There’s a slight modern gloss, probably thanks in part to co-producer Andrew Watt–who works with people like Post Malone and Miley Cyrus but also likes to help veteran rockers like Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop make new records–but even with that, this really sounds like the Stones you know and love.

A total surprise when they first announced it nearly a decade ago, Slowdive’s return has become one of the most rewarding second acts in recent memory. Their second album since reuniting is decidedly more understated than its 2017 predecessor — right down to it’s title and songs, rendered in lowercase — but its many wonders bloom with repeat listens, revealing a moving, melancholic, magisterial work. There is sadness but also joy and wonder in songs like “kisses,” “alife” and “skin in the game” with Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell’s voices and gossamer guitars melding in perfect atmospheric harmony. everything is alive is Slowdive’s most cohesive, emotionally resonant album yet, is a subtle stunner that is possibly the best record of their career.

Has any group maintained an image, sound and level of quality across 50 years as well as Sparks? Ron and Russell Mael were weirdo geniuses right out of the gate and have seen popular culture ebb and flow around their distinct brand of tongue-in-cheek operatic rock, while never trying to make music based on what was in at the time. The band have been back in the public eye in the last few years, the most spotlight they’ve seen since the mid-’70s, thanks to two films — Edgar Wright’s wonderful documentary The Sparks Brothers and Annette, their rock opera collaboration with director Leos Carax — and have found themselves back on Island Records, the label that released their two 1974 classics, Kimono My House and Propaganda, among others. Their 26th album, The Girl is Crying in Her Latte finds Ron and Russell, who are 77 and 74 respectively, sounding sharp as ever, mixing synthpop, glam and classical elements for tales of modern ennui, filtered through their twisted sense of humor and love of cinema.

Not only did Native Nod put out the discography comp This Can’t Exist on Numero Group this year, Chris Leo’s post-Native Nod band The Van Pelt also released their first album in 26 years, Artisans & Merchants. More than a quarter-century may have passed by, but The Van Pelt sound just like you remember them. Artisans & Merchants has that classic Van Pelt mix of spoken word, sprawling instrumentals, and the occasional melodic singing, and these new songs carry the same emotional weight and lyrical wit as the band’s classic ’90s records. It was recorded and mixed by Jeff Zeigler (The War On Drugs, Kurt Vile), who helps give The Van Pelt an ever-so-slightly more modern production style without tainting the humble, trad-indie vibes they’re best known for, and it’s got a few minor embellishments courtesy of Chris’ brother Ted Leo and American Football/Birthmark’s Nate Kinsella. The Van Pelt were always a band with some unfinished business, and Artisans & Merchants doubles down on the fact that they needed to come back. They truly had more to say, and they sound fantastic saying it.

Yo La Tengo don’t throw any curveballs on This Stupid World, but they don’t need to. This album features nine examples of a band still in control of their sound, still within its bounds, but still finding new inspiration and corners to explore. It’s a refinement of everything that’s come before, but it also plays like a calling card. What does Yo La Tengo sound like? This Stupid World. There are the jagged, fuzzy pop numbers, krautrock inspired one-chord groovers, feedback-laden slow-burn rippers, hazy shoegaze, and especially pretty songs sung by Georgia. Lyrically, as usual, they mix thoughtful ruminations on life, peppered with pop culture nonsequiteurs. This Stupid World may not offer any big swing innovations, but it’s top tier Yo La Tengo. The real revelation is considering just how consistently great they’ve remained over four decades.