Welcome to the fifth annual installment of The Elite Extremophile’s Top Prog Releases. 2023 was an exceptional year for prog and prog-adjacent genres, and I was left with a glut of good music that wasn’t going to make my year-end lists. Even in less-stellar years, there are often records that I’m overall unimpressed with, which just so happen to have a great song or two on them. Thus, from a desire to not give such releases the short shrift, I’ve decided to highlight ten Cool Songs from this year.
This segment is meant to show off great tracks that otherwise do not appear on my year-end lists. If a release makes my best EPs or best albums list, it is disqualified from appearing in this particular segment.
Without further ado, let’s get to it!
Amoeba Split – “Quiet Euphoria”: Jazzy and relatively light, this glockenspiel-forward track is jammy, groovy, and overall a lot of fun.
Botanist – “Sword of the Night”: At their best, Botanist’s unique brand of dulcimer-powered black metal makes them one of the most interesting acts in the contemporary scene.
GEZAN with Million Wish Collective – “「誅犬 / Chuken – Death Penalty Dog」”: Featuring dense vocal arrangements, jagged guitar, and a twisted catchiness, this is a great art-punk track.
Jethro Tull – “Hammer on Hammer”: Despite iffy production and a weak voice, Ian Anderson still has some magic left in his songwriting.
Bobby Lee – “Impregnated by Drops of Rainbow”: Echoing and meditative, this cut is a solid distillation of Lee’s distinctive brand of post-Kraut-Americana.
Light – “Betray”: Featuring flavors of dark jazz and cabaret, this cut is wonderfully disorienting and dramatic.
Lil Yachty – “The Black Seminole”: Lil Yachty’s foray into psych rock was a bit inconsistent, but this song is a striking example of classic, Floydian sounds.
Loma Baja – “AAAAA”: This hazy, droning piece plods forward with haunting, dogged determination.
Tritop – “The Sacred Law of Retribution”: This 23-minute opus is over-the-top in the most fun way possible.
Kevin Wulf – “Faust”: Ever wonder what it might sound like if Magma played folk rock? This standalone single from Kevin Wulf is a fantastic approximation of that concept.
The Elite Extremophile 
I am just getting “Page Not Found” when I click on the link.
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You should be able to see it now. I accidentally published it too early, so I unpublished it.
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Cool list, thanks. I love to read your site but I’ve never commented (mostly because I’m mostly a classic prog fan who discovered one of your deep dives and stayed out of sheer curiosity). You’re a great writer with a knack for finding some really interesting music; keep up the great work. Anyway, I haven’t heard anything on this list, but I’m interested to see what Tull are like nowadays, and that Kevin Wulf description is highly intriguing.
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