Hails and pixels you pixelated metalheads! It’s been three years since I last posted and that was for an end of the year list as well. I guess that’s how I roll now. I’ll just post when I want to make a list. Well, maybe I’ll do a bit more regular posts too. I like to keep my readership on their toes!
2024 has been a pretty wild year for many reasons, which I am sure that everyone is aware of, and when it comes to metal, it has been a banger year too. There have been a lot of stellar releases which made narrowing down this list a little tricky to do. I have also been listening to other music besides metal as well and I’ll list that in a separate post. You know, to drive the clicks and get that sweet, sweet ad revenue.
Before I countdown my top 10, I’m going to list off the honorable mentions. I listened to a lot more than what’s listed; this is just my shortlist of nominees.
The Absence - The Absence
Accept - Humanoid
Amiensus - Reclamation Pt. I & Pt. II
Ancst - Culture of Brutality
Apogean - Cyberstrictive
The Black Dahlia Murder - Servitude
Caligula’s Horse - Charcoal Grace
Exocrine - Legend
Firewind - Stand United
Galneryus - The Stars Will Light the Way
Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition
Ghetto Ghouls - Vigilante Crusaders
Glacial Tomb - Lightless Expanse
Haunt - Dreamers
Iotunn - Kinship
Lord Dying - Clandestine Transcendence
Monument of Misanthropy - Vile Postmortem Irrumatio
Nile - The Underworld Awaits Us All
Orpheus Omega - Emberglow
Ryujin - Ryujin
Swallow the Sun - Shining
Tarot - Glimpse of the Dawn
Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Æternum
Unto Others - Never, Neverland
Vorga - Beyond the Palest Star
Winterfylleth - The Imperious Horizon
10. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Even though Blood Incantation is death metal, you really don’t know what to completely expect from them. One minute they’re playing some searing, spacedust riffs and the next they’re taking you on a cosmic journey that is serene. With Absolute Elsewhere, the Colorado quartet take us on a journey through the cosmos that would make Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson proud.
Song to Check Out: The Stargate [Tablet I]
9. Borknagar - Fall
The Norwegian progressive viking quintet are back at it again with Fall! Borknagar has always pushed the envelope of what is acceptable in black and viking metal and they continue to do so on their twelfth album. Epic frost bitten riffs layered with freezing rasps and operatic highs make Fall my ninth favorite album of the year.
Song to Check Out: Northward
The term “progressive death metal” gets applied to a lot of bands today: Opeth, Edge of Sanity, Disillusion, etc and while that’s apt for them, they don’t really embrace the progressive rock side (well Opeth does that more often than not nowadays) the way that Octoploid does. Beyond the Aeons is basically a long lost Yes or Pink Floyd album that has some death growls over it.
Song to Check Out: Shattered Wings
7. Alcest - Les Chants de l’Aurore
If you ever wanted to hear what a dream’s soundtrack would be, then it would most likely be Les Chants de l’Aurore. The blackened shoegaze riffs will just uplift you into the stratosphere past the clouds as you soar throughout the world, traveling throughout the lands.
Song to Check Out: Komorebi
The first time I heard Orange Goblin was when A Eulogy for the Damned came out. I was put into a weed fog induced haze with their brand of stoner metal. Unfortunately, to me, they didn’t quite reach those heights with their two subsequent albums. However with Science, Not Fiction, they did it again for me! Riffs that you can rip a bong to, chug a beer to, and break the speed limit on your chopper are on their latest album.
Song to Check Out: The Fury of a Patient Man
5. Undeath - More Insane
Undeath return with a new album that is yeah, pretty insane. The artwork is brutal beauty and the riffs are gorgeously grimy. Undeath reach deep into the depths of the tomb of the mutilated for riffs that Cannibal Corpse would be proud to call their own, and then let them fester and rot in the crypts. The riffs are sometimes catchy and very disgusting. The drums blastbeat you over the head. The bass butchers your face and the vocals are snarly sick.
Song to Check Out: Disputatious Malignancy
4. Gaerea - Coma
I’ve noticed that a lot of my favorite albums this year have a lot of progressive elements with death and/or black metal roots. Coma by Gaerea really isn’t progressive but damn, does the black metal strike with ferocity. Their snarled fangs pierce your ears and just do not let up until the venomous riffs are injected into your brain. Plus, I love the album artwork which looks like it was done with a ballpoint pen. And of course the aesthetic of the band is really fucking cool too.
Song to Check Out: Hope Shatters
3. Ihsahn - Ihsahn
At this point in Ihsahn’s solo career, I think that he has surpassed whatever Emperor has done during their short reign. I know that’s blasphemy in the dark inner black metal circle, but I don’t really give a fuck what they think. He has been pushing himself as an artist for over 15 years now and he’s just going to do what he wants. For his self-titled, he really leans into orchestration that we really haven’t heard since Prometheus - The Discipline of Fire and Demise. It feels like this album was composed for a movie.
Song to Check Out: Pilgrimage to Oblivion
The album that everyone (well, anyone who is an Opeth fan) was anticipating, because Mikael Akerfledt said that there would be growls on the album! Can you believe it!? It’s been 13 years and 4 albums ever since Mikael released the baying of the hounds. Of course, they never really stopped doing growls since Opeth still has an expansive backlog of progressive death metal; they just didn’t do any of that on their current albums. Well no more! The Last Will and Testament is a damn fine album. It takes the best of their “Newpeth” material with some of the best of Watershed that makes a perfect melding of the past decade or so of their career.
Song to Check Out: §5
1. Thy Catafalque - XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek
I’ve known about this Hungarian act for a while now but I sometimes sleep on them. And I did kind of sleep on this album initially. I kept returning to it though. Thy Catafalque has always been difficult to categorize so the label of avant-garde is attached to them. Which, yeah, that’s appropriate but you’ll hear some freezing moon black metal, a bit of blood splattered death metal, dance inducing Hungarian folk music, and even a taste of pop music. These styles are never disparate and are often very catchy.
Song to Check Out: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek
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