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Heavy Blog's Superlatives List For 2024

Well hello there! As has become our wont, we will kick off our Album of the Year of 2024 posting with our Superlatives List!

17 days ago

Well hello there! As has become our wont, we will kick off our Album of the Year of 2024 posting with our Superlatives List! As a reminder, that's where we get together as a group to have some fun, choose some silly/serious categories of albums, and submit a few albums to each! Sometimes it's one album! Sometimes it's five! What cheer! Being serious for a moment, it's our way to get away from ranked lists, being the futile attempt at cataloging music that they are, and give more space to the sheer diversity of a year's worth of releases.

After this, we'll aim to post an Album of the Year content piece every few days, whether that be our individual Top 25s, guest lists, and the respective end of year entries for our columns. We expect that to take us all the way into February which, if you ask me (and you are, because you're reading Heavy Blog!) is when end of year content should end.

OK! Let's get to it. Goodbye 2024. You sucked just as much as any year.

-Eden Kupermintz

Unto the Breach

Albums most likely to make you cause/sustain grievous injury

Concrete Winds - Concrete Winds

If you want an idea as to what Concrete Winds sound like, look no further than the title of their sophomore album Nerve Butcherer for a succinct summation. The band themselves have described their sound as “aggressive noise torment”, which is also extremely apt. On Concrete Winds, the band continues their violently intense and claustrophobic approach to war metal and builds upon it in the most delightlyfully torturous ways possible.

Listening to any single track on Concrete Winds is a test of the limitations of anxiety control. Once you get past the impenetrable wall of sound, in which the band allows you no space to breathe, you quickly become acquainted with the rapid-fire blast beats, the sharp spikes of dissonant chords, and the unpredictable slashes of wildly untamed guitar solos. These elements are especially incendiary when utilized simultaneously in tracks such as “Infernal Repeater”. During the climax of that track, one guitar engages in high-register disharmony, another guitar performs a tumultuous dive-bomb-filled solo, and the drums never relent their pounding assault.

Even at a lean 25 minutes, Concrete Winds leaves you feeling mentally drained and physically exhausted. On Concrete Winds, the tracks whip you back and forth like a chaotic cyclone, pulling you ever closer to your demise. From these vicious winds, there is no escape.

-JD

Poppy - Negative Spaces

I really didn’t know that what I needed in 2024 was for Poppy to do the Disturbed “ough ough” but I really fucking needed it apparently because I have not been able to put down this album ever since it came out. On Negative Spaces, Poppy completes her musical journey from sometimes metal-tinged hyper-pop and into sometimes poppy (get it) nu-metal and it fucking rules. Seriously, it’s hard to overstate how much harder this album goes from so much that released this year; Poppy feels unchained from the conventions of modern metal and is just having a lot of fun and doing what metal is best for - channeling your frustrations and aggressions in an explosive and cathartic manner. This is an album to mosh to, to dance to, and to yell to. It has admonitions for a future generation of rebels (“the cost of giving up”), heavy as fuck riffs interlaced with breakbeat drums (“the center’s falling out”), and simple and satisfying explosions of aggression (“new way out”). In short, it fucking goes and it makes me want to punch everything and also lie down and cry. It’s fucking metal. 

-EK

Party Cannon - Injuries Are Inevitable

If there’s an album built for this category, it’s Injuries Are Inevitable by Scottish slam stalwarts Party Cannon. Building on the IQ-lowering insanity of Volumes of Vomit, Injuries Are Inevitable showcases why a neon, vomit, and glitter-soaked touring project has lasted a damn decade. Ever since the pandemic forced Party Cannon off the road and into the studio, their sound has only become denser, nastier, and heavier. Injuries Are Inevitable delivers a stomach-churning mix of competing guttural vocals, chunky slam riffs, and neck-breaking blast beats. It’s the purest possible distillation of slam, taking inspiration from heavyweights like Devourment, Gorgasm, Dying Fetus, Exhumed, and Disgorge, then pulling them down to Neanderthal levels of ignorance. Believe me, that’s a compliment in the wild world of Party Cannon. 

-Bridget Hughes 

Brutalism - Solace in Absurdity

Balancing warped technicality, raw death metal aggression, and skull-crushing brutality, Brutalism emerged with a distinctive sound that defies expectations for a first release. Sitting alongside raw brutal death metal bands like Heavy favorites  Excrescence and Nithing, Brutalism injects a stripped-back approach to BDM with well-executed technical songwriting, adding a twisted edge to a genre that can lack imagination. 

Guitars are ever-so-slightly the dominant force on Solace in Absurdity, directing the overall feel of the album and adding heft to Brutalism’s rawness. Mind-bending riffs are juxtaposed against classic skronks and snares, keeping brutal death metal at the heart of the album while experimenting to great success. BDM addicts, tech death nerds, and even OSDM enthusiasts will all find something to love on Solace in Absurdity, making this a can’t-miss release from the dark depths of the underground. 

-Bridget Hughes

Knocked Loose - You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard too much about Knocked Loose this year. Insert some complaint about selling out, or maybe how you can’t stand Bryan Garris’ vocals, or perhaps that you don’t get where all the hype is coming from. If this is the case, too bad for you and your enlightened contrarian need to deprive yourself of a good time. You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is stupid fun, with filthy riffs and breakdowns densely packed into a brisk 25 minute package. Poppy features earlier in this section with her own album too, but her guest verse on “Suffocate” here is similarly excellent, while “Don’t Reach for Me” and “Blinding Faith” are still some of the most furious and cathartic tunes you’ll hear this year. 

Look, I couldn’t let the 2024 Superlatives list not give a nod to this year’s breakout metal band, the stratospheric rise of which is unlike anything I’ve seen in a good while. But it’s just objectively sick as hell to see whole arenas and Jimmy Kimmel audiences being exposed to blast beats and nasty seven string riffage, thus potentially introducing new fans to our beautifully absurd world of heavy music – and the bodily damage it may induce. 

-Ahmed Hasan

Finally, Some Good Fucking Riffs

The albums that caused/brought the most stank

In Hearts Wake - Incarnation

A decade after they last caught my attention, fellow Aussies In Hearts Wake have taken this lapsed fan into a vice like grip and dragged him headbanging and screaming into one of 2024’s best metalcore records. If an opening track titled “Spitting Nails” didn’t already get their point across, IHW are back heavier, angrier, and stronger than ever. After a short intro with a canned drum beat, distant vocals and shitty guitar tone, frontman Jake Taylor divebombs into the front of the mix with a gut-punch vocal delivery of the track title as the full band roars into life around him. A classic, fast-paced hardcore riff then propels the songs forwards and through several tempo shifts and groovier moments - but it’s in the bridge where things really take off. A barnstorming variation of the opening riff that’ll have you feet stomping and table flipping is quickly joined by some ripping double kicks to really get the stank face flowing. 

Despite no longer having a clean vocalist in their ranks, there is no shortage of memorable vocal hooks as follow-up “Hollow Bone” can attest to. A more memorable chorus is paired with groovier and more melodic guitar playing to make for a sumptuous 1-2 punch to kick off the record. Next up we have “The Flood”, inspired by the terrible floods that struck their home region in 2022. Vicious vocals, thunderous drumming, and furious riffing are interspersed with brooding and atmospheric synth lines and news clips discussing the horrific events. Each iteration of verse/chorus only gets heavier, angrier, and more deranged as Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall leads the second iteration, before both vocalists trade-off in a brutal finale. The downright evil delivery of “You can’t hide from the horror anymore” to close out the track is one of my favourite moments of the year in what is clearly the record’s standout track.

After three standout tracks to open it’s time to slow things down and give the listener some respite. Haha, yeah right, instead they hit you with the heaviest track on the record, with atonal guitars and a crushing breakdown. It does not let up, and whether they’re going for a flash of melody, some groovy 0s and 1s or ripping out another breakdown Incarnation is certainly not short of Some Good Fucking Riffs.

-KD

WORMED - OMEGON

On one hand, I don’t need to explain anything about this pick - it’s WORMED, right? Of course they have fucking riffs. However, OMEGON is also the grooviest that this band have ever been and that’s saying something for the grooviest, slammiest, techiest, death metal adjacent band ever. It’s really hard to put my finger on it, partly because it has been blasted away by WORMED’s riffs. So maybe you just need to listen to it to yourself and really all you have to do is listen to “AUTOMATION VIRTULAGE” (because of course that’s what the track is called) which opens up the album. Listen to the guitars, sure, but also listen to those fucking drums and the immense amount of groove that they add to this monster. And yes, I know this is a category about riffs but riffs are also drums, I have decided. They just add so much swagger to the guitar parts and flesh out (or even set out) the overall structure which the riffs then use to generate the vast amounts of stank this album contains. OK seriously it’s WORMED OK? Just listen to this.

-EK

Disastroid - Garden Creatures

The signature sound of San Francisco duo Disastroid has always been unorthodox riffs filtered through a heavy veil of fuzz, pairing a surprising hit of technicality with the effortless cool of doom. Garden Creatures finds the same sludge for the intellectual stoner metalhead in full form, with the smoky edge of vocalist Enver Koneya’s adding a mournful note to the album’s muscular riffs. The layer of grunge sticking to Disastroid’s deceptively languid grooves further juxtaposes their sound against the cool of classic doom, evoking a rockstar too far gone. On “Figurative Object,” Koneya howls for help over sludgy guitars that cascade into headbanging riffs. The track captures the beautiful nightmare of ‘the show must go on’ and showcases the massive riffs summoned by Disastroid’s sludgy sound .

 

-BH

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

Albums that got you totes emosh, holding back the tears, or sobbing uncontrollably.

Towers of Jupiter - Echus Chasma 

This album didn’t make me cry; it made me fall into a pit of despair and then rediscover the light in its depths. It made me see the world melt away, mourn that, and then find the jewel of self-belief behind it. In short, OK yeah, it made me cry. Towers of Jupiter have fast become my favorite band in this grunge/shoegaze/post-rock wave of 2024 (more on which I wrote in Post Rock Post). It’s hard for me to point at one reason why that is. It certainly involves the unique timbre of the vocals and how it’s deployed to give the band a sort of lingering, melting away feeling that’s really hard to find anywhere else. Couple that with the fact that this EP sees the band get even better at putting together all of their parts into a release and you get something incredibly special, something I have been able to stay away from and wished I could since it always draws down the curtains of sadness around me. OK, I have to go now because I’m listening to the album while writing this and “Morsus Frigoris” just came in and I am going to weep.

-EK

Brume - Marten 

I remember my first time seeing Brume like it was yesterday. In the dimly lit interior of Thee Parkside, vocalist Susie McMullan was a neon pink spark in a sea of black t-shirts and leather jackets. She announced “Dolly Parton is more metal than all y’all” with a laugh before launching into Brume’s set. Not only is McMullan completely correct – Dolly would kick all of our asses – but that moment broke the ice for me in San Francisco’s metal scene. Still new to the city and deeply unsure of my place in it, Brume’s glittery funeral marches were the first sounds to sound like home. Marten expands the range of their beautiful and somber music with vocalist/cellist Jackie Perez Gratz. Grief, fury, and hope are drenched in crushing riffs, only to be lifted by the melancholy elegance of the cello and ethereal vocals. Indie influences offer glimmers of light in smoky, mournful dirges. Listen if you need to cry, then strap on your cowboy boots and keep marching on. 

-BH

Touché Amoré - Spiral in a Straight Line 

Touché Amoré could write anything at this point and it would find a way to make me cry. Vocalist Jeremy Bolm has such a beautiful knack for expressing his experiences with mental illness, loss, grief, and those littlest things that keep us going. While not as heart wrenchingly devastating as Stage Four, this album finds Bolm struggling more with day-to-day existence, growing older and longing for the past. Lyrics are generally a secondary thing in music for me, but it’s hard not to get lost in them here, and this continues to be the driving strength of Touche Amore. Is this the pinnacle of their discography? Probably not, but it's a meaningful contribution to what has been staggeringly consistent output from this emotional hardcore band. While this sneakily may be their catchiest album to date, it does so without compromising on delivering emotional blow after blow and moments of huge catharsis. Top this off with some surprisingly refreshing guest features from the likes of Julien Baker and Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr, Touché showcase their range from upbeat punk bangers to slower emo ballads, nailing the execution everytime.  

We say goodbye for now, to be free, no longer bound

To journey out and see what else is out there to be found”

-TB

Critical Hit! Roll 2d4 for Damage

What you would prefer your bard would *actually* play while your adventuring party is slaying dragons and plundering treasure during your D&D campaign

Dungeon Crawl - Maze Controller

It’s interesting that this category, which we have in some shape or form every year because it’s just a lot of fun, is usually filled with power metal. I mean, I get why - it’s the genre most associated with fantasy. But the reality is that the birth of D&D, and its first spike in popularity, precede power metal and coincide more closely with thrash metal. It’s also interesting that one of the greatest power metal bands of all time, Blind Guardian, started off as a thrash metal band (sort of, but roll with me here). And so, I’m always on the hunt for some good, nerdy thrash metal and it does exist. Case in point, Dungeon Crawl’s Maze Controller from this year. Beyond just being a fun album about D&D that doesn’t take itself too seriously, it also just fucking rips. This is not your flowery, over the top power/heavy; this is razor-sharp blackened thrash metal. That’s also about swords and shit. OK and it also has some flowery, over the top power/heavy solos. What’s not to like? Press play immediately.

-EK

Sic transit gloria mundi

Albums to contemplate the fall of humanity, the end of the world, and the desolation of all things to

Sugar Horse - The Grand Scheme of Things

Sugar Horse are fast cementing themselves as a sort of band (project? group? collective?) that cannot really be foreseen or planned for. From kicking noise rock through grunge, punk, and even some grind, and now all the way to atmospheric, hazy post-rock, doom and post-metal, the name always marks quality. The Grand Scheme of Things is their most ambitious album yet, in composition rather than musical collaboration. It takes its time to build up from the self-titled opening track but what it builds up to is more beautiful and challenging than that first (and already excellent) track would prepare you for.

It ends beyond the sky, with “Space Tourist”, one of the most beautiful and overwhelmingly moving ambient tracks I’ve heard in recent years. In part pure noise and in part emergent musical storytelling, it took my breath away the first time I heard it and keeps me coming back for more. But here’s the thing - even though I’ve just highlighted the first and last track, there is so much more that happens in between and, indeed, the best way to listen to, and understand, “Space Tourist” is to do so by listening to the full album. Luckily enough for you, that’s easy to do as its lush, expressive, and expertly put together parts flow from the recording and into your heart. Hallelujah!

-EK

Green Thumbs Up

Jaunts through the forest, hikes through the mist, journeys in nature

The Flight of Sleipnir - Nature's Cadence

Back in 2017, I stumbled on The Flight of Sleipnir’s Skadi and there was a lot there that made me fall in love with the band. Over time, one attribute of it though that stayed with me the most: the warm and unique production. It’s not a style you usually hear on black metal and not even on doom, which are the true pillars which make up the band’s sound but it fits so well with their lush style of composition and songwriting. Eventide, the album which follows Skadi, is amazing; one of my favorite albums of 2021, but it moved somewhat away from that production which I loved, taking a more harsher, “colder” tone. Which is why I was absolutely thrilled to hear Nature’s Cadence and immediately note that the band decided to bring that approach back.

It makes the album one of the more redolent and undulating albums of 2024, something you can (and something I have) dive into again and again. The composition and overall genre mix is the same: fantastically written black metal edges overlaid on fuzzy, expansive doom sensibilities. But now, it is once again paired with this amazingly warm, hazy, and hug-like sound, creating something that’s not only great but is also fantastically unique.

-EK

Botanist - Paleobotany 

San Francisco legend Botanist emerged with their 12th album in 2024, treating us to a grand journey 70 million years in the making. The band’s signature sound – forged in the fire of hammered dulcimers – continues to subvert all traditional definitions of black metal. Played on folk instruments, often treading deliberately close to acoustic territory, Botanist should be a blackened folk band. Yet their sound remains firmly planted (get it?) in midnight depths with evil melodies and harsh vocals. Inspired by the death and rebirth caused by the Chicxulub asteroid, Paleobotany is a lush journey shimmering with distortion. Charged with ancient energies, Paleobotany is a grand tour through the world before civilization: primal, majestic, and teeming with life. Mesmerising clean vocals exchange strident words with terrifying growls, creating the most accessible and devastating sonic palette we’ve heard yet from Botanist. 

-BH

Together to the Stars - The Fragile Silence 

Nature and black metal have long held a strong connection, especially of the more atmospheric and post- varieties. This motif was popularized by the likes of early Ulver and Agalloch, bringing with it a strong link to winter. The grim bleakness, the samples of howling winds and footsteps trudging through snow, it all comes together for this strong feeling of melancholic solitude. The stresses of the world being reduced to just your own thoughts, the trees around you and the sky above. The release for me to most exemplify this in 2024, while also just being really well-written, was Together to the Stars’ The Fragile Silence. Sure, there were more trve black metal releases from the likes of Paysage d’Hiver or Trhä that might also fit this niche, but this Swedish group’s 3rd full-length further lean into post-rock influence in both sound and production brought out a lot of the range of emotions associated with submersion in nature. Beyond the pensive sadness, the melodies spark deep contemplation and moments of euphoric beauty. For a black metal album that’s as approachable and digestible as this is, the weight and depth to it is impressive.  

-TB

Heroic Doses

Albums that best accompany epic psychedelic trips, whether nightmarish or euphoric

STEEF - hngryhrnybrkn

From DEVO and The Residents, oddball music made by art school nerds for art school nerds (either actual art students or merely in spirit) is a longheld tradition in the darker corners of college studios. These bands often integrate absurdist senses of humor, postmodern sensibilities, and performance art into a paranoid yet playful style. STEEF is one of the more recent manifestations of that tradition, sharing a sound and vision with modern artists such as Slugbug, Cabo Boing, and Macula Dog. Similar to those bands, STEEF takes influence from new wave, no wave, egg punk and a slew of other styles to encapsulate the 21st century’s technology-driven anxiety and malaise.

The silliness of STEEF’s 2022 debut Post F only hinted at what was to come with hngryhrnybrkn. And hngryhrnybrkn is as absurd and surreal as it is varied and intricate. According to STEEF’s Bandcamp page, they used a direct input strat, decades-old drum machines, and Yamaha DX7 stock keyboard patches, which all imbue an endearingly amateurish quality to the music. Whereas the songs on Post F really did feel clumsy in many ways, the songs on hngryhrnybrkn are sonically and structurally unpredictable just as much as they are masterfully performed. 

As a result of this balance between the naive and the sophisticated, STEEF’s latest album is a complex, unsettling, and thoroughly fun listening experience. Perhaps it’s not the best soundtrack to a psychedelic experience, but listening to it will likely derange your senses and your sense of reality in the same way. Maybe that’s the only way to confront the absurd world we live in today.

-JD

Caelestra - Bastion

Bastion has the honor of winning not one but two of my recurring end of year content awards: it is both that one album every year that arrives super late and skyrockets to the top of my list and an album that could fit on multiple categories of this post. For this category, I would like to stress the sheer scope and scale of the album; not only is it a sci-fi concept album (which you gives a hint as to at least one of the other categories it might belong in) but it’s also musically expansive, flinging its aural paint far and wide. There’s something so moving about the sheer size of the compositions on this release, taking the best that progressive metal has to offer and blending it with its vociferous style of black metal. “Lightbringer” is the track everyone keeps talking about and with good reason; it’s also a fantastic album of the breadth that I’m trying to convey to you here, as its chorus echoes across the spaces between the stars and right into your heart. If you’re looking for 2024’s best epic album, look no further - it’s this one.

-EK

Aureole - Allunarian Bellmaster

While Oranssi Pazuzu’s 2024 release Muuntautuja has rightly been praised as a masterclass in black metal experimentalism and psychedelia, Aureole’s Allunarian Bellmaster has been noticeably absent from those conversations. Coming from the same dark mind behind the brilliant Tchornobog and Drown projects, sole member Markov “M.S.” Sarkov immaculately balances black metal and dark ambient in a way that few similar bands are able to succeed in doing.

Several of the hallmarks of black metal are present throughout much of the album: melodic tremolo picking, tortured howls, dark atmospherics, and a murky production among others. However, the songs on Allunarian Bellmaster often tread at a narcotic pace, and often include tribal drum patterns, sampled bells, and unsettling and otherwordly textures. On top of that, M.S.’s vocals are filtered in such a way that they sound like an apparition speaking in reverse during a gale. In many ways, the vocals are just another sonic layer contributing to the ominous soundscapes.

At times, Allunarian Bellmaster could easily be the soundtrack to a dystopian science fiction thriller. At other times, the songs seem to decompose and warble like a worn out tape. It’s all part of the strange, ritualistic journey that M.S.’s latest masterpiece takes the listener on. It’s a journey into the darker corners of the mind as much as it is a journey into the outer reaches of the universe.

-JD

Kumara - Nukes and Napalm 

Estonian heavy psych/sludge band Kumara is the soundtrack to a long-lost sci-fi series from the 1970s. Hallucinogenic yet groovy, acidic yet catchy, Nukes and Napalm delivers fuzzed out jams with a post-apocalyptic edge.

Muscular riffs rollick across the oversaturated landscape, punctuated by defiant vocals. But underneath the heady rhythm lies something sinister - guitars are blown out to the point of bitterness, half-shouted lyrics sound almost…desperate, worn out by exhaustion. Swirling psychedelics are turning down a dark path. The sound is less feel-good experimentation, more acid trip gone wrong as caustic sludge mixes with heavy psych. A dangerous journey, but one absolutely worth braving in pursuit of relentless grooves. 

-BH

Heavy Blog is Not Heavy

Albums we played when we needed to give our chronic tinnitus a break from even more ear-splitting cacophony

Total Blue - Total Blue

Part of what attracts me to ambient, and electronic music in general, is that many artists in the style are able to capture the ethereal and the inexpressable. I have found that other styles of music have never quite captured those feelings for me – at least to the same degree. That may be because most other styles of music I generally listen to have more “traditional” instrumentation (i.e. guitar, bass, and drums) in which the tactile “human” connection to the music is immediately identifiable. But with most electronic music, there seems to be an additional degree of separation that removes that direct human element. With Total Blue’s debut album, Los Angeles musicians Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico utilize fretless bass, guitar, and a slew of 80s synthesizer sounds to achieve the same dreamscapes that much of my favorite, strictly digital, ambient music does. 

Benedek’s and Talan’s solo work as Benedek and Coolwater, respectively, point to the overlap of jazz, ambient, and new age that Total Blue’s music encompasses. But there are influences beyond the members’ own projects that are almost immediately recognizable. The synth guitar and fretless bass of “The Path” and “Corsair” reflect the new-age-inflected work of jazz masters Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius. However, the compositional structure of those tracks is less defined and lacks the structure of those artists’ compositions. The thumping synth bass and staccato guitar chords of “Heart of the World” create a rhythmical foundation by which the airy synths, saxophone lines, and piano glides swirl around, but there is no identifiable chord progression as one might find in most jazz.   

Beyond the instrumentation and free-floating nature of the tracks, what the music on Total Blue does particularly well is capture indistinct emotions. The tracks do not emote in a heavy-handed way that makes it obvious what the listener should be feeling. Rather, it’s as if one is attempting to recognize a form through a haze: it’s difficult to make out, and it could be any number of objects. Emotions are complicated and rarely reduced to pure “sadness” or pure “anger”. Emotions can even be contradictory. The music on Total Blue simply reinforces that notion. 

“Chaparral” is a particular highlight of the album in which the opening delayed synth chords hint at wistful recollections. But, as the track progresses, more warmth is added with every additional layer. On the other hand, “Stone God Stomp” is slightly ominous but playful – almost as if you are making your way through a frightening escape room designed to feel like you are lost in the jungle.

While jazz enthusiasts and critics alike might deride Total Blue as the latest iteration of smooth jazz, there is much more to the band’s debut than the easy-listening jazz tradition would suggest.

-JD

Andrea von Kampen - Sister Moon

Andrea von Kampen’s previous album, That Spell, was an exercise in frustration for me. I covered it on the blog and I still like it, but as time went by, I could feel a different version of Kampen’s sound struggling to break free on the album. The parts of her sound that were melancholy and intimate were much more convincing to me but they were smothered by the more saccharine and grandiose themes that were all over that release. To my immense pleasure, her follow up for 2024, Sister Moon, excises almost all of that sweetness. It’s not a sad album, exactly; it has many songs on it about personal triumph, love and enjoyment. But it’s definitely a more melancholic album and it benefits immensely for being that. Kampen’s beautiful voice thrives in such an environment, accompanied by gentle percussion, guitar, the occasional piano, and not much else. Her lyrical work on the album is also much better, more focused on her own stories and emotions. 

I’ve hardly stayed away for more than a few days from Sister Moon and I don’t foresee that changing; it’s a touching, deep, and thoroughly entertaining release from a singer/songwriter that has cut through all pretense to bring us into her unique vision of the world and of life.

-EK

acloudyskye - There Must Be Something Here

The term “comfort album” gets thrown around a lot. While largely a subjective experience, typically it refers to albums that helped shape your taste, are extremely familiar and aren’t a challenging listen by any means. A safe space if you will, that maybe takes you back to a cozier time and place. It is therefore rare for a new release to meet these requirements, but one 2024 album quickly fell into this mold for - a surprising bedroom indie rock album called There Must Be Something Here by solo artist acloudyskye. While receiving some mixed reviews from older fans for being a departure from some of the ambitious experimentation and EDM of their early work, it doubles down on lush textures, catchy vocal lines and a warm embrace of an atmosphere that quickly took on that cozy quality that had me coming back again and again. 

Many aspects of it feel intentionally one-dimensional, there’s a specific vibe and mood it’s going for and it fully consumes you in that. The song-writing is a blend of catchy indietronica, post-rock and noise pop, with repetitive guitar and synth lines that ingrain themselves in head. These are carried by a charming but subdued vocal performance that bring with it a somber tone that matches much of the lyrical content. It’s like the bedroom pop and slacker rock energy of Alex G with the bittersweet synth melodies of Porter Robinson, written by a post-rock band. 

-TB

Serengeti - Palookaville

Giving further justification to not writing end-of-the-year content until the year is actually over by covering a release that came out on Christmas day. See people, there’s good albums coming out at the very end of the year! While I don’t consider myself a “hip-hop head” by any means, I try to keep on top of most of the acclaimed artists with a particular focus on what’s known as “abstract hip-hop” - a style known for its less conventional lyricism and eclectic production, think Aesop Rock, MF Doom, Cannibal Ox, and so on. Another mainstay in this scene is the Chicago-based Serengeti, who has pumped out over 25 full-lengths since his 2002 debut. His latest Palookaville especially fits this superlative prompt, as it is essentially an indie folk album with Serengeti’s classic stream-of-consciousness flow. Trunk-rattling beats are replaced almost entirely by acoustic guitar riffs, low-key percussion and basslines, and the occasional fun synth line to spice up the energy. Some understated sung choruses are worked in to match the vibe of this unique album which is pretty much the definition of “chill”.

Just going to use this to also give a shoutout to another standout hip-hop release this year, No Hands by Joey Valance & Brae. If you’re even the slightest fan of the Beastie Boys and for some reason haven’t heard this yet, get on that ASAP.    

-TB

Justice - Hyperdrama

I won’t pretend I’m some sort of expert on electronic music — but I’ve been partial to French duo Justice and their eclectic sound for a while now. Debut Cross mixed hard rock influences and funky slap bass over dance tunes, and was the very album to expand my electronic horizons well beyond Carpenter Brut many years back. Hyperdrama leaves the instrumental rock influence behind, though: while there’s always been an occasional pop musicality to Justice’s work, the album goes all in on that with full vocal features on most songs. These make Hyperdrama an immaculately produced electronic R&B album at times, with features from Miguel and even Thundercat, while Kevin Parker’s two songs show an alternate timeline where Tame Impala were less psychedelic rock and more about bass-heavy dance club anthems.

Hyperdrama isn’t heavy and experimental like Cross was, but it’s consistently catchy and groovy all the same. Plus, the tracklist is excellently sequenced, and most importantly, there’s still a whole bunch of slap bass in it (“Dear Alan”, “Saturnine”). But my favourite tune here is “Afterimage”, an absolutely ethereal track that feels like the Hotline Miami soundtrack in space once the beat drops. It’s something that truly needs to be experienced instead of read about, but lucky for you, there’s a button to do that right here. 

-AH

That's pure filth…and I need more!

Albums so disgustingly heavy they become like a drug to you and your wellbeing. 

Saevus Finis - Facilis Descensus Averno

I didn’t know what to expect on my first listen to Portugal’s Saevus Finis, but Transcending Obscurity records rarely get it wrong, so there was a good chance I was going to raise my horns in approval. The opening section of first track “Scourge of Humanity” was promising and piqued my interest with its barrage of blast beats and abrasively dissonant guitars, but then at exactly one minute and thirteen seconds everything changed. The blasts stop to let a wall of blistering double kick take over while the guitars trill along in time with some of the heaviest notes I’ve ever heard. It’s absolutely ludicrous and had me hooked like a curious teenager taking their first awkward inhale of nicotine. 

After my face finished ‘stank mode’ and returned to normal, I begged that this moment was not just a one off, surely they had more where that came from…and I needn't had worried. The whole album is filled with spine chilling flashes of dark brilliance, from the utterly claustrophobic to the chillingly desolate. The atmosphere created is bleak and often terrifying, but I was a very willing passenger on the Saevus Finis blackened horse drawn carriage. The discordance is almost suffocating at points, yet they know just when to release the pressure and let you catch your breath, before they begin squeezing once again.   

Each track is excellent in it’s own right, but it wouldn’t surprise me if “Unfulfilled” destroys a far off planet every time it’s played, such is the bellowing ferocity of what lies within. The finale and title track is an amalgamation of everything that has come before it, with an added sense of tribalism as though they are trying to summon an ungodly beast from it's slumber. 

While there are some clear nods to Altarage, Gorguts and Morbid Angel, this is only half the story. Saevus Finis have taken these influences, coated them in blood and tar, set everything on fire then thrown them into a black hole. This is one the best death metal albums of the year and I hope you become as addicted to its twisted pleasures as I have. 

-PK

Killing Of A Sacred Deer - Killing Of A Sacred Deer 

Like a lot of people, I have to carefully balance my work/family priorities now that I have adult responsibilities, and ultimately this means I now get less time to listen to music. This is also the main reason why I’ve been enjoying more EPs. They’re a quick convenient fix, that often distills a bands sound into a bitesize morsel. Leylines, Malevich, Casket Dealer and Guiltless, have all released cracking extended plays this year (check them out if you haven't already). 

Killing Of A Sacred Deer deliver a hit of adrenaline straight into the bloodstream on their debut self-titled EP. It’s fourteen minutes and seven tracks of bruising deathcore with smatterings of hardcore and grindcore thrown in for good measure. This is not for the faint hearted and goes hard from the outset with opener “Scarlett Halo” blowing the doors clean off. The tempo is switched up regularly from insanity speed blasting to mosh inducing breakdowns that will make you want to spin kick and windmill in your front room. The finale of “25.4 mm From Death” could probably curdle milk if you played it loud enough. 

You’ll find a cacophony of vocal deliveries erupting from Colter James and his allotted guests. Everything from guttural bellows, to serrated screams and even some good ol’ pig squeals. They all accompany the punishing music perfectly and essentially act as another instrument to inflict even more damage on the willing listener. These guys even have ‘Intro’ as the final track…just to mess with your head. 

Killing Of A Sacred Deer is a ferociously heavy debut and one that I've enjoyed immensely. Its dark charms have kept me sane on cold commutes to work, as I let the unbridled brutality wash over me like some kind of calming sound bath. If this is what these Canadians can do on an EP, I can’t wait to hear what they are capable of on a full length.

-PK

Squelching Flesh - Psychic Incarnation

Psychic Incarnation has cemented its place among my all-time favorite albums, swirling the swampy textures of goregrind with ridiculously catchy songwriting. It’s stuck in my head around 30% of the time and I’m happy about it.  New Jersey’s Squelching Flesh land somewhere between Cuff, Fathomless Ritual, Atræ Bilis, and Blasted Pancreas. Mastered by Colin Marston and featuring guest appearances by Will Smith (Afterbirth, Reeking Aura) and Paulo Paguntalan (Miasmatic Necrosis, Encenathrakh), Psychic Incarnation joins a growing flood of superheavy releases that juxtapose the swampy depths of goregrind and slam with technical and progressive execution. 

Psychic Incarnation has an impressively well-developed vision for a debut release, wrapping pitch shifted vocals in a discordant atmosphere that’s spliced with razor-sharp riffs. Tapping into the new wave of death doom, Squelching Flesh embraces a cavernous sound that adds a distinct dimension to their music. The title track, featuring Paulo Paguntalan, opens with evil and downright groovy guitars that defy all gory logic and transition seamlessly into a miasma of gurgling vocals and chugging beats. The individual pieces shouldn’t work together, but Squelching Flesh transforms a mass of severed elements into a bloody masterpiece of dissonance, gore, and prog. 

-BH

Waxing lyrical 

Albums that blew you away with their words or prose. 

Fit For An Autopsy - The Nothing That Is

Fit For An Autopsy may well be the best extreme metal band on the planet right now, but they’re probably not the first artist that springs to mind when you think of incredible lyricists. Well, you can consider this something of a lifetime achievement award. There’s no doubt that it is important for music to offer us the chance to escape, to lose ourselves in thought-provoking poetry, adventurous tales of wizards and dragons, narrative concepts, or just plain old mindless fun. But equally, it’s never been more important for artists to take a stand on real world catastrophes, to proudly plant their banner in the soil and roar for all and sundry to take heed. To be a rallying cry and leave no room for doubt, no breath of ambiguity. That is exactly what Will Putney and co have done with “Red Horizons”, and I challenge anyone to find a more apt sonification for the horrors of the Gaza genocide than the breakdown just over 3 minutes in:

AND ON THAT DAY

HELL RAINED FROM THE SKY

THE BODIES BURNED SO BRIGHT

THAT GOD CLOSED HIS EYES

It is undoubtedly the heaviest, in every sense of the word, callout I’ve ever heard. For those still in doubt, references to “Beasts of Zion” and closing with “From the river to the sea” certainly seal the deal. The remaining lyrics are just as vivid which, taken together with a heart wrenching music video casting Ukrainian refugees, makes for one of the best songs of 2024. Period. Throw in the band’s history, with songs supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation battle against an oil pipeline in “Black Mammoth”:

Rejoice in masses.

The tribe collapses. 

The mother weeps in her dying breath.  

Rise from the ashes, oh foul Black Mammoth. 

Dead in spirit, now dead in flesh.

Tragedy reigns forever.

Or the epitomisation of climate angst, as in “Shepherd”: “Man is the cancer. We call for death and it answers.” It’s direct, it’s in your face, and it’s consistent - marking Fit For An Autopsy as a torchbearing band that we can rely on to stand with us, on the right side. And for that, I thank them.

From the river to the sea.

-KD

Heavy… In SPAAAAACE 

Albums that sent us to the far reaches of the cosmos.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

I mean… how could this superlative exist and not include a new release from the Denver Death Metal marvels? Tied inextricably to the beyond both musically and thematically, Blood Incantation sent the metal world into orbit with their third full-length release Absolute Elsewhere. And boy howdy is it a trip. The album has been written to death, so I won’t belabor the point here. But all the accolades are earned and the effusive praise true. This thing is a mothership to the constellations with some of the bands most creative, progressive, and adventurous songwriting to date. “The Stargate” in all of its composite parts is particularly delicious. So load up and get celestial. 

-JA

Mesarthim - Anthropic Bias / Departure

Ok, so half of this progressive black metal EP came out in 2022 but fucking sue me - this shit rips and you probably haven’t heard it yet anyway. Mesarthim had me in the absolute palm of their hands within the first minute, as spacey synths and a driving baseline are embellished with a lovely harp melody and glitchy samples of the GOATed bird call, that of the beautiful Australian magpie. And that’s before we even get to the black metal. Get your spacesuits on ladies and gentlemen because we’re going full cosmic on this one. Big open riffs lend a levity to the composition amid bright, expansive synths and raw, raspy black metal vocals befitting the void. Despite the sprawling soundscapes and progressive nature of the song, each twist and turn strikes the right balance between offering something fresh to keep the listener engaged whilst maintaining cohesion with what has come before. Quite the remarkable feat for a song with an astronomical 17-minute runtime. 

The fusion of progressive, aggressive, and electronic elements is expertly done - allowing this to stand out in a year full of standout progressive extreme metal records. One of the undoubted highlights comes in the song’s second half when, after a reprise of the opening, we get a brilliant The Prodigy-inspired synth line (“Voodoo People” Pendulum remix, eat your heart out) building up into a cathartic release. Industrial, wall of noise guitars thrust themselves onto the scene before opening up for celestial synths that steal the show. I won’t spoil any more of it for you - just go out there and enjoy some fantastic space metal.

-KD

SLIFT - ILION

If you’ve been keeping up with the other places where I talk about music and literature, you’ll know that I have dedicated a fair bit of time to alternative modes of fantasy and science fiction storytelling. Pulpy space opera, Dying Earth, weird sci-fantasy, and more all fascinate me as they present a different vision of how SFF could work and what it might be used to say. Luckily enough, I haven’t been alone in my increasing interest in these forms; more and more people are going back to read Wolfe, Moorcock, Vance, and others in their vein. And also, more and more people are making unique works of art in these thematic spaces and SLIFT are one of them. Oh boy are SLIFT one of them. 

UMMON, their previous and amazing release, was already expansive and epic but ILION, their 2024 release, is on a whole different level. Describing bizarre, metaphysical, and psychedelic journeys in space it is also accompanied by some of the best (French) progressive stoner rock I can think of. The whole album back to back is somehow a step up from an already incredible band, delivering what is hands down my favorite work of progressive music in 2024 and probably beyond it as well. And there are also lines upon lines of kick-ass science fiction in there, with whirling ships, reincarnations, nebulae, galaxies, and more. Just turn off the lights, turn up the volume, and put on ILION; it will take you there.

 

-EK

The Horror! 

Albums that took us to… unsavory places.

Monument of Misanthropy - Vile Postmortem Irrumatio

While not traditionally a true crime aficionado, I have occasionally dabbled in the podcast realm of gore and brutality. When I saw Austrian brutalizers Monument of Misanthropy were releasing another serial killer-themed album I had to give it a listen. I’m glad I did. Brutal death metal had a particularly incredible run in 2024, and Monument of Misanthropy’s third full-length record does little but delight for fans of the most depraved crevices of death metal. The instrumentation is exquisite, and the songwriting is a continued evolution and progression from their first two records, showcasing the band at the peak of their already formidable powers. Spliced with audio from interviews with Ed Kemper (the particularly sadistic subject of this record), the entire experience is slathered in the fundamentally fucked up. It’s a violent and disturbing trip that sounds exactly like brutal death metal should: Dangerous, over the top, silly as hell, and a damn good time. 

-JA

Pyrrhon - Exhaust

The joke goes that capitalism was the real horror all along. But that’s only funny because it’s true; what is more horrifying that our labyrinths of concrete, filled to the brim with choking smog and human suffering? What conjures forth dread more than the ever accelerating death spiral to which we are subjecting the rest of this beautiful world we never deserved? What jumpscares us more than the faces of our comrades, choking under the yoke of unfair working conditions, rampant disease, and political violence? “Nothing”, say Pyrrhon and proceed to stare directly into the abyss of modern living with what I consider to be their best release yet. More noisy than before, less angular and more smothering, and composed better than ever before, Exhaust is the culmination of Pyrrhon’s free-wheeling approach to death metal and an album that sends shivers down my spine without fail.

-EK

Crippling Alcoholism - With Love From a Padded Room 

A slightly different interpretation of “unsavory” from my colleagues here as this album is far from the brutality of death metal, yet was easily one of the most unpleasant and depraved listening experiences of the year. They don’t beat around the bush. Crippling Alcoholism play a unique blend of dissonant noise rock and dark, brooding goth rock, with vocals self-described as a  “crooner’s voice nurtured by 15 years of drinking." Combined with deranged yet captivating lyricism, it’s like a psychological horror film reimagined as a musical. I don’t just say that for the image of it, this gets quite cinematic. “Ottessa”, (one of the best songs of the year by the way) flows from oppressive heavy noise rock to eerie coldwave before a crescending final act driven by strings and a repeating piano melody. This eclectic song-writing and range help carry the hour-plus run-time, with post-metal and darkwave winding their way throughout.  

Beyond the unsettling, With Love From a Padded Room is oddly seductive, both in the literal sense, and from a listening perspective. It’s like a voyeuristic look into the unsavory parts of humanity that’s hard to look away from. While Crippling Alcoholism share members with two mathcore bands (Needle Play, Nursing) and the math rock group Horse Torso, this is a much more subdued expression of their talents, exhibiting captivating song-writing chops, while being complex and challenging in other ways. 

-TB

Gravkvade - Prolog

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here: Gravkvade dropped one of the heaviest albums of the entire year on your unsuspecting ears. Self-described as “Swedish black funeral art,” the trio plumb the depths of extreme music with a crushing blend of funeral doom and black metal infused with melancholic synths. The resulting compositions can only be described as haunting, devastating, and nasty.

Like the blanket of fog swirling across its cover, Prolog is all-consuming and chilling. An echoing bass creates a cavernous stage, seemingly imitating a funeral march or procession to prayer. The mood is somber, forcing stillness and focus. But the meditation can only linger for so long, as Gravkvade breaks the reverie with raw, howling vocals. The march continues, intensity increasing with the addition of urgent guitars. Then, just as quickly as it arose, the cacophony yields to lush pianos braced against chilling ambiance. 

The contrast between suffocating misery and minimalist beauty only adds to the sheer heaviness of Prolog. Residing between the raw fury of ambient black metal and punishing gloom of funeral doom, Gravkvade stand alone in their dark void of disgust and depression. Abandon all hope, dear listener, for you won’t need it here. 

-BH

Heavy Blog

Published 17 days ago