Insert joke here about how this column is late because we were smoking a bunch of weed or because the riffs are super slow. Ha ha, good one! Anyway, fuck an intro; this is Doomsday! It's loud, fuzzy, and yes, slow and very much a good listen when you're hitting the good old devil's lettuce.
Rock on!
Jordan’s Choice Picks from the Sludge, Muck, and Mire
10. Thou - Umbilical
The Thou/Nirvana connection makes so much more sense to me after hearing this record. Tastefully abrasive and begrudgingly catchy, this is one of their very finest achievements—and that’s saying something.
9. SUMAC - The Healer
This is one of those times where I was like, nah, these SUMAC guys have gone too far. It’s too indulgent. It’s too much. And then I listened to The Healer a little more. And some more. And more. Now, I’ve completely changed my mind. Now I need the feedback. I need the noise. I need the freedom and the chaos. It all just makes those synced up moments and payoffs that much more satisfying.
8. Misleading - Face the Psych
Full-fucking-blast Portuguese psych rock that demands every notch of your volume knob.
7. Generation of Vipers - Guilt Shrine
After 10 years, it’s hard not to feel some kind of hype for a new Generation of Vipers record, right? Guilt Shine has been absolutely worth the wait, doling out a smorgasbord of pissed-off sludge riffs and off-kilter post-metal movements that largely pick up where they left off on Coffin Wisdom. Tracks like “Joyless Grails,” “Elijah,” and “Lux Inversion” highlight their dynamic and explosive potential, playing to both their edgier, more aggressive sensibilities as well as some eerier, tension-building ones. It can be easy to burn out on all the whiplashing between these full-tilt heavy moments, atmospheric forays, centipede-like windy riffs, and slugging rhythms, but there’s something special about the way this band juggles things that keeps me hungry for more of the extreme.
6. Oryx - Primordial Sky
Primordial Sky is my Goldilocks pick for that juuust right blend of planet-busting blackened doom and ethereal post-metal. The latter adds a significant amount of color and depth to this offering, also ushering things along in a way that serves the song without falling back on overbearing repetition. With four seven-minute-plus tracks, this is an especially important consideration, and it’s taken to such a degree I’d argue every minute here is essential. I especially like how roomy the production is on this record, it sounds huge even during their more delicate moments like the acoustic piece in “Myopic” or when guitars begin to layer like in “Ephemeral” or the title track, maintaining the oof factor throughout. Incredibly bleak and heavy, but still an oddly inspiring and hopeful sounding record.
5. Gnome - Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome
More often than not for me, weirder is better, especially when it comes to stoner, prog, and hard rock. One glance at the album art on this thing and there’s no mistaking that Belgium’s Gnome embraces the weird on Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome, one of the most consistent and adventurous albums I’ve heard in quite some time. Sending it all home for me here is the sequencing, which is an utter thrill. Charging through much more than a garden variety of gassy grooves, beefy riffs, and trippy segues, Gnome touches on an encyclopedia of stoner-adjacent flavors — occult rock, sludge metal, psych rock, trad metal, heavy blues, and whatever else goes good with weird — and they deliver it with finesse and a punch. VVV doesn’t really let up as much as it gives some expertly placed breathers that keeps listeners’ appetites whet. Fans of QOTSA, Melvins, Mastodon, The Sword, or even Clutch best keep this band on their radar.
4. Chat Pile - Cool World
This is the kind of dismal I’ve been waiting for from Chat Pile. I loved the brashness and humor of their EPs, and of course God’s Country took that to another level with its affective and depressing vignettes of common life. What I’ve always felt was missing was more of a human touch and weirdly, some intimacy. In a strange way, Cool World delivers that for me. The production adds a tinge more color and warmth to their sound, softening their industrial edge a bit and rounding out their noise rock foundation with some grungier, almost shoegaze-y textures. I wouldn’t go as far to say that this is any less punishing, but a further engaging and deeper of a listening experience than their previous.
Where God’s Country was stark, direct, and to the point, Cool World is more nuanced, divergent, and emotional, making the doom and gloom feel that much more oppressing and menacing. At a time when everything is figuratively and literally burning around us, Cool World almost feels prescient (well, if it wouldn’t have been for dozens of obvious warning signs over the last decade-plus). Still, the timeliness and living-through-it-ness here adds an unfortunately more real and relatable human touch to the frustration, pain, and madness of this present and not-so-cool world we share.
3. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol - Big Dumb Riffs
It’s not complicated. I like riffs. The bigger, the better—and in this case the dumber the better, too. So, it should be no surprise that Big Dumb Riffs has THE RIFFS. It has THOSE RIFFS. IT’S BIG DUMB RIFFS for crying out loud. More than that, though, is RBBP’s penchant for immediately satisfying and indelible hooks. In a sense, it taps into the nostalgia I had for heavy music in my youth for instantly gratifying and chuggable aggression. There’s no fluff of intros, interludes, or advanced structures; this is utterly regressive sludge. BDR cuts to the chase with deceptively simple songcraft and just enough variety to keep you on the hook for the next song. And the next. And the next. Until you start it over. Again. And again. And again.
It’s been a while since I’ve found such simple joy like this in an album, and it appears I’m not the only one. I was fortunate to catch a sold-out live show on their tour supporting King Buffalo last fall in Boulder, and I can’t recall the last time I saw so many of my fellow graying dirtbags with youthful shitgrins on their faces hopping around like they’re sporting gold-tier health insurance. It’s weirdly heartwarming that the likes of “1-800-EAT-SHIT” and “Body Bag” can bring people together with such positivity and zest for life — but who am I to argue with a band named Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol? Honestly, what makes sense these days anyway? If Big Dumb Riffs is a lesson in not giving a fuck and letting loose, I feel it’s time we all follow the lead of the Burger Patrol.
2. Slift - Ilion
I don’t feel as though I’m being hyperbolic when I say this is a quintessential space prog album. Slift nail it on every fucking point, it’s truly a transporting listen. Ilion sounds so otherworldly and downright alien, I’ve had to come around a few times to remembering this band is from planet Earth playing human-crafted instruments that have been around decades rather than some coherent musical message getting beamed into my brain from the depths of the cosmos. The enveloping sense of place and celestial magnitude of this record can’t be stressed enough; few artists can capture that spaciness quite like Slift.
In addition to the impeccable songwriting that makes these adventuresque compositions such a joy to revisit, the performances are also over the top. The rhythm section is as nimble as it gets (the first four minutes of “Nimh” is quite the gamut), while the lead work often pushes things beyond comprehension into some of their biggest moments and right back down to their almost-molecular minimum. And despite the gargantuan presentation, there’s not a moment wasted. This is the new standard.
1. Inter Arma - New Heaven
Inter Arma have been landing toward the top of my fave albums lists for over a decade now, and as you can tell, New Heaven is no exception. I know they’re good for an album of disgustingly huge riffs, but I’m always coming back for their inventive distortions on whatever blend of blackened death-sludge they’re feeling at the time. They always manage to create some twists that engage on an intellectual level and have me re-calibrating my senses of precisely “how” things can be heavy. Even as I’m typing this nearly nine months after this album’s release, I’m uncovering unheard surprises and deepening my appreciation for a band whose work seems impossible to give its proper due.
While each previous Inter Arma record felt like it set out to create a distinct and cohesive experience throughout an album, New Heaven takes a similar approach on a song-by-song basis. It plays more like their 2020 covers record Garbers Day Revisited than anything else, with a variety that showcases the extremes of their sound and makes room for even more of the experimentation that we’ve now come to expect. The dissonance-taken-to-the-nth-power title track opener, the anthemic blackened sludge of “Desolations Harp,” the propulsive and colossal “Gardens in the Dark,” the fucking relentless rhythms (even by their standards) of “The Children the Bombs Overlooked,” and the western, Neil Young-tinged closer don’t seem like a cohesive lot on paper, but through the lens of Inter Arma it all just feels right, underscoring the scope and scale of one of the hugest-sounding acts in all of metal.
Bridget’s top 10: Putting the Fun in Funeral
Editor's note: Bridget was abducted by totally sick and real aliens. Therefore, her list is only comprised of band names and album titles. Come back from Betelgeuse soon Bridget!
Noothgrush - Kashyyyk
Nepenthe - The Fading Promise of Tomorrow & Elegies of Loss and Doom
Sif - Aegis of the Hallowed King
Fórn - Repercussions of the Self
Abyssal - Glacial
Kumara - Nukes and Napalm
Föhn - Condescending
Morgul Blade - Heavy Metal Wraiths
Brume - Marten
Gravkvade - Gravkvade
Eden’s Top 10: Where the rules are made up and the genres don’t matter
SLIFT - ILION
I’ve written about this album so many times this year already and that’s because it’s really, really, super, extra, mega good. But you don’t need me to, once again, wax lyrical about its heights, spaces, and astral journeys. Space! Time travel! Majestic riffs! All the fuzz you could ask for! Immortality! Death! Rebirth! Listen to SLIFT already, will you?
Mountain Caller - Chronicle II: Hypergenesis
I’m really hoping it’s just the January release date and that the Mountain Caller hype is not fading because, to me, Chronicle II: Hypergenesis is both the culmination of the band’s previous efforts and a promise for an even more exciting future for them. Hypergenesis feels like The Truthseeker write larger and smaller at the same time, both more sweeping and ambitious and tighter and more controlled. That balance, between a more far-ranging sound but closer attention paid to details and their interaction, makes Hypergenesis one of the only instrumental albums that really captured my attention in 2024, even if it was released so long ago now that it feels like another life. Do travel back in time to give one more time if you haven’t; it will richly reward you.
Khirki - Κυκεώνας
I think I’ve written this elsewhere about Khirki but one of the things I love the most about their sound is what I cannot help but associate with a certain “party” vibe, the exuberant outpouring of energies of the taverna or the “hafla”. It’s probably more to do with the role of Mediterranean music in the culture I grew up in than actual intent but, regardless, the Greek band continues to expertly wield these energies to create effective, moving, and extremely damn fun stoner metal. Κυκεώνας is more of the same from Khirki but much, much more professional and well put together, placing them right up there with the greatest of big, kicking stoner metal. Also, that riff on “The Watchers of Enoch”. That riff!
Guenna - Peak of Jin'Arrah
Speaking of exuberance, Peak of Jin’Arrah is perhaps the biggest surprise of the year for me in the realms of doom and stoner. I’ve never even heard of Guenna before and here they go releasing one of the most agile, bouncy albums of progressive stoner that I’ve ever heard, blending in some Jethro Tull and King Crimson as they go. Unsurprisingly, this one also has some killer sci-fi trappings to it so if you’re looking for more “weed but in space”, this one goes right for the more...buoyant strains and takes you along for one hell of a dynamic ride.
REZN - Burden
Most aptly named album of 2024? On Burden, REZN go even deeper into the heady, oppressive, and all encompassing sounds of their previous releases, doubling down on everything that made me fall in love with them the first time around. As a side note, REZN were also one of the bands I was most excited to see live during the year and boy did they deliver. Both times I saw them, REZN’s live show was truly transformative, tapping into the hallucinatory parts of their sound to turn whatever room they played in into something truly special. You too can do that, by blasting Burden extremely loudly wherever you listen to it. Seriously, that mix holds up incredibly well when played loud; give it a try.
we broke the weather - Restart Game
Full disclosure, Nick is in this band, blah blah blah, you know the drill. The fact remains that this album was one of my favorites of 2024, full stop, seemingly blending all of my personal favorites into one heady, progressive, stoner-ish mix. It’s rock n’ roll and prog writ large, with all of the love for those genres bleeding through extremely clearly. If you too love these touchpoints, then you’re doing yourself a disservice by not checking this one out. Check this one out! It rules.
Lie Heavy - Burn to the Moon
File this one under “straight forward fun”, Burn to the Moon is “just” straight up, no frills, really well made blues stoner. Wield it and approach it as such and you will have a blast.
Could Seed - The Drop Crisis
Speaking of straight-up, The Drop Crisis is your go to album from 2024 if you’re looking for the kind of dynamic, agile, and varied post-metal that we’ve been championing on the blog for several years now (think Telepathy). It’s chock-full with excellent riffs and never falls into the trap of “no, go heavier” that a lot of the albums which flirt with doom do. This one is for the dreamers.
The Flight of Sleipnir - Nature's Cadence
Another album about which I have written numerous times on the blog before but I will stand, and die, on the hill of its inclusion in both black metal and doom metal columns. This is especially when the warm production that first drew me to the band makes a triumphant comeback on this release, creating those echoing but enveloping melodies I love from them.
Vokonis - Transitions
Winner of 2024’s “most personally moving” album award, Transitions tells the story of coming to the truth of yourself through really well composed and executed stoner metal.
Horseburner - Voice of Storms
I just want old Baroness back, OK? These guys do it that better than the vast majority of the other copycats because it sounds like they actually care about their own music as well and are not just cribbing from a template.