Albums are unranked between 2nd and 10th place and are alphabetical by artist instead, but I will list my top album of the year separately:
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere > Crazy beautiful progressive death metal from space
Chapel of Disease - Echoes of Light > Melodic death metal meets prog rock, super beautiful and super original
Charli XCX - Brat > It’s Brat, I don’t need to tell you what this is.
Future Islands - People Who Aren’t There Anymore > Great synthpop and maybe the coolest sound you might hear on mainstream radio right now
Knocked Loose - You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To > A basic choice, everyone loves this, but everyone loves it for a reason
Left to Suffer - Leap of Death > Hyper-melodic deathcore with nu metal sensibility; I think this album almost does for deathcore what Finch’s What It Is to Burn did for post-hardcore or A Day to Remember did for metalcore
The Cure - Songs of a Lost World > Really unexpected to me, this is beautiful and is my current favorite The Cure album
Thou - Umbilical > Dense and emotionally weighty sludge doom metal from one of the best bands in the sound
Tyler, The Creator - Chromakopia > I’m a Tyler stan; this doesn’t hit the heights of his best albums for me but is excellent still
And my top album of the year:
Bilmuri - AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS > Simply the best country, alt metal, post-hardcore, pop punk crossover album I’ve ever heard, even if admittedly that’s an incredibly narrow field. Genuinely great, not just a novelty, AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS is without the question the album I’ve returned to the most, and I don’t see any signs of tiring of it yet. Just a tremendous album.
Those were mine tops, but what did I miss? What were your top albums of 2024?
Or hey, if you hate any of my picks, feel free to tell me about that too, I’m cool with differing view points. It’s just fun to talk music.
Sampha - Lahai
Kiran Leonard - Real Home
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
JPEGMAFIA - I Lay Down My Life For You
Akropolis Reed Quintet - Are We Dreaming the Same Dream?
I haven’t listened to a single one of these yet. I loved GY!BE’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven back in the day but admit I never really followed them after that as my post-rock tastes went more towards Explosions In the Sky and later Maybeshewill. And man, I spun the hell out of JPEG’s LP! and Scaring the Hoes with Danny Brown, but I haven’t gotten around to his 2024 release yet; I should get on that.
And I haven’t even heard of Kiran Leonard and Akropolis Reed Quintet before, if I’m being honest.
I definitely recommend any of these. Kiran Leonard is less well known but I don’t think he ought to be
I’ve got some crossover with yours:
Perishing - Lutum I’m surprised this is first, but it’s a solid death metal EP. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/lutum-ep/1725319668 Bandcamp: https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/lutum Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7KBCO9Z2H3AAdkZtWKk5NX
Pallbearer - Mind Burns Alive Probably my favourite album this year. Doom metal. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/mind-burns-alive/1733291253 Bandcamp: https://pallbearer.bandcamp.com/album/mind-burns-alive Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5ppoXtj1diskTKxHyuChWI
Glassing - From the Other Side of the Mirror Love this album, it’s so varied. Post metal/doomgaze. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/from-the-other-side-of-the-mirror/1726433759 Bandcamp: https://glassing.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-other-side-of-the-mirror-2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0yPlGyhFbGXaj6uDwGfqli
Thou - Umbilical Crushing sludge metal. It’s filthy. Apple Music: https://open.spotify.com/album/0yPlGyhFbGXaj6uDwGfqli Bandcamp: https://thou.bandcamp.com/album/umbilical Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1WILkP95BuckkTIm4OIQRm
Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition I was in two minds about this album, but ultimately it’s a fun death metal release. Produced by my boy Kurt Ballou from Converge. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/dark-superstition/1730545041 Bandcamp: https://gatecreeper.bandcamp.com/album/dark-superstition Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7BhpoTy951vKzT7xeQJg9e
Iress - Sleep Now, In Reverse Beautiful, melodic doomgaze. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/sleep-now-in-reverse/1737997346 Bandcamp: https://weareiress.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-now-in-reverse Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dgD2RpoUq9WkmAQMzFyQQ
Dry Socket - Sorry For Your Loss PNW hardcore punk. Unapologetic. Apple Music: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dgD2RpoUq9WkmAQMzFyQQ Bandcamp: https://drysocketpdx.bandcamp.com/album/sorry-for-your-loss Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0eoqR7hpgBcltVCdJmg8iy
Lowen - Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran Doom metal inspired by Persian music and mythology. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/do-not-go-to-war-with-the-demons-of-mazandaran/1743831255 Bandcamp: https://lowen.bandcamp.com/album/do-not-go-to-war-with-the-demons-of-mazandaran-2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/79tvicAFSw9tUc3qbxLf5P
Outlander - Acts of Harm Fantastic alt/shoegaze album. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/acts-of-harm/1739437993 Bandcamp: https://outlandertheband.bandcamp.com/album/acts-of-harm Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/70RPahrgTxFidKOuMI4QBC
The Cure - Songs of a Lost World They snuck this album out and it’s fucking great. Classic morose Cure. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/songs-of-a-lost-world/1768728131 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4wjxmqXnSQvBZWL3IbYngX
Didn’t quite make it but I love it too:
Chat Pile - Cool World This is a great album, I just ended up listening to the others more. Noise rock/sludge metal, similar to early Swans. Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/cool-world/1750294553 Bandcamp: https://chatpile.bandcamp.com/album/cool-world Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3k7GhMNdQ0KXGkC84qVRf2
Sick list, and some I’m not familiar with that I’m gonna have to check out.
And Chat Pile - Cool World was just short of making the list for me too. Really fun and it may have made the list another year, but we just had a lot of really great stuff come out in 2024 that bumped Chat Pile out of the top spots for me.
Yeah I feel exactly the same about Cool World. I’m not familiar with some of the bands on your list so I’m going to check them out.
Also, I’m seeing Thou on Tuesday and I am so fucking excited.
Aaaaaah I’ve never seen them but I’ve heard they’re killer. I hope the show is a blast!
Thou fucking killed it.
I didn’t pay as close attention as I typically do to new release throughout 2024, but I’ll give a handful of standouts I was either already looking forward to or happened to grab my attention for their quality.
Doedsmaghird - Omniverse Consciousness - Experimental Black Metal - I’m a Vicotnik überfan. This release hit a lot more squarely than the last Dødheimsgard. Stoked to see him back in peak form.
öXXö XööX - + - Avant Garde Prog Doom -This project just keeps getting better. I thought Ÿ was a masterpiece already, but they upped their game again. Brilliant stuff.
My Dying Bride - A Mortal Binding - Gothic Doom - Their grittiest release in at least 20 years. Still very apparently newer MDB, but they certainly didn’t shy away from dirtying it up on this one. Big fan of that, personally.
Wintersun - Time II - Symphonic Melodic Death Metal - Well holy fuck, this meme album ended up being the best thing since the debut. Pleasantly surprised to enjoy this like I did since I didn’t find anything after the debut to be particularly worth my time
Brodequin - Harbinger of Woe - Brutal Death Metal - I can understand pushback on the clean production from longtime fans given this band’s back catalogue, but that didn’t bother me at all. The 20 years since the last full length hasn’t dulled their songwriting capabilities even a bit. I don’t listen to a huge amount of straight death metal these days, but this album even got me to do back to back repeat listens more than once.
Wow yeah, I don’t feel cool enough to hang with you. 😅 The only one of those I recognize is Wintersun, and that’s the one you call meme, so I think I’m outclassed in metal here. I’m open though, so I’m gonna give those a listen, probably a brief sample before I commit to full album listening if I’m being honest though.
Cool isn’t really a factor. Everybody can and should like what they want, and shouldn’t be faulted for not having heard of this or that band.
The meme factor re: that Wintersun album has more to do with the backstory of how it would never get released with the stipulations Jari was putting up for years toward his record label and fans and whoever else before he would release the album. I didn’t follow the situation that closely, but it’s been a long standing saga in the metal scene chatter-sphere.
If there’s anything you ended up liking from my post, cheers. If not, cheers all the same. 👍
My favourite new album of 2024 was definitely Mahal by Glass Beams. It’s all I listened for months on end last year, and I’m still very much in love with it.
Their sound is this rich, old meets new psychedelic funk, with a rolling bass and a shoegaze like fullness to it that just flows so beautifully.
I’ve had AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS on my list to listen to for ages now, so many people have mentioned it being good. I’m really going to have to get out of my rut of current songs on repeat and put it on. And your description of Thou - Umbilical sounds like something I’d love too, man this list of mine just keeps growing, haha.
Never heard of Glass Beams before, but I see they’re neo-psychedelia funk which I like, and on a brief preview they sound like they might kind of be in the Khruangbin / Moonchild post-hippie space a bit which I dig a lot. I’m adding Mahal to my listening list!
And yeah, I really can’t recommend Bilmuri’s American Motor Sports enough, but I will say that it’s a very radio-friendly rock kind of album, so if you aren’t into that kind of easily-accessible sound it may not be your thing. But for me, it’s a vibe and easily one of the best radio-friendly hard rock albums in a very long time.
