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2024 proved, if anything, that there's still wild fucking fun to be mad in the metal sphere, and that Covid-19 clearly didn't eliminate the worldwide hunger for the genre. In our world of Spotify wrapped, bogus, overproduced pop and hip-hop, and now an increasing craze to drive AI into the domain of music, it gives me joy - nay, peace of mind - to labor through hours and hours upon of random underground music, discovering the albums that will be the soundtracks to my life for the next few months, even years. Whether the casualization of music will truly bode ill for the future remains to be seen, but until then, and probably even after the worst of technological advancements have befallen us, I'll remain committed to exposing my ears to heavy and experimental music. Till the end of my days. With all that sappiness taken care of, let's get to it. As always, my 50 favorite listens can be found with commentary on RYM.
Much of my usual suspects run though this list, as 2024 was a year where the conjurations of heavy and power metal were particularly puissant. There's a demographic range here, from highly young acts like Horndal, Iotunn, and Kanonenfieber to relatively established underground groups like Blood Incantion, Madder Mortem, and Tribulation to absolute oldies like Priest, Warlord, Riot V and their ilk. So the classic heavy metal front was clearly a strong pillar here. Other old, but much less known acts like Mork Gryning and Scavenger brought the heat with records sneaked up on me with dangerous cunning, and I was more than content with what I heard. There are tasty chunks of progressive and prog-adjacent metal to be had, from the hugely anticipated Opeth to Ihsahn's scintillating self-titled orchestral ode, to Hungary's finest metal export, Thy Catafalque with what's probably his best work outside of Róka Hasa Rádió (2009). Opeth, perhaps to nobody's surprise, absolutely crushed it, even bringing a few Jethro Tull flute solos along the way. The Blood Incantation record belongs to that vein as well, and it was also one of those records that deserved all the praise it got, marrying 70s progressive a la Emerson, Lake and Palmer to old school death metal in an unthinkable move. Other great records like Kinship and Head Hammer Man also held their own.
Outside the progressive domain, which seems to be increasingly a fundamental part of my auditory fix, there were some great, fiendish black metal excursions like the new Hail Spirit Noir, Mörk Gryning and Kvaen who exploited the bounds of the genre I know and love for its sheer malleability. Vast, tumultuous vistas of malice and introspection. Oranssi Pazuzu, one of my favorite younger black metal bands, went full techno / drum and bass with Muuntautuja. They barely broke a sweat while doing so, and unnerved me to my core. The new Ministry was also a welcome surprise; it kept me grooving and dancing in between many a workout set. In the end, though, despite its beautiful exploration of themes such as loss and control, Old Eyes, New Heart is only my second favorite album of the year. Not only that, but it rivals the masterful Desiderata (2006) in sheer quality, an album which I consider a milestone in the gothic/progressive niche. It stymied and moved me through almost every song and refused to drop from my rotation. But the cake goes to the latest by Crypt Sermon, the best album so far from a band that almost forcibly converted me into being a doom goon. There wasn't a song there that didn't connect, and whenever they did, I found myself at a loss at its sheer fluidity, heft and atmosphere. Truly ceremonial music for the 2020s, harkening to its 80s epic doom origins, but angrier, more deranged, just like the world that birthed it.
Links to the songs embedded below.
Thanks for reading, and see you all next year.
*Top 25 Metal Albums of 2024*
You can find a more comprehensive list with short review blurbs that I've written for my top 50 albums over at RateYourMusic. Link to that list over HERE.
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~ Top 10 Books I've Read in 2024 ~
10. The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Nature − Stefanos Geroulanos
09. Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World − John Vaillant
08. Less Than Zero − Brett Easton Ellis
07. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of Congo Powers Our Lives − Siddharth Kara
06. New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future − James Bridle
05. End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path to Political Disintegration − Peter Turchin
04. The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 − Adam Tooze
03. Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East − Fawaz Gerges
02. Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism − Melinda Cooper
01. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 − Lawrence Wright
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