Written by Kep
Welcome in, folks! This year, I decided to mix things up in the interest of shouting out the maximum amount of albums that deserve it: rather than a standard ordered list, I’m dividing releases into subgenre-based categories. In each category you’ll get a list of my favorites/runners-up (in alphabetical order) and a winner, and then down at the bottom, purely because arbitrary reasons require it, you’ll find my overall Album of the Year. Enjoy! We start with my favorite subgenre:
Fuckin’ DEATH METAL
Runners-up:
Ashen Tomb – Ecstatic Death Reign
Emaciated – Death from the Southwest
Engulfed – Unearthly Litanies of Despair
Horrifying – Dreadful Parasomnia
Hyperdontia – Harvest of Malevolence
Molder – Catastrophic Reconfiguration
Niftar – Lacvs Asphar
Trog – Horrors Beyond
Undeath – More Insane
WINNER: Living Gate – Suffer as One
Fuck, I had the hardest time deciding on this category. It was a four-horse race, with Molder, Undeath, and Hyperdontia rounding out the list of true contenders, but Suffer as One, the debut from members of Amenra, Wiegedood, Oathbreaker, and Yob, edged out the others. While the Molder is my most-listened 2024 death metal album, Hyperdontia remains my favorite modern OSDM band, and Undeath leveled way up on their new effort, the Living Gate is just a little more impressive. Monstrous, punishing, crunchy, remarkably dissonant, and without anything resembling a weak track, this is the one I can’t drag my ears away from.
Shit That is Kvlt (Black Metal)
Runners-up:
Acathexis – Immerse
Amiensus – Reclamation (Parts 1 and 2)
Baazlvaat – Ridiculed by the Common Soldiery
Bloody Keep – Rats of Black Death
Krallice – Inorganic Rites
Marrow of Man – Ancient Hymns of Apocalypse
Saidan – Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity
Selbst – Despondency Chord Progressions
WINNER: Houle – Ciel cendre et misère noire
Look, I loved a lot of black metal this year, even though I listened to less of it overall than in some years past. Those records from Saidan, Bloody Keep, and Amiensus are excellent, and the Selbst is an absolute masterpiece. But there’s no getting around just how impressive this full-length debut from Houle is, and so it takes the crown in my book. It’s dynamic, compelling, and Adsagsona is an absolute madwoman of a vocalist.
Slow and Riffy
Runners-up:
Civerous – Maze Envy
Hamferð – Men Guðs hond er sterk
Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished
Void Witch – Horripilating Presence
WINNER: Spectral Voice – Sparagmos
I can’t say enough great things about that Hamferð album, which surprised the hell out of me when it came out and has grown into a go-to since, and Civerous, Slimelord, and Void Witch all impressed. The thing about Sparagmos, though, is that it’s not just a great album: it’s an all-consuming experience. You can taste the dank moisture of underground air. You can feel the suffocating darkness around you. You can hear the whispers and echoes of horrifying rituals deep in stone caverns unseen. Spectral Voice have created an essential death/doom experience that I’ll be going back to for years to come.
Slams, Blasts, Gurgs
Runners-up:
Cephalotripsy – Epigenetic Neurogenesis
Cercenatory – Goresphere
Indecent Excision – Into the Absurd
Iniquitous Savagery – Edifice of Vicissitudes
Malignancy – …discontinued
Theurgy – Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence
WINNER: Fecundation – Moribund
I went back and forth on who should win this category, and almost called it a tie between Theurgy and Fecundation. But arbitrary rules are arbitrary rules and so I must declare a winner, and Moribund’s ultra-impressive technical brutal death extravaganza wins by a nose over Theurgy’s weirdo weedly weedlys and gurgles. Fecundation’s take on techy brutality rings true to the titans of the style like Suffocation and Necrophagist while feeling exciting, not like a retread. Fun fact: they actually finished this record in 2019, but it got shoved back five years mostly due to the pandemic. Glad it finally saw the light of day!
Metal That is Particularly Ugly and/or Weird
Runners-up:
Aseitas – Eden Trough
Convulsing – Perdurance
Defacement – Duality
Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus
Hecatoncheir – Nightmare Utopia
Ingurgitating Oblivion – Ontology of Nought
Mære – …and the Universe Keeps Silent
Pyrrhon – Exhaust
WINNER: Replicant – Infinite Mortality
Replicant have really perfected their sound at this point, and every new release feels like more proof of that. It’s enough to take the dissonant/avant-garde crown this year over some really excellent albums: that Pyrrhon is probably their best work yet, Gigan returned from a seven-year absence without missing a step, Brendan Sloan delivered a Convulsing masterpiece, Aseitas’ Eden Trough is likely the most overlooked album of 2024, and that Ingurgitating Oblivion is the most challenging and rewarding piece of music released in the metal scene this year. But Replicant’s brand of groove-laced Gorguts-esque skronk with songwriting chops for days is ridiculously polished, and Infinite Mortality is my favorite this year.
There are many notes on these albums
Runners-up:
Apep – Before Whom Evil Trembles
Carnosus – Wormtales
Conglaciation – Conglaciation
Job for a Cowboy – Moon Healer
Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All
Vitriol – Suffer & Become
WINNER: Atræ Bilis – Aumicide
Quite a year for techdeath and related subgenres, eh? Any year we get new Nile is a good one, and The Underworld Awaits Us All is undeniably the best of their recent output. Job for a Cowboy’s Moon Healer was absolutely worth the decade-long wait, and Carnosus waited all of 18 months to drop a follow-up to Visions of Infinihility that was even better. Atræ Bilis, though, crafted the best top to bottom album of the group; Aumicide’s atmosphere of disturbing machine-like futurism is pervasive, the riffs are unbelievably catchy and complex, and the listening experience is damn near perfect.
Rise and Grind(-adjacent)
Runners-up:
Beaten to Death – Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis
Concrete Winds – Concrete Winds
Knoll – As Spoken
Septage – Septic Worship (Intolerant Spree of Infesting Forms)
WINNER: Shock Withdrawal – The Dismal Advance
There was next to no doubt on this one for me. While Septage’s gore-soaked grind-based filth is utterly disgusting (and the band have sadly broken up since, RIP) and Knoll’s endeavor to make grind oppressive and scary was entirely successful, Shock Withdrawal hit the gas on The Dismal Advance and then cut the brakes, barreling through 21 ultra-tight minutes of deathgrind brutality with reckless brutality. It’s an addictive and breathtaking listen that just doesn’t quit.
It’s Just a Little Prog, a Little Prog Never Hurt Anybody
Runners-up:
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
Chapel of Disease – Echoes of Light
Moss Upon the Skull – Quest for the Secret Fire
Opeth – The Last Will and Testament
Resuscitate – Immortality Complex
WINNER: Bedsore – Dreaming the Strife for Love
The above albums are all varying degrees of great. I enjoyed Opeth’s triumphant return, though I found it a bit more meandering and directionless at times than I would’ve liked. And in my Absolute Elsewhere review I said, “we’ll be looking back at [this] ten years from now, marveling at how unique it still feels,” and I stand by that. I think it’s a brilliant record, and an impressive death/prog blend. But what Bedsore have done, despite being more niche than the rest (and therefore less likely to hold a lasting place in the collective metal conscience), is even better. It’s lush, romantic, anguished psychedelic death, wrapped exquisitely in the aesthetics of the 70s. It’s damn near pristine.
Sometimes I listen to metal with clean vocals!
Runners-up:
Crypt Sermon – The Stygian Rose
Fierce Deity – A Terrible Fate
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Lowen – Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran
WINNER: Fellowship – The Skies Above Eternity
No surprise here, especially if you read my review of The Skies Above Eternity. I don’t think this category is particularly close, either, even though Judas Priest remain ageless, Fierce Deity’s Jonathan Barwick writes circles around other concept albums, Crypt Sermon are still at the top of their game, and Lowen’s Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran was the (extremely worthy) surprise hit of the fall. Fellowship have just created the quintessential joyful power metal album, with hook after memorable hook and melodies I’ll be singing for months, and it’s hard to top a record so delightful.
A quick moment for…
The Grab Bag (aka Two Albums I Loved but Had a Hard Time Fitting in the Categories Above)
Curta’n Wall – Yr Gwyddbwyll
Gorging Shade – Inversions
EPs
Runners-up:
Black Dust – Katorga on a Distant Planet
Cavern Womb – Stages of Infinity
Disentomb – Nothing Above
Dødskvad – Krønike III
Fallen God – Dismembered Thoughts and Memories
Gutvoid – Breathing Obelisk
No Cure – I Hope I Die Here
Sallow Moth – Vial
Tracheotomy – Fixated Propensity for Destruction
WINNER: Pedestal for Leviathan – Festering Apparition
I’ve never heard anything quite like Festering Apparition, and that rules. Pedestal for Leviathan is an unholy amalgamation of symphonic “purple castle” black metal and brutal death—it shouldn’t work but it absolutely does—and this EP’s 10 minutes are unbelievably promising.
And finally, your Album of the Year for 2024:
Spectral Voice – Sparagmos
Thanks for reading, everyone! Let’s have an even better year for metal in 2025.