Written by Westin
2024 has been a year. Dealt with an overwhelmingly strong identity crisis, a serious burnout from that crisis resulting in a scant handful of full reviews from me, and got a new job that resulted in a major delay to this article. But I’m still here and so is so much damn good music. This has been the hardest year for me thus far in writing for Noob Heavy, as at least in previous years I felt I always had a very immediate record of the year as soon as I’d heard it. But this year wasn’t so easy, and it took a lot of thinking and listening and sorting out my feelings on too many records to finally arrive at my choice.
And that’s to say nothing of how hard the rest of the list was – the death metal cage match alone was a rougher bout than some of my entire previous annual articles. I’ve posted my honorable mentions list on social media (too big to include here of course) but rest assured that there are literally dozens of records that could also have easily made it to the final cut thanks to how jam-packed this year has been. I’m always grateful to every band who puts out a record, to every friend out there making music and sharing it with me and the world (you all rock), to the other writers and to everyone who keeps reading. Without further ado, my favourite albums of 2024.
24. Mayhemic – Toba (Sepulchural Voice Records)
The competition for my favourite thrash record of the year was narrow and nearly went to the similarly great Faüst record but in re-listening to Mayhemic I had to give the edge to them. The album is named for a prehistoric volcanic eruption that nearly wiped out the human race and the record reflects that. Toba is explosive and molten, threatening to melt your ears from the speed of shred and ferocity unleashed within. If you don’t get burned you’re gonna sprain your neck from headbanging.
23. Tribulation – Sub Rosa in Aeternum (Century Media Records)
It has now been many years since Tribulation shed the last vestiges of their death metal roots, though Sub Rosa may yet be their purest expression of their current gothic sound. Johannes’ voice is enthralling, deep and smooth, a spell to lull you to sleep. Sub Rosa is patient, pulling you in slow and steady like a stalking vampire but dynamic enough to retain your rapt attention as the energy rises but remains controlled. There are too many hooks and little musical flourishes aplenty and it’s a pure revel the entire time.
22. Void Witch – Horripilating Presence (Everlasting Spew Records)
Horripilation is the process wherein your hairs stand on end, and this album truly carries with it a presence capable of evoking that response. This is death metal with a real atmosphere, an unknowable, cloudy force lurking on the periphery that haunts your vision but never announces itself. The riffs here are slow and solid, grounding in the cold and alien void as you march forward towards the unfathomable.
21. Amethyst – Throw Down the Gauntlet (No Remorse Records)
Equal parts Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, and Iron Maiden, this is trad worship that sounds a little different, while the vocals remind me more of last year’s fantastic Flight record than a trad metal experience. Throw Down the Gauntlet is rockin’, groovin’ and full of tasty leads with warm and open production, this is absolutely an album to dance to like so many classic rock records but without being dragged down by weaker commercial sensibilities.
20. Ashenheart – Faded Gold (Syrup Moose Records)
Black metal and Dark Souls is a familiar pairing at this point, so black metal and Elden Ring is a perfectly natural extension. Amanda Kauffman is a brilliant artist, the decade spent honing this record to perfection feeling absolutely worth it as she weaves guitars and drums together alongside Alex Loach’s ugly and monstrous vocals worthy of a boss battle. This is what bedroom black metal is about – passion, dedication and an interest in (relatively) niche subject matter that finds a home in the great attention democratizer that is the internet.
19. Die Verlierer – Notausgang (Mangel Records)
Notausgang is a really damn fun punk record, striking a good balance between the chaotic energy of the 70’s first wave and the 80’s shift towards melancholic post-punk. With power chords aplenty complemented by rock n roll solos straight off of an early The Damned LP, it kicks off strong and in your face, but Die Verlierer are able to shift on a dime to something more hypnotically rhythmic, perfect for dancing in some smoky dingy club in the middle of the night. Notausgang is an encapsulation of the first decade of punk with a healthy German spirit.
18. Cryptic Hatred – Internal Torment (Time to Kill Records)
The opening few seconds of Internal Torment could easily be mistaken for a Cannibal Corpse song but the Finnish lads in Cryptic Hatred have their own take on the sound. This is no frills gut-punching death metal that never relents or pauses for breath, every song shifting constantly to keep up the energy and interest. All this is topped off by some of the best leadwork in death metal this year. There is no doom, no hardcore, no technical wizardry nor space age melody at play on Internal Torment, just the power of incredible violence (and riffs).
17. Fellowship – The Skies Above Eternity (Scarlet Records)
Matthew Corry can sing – his velvet voice feels like a perfectly honed and oiled blade fit perfectly into the scabbard that is the instrumentals of Fellowship. The Skies Above Eternity is everything you want in a power metal album – bombastic, melodic and full of shredding guitars but what sets Fellowship apart is a sense of purpose and focus. There is a restraint and emphasis on serving the song that stands out in the seas of more forgettable releases in the genre. This band knows how to ride vocal melodies and when to drop tasteful solos but still shows off just how damn fun and uplifting metal can be.
16. Undeath – More Insane (Prosthetic Records)
When you’ve already had what may be modern death metal’s peak in explosive popularity, where do you go from there? Undeath could easily rest on their laurels and pump out a string of similar albums but instead they chose to get More Insane. This record is an evolution across the board with every member leveling up, not least of which is vocalist Alex Jones who sounds progressively more unhinged as the record continues. The addition of melodic leads and more technical playing lend the band an edge they didn’t even need to be one of the best in the modern era and yet they keep pushing. This is one of the few objectively correct albums that should belong on more AOTY lists.
15. Lowen – Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Manzandaran (Church Road Records)
Singer Nina Saeidi voice is as haunting as it is beautiful, a celestial spirit rising above the cacophony of the mortal world below. Her voice is the lynchpin around which the music centers, with slight Middle Eastern influences, a nod to her Iranian heritage, adding a fresh and lively element to the doom stylings of Lowen. This mix of metal with personal culture always lends itself to strong musical identities that shine very strongly in a sea of bands, and underneath all this is a capable band with good riffs and driving grooves.
14. Upon Stone – Dead Mother Moon (Century Media Records)
Melodeath is making a comeback and Upon Stone are at the forefront. Dead Mother Moon sounds like it picks up where In Flames left off (“Onyx Through the Heart” could have easily come off The Jester Race) but the band are not content to purely copycat or rest on nostalgia. Energy levels are off the charts but there’s an appreciation for dynamics and songwriting that demonstrates a sense of maturity belying this as a debut record. Riffs and hooks abound throughout Dead Mother Moon, easily making it one of my most listened to records of the year.
13. Convulsing – Perdurance (Total Dissonance Worship)
Despair, self-harm, a loss of identity – thematically Perdurance is an album expressing the darkest parts of the inner self. That despondency lends a frenetic energy to the angular riffs through Brendan Sloan’s anguished vocals, ready to embrace oblivion of the self. An intense feeling of genuine self-hatred permeates throughout, the aura lending another layer of heaviness on top of the guitars and drums that already threaten to crush the listener creates one of the most emotionally engaging death metal records of recent memory.
12. Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished (20 Buck Spin)
Chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease slowly choking the life out of global amphibian populations and that horrific imagery is an apt setting for Slimelord’s music. This is death/doom that is utterly dank and fetid, with gaseous bursts emanating in a swirling mass of colours and unbearable smells. A hazy fog descends upon you as you listen, circling around, uncertain as to your destination while the life cycle plays out before you. Chytridiomycosis Relinquished is weird and uncomfortable and ugly and easily claims the title of one of the best death metal records of the year.
11. Memorrhage – Anyo (Lilang Isla/Independent)
At this point what can any of us even say about Garry Brents? If there’s a genre he hasn’t touched you better hope he leaves it alone or else the pillars of the genre will end up looking embarrassingly out of date in their own scene. I don’t need to tell you that Anyo has perfectly dry and punchy production, grinding grooves, sick turn tabling or a guest list longer than many albums’ full credits. Memorrhage is a compilation of every good idea everyone’s ever had in nu metal history, twisted and repackaged in a way that is impressively organic and original. Garry just gets it in a way that makes this album greater than the sum of its parts (JNCOs and regrettable tribal tats thankfully discarded).
10. Kanonenfieber – Die Urkatastrophe (Century Media Records)
Aesthetic is everything for Kanonenfieber, from the incredible album art (sourced from actual Great War propaganda art) to the lyrics built off front lines letters to the live performance’s stage show sense of dark theater. Identity is a powerful tool and Noise, the mastermind general behind the project, wields it with lethal intent. This aesthetic crafting lends itself to immersing yourself even deeper in the music and the atmosphere and the horror. And make no mistake, Die Urkatastrophe is an utter horror – a sea of blood and bodies and barbed wire with no winners except those who profit off mass death and nationalized hatred.
9. Molchat Doma – Belaya Polosa (Sacred Bones Records)
While the central essence of Molchat Doma remains wonderfully unchanged, Belaya Polosa sees the band stretching their creative limits. Dark and pulsing post-punk rhythms remain the driving musical force but they are now complemented by a subtly increased variety of synths as well as more dynamic songwriting that dares to get just a few candelas brighter in the rare moments the shades are pulled back. Like all good post-punk the album is equally balanced between songs that are great to dance to in a dingy club and songs that are great to cry to in a dingy club.
8. Hekseblad – Kaer Morhen (Hypnotic Dirge Records)
When I reviewed Kaer Morhen back in April I had it as my most listened to album of the year so far and it still remains in my top ten on that count. Frosk and Bruxa have crafted a truly stellar record, and a debut no less, that captures the spirit of the second wave while shedding the archaic baggage of that periods limitations. The acoustic and classical touches sprinkled across Kaer Morhen add sophistication perfectly juxtaposed with the icy and mystical darkness. The band’s narrative and thematic approach strengthens the connections to the source material and creates a sense of depth and history that gives more weight to the lyrics and mood regardless of your familiarity with The Witcher. This is some of the best black metal you will hear in 2024.
7. Respire – Hiraeth (Dine Alone Records)
The recent trend of mixing black metal and screamo may be one of my favourite things in music right now. Like last year’s stunning Dreamwell record (that also made that year’s list), Respire are more of a blackened screamo experience than a proper metal band, but that is its strength. Hiraeth is allowed to explore a much greater emotional and musical depth without being held back by metal’s sometimes dogmatic soundscapes. Strings, horns, synths and even glockenspiel are blended together with a grandiosity and a sense revolutionary optimism that are unexpectedly uplifting. There is a feeling of resplendent joy and hope that permeates every moment of Hiraeth as an affirmation of life itself as even tears can water the grounds of tomorrow’s blossoms.
6. Cryptic Brood – Necrotic Flesh Bacteria (Lycanthropic Chants/Independent)
My favourite straight forward death (and doom) metal release of the year. This German three piece sound all the more dynamic for their relative simplistic approach – the songs aren’t buried under too many layers of guitar and production. This is one of the best sounding death metal records you’ll hear this year. Necrotic Flesh Bacteria is the sound of disease, wretched and rotting. The vocals sound like the dying rasps of some unfortunate soul melting in acid or torn apart by some writhing and slithering parasite. There are no movie monsters here – the real horror unleashed by Cryptic Brood is the invisible killer already inside you, lurking and festering, an incubator for your own demise.
5. Allie X – Girl With No Face (Twin Music/AWAL)
Who is Allie X? Even she seems to not entirely know the answer. Girl with No Face is a fairly plain metaphor for an exploration of her own identity but it also serves as a blank slate upon which the concept of identity itself can be peeled back and picked apart. From the music videos to the album cover to the music production itself, everything is drenched in the nostalgic glow of retro synths and sparkling lens flare but broadcast through a digital camera, digital recording equipment and a modern sense of ironic wit and the influence of internet irreverence. Girl With No Face is undoubtedly retro but it’s also impossibly modern, queerness front and center on songs like the humorous “Off With Her Tits” or the homoerotic longing of “Galina”, and the unapologetically-cringe computers-as-sex metaphor in “Hardware Software”. Across the record the ‘classic’ is used less as a crutch and more as a launch pad towards the absurd and silly end of unraveling identity.
4. Cave Sermon – Divine Laughter (Independent)
Post-metal filters through black metal often enough as to make post-black metal an identifiable thing and yet death metal so rarely gets the same treatment. Cave Sermon is the answer – the frantic riffs and crushing heaviness of death metal filtered through the lens of post-metal distortion and abstraction, Divine Laughter becoming a form of abstract art that mirrors its cover. “Beyond Recognition” so aptly demonstrates this when the metal drops out entirely for an otherworldly and stunningly beautiful ascendant synth, like a momentary view into the infinite. Divine Laughter is a swirling mass of color and life drawn out of the dense void of sonic extremity.
3. Job for a Cowboy – Moon Healer (Metal Blade Records)
The now genre-defining Doom EP that launched Job for a Cowboy into the greater metal current was itself nearly a decade old when the band seemingly vanished, and now another decade since then has passed when the band finally returned with new music. Moon Healer might be described as a powerful return, but in all honesty it just sounds like JfaC never left and had instead released this record not long after Sun Eater. The production is fantastic, sounding absolutely massive and full but never overwhelming, with plenty of highlighting space for the bass and drum fills. The tone and space lend an appropriately cosmic vibe to the album, which when combined with the aural textures of the instruments, leaves you wondering why more death metal doesn’t sound this damn good. Job for a Cowboy clearly spent their absence both leveling up and remaining focused on what they had already spent years perfecting.
2. Melt-Banana – 3+5 (A-ZAP)
Earlier this year I forced Kep to listen to Melt-Banana for the first time and he described them as “hyperactive noise rock with a caffeinated squirrel on vox” – he’s not wrong, that’s just the sound of musical perfection. I have been waiting for new material from the band for over a decade and genuinely thought I’d never get it, but now I can die a more complete individual. Yasuko and Agata are in peak form, a blasting rocket bursting through the atmosphere via sheer force of will, unstoppable and bristling with explosive potential.
Agata’s drum programming has gotten even sharper since Fetch, sounding even more organic and lively which just gives him more room to accent his guitar playing and the buzzsaw noisescapes he loves to craft. Yasuko’s chirps and squeaks still carry the energy of a thousand suns, cutting through the din like a concealed pocket knife. This may be a controversial opinion but I think 3+5 is an even better record than Fetch, with the record carrying a forward momentum and upward trajectory with its bright chords and evolution as the band ascends towards some unknowable dimension that we’ll only finally catch up to when the duo have left it all behind once more.
1. Ὁπλίτης – Παραμαινομένη (Independent)
Scarcely not even two full years ago I discovered Ὁπλίτης (English translation: Hoplites) on Bandcamp by pure accident and it has since become one of my favourite contemporary metal projects. Hoplites is an embodiment of so much of what is happening in underground metal right now and making it feel as alive as ever. Every new record is another step forward and, having already taken so many in just a year, it’s impressive how each record has felt like a shift in dynamic that communicates a sense of artistic evolution.
Παραμαινομένη sees yet more boundary pushing while retaining the signature feeling of barely controlled chaos that so strongly identifies Hoplites’ sound. The incorporation of saxophone in a certain way is a logical next step on the journey through the progressive spectrum but it is never once used to play to clichés of contemplative moodiness, instead acting like a machine gun staccato of horrific jazz, bursts of life crushed between deific forces and snuffed out but all the more memorable for their violent brevity. A bold and attention grabbing addition to an already overbearing pandemonium, the very first track ends with JL heavily breathing into the mic, exhausted and breathless, and I experience the same thing every time I listen to a Hoplites record. This is my new favourite record from the band and I wait, breathless, for whatever the future holds.