Top Albums ov 2024 w/ Joe Thrashnkill, Spear & Rolderathis!
Blurb Containing The Conceptual Thunder Stolen (With Permission) From A Superiorly Clever Contributor In Obeisance To The Words Of LISTMANIA 2K24 DAY 6 Which Hath Been Written By The Iniquitous Shades Joe Thrashnkill, Spear, And Rolderathis.
Joe Thrashnkill
I am a rocker, first and foremost. Before metal ever entered my life, I was in the crib moving and grooving to AC/DC and Ozzy‘s solo records. This year I’ve gone back to my baby brain and filled my gullet with sumptuous rocking and rolling. There’s other shit here too, but let it be known that 2024 was a year for four-on-the-floor rockin’. None of these albums are ranked numerically from worst to best or vice-versa because I love all of my children equally.
Spectral Voice – Sparagmos
Dark Descent Records
Especially Evil Cut – “Red Feasts Condensed Into One”
This was the year of Paul Riedl and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Before he sent us all ass-first into the stargate, Paul and the Blood Incantation crew threw us into a cramped sarcophagus and buried that bitch 10 feet deep with Sparagmos. Spectral Voice made a clear artistic departure from the accessible, even catchy Eroded Corridors of Unbeing to create a more suffocating, more chaotic full-length that captures the crown for most straight-up evil record of the year in my book of the dead. I listened to this the first time while getting an intensely painful tattoo across my caved-in little bird chest and I think that might be the ideal listening scenario for all of you as well. Go set up some appointments.
Demiser – Slave to the Scythe
Blacklight Media
Makes Me Feel Good – “Infernal Bust”
Most days I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I just want some blasphemous ripping blackthrash that’s easy to bang my stupid little head to. Thankfully, Demiser from Charleston, SC is here to terrorize all the nice god-fearing people of the South for us all. Thanks, Demiser.
Sabïre – Jätt
Independent Release
Best Song for Problematic Young Men – “Toxic Man”
Jätt is hands-down the best hard rock release of 1989. Every song is about rocking, fucking, being a piece of shit, or some combination of each thereof. Fronted by Scarlett Monastyrski, Sabïre is a band that offers the melodies, musicianship, and songwriting chops that most of the old hair metal guys would have killed (their friends while drunk driving) for. It’s a shame that music is in such a fragmented place that a record like this doesn’t get more attention, but that’s what list season is for. Buy this, jam it, blast cigs behind the gymnasium. It’s that simple.
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
Century Media
The Only Dub/Death Metal Song I Can Think Of: “The Stargate [Tablet 1]”
The mad lads have done it. I first saw Blood Incantation play a shithole bar in New Orleans with their amp stacks turned up about 300 decibels too loud. This year I saw them play a music hall with a full psychedelic light display and the grandest live mix I can recall in quite some time. If it is still possible for a death metal band to make their mark in the wider world, Blood Incantation are doing it. Call me a fanboy, call me a poser, call me what you like, but for my money Absolute Elsewhere represents a watershed moment in modern metal. One of our lil Bandcamp bands is breaking through and they’re doing it in style. Godspeed.
In Retrograde – In Retrograde
Transylvanian Recordings
What If They Played Black Metal In The Cluuuuuuub? – “Two Lovers”
You got your black metal in my darkwave! No, you got your darkwave in my black metal! *deep, sloppy making out at 80s goth nite*
Chapel of Disease – Echoes of Light
Ván Records
Please, These Straits, They are Dire – “Echoes of Light”
One of my favorite records of the 2010s was ...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye so you KNOW I was gonna be amped up on this surprise release from Chapel of Disease. It’s been said a time or two but Death Metal is now a Dad genre. It only makes sense for it to embrace the tasty guitar licks of Dad Rock to reach the apex form of white New Balance and T-shirt tucked in Dad Music. This is me. I am Dad. We are all Dad. And we are all rocking together, tastefully.
The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
Universal
Dear God I’ve Wasted It All – “Alone”
I love using my year-end lists to give a little dap to lesser known artists. These UK-based musicians have been toiling away in obscurity for almost 50 years and it’s time that someone gave them their shot at the big time via a shit-fetish blog. But in all seriousness, folks, The Cure is my favorite band of all time and Songs of a Lost World is so much better than it has any right to be for a band that has been doing it for so long. It just goes to show that passion is fleeting but deep, impenetrable melancholy is forever. If Disintegration is the miserable song of youth, Songs of a Lost World is the wise old man looking back nodding, “yeah, it do be that way sometimes.” I love you, Robert.
Gutless – High Impact Violence
Me Saco Un Ojo Records
GORE FOR THE – “GORE GOD”
Being stupid is incredibly liberating. I’m having a wonderful time.
Pøltergeist– Nachtmusik
Bad Omen Records
Me and Jordan’s Favorite Track of the Year – “Children of the Dark”
Metal dudes: have you considered turning down the distortion, cranking up the reverb, and slapping on a pair of cool sunglasses? It doesn’t always work out but when it does, post-punk-via-heavy metal is one of the finest delicacies on earth. In a year with a new record by The Cure, your sad jams had better be pretty goddamn outstanding to stand alongside the Old Gods. You got lucky, Pøltergeist.
Haunted Plasma – I
Svart Records
Haunted Plasma by Haunted Plasma – “Haunted Plasma”
This cyberpunk future fucking sucks. I was promised Skynet, metal arms, plasma rifles, and trench coats. Instead we got corporate slavery, Facebook AI slop, and endless crypto scams. Haunted Plasma, a project led by members of Circle, Oranssi Pazuzu, and others, indulges in the Tangerine Dreams of a cyber future that was promised but never materialized. When I listen to “Haunted Plasma” I cant help but feel I’m floating through the virtual reality realm of The Lawnmower Man and that shit is worth the price of admission alone.
Spear
Due to my desperate need to be a special boy slavish devotion to maximizing coverage of cool shit, there are several albums I ended up axing from this list due to other people having brought them up already. The Black Dahlia Murder had my most-played album this year by a shockingly wide margin, Rolderathis included Slimelord in this very collection of lists, and our staff also ensured that Ceremony of Silence, Opeth, Defeated Sanity, Krallice, Job For A Cowboy, Khirki, and Replicant got their flowers. Painful as those cuts were, there’s nothing on here that isn’t equally deserving, plus like fifteen more albums besides. ONLY TEN ALBUMS IS BULLSHIT anyway here they are in alphabetical order.
Deathless – Clairvoyant
Independent
I get the feeling that Deathless will have the misfortune of being snubbed from some top 10 lists this year due to having both released an album in early February and in the same year as The Black Dahlia Murder, and that shit just isn’t fair. If you want yourself some Halloween-ass metal that sounds like the aforementioned melodeath titans without really sounding like them, then you owe it to yourself to check this out. Same ballpark, different overall sound. The razor-sharp production and vocal style might give off deathcore vibes, but if you’re averse to that, I promise it doesn’t tread into that territory whatsoever. In any case, this album is wall to wall bangers: wicked melodies, fantastic shreds, and an all-around great time.
Devenial Verdict – Blessing of Despair
Transcending Obscurity
I am nearly at a loss for what to say about Devenial Verdict beyond that I am in awe of this album. Despite this being only their second record, these dudes do the dissonant death metal thing with the skill of seasoned veterans, and they do it catchier than just about everyone else out there (Gorguts and Sunless notwithstanding). That characteristic harsh tension is intertwined with moments of huge melody and haunting atmosphere, and I gotta give props to the vocalist for having a fairly unique and unbelievably gnarly scream. This is one of those rare albums where I’m damn near constantly thinking about it even when I’m not listening to it. No matter what I’m doing, I can hear the wailing.
Fathomless Ritual – Hymns for the Lesser Gods
Transcending Obscurity
The good man behind Fathomless Ritual boldly asked, “What if someone went beyond Demilich worship and made an entire album of just that one Demilich riff (you know exactly which one)?” Friends, let me tell you, these are exactly the types of questions we need answered. This album is catnip for dudes with a wardrobe consisting entirely of 4-sided death metal long sleeves. It’s got weird bullfrog vocals; it’s got those twisted melodies that sound like you’re falling up a staircase; it’s got grooves fatter than the average Frozen Soul/Undeath dual headliner tour attendee. Congrats to Fathomless Ritual for releasing the ass-shakingest death metal record of 2024.
Gorging Shade – Inversions
Independent | Disso Feature
Inversions now shares a place with Dawn of Nil‘s Culminating Ruins in the vaunted category of “Death Metal Albums That Came Out of Absolutely Fucking Nowhere and Blew My Mind by Just Kinda Doing Their Own Thing.” It’s a little bit tech, a little bit prog, a little bit melodic, and a hundred percent phenomenal. Brock already talked this up in his writeup a few weeks back, so check that out if you want a more thorough examination. Just know that despite being an extremely late addition to this list, Gorging Shade has left such an impression in a short period of time that I can say with full confidence they deserve their place among these other records.
Hemotoxin – When Time Becomes Loss
Pulverised Records
After an uneven experiment in 2020’s Restructure the Molded Mind, this year’s When Time Becomes Loss feels like both a return to form and a real evolution of the band. Back on their comfortable foundation of thrashy melodic death metal (or deathy melodic thrash? It’s melodic and also deathy and thrashy), Hemotoxin cut all the shit from their last effort that didn’t work out but retained the more unorthodox approach to melody. It lands somewhere between Symbolic and Anareta, and it’s great for anyone looking for a Vektor fix without all the baggage that comes along with them. The one-two punch of “Abstract Commands” and “Conscious Descent” is fucking prime.
Hyperdontia – Harvest of Malevolence
Dark Descent
A Spear list would not be complete without some fuck-you death metal on it, and I wavered between this and Undeath for awhile, but Hyperdontia ended up winning out (sorry zombie boys, I still love you, I promise). These lads have been consistently putting out some of the best pure death metal out there for the past few years; no frills, no gimmicks, just music that you’ll need those excess teeth for to truly appreciate how crunchy it is. It’s elevated by a great mix and master that brings that super busy bass work to the forefront and gives it this great live-in-the-room kind of sound. Just a great album all around.
Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All
Napalm Records | Review
Blurb Containing the Words of Praise for the Band That Writes Songs About Such Topics as Being Force-Fed Poop by Hell Monkeys and Shunning the Light of Ra and Who Have Evolved Their Sound Shockingly Late Into Their Career to Great Success Which in Turn Makes Them One of the Few Bands of Their Era to Deserve Their Place at the Forefront of the Brutal and Technical Death Metal Zeitgeist.
Scavenger – Beyond the Bells
No Remorse Records
The modern incarnation of Scavenger is a real ship of Theseus, having none of the band’s original members but bearing the classic lineup’s blessing to carry on their legacy. Beyond the Bells is a hell of a way to carry that legacy into the current day, and it worked its way into my regular rotation since it dropped back in March. And wouldn’t you know it, the album sounds like it could have been plucked straight out of the ’80s; these folks clearly know what they’re doing when it comes to speed metal. A killer vocalist and meticulous focus on the details in the songwriting, be it a little drum flourish here, a spicy bass fill there, or a sick guitar turnaround, make this album truly stand out.
Upon Stone – Dead Mother Moon
Century Media
Much like last year’s Majesties release, Dead Mother Moon sounds like an album pulled from an alternate timeline in which one of those mid-’90s melodeath pioneers actually honed their craft and continued to make good music instead of letting that all go down in flames (not to name any names). Even if that is the only glimpse we get into what could have been, I will be satisfied, because this thing rips. It’s got a classic sound to it both from a production and songwriting standpoint; the dirty and punchy tone gives melodic hooks some vicious barbs, and at no point does it feel like they skimped on the Death for the Melo. Some people will chafe at the cover of “Dig Up Her Bones” (I thought it was fine), but that aside, this will be an enjoyable listen for most anyone.
Wintersun – Time II
Nuclear Blast | Review
Look man, let me have this one.
Rolderathis
2024 was bonkers for metal, no doubt about it; from the first days of January through checks BC wishlist this week, promising upstarts and grizzled veterans alike have released a staggering, steaming pile of albums right into this here Bowl. Thanks are in order to the Toileteers, new and old, who’ve toiled with me to keep the plumbing regular, despite the state of the world beyond these porcelain walls. This year marked 10 years of TovH—here’s to another 10 with my chosen flock. Keep commenting in Disqus, shidposting in Discord, and meeting up at shows, and we’ll keep flushing!
10. Teeth – The Will of Hate
Translation Loss Records
The Will of Hate‘s immense gravity is enough to spaghettify even the most ardent modern death devotee; like a black hole’s devouring void, no object can resist its pull. The dense production lends palpable weight to this collection of dissonant distress signals, and the band’s penchant for groove provides an anchor to prevent listeners from drifting off into the vacuum. Tracks like “Blight” and “Prison” include extended breakdowns that verge on danceable, thanks to Alejandro Aranda’s impressive performance behind the kit.
If the rhythm section forms the hull of a spacecraft, the twisting melodies and monstrous vocals are the aliens creeping through these claustrophobic corridors. “Apparition”‘s stuttering intro, combined with the outré, wailing leads, is essentially an auditory panic attack; a xenomorph pounding against a ribcage. Harsh language won’t be enough to save you from Teeth. Game over, man!
9. Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished
20 Buck Spin
I’m undecided on whether Tiktaalik made a huge mistake with those adorable lobed fins, but if it led to the release of Chytridiomycosis Relinquished, it wasn’t all for naught. Slimelord’s death/doom came crawling early in the year, dripping primordial soup and some of the most fetid vocals this side of the Devonian. I distinctly recall the night IGoM dropped the first single, “The Beckoning Bell,” in TovH Discord; I was in a vile mood, but the escalating heaviness of the chugs in the track’s second half became so absurd I just chuckled and shook my head in admiration. I’d never heard the sound of a guitar in its death throes before.
The rest of the album follows in slimy yet satisfying fashion: “Gut-Brain Axis” ups the prog factor with mystical melodicism and its winding structure, while “Batrachomorpha Ressurections Chamber”‘s quiet, psychedelic ambience makes the lurching doom that follows even more grotesque in comparison. By the time “Heroic Demise” rolls around, listeners will be spoiled rotten, sloughing off skin as the mycelia dig in.
8. Blighted Eye – Agony’s Bespoke
Beyond the Top Records | TTT Feature
The debut LP from Blighted Eye is certainly ambitious; few bands can juggle more than a couple genres without exposing fissures in their foundation, especially ones this young. Agony’s Bespoke is, at its core, a blackened death record, but each of the myriad genre tangents feels fully formed—”The Wounding” tackles deathcore’s rhythmic swagger and baleful atmosphere with aplomb, and “Pallid”‘s dissoblack and doom elements are convincingly oppressive.
Blighted Eye’s anything-goes approach to songwriting reminds me of Well of Night‘s 2020 debut, The Lower Planes of Self-Abstraction; I felt a similar comfort listening through both of these records for the first time. As each of these long-form compositions weaved their way through moments of triumph, despair, tranquility, and chaos, I realized I trusted the band: with their vision and with my time. It’s rare for an album (especially one running over an hour) to maintain momentum and avoid missteps, but Agony’s Bespoke stands as an exemplar for young and hungry bands. Their future seems bright as a dagger glinting in the sun.
7. stupidPilled – A Critique of Pure Reason
Independent
It’s been a few years since electronic music found its way onto my list, but one spin of our very own Sean Ghoulson‘s latest EP was enough to secure a spot. A Critique of Pure Reason sends me hurtling back to my childhood, sitting by the computer and listening to the modem sing its jagged song on my way to that newfangled internet. Sonically, this EP is something like the soundtrack to a long-lost Newgrounds Flash game, wrapped in a modern vaporwave aesthetic and crackling with creativity.
Dense, jittery beats meet unorthodox samples (the brass stings in “Reason Vol. II” come to mind) and nostalgic synths across these 4 tracks; I’m constantly impressed with the painstaking arrangements and the multitude of virtual instruments on display in such a compact format. From “Reason Vol. II”‘s breakbeats to the aggressive, bare groove that closes out “Reason Vol. III,” the latest from stupidPilled is an easy pill to swallow.
6. Demiser – Slave to the Scythe
Blacklight Media | TTT Feature
With their second swing of the scythe, Demiser has toppled Toba and butchered Bütcher, usurping the blackthrash throne in the year of our Dark Lord, 2K24. Propulsion and camp are crucial ingredients for the genre—and cover art with a face-crotch never hurts—but what sets the band above (below?) their impish ilk is that most blasphemous concept: nuance.
Slave to the Scythe boasts a clean, punchy production style that, at least on paper, seems at odds with the genre’s trademark sleaze and rabidity; however, I challenge you to listen to such highbrow tracks as “Phallomancer the Phallomancer” without showering immediately afterwards. Like with any self-respecting sacrilegious orgy, shifting tempo and style is key to keeping the party going; from “Feast”‘s memorable drum solo, to the title track’s melodic NWoBHM elements, each song has more in store than just a constant pounding. Even the enigmatically-titled interlude, “Interlude,” earns its place with a charming arrangement for acoustic guitar that neatly bisects the album. Next time your goats are running low on fuel, I implore you to make an infernal pit stop with these South Carolinian Satanists.
5. Hecatoncheir – Nightmare Utopia
Total Dissonance Worship | Disso Feature
If your band’s namesake is a mythological being with 50 heads and 100 arms, you’d better sound downright eldritch. Thankfully, Nightmare Utopia delivers spookiness in spades; the hypnotic, chugging riffs have a mechanistic quality to them, distancing the sound from anything made by human hands, and an eerie mist of chorus shimmers above the record’s few moments of respite. (The particularly grinding guitar tone recalls Barús‘ debut EP.)
What keeps me coming back for atomization is the band’s understanding of dissonance—namely that it’s most effective as a grotesque garnish, a single ingredient as opposed to an album’s sole focus. Tracks like “Nightmare Utopia (II. Him in the Gulf)” and “Madness of the Stars” meld groovy death metal, oppressive doom, and dissonant barbs that call out to my brain like a rotten tooth begging to be prodded. I’d be remiss not to mention the absurdly down-tuned guitars in the latter track, which sound like someone replaced their strings with surgical tubing—clearly, the sleep of reason produces monster riffs.
4. HILD – Thrash På Svenska
Black Lion Records | Mini
After dozens of listens, HILD remains something of an enigma to me—albeit one that certainly belongs here. Drum sound and vocals are the easiest way to turn me off, and Thrash På Svenska is quite the outlier from my usual tastes: rickety, bone-dry d-beats and abrasive, mid-ranged barks make up the vast majority of this record, so why was it blasting so frequently in my delicate owl earholes?
Not much about this album can be considered “subtle,” but there’s a faintly technical aspect to the blackthrash-meets-crust punk riffing that captured my attention; with each slick legato run or breakneck triplet, it slowly dawned on me just how fast these guitars were hurtling by—adept, but never flashy. And sure, throw in some beautiful, bit-crushed piano and genuinely epic, sword-day/red-day melodies amidst the piss and vinegar. I doubt I’ll ever completely understand my attachment to Thrash På Svenska, and that’s just fine by me.
3. Ischemic – Condemned to the Breaking Wheel
Independent
Getting through an entire death/doom album can feel like torture to me, and not in the enjoyable sense; too often, bands either divide their songs into Death and Doom sections with no connective tissue, or excel in one half of the equation and putter around wasting time in the other. (PSA: doom is more than just an excuse to let your drummer rest.) As if scenting the rapid decay of my interest in the genre this year, Funeral Leech and Mother of Graves released impressive sophomore albums of the grody and melodic variety respectively, but it was Ischemic’s latest that put the screws to me in earnest.
Each of the 4 songs on Condemned to the Breaking Wheel slices skin from its victims in depraved and tantalizing fashion: the title track immediately bludgeons us with abrasive deathgrind before settling into a clinktastic groove, and “Tomb Fog” worships at the altar of Swedeath and the reverb-soaked melodies of blue castle black metal. All throughout, Victor Bullok’s production crushes listeners like stones on Giles Corey, until even the fastest death metal riffing evokes imminent doom. Ischemic isn’t reinventing the breaking wheel, but they’re a talented team of executioners with a deep understanding of the body and all the right places to make you squirm.
2. Aklash – Reincarnation
Independent | TTT Feature
Listening to Reincarnation feels like walking into the midst of a pagan ceremony—one refreshingly devoid of the hateful Nordaboo symbolism that plagues black metal. Instead, baroque guitar melodies and chanted lyrics conjure images of revelry beneath the sun and moon; shrines piled high with milk and bread for forest spirits. (Think tchotchkes, not Nazis.)
In just over 35 minutes, Aklash weaves together distinctive instrumentation (like the oboe/recorder intro to the otherwise dissonant “A Communion with Ghosts”) jubilance at near-Spider God levels (“Babylon”), and anthemic, heavy metal choruses into a unique experience I found myself returning to constantly. The album’s genre cross-pollination makes each song stand out in an often monochromatic style; from psychedelic black metal to surf and arena rock, from quiet reflection to chaotic blasting, Reincarnation is an offering any god, old or new, would be lucky to receive.
1. Khirki – Κυκεώνας (Kykeónas)
Venerate Industries | Review
Ahh, Κυκεώνας—I don’t know how to erase you. Try as I might (I didn’t), I was slowly submerged in this stellar sophomore release, to the point where, like fellow Khirki-enjoyer Hans, I neglected all other music for large swathes of time. Because I must become a caricature of myself shoehorn mention of Cormorant in any way possible, my relationship to Κυκεώνας echoes the initial reluctance I felt towards their second album, Dwellings, which became my favorite album of all time: an initial recoiling from a more focused, more nuanced take on a beloved sound.
Κυκεώνας‘s concoction of hard rock, heavy metal, funk, and folk music (to name a few genres present) comes together into something I will insufferably dub “adventure metal:” a particular sound that activates my synesthesia in a way that transports me around the world. From the Mediterranean Motörhead of “Your Majesty” to the smoky, torch-lit caverns of melodic sludge banger “Hekate,” Khirki has once again sailed to the top of my list—and into my heart’s chambers.
This brings us to the end of LISTMANIA 2K24, but watch this space for a few surprises before the axe falls on the year.
Don’t forget to check out LISTMANIA 2K24 DAYS I, II, III, IV, and V!
