Time Is A Flat Circle Pit: Stage’s Top 10 Albums ov 2K24
You great big dummies…you thought LISTMANIA 2K24 was over when we destroyed the shambling corpse of Brerlapn‘s list in the dying embers of December 31st. How naive. How myopic. Now wolf down this fetid feast, courtesy of TovH Discord’s own gurt-guzzler, Stagemadness!
I look in the mirror every morning and shave off what remains of my hair, reminding myself that this mechanical act is one of acceptance of change. This bald man now recognizes the twilight phase these last few years had been before taking the plunge and embracing the fact there was no hiding it anymore, shaving it all off, and asking for a divorce. The enormous mental bandwidth required to process a decision equivalent to detonating a grenade in my life reduced my capacity to enjoy art, food, life, or leisure to near-zero; this really sucked the life out of List Season (every metal fan’s reason for the season during The Season). Months of marinating have hardly improved my taste, but have sharpened my desire to move back toward normalcy, which includes arbitrarily ranking annual contributions to this genre every one of us idiots love.
10. Cave Sermon – Divine Laughter (Proggy Dissodeath – Australia)
Independent
I had an uneasy feeling I was missing out on something, leaving a stone unturned and wondering what if things had gone differently. Well, turns out I was right and didn’t catch this album until well into 2025. It’s complex, yet brutish, much like a man in a years-long wrestling match with his own instinct telling him that something isn’t right here.
9. Kvaen – The Formless Fires (Solo Black Metal Project – Sweden)
Metal Blade Records
I can picture myself descending my basement stairs, seeking blessed refuge in a workshop that was wholly my own, and producing nothing. The mechanical act of sorting hobby tools as if in preparation to create something, anything that would hone my skills or unleash whatever expression dwelled within me, deemed worthy of my time of withdrawal. Kvaen sure does a hell of a lot more than that in his basement. To me, the familiarity of pagan-themed black metal feels like returning to the comfort of an old blanket, but Kvaen has thus far raised the bar on each successive release and seems to cherish a classic black metal texture mixed with incredible guitar solos.
8. Blóð – MARA (Sludge – France)
Talheim Records Germany
Blending big walls of ominous, fuzzy dread with full-throated harsh and clean female vocals reminds me of rosters of bands I’d love to jam together on one bill and have a blast seeing with my friends—we don’t get together much these days. I don’t think even a dream lineup can rekindle the excitement of having a crew you can rely on to be at every show after life starts growing more complicated in ways that somehow pushes pals to the periphery. This is a great album for walking alone in the rain because you’re unwilling to accept the mundanity of what awaits you at home.
7. Funeral Leech – The Illusion of Time (Death/Doom – New York, USA)
Carbonized Records
The first 60 seconds is a subtly building crescendo that ultimately drops you in a scummy sewer that for some reason you cannot bring yourself to leave for the next 41 minutes. Their debut in 2020 was an early COVID comfort for me, and this second album added flesh in the form of songwriting prowess that exceeded my high expectations.
6. Ante-Inferno – Death’s Soliloquy (Black Metal – UK)
Vendetta Records | TTT
A relentlessly bleak and rasping black metal release that just snuck in at the end of the year. Somehow, to dig yourself out of a hole, it can help to dig deeper. Ante-Inferno hands you the shovel and leaves you to embrace how god-damned terrible the impending uncertainty of life alone is going to feel. Thanks, assholes.
5. Blighted Eye – Agony’s Bespoke (Atmospheric Black Metal – Seattle, USA)
Beyond the Top Records | TTT
Begrudgingly beautiful and expertly recorded, the dynamics of every song on this album leave me scraping my barren wordbarrel for words that describe this more better. Like many good albums, its emotional tone is in the ear of the beholder. It resonates with a rumbling, hopeless sadness, but can also somehow exude a freakish, calm demeanor despite the tempest swirling around the lyrics.
4. Groza – Nadir (Atmospheric Black Metal – Germany)
AOP Records
Accepting and embracing loss is a phase that’s probably healthy but difficult to enter. I feel like “Daffodils,” one of the best songs of the year, embodies such depths of emotion that I listen to this colossal closing track and wonder if I’ve chosen to dive in water too deep. Here I am, it’s cold, and the surface reflects my face staring back at me, questioningly. I didn’t have to be here, but this album ends and I’m on solid land, wet and hung inside out, but intact.
3. Liminal Shroud – Visions of Collapse (Black Metal – BC, Canada)
Willowtip Records | TTT | Track Premiere
Hearkening back to an age of Cascadian black metal so good we didn’t even realize how good we had it, there’s not a track on this album that doesn’t strike a perfect chord of nostalgia. I remember being broke and listening to Agalloch nearly two decades ago, deciding it was music that would stick with me for life, that would follow me from home to home, that would grow old with me. Well, it turned out that John Haughm had some stupid-assed opinions and it wasn’t that hard to move on from his work. Liminal Shroud is enough of a throwback to warrant this digression, but their music stands strong on its own merit.
2. Vorga – Beyond the Palest Star (Space/Sci-Fi Blackened Death Metal – Germany)
Transcending Obscurity Records
Cramming this into a genre hole involves a series of mental gymnastics akin to deciding if your partner is upset because you’re moody or if you’re moody because they’re upset. (It’s ultimately pointless but some might find satisfaction in deciding they are correct.) Chuggy headboppin’ heavy metal with space themes that really come through in the feel of the music and thankfully, not just the lyrics, which I never bother to parse anyway.
1. Gaerea – Coma (Emotive Black Metal – Portugal)
Ultimately, the power of this band’s work continues to draw me in, stumbling and squinting through the infectious and compelling force of their emotion-driven metal. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them live twice, which enhanced my connection to the music during a personally tumultuous era. I don’t imagine I’ll look back upon myself this year with envy or pity (although hopefully some admiration for persevering will remain), but I know my current state of molding myself to the contours of an album so complex and emotional won’t be something commonly repeated as the years pass by. “Wilted Flower” ebbs and flows through states of contemplation and chaos, undulating like waves navigated while blindfolded. I recommend allowing this album to tumble you like a rock in the surf, removing your edges and leaving you smooth like a freshly shaved head.
