Oh great, yet another weird year that whizzed by in the blink of an eye. Everything felt accelerated to the point it became extremely challenging to find the required time and focus to genuinely connect with the cream of the crop of the veritable gigaton of new music released seemingly every day during the year. At times, it felt as if I was utterly out of touch and adrift with regard to metal, especially while also trying to keep up with an overwhelming amount of workload which eventually fried my brain. Luckily, the closer the looming end of year got, the more everything became crystallized, including a renewed appreciation and enjoyment of what metal had to offer in 2024.

True to the brand of this blog, my list is based on the top nine releases and nine honorable mentions I submitted as part of our joint ballot extravaganza which I translated into a personal top 18 list because that’s how math and logic work, apparently. It is testament to the high quality of metal released this year that this time many of my previous end-of-year list luminaries did not make it due to space constraints (sorry, Four Stroke Baron, Oranssi Pazuzu, Aluk Todolo, Ulcerate, but I still love you all).

With all that out of the way, it’s clobberin’ time.

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18. Dystopia – De Verboden Diepte I: Veldslag op de Rand van de Wereld

To call Dystopia’s fourth album audacious would grossly understate its frenzied ambition and decadent richness. A staggering number of vibrant ideas, with everything coated in Dutch lekker weirdness, blossom as trumpets roar and the band fires on all cylinders. When “Dood van de Wachters” reaches its climax, you will feel its rattling energy and exuberance in your teeth.

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17. Dvne – Voidkind

Although I still regard Etemen Ænka as my favorite, Voidkind delivers the sweeping emotion and scale expected from Dvne and also reveals new facets and dimensions in their sound, which Chris discussed, described and praised in detail in his excellent review.

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16. Five the Hierophant – Apeiron

This is the album Five the Hierophant were always destined to write, coalescing the avant-garde, doom, ambient and jazz elements of their sound into something beautifully ruminative, hypnotizing and otherworldly.

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15. My Diligence – Death.Horses.Black.

The old me was an ignorant buffoon who overlooked My Diligence’s juggernaut 2022 album The Matter, Form and Power. You do not want to be that guy. You should be like the new me who immediately jumped on Death.Horses.Black. and was blown away by its arena-scale progressive stoner metal. It is rare to hear such massive riffs, vast dynamics and gargantuan impact wrapped in songwriting as sophisticated as this, which explains why the album just keeps on getting better and more expansive upon repeated listens. 

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14. Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus

Have you ever been to a party at an observatory where the host welcomes you with the warmest of bearhugs and hands you a fistful of bespoke hallucinogens and you turn into a kaleidoscope, travel through a wormhole and end up having the most magical of evenings? Gigan is that host and Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus is that tentacled multidimensional fist.

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13. Hippotraktor – Stasis

On Stasis, Hippotraktor forged their atmospheric post-metal, progressive twists and djenty grooves into a cannonball that hits you in the gut with both physical and emotional impact and conviction. Hera captured it aptly when she wrote that “Stasis is not a static album by any means, as it moves at a frenetic pace that leaves you breathless” and “excels at showcasing Hippotraktor’s intense energy and expansive sound.”

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12. Inconcessus Lux Lucis – Temples Colliding in Fire

Making their triumphant return, Inconcessus Lux Lucis barged forth with rambunctious resolve and turbocharged vigor, imbuing their irreverent black metal with a riotous injection of a acidic cocktail including speed, thrash, traditional heavy metal and a heroic dose of Saturnian magick and satanic punk energy for good measure. Temples Colliding in Fire exudes sweat, brimstone and infectious charm; or as Chris summarized it, “there is nothing about this album I do not love or support less than 100%.”

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11. Replicant – Infinite Mortality

In my review, I opined that “the brilliance of Infinite Mortality lies in Replicant’s uncanny ability to combine and mutate seemingly every strain and era of death metal into a concoction that should impress even the most jaded and entrenched death head who is partial to only some of the sub-genres and normally categorically reluctant to see any melding thereof. The band have a peculiar way of making dissonance attractive to those who prefer their death metal melodic and instantly memorable. At the same time, the album’s malformed, contorted groove will hook those who normally have a bent for something more technical or avant-garde. As strange as it sounds to describe a twisted and complex death metal album eminently catchy, that is exactly what Infine Mortality is. It’s like witnessing a lizard evolving in real time into an apex predator.”

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10. Bedsore – Dreaming the Strife for Love

Holy opulent overindulgence, Batman! Bedsore have truly become a slinky chameleon, following up on their monumentally extravagant supernatural giallo / Lovecraftian long-form death metal masterpiece single “Shapes from Beyond the Veil of Stars and Space” with something even wilder and ambitious in the phantasmagorical form of Dreaming the Strife for Love. As the ever-handsome, eminently wise Chris put it in his review, “shades of prog and psychedelia have completely washed over the death metal. Not enough to make it unrecognizable, but enough that we have to question how to classify Bedsore moving forward.” As your attorney, I strongly recommend you buy the ticket and take the ride.

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9. Sgàile – Traverse the Bealach

On Sgàile’s sophomore album, maestro Tony Dunn taps into the pure, unadulterated essence of metal with instinctive aptitude that yields amazing results. Echoing what Chris said, the fact that only one guy is behind the excellence of Traverse the Bealach is nothing short of impressive. Among the most memorable metal songs of 2024, “Lamentations by the Lochan” reaches perfection by capturing the genre’s quintessence with its rousing gallop and fist-pumping defiance. While the album’s dark thematic backstory and real-life inspiration stem from the COVID-19 pandemic and our losing battle against climate change, the dauntless melodies and soaring vocals radiate a sense of rousing optimism in the face of adversity which is rarely heard or felt in metal. 

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8. Alcest – Les Chants de l’Aurore

Alcest finally won me over with the sensational beauty and striking immediacy of their 2019 album Spiritual Instict and Les Chants de l’Aurore continues the winning streak with its return to the Other World of Neige’s childhood. From the glowing fervor of “Komorebi,” through the ethereal lushness of “L’Envol,” the surging beauty of “Améthyste” and the cathartic embrace of “Flamme Jumelle,” all the way to the final fading tones of “L’Adieu,” Les Chants de l’Aurore is filled to the brim with radiant warmth and a genuine sense of belonging. Ian nailed it in his review: “This is an album that immediately makes me feel awash in a sense of serenity, like I too am being transported to that Other World.  More importantly, that sense of joy is felt in every note sung, played or hit, from Neige’s vocals, to the drums, to the guitar melodies, the viola da gamba and glockenspiel and synth washes, everything.  Les Chants is a special experience, and one that begs repeated listens.”

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7. Hail Spirit Noir – Fossil Gardens

“What a time to be alive,” Hail Spirit Noir announces and proceeds to blast off and ascend deep into the cosmos of wonder with their career pinnacle of an album that goes harder and wilder with its progressive and psychedelic spirit and blastbeat galore than anything they have released before. As Chris wrote, “it’s always been the tracks where the band stretch their wings that are the most rewarding” and the early highlight “The Temple of Curved Space” does exactly that by continuing to accelerate and intensify like an incoming comet of burning psychedelia, while “The Blue Dot” flashes into existence with massive riffs, thrilling tremolos, and warm synths and phases out with alluring whispers. Hail Spirit Noir is truly living the springtime of blossoming creativity they reference at the beginning of the album.

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6. Panzerfaust – The Suns of Perdition – Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion

As I wrote in my review of the closing chapter of their tetralogy of thematically and musically interconnected albums, “Panzerfaust have always excelled at delivering brutal walls of sound and monstrous volleys, summoning charnel atmosphere and channeling absolute bleakness, like the sonic equivalents of endless waves of humans thrown into a meat grinder. At the same time, the band has displayed an uncanny ability to create haunting and ethereal melodies to accentuate the ripples and shock waves of the all-engulfing devastation, which is on full, majestic display on Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion, an album that often skillfully eschews the easy trope of simpleminded khornate brutality and often feels like a mournful hymn of grief and resignation at the end of human civilization.” Verily, Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion is “a brilliant, funereal and devastating closing chapter of an highly ambitious undertaking, delivered by a band that is operating at stratospheric altitudes of artistic expression. The now-completed tetralogy forms an unforgettable journey deep into the bowels of hell on earth to witness the moment when the heart of darkness stops beating.” 

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5. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

At long last, after years of sacrificing a cornucopia of fauna to elder gods, the aeon of envelope-pushing death metal enriched with heavy psychedelia and cosmic atmosphere is truly here. Yes, while many death metal bands have gazed upwards, only a few have truly slipped the surly bonds of Earth and traversed deep into outer space and its wonders. Blood Incantation belong to that exalted league of intrepid psychonauts and Absolute Elsewhere is the manifestation of their boundless ambition and daredevil spirit. Heck, even Chris was impressed!

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4. Aseitas – Eden Trough

Your body and mind form a Rubic’s cube and Aseitas is a celestial chiropractor that uses its dazzling experimental death metal to twist, mold and transmogrify your entire being. During the first half of Eden Through, your synapses are rerouted, your facial features rearranged, your bones liquified. Journeying through its caustic dissonance and coiling terrors, you disintegrate. After a nullifying moment of respite in the void, the second half initiates your and reintegration. Your eyes catch a glimmer that suddenly goes nova. Your retinas burn, boil and regenerate upon the unexpected astonishing visions they behold. Every light has a tracer, like darting centipedes on acid. A warm wave greets you and fills your circulatory system with something alien and electrifying. Your skin becomes iridescent, your reconstituted bones coruscate. Sound becomes visible and manifests in an intricate extraterrestrial tapestry that contains every imaginable color. Aseitas has now remade you into something sublime and godlike. 

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3. Lowen – Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran

Lowen got my attention with Hérve Scott Flament’s outrageously magnificent album cover, had me prejudged on account of the “progressive doom” descriptor (a genre that promises a lot but often amounts to trite Black Sabbath worship embellished with flaccid Mastodon/Baroness vibes and zero power levels) and proceeded to floor me and my misguided expectations with the seismic riffs and colossal dimensions of the lead single “Najang Bah Divhayeh Mazandaran,” hitting me like a sledgehammer and leaving me in a state of awe (or as Chris put it so eloquently, “whoa!”) which continues throughout the album’s rich atmosphere, genuinely progressive spirit and masterfully spellbinding worldbuilding. 

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2. Eccentric Pendulum – Perspectiva Invertalis

To quote my review: “When you create sky-high expectations with your earlier releases, you better deliver with aplomb with your new album. And while you are at it, you might as well do it in a jaw-dropping manner. That is exactly what Eccentric Pendulum does on their sophomore full-length album Perspectiva Invertalis, a veritable home run of excellence marked by impeccable songwriting, genuinely catchy riffs and evocative melodies.” The album “excels in balancing the progressive, technical and groove- and thrash-oriented strains of death metal, integrating the best of each world in a mutually reinforcing and elevating manner” and is “a prime example of how to achieve the coveted all killer, no filler ideal, executed in a practically flawless manner, where every artistic decision feels right and as it should be; an album that reaches dizzying heights of greatness and triggers an entrancing urge to experience it again immediately after its conclusion.”

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1. Ceremony of Silence – H​á​lios

With magisterial skill, demonic intensity and elemental fury, Ceremony of Silence bend sound to their will and transmute crackling energy into H​á​lios, an astonishing masterpiece that could only result from a state of exultant ecstasy and the band’s preternatural ability to make the music flow in spiraling metamorphosis with the blessed kiss of alchemical fire. It is rare to experience dissonant blackened death metal with such unyielding brutality and relentless density, and even rarer to witness it delivered with blinding dexterity and warped dark melodies that thrive and evolve under the engulfing darkness and harrowing atmosphere. Moments of magick abound throughout the album, be it the interplay of swirling mayhem and hammering havoc and the ever-intensifying build-up, cathartic implosion and subsequent inversion and explosion of “Light Runs Through Light,” the purifying exorcism of the solo at the end of “Perennial Incantation” or the way Viliam Pilarčík’s guitar floats above the rumbling bass and Matúš Ďurčík’s intense drumming at the midpoint of “Moon Vessel” in a manner that defies gravity and laws of physics. H​á​lios is an absolute triumph in fusing dissonance and harmony into something miraculous and stunning.

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— Zyklonius