Well, 2024 certainly was… a year. Not the greatest year for the world, and in my opinion not the greatest year for metal either; lots of perfectly solid stuff came out, but few albums broached the all-timer status for me in the manner of recent releases from Moonlight Sorcery, Dødheimsgard, Predatory Light, and others. But thankfully I exposed myself to quite a lot of music from newer artists this year, and this list is fairly reflective of that. Let’s dive in and see what my favorite offerings of 2024 are…

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9. Bloody Valkyria – Kingdom in Fire

Eschewing the typical conventions of an “epic black metal” band with themes based on Tolkien, Bloody Valkyria manage to make my AOTY list for a number of reasons. Bombastic songwriting, grandiose melodies, truly epic guitar solos, and more. I don’t think I’ve seen this opinion echoed elsewhere, but I’m saying it: Kingdom in Fire is essentially a power metal album with a thin blackened veneer over it, and the end result is awesome. The album may suffer a bit in the production department, but I guess that’s one of the things that keeps it more within the black metal realm. Either way, this album has kept me quite entertained the last third of 2024, and I hope to see bigger and better things from this solo act going forward.

Check out my Second Circle featuring the album here.

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8. Dödsrit – Nocturnal Will

Toning down a vast majority of the crust elements and post-black songwriting that has characterized their past work proved to be the best choice Dödsrit could have made for my listening tastes in 2024. Blast beats and trem picking are still abound, but with a newfound sense of melody that catapults songs like “Irjala” and “Utmed Gyllbergens Stig” into the stratosphere with the type of epic twin-guitar harmonization that made us fall in love with metal in the first place. In terms of bands I was already a fan of, Nocturnal Will was such a pleasant surprise and has proved its longevity all year long.

Check out my review here.

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7. Ungfell – De Gh​ö​rnt

A late entry into the 2024 black metal canon, a new Ungfell album was a surprise drop in late November — I’ve been a Ungfella since their debut back in 2017, and while I’ve come to expect good, folky black metal from the Swiss duo I wasn’t expecting an album of this caliber. De Gh​ö​rnt is a folk tale about the hubris of an overzealous hunter who meets his end at the hands of the Rollibock, a goat-like deity who guards the Great Aletsch Glacier in the Alps; Ungfell back up such a tale with epics of their own. “Rollibock (De Ghörnt vom Gletscher)” and “De Geischt vom Märjelesee” are some of the most varied and dynamic tracks in the band’s entire discography to date; combining the band’s folk-inspired melodicism with newfound experiments in atmosphere and pacing, the end result is an album as wide-ranging and monumental as the mountains the band call home.

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6. Hekseblad – Kaer Morhen

A blue/purple Necrolord-style album cover is no strange sight in the world of black metal, but not all bands are worthy of brandishing such artwork; with their debut, Hekseblad prove themselves more than deserving of it. Kaer Morhen absolutely has its roots within such classics as In the Nightside Eclipse — dare I say this is the closest record I’ve ever found to that classic in terms of production quality — but inflects a very modern sense of adventurous songwriting that I absolutely love. The band have cited Moonlight Sorcery and Stormkeep as two recent inspirations, and it absolutely shows. Those are the two reigning champions of melodic black metal this decade, and Hekseblad are following very closely in their footsteps. For a theatrical, heavy, melodic black metal album of nonstop bangers in 2024, look no further.

Check out my review here.

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5. Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished

My first swampy taste of Slimelord came all the way back in the middle of January with “The Beckoning Bell”, the first single off of Chytridiomycosis Relinquished. I was absolutely floored on the first listen, and waited with bated breath for the entire album to rise from the bog… would they maintain that quality of weird, gooey, death doom throughout the rest of the album? Thankfully they did. Combining otherworldly guitar theatrics with linear songwriting and crushingly heavy riffs — with the end result being far from a jumbled mess at that — is no easy feat, and Slimelord accomplish it as if this isn’t their first steps on dry land. However long the band needed to stew in the primordial soup, it was clearly more than enough.

Check out my review here and our podcast interview with guitarist Alexander Bradley here.

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4. Marrow of Man – Ancient Hymns of Apocalypse

I’ve put a lot of words in print about Ancient Hymns of Apocalypse at this point, but it truly is that important of an album to me. Right from the first time I heard “Divine Right” via Black Metal Promotion I thought Marrow of Man might be something special — classic second wave riffage with a heightened sense of melody, wrapped up in fantastic production — and thankfully I was right. “Beyond the Frozen Meadows” is still my favorite song of the year, and sheer majesty and triumph contained within its riffs hits just as hard as the first time I heard it. Sahand Mozdbar captured something truly special with this album, proving that the flame of black metal has worthy caretakers in the younger crop of artists emerging every year. This is just the beginning of the Marrow of Man saga, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Check out my review here, our profile here, and Sahand’s 2024 picks here.

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3. Inherits the Void – Scars of Yesteryears

Melodic black metal has been my primary genre obsession over the past few years, and Inherits the Void showed a lot of promise within the genre on last year’s The Impending Fall of the Stars; the solo act’s 2024 follow-up did just about everything I hoped would be done, discarding most of the spacey atmospherics in favor of riffs, riffs, and more riffs. There’s a lot more melodic death metal influence on this album and it pays off tremendously, showing that it truly is possible to make black/death metal that is melodic without sacrificing those root genres. Scars of Yesteryears is a truly dynamic journey through the mind of yet another rising star in the extreme metal world, and I’m grateful to have had it as integral part of my 2024 soundtrack.

Check out my review here and our written interview here.

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2. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere

There’s not much else to be said about Absolute Elsewhere that hasn’t already been said in just about every metal (and non-metal) music publication since its release a little under three months ago; Blood Incantation have returned with yet another genre-defining masterpiece of progressive death metal that is sure to be talked about for years to come. Some of the Floydian sections are a bit too on the nose for me in sounding like their ’70s inspirations, but when the overall package is this good I can’t fault them for wanting to pay homage. My hot take is that this is just a transitory step for the band on the journey towards the ultimate ’70s prog-meets-death metal fusion, but until that day comes this album will be more than sufficient. [Could all of this be for Nothing? / Or is your life part of Something? / Could every choice of Thought be an offering? / Could every step lead you further on the Way?]

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1. Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God

As stated before, there was a lot of great music that came out in 2024. But few were the albums I’d consider all-time greats, or otherwise reshaped the way I think about metal in any noticeable way. But along came Ulcerate to put that notion to the test. I’d been aware of the band for a while but found their music a bit too hard to grasp, especially as my taste drifted further away from death metal. But the manner in which Cutting the Throat of God transmutes dissonant death and black metal into something “accessible” through followable “melodic” lines and “catchy” riffs and rhythms — all those words in quotes as it’s quite a stretch to consider this album any of those things — is a monumental feat in the world of extreme metal. Perhaps the most blackened track on the album, “To See Death Just Once” alone is a perfect example of the way in which the trio build up and release tension without relying on any existing genre tropes. The layers upon layers of dissonance, guitar lines hinted at before shying away (later reappearing with full force), the atmospheric clean sections; all anchored by an easy contender for the greatest current drummer in metal with Jamie Saint Merat. Perhaps more than any previous Ulcerate release, Cutting the Throat of God demands the entire metal world pay attention (just as it demanded of me), lest they be left far behind in the dust of this apocalyptic meteor strike on the entire scene. A perfect album for dark ages to come.

Check out Vincent’s review here.

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With more and more AI being shoved down our throats (whether we want it or not), megalomaniacal tech bros running the country, and more bullshit that I’m too tired to comprehend at the moment, 2025 is surely going to be another Year™. At least there’s the return of Fire in the Mountains this coming July, with Wardruna, Blood Incantation (x2!), and the live debut of Majesties being the acts I’m most excited for. I’m not feeling up for some big statement about hope and such, because it’s hard for many to feel that way at this moment. But as always, we’ve got heavy music to help get us through. Cheers to all the great music I discovered in 2024, and I hope to discover a lot more in 2025.

Don’t be afraid to bleed, don’t be afraid to dream.

— Colin

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