Carcharodon and Cherd’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Carcharodon

Carcharodon

I’ve been writing here since 2018. This has been the hardest year to date. I feel like I say this every year right around this time but, for whatever reason, I’ve really struggled this year to find the motivation and inspiration to write. Indeed, I’ve often felt that I lacked the passion for the music. Rather than exploring the murkier depths of Bandcamp, I was often to be found in the company of old, non-metal friends like Nick Cave, 16 Horsepower and Tom Waits.

Despite my disappointment with the world, most of which is on literal or metaphorical fire, and my disillusionment with people, whose choices have caused most of that, there were bright glimmers. The phenomenal response to our Gondor-esque call for aid, when Kenstrosity‘s life was ripped apart by Hurricane Helene, reassured me there are still a few good people out there, a good number of whom read this blog.

Still, I managed to turn out a few reviews this year, including my first ever 5.0—more of which below—which was worth it for the Steel Ire it evoked alone. And there was the Fifteenalia, a celebration the like of which we will not see again (for obvious reasons), which I had the honour of steering from questionable inception to creaky delivery.

Ironically, despite my struggles on the writing front, This Place has played a significant part in keeping me sane. It’s been tolerable to welcome a few new staffers—some even raised up from the awful Place Below—to our serried ranks, while the older hands feel almost like family at this point, with everything that that entails. As ever, particular thanks go to Steel Druhm for his tireless intimidation, which just about keeps us honest, while Dolph, Dear Hollow, El Cuervo, Grier, Maddog, Sentynel and Thus Spoke, among others, have proved adequate companions for banter and gigs.

And with that, I wish you all the happiest of Listurnalias.

#ish. Pillar of Light // Caldera – A very late entry to this list, Pillar of Light should be a cautionary tale to bands and labels: release your shit earlier! With more time, the stunning Amenra-meets-Cult of Luna post-misery of Caldera could easily have placed in the top half of this list. While I know this is an album I will come to love and fully expect to regret not placing it higher here, the reality is that other entries have had longer to sink their hooks into me. I will just say that, for me, the apparently divisive vocals are a perfect fit for Pillar of Light’s style.

#10. Seth // La France des Maudits – Way back when,1 French black metallers Seth snuck onto my list of Honorable Mentions with La Morsure du Christ, a fantastic return to form after a lengthy absence. After a short gap, they’re back and this year’s La France des Maudits has cracked the list proper. Melodic, bordering on symphonic with the keys and choral arrangements, but also visceral and feral, Seth dropped an absolute banger. It doesn’t hurt that, as Thus Spoke pointed out in her review, it’s “downright impressive how rich and dynamic this sounds.”

#9. The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales – The Vision Bleak is not, to paraphrase Dr Grier, a band that has ever ‘got’ me. Or perhaps, I’ve never got them. But Weird Tales resonated with me enormously. And perhaps that’s because it’s not really like anything The Vision Bleak has done before. Structuring their gothic black metal (or should that be blackened goth metal?) into a single, flowing song (albeit one broken into parts) got my attention. But they held my attention because they actually managed to pull off this very-hard-to-execute vision. Weird Tales’ Type O Negative / Moonspell-inspired blackened sound clicked into place almost instantly for me and now I need to go back to TVB’s discography with newly-opened eyes.

#8. Necrowretch // Swords of Dajjal – The first 4.0 I delivered in an alarmingly high-scoring year, Necrowretch’s black-death fusion is something that I have returned to again. Hiding beneath the vicious, downright nasty surface of Swords of Dajjal, is a surprisingly subtle and well-crafted concept album. As I said in my review, there is zero bloat or filler on this record, which blazes with intensity, driven as much by the scything, razor-sharp riffs as the rasping, sepulchral vocals. The range of influences cited, both by me and by impressed commenters, shows how many different aspects there are to this killer record.

#7. Panzerfaust // The Suns of Perdition – Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion – After Chapter III: The Astral Drain, I was worried that Panzerfaust were running out of steam and inspiration to close out The Suns of Perdition saga. Thankfully, my concerns were misplaced. To Shadow Zion reeks of doom and destiny. Huge, brooding and intense, it is a captivating listen, with the stunning “The Damascene Conversions” sitting at its heart. From the sulfuric vocals to the masterful drumming, this was a worthy final chapter for The Suns of Perdition, which must go down as one of the best executed, most consistent multi-album concept pieces in metal.

#6. Spectral Wound // Songs of Blood and Mire – Spectral Wound just can’t miss. For a band that, superficially at least, plays fairly old school black metal, songwriting chops paired with brilliant execution mean these guys are anything but derivative. My favourite album of theirs to date, Songs of Blood and Mire is just tons of wicked, nasty fun. It’s hard to say exactly why, but I feel like everything Spectral Wound does has a slight knowing wink to it, which suggests that the band doesn’t take itself too seriously. For me, this is a huge positive, as a lot of black metal is so tediously earnest, where this is unflinchingly harsh, surprisingly melodic and drowning in swaggering groove. Great stuff.

#5. Mother of Graves // The Periapt of Absence – I’m a sucker for death doom. And The Periapt of Absence is some fucking great death doom. Mother of Graves were unknown to me before I stumbled across this album but their blending of old school Opeth (think somewhere between Morningrise and Orchid) with early Katatonia and Paradise Lost, plus a sprinkling of Clouds is stunning. All wrapped up in a pleasingly tight package, Mother of Graves smother the listener in unflinching, heartwrenching misery. And I love every minute of it. It’s that Peaceville Three sound we love, but feeling fresh, vibrant and vital.

#4. Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair – Me and death metal don’t always see eye to eye, and the last Devenial Verdict left only a passing impression. But Thus Spoke‘s tireless tongue-bathing promotion of Blessing of Despair convinced me to give it a chance. While I enjoy the stomping thuggery of Devenial Verdict’s dissonant death well enough, it’s the sudden mood swings into what TS described as “lethally graceful restraint” that really hooked me. Although worlds apart stylistically, on Blessing of Despair DV achieved what Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean did on Obsession Destruction: knowing precisely how far to push the suffocating, claustrophobic heaviness, before taking their foot off your throat for a minute. Then stamping on it again.

#3. Julie Christmas // Ridiculous and Full of Blood – Maddog predicted that I would lambast him as an underrating bastard for the 3.5 he deigned to award Ms Christmas. And he was quite correct. He’s a charlatan of the highest order. However, even I’m surprised by how high Ridiculous and Full of Blood has landed here. But, as someone not given to overly emotional reactions to music, I’m continually stunned by the reactions Julie—Can I call you Julie? No? Ok—extracts from me. I’m often on the edge of tears by the end of “The Lighthouse,” just like that cad Maddog, while the likes of “Not Enough” and “End of the World” (the latter with CoL’s Johannes Persson) have a scary edge to them, with Christmas at her maniacal, crooning, possessed, unpredictable best.

#2. A Swarm of the Sun // An Empire – Speaking of emotional responses, A Swarm of the Sun’s stripped back melancholy is right up there. If I say that An Empire is brighter and more uplifting than previous efforts The Rifts and The Woods, understand that this is a very relative statement. An Empire is drowning in sorrow and misery, and yet there is just a hint of brightness that shimmers and hovers around the edges, like a lunar halo. Slow and deliberate, haunting and cathartic, A Swarm of the Sun’s latest outing is just beautiful. End of. No discussion.2

#1. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – Y’all know I dropped a 5.0 on Die Urkatastophe, so it’s no surprise to find it here, sitting pretty, atop my list. There’s not much more praise that I can heap on Kanonenfieber’s sophomore record than I already did in my review. For me, it has everything and is more than I dared hope for as a follow up to my beloved Menschenmühle (my album of the year for 2021). It is brutal and vicious (“Panzerhenker” and “Ausblutingsschlacht”), anthemic (“Der Maulwurf” and “Menschenmühle”) and more. Crafted—and yes, that is the correct word—with huge skill and attention to detail, it is the storytelling, based on original source materials, that elevates this record to the next level for me. And if you don’t speak German, or are simply not into narrative in your metal, just go bang your fucking head to “Gott mit der Kavallerie”!

Honorable mentions In alphabetical order by band:

• 40 Watt Sun // Little Weight – Little Weight actually carries a lot of emotional weight. Melancholic, beautiful post-doom and shoegaze, rife with a rough honesty.
• Anciients // Beyond the Reach of the Sun – Long-form (arguably too-long-form in some respects) progressive death, which is wonderfully ambitious and overblown in its scale and delivery.
• Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – Fantastic trad doom, channeling heavy doses of Candlemass. Early in the year, I thought this was top-5 material but it’s uneven, with the back half much stronger than the front, and I’ve cooled on it a touch.
• Nyktophobia // To the Stars – Just great, stomping melodeath. As I said in my review, it’s not massively original but it’s tight and well written, and easy to just kick back to. Sometimes, I don’t need more.
• Silhouette // Les Dires de l’​Â​me – This fantastic post-black album had a place on the list proper until Pillar of Light bulldozed its way in there very late in the day. Haunting, harrowing and beautiful, Silhouette’s debut is Great!
• Sumac // The Healer – Nothing about The Healer makes it an easy listen but Sumac’s fifth record is curiously beautiful for all its wandering, free-form abrasiveness.
• Vorga // Beyond the Palest Star – While it’s hard to disagree with Kenstrosity‘s criticism of the production on Beyond the Palest Star, what can I say? I still love it. It’s chunky, well written, well paced and powerful.

Surprises o’ the Year Ordered by most astounding first:

• Opeth // The Last Will and Testament – It’s been a long time since I was last genuinely interested in an Opeth album (2005’s Ghost Reveries, in case you were wondering). But, wouldn’t you just know it, Mikael Åkerfeldt and co are back (roars and all). I’m not ready to commit to a score for The Last Will (though I think El Cuervo‘s was possibly a smidge high) as I’ve not been able to spend enough time with it. But the fact I want to spend more time with it is, after 19 years of having no interest in Opeth’s output, a surprise. And a welcome one.
• Grand Magus // Sunraven – Another Swedish favourite of old, which I’d all but given up on, Grand Magus roared back this year with Sunraven. As an equally surprised Steel Druhm said in his review, this was the album he “feverishly hoped to get from Grand Magus … a grand return to prime form with the fire firmly back in the Balrog … the best Magus outing since 2012’s The Hunt”.

Disappointment o’ the Year Limited to a single musical disappointment, to avoid submitting a lengthy thesis:

• Zeal & Ardor // GREIF – I’m not angry, or even very surprised, just disappointed.3 While I accept that this is the album of a band in transition, there’s no getting away from the fact that it was a hugely disappointing album from a band that has abandoned the sound that made it what it was. And for what? They have not transitioned to something new and exciting, but with kinks to be worked out. Rather, on this record, Zeal & Ardor became something so pedestrian that any number of post-rock bands could’ve written it and, probably, done a better job. I may have overrated it.

Songs o’ the Year

1. Julie Christmas – “The Lighthouse”
2. Kanonenfieber – “Der Maulwurf”
3. Selbst – “The Stench of a Dead Spirit”
4. Panzerfaust – “The Damascene Conversions”
5. Kanonenfieber – “Gott mit der Kavallerie”
6. Devenial Verdict – “Garden of Eyes”
7. Spectral Wound – “Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal”
8. Silhouette – “Les Dires de l’​Â​me”
9. Blue Heron – “Everything Fades”
10. Zeal & Ardor – “Hide in Shade”
11. Glare of the Sun – “Rain”

Cherd

Twenty-twenty-four was certainly a year that followed previous years and will precede still others. When I look back, I’ll likely remember it as the year I discovered the wonders of ADHD medication after decades of non-treatment, the difficult transition my poor Cherdlet experienced from kindergarten to first grade, and the incredible bucket list trip my wife and I took to Toronto to watch our favorite TV franchise filming new content courtesy of my very important Hollywood connections. No, not Robert Downey Jr. Much more important and better-looking. Hmm? Margot Robbie? She wishes. I also had the pleasure of meeting several of my fellow writers in person, and they are all much homelier than they let on with the exception of Madam X, who is a goddamned ray of sunshine.

On the musical front, I was able to check two bands off my “need to see live” list in Judas Priest and Archspire, whereby I discovered that Halford does exactly zero audience banter, and Archspire do nothing but. Fun shows, both. I didn’t listen to as much new music by volume this year than I have in previous years when I’d log between 200 and 400 releases, and that was largely due to my kid’s age and the level of interaction he needs. I have a feeling, however, that 2025 will see an uptick thanks to the new Heavys headphones I got for Christmas this year. As always, I want to thank the editors, particularly Steel Druhm and Doc Grier, for not sending me a mailbomb after all the late reviews I turned in (I’ll work on that in 2025), and the man himself, AMG, for building this community and for agreeing that Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek show.4

(ish) Chat Pile // Cool World – This is what it sounds like when Chat Pile make a “mature” record. As I noted in my October review, some of the most glaring weirdness and black humor the band is known for is missing in Cool World, which is why it’s here on my list instead of matching the lofty heights of my 2022 AOTY God’s Country. That said, this is consistently bleak in a way I like, and it boasts what are in my opinion the two best–if not most memorable–songs the band have written to date in “New World” and “Masc.” I’m a sucker for these Oklahomans and look forward to how their sound evolves from here.

#10. Glacial Tomb // Lightless Expanse – I’ve had an up and down journey with Glacial Tomb’s sophomore record, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still view this as one of the best things I’ve listened to this year. To consider a record this closely means you have to listen to it a lot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I logged more hours with Lightless Expanse than with any other album. I’ve made a big deal about the one-three punch of “Voidwomb/Enshrined in Concrete/Abyssal Host”, but it bears repeating since it’s my favorite consecutive stretch of death metal in 2024.

#9. Replicant // Infinite Mortality – If you peel back the veneer of disso-death and blackened blasts on Infinite Mortality, you’ll find a pounding hardcore heart comprised of equal parts beatdown and Converge. As technical as this music gets, and there is a lot going on here, Replicant never forget their primary duty as a metal band: snapping necks. On their third album, they’ve exquisitely composed a missive to unbridled aggression. I completely missed their previous albums, so I’m glad our Kenfren wouldn’t shut his excitable yap about this one.

#8. Spectral Voice // Sparagmos – “Alright skaters! This is the end of our free skate period. We’d like to once again thank you for spending your Saturday with us here at Family Fun Roller Rink and Arcade. It’s time to slow things down, down, way down, and you know what that means. That’s right, it’s couples’ skate. So, find that special someone you want to be interred on a cold stone slab with, gaze into each other’s empty eye sockets, and make your way around the rink as wave after wave of Spectral Voice’s death/funeral doom forcefully separates you from any light, hope, or happiness this wretched world might have accidentally given you. Remember, those who survive the next 45 minutes of tectonic plates colliding will get the chance to compete in roller limbo!”

#7. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – Despite being one of the biggest doom apologists on this site, Crypt Sermon failed to grab me with their highly acclaimed debut nearly ten years ago. I chalk this up to my unfamiliarity with the traditional doom style at the time. In recent years, I’ve binged large amounts of Candlemass, Saint Vitus, Cathedral, Solitude Aeturnus et al., so I finally have the frame of reference to see just how well Crypt Sermon’s third LP captures the swagger, majesty, and grit of a style few contemporary bands seem interested in playing. After the growing pains displayed on The Ruins of Fading Light, these Philly natives have worked out the kinks and delivered an air-tight slab of doomy goodness.

#6. Full of Hell // Coagulated Bliss – I regret waiving my seniority claim to Full of Hell releases, thus allowing Dolph to snap up review duties for Coagulated Bliss. It’s not that he did a bad job of reviewing the prolific experimental grind outfit’s latest. He did great, and he awarded it a deserved 4.0. But then he had the cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity, and the gumption to incorrectly lower his score. To make matters worse, it appeared nowhere on his year-end list. Not even a goll dern honorable mention. I’ve told him to his cetacean face that he’s wrong and I’m likely to do so again because this is Full of Hell’s best work since Trumpeting Ecstasy. In fact, it might be better.

#5. Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God – For most of their existence, Ulcerate was a highly acclaimed band that I just couldn’t get into. That changed four years ago with the release of Stare into Death and Be Still. Little changed in their intricate approach to dissonant death metal, but there was something warmer and more human to what I had previously considered a rather detached style. That trend continues with Cutting the Throat of God. I find this record best when taken as a whole, letting the experience unfold over the full runtime, like dream-walking through a hedge maze or being trapped in a velvet sack and discovering it’s much larger on the inside.5

#4. Thou // Umbilical – I waited a long time for a chance to review a new record by Thou, and when it finally came, they did not disappoint. As I said in my June review, “Like their chimerical American metal brethren Inter Arma, it doesn’t matter how many influences the band stuff into one album. They are all unified in sound under Thou’s banner. Bryan Funck’s acid-bit vocals are unmistakable and apparently unchangeable after 20 throat-shredding years. Also unchangeable? Thou’s ability to craft the most metallic-sounding guitar tone out there. As the standard bearer for…hell, as the entire sum of the second generation of Louisiana sludge, the sound they’ve forged isn’t the kind of sloppy muck you may associate with the term. It’s certainly thick, but it has a quality like two enormous steel I-beams violently striking each other.” If that doesn’t sell Umbilical for you, then here is where our paths diverge.

#3. Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair – I didn’t listen to Blessing of Despair for several weeks after it came out in October despite the fact Devenial Verdict’s previous record, Ash Blind, made my year-end list in 2022. When I finally got around to it earlier in December, it threatened to blow the doors right off my still nebulous list, climbing fast and high until ultimately landing here at number three. There is more immediacy than on Ash Blind, which took me a while to warm up to. That doesn’t mean the band skimps on the kind of thoughtful transitions and atmospherics they’ve come to be known for. It’s just that Blessing of Despair HAZ THE RIFFS, including my favorite death metal riff of the year in “Solus.”

#2. Void Witch // Horripilating Presence – When I revisited Horripilating Presence with the purpose of sorting out this list’s pecking order, I expected death-doomers Void Witch to fall mid-to-late top 10. Obviously, the opposite happened. For the life of me I don’t understand how this album didn’t gain more traction amongst the other writers and you, the unwashed commentariat. As I said back in July, “…the material on Horripilating Presence is Mohamed Ali levels of confident. The editing of ideas in each song and across the album’s taut 39 minutes is masterful, especially for a debut. No song hews too closely to any of the others, but all are of a piece, locking comfortably into place like an intricate puzzle box, and Void Witch have such sights to show you.”

#1. Inter Arma // New Heaven – Inter Arma never miss. Aside from being one of the best live acts in metal, every album they’ve released going back to 2013’s Sky Burial has been one successful evolution after another. As a very wise reviewer once said, “They’re the same shaggy beast as ever, but beneath that matted, coarse coat is a rippling form mid-shape shift, stretching, pulling, and crossing back on itself constantly over the course of New Heaven’s shockingly concise 42 minutes…If being all over the musical map sounds like a negative, you’ve probably never heard an Inter Arma record before. It seems whatever they throw at the wall sticks, and the listening experience across their (usually much longer) records never feels uneven. This is because they play everything with the same smoldering intensity and volatile mean streak.” What a record.

Honorable Mentions:

• Convulsing // Perdurance – I like this quote from Dear Hollow‘s review, so I’ll let him do the talking: “…Convulsing explores every nook and twist of a rhythm and melody until its inevitable conclusion is happened upon in tragic and fatal fashion.”
• Spectral Wound // Songs of Blood and Mire – Pound for pound, Spectral Wound are probably the most consistent no-frills black metal band currently in operation. Songs of Blood and Mire is another rager that’s as melodic as it is acidic.
• Lord Buffalo // Holus Bolus – This record was one redundant instrumental away from landing higher on this list. Looking forward to where these gothic country rockers go next.

Songs o’ the Year:

In alphabetical order by band:

#2024 #40WattSun #ASwarmOfTheSun #Anciients #BlogPosts #BlueHeron #CarcharodonAndCherdSTopTenIshOf2024 #ChatPile #Convulsing #CryptSermon #DevenialVerdict #FullOfHell #GlareOfTheSun #GrandMagus #InterArma #JulieChristmas #Kanonenfieber #Listurnalia #LordBuffalo #MotherOfGraves #Necrowretch #Nyktophobia #Opeth #Panzerfaust #PillarOfLight #Replicant #Selbst #Seth #Silhouette #SpectralVoice #SpectralWound #Sumac #TheVisionBleak #Thou #Ulcerate #VoidWitch #Vorga #ZealArdor

Doom_et_Al’s and Dear Hollow’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Doom_et_Al

Doom_et_Al

2024 was the year my reviewing fell off a cliff.

I had plenty of good excuses. An infant son (Grayskull) who totally rocks my world but who gobbles up free time and good sleep habits like Pacman on a tear. A new role at the hospital, for which I was initially out of my depth, and that required enormous effort to stay afloat. An exhausting book tour for a memoir I published earlier this year. These are all incredible things for which I am extremely grateful. I just found that at the end of every day, when I should have been critically assessing music, all I wanted to do was sleep.

This significant reduction in free time has forced me to reassess my relationship with metal. In the beforetimes, I would inhale it. I was not picky; the more the merrier. Now, I have to be judicious with what I listen to. I have a lower tolerance for bad music, and less inclination to listen to it multiple times. I sometimes yearned for a time when I could focus on music I wanted to listen to, not music I was being asked to critique. This caused me to wonder if I had any business reviewing music at all.

I can’t tell you if 2024 was a good year for metal or not, because the free time I had was focused on music that brought comfort. I therefore spun fewer albums, but those I did spin got a lot of earball time. I do know that despite everything, metal continued to bring me enormous joy and happiness. Part of this is thanks to the incredible AMG team, and AMG Himself, who have created, without question, the best metal site on the planet. Special thanks to the Steely One, who could have fired me many times, but didn’t for some reason. I’d also like to thank my fellow writers who are good, kind, supportive people whose only flaw is their collective questionable taste.

Returning to the question of why I’m still here: a few weeks ago, I was playing Gaerea softly on the stereo. Grayskull crawled in, heard the music, stood up, and with the biggest grin on his face, began growling and gesticulating. He was loving it, and his unbridled joy reminded me of how glorious good metal can be. It inspired me to try to review more next year. I hope some of that rubs off on you and that you have a beautiful, prosperous and happy 2025

#10. Sgáile // Traverse the Bealach – This type of noodly prog isn’t usually my thing. But Sgáile’s Traverse the Bealach is so damn catchy and epic that it transcends the usual pitfalls of the sub-genre. Importantly, it captures the essence and majesty of the Scottish Highlands (albeit in post-apocalyptic form) in a way matched only, perhaps, by countryman Saor. It’s also an album that improves the longer you listen to it. An unexpected delight.

#9. Misotheist // Vessels by Which the Devil is Made Flesh – A band that hasn’t forgotten that black metal is supposed to feel ugly and dangerous, Vessels picks up where For the Glory of Your Redeemer left off, and is just as remorseless, claustrophobic and scary as its predecessors. Misotheist do their usual thing and knock out 3 dissonant bangers in under 40 minutes. When people complain that black metal has gone soft, point them in the direction of Misotheist

#8. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – Thrash so tasty, even non-thrash fans like myself had to take notice. Complex, technical, ferocious… the only thing I don’t love is the vocals, and those I can get past because the rest is so good. Loaded with killer riffs from start to finish, this should appease the cave-man in you, while tickling those neurones as well. This one stayed in rotation for me all year. Thrash never does that. Which should tell you all you need to know.

#7. Spectral Wound // Songs of Blood and Mire – Although not as immediately spectacular as its predecessor, Songs of Blood and Mire is still a ferocious collection of vital and vivid black metal. Melding melodicism with fury, Spectral Wound create music as monstrous as it is catchy. Perhaps because it lacks the outright bangers of A Diabolic Thirst, perhaps because it is even more caustic, this one flew under many a radar. Don’t let it fly under yours.

#6. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – Building on the promise exhibited in earlier albums and EPs, Kanonenfieber realize their full potential with Die Urkatastrophe. So aggressive, so confident, so accomplished that I knew after one listen that it would list. The notion that “war is hell” is patently clichéd, yet Kanonenfieber subvert the usual trappings by cleverly mixing the faux-sunniness of war propaganda with the brutality of black metal. It works brilliantly.

#5. Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions – Don’t let the hideous AI art turn you off. Selbst have come out of nowhere to create the year’s most chaotic, yet compelling, collection of tracks. Channelling Suffering Hour, this is music that finds the beauty in the messiness of its composition. Miraculously, the insanity never becomes wearying, only more interesting. By the time the final chords fade, you’ll want to throw yourself in all over again.

#4. Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay – File under “surprise of the year.” I nearly snapped this one up from the promo sump, and then, like an idiot, passed it by. Joke’s on me. Capturing the warm, fuzzy side of black metal (a la Deafheaven, or a good version of Ghost Bath), Dawn Treader manages to pack a deep emotional punch despite all the prettiness on display. Alcest’s effort this year was fine… but when I wanted that transcendent experience only good black metal can provide, it was to Bloom & Decay that I kept returning.

#3. Gaerea // Coma – Gaerea have always been absolute masters of catharsis. The ability to take music that is baseline intense, and ratchet it up even further, is a rare gift. With Coma, Gaerea dial things back. Their tenderest, most intimate collection benefits from adding a gentler emotional core. This makes Coma less immediate than, say, Mirage,but ultimately more varied. And when it hits, the highs are some of the best of Gaerea’s rock-solid career.

#2. Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God – Arguably the best band in metal release another absolute barnstormer. Using every trick learned over the previous albums, Ulcerate deploy a devastating assault of dissonant death metal that captivates as it overwhelms. Insane drumming, complex time shifts, forceful melodies, thematic cohesion… Cutting the Throat of God has it all.

#1. Iotunnn // Kinship – First things first. Kinship not Access All Worlds Part 2. It’s more ambitious. It’s more sprawling. It’s shaggier and looser. And truthfully, on my first few listens, I thought it was a bit bloated and ill-disciplined. A 4.5 hiding in a 3.0, if you will. But a weird thing happened. I kept coming back. And every time I came back, I discovered something new. The incredible cymbal work on the chorus of “Mistland,” the gorgeous ending of “The Anguished Eternal.” Soon I realized Kinship, and its songs, are exactly as long as they need to be. Jon Aldara’s amazing vocal work elevates the stellar material even further, adding emotional complexity and yearning to the spell-binding complexity. The result is ethereal, complex, spiritually satisfying prog-death. It’s the best album of the year.

Disappointment o’ the Year:

Zeal & Ardor // Greif – I love the band. The live show still rocks. But this is a disappointing misfire.

Songs o’ the Year

• “Silver Leaves” – Wintersun
• “Mistland” – Iotunn
• “A Mercy Fall” – Counting Hours
• “Withering Flower” – Gaerea
• “Neuronal Fire” – Dark Tranquillity
• “Matricide 8:21” – Fleshgod Apocalypse

Dear Hollow

Welcome to the end of 2024! We at AMG hope the year has been kind to you – that your lives are filled with love, your hearts with joy, and our world with peace. I hope that you have found your people, and have those you can lean on. If we have ever given you a voice, a platform, or just love and support when you need it, then we have done our jobs.

2024 has been a roller coaster for the Hollow household. Our toddler is now a three-year-old encroaching on kidhood, with all the sass and sick burns she can muster.1 Fun news: we will be welcoming another kiddo into the world come summer of 2025! I also finally graduated with my master’s in secondary education this past year (mainly for the pay raise). While I’m unsure how much I will use from those classes, I have stepped up my class offerings to science fiction, true crime, and archaeology, alongside myriad others.

My metal reviewing has found a bit of a crossroads in 2024. At the end of 2023, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression with potential ADHD, with a ton of childhood patterns and religious trauma rooted in my upbringing. As I unpack my need for productivity, I have had to take some steps back and see where my values actually lie as I’ve acclimated to medication, counseling, and just trying to rewire my brain. I’ve been reading and relaxing more, instead of cranking out reviews as religiously as I have. I’m trying to live without religion – of any kind.

Special shout-outs to those who have been instrumental in my journey this year: the ineffable and tireless Steel Druhm, the genre-confusing Dolphin Whisperer, and those who have been supportive all year (Thus Spoke, Maddog, Carcharadon, Holdeneye, and Mystikus Hugebeard). Couldn’t have done it without y’all.

On to the metal!

#ish. Sumac // The Healer – The amorphous and fluid nature of The Healer is exactly what I’ve wanted out of post-metal. Its organicity is its greatest asset, accomplishing rich and trembling tones across its mammoth 76-minute runtime. Improvised material largely fails due to its lack of direction, but direction was never a focus for Sumac; rather, it dwells in its own devastation – the warhead and the fallout. Electronics simmer, noise erupts, sludge riffs hit with the weight of a thousand suns, and vocals command the attack with vitriol and mania alike. The Healer wounds and heals.

#10. Sidewinder // Talon – I never thought a stoner-inclined album would make it to my list, but here we are. I scoffed, but then the first riff of “Guardians” hit, and collided with vocalist Jem Tupe’s formidable and rich belts, the pleasure was so immense I threw a table over. The full-bodied, fuzzed-out blues riffs continue into jam seshes that keep me coming back for more, with them bluesy vocals floating like a weed-piloted spaceship atop the seas of psychedelia. The New Zealand act boasts range, zeniths in the low and slow, and cuts loose with southern fried riffage. I haven’t been able to shake the riff from “Prisoner” for months.

#9. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // Of the Last Human Being – As a recent convert to 2004’s Of Natural History, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum scratches the itch I didn’t know I had. In essence, an art rock and jazz foray, Of the Last Human Being goes from snappy blasts of UneXpect-style metal meltdowns, multilayered vocal attacks, wonky and hypnotizing dream sequences,2 to brass drawls, anachronistic industrial electronic, to art-funk, and more! Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is confidently locked into its own stylistic fluidity – Of the Last Being picks up as if seventeen years haven’t passed since its predecessor.

#8. Mamaleek // Vida Blue – Taking what made predecessor Diner Coffee so great and blowing it up with a palpable pomp, Vida Blue simultaneously pays homage to member Eric Livingston and the relocation of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas. Mamaleek establishes these tracks upon much shiftier sands, free jazz at its core, while jazz- and blues rock, post-punk, prog-rock, and pure experimentalisms are glossed over progressions rotten to the core. From flute and brass explosions to anarchic punk driving, you’d be hard-pressed to find an album as bewildering – and as utterly brilliant – as Vida Blue. Home run or whatever.

#7. Thou // Umbilical – While Thou has always been excellent, Umbilical foregoes the post-metal sensibilities that populated Heathen and Summit in favor of a cutthroat hardcore influence. Blessedly, while it feels harsher than much of their previous material, it doesn’t change the core that defines this Baton Rouge collective. Doom and sludge still dominate the pain and smothering that Umbilical represents, with the thick riffs reeking with the putridity of swamp water and vocals haunting with the vitriol of the bayou’s ghosts dominating the ears aplenty, with a vicious hardcore urgency biting through the humidity.

#6. Ataraxie // Le Déclin – The bleak edge of funeral doom has never felt so appealing. Recalling Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal in its audio and existential weight, the French collective balances the heft of funeral doom with the punishment of death metal – without the bells and whistles of modern atmospherics. Leads dominate the melodic portions with mobility and competence, death metal collapses regularly imminent, tension and bleakness hanging high in an empty sky. Four tracks of patient starkness greet the ears with overwhelming weight and tortured meditations on devastation.

#5. Ingurgitating Oblivion // Ontology of Nought – Easily my most returned-to album of 2024, the German duo creates a death metal album that embodies the outer extremes of the style. It’s dissonant beyond what many consider dissonant, punishing beyond what’s considered punishing, and easily one of the most exploratory albums of the year. Five long-form tracks showcase labyrinthine songwriting, experimental melodic structures, mind-flaying technicality, and a strange sense of catchiness radiating from deep within. Perhaps the most puzzling release of the year that requires and demands your full attention, the unearthed rewards are plenty.

#4. Orgone // Pleroma – Stephen Jarrett emerges from a ten-year hiatus of Orgone for a definitive piece of metal that defies explanation. Featuring a technicality that exists in a league of its own with an adventurousness and organicity that aligns its vast range of influences neatly, with its core landing somewhere among technical death metal and post-hardcore a la Amia Venera Landscape. Riffs and sweeps maintain a certain unhinged and intensely calculated tedium, while stylistic wilderness is explored in real-time. Post-metal, death metal, post-hardcore, and jazz are all tied together with crescendos and organic breadth that sway from lush harmony to scathing dissonance seamlessly. Orgone returns with an opus and pilgrimage of beauty, adventure, and pain.

#3. Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God – I was this close to writing off Ulcerate’s newest as too accessible and too forward, lacking the atmospheric prowess of The Destroyers of All or Stare Into Death and Be Still. Then I let Cutting the Throat of God whisper and breath. In between these stormy blusters came the answer, and a sentience emerged. It wasn’t about a broad showcase of dissonance and technical prowess, but a holistic cohesion that stitches the music together with the nuance and sinews of being. The vicious and the ethereal blended into unspoken horror, with meditations ranging from the frantic to the morbid. Cutting the Throat of God is the most human of its releases but in the tragedy it becomes and the metamorphosis it undergoes – the murder of God.

#2. Aborted // Vault of Horrors – I’ve never been terribly keen on the Belgian deathgrind legends, but Vault of Horrors curb-stomped a special place in me – namely because it sounds like deathcore. I’m not willing to banter about that specificity, but all I know is that Vault of Horrors kicks serious ass. Ripping tempos, bludgeoning riffs, and an unhinged technicality align for an album deserving of the act’s reputation, bolstered by a legion of guests.3 Highlight after highlight rolls by with reckless abandon and pulverizing intensity, until your body is so bruised and beaten you have nothing else to offer. I don’t care if it’s deathcore; it’s brutal, bouncy, and wicked, and I’m just happy to have my skull caved in.

#1. Convulsing // Perdurance – Thinking of the meteoric trajectory of Australian one-man project Convulsing and its albums, it’s no wonder that Perdurance has lasting success. Dissonant death metal has a high standard this year with established juggernauts Ulcerate, Gigan, Mitochondrion, Devenial Verdict, Pyrrhon, Replicant, and Ingurgitating Oblivion releasing scathing blight upon the world in monolithic and ruthless fashion. In this way, Perdurance takes the world in a whisper. Encapsulating a sound that is both unforgivingly dense and painfully claustrophobic, while also starkly and lushly atmospheric in its layered crescendos and exploratory songwriting, few artists profess the level of songwriting the way sole member Brendan Sloan utilizes: intricate and gradual evolution of riffs and melodies, achieving a level of organicity and sentience seen by few. Twisting convention with a knife firmly planted in devastation, Perdurance achieves a truly iconic and transcendent voice in the best album of the year.

Honorable Mentions:

• Paysage d’Hiver // Die Berge – It might not best Im Wald, but it’s a damn good conclusion to the Wanderer’s journeys, scathing black metal and frigid ambiance conjuring the majesty of mountains.
• Stenched // Purulence Gushing from the Coffin – I’ve never quite gotten what Steel Druhm has been on about with filthy, putrid death metal, but now I get it. Ugh, I need to take a shower.
• Defeated Sanity // Chronicles of Lunacy – Brutal death metal darlings don’t hesitate to bring the ouchy, but armed with enough technicality and insanity to keep us guessing, it’s a tough album to beat.
• Apes // Penitence – What appeared to be a total Nails ripoff turned out to be a much more atmospheric and thoughtful affair, the Quebecois group still managing to cave my skull in.
• Pillar of Light // Caldera – With a pulverizing yet restrained palette aimed at evocation through sludge and post-metal, this Detroit collective scratches the itch that only Amenra could have.
• Charli XCX // Brat – Well, color me Brat green and call me 2012 The Hobbit’s portrayal of the Misty Mountains. It’s a pop album that caught me by surprise. Hooks and experimental sensibilities align with a deceptively bare-bones album with a strong and palpable theme coursing through. I have not been able to get “Sympathy is a Knife” out of my head.

Biggest Surprises:

• Everyone and their Kitchen Sink // La Suspendida – What. The. Fuck.
• Jeris Johnson // Dragonborn – “Siren’s Song” is a perfect holiday track, as it interpolates the central melody of “What Child is This?”!!! Merry fucking Christmas. God.
• Two La Torture des Ténèbres albums in one year – I like it raw, boys.
• Three Monolith records in one year: blackened hardcore, doom/deathcore, and aquatic atmoblack. Impressive, fellas.
• How crucial darkwave bands Lazerpunk, Perturbator, and Sleepless Droids were to finishing my master’s. Thanks for the recommendations, Mystikus!

Songs o’ the Year:

• Assemble the Chariots – “Evermurk”
• Firtan – “Hrenga”
• Melvins – “Pain Equals Funny”
• Shiverboard – “Vitamins of Darkness”
• Convulsing – “Endurance”
• Charli XCX – “Sympathy is a Knife”

#2024 #Aborted #Apes #Ataraxie #CharliXCX #Convulsing #DawnTreader #DefeatedSanity #Dissimulator #DoomEtAlSAndDearHollowSTopTenIshOf2024 #Gaerea #IngurgitatingOblivion #Iotunn #Kanonenfieber #Mamaleek #Misotheist #Orgone #PaysageDHiver #PillarOfLight #Selbst #Sgaile #Sidewinder #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #SpectralWound #Stenched #Sumac #Thou #Ulcerate #ZealAndArdor

Thus Spoke and Maddog’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024

By Steel Druhm

Thus Spoke

My second AMG End-of-Year piece?! Didn’t I just get here? This is my typical reaction to life’s happenings. I’m blindsided by everything. You’ll probably notice that many of the below list entries ‘snuck up on me’ in how much I liked them, compared to everything else. The fact that we’re now halfway through the 2020s makes me feel a bit nauseous. I keep telling people I ‘just moved’ into the home I bought this year, but I’ve been in it since April. And that huge milestone—for which I feel immensely grateful and privileged to have achieved this side of 30—would have solely dominated my year were it not for two other facts: 1) I was finally diagnosed with and very recently started medication for ADHD; 2) 2024 has got to have been the strongest year of the decade so far for metal. So, time to talk about the music rather than myself.

My overoptimistic prediction that Ulcerate would release new music came true,1 and there was, in general, a particular influx of excellent material from the darker, more dissonant, and extreme sides of death and black metal. This was also the year I finally reconnected with my love of doom after a long period of lukewarm engagement. But I wouldn’t have known about half of it were it not for this gig, and the amazing people I share it with. Whether it was Dear Hollow, Kenstrosity, or Mystikus Hugebeard pinging across something they thought I might like, or a particularly potent review penned by a colleague, a commenter chipping in with some gem, or the group buzz around an album I might otherwise never have considered, there’s no better place to find and discuss metal. And speaking of community, if I ever needed a confirmation that this right here is the loveliest place on the internet, the rallying response to Ken‘s plight earlier this year from staff and readers was it.2 I couldn’t ask for better company.

I said as much last year, but I’ll probably say it every year: having this opportunity is wild and I feel so blessed. To be able to send my thoughts about music into the world where people read and consider them, that’s mad. Bumping into an AMG fan in the wild was also an affirming and heartwarming experience reminding me that there are actually real people out there who know who we are; and let me say, however enthusiastic and grateful you might be for us, the feeling is mutual. So to everyone reading this, to all the folks at AMG who make it possible for me to continually wax lyrical about stuff I love (and stuff I don’t love so much) and put up with all my overrating, to all of you: thank you. Shout out also to my list buddy Maddog, whose EOY write-up is bound to be more br00tal and much less flowery than mine, and whose in-person company I continue to have the pleasure of enjoying whenever he deigns to visit our little island up here. Oh, and thank you to the original creator and to Kenstrosity for my new avatar! I asked and you delivered. And if you actually read this far down, thank you for indulging me. But now, finally, it’s list time.

#ish. Pillar of Light // Caldera – I unintentionally ended my reviewing year on a high with Pillar of Light. Or perhaps a low, if we consider mood. When a record evokes a genuine emotional response in me,3 as Caldera does, it deserves more than an Honorable Mention. So here it is. It’s one of those albums you experience that forever afterward remains tied to your particular life situation when you were first immersed, and for that reason, its longevity is increased and its impact amplified. Given how “Leaving” and “Infernal Gaze” leave me in pieces, it’s probably a good thing the misery comes down from 11 at other times. But on the next album, who knows? I’ll be ready at least.

#10. Replicant // Infinite Mortality – Much like Kenstrosity, author of the review, I have not historically been Replicant’s hugest fan. For some reason their music never stuck with me; I just didn’t get it. Infinite Mortality has been the enlightenment I needed. It’s undeniably fantastic. Brilliantly technical and ruthlessly efficient in execution, it manages to also be ridiculously groovy in a way that you wouldn’t expect from this flavor of extreme death metal. Suited, evidently, to desk sessions and gym sessions alike, given the range of play it got from me since its release, its balance of skronk and style proved why I should, long ago, have been paying attention to Replicant. Ken himself struggled to find a negative and so do I. Even interlude “SCN9A” is great, especially as it leads into monster “Pain Enduring.” Only the superlative strength of other contenders causes this to fall so low on the list.

#9. ColdCell // Age of Unreason – In a rare case of me underrating something, my review of Age of Unreason did not quite do justice to its strength. Not only have I revisited it often, but I have of late been struck ever deeper by its profundity. The honest, vulnerable lamentations on inequality (“Solidarity or Solitude”), hatred (“Discord”), and human selfishness (“Dead to the World”) go far beyond a jaded misanthropy and strike a real chord. In wrapping this up in an insidiously simple package of compelling, devastating black metal with a distinctive voice, ColdCell have made, I now recognize, a true masterpiece. Brutal in its own way, and beautiful in many more, this is a record I hardly realized had made such a strong impact on me until I saw just how many times I’d spun it. This year may have seen black metal that goes harder, or with more powerful atmospheres, but none that are as memorable as Age of Unreason.

#8. Spectral Voice // Sparagmos – What a behemoth. It’s hard to believe that—just for a little while—Sparagmos slipped my mind many months after its February release. Relistening brought it all back into horrifying clarity. This record throws a veil over the sun, stares at you with unseeing, ecstatic eyes of Dionysian worship, and forces you into terrified awe. I’m still blown away by how crushingly heavy and immersive it is; how it still manages to blindside me with sudden turns from ominous crawling into chaotic, chthonic tremolos and clustered, hideous vocals. A masterclass in patient, predatory ambush. Nothing else this year was like it, which is partially why I’ve had to return so often to its dark embrace. Every nightmarish track was at some point in the runnings for the Song of the Year playlist. In the end, only one could make it, and it is, as I said in my review, “as inexorable as death.”

#7. Hamferð // Men Guðs hond er sterk – I’m surprised as well. Before Men Guðs hond er sterk, I had never laid ears on Hamferð and I was quite stunned to find how instantly I loved them. It’s not often an album by a band you’d previously never spent time with claims a spot on your year-end list after one listen, but this was one of those rare occasions. Something about the sorrowful, yet also soaring, melodies delivered through the interplays of resonant chords and gentle plucks, and between caustic growls and clear, ardent cleans just transports me. I feel the solemnity, the fear, and the grief in alternately forceful and graceful heaviness thanks to these intricately woven compositions and ardent performances that make the fact the lyrics are all in Faroese completely irrelevant. And Hamferð cover breadth with such ease, the slowly rolling wave of doom rising with tremolos into new intensity; and yet still controlled, still patient. The closer and it’s sample used to bother me, but I’m long past that now. In short, as the Angry Metal Guy himself said, “the record’s flow is impeccable,” and “the writing is subtle but addictive”. He’s not kidding about that last part, I really can’t stop listening to it.

#6. Föhn // Condescending – I was not prepared for what Condescending would do to me. Like any funeral doom worth its salt, it’s massive, but its presence is not smothering, it does not suffocate. Instead, it dampens the sound of anything else, so that the lugubrious chords, vocals, and fraught, lamenting refrains reverberate inside your mind, alone. This presence is redoubled by the heart-rending devastation of the compositions it centers—lyrically and musically. Bleakly beautiful, crushing doom in all its low, slow, cavernous hell leads you into an almost blissful moroseness, just in time for the veil to tear and your spirit to crumble as haunting melodies spill in from impossibly delicate sources of saxophone, synth, or ringing strings. Condescending will not leave my mind, and as broken and misty-eyed as these songs make me—”A Day After” and “Persona” especially—I’ll keep returning to experience it again and again. Maybe I can only speak for myself; maybe you’re sensing a theme wherein I like albums that make me feel sad. Whatever the case, Föhn took my breath away, and I don’t want it back.

#5. Cave Sermon // Divine Laughter – It’s pretty irresponsible of me to put this in the list at all, let alone in this position, considering how late in the day I discovered it. But I’m not really known for being ‘responsible’ around these parts, so, what the hell. What some might pigeonhole as just wonky death metal, or blackened post-hardcore—or even post-metal, as Metal Archives confusingly stamp it—is really much more complex, deep, and unique. Gripping and strange, in a way that struck me on my very first listen, Divine Laughter is responsible for me going from never having heard of Cave Sermon to being an ardent fan in one afternoon. Every listen gives me my new favorite part and uncovers more and more of its treasures. Savage and beautiful and with unnervingly easy flow, large parts of it are total perfection (“Liquid Gol, “The Paint of An Invader”). I cannot get enough. It’s so good, actually, that it’s made me feel a bit anxious about how much I’ve still missed this year, though I am very glad that this made it to my ears, even at the 11th hour. Divine Laughter is simply one of the greatest things I’ve heard in 2024, and it’s a crime that more people aren’t talking about it.

#4. Devenial Verdict // Blessing of Despair – I was waiting for Blessing of Despair since January, and as it always is with things we have high expectations for, part of me was preparing for disappointment. That preparation proved unnecessary once I finally got my hands on this in the Autumn. Devenial Verdict delivered. This time, they amped up all their unique little idiosyncrasies that made me fall in love with Ash Blind, and added a criminally heavy helping of groove. This thing is atmospheric and punchy, providing soundscapes that are just as haunting and mysterious(TM) as they are stomping and cutthroat. Either way, these riffs will make you shiver. “Garden of Eyes”! “Solus”! Ahhhh! Even “Counting Silence” and “A Curse Made Flesh,” which I initially dismissed as a little understated, have this delicious melancholic presence I just want to be immersed in 24/7. Devenial Verdict’s slick mixture of mournful melody and menacing, barked growls; neck-snapping flicks of cymbal, and those resonant, aggressive chord progressions make for—almost—my favorite take on death metal that exists. The sole reason Blessing of Despair wasn’t my most-played album of 2024 is that I only started in September.4

#3. Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions – Back in 2017 or so, I was struck by what at the time I considered the most gorgeous opening guitar on any song ever. It was “…Of Solitary Ramblings,” the first track on Selbst’s self-titled debut.5 From that day forward I was enamoured. The undercurrents of lamenting melodrama and a black metal interwoven with a distinctive style of flowing, weeping strums continue to make Selbst very special. But if I had thought that their depths of emotional poignancy and stirring, multi-layered compositions had been reached, Despondency Chord Progressions showed they had not. Cleans that some wrote off as unsavory, rather bring—in my opinion—a new vulnerability, and their rawness compounds the pathos of already intensely cathartic compositions. The album’s title is, as I noted, an apt descriptor for the musical themes, but really undersells the cry of grief and despair that erupts from the music with every shuddering, tremolo-shaken, surge and every plaintive, somber quietude. I stand by what I said back in April, that “[t]his is black metal at its most stirring, entrancingly beautiful, and existentially affecting.” The sheer magnitude of its impassioned peaks (“Third World Wretchedness,” “Between Seclusion and Obsession”) and the sting of its humanity (“When true Loneliness is Experienced,” “Chant of Self Confrontation”) are like nothing else in the genre.

#2. Amiensus // Reclamation [Parts 1 & 2] – Take it up in the comments if you think this is cheating; Reclamation is one work in my eyes. And what a masterpiece. Each part a gorgeous, immersive side of one breathtaking journey that is best experienced together. I remain stunned by Amiensus’ mastery of musical storytelling through a flowing, intricate soundscape—at turns triumphant (“Vermillion Fog of War,” “Sólfarið”), sorrowful (“Reverie,” “Leprosarium”), and always stirring. Everything about Reclamation is graceful, which is another part of its magic because it’s not as though Amiensus left the black metal behind. Rather they seem to have found the deepest essence of the genre’s unique propensity for raw emotional expression, and moulded its elements into what is hands-down the most beautiful thing I’ve heard at least this year. It is, as I noted in my write-up of Part 1, a distillation of pure joy, and uplifting no matter how wistful (“Sun and Moon”), or suffused with bittersweet longing (“A Consciousness Throughout Time,” “Acquiescence”). And with so much of it—albeit, a time that flashes by with thrilling speed—it’s impossible not to get lost in. “Sun and Moon” was so close to being my favorite song of 2024, and in another year, it would have been. For that matter, in another year Reclamation itself would have claimed the top spot on this list.

#1. Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God – What else could it have been? I worry that by this point I may have used up all of the words that are possible to describe this pinnacle of excellence. In reality, though, I’m not sure I even have the words to express it in the first place, not for lack of trying. Ulcerate have long been a behemoth in their realm within the larger world of death metal, but while distinctive, they have never settled, continually carving up the template of dissonance with varyingly-sized blades of atmosphere and melody, moving between their most barbed and chaotic (Everything is Fire) to their most somber and moody (The Destroyers of All) in just one album. Later Shrines of Paralysis—my former favorite—saw a turn back towards the urgency and aggression, but with this new harmonic undercurrent in place. With hindsight, I can see now that the deeply atmospheric, disquieting Stare into Death and Be Still marked a turning point, paving the ground for what could be their magnum opus. Distilling the tension and the turmoil, into tidal forces of incredible rhythm, and dark, brilliant melody, with Cutting the Throat of God, Ulcerate reach transcendence. Dire (“The Dawn is Hollow”), deadly (“Transfiguration in and Out of Worlds”), devastating (“To See Death Just Once,” “Cutting the Throat of God”). Its intricacies only continue to reveal themselves to me; helped, no doubt, by a phenomenal live performance that bewitched me anew this October. I had to upgrade this album’s score to Iconic, because it is. This is atmospheric death metal perfected, and if genre-mates weren’t already looking in Ulcerate’s direction, there’s hardly any choice now. Cutting the Throat of God represents, in the greatest form, “the savagery, authenticity, and more recently, beauty that makes this icon of the dissonant death metal world who they are.”

Honorable Mentions:

Gaerea // Coma – Despite having calmed down considerably from my previous Gaerea overhype, there’s no denying that they’ve really got something. With a new vocalist, they retain their distinctively melodramatic and intense style, while incorporating a little more vulnerability via some genuinely really lovely cleans. A great record that just wasn’t great enough for the ridiculously high standard set by this year’s fare.

Eye Eater // Alienate – I am immensely grateful for Dolphin Whisperer for bringing this to my attention. Much of this album feels like it was written specifically for me, because it uses pretty much all of my favorite things in metal. It’s atmospheric and dissonant, like Ulcerate and others in that vein; it’s kind of post-death-y, and replete with minor melodies, and a particular kind of urgency my brain associates with specific kinds of ‘-core’. I just didn’t get quite enough time with it.

Songs of the Year

“To See Death Just Once” – Ulcerate

“Sun and Moon” – Amiensus

“Solus” – Devenial Verdict

“Terminal” – Vorga

“Third World Wretchedness” – Selbst

“The Paint of an Invader” – Cave Sermon

“A Day After” – Föhn

“Ábær” – Hamferð

“Inversion” – Endonomos

“Death’s Knell Rings in Eternity” – Spectral Voice

“Leaving” – Pillar of Light

Maddog

It’s been a weird year, and this is a weird list. Last December, I lamented the emotional hollowness of 2023’s metal output. If anything, 2024 fell even flatter. My most anticipated heavyweights were competent but inconsistent (Alcest, Julie Christmas), and few albums moved me. Unfazed, death metal picked up the slack and made this year a pleasure. Led by a flurry of excellent releases from genre titans, 2024 helped rekindle my love for cantankerous death metal.

Even so, the brutality of 2024’s output shocked me. Despite my worship of Suffocation and Dying Fetus, most brutal death metal releases of the last decade haven’t gripped me. But 2024 pulled me onto the brutal train with creativity and pizzazz. Both the techy and the knuckle-dragging corners of that subgenre thrived, including several artists that didn’t make my list (like Gigan, Iniquitous Savagery, and Nile). After tending toward more emotive music and other poseur nonsense in recent years, I took a long jump back in 2024.

As if that wasn’t enough, this was a banner year for dissonance. That’s a sentence I never expected to type; even dissonant death metal’s classics tend to be hit-or-miss with me. In 2024, the skronk finally broke through, aided by many avant-garde bands drifting toward a more accessible sound. This year’s screechy screeds were cogent enough to grab my arm and unhinged enough to rip it out of its socket. It’s been a jarring but eye-opening year.

This comment from the Brodequin review doubles as a summary of my 2024 music picks:

I wonder if I, we, they or all of us have a screw loose.

Heading into 2024, I craved immersive soundscapes and misty eyes. Instead, I was met with discordant gurgling. I didn’t expect it, but I don’t regret it.

#ish. Hypoxia // Defiance – Defiance never gets old. This old-school death metal behemoth has been around for ten months and hails from a subgenre that’s infamous for monotony. And yet, like Monstrosity’s best work, it blossoms on every spin. Defiance sports 2024’s fiercest harsh vocal performance, and riffwork so potent that it could revive the Selbst baby. I don’t have anything fancy to add, so I won’t try. Defiance is a rare death metal record that’s simple, thrilling, and well-written.

#10. Dawn Treader // Bloom & Decay – The thought sometimes crosses my mind: Why does atmospheric black metal even exist? The musical possibilities abound; who would pay $8 for tremolo scales recorded in a rest stop bathroom? Records like Bloom & Decay jolt me out of my pretension. Dawn Treader’s underground gem is both a product and a peddler of overpowering emotion. Ross Connell unleashes a tirade against violence and oppression using grief-stricken guitar melodies. On the flip side, Bloom & Decay’s heavy use of major keys—my second biggest fear—blurs the line between despair and tentative hope. Most impressive is the album’s flow, which Itchymenace described better than I ever could: “The majority of Bloom & Decay is instrumental, but you hardly notice because the music has such a storytelling quality.” Bloom & Decay’s 53-minute chokehold on my heart is ineffable but unyielding.

#9. Kanonenfieber // Die Urkatastrophe – Germany’s nameless Noise has built up a remarkable CV – 7 years, 3 bands, 8 albums. While I’ve often enjoyed his music, I never fell under his spell. Die Urkatastrophe was the last straw. A pacifist tirade told through first-person WWI vignettes, Die Urkatastrophe depicts nationalist violence and its aftermath. Armed with a sharp-edged blackened death foundation and surging chorus melodies, Kanonenfieber provides rewarding fodder even for unfeeling riff addicts. However, its excellence lies in its raw emotion. Both Noise’s lyrics and his songwriting embrace a “show, don’t tell” approach that brings the album to life. As the narrator’s cavalry offensive meets with a hilltop ambush in “Gott mit der Kavallerie,” Kanonenfieber’s upbeat riffs transform into a sudden dirge followed by frantic black metal. The epic “Waffenbrüder” evokes the wide-eyed optimism of childhood friends, the pride of enlisting, the tragedy of losing a companion, and the regrets of a life wasted. Die Urkatastrophe is both a transformative album and exemplary storytelling.

#8. Defeated Sanity // Chronicles of Lunacy – Chronicles of Lunacy is essential listening for any fans of extreme metal. Its greatest triumph is its fine mix of Defeated Sanity’s signature ingredients. Chronicles excels as pure brutal death metal through punishing caveman riffs and a tasteful dose of slam. Vaughn Stoffey’s guitars elevate this to an art form using wily fretboard acrobatics and seamless jazzy breaks. Led by kit-meister Lille Gruber, Defeated Sanity’s off-kilter rhythms and heavy syncopation miraculously aid the album’s staying power rather than hindering it. Put simply, Chronicles of Lunacy is 2024’s most vivid reminder of why I love death metal. I love its unforgiving brutality; I love its dazzling technicality; I love its groove; I love its genre-bending creative expression; I love its rhythmic feats of strength; I love its intellect; I love its idiocy. In other words, I love Defeated Sanity.

#7. Ulcerate // Cutting the Throat of God – It’s a match made in heaven: Cutting the Throat of God is Ulcerate for dummies, and I’m a dummy. Ulcerate continues to march toward more accessible ground, leaving behind the merciless dissonance of Everything is Fire. Powerful melodic themes peek through the chaos and take time to shine, offering both souvenirs and footholds. Despite Cutting’s lowbrow appeal, Ulcerate’s inimitable signature remains. Unease pervades the record, and Ulcerate’s cohesive songwriting transforms it from a concept to an emotion. In Thus Spoke’s words, Jamie Saint Merat’s drums are “more body than skeleton,” using their distinctive start-stop style to guide the mood. The album’s climaxes alone justify a purchase, as hypnotic melodies and frenzied dissonance coalesce into a tsunami. In short, Cutting the Throat of God captured both my brain and my heart.

#6. Hippotraktor // Stasis – I first heard about Belgium’s Hippotraktor from an insistent coworker, long before I discovered GardensTale’s well-worded underrating. Psychonaut meets Karnivool meets The Ocean meets Meshuggah in this pounding, beautiful prog/post adventure. Stasis’ hard-won achievement is that it navigates through disparate ideas with fluidity and flair. Psychonaut-drenched sludge forms a jagged backbone that sways between meditative and explosive. Meanwhile, Hippotraktor’s mastery of melody catapults them into genre royalty. “Stasis” uses this superpower for peaceful guitar jams, “Echoes” uses it for soaring As I Lay Dying vocal lines, and “The Reckoning” uses it for haunting continuity across its eight minutes. The djenty interdjections are well-written and screwed in tight, packing a punch even for listeners with severe djent allerdjies. Stasis is a bold statement from a new band, and it’s jostled up my list posthaste.

#5. Hell:on // Shaman – Hell:on’s folk-infused take on death metal stands apart. Shaman’s diverse influences complement each other and flourish in isolation. Phrygian themes, throat singing, and driving sitars steer the album. But despite Shaman’s folk roots, it’s an excellent slab of death metal. Hell:on’s riffs recall the threatening leviathans of Nile’s Annihilation of the Wicked, while the narrative song structures feel like a roided-out Aeternam. Even among such storied company, Shaman’s melodies stand out. Over the record’s runtime, Hell:on’s guitars shred, soar, flail, and wallop, evolving smoothly and dragging the listener along. As icing on the cake, Holdeneye’s review of Shaman features the most sobering and most badass introductory story of 2024. Hell:on demanded my attention and earned it.

#4. Pyrrhon // Exhaust – I started warming up to Exhaust on my first listen, but it took a while to diagnose why. Pyrrhon’s earlier releases didn’t click with me, but Exhaust is a trailblazer and a paradox. Pyrrhon rewrites the textbook on riffs, displaying a mastery of groove even in their wildest moments. And the noisier cuts, which remind me most of Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and The Velvet Underground, are evocative narratives rather than lifeless technical exercises. The longer pieces intersperse hypnotic buildups with furious cacophony (“Out of Gas”), while the shorter tracks are simultaneously caustic and infectious. With a thick leading bass performance and a master that highlights every detail of the drums, Exhaust grows on me with every spin. Pyrrhon’s off-the-deep-end brand of experimental death metal isn’t my usual fare, but I can’t avert my ears this time. Both mellifluous and disgusting, both rifftastic and immersive, Exhaust is singular.

#3. Selbst // Despondency Chord Progressions – My first toe dip into Selbst made a lasting impression. Shortly after Despondency Chord Progressions came out, I spun it at the office. In the final minute of the opener “La Encarnación de Todos los Miedos,” I felt the involuntary tears start to flow, and I had to nuke the music and run to the bathroom to avoid worrying my desk neighbor. This embarrassing first encounter perfectly encapsulates the album. While it’s “merely” black metal, its gorgeous melodies and shrilling tremolos showcase the genre at its finest. Alternating between meditative dirges and howling chords, Selbst conveys both muffled sobs and hysterical bawling. Selbst’s fluid compositions captivated me at once and dug their claws even deeper over the ensuing months. The most heart-rending record of 2024, Despondency Chord Progressions showcases the paralyzing power of music.

#2. Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System – Noxis’ debut is a remarkable blend of old and new. The album’s stomping riffs and popping snare drum root it in 1990s brutal death metal. Conversely, its exuberantly grimy bass tone, its proggy rhythms, and its surprise woodwind extravaganza feel unabashedly modern. Much like last year’s Ohio death metal highlight, Violence Inherent in the System succeeds by ripping throughout, whether with a vile Dying Fetus riff or with an adventurous bass melody. Although this is the longest record in my top five, its 46 minutes fly by. Boasting momentum that would make Newton blush, Noxis keeps the energy high from the barnburner “Skullcrushing Defilement” to the proggy old-school “Emanations of the Sick.” After six months of scrutinizing and adoring Violence, I still can’t fathom that this is a debut album.

#1. Wormed // Omegon – I’ve already said my piece on this, and nothing has changed. Omegon feels as thrilling, as alien, as robotic, and as human as it did in July. In a year where brutality and dissonance thrived, Wormed maxed out both dimensions. Omegon is at once a painstakingly crafted work of art, an all-consuming atmosphere, and 2024’s punchiest death metal record.

Honorable Mentions:

• Oxygen Destroyer // Guardian of the Universe – Redefining Darkness strikes again. Oxygen Destroyer’s latest death-thrash opus is a concise half hour of exhilarating riffs. The album sounds one track, but I don’t care; it gains steam as it progresses, and it lodges deeper on every listen. There’s no excuse for missing this.
• Brodequin // Harbinger of Woe – Despite its morose title, Harbinger of Woe is straightforward and riotous. Brodequin has honed a sleek archetype of brutal death metal, far from the likes of Wormed. It doesn’t aim to innovate; it just aims for high impact. It succeeds.
• Kryptos // Decimator – India’s heavy metal kings dealt me an irreplaceable shot of adrenaline. Decimator is Kryptos’ most melodically inspired work to date, an absolute scorcher, and the most viscerally satisfying production job of 2024.
• Necrowretch // Swords of Dajjal – Somehow, despite competition from In Aphelion and Necrophobic themselves, Necrowretch churned out the best Necrophobic album of 2024.

Songs o’ the Year:

1. Julie Christmas – “The Lighthouse”
2. Hippotraktor – “The Reckoning”
3. Kanonenfieber – “Waffenbrüder”
4. Hypoxia – “Scorched and Skinned”
5. Kryptos – “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze”
6. Wormed – “Protogod”
7. Alcest – “Améthyste”
8. Defeated Sanity – “Heredity Violated”
9. Andy Gillion – “Acceptance”
10. Selbst – “La Encarnación de Todos los Miedos”
11. Pyrrhon – “Out of Gas”
12. Ulcerate – “Cutting the Throat of God”
13. Noxis – “Abstemious, Pious Writ of Life”
14. Keygen Church – “La Chiave del mio Amor”

#2024 #Amiensus #BlogPost #Brodequin #CaveSermon #ColdCell #DawnTreader #DefeatedSanity #DevenialVerdict #EyeEater #Föhn #Gaerea #Hamferð #HellOn #Hippotraktor #Hypoxia #Kanonenfeiber #Kryptos #Necrowretch #Noxis #OxygenDestroyer #PillarOfLight #Pyrrhon #Replicant #Selbst #SpectralVoice #ThusSpokeAndMaddogSTopTenIshOf2024 #Ulcerate #Wormed

Pillar of Light – Caldera Review

By Thus Spoke

A Caldera is a hollow resulting from the collapse of a volcano’s magma chamber, normally after an eruption. This lasting effect of catastrophe, in the form of a deep depression, describes a mental state as much as it does a geological phenomenon. Pillar of Light—who dedicate their debut Caldera to late friend Steven Jon Muczynski (Hollow Earth/Tharsis They)—channel this state in an unflinching exploration of mortality and misery. Through a crushing brand of sludgy doom, Pillar of Light rain bitter feelings and agonized resignation in a shower of pathos as massive and confrontational as that haunting, incandescent door.

It can be paradoxically enjoyable to indulge in one’s gloominess, and Caldera takes this right to the brink of real despair. With Aaron Whitfield screaming pure sadness and spite over the deceptively simple interplay of Scott Christie, Alex Kennedy, and James Obenour’s resonant riffs and crushing chords, to the pulse of Eric Scobie’s thump and crash, Pillar of Light ensures that every note, beat, and breath hits you firmly and squarely in the chest. The presence of reverberant guitar in a dense production is weighty enough, trudging bleakly along to sluggardly sludge, But it grants a solidity also to the mournful refrains that spill down out of an opening in the grey cloud in delicate atmospheric drops, or a downpour of rich tremolo. In their violence, and patient creep towards devastating, destructive outpourings, Pillar of Light frequently reminds me of Amenra—almost too much at times, though such a comparison is only a good thing for Caldera’s effectiveness.

If Caldera is designed to rip your heart out, then it succeeds. Drums and concrete guitar batter and beat you down, you crawl along the tense path of blunt near-dissonance, your breath catches in moments of atmospheric anticipation, or a shivering build, and then is knocked clean from you as you collapse in a devastatingly beautiful catharsis. If you’re me, listening alone in my flat on a dark November evening, you’re crying. If you’re not me, you might not be crying, but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the grief (“Leaving”), the despair (“Infernal Gaze”), and the surrender (“Certain End”) that bleeds out of these massive mournful melodies. More muted harmonies bleed with apathy (“Wolf to Man,” “”Spared,” “Unseeing”) before they too succumb to pulchritudinous despair. Venomous barks and somber spoken-word become a mantra of misery as they repeat over blunt and beautiful themes alike (“Wolf to Man,” “Infernal Gaze”). Quiet should be taken gratefully, even as delicately wrought plucks precipitate further despondence (“Leaving,” “Eden,” “Unseeing”).

Across its near-hour-long runtime, Caldera hardly lets up on its emotional abuse, changing only the manner in which it assaults. “Spared” and “Unseeing,” etched with screeching slides, are cold and depressive whether dwelling in ringing atmospheres or dissonant chugging. Unflinching and inexorable next to the more overtly pathetic “Leaving,” and “Infernal Gaze,” with “Unseeing”‘s battering, disharmonic conclusion setting the stage for “Certain End”‘s crippling finale. Only the aptly-titled “Eden” offers peace in its three instrumental minutes that bridge “Spared,” and “Infernal Gaze,” its hazy, perhaps overlong reprieve serving to make “Infernal Gaze” that much more devastating. If one wanted to trim anything, taking a smidge out of “Eden” could be a start, while “Unseeing” could also be pared down. In all honesty, however, Caldera doesn’t feel nearly as long as it is. Something else worthy of note is that “Certain End” hits with a particular type of nostalgic intimacy due its theme reminding me very strongly of Amenra’s “A Solitary Reign.” It took me a couple of listens to realize the reason it felt so familiar, but I wouldn’t class it as plagiarism, just strong inspiration that makes a good song better.

It seems that every year, something lands right at the cusp of list season that threatens to demolish the neatly-considered line-up. Pillar of Light are guilty of this terrible timing as they single-handedly snatch my personal Best Doom of the Year title. Stunning by itself, as a debut Caldera sets a heavy precedent and stamps a deep imprint on the scene. As enduring as its namesake, Caldera is gorgeous and heartbreaking, and it won’t let me go.

Rating: Great
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: December 6th, 2024

#2024 #40 #Amenra #AmericanMetal #Caldera #Dec24 #DoomMetal #DoomSludge #PillarOfLight #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #Sludge #TranscendingObscurityRecords