Some of the best metal albums of 2024 are bold, experimental, and formally adventurous. Others find a clever new twist on a familiar sound, scratching an itch you might not have known you had. Still others simply execute the living hell out of a formula that never gets old. The list below, presented alphabetically by artist, should have something for every stripe of metalhead.
Blood Incantation
Absolute Elsewhere
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
The death metal cosmonauts in Blood Incantation spent the past decade teaching themselves how to make Absolute Elsewhere. On the Denver band’s first two full-lengths, Starspawn and Hidden History of the Human Race, they learned how to smuggle spacey atmospherics into songs filled with punishing riffage. The controversial Timewave Zero taught them how to transcend death metal entirely, giving them the confidence to compose for synthesizer like their heroes in Tangerine Dream. Even last year’s Luminescent Bridge maxi-single saw them pushing melody to the forefront in a newly uninhibited way. All that groundwork was necessary for Absolute Elsewhere, the most ambitious Blood Incantation release yet, to be the unqualified success that it is. Across two side-long suites—“The Stargate†and “The Messageâ€â€”the band bring their death metal, prog rock, kosmische musik, and dark ambient proclivities into a staggeringly effective equilibrium. It feels like there’s nowhere they can’t go.
Julie Christmas
Ridiculous and Full of Blood
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP, T-Shirt/Shirt
There’s only one Julie Christmas. The former Made Out of Babies and Battle of Mice singer has spent her career boldly reimagining the role of vocals in heavy music. Like plenty of other metal frontpeople, there’s a raw, expressionistic quality to her voice, but she almost never makes a rote or predictable choice. Christmas is as likely to shrink herself down with a childlike coo as she is to erupt in a roar, and the thrill of hearing her sing is trying to keep up with the ever-flowing stream of her instincts. As a solo artist, voice has only become more central to her work. Ridiculous and Full of Blood is her first release in nearly a decade, and the terrifying range of her powers is on full display. The showpiece is “Silver Dollars,†a nervy, percussive post-metal track that finds Christmas tapping into everything she’s ever done as a singer (and several things she hasn’t). The song resolves in a soul-wrenching climax that stands among the tallest peaks of her formidable discography.
Dödsrit
Nocturnal Will
Vinyl LP
Since beginning life as a jagged black metal/crust punk hybrid in 2017, Sweden’s Dödsrit have moved steadily toward a robust melodic black metal sound. The towering Nocturnal Will is the culmination of that journey. It’s evident from the first riff of album opener “Irjalaâ€â€”at once triumphant and mournful, and scaled to the heavens—that Dödsrit have become masters of a rarefied strain of black metal atmosphere. I can hear the bright melodicism of Dissection and the epic heft of Windir, but it wouldn’t be crazy to compare some of the album’s catchiest guitar parts to Amon Amarth, or even Iron Maiden. This is heady stuff, and it’s delivered with striking emotional immediacy by guitarists Christoffer Öster and Georgios Maxouris—and, for an aching, lyrical guest solo on “Nocturnal Fire,†by Lamp of Murmuur’s M. There simply aren’t many black metal bands who can effectively communicate the deep currents of feeling that run through Nocturnal Will. Dödsrit make it sound effortless.
Genital Shame
Chronic Illness Wish
Vinyl LP, Cassette
Listening to Genital Shame’s Chronic Illness Wish can be a bit overwhelming. There are a lot of big ideas being explored here, about the nature of black metal and the nature of self. Alien sounds enter the fray and leave just as quickly; surprising counterpoints abound. Acoustic and electronic elements wrestle for control under cascading riffs and howled vocals. Don’t try to analyze and categorize what you’re hearing, at least not at first. Erin Dawson, the sole musician behind Genital Shame, is a sly genre craftswoman, one who knows black metal intimately enough to effectively and repeatedly destabilize it. But she deals in the experiential, not the academic. To truly appreciate Chronic Illness Wish, you have to let it overcome you, like a wave at the beach that breaks a moment sooner than you think it will. Only after Dawson has knocked you down should you try to make sense of how she did it.
Grendel’s Sÿster
Katabasis into the Abaton
Compact Disc (CD), Vinyl LP
The building blocks of Grendel’s Sÿster’s Katabasis into the Abaton are obvious enough. The Stuttgart band loves medieval minstrel music, early German power metal, and ’70s British folk-rock; Cirith Ungol, Slough Feg, and Thin Lizzy. The resulting brew isn’t a tedious hodgepodge but a fully realized universe unto itself. Katabasis into the Abaton is a fantasy world every bit as enchanting and immersive as Middle-Earth or Camelot, and the melodic folk metal the band uses to bring it to life is deeply rooted in its imagined history. Songs like the Mellotron-led “Golden Key (Won’t Fit)†and the doom-y “The Fire That Lights Itself†feel timeless, and lead vocalist Caro gives a gripping performance worthy of the rich storytelling of the lyrics. Plus, Grendel’s Sÿster have a Redwall-like mascot named Cyril the Squirrel. If you won’t listen for me, listen for Cyril.
Intranced
Muerte y Metal
Vinyl LP, T-Shirt/Shirt, Vinyl, 2 x Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD), Cassette
Nobody got closer to the Platonic ideal of heavy metal in 2024 than Intranced did with Muerte y Metal. Power, swagger, toughness, melody, musicianship, that ineffable quality of metal-ness—it’s all here, oozing out of the L.A. band’s debut full-length like blood from a switchblade wound. Frontman James-Paul Luna has been around the block a time or two, with acts like White Wizzard and Holy Grail, but Intranced is his masterstroke. Singing in both English and Spanish, he asserts himself as one of metal’s most dynamic vocalists, powering streetwise rockers (“Reyes de las Tinieblasâ€) and poignant ballads (“See You on the Other Sideâ€) alike. Fili Bibiano is the Randy Rhoads to his Ozzy, the George Lynch to his Don Dokken. His flashy yet fundamentally sound guitar work is the glue that holds Muerte y Metal together.
Lowen
Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran
Vinyl LP, Sweater/Hoodie, Cassette, Compact Disc (CD)
The excellently titled Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran by the London progressive doom band Lowen is a twisting, shapeshifting thing, a tangled mass of snaking riffs, Middle Eastern polyrhythms, and the tahrir-style vocals of lead singer Nina Saeidi. Lowen’s first album, 2018’s A Crypt in the Stars, was a looser and more psychedelic hang than Demons, which boasts a newly dialed-in sense of purpose. Its songs are intricate and densely constructed, and Saeidi is asked to squeeze her voice through some tight spaces amid the scaffolding of biting guitars and drums. She’s up to the task. One of her first musical loves was System of a Down, and there’s more than a little Serj Tankian in the way she navigates these fiendishly complex songs. The degree of difficulty doesn’t temper the emotional truth—Saeidi sings as an Iranian born in exile in the UK, and the call of her lost homeland burns at the core of the album.
Necrot
Lifeless Birth
NorCal crushers Necrot have stepped up to the plate three times now, and each time, they’ve launched a bomb over the right field wall and into the San Francisco Bay. With 2017’s Blood Offerings, 2020’s Mortal, and now the devastating Lifeless Birth, Necrot have established themselves as one of death metal’s most reliable bands. Their bludgeoning, punk-influenced formula hasn’t changed much over the years, but it’s been honed to near perfection. The groove-driven “Drill the Skull†is the catchiest song the band has ever written, and the eight-minute “The Curse†is their most regally monolithic. At the center of everything, still, is the preternatural interplay between bassist/vocalist Luca Indrio, guitarist Sonny Reinhardt, and drummer Chad Gailey. Their lived-in chemistry makes Necrot even greater than the sum of its considerable parts.
Oxygen Destroyer
Guardian of the Universe
Vinyl LP, T-Shirt/Shirt, Sweater/Hoodie, Compact Disc (CD)
When I saw Oxygen Destroyer live this summer, a fan in a Godzilla costume stomped around the mosh pit, laying waste to the prop skyscrapers that the band had helpfully provided. It was the coolest thing I saw at a show all year—Iron Maiden’s military-grade pyro can’t touch a sea of heshers hooting and hollering at the destruction of a cardboard city. It wasn’t surprising to see Oxygen Destroyer gin up that kind of enthusiasm. The band reached a dizzying new apex with Guardian of the Universe, their third album of diabolically speedy, kaiju-themed death-thrash. It’s muscular, physical; the kind of record that makes you want to throw some weight around. Taking inspiration from the Heisei-era Gamera movies, frontman Lord Kaiju and his bandmates rip through nine of their fastest, heaviest, most memorable songs to date. Oxygen Destroyer’s aim is not just to sing about giant monster battles but to make music that sounds like one. On Guardian of the Universe, they smash that goal like it’s Tokyo Tower.
Tzompantli
Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD), Cassette
One of the best parts of Tzompantli’s Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force is outlined right in the title. The ancestral drums that Brian Ortiz and his collaborators beat on the album come from the Mesoamerican cultures that predated the arrival of colonial powers in modern-day Mexico and California. In addition to teponzaztli slit drums and huehuetl tube drum, you’ll hear shells, shakers, and ehecachichtli, sometimes called the Aztec death whistle. You’ll also hear punishingly heavy guitars, which Ortiz plays in mournful homage to death/doom forebears like Evoken and Disembowelment. A lot of care has gone into the way the folk instrumentation is woven into Tzompantli’s death-metal tapestry. Rather than sitting on top of the mix ornamentally, the traditional flutes and percussion undergird and ultimately bolster the crushing riffs and guttural vocals. As if something called a “death whistle†could be anything but brutal.
Undeath
More Insane
Cassette, Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Seldom has there been a death metal band as attuned to the genre’s ability to induce childlike glee than the Rochester act affectionately nicknamed “Fundeath.†By infusing Cannibal Corpse’s over-the-top cartoon violence with the beer-drinking bravado of Judas Priest, Undeath have created the ultimate hang-sesh death metal band. More Insane is their third album, and it’s stuffed to the gills with songs that are destined to be turned up when they come on in the car—the confrontationally melodic “Brandish the Blade,†the ass-kicking quickie “Bounty Hunter,†the funhouse reflection of late-period Death called, delightfully, “Disattachment of a Prophylactic in the Brain.†By all means, smile. Just try not to get your teeth knocked out.
Unto Others
Never, Neverland
Vinyl LP
Metal is too niche a genre in 2024 for big-swing records to land an underground band an arena tour, but if such a thing were still possible, Unto Others would need to hire a professional lighting crew right about now. Never, Neverland—likely named for a lyric from that biggest of mainstream swings, Metallica’s Black Album—transforms the Portland band’s sumptuous, goth-infused heavy metal into the kind of openhearted, hooky hard rock that rarely gets made anymore. Unto Others has always been a melody-driven band, but Never, Neverland pushes their pop sensibility to the foreground, without sacrificing any of the idiosyncrasy that made previous full-lengths Mana and Strength so refreshing. It’s also a remarkably diverse album, one that sees the band exploring a variety of uncharted song styles, from the major-key banger “Sunshine†to the jock-jam stomper “Hoops.†For some fans, this push into poppier territory has been a bridge too far. To me, it sounds like Unto Others becoming the band they were always meant to be.
