2024 is the first year in a long time I’ve been keyed into enough new music to make an albums of the year list. This is no doubt due to hosting Edge of the Abyss, the weekly streaming radio show I started in March. Doing the show and combing through new releases each Friday has reconnected me to music listening in a way that I hadn’t been in years. And it’s reconnected me with metal, specifically, in a way I hadn’t been in even more years. I’ve even begun collecting physical media, again. Vinyl, a medium I’ve never collected before as I grew up on cassettes and CDs. Vinyl is, in my opinion, a mixed bag but that’s not the point of this post.
If you’re coming to this list from the SuperScience side of things it might be slightly surprising to find it so dominated by metal. Coming from the Edge of the Abyss side of things, it only makes sense. I have listened to more than just metal this year, of course. I try to keep my listening varied but this year I’ve been all about that metal so this list is going to be all about that metal.
Speaking of Edge of the Abyss, here is the replay of my Best Metal Albums of 2024 broadcast. In this stream I talk a bit about each album, play a few tracks from them, and mix in other fantastic metal songs released this year.
Enough rambling, here is my Favorite Albums of 2024 list. There have been a ton of great albums released this year but I’m keeping the main list limited to the albums that had me coming back over and over. Once I find myself hitting a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th listen of an album on streaming, I add that album to my vinyl want list. As such, every album in the main list is now (or will soon be) in my personal vinyl collection. That has been the main criteria for the list. In no particular order…
Vulture - Sentinels
Possibly the album I’ve listened to most this year. Badass Thrash/Speed Metal with 80s vibes, solid production, and the perfect amount of camp. This album made me realize how much I love thrash, as ridiculous as that sounds at my age.
Fulci - Duck Face Killings
I love Fulci’s flavor of death metal. From the tone, riffs, and vocals to the Lucio Fulci film theme. The synth interludes truly conjure the 70s/80s Italian horror film vibe and add an interesting flair to the album.
Horndal - Head Hammer Man
This album feels like sludgy doom/death metal but in classic rock form. The song & album structure feels more akin to great classic rock albums than many modern metal albums. Between Horndal’s big, powerful sound, aggressive vocals, and the concept behind that album, Head Hammer Man stood out as one of the most interesting and unique albums of year.
Aborted - Vault Of Horrors
Aborted’s brutally heavy Vault of Horrors appealed to the horror film fanatic in me. Each track homages a different horror film but, outside of some obvious track titles, the lyrics are not as on-the-nose as one might expect. Also, this album is stacked from start to finish with featured artists!
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
This album was a complete revelation. Oranssi Pazuzu’s Muuntautuja is described a “psychedelic black metal”. I had no clue what that meant going into it but what I found was noise and black metal mixed with trip hop, post industrial, and more. It pulls in so many 90s electronic elements that appeal to me while being totally fresh and devastatingly abrasive.
Chat Pile - Cool World
This one almost slipped by me and is the one album on this list I don’t yet have a physical copy of… but I will. Bleak noise rock/metal with flavors of 90’s grunge and, of all things, Korn. The guitar/bass tone and rhythm occasionally conjure that Korn self-titled or Life is Peachy feel but Chat Pile, overall, has a very different vibe. Solid lyrics with lines that will often stick with me long after the album is over. Cool World somehow taps a nostalgia that takes me a very specific time and place long ago yet is, obviously, new and fresh.
