50 / Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal
Tight flows, unique and engaging perspectives, production that feels at once classic and forward thinking. Just a really fun and exciting release.
49 / Clairo - Charm
More mature and focused than Immunity, and more interesting and fun than Sling, and I really liked both those albums. Clairo's best effort so far, a really sweet and nostalgic feeling album to return to again and again.
48 / Cheekface - It's Sorted
Just really good fun. Cheekface take a sound and energy that could easily become annoyingly ironic or overly sarcastic and instead come across as genuine and earnest in a way that is both legitimately funny and endearing, and strangely heartwarming. I just have a great time listening to this album.
47 / Huntsmen - The Dry Land
This album holds together in a way I can't fully put words to. I often am put off by the blending of clean-vocal folk music with heavier metal instrumentation (granted that's an oversimplification of what Hunstmen are doing on this album), but for whatever reason it really works for me here. The vocal harmonies are captivating, the riffs and heavy passages balance well with the slower/quieter passages, and it all just comes together as greater than the sum of it's parts for me.
46 / Chat Pile - Cool World
Crushing, bleak, noisy, generally a lot of fun to listen to if you don't pay attention to how depressing it is.
45 / Charli XCX - brat
What can I say about brat that hasn't already been said a million times over? It's just nice to see an album like brat get so much mainstream buzz. Recommending this album feels pointless, but yeah if somehow you haven't yet, give it a listen.
44 / Civerous - Maze Envy
Civerous aren't exactly breaking any new ground with Maze Envy, but sometimes that's not really what you want. Maze Envy is really really solid death metal, with a few splashes of Doom and Blackened Death here are there to get you're blood flowing. And man, the drums just sound fucking awesome on this album. A sure fire album to put on and get pumped up.
43 / The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstacy
A terrific debut album, as exciting for the promise and potential it hints at as the music actually held within. Nothing here is going to blow your mind necessarily, but it's tightly written, side-steps indie pop and alternative tropes often enough to be interesting, and just sounds really good from front to back. Thrilled to see what they do next.
42 / Faye Webster - Underdressed at the Symphony
I've got a complicated relationship with this album. I think it's a step down in quality from Webster's 2021 release I Know I'm Funny Haha in nearly every way, but that says much more about what a masterpiece of understated indie soft rock I believe that album to be than any actual issues with this new album. The truth is if I Know I'm Funny Haha didn't exist, Underdressed at the Symphony would probably be much higher on this list. It's funny, intimate, unique, the production is terrific, the writing is great, but I'm biased, and an asshole, and this album lives in the shadow of it's predecessor. I know it's not fair.
41 / Fontaines DC - Romance
I could write a very similar review for this album as for the Faye Webster album. And so I will. Both this album and their last album Skinty Fia have fallen victim to how much I love their 2020 release A Hero's Death. Again, it's not fair, and by all accounts I should like Romance more than I do, but it is what it is, and if I'm gonna listen to a Fontaines D.C. album, it just is gonna be A Hero's Death. Does that make me a bad music reviewer?
40 / William Basinski - September 23rd
Basinski can do no wrong in my eyes (musically, I don't anything about his personal life, don't @ me). The Disintegration Loops are what made me fall in love with ambient, drone, and noise music years ago, and every new release from Basinski I find to be wonderful for putting on and turning off my brain. He has a masterful ability to do just enough in his pieces; the perfect amount of music, the perfect amount of noise, the perfect amount of quiet.
39 / Slimelord - Chytridiomycosis Relinquished
This album is just nasty. The goose cries at the beginning, the strange sound effects throughout, it creates such a surreal and beguiling atmosphere to lose yourself in the nearly relentless sludgy death metal riffs and doom tinged compositions until you feel like you're lost in the colorful acid trip alien swamp world depicted on the cover, and it's a surprisingly pleasant place to lose yourself.
38 / Bongripper - Empty
Solid, sturdy, lumbering stoner/doom metal from front to back on this one. Classic in all the right ways. Honestly works equally well as a soundtrack to smoke some weed to, or as background music for studying/working/doing the dishes/etc., and I mean that as a high compliment.
37 / Pyrrhon - Exhaust
Exhaust is a fitting name for this record. This thing starts out fast, brutal, noisy, just on the edge of being grating, and it keeps up that same breakneck pace the entire album. Apparently this gets labeled as technical death metal, but tech death albums rarely sound this raw and organic to me. If you can weather the sonic storm that is Exhaust, you're in for an invigorating treat, full of small moments of light that break through the dense dark chaos.
36 / Touché Amore - Spiral in a Straight Line
It's difficult to believe listening to Spiral in a Straight Line that these guys have been at it for the better part of two decades. To keep up this sort of energy for that long is rare, and damn impressive. I mean I was listening to this group in high school, and against all odds, Spiral might be my favorite release from them. It has all the same heart-on-your-sleeve angst and confessional energy of their old albums, now with a maturity which adds legitimacy to the world-weariness that helps define the genre.
35 / Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God
For some reason, I went into this album wanting to dislike it. Maybe it was how much people had been talking it up to me as being "groundbreaking", or the edgelord album name (I do still think it's a little tryhard), maybe I'm just always a little on guard when something is described as technical death metal. Whatever the case, after giving the album a listen, I was forced to give up my gripes. Do I think it's as groundbreaking or astonishing as many have claimed it to be? I don't know, probably not, but gosh it does sound really, really good. The compositions are tight and exciting, the sound engineering is top notch, to vocals are crushing and guttural, and it goes in some directions which I found legitimately surprising and thrilling. So while I think this album has been a bit overblown, it's hard to deny that it's one of the best metal releases of the year.
34 / Dawn Treader - Bloom & Decay
Sometimes, it's just really nice to hear a seemingly home grown record like this that's a little rough around the edges. From what I can tell this album was completely recorded and produced by one guy, and there's a real genuine charm to the sound and feel of it. If I felt like being cynical and nitpicky, I could say the melodies and guitar harmonies sometimes come across as a bit cheesy, or the whole thing feels like Deafheaven or Panopticon worship, or that the production feels all over the place at times, but ultimately, those things all somehow only add to the appeal of this album. If you let yourself get lost in the flow of this album, I promise you you'll have a good time.
33 / Respire - Hiraeth
Like if Arcade Fire hired a screamo vocalist and got even more into traditional folk instruments then they were on Funeral? With a healthy splash of Godspeed You! Black Emperor style builds, releases, and wailing violins, and group vocals that remind me of bands like Slint, or maybe even American Football? The comparisons you could draw from this album are endless, and this is a one of a kind listen not so much because it breaks any new ground, but because it pulls together such a wide array of influences into a hodgepodge sound that I would have never conceived of, and that results in something that honestly sounds a lot better than it ought to. They definitely wear their influences on their sleeve, but their are so many influences that it just looks like a new sleeve all together.
32 / Microwave - Let's Start Degeneracy
I've read a lot about what a huge and stunning departure this album is from Microwave's usual sound. Let's Start Degeneracy, however, is my first exposure to Microwave, so I have nothing to compare it to. With that being said, I found this album to be stunning, arrestingly genuine and lyrically potent. The album kicks off with a hymn which is not only captivating, but filled me with a melancholy and even foreboding which I can't quite put my finger on. At it's quietest moments in pulls me in and goes straight to my heart, and conversely the album reaches highs of pop punk energy and excitement that fill me with a nostalgic yearning so intense that it's almost too much. More than any tangible quality that I can point to, there's a vibe to this album that just cuts deep in the best possible way, and keeps me coming back for more.
31 / Boundaries - Death is Little More
This is metalcore at it's darkest and angriest.
30 / Hulder - Verses in Oath
If this album were any less amazingly well written, performed, and stitched together, it could easily come across as cheesy copy-and-paste black metal, down to the intro song that's literally just crows cawing ominously over howling wind and the sound of distant thunder. Rather than rising above these clichés, however, Verses in Oath dig so deep into the atmospheric black metal clichés that you actually remember why they became clichés in the first place. The crushing wall of sound production, the screamed vocals that sound like a dying animal crying out in a frozen forest at night, wailing tremolo guitars layered over synthesized strings, organs, and chorus pads that are perfectly spooky and ominous. It all just makes you feel like a medieval warrior in a fantasy story, hunting witches and demons in a dark and desolate land, and that's fucking awesome. Hugely recommend this album if you're into black metal. Put it on while playing Diablo 2 or something.
29 / Rosie Tucker - UTOPIA NOW!
This album keeps me on my toes. Tucker's vocals and writing style consistently remind me of Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner, but that's hardly a problem, and they take enough sudden left turns both lyrically and musically throughout the albums' relatively short run time that it never gets stale, or feels derivative. UTOPIA NOW! delivers a biting brand of bedroom pop tinged indie rock that at once makes me feel dejected and hopeful for the future, whether or not that was their intention. "Gil Scott Albartross" is a stand out track for me, perfectly displaying Tucker's sharp sense of humor, powerful vocals, and deft ability to write a tune that manages to be catchy and fun even as it's giving you whiplash.
28 / Vince Staples - Dark Times
I've been a fan of Vince Staples ever since I heard him on "Hive" off of Earl Sweatshirt's 2013 record Doris, and while I don't think he's ever released a bad album, I wouldn't say he's ever released a "great" album either, something that really blew me away and stuck with me once it was over. Dark Times breaks this pattern for me. The instrumentals throughout feel innovative and unique while remaining accessible, and for maybe the first time it really feels to me like Vince is writing from a perspective where he's trying to bring the audience in on what he's talking about. Maybe that's because in many ways, this feels like his most personal and vulnerable album to date. This is, in my opinion, Vince's best and most complete and cohesive album by far, and I'm stoked to see how he follows it up.
27 / meth. - SHAME
At no point during SHAME's 44 minute run time does meth. make any attempt to ease you in, hold your hand, or make you feel comfortable. This is a truly tense, unsettling, grimy listen. The most oppressively heavy and unrelenting album of the year, bar none. Catharsis at it's purest. The kind of album I really can't recommend to anyone in my personal life. Terrific stuff.
26 / Geordie Greep - The New Sound
This album is bloated and bizarre, and I think I mean that as a compliment. It's a mess in the best possible way. The first time I listened to this album it didn't make much sense to me, and it felt way too long and dense to really be enjoyable. I still think it could've probably been cut down a bit, but the more I listen to it, the more convinced I become that it's a legitimate masterpiece, and the length and bloat add to the overall feeling and ethos of the album. There are so many disparate sounds and ideas shoved together and seemingly held together by glue and paperclips, but as you let them marinate they start to make sense, and Greep's signature talk/signing delivery and the bizarre and often uncomfortable stories he weaves together complete the surreal landscape of this weird and wonderful album. I think if I waited longer to make this list this album would only climb higher and higher, but it's already mid-January and I've been dragging my feet as it is.
25 / Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition
Absolutely thrilling death metal with amazing melodic grooves throughout. Some of my favorite metal vocals all year as well. If you're looking for solid old school melodeath, this is the one for you.
24 / Joey Valence & Brae - No Hands
Just great, danceable bangers from front to back. This project is a hell of a good time.
23 / WORMWITCH - Wormwitch
I can understand criticisms of this album that write it off as uninspired, cliched black metal, full of tropes with little innovation or inspiration, but I think in a way that's part of the appeal of this album to me. I don't need all my music to be forward thinking and off the wall, this album is straight ahead, no frills, and it's punishing. WORMWITCH hardly give you a moment to catch your breath on this thing.
22 / Thou - Umbilical
Brutal, lumbering, sludgy riffs lay a foundation for vocals that sound like their emanating from the very bowels of hell. This album is massive, and it'll roll over you like a bulldozer.
21 / Spectral Voice - Sparagmos
The most legitimately unsettling and evil sounding album I've heard this year; beautiful and captivating in a dark, frightening kind of way. Like demons howling and roaring in a massive, pitch black cavern. If you're into that kind of thing.
20 / Godspeed You! Black Emperor - No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead
As a long time die-hard Godspeed You! Black Emperor fan, I've been somewhat disappointed with their last two or three releases. They've never released a piece of music that I didn't find to be beautiful and captivating, but not since 2012's 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! has one of their albums given me that distinct, almost indescribable Godspeed feeling. That potent blend of hope, anxiety, excitement, and ennui that made albums like Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven worm their way deep under my skin and stick with me all these years. No Title has recaptured that feeling. Where their last few records have felt a bit unfocused, or maybe even a bit disingenuous in their rebellious angst, No Title feels almost uncomfortably focused, and there's no doubt the knowledge of the currently ongoing atrocities in Gaza inform how one feels while listening to this record. That potent blend of anger, anguish, and stubborn hope for a better future is alive and well in the dense and beautiful compositions of No Title, and while on one hand it's nice to have the Godspeed I fell in love with back, I deeply wish it hadn't taken real life horrors to make it happen.
19 / Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
This album is fucking nuts. From front to back, it's nuts. The insane, indecipherable album cover is the perfect fit for the music on this album. At the same time, this is probably one of the grooviest, most comprehensible and accessible release I've heard from Full of Hell, which is saying something because again, this thing will wear you out and give you whiplash. I can't think of another band with this kind of range and breadth of sonic palette who still manage to make music that is fun to listen to. And man they put out a lot of albums with a lot of different artists, in a lot of different styles. One wonders where they find the time. In a discography full of albums that I think are legitimately ground breaking and awe inspiring, this one is probably my favorite so far. Well worth a listen.
18 / Poppy - Negative Spaces
Man it's been fun to track the career trajectory of Poppy. I remember when I discovered her on Youtube, years ago now, making those strange, surreal, mind bending videos that I didn't know what to make of, but got a strange enjoyment out of. When she started putting out music I was skeptical, but it turned out to be pretty fun stuff, and her debut album Poppy.Computer was legitimately great off-the-wall pop, and made me a full fledged fan. Who could've guessed then that an album like Negative Spaces was in her future? Certainly not I. Has anyone had a more radical reinvention in the music industry in recent years? Maybe, but none that I'm aware of, and while it's been exciting to see Poppy dip her toes into heavier and heavier waters over the past few years, nothing ever really grabbed me, or convinced me that she could really pull off a more hardcore sound. That was until she popped up on Knocked Loose's new album (we'll talk more about that later) earlier this year. Sure she just lent her vocals to the song "Suffocate" (an album highlight for me; again, we'll talk about it later), but her vocals sound fucking awesome on that track, and it got me excited that she was working with a band like Knocked Loose, giving me hope that her next album would be a legit metal album.
Well my hopes were fulfilled. This is the full blown metal album I've been waiting for from Poppy, and in a weird way this sounds like what I wish a new album from Linkin Park would sound like. It's got all that early 2000's electro metal flair to it, updated with modern production and some heavier metal sensibilities. And of course Poppy's vocals sound great, and I'll never get over what a terrific metal vocalist she is. Some of the screams on this album are legitimately chilling. My one complaint for this album is a lot of the production feels like a carbon copy of a Bring Me the Horizon song, especially the overly processed and often fake sounding drums. This is unsurprising as it was produced by their keyboardist and producer Jordan Fish. Ultimately though, Poppy brings enough grit and personality to the table on this album that those issues are pretty easy for me to overlook, and overall I'm thrilled with the direction she's heading in and can't wait to see what's next.
17 / Volcandra - The Way of Ancients
I think the best word to describe The Way of Ancients is "epic". The visceral blend of melodeath and black metal on this album is enough to get anyone's blood pumping, and every time I spin this album, I feel like I'm embarking on an epic journey. At moments it's crushing and desolate, and at others, like on stand out track for me "Maiden of Anguish", it reaches high above the clouds for moments that feel legitimately gorgeous and inspiring. This is the sound of a highly proficient and inspired metal group who know exactly what they want to make, and exactly how to make it.
16 / julie - my anti-aircraft friend
I've been anticipating this debut full length album from julie for awhile now. Their 2021 EP Pushing Daisies, while a very brief little project, was nonetheless one of my absolute favorite releases of that year. It felt so fresh and genuine, with an energy and angst that couldn't be faked or synthesized in a boardroom as so many "angtsy" records sound to me nowadays. And admittedly, the first few times I listened to this new album, I felt a little let down. It didn't have that same messy, wild energy that I'd fallen in love with on their first release. As I gave it more tries, however, this album made more and more sense to me. Yes it lacks some of the bombastic energy from Pushing Daisies, but julie more than makes up for that with more mature compositions and lyrical themes and a much more complete vision and direction. This album feels like a perfect package to me, and julie bring a dark, blunt energy to the shoegaze sound that I don't think I'll get tired of any time soon. Really excited to see them continue to evolve and grow as a band.
15 / Killing of a Sacred Deer - Killing of a Sacred Dear
Just a fucking awesome deathcore album. Brutal, noisy, aggressive, everything you want out of the genre, all while sounding legitimately fresh and unique amongst the often overly homogenous deathcore scene. Plus they sample Ocarina of Time on the first track, so album of the year I guess?
14 / The Smile - Cutouts
Gonna keep this one brief because we're gonna talk about The Smile again in just a minute. With this being the second album The Smile released this year, and coming so hot on the heels of the first one, it would've been more than reasonable for Cutouts to essentially feel like a B-Sides record of leftovers from Wall of Eyes. Instead, we got an album that not only sounds fully fleshed out and cohesive on it's own, but that in a lot of ways stands apart from the two albums that preceded it. This album flows in a really wonderful way, where even the more anxious, high-energy moments feel like just one portion of a larger calm and ethereal whole. There's a feeling to this album that's hard to put your finger on, and in truth it coming lower on the list than the other The Smile album from this year might just come down to the fact that I haven't had as much time with it. Time will tell which album I prefer I guess, but suffice it to say, a B-Sides record this is not.
13 / High on Fire - Cometh the Storm
Seems to me everything nearly Matt Pike touches turns to gold. Dopesmoker is the album that got me into metal, and nearly three decades later he's still putting out top notch sludge and stoner Metal. Cometh the Storm barrels out the gate like a bull from the stocks, and it hardly lets up on the momentum for it's nearly hour long run time, even while dabbling in a diverse array of influences you don't often hear in a heavy metal record, such as the Turkish Folk inspired track "Karanlık Yol". And their dabbling paid off, as that may be my favorite track on the album. Every time High on Fire drops a new record, I know I can count on it being a banger, and 27 years into their career, they've lost none of their energy or ability to put together a riff and a groove that just melts your fucking face off.
12 / Kendrick Lamar - GNX
The Drake v. Kendrick beef was probably the pop-culture highlight of 2024; I'll never forget the feeling of the back to back drops of "meet the grahams" and "Not Like Us". "Family Matters" felt like a solid rebuttal for all of an hour or so, and for a fleeting second it felt like Drake might actually have a chance, and then I heard the opening lines of "meet the grahams", and I knew it was over, even without the double whammy killing blow of "Not Like Us" coming hot on it's heels. With all the hype Kendrick generated with these tracks (5 Grammys later for "Not Like Us", insane), it seemed like a given that he would capitalize on this with a new record, which leads us to GNX. In contrast to the lengthy, introspective, largely gloomy Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, GNX is fiery, bombastic, and to the point, capturing much of the same energy he created during the beef (with more than a few more shots at Drake throughout the record). The result is an album that, while exciting and engaging, feels a bit more shallow to me than Kendrick's best work. Not to say that every album needs to be a sprawling manifesto like To Pimp a Butterfly, GNX is still undeniably the work of a master of the genre at the height of his powers, but I'd be lying if I said I think this album will stick with me nearly as much as past Kendrick albums. I guess that'd the downside of creating masterpieces like good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp a Butterfly so early in your career, pedantic people like me will always compare your newer work to those albums. To be less pedantic for a moment, GNX is a stunningly well produced, written, performed, and packaged album from one of, if not the best artist currently working in popular music, and one that can be enjoyed on a surface level, but also rewards deeper digging. Kendrick has yet to let us down.
11 / Glitterer - Rationale
The kind of Emo/Shoegaze/Indie Rock sound that I always have an appetite for. Brings me right back to my angsty teenage years, with enough unique composition and interesting instrumentation to keep things fresh and engaging.
10 / Four Tet - Three
At some point Kieran Hebden, the legendary electronic producer behind Four Tet, is gonna have to release a stinker. No one can knock it out of the park all the time, everyone makes a misstep now and again, right? Well I might be biased, as Four Tet was a seminal album for me getting into electronic music as a teenager, but Hebden has yet to release one project that hasn't completely struck a chord with me, and Three is no exception. In a lot of ways this album feels like a greatest hits record for Four Tet, pulling here and there from seemingly every genre he's dipped his toes into over the years. Moments like the album opener "Loved" fill me with a nostalgia for that folktronica/IDM sound of early albums like Rounds, while tracks like "Daydream Repeat" sit comfortably among the more dance/house inspired sounds of his more recent output, blending in the ecstatic and hypnotic feeling of cuts like "Morning Side".
No matter what bag Hebden pulls from, however, you can rest assured that it's always going to feel lush, energetic, euphoric, melancholic, emotional in a way that you can't quite put your finger on, and yeah it's always gonna sound fucking amazing. Maybe Hebden will make a misstep someday, but it is not this day, and Three is an album I'll come back to again and again for years to come.
9 / Job for a Cowboy - Moon Healer
The album that more or less kicked off what was for me the year of Metal. I've flirted with being a "metalhead" for a number of years, dipping my toes into the genre occasionally with 2 or 3 albums per year sticking out to me, but this year I finally dove in head first, and I attribute that in large part to this Job for a Cowboy record. I remember listening to Entombment of a Machine when I was in junior high. My friends and I would put it on and laugh at how over the top it was, swapping imagined stories of people getting murdered at their shows that we swore were completely factual. With those memories in mind, I was pretty skeptical when a friend of mine recommended Moon Healer to me. My skepticism quickly melted away as I listened through for the first time. I was mesmerized immediately by the dense, twisting riffs and song compositions, the strangled screams and growls cutting through the din, and especially the unbelievably tight and surprisingly groovy bass riffs that are refreshingly front and center in the mix and drums which have a great natural sound to them. My main complaint with most technical death metal, and a lot of modern metal in general, is it all sounds too perfect and clean, and the drums always sound perfectly sequenced and artificial. The music on this album is super tight and fast, but it all still feels real, you can imagine living, breathing people playing it.
Moon Healer lit a fire inside of me that can only be quenched my more metal and hardcore music, and while it didn't end up being my favorite metal record of the year, I have to credit it with probably being the most personally impactful album I listened to in 2024, and it holds a special place for me for that.
8 / Nails - Every Bridge Burning
I don't think anyone would label Nails as innovators, they haven't really tried to refresh or retool their sound in any significant ways, but you could make the argument that they're one of the most consistent hardcore bands period. In the four albums they've released since the landmark 2015 release Unsilent Death (in my opinion one of the best hardcore albums of all time), Nails have lost none of the high octane fury that makes their personal brand of powerviolence so heart pumping and adrenaline inducing. Every time I put on one of their albums, Every Bridge Burning being no exception, I want to put my head through a wall and set something on fire. Sometimes bands with this level of anger and intensity come across as performative or false, not Nails. Don't come to this album looking for nuance or subtlety, but if you're looking for an album with non-stop aggression to get you fired up and mad, this is the one.
7 / Floating Points - Cascade
Promises was my favorite album of 2021, and continues to be one of my favorite pieces of music ever created. With his follow up to that record Cascade, Sam Shepherd, the producer behind Floating Points, proves that he doesn't have to break new ground blending jazz, classical instrumentation, and electronic production to create something wholly fresh, exciting, and masterful. Which is not to say Cascade is simple in any way, for most artists an album like this would be lauded for how complex and dense it is, pulling from a broad palette of sounds and genres that one would not immediately assume would work well together. Only for an artist like Shepherd, whose musical exploits include electronic orchestral jazz explorations, scoring a ballet, and work on the score for an upcoming anime series from Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichirō Watanabe, could an album like Cascade be seen as "back to basics". And yet in many ways it does feel that way, and while I'm excited to see what strange, mind bending, off the wall things Shepherd will surely create in the future, I hope he continues to occasionally find the time to give us albums like Cascade, relatively simple, masterfully well made dance bangers.
6 / The Smile - Wall of Eyes
I think I've finally made peace with the fact that we'll likely never get another Radiohead album. That potentially painful truth is made considerably more tolerable by the existence of the The Smile. 2022's A Light for Attracting Attention was by no means a bad record, but the more time separates me from it's release, the more I feel it's an unfocused, unenergetic collection of a few great songs, a few fine but overall forgettable songs, and one or two truly boring stinkers. Because of my growing lack of enthusiasm for that album, I went into Wall of Eyes with tempered expectations, and instead I got the album I hoped A Light would be, and perhaps had even believed it to be at the time. Wall of Eyes has all the beauty, sorrow, anxious energy, and forward thinking composition of Radiohead's best work, colored with a new, sort of rough around the edges feeling to it, informed by the wisdom and experience of the bands aging members. The word "aging" almost feels like a slur used in this context, but that's not how I mean it at all; Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner bring decades of experience, and I can't see why that wouldn't be something worth treasuring and celebrating. And anyway, there's no lack of vigor on this project; Read the Room, my personal favorite track on the album, is a wealth spring of energy and exciting ideas that keep you exhilarated and on your toes. Perhaps it's better we don't get another Radiohead album, there's simply too much pressure, too much hype, could anything the band did really live up to that? And if we continue to get material like this from The Smile (spoiler alert, we did a few months later, look a bit further back on this list), I don't see what there is to complain about.
5 / Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Back in 2019, when my love for metal was still in it's burgeoning early stages, Hidden History of the Human Race, Blood Incantation's terrific sophomore release, was one of the albums that got through to me and I really fell in love with. For how blistering and chaotic that album is, it was surprisingly accessible and easy for me to latch onto as someone without much knowledge of or vocabulary for the genre. While there are undeniably psych and prog influences on that album, it's primarily a death metal record, so I was more than a little surprised when their next album, 2022's Timewave Zero, turned out to be an ambient record, with little to no identifiable metal influence. I liked the record quite a bit, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of ambient music (see William Basinski a bit lower down on this list), but I was admittedly pretty disappointed. I'd been eagerly awaiting their next release, and was ready for another face melting death metal epic.
With all of that in mind, I was cautiously optimistic as the release of Absolute Elsewhere approached, avoiding any singles as I often do these days so I'd be able to experience the album as a whole. Upon listening to the record, the band's exploration into ambient/non-metal album makes a lot more sense. Blood Incantation returns on Absolutely Elsewhere a band, in my mind, fundamentally changed. I know much of the music on this album is objectively death metal, a lot of it even sounds similar to the material that was on Hidden History of the Human Race, and yet I have trouble considering this a death metal record. The band seems considerably more interested in exploring the realms of prog rock, psych rock, experimental space rock, etc.; the death metal passages almost feel like an aside, like something to fill time between trippy 70's Pink Floyd/King Crimson inspired passages. If you told me "The Message [Tablet 2]" was a remastered B-Side from Dark Side of the Moon, I might just believe you. Not to say the metal passages aren't great, thrilling, masterfully composed and produced pieces of music, they surely are, but I don't think that's where the band is finding their energy on this record, and my tune has changed on where I hope the band goes from here. I wouldn't want them to completely lose that death metal edge, but I'm much more excited to see what experimental, genre blending direction they head in next.
4 / Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath
Obviously I love this album a lot, it's in my top five albums in a year that had no shortage of unbelievably great music. Despite this, I have to start this off with a slight criticism. The name "Infant Island" makes it incredibly difficult to recommend this band to people.
“Hey, have you heard of Infant Island?”
“Is that like Epstein’s island?”
“Jesus, no, not at all.”
Thankfully I haven't actually had that conversation with anyone, but that is how it plays out in my mind every time I go to recommend this album. I know it's a Godzilla reference, but as a lifelong Godzilla fan, it's a pretty deep cut, and definitely not where peoples minds go when hearing "Infant Island".
Anyway, now that I've gotten that super important aside out of the way, I really, really love this album. This is the third album from the scream/blackgaze septet, and the first one that's shown up on my radar. Obsidian Wreath feels like if Deafheaven were sadder and dirtier, and I mean that in the best way possible. Where Deafheaven reaches up to the heavens searching for meaning, Obsidian wreath searches for the same in the deepest caverns and most godforsaken corners of the earth. Not to say it’s never beautiful, but there’s little joy or redemption to be found, at most there’s catharsis, brief glimpses of hope here and there, of a strained and desperate optimism, but mostly there’s furious anger, fear, existential dread, and sorrow. In the band's own words, this album is about confronting the seemingly hopeless state of the modern world and searching for the good and hopeful within all that. Hopefully they figure it out.
3 / State Faults - Children of the Moon
This album is really, truly something special. I didn't come to it until much later in the year, the first time I ever listened to the album was in early December, and even still, I very nearly made it my #1 album of the year. It perfectly distills everything I loved about screamo and post-hardcore music as a teenager, while simultaneously effortlessly disposing of the elements of that music that made it not age well, presenting a stunningly mature and well put together encapsulation of these genres I love so much. For an album that's over an hour in length, this album flows so smoothly and gracefully that you hardly notice any time has passed at all, and are eager to hit replay the moment the final notes of the stunning album closer "Bodega Head" fade away. The lyrics are consistently moving and engaging throughout, rarely if ever dipping into the trite, overly dramatic platitudes I've often shuddered at when listening music within the genre, and that sentiment rings true for every element of this record, from production, to composition, to performance. It all has this incredible ability to feel perfectly subtle and understated, even as it's screaming directly in your face. If I write anymore about this album I'll realize that I'm wrong and it actually is the best album of the year, so I'll leave it at this: if you've ever enjoyed screamo or post-hardcore music, or frankly even if you haven't (I showed this album to my dad, a classic rock super-fan from Kentucky, and he absolutely loved it), give this album a listen, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll find something to love about it.
2 / Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
The first time I listened to this album, at the suggestion of a fellow metalhead friend on mine, I kind of thought it sounded like shit. The drums were too loud, everything had this overly distorted, grainy sound to it, almost like every instrument had been recorded with too much gain and were clipping, and I thought the vocals were squeaky and annoying. Upon finishing the album, I thought that was the end of it, and was prepared to never listen again. The next day, however, as I was warming up on the treadmill, the album kept popping back into my head. That riff on "Don't Reach for Me" was pretty great, wasn't it? And the freaky little dissonant riff that underscored "Take Me Home" was weird, but in a cool way? And what about that breakdown on "Suffocate"? Was that a reggaeton beat? I couldn't get it out of my head, so I gave it another listen, and while I did find a few more things to like about it, I still had the same criticisms, and this time I was sure, that was the end of it.
Sure enough though, the next morning while on the treadmill, I once again couldn't get it out of my head. I figured whatever, the album is only 28 minutes long, give it one more listen. This pattern continued day after day, and within a couple of weeks, it was the only album I was listening to, my hang ups and criticisms all but forgotten. The eccentricities and grating production decisions which had initially turned me off had become my favorite things about it, and my love for the record has only grown as it's seen more and more commercial success. It's rare for any metal or hardcore record to see the kind of crossover mainstream success that "You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To" has seen, but this album is particularly loud, aggressive, in your face, and just strange in so many ways. Watching Bryan Garris do a pig squeal on Jimmy Kimmel made me feel like I was living in the Twilight Zone. All I can say is I'm glad I gave this album a second chance, and I'm thrilled that such a legitimately hardcore band is seeing the kind of success Knocked Loose has seen this past year off of this terrific album.
1 / Frail Body - Artificial Bouquet
Is it fair to call this album Frail Body's breakout record? I know it's not their first, but it's the first I've heard of them, and frankly I can't remember how I heard of them. Well if it isn't their breakout record, it ought to be. As with most music these days, especially in the metal and hardcore scenes, it's hard to pin down just one genre to label Frail Body. Screamo? Sure. Hardcore? Broad, but yeah. Blackgaze? I don't know. What I can definitely label this album as is noisy, densely layered, and absolutely beautiful. I've heard some label this album as "one note", and while I don't think this criticism is wholly undeserved (although I actually kind of do, as I'm thinking about it more), the consistent sound pallet on Artificial Bouquet creates an almost hypnotic flow that you can easily get lost in, so when distinguishable grooves, riffs, or quieter patches emerge, it's all the more engaging and exciting, like sun breaking through dense cloud coverage. The first example of this coming on album opener "Scaffolding", which kicks off with blistering tremolo picking over a blast beat, underscored with vocals that sound like someone trapped under ice, screaming for their life. It doesn't stay this way for long, though, soon dropping out to reveal a clean, somber guitar riff that is as somber as it is gorgeous.
This is where the "one note" criticism falls flat for me. This album is constantly writhing and evolving, never satisfied staying in one place or vibe for too long before jumping to the next. This pattern continues throughout, without ever growing stale or unexciting. Every time they pivot into a new sound and sucker punch you with some new style or progression you didn’t see coming, I’m sucked right back in. Ultimately, I walk away from the album feeling invigorated and contemplative in a very personally. There's something magical about this album that I struggle to put words to, and while so much of the music I listen to these days seems to speaks, understandably so, to the turmoil we see in the world around us, Artificial Bouquet seems to speak more directly to the turmoil and confusion within.