Aggression can be healing – that’s a fact that fans of metal, hardcore punk and extreme music know all too well. No matter what you’ve been worrying about over the past year, there’s been plenty of great, ear-splitting music to serve as your crucible, an artful rage with the power to transform your torment into something bigger, something better. This healing rage fueled Kerry King’s post-Slayer masterpiece “From Hell I Rise,” Sumac’s avant-garde “The Healer,” and Knocked Loose’s “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To.” And it pulsed through great records from High on Fire, Blood Incantation, Unholy Altar, Chat Pile and Huntsmen. So here’s a “Crown of Horns,” to use a Judas Priest song title, for the 20 best and loudest albums of 2024.
20
Body Count, “Merciless”
Body Count’s eighth album, produced by Will Putney (Fit for an Autopsy), features guest appearances from metal luminaries like Corpsegrinder, Max Cavalera and Howard Jones – but the main attraction, as always, is rapper Ice-T, aged 66 Years ago he still spits rhymes with the same unwavering demeanor and gleefully twisted sense of humor that he has been putting into play for more than four decades. Hard-hitting tracks like “The Purge,” “Psychopath” and “Drug Lords” tell cartoonishly lurid stories, but the emotional heart of Merciless is the band’s breathtaking reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” in which Ice takes a cold look at the current state of humanity while guest guitarist David Gilmour wails as if our future depends on every bend of the string. –Dan Epstein
19
Tzompantli, “Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force”
With the screeching Mexica death whistle in the opening war cry “Tetzahuitl,” Tzompantli’s Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force immediately sets itself apart from the death metal crowd. The California-based indigenous death-doom project consists of ten musicians led by Brian “Bigg o))))” Ortiz. He also plays with hardcore heavyweights Xibalba, but Tzompantli is much more personal. Inspired by Ortiz’s indigenous heritage, many of the album’s lyrics are written in roaring Nahuatl, and traditional instruments enhance the otherwise cavernous darkness of death-doom compositions with monstrous bangers like “Chichimecatl.” Otherwise, Ortiz and company stick closely to the gruesome blueprint set by artists like Evoken and Coffins, with blisteringly slow, percussion-heavy volleys that bridge the depths of death metal and funeral doom. Dark, brutal and ominous, Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force redefines American folk metal with maximum brutality. –Kim Kelly
18
Battlesnake, “The Rise and Demise of the Motorsteeple”
Australian headbangers Battlesnake ditch the fantasy metal on The Rise and Demise of the Motorsteeple, a short but hard-hitting eight-song album full of chainsaw guitars, brontosaurus-like drum beats and oversized vocals, singer Sam Frank alternates between Rob Halford screeches and Alice Cooper -Growls in tracks like “Alpha & Omega” and “I Speak Tongues” while singing lyrics that Manowars would make Eric Adams seem grounded in reality. “Hear the engine howl and roar/Feed the flame on the cross!” roars Frank on the title track, an apocalyptic road song that encapsulates the album’s motorcycle theme. The Highway to Hell has just found its new soundtrack. – Joseph Hudak
17
Darkthrone, “It Beckons Us All”
Darkthrone will forever be remembered as the band that steered Norwegian black metal toward a bleak and unrelenting minimalism on early ’90s classics like A Blaze in the Northern Sky and Transilvanian Hunger. More than a dozen albums and several sonic twists later, the duo now operates completely outside of the subgenre or scene. On “It Beckons Us All” they once again go all out on artfully crafted riffs that combine the jagged edge of black metal with the primitive chugging of doom and other primal styles, rendering their methodical creations in deliciously dull retro tones. Songs like “Black Dawn Affiliation,” in which guitarist Nocturno Culto’s characteristic croaking vocals give way to drummer Fenriz’s theatrical crooning, or the masterfully timed, seven-and-a-half-minute “The Bird People of Nordland” seem immersive and ancient, like musty fumes from a long time ago sealed heavy metal time capsule. – Hank Shteamer
16
Gouge Away, “Deep Sage”
One of the year’s most powerful moments of musical catharsis came with “The Sharpening,” a biting outlier from the third album by Gouge Away, a Florida band that combines catchy, atmospheric rock with an abundance of pure, seething aggression. “What’s better than a brand new pencil?” asks singer Christina Michelle in a hushed murmur. She describes how the writing instrument is sharpened and used to repeatedly stab her in the chest, then sings, ‘You would expect me to clean up the mess,’ her voice rising to a terrifying scream as the band bursts into one Flood of turbulent hardcore explodes. Befitting its namesake, a song by a band known for its dynamic contrast, the band employs this duality of heavy and light brilliantly in Deep Sage, building tension before launching into their next captivating outburst. – H.S
In this song, the Atlanta-based trio hits the strings, rails against the haters and delivers their tightest, heaviest and most compelling album yet. Building on the less mushy, angrier momentum of 2016’s Gold, singer and guitarist Christian Lembach spews noise and venom at his enemies, including the one who might be staring back at him in the mirror – “This/Is how it ends/Broke my life apart/Because I couldn’t bend,” he wails in “Sicko” – while bassist Casey Maxwell and new drummer Douglas Barrett have everything under control. Songs like “Malinches,” “Every Day Is Leg Day” and the post-hardcore tune “Hieronymus Bosch Was Right” contain enough headbanging to keep a legion of chiropractors in business, and when this unholy trinity falls into a groove and then goes full metal in “Quitter’s Fight Song,” then good luck not trashing your house. (The video for this track, in which the band’s music inspires members of Red Fang, Gaytheist, Naselrod and Help to beat each other up, almost feels like it could double as a nature documentary.) – David Fear
14
Unholy Altar, “Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite
Unholy Altar only emerged from the Philadelphia underground three years ago, but their debut full-length album is already one of the most deliciously malevolent things to emerge from Hostile City in recent memory. Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite is a blatant throwback to the early days of black metal, when Satan was king, the punk influence was obvious, and production was an afterthought. The corpse-painted quintet has embraced the raw, bloody aesthetic of chains and black leather to great effect, striving to create a faithful old-school sound without any reactionary baggage. Magnificently dark songs like “Infernal Flesh,” with its biting atmosphere and melodic undertones, show a brilliant sense of what makes the genre so great. – KK
13
Knocked Loose, “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To”
Tight, brutal and expertly produced by Drew Fulk (Lil Wayne, Disturbed), You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To offers both catharsis in a difficult time and an invitation to backlash. From the revenge-drenched “Suffocate” (featuring Poppy) to the class warfare swagger of “Slaughterhouse 2,” Knocked Loose’s latest album is not only one of the best metal albums of the year, but of their career. Not convinced yet? Then just watch Kentucky hardcore band Knocked Loose perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live in November! with lead singer Bryan Garris squealing like a pig and guest singer Poppy screaming in the rain while the studio audience went wild in the pit. – Brenna Ehrlich
12
Sumac, “The Healer”
Some bands are content to simply play metal; others, like the staunch avant-gardists of Khanate, seem intent on taking it apart to see what they can reassemble from its scattered and dismembered parts. Few acts are more adept at this grisly business than Sumac, who have increasingly embraced abstraction and improvisation over their decade-long history. On their latest album, the underground veterans – including Aaron Turner of Isis and Old Man Gloom and Brian Cook of Botch and Russian Circles, as well as powerhouse drummer Nick Yacyshyn – present their most menacing soundscapes yet, in which floating feedback and waves of expansive anti-rock give way to shockingly brutal or shrill jagged riffs. The Healer is exemplary art metal – a monolith of uncomfortable listening that skimps on neither heaviness nor real musical risk. – H.S
11
Paysage d’Hiver, “The Mountains”
Swiss black metal project Paysage d’Hiver has been plumbing the icy depths of creator Tobias “Wintherr” Möckl’s soul since 1997, but Die Berge is only their third official full-length album. It’s also the 14th (!) chapter of an ongoing narrative about a mysterious wanderer that has fueled every release from the band, from cult demos to EPs to LPs; this time the theme is death. Inspired by the menacing mountains that loom over Winther’s hometown of Bern, Die Berge offers a raw, low-fi take on atmospheric black metal that feels almost vintage in its orthodoxy. The long, slowly simmering compositions (“Urgrund” alone lasts 18 chilling minutes) emphasize a dark, icy simplicity reminiscent of the genre’s second wave, and subtle crystalline melodies shine through. The overall effect is hypnotic, an ode to the harsh desolation of winter in a rapidly warming world. – KK