#gaerea — Public Fediverse posts

Tuska 2026 Breaks Attendance Record as 66,000 Metal Fans Celebrate Another Historic Weekend

https://voiceofnoir.com/2026/07/03/tuska-2026-breaks-attendance-record-as-66000-metal-fans-celebrate-another-historic-weekend/

You may be wondering what on earth I am doing willingly touching a black metal album, let alone complimenting one. Well, you know what they say: never let them know your next move. Mysterious Polish-Italian collective Amalekim garnered praise in these hallowed halls with their 2023 release Avodah Zarah, our own Thus Spoke calling it a highlight during a weaker year for the genre. Naturally, I disliked the album, which tends to be a good sign for the average black metal fan. I was nevertheless surprised to see Shir Hashirim released to little fanfare or label promotion after such a positive reception 18 months prior. One look at the ‘melodic’ prefix reactivated my optimist instincts; maybe Amalekim was worth another shot. Two years is a long time in music, let alone fleeting personal tastes.

Not much has necessarily changed with Amalekim’s vicious formula, but the refinements are significant. The core of the band’s sound still lies in the realms of early Gaerea but is also distinctly its own thing altogether. And contrary to Gaerea’s recent development,1 Amalekim isn’t planning to go metalcore any time soon. No, Shir Hashirim further improves on the band’s best qualities while retaining their identity, offering relentless speed and riffs for days (“Chant II: Shir Hashirim,” “Chant IV: Sodot HaYekum”). It’s what I like to call ‘violently melodic’ for all the right reasons, both the intense drumming by Ktulak and the demonic vocals of Mróz enhancing the spite present in the dueling guitars. Most importantly, Amalekim never lets their foot off the gas pedal on their mission to create hauntingly aggressive yet beautifully melodic music.

Shir Hashirim by Amalekim

Shir Hashirim’s success comes from its subversion of common black metal tropes without abandoning them. Gone is the overreliance on standard tremolo and blast beat abuse that I previously took issue with. Those elements are both still key to the album, but in a much more appealing and bite-sized, fresh context (“Chant III: Mesharet HaShilton,” “Chant VIII: Mishteh Malkhuti”). Amalekim’s songwriting has evolved into a much more varied beast with plenty of creative drum and riff patterns to show for it. It almost feels like there’s a bunch of death metal DNA in the band’s songwriting this time (“Chant VI: Tisha Daltot”); in this way, I could see it being the blackened mirror image of Dormant Ordeal’s newest. Where Shir Hashirim improves over Dormant Ordeal’s excellent release is the wonderfully warm and roomy production, a complete opposite of what many others in this scene go for. It once again shows that your album doesn’t need to be crushed or lo-fi to sound brutal—great production simply makes the performance all the more powerful and unyielding.

Shir Hashirim is the first black metal record in ages to catch my interest, and one of the best albums of the year at that. Violent, melodic, and extremely fast all at once, its 38-minute package of eight chants simply leaves me wanting to immediately replay the experience all over again. It’s tight and consistent in a way few other records this year are, and its form of melodic fury makes the album unintentionally catchy. Amalekim’s oppressive and angry atmosphere should satiate the usual suspects, but the breakneck pace and no-nonsense songwriting on Shir Hashirim are sure to appeal to a wider audience as well.

Track to Check Out: “Chant II: Shir Hashirim,” “Chant IV: Sodot HaYekum,” and “Chant VII: Haka’as HaNachash.”

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

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

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

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BODY COUNT, GAEREA, CHAT PILE & More Among Metal Injection's Top Tracks Of The Week
This week's top tracks include Gaerea bringing the blackened heat, Chat Pile being as depressing as ever, Distant crushing it, and more! Check out the playlist on Spotify here and […]

https://metalinjection.net/playlist/top-tracks-of-the-week-playlist/body-count-gaerea-chat-pile-more-among-metal-injections-top-tracks-of-the-week

#BodyCount #Gaerea #ChatPile #Distant #UntoOthers #FleshgodApocalypse #OrangeGoblin #Demiser #HighParasite

Updated the list with releases that I've missed or didn't think of the first time around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KHeuHfsGzY&list=PLBScDlQ0tCYe7nTQRw7627BfVc_P8NYyl&index=13

#Antzaat
#Haapoja
#Membaris
#Gaerea
#Ezkaton
#SolitudeM
#Stworz
#IllumAdora
#CrépusculeDHiver