The Best Albums Of 2024

This was a spectacular year for fans of heavy and alternative music, with a treasure trove of records to dive headfirst into. I can't possibly mention every great release of the year, and there's no doubt dozens of amazing albums that I have yet to check out yet, but as of right now, these are my favorites.

Knocked Loose - You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

  • Genre: Hardcore Punk/Metalcore
  • Best tracks: Blinding Faith, Slaughterhouse 2, Don’t Reach for Me
  • What’s so great about it: It’s KL at both their heaviest and most accessible with ten intense tracks that will appeal to both hardcore veterans and newcomers who have never been in a mosh pit before.
  • Target demographic: Crowd killers, stage divers, crowd surfers, and anyone who isn’t one of those, but curious all the same.

Chat Pile - Cold World

  • Genre: Sludge Metal/Noise Rock
  • Best tracks: Tape, Masc, Shame
  • What’s so great about it: An anti-war record with sludgy, down-tuned riffs, vocals that sound like the singer is on the verge of a breakdown, and walls of distortion that threaten to submerge you.
  • Target demographic: People who love Flenser Records, but wish they had signed the Jesus Lizard.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

  • Genre: Progressive Death Metal
  • Best tracks: There’s only two songs, so take your pick
  • What’s so great about it: In the band’s own words, it’s “...like the soundtrack to a Herzog-style Sci-Fi epic about the history of/battle for human consciousness itself, via a 70s Prog album played by a 90s Death Metal band from the future.”
  • Target Demographic: People who really, really wish Pink Floyd were a death metal band, or want to experience something out of this world.

Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss

  • Genre: Grindcore
  • Best tracks: Doors to Mental Agony, Half Life of Changelings, Fractured Bonds to Mecca
  • What’s so great about it: Prolific grindcore legends Full of Hell continue to prove quantity doesn’t mean sacrificing quality with a blistering, chaotic chimera of an LP, complete with noise and saxophone.
  • Target demographic: Look, if you don't already like grindcore, you'll probably hate this, but if you do, it's required listening.

Better Lovers - Highly Irresponsible

  • Genre: Metalcore/Hardcore Punk
  • Best tracks: Future Myopia, Lie Between the Lines, A White Horse Covered in Blood
  • What’s so great about it: Some of the best -core released in years, courtesy of former members of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, and Fit for An Autopsy.
  • Target demographic: Fans of any of the three bands listed above, even if it's only in passing.

SeeYouSpaceCowboy… - Coup de Gracé

  • Genre: Post-Hardcore
  • Best tracks: Silhouettes in Motion, Chewing the Scenery, Lubricant Like Kerosene
  • What’s so great about it: Melodramatic cabaret-themed concept album full of fantastical and romantic post-hardcore with atmospheric interludes.
  • Target demographic: Fans of 00’s post-hardcore that want something both nostalgic and completely new.

Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition

  • Genre: Melodic Death Metal
  • Best tracks: Oblivion, Dead Star, Flesh Habit
  • What’s so great about it: Old-school death metal by melodic heavyweights with a focus on catchy and memorable riffs and chugging rhythms perfect for headbanging.
  • Target demographic: Metalheads that are jaded by the current emphasis in death metal on technical prowess and gurgling vocals.

Glass Beach - Plastic Death

  • Genre: Post-Emo
  • Best tracks: The CIA, Coelacanth, Motions
  • What’s so great about it: Dreamy emo that pulls equally from indie rock, screamo, sludge metal, and jazz to create a record that washes completely over you.
  • Target demographic: Former emos, current emos, and anyone that likes alternative music that’s a little bit quirky

Drug Church - Prude

  • Genre: Punk/Alternative Rock
  • Best tracks: Mad Care, Demolition Man, Slide 2 Me
  • What’s so great about it: One of the genre’s most consistent bands delivers yet another quality melodic punk record, following characters who make bad decisions in a world that forces their hands.
  • Target Demographic: Punks who want to take a break from two-stepping and listen to something slightly more contemplative.

Many Eyes - The Light Age

  • Genre: Metalcore/Post-Hardcore
  • Best tracks: Revelation, Third, The Rainbow
  • What’s so great about it: The other band formed in the fallout from Every Time I Die’s split, this album is less sonically punishing, featuring contemplative moments while still including mosh-ready riffs.
  • Target demographic: Fans of basically any metalcore or post-hardcore from the past two decades.

Combat - Stay Golden

  • Genre: Punk
  • Best tracks: Stay Golden, Weird Ending Explained Pt. 1, Faith
  • What’s so great about it: Bouncy indie punk with ska bass lines that perfectly captures the experience of being in college and wishing you were anywhere else, complete with majestic reprises and the catchiest title track imaginable.
  • Target demographic: The Wonder Years fans who wonder what The Upsides would sound like if it was produced during their The Greatest Generation era.

Nails - Every Bridge Burning

  • Genre: Powerviolence/Grindcore
  • Best tracks: Punishment Map, Lacking the Ability to Process Empathy, Give Me the Painkiller
  • What’s so great about it: With song lengths averaging around 1:44, the long-awaited Nails follow-up lives up to its promise of blistering grind with the most searing guitar riffs of the career.
  • Target Demographic: anyone who likes their -core uncompromising and with flashy fretwork.

Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath

  • Genre: Blackened Screamo
  • Best tracks: Another Cycle, Veil, Unrelenting
  • What’s so great about it: With guest appearances from members of Greet Death and .Gif from God, Infant Island dropped one of the best emotional hardcore records I’ve heard in years, borrowing liberally from blackgaze.
  • Target demographic: Fans of Majority Rule, Deafheaven, and Sunny Day Real Estate, who really wished they’d form a supergroup together.

Malamiko - All Pleasant Dreams

  • Genre: Shoegaze/Emo
  • Best tracks: Butterflies, False Vacuum Decay, Loveless Tongue-Tied
  • What’s so great about it: Local Twin Cities shoegaze act’s first official release, and it’s a doozy, crafting dreamy landscapes of feedback with emo sensibilities that will appeal to more than just the usual shoegaze crowd.
  • Target demographic: Both shoegaze aficionados and those who haven't given the genre a chance before, but want a good entry point.

Foxing - Foxing

  • Genre: Emo
  • Best tracks: Barking, Greyhound, Gratitude
  • What’s so great about it: Foxing’s fifth album sees them perfecting their medley of emo, post-rock, indie, and math rock to create a hypnotic record that demands your attention and speaks to the soul.
  • Target demographic: Anyone into the latest waves of emo and melancholic indie rock.

NØ MAN - Glitter and Spit

  • Genre: Hardcore Punk
  • Best tracks: Glitter and Spit, Poison Darts, Can’t Kill Us All
  • What’s so great about it: Former members of Majority Rule, fronted by Palestinian vocalist Maha Shami, deliver gut-wrenching hardcore full of anger, venom, and desperation.
  • Target demographic: Punks who like their hardcore urgent and ferocious.

Full of Hell & Andrew Nolan - Scraping the Divine

  • Genre: Grindcore/Industrial Noise
  • Best tracks: Blessed Anathema, Paralytic Lineage, Burdened by Solar Mass
  • What’s so great about it: This collaboration between grind legends Full of Hell and noise artist Andrew Nolan is an eerie, unnerving journey full of discordant synths, electronic pulses, and throat-shredding screams.
  • Target demographic: Fans of music that fills you with dread and takes you to places you'd never go alone in the dark.

Usurp Synapse - Polite Grotesqueries

  • Genre: Screamo
  • Best tracks: Filth Building, Guitargoyles Just Want to Have Fun, Drowning in a Cloud
  • What’s so great about it: Eight minutes of frantic and discordant screamo from one of the scene’s recently reunited legends that’s easily their best yet.
  • Target demographic: fans of 90’s and ‘00’s screamo (like, actual screamo, not Alexisonfire or The Used)

Dödsrit - Celestial Will

  • Genre: Black Metal
  • Best tracks: Irjala, Nocturnal Fire, As Death Comes Reaping
  • What's so great about it: This one almost slipped past my radar, but I caught it just in time. Influenced by crust punk as well as black metal, Dödsrit have crafted a grim yet hopeful masterpiece with some of the most gorgeous guitarwork of the year.
  • Target demographic: modern black metal fans who are looking for their next fix of transcendent bleakness, while still pushing the genre to it's limits.

Labyrinthus Stellarum - Vortex of the Worlds

  • Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
  • Best tracks: Transcendence, The Light of Dying Worlds, Vortex of the Worlds
  • What's so great about it: Epic, atmospheric black metal with electronic flourishes that creates an unique, cosmic soundscape, perfectly balancing aggression with reflective passages.
  • Target demographic: metalheads who love celestial and sci-fi themes, and welcome experimentation with trance and synths.

Other albums that either just didn't make the cut, or I listened to too late in the year to give a full breakdown for:

  • Aborted - Vault of Horrors (death metal)
  • Bayside - There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive (emo punk)
  • Bedsore - Dreaming the Strife for Love (experimental metal)
  • Brat - Social Grace (powerviolence)
  • Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose (epic doom metal)
  • Glitterer - Rationale (rock)
  • Hidden Mothers - Erosion/Avulsion (atmospheric post-hardcore)
  • Laura Jane Grace - Give An Inch EP (folk punk)
  • Mammoth Grinder - Undying Spectral Resonance EP (death metal)
  • No Cure - I Hope I Die Here EP (hardcore punk)
  • Sinema - Fear of the Fall (emocore)
  • Skullpresser - Positions of Power EP (hardcore punk)
  • Touché Amoré - Spiral in a Straight Line (hardcore punk)