LISTMANIA 2024: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2024”

(written by Islander)

No we’re into December and the year-end lists will start rolling like an avalanche. For example, later today we’ll post our annual invitation to readers to share their YE lists with all of us. But for now we’ve got another installment in a different segment of the NCS YE extravaganza.

As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA orgy we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites which appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words, the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that includes “most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters, which has been independently owned and operated since its inception, claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.

As in past years, PopMatters recently published a list of “The 20 Best Metal Albums” of the year, again under the by-line of Spyros Stasis and Antonio Poscic. You’ll find that list below.

After perusing the 2019 version of this list one of my NCS colleagues remarked, “The PopMatters list feels MUCH more like the author actually cares about what is ‘best’ and not just ‘what our readers want us to choose'”. I thought that was an astute observation that year, and it has continued to apply since then. In fact, much of what I’ve written about the PopMatters list in past years continues to apply.

My instinct, as before, is that this will be one of the most interesting lists we’re likely to see in our growing collection of 2024 lists from print zines and “big platform” web sites. It covers a pretty broad range of genres, some of which will not personally appeal to every reader who comes our way, but the list again appears to be the result of genuine effort and honest thought — and it dives pretty deep.

If you’re keeping count, there are only three overlaps (Black Curse, Spectral Voice, Tzompantli) with the list from Decibel that we re-published to start this year’s LISTMANIA orgy, even though the Decibel list is twice as big as this one. All the rest are different.

There’s another reason why I enjoy looking at the list. As someone who tries to keep up with what’s happening in extreme underground music, I’m usually surprised by how many entries on the PopMatters list I haven’t heard, or in some cases haven’t even heard of. We did pay attention to many of the selections this year, but certainly not all.

As usual, the write-ups by Stasis and Poscic about each of the choices are enjoyable to read, and you can find those HERE, along with stream embeds. This, for example, is part of the mini-essay accompanying the album that took the No. 1 spot on the list:

The infinitely dense textures and tightly wound progressions of their style might suggest a tiny margin for experimentation, but the Spanish quintet explode the fabric of the sound, creating space for jazzy drum fills, twisted structures that constantly collapse unto themselves, and kaleidoscopic drops of sci-fi atmosphere. Where groups like Blood Incantation use the latter to create a sense of cosmic wonder, for Wormed, the vacuum of space is filled with horrors that evoke the existential anxiety of slashers like Event Horizon and Pandorum. Indulging in Omegon can thus be frightening, horrible, and akin to pushing your brain through a blender, yet remains utterly irresistible. The most intense-sounding record of the year and their best one yet.

And with that, here’s the entire PopMatters list. What do you think?

20. Dissimulator – Lower Form Resistance (20 Buck Spin)

19. Kanonenfieber – Die Urkatastrophe (Century Media)

18. Sumac – The Healer (Thrill Jockey)

17. Noxis – Violence Inherent in the System (Rotted Life)

16. Slimelord – Chytridiomycosis Relinquished (20 Buck Spin)

15. Haunted Plasma – I (Svart)

14. Balwezo Westijiz – Tower of Famine (Profound Lore)

13. Fir – De Stilte Van God (Tour De Garde)

12. Pyrrhon – Exhaust (Willowtip)

11. Mefitis – The Skorian / The Greyleer (Profound Lore)

10. Lord Spikeheart – The Adept (Haekalu)

9. Defeated Sanity – Chronicles of Lunacy (Season of Mist)

8. Djevel – Natt Til Ende (Aftermath Music)

7. The Body & Dis Fig – Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Thrill Jockey)

6. Mitochondrion – Vitriseptome (Profound Lore)

5. Tzompantli – Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force (20 Buck Spin)

4. Spectral Voice – Sparagmos (Dark Descent)

3. Black Curse – Burning in Celestial Poison (Sepulchral Voice)

2. Malconfort- Humanism (Transcending Obscurity)

1. Wormed – Omegon (Season of Mist)