LISTMANIA 2024: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 YEAR-END LIST

(This is Wil Cifer‘s presentation of his Top 20 list for 2024.)

The world did not end in 2024, but unless inter-dimensional beings intervene, humanity might find ourselves reaping the consequences of our actions in the year to come. This is the tone of music I was drawn to this year. My taste in sonic darkness showed a dark shift in sounds that held at least a sardonic slant, more often than not a celebration of misanthropy.

I care less about how fast a band play or how low they tune, and more about what an album has to say. As a teenager, I didn’t mind lyrics composed of pseudo-occult garbage. Live and learn, after all, occult means hidden, and subtly goes a long way. If they were serious about the Left-Hand Path the music would make you feel it. I want to hear the inner darkness and ugliness you have inside come out in your music, not a pantomime of what darkness looks like in movies.

Granted with death metal, a little “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is fine if it’s just empty calories, but I expect more from black metal in this regard.

Though only 4 of these 20 albums are black metal, putting it on equal footing with death metal, a genre that also landed 4 albums on here this year, normally my tastes lean more toward black metal, but that is how the corpses crumbled this year. Six bands are some odd take on darker metallic hardcore, but an uptick in angrier music should not be a surprise. This is rounded out with a sprinkling of other genres like more traditional metal, thrash, industrial, prog, and a couple of sludge bands. The most glaring genre absent here is doom, but most doom bands I love evolved from metal into shoegazing or progressive rock.

There are albums I loved and got great mileage from that are not metal, but I would feel amiss by not acknowledging my gratitude and love for them … The Cure, Crippling Alcoholism, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Snow Strippers, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Dehd, O Zorn !, IRESS, $uicide Boy$, and REZN… these albums brought the right feelings into my life when I needed them.

I listened to 939 new albums released this year, 623 of those were metal. Before you tell me I forgot to include the new Trauma Vomit album or ask how could I exclude Gloryhole Christ? …If they were all blast beats without a hook to be found, chances are I heard it and was not impressed. Or I might have liked it and listened to it a couple of times, then forgot about it, as it did not make enough of an impression on me to demand further listening.

These albums resonated with me and made it into my heavy rotation, competing with the staples of my listening like Maiden, Bowie, Swans, King Diamond, Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, etc… so here are my top 20 metal albums of the year, maybe you’ll find something that brings darkness into your life well.

Thank you for reading

 

20-Hell is Real – “Scared of the World”

“Religion is a drug, pray for an overdose “

This beautiful band from Chicago takes the beefy aggression of hardcore, then hatefully screams over it all with heartfelt condemnation of the world around them. Too grooving to call it blackened hardcore, but more malicious than what the karate kids are dancing to these days. All wrapped up in memorable riffing. They were nice enough to toss in a Nine Inch Nails cover that’s way angrier.

 

19-Curse Upon a Prayer – “The Worship: Orthoprax Satanism”

“Abyss in our hearts, and death in our blood”

The key to any heavy music is making me a believer. Don’t make mean pictures in your press photos, your music needs to convince me of your misanthropy. This band is convincing, unholy shit! This album is dark! This Finnish band expanded their sound with pristine production not common in black metal this vicious, though it does not sacrifice any of their wrathful aggression.

 

18-Crypt Sermon – “The Stygian Rose”

“We’ve lived in Hell so long it’s home”

This is as close to doom as I’m getting here. It is a shame most bands trying to tackle traditional metal gleefully gallop off into power metal, which is way too happy for me. This is coming from someone whose favorite metal band is Iron Maiden; sure they have some triumphant anthems, but if I want that I’d pull out my copy of “Piece of Mind”. These guys kept things dark in a manner not unlike early Metal Church or Savatage, but rather than just become a tribute band to an era, forged their authentic path.

 

17-Umbra Vitae – “Light of Death”

“We must decide which side of light we are standing on”

Rather than write another love letter to classic death metal, these guys took inspiration from death metal’s dark undercurrent and applied it to feral hardcore that finds focus in the songwriting. This proves metalcore does not have to be the bastard child of MySpace. Jacob’s explosive wailing and gnashing of teeth pick up where he left off with the last Converge album.

 

16-Benighted – “Ekbom”

“The sight of your infected wounds feeds my smile”

This album asks where death metal ends and grindcore begins. After several listens the technical precision, and eerie melodic touches, seem to be the answer. They do not let the drummer’s acrobatics take the focus from head-banging grooves. Lyrically it’s clever in the mean-spirited musings gurgled and squealed from this sonic house of horrors.

 

15-Deceased – “Children of the Morgue”

“We will all fade out, we will all die, so line up on death row”

On the first listen I was dismissive and thought “Meh, it sounds like Venom”, but this album grew on me. It takes me back to crossroads in the ’80s where death metal sprang from thrash. Music was fun then, and it’s fun now when I listen to this album. Perhaps not death metal enough for today’s death metal audiences, but much like a bulletbelt there is an authentic metal feel to it that makes this album work.

 

14-Candy – “It’s Inside You”

“Next September never came”

If Knocked Loose had not played it so safe maybe this is the album they would have made. Perhaps if Code Orange was not hanging out with Billy Corgan they would still be this angry. In a world of could haves and should haves these guys just did the damn thing and did not give a single fuck in the process. They mixed industrial into their chaotic fusion of hardcore, and each listen brought a smile to my face.

 

13-Vemod – “The Deepening”

“A silence so striking it burns”

If you are going to get stoned on a black metal album, this would the one to blaze the northern pipe to. One black metal album did rank higher, but it was written to intentionally be a buzz kill, so getting lost in the hypnotic throb from this Norweigan band is the move. They are likely cvlt tokers themselves, as jammy rock elements creep into the songs to make this a more interesting listen than your typical corpse-painted blasting.

 

12-Full of Hell – “Coagulated Bliss”

“Am i messiah? or amphetamine blind?”

This album took time to grow on me. What sealed the deal was when I saw these guys live, then the songs all clicked for me and that feeling carried over when I went to give this album another chance. It could have ranked higher, but the albums after this I just listened to more. This album takes the chaos of what they do and refines it into songs that make more sense than their past work while retaining the feral expression of who they are as a band.

 

11-Sect – “Plagues Upon Plagues”

“sentenced to die for your thirst trap of virtue”

This band features former members of Earth Crisis and Cursed, so there should be no surprise it’s driven by a hardcore attitude combined with a dense sludge guitar attack, which is what found the hilariously truthful lyrics driven home over the course of a dark and dynamic slab of powerful songs. It takes you back to the days of Victory hardcore bands but without all the straight-edge bullshit.

 

10-Nachtmystium – “Blight Privilege”

“As all you have vanishes right before your eyes, look within yourself and come alive”

A harrowing emergence from the rabid throes of addiction finds Blake Judd once again making black metal that carries a real outpouring of inner darkness. He does not need to dress things up in goat heads and pentagrams when the demons he wrestles with are far more dangerous. Metal needs a sense of danger. Too many bands these days have spent too much time playing World of Warcraft and not enough time selling their effects pedals for drugs.

 

9-Deadform – “Entrenched in Hell”

“To think you matter is what makes it even sadder”

Earlier I mentioned the apocalyptic sense of dread that emanates from the music I was drawn to this year. Here is an album that most embodies it in the bleak message these guys putting forth. It helps that their vocalist/ drummer has played in both Phobia and Dystopia, two crust punk legends, thus they capture the desolate feel of crust and pair it with thrash metal aggression.

 

8-Maul – “In the Jaws of Bereavement”

“Hindsight glowing like spores in the bastard’s mouth”

Never thought North Dakota would be bringing death metal this hard, but here we are. Equal parts crushing and catchy, their songwriting is the perfect example of what I want from death metal, an album I can leave on and nod my head to, as the tapestry of head-banging riffs keep coming without being a mindnumbing skull battery. Melody and dynamics do not have to be forsaken for the sake of brutality.

 

7-Atrophy – “Asylum”

“Bearing false witness to the empty thoughts”

An underrated thrash band from the late ’80s returns after 34 years to make the year’s best thrash album. Aside from Flotsam & Jetsam, there was not much competition this year, but these guys might have surpassed both Violent By Nature and Socialized Hate, as with 2024’s technology they were able to dial in a much ballsier guitar tone than what their Roadrunner budget allowed for in 1988.

 

6-Ellende – “Todbringerin”

“What does life mean? There is no pride, no holiness”

There are different ways for black metal to express its wrathful darkness. This album goes for a more thoughtful approach. It uses sweeping guitar melodies to romanticize it. Atmospheric does not mean being a “Summoning” tribute band here. Instead, it’s lush and poetic in its snarl.

 

5-Death Killer – “Total Destruction of the Entire Universe”

“Fuck you and your fucking retro shit, I don’t want to hear any of that”

I am not sure why industrial music is all too often neither nihilistic nor abrasive enough. This mysterious duo from Finland gets it right. One of the heaviest albums on this list. Synths that might otherwise bring ambience jackhammer you in the skull. This album’s message is simple: people suck and are all going to die. Where’s the lie?

 

4-Nails – “Every Bridge Burning”

“I know a lot of people, but don’t have many friends”

Jones has shed some of the death metal and grindcore influences and stripped this down to a raw metallic hardcore album that squeals with feedback as the anger gets up close and personal. The song writing is clever but simple, knowing just when to hit you with the head-banging riff. Kicks you into the curb with its attitude, but is still infectious.

 

3-Weston Super Maim – “See You Tomorrow Baby”

“Entering the numb once called never”

It must be their fetish for lashing out in spastic bursts like a grindcore band that keeps these guys from attracting a larger audience, as they have many qualities that please the Meshuggah-worshipping brand of metal fans who flocked to the “djent’ bands who have all not become kinder gentler prog rock bands. Jarring is the same way Funhouse Ride jerks you around, but they are not going to make you grab your calculator to figure out all the math.

 

2-200 Stab Wounds – “Manual Manic Procedure”

“Take a peek inside my brain and you’ll see my lust for pain”

I normally watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre once a year; something about the Texas wasteland on screen feels right in July. This album captured a similar feel, invoking the nostalgia for classic Death Metal, but curated by their songwriting style to feel urgent as the meat hooks go in your ears. The creepy subtly and increased sense of melody coming from the layers of guitars solidified me as a fan whereas their previous album still had me on the fence.

 

1- Glassing – “From the Other Side of the Mirror”

“Hell only knows how I venerate”

You can apply the formula for what I want from a horror movie to this album. It conveys the same thing…. I want to see something beautifully shot, making the most of every surreal color yet not shying from depravity. If characters survive I want them to be scarred in such a way they wish for death. These songs feel like that in their emotional rawness and volatility. Ethereal melodies, which are haunted by the sludge-like attack lurking just behind the ambience. The songs tell a story obscured in nightmare, but captivating, as it earned the most repeat listens from me.