2024 is almost in the books and I’m absolutely staggered by the last 366 days of blistering metal. While there are still a few albums trickling in as this leap year fades away, it’s time to power down the stereo, disconnect the headphones and freeze my favorite metal albums in time once more.

As in years past, I’m delivering a list of my favorite records here in print with descriptions, album covers and Bandcamp links. My Top 25 selections were originally revealed last week on the big year-end episode of the Metalheads Podcast. For this year’s written list, however, I decided to extend the party and make it a Top 40.

That’s right, I’m saying goodbye to heavy metal 2024 with a director’s cut version of my best-of list.

Over the last 10 days or so, my selections for 26-40 changed quite a bit. I listened to some gems that slipped through the cracks and re-spun albums to let them sink a bit deeper into my bones. I don’t think I’ve ever finalized a list this close to the end of a year. After listening to a total of 732 albums, some right at the edge of the 2024’s collapse, I feel this is one of the most complete and diverse year-end metal lists I’ve ever done.

Happy New Year, dear metalheads. Let’s fucking go.

–MARKISAN

12/30/24

40. WITNESSES – JOY

Independent Release

https://witnesses-nyc.bandcamp.com/album/joy

Witnesses plays arresting atmospheric and emotive doom metal, now featuring vocals by Simon Bibby of Thy Listless Heart. The band has swapped singers on every album and even though all those efforts have been good, Joy is the best and most compelling record they’ve made. I hope Simon sticks around so Witnesses can truly develop and deepen their sound together, instead of refitting the pipes once more.

39. CHOIR – SMITHE THEE SMOLDERING PROVIDENCE

Total Dissonance Worship

https://totaldissonanceworship.bandcamp.com/album/smithe-thee-smoldering-providence

A serrated dagger slowly slips through your side and between your ribs. Suddenly, you feel stored air escape your lungs as the blade twists and withdraws. The gash fills with blood as you attempt to speak, but your words only gurgle and fail. You gasp in terror and stagger forward, as the final darkness begins to drop into your eyes… That’s what listening to Smithe Thee Smoldering Providence is like – a slow, vicious stab wound of melancholic, lightless dissonance. And I love every second of it.

38. GLACIAL TOMB – LIGHTLESS EXPANSE

Prosthetic Records

https://glacialtomb.bandcamp.com/album/lightless-expanse

A scorching stranglehold of blackened death metal sludge with brush strokes of tech death. Lightless Expanse is a brutal 36 minutes, intricately designed to obliterate every bone in your body with wrecking ball riffs, megaton beats, guttural bellows and soul-rending shrieks. Here lies your pulverized, frameless meat sack quivering in a crater of frozen earth and blood.

37. EXIST – HIJACKING THE ZEITGEIST

Prosthetic Records

https://exist.bandcamp.com/album/hijacking-the-zeitgeist

I liked the last Exist record, but this reformatted version of the band lands right in the perfect progressive metal zone for me. While Hijacking the Zeitgeist retains the jazzy, technical prog proficiency that gives Exist its identity, the songs are more compact and better focused this time around. Gone are the wandering dreamscape sections of Egoiista, replaced by catchier, harder hitting tracks that feel present and immediate.

36. ABHORIA – DEPTHS

Prosthetic Records

https://abhoria.bandcamp.com/album/depths

Depths is the perfect title for this album, because the second go-around for Abhoria sounds like they clawed into the cragged subterranean guts of the earth and ripped out new blackened roots of life. The songs are more sinister and dynamic than on their debut, fueled by mosaic chords, sinuous melodic guitar work and flowing rhythms that enhance the band’s whirl of ferociousness. New vocalist Ben Pitts from In the Company of Serpents effortlessly shifts from blackened rasps to leaden death bellows, injecting every track with versatility and venom.

35. JOB FOR A COWBOY – MOON HEALER

Metal Blade Records

https://jobforacowboy.bandcamp.com/album/moon-healer

Moon Healer deftly continues the band’s remarkable transition from metalcore darlings to premiere progressive death metal juggernauts with a monster of a record filled with complex arrangements, killer atmospheric chord progressions, radiant solos, sinew snapping bass lines and the tireless aggression of a feral cat set loose in a bird sanctuary.

34. IRONFLAME – KINGDOM TORN ASUNDER

High Roller Records

https://ironflame.bandcamp.com/album/kingdom-torn-asunder

Ironflame has been one of the best and most consistent traditional metal bands since their debut, Lightning Strikes the Crown, in 2017. Imagine an aerodynamic Iron Maiden belting out massive metal anthems without all the excess and theatrics. Kingdom Torn Asunder delivers sharp, direct songs drenched in battle magic and warrior blood with all the sword-hoisting solos required for absolute victory.

33. COSMIC PUTREFACTION – EMERALD FIRES ATOP THE FAREWELL MOUNTAINS

Profound Lore Records

https://cosmicputrefaction.bandcamp.com/album/emerald-fires-atop-the-farewell-mountains

Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains is a dense and viciously layered odyssey of technical and progressive death metal. Mind-crushing song structures and action-packed playing, with acoustic movements, hypnotic synths and cellos, symphonic black metal passages and an atmospheric dread that makes me feels like I’m floating in space above a black hole as its immense gravity pulls me to the center of oblivion.

32. STILL – A THEFT

Floodlit Recordings

https://wearestillaband.bandcamp.com/album/a-theft

A potent mix of avant-garde black metal, atmospheric noise and blistering post-hardcore awash in raw waves of melancholy and beauty. This album features diabolical vocals split between guitarist Fraser Briggs and drummer Jack Green, and their shared delivery is a perfect fit for the tension and turmoil in these songs.

31. DEVENIAL VERDICT – BLESSING OF DESPAIR

Transcending Obscurity Records

https://devenialverdictband.bandcamp.com/album/blessing-of-despair

A heavily atmospheric death metal album that blows this band’s promise through the stratosphere with cataclysmic brutality, and massive waves of darkness and dissonance. Blessing of Despair is a record built on intense textures and mood. Walls of crunching sound give way to melodic eeriness and tranquil meditations. The riffs shift and sway like winter branches in a Cimmerian forest. The guitar solos wrap around you like a spider spinning a silk cocoon over unsuspecting prey. One of the most stark and evocative albums of 2024.

30. SILHOUETTE – LES DIRES DE L’​Â​ME

Antiq Music

https://silhouettebm.bandcamp.com/album/les-dires-de-l-me

Silhouette plays spellbinding atmospheric black metal infused with post-metal and prog. All the vocals are in French, gliding between ethereal elegance to howled suffering, as the music broods and batters with haunting emotion and gravitas. Les Dires de l’​Â​me is a heavy blanket of dark enchantment. Wrap yourself in it.

29. THE MOSAIC WINDOW – HEMASANCTUM

Willowtip Records

https://themosaicwindow.bandcamp.com/album/hemasanctum

A blackened melodic death concept album that explores its creator’s thoughts on life, relationships and loss, as well as topics like self-awareness, mental health, abortion, religion and grief. Hemasanctum is a Tilt-A-Whirl of raw emotion that bleeds out in craggy, mournful riffs, punishing drums and flowing curtains of gloom. But it’s in between those black fabric folds where this album truly shines; the moments when the guitars take flight and you remember that a life can also be filled with uplifting triumph.

28. FERAL LIGHT – A RECKONING WITH THE INTANGIBLE

Independent Release

https://ferallight.bandcamp.com/album/a-reckoning-with-the-intangible

Feral Light was a two-piece blackened crust band with moody progressive structures and vicious dynamics that rage and rend like an owl trapped in a lightless box. A Reckoning with the Intangible was stealth dropped on Bandcamp in November, along with an announcement that it was the band’s last. Unfortunate news for fans of Feral Light, especially since this record is the band’s most poignant and powerful work. It’s also a hell of a way to go out.

27. LABYRINTHUS STELLARUM – VORTEX OF THE WORLDS

Independent Release

https://labyrinthusstellarum.bandcamp.com/album/vortex-of-the-worlds

Labyrinthus Stellarum plays cosmic atmospheric black metal that sounds like it was extracted from the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Vortex of the Worlds offers heavy cascading guitars and warm celestial melodies that intersect with shimmering electronic bleeps to create a unique and powerful voyage across the galaxy.

26. PRAISE THE PLAGUE – SUFFOCATING IN THE CURRENT OF TIME

Lifeforce Records

https://praisetheplaguelfr.bandcamp.com/album/suffocating-in-the-current-of-time

Suffocating in the Current of Time is a blackened doom-sludge shapeshifter that’s steeped in winding vapors of atmospheric dread, tension and melodic horror. It soars across gloomy straits of hopelessness then breaks it all apart with incendiary black metal riffs that shoot through your body like electric currents.

25. CIVEROUS – MAZE ENVY

20 Buck Spin Records

https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/maze-envy

An adventurous, progressive, blackened death doom album with a lot of great twists in tone and shape. It’s full of battering riffs and filth, but it also contains thoughtful string sections, spiraling guitars and gloomy melodic moments that make the album diverse and compelling throughout.

24. SEAR BLISS – HEAVENLY DOWN

Napalm Records

https://searblisshhr.bandcamp.com/album/heavenly-down

This band has been around since the early 90s, but I confess I had not heard of them until recently. Sear Bliss plays atmospheric melodic black metal but with a heavy use of ambient synth and wind instruments, like trumpet, trombone and flute. When I listened to Heavenly Down, it took me a moment to process what I was hearing because the album has such a unique aura and atmosphere to it. The interplay between the swirl of guitars, harsh vocals, synth and brass is spectacular, and all the songs on here have their own bombast and personality. It may have taken me 30 years to find Sear Bliss, but now I’m hooked.

23. FUNERAL LEECH – THE ILLUSION OF TIME

Carbonized Records

https://funeralleech.bandcamp.com/album/the-illusion-of-time

With this album, Funeral Leech has now graduated with high honors from the Incantation School of Diabolical Evil. The Illusion of Time is sinister and pummeling death/doom with murky cavern synths that drip underneath the riffage like a broken sewer main of sorrow.

22. LOWEN – DO NOT GO TO WAR WITH THE DEMONS OF MAZANDARAN

Church Road Records

https://lowen.bandcamp.com/album/do-not-go-to-war-with-the-demons-of-mazandaran-2

Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran is heavy atmospheric, progressive doom with Middle Eastern-inspired rhythms and vocals that instantly transport me to the shifting, storied sands of a far-off land. The guitar work by Shem Lucas is ferocious and the folk instrumentation adds vibrant color to the songs, but it’s the way Nina Saeidi’s hypnotic voice floats over the massive downtuned riffs and grooves that really makes this album so captivating.

21. INSECT ARK – RAW BLOOD SINGING

Debemur Morti Productions

https://insectark.bandcamp.com/album/raw-blood-singing

Insect Ark’s earlier work was more psychedelic, experimental and instrumental, but this time around they morphed into a darker, more cinematic entity, weaving together heavy gothic metal with avant-garde noise and drone-doom. The introduction of Dana Schecter’s smoke venom vocals give Raw Blood Singing such an emotional, eerie feel. This album could honestly be the score for an A24 psychological horror film.

20. ANTE-INFERNO – DEATH’S SOLILOQUY

Vendetta Records

https://ante-inferno.bandcamp.com/album/deaths-soliloquy

Ante-Inferno plays arresting atmospheric black metal that’s suffused with harrowing menace and haunting melody, but on this album they pulled back on the beauty slightly and created a darker, more malevolent sound. It took me a few spins to get into this record, but the more time I spent listening to it, the more I came to deeply appreciate the intricate nightmarish approach the band chose for Death’s Soliloquy. After three albums, Ante-Inferno have become masters at weaving atmospherics and melodic elements into their molten hot aggression.

19. GAEREA – COMA

Season of Mist

https://gaerea.bandcamp.com/album/coma

It has been interesting to see Gaerea’s brand of atmospheric black metal evolve over the years. With each release they have added new textures and emotional depth to their sound. Coma is a real culmination of everything they’ve done before, but it also adds a lot of melodic layering to the mix, which gives this album a more tuneful, airy and inviting sound, while still maintaining the barbarity of Gaerea’s previous LPs. This is their best effort to date.

18. MAYHEMIC – TOBA

Sepulchral Voice Records

https://sepulchralvoicerecords.bandcamp.com/album/toba

It seems like every year I search high and low for that one great thrash album that deserves a spot on my list, and this year Mayhemic takes the top prize with their skillful and searing debut, Toba. Sepulchral Voice Records wrote a pretty perfect description for this album on bandcamp:

“Over 70,000 years ago, an event of horrific proportions brought earth’s life to the edge of existing. Known as the Toba eruption, a monstruous supervolcano spat forth brimstone and fire and put the world under the fangs of a massive volcanic winter. Here and now, in the year 2024, we finally get the audio equivalent to this catastrophe.”

17. OFFERNAT – WHERE NOTHING GROWS

Independent Release

https://offernat.bandcamp.com/album/where-nothing-grows

I first listened to this album in Canada when my wife, Tracy, and I took the train from Montreal to Quebec City. I played Where Nothing Grows twice in a row because it was the exact music I wanted to hear on that two-hour ride. This is furious, electrifying, blackened doom sludge with weighty death metal sections and stirring progressive ambient passages that give the tracks an air of dark mystery. The perfect soundtrack for staring at the changing landscapes through a speeding train window.

16. MY DILIGENCE – DEATH.HORSES.BLACK.

Listenable Records

https://listenable-records.bandcamp.com/album/death-horses-black-2

This was a late addition to my list, but it happened to slash me right in my post-metal heart. Death.Horses.Black. is dark, high-powered heaviness with 90s rock, sludge, shoegaze and doom influences that slow dazzles and soars like meeting a girl you really like for the first time. And now that we know each other, I’m quite smitten.

15. SGÀILE – TRAVERSE THE BEALACH

Avantgarde Music

https://sgaile.bandcamp.com/album/traverse-the-bealach-2

Traverse the Bealach is a sweeping quest of post-metal through a post-apocalyptic Scotland that paints melody and atmosphere in beautiful, spirited strokes. When I listen to this record I always get swept away by the gorgeous, breezy lead guitars, and lush vocals and harmonies. Sgàile is wanderlust in musical form.

14. THVMOS – ATLANTIS

Snow Wolf Records

https://thumos.bandcamp.com/album/atlantis

Thvmos plays some of the best instrumental post-metal I’ve heard. Each work is built around philosophical concepts, so the music has a different scope and feel to it each time out. This new album is a 30-minute journey covering Plato’s dialogues Timaeus, the unfinished Critias, and the hypothetical Hermocrates. Along with heady themes, the music on Atlantis is vigorous; full of grand, progressive tones and textures that are heavy, hypnotic and unexpectedly catchy in parts.

13. REPLICANT – INFINITE MORTALITY

Transcending Obscurity Records

https://replicantband.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-mortality

Smart, technical, dissonant death metal with destructive, coiling hooks and surprisingly catchy grooves. It’s amazing to me that the architecture of this record is so complex and yet I find myself nearly snapping my trapezius muscle off from headbanging to it. That’s the hellfire  formula that Replicant has perfected on this release. Infinite Mortality is a blistering, standout death metal album in 2024.

12. ANCIIENTS – BEYOND THE REACH OF THE SUN

Season of Mist Records

https://anciientriffs.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-reach-of-the-sun

I’ve enjoyed the previous Anciients albums, but this record really puts all the pieces together in an immensely satisfying way, like I just finished a 7500-piece Lego set. Beyond the Reach of the Sun is a progressive metal tempest, showcasing vivid guitar work that shines and swells throughout, bursting rhythms, gorgeous technicality and some of the best vocals I’ve heard from Kenny Cook. Shades of sludge, death and stoner metal are also expertly whisked into this dynamic prog opus.

11. ULCERATE – CUTTING THE THROAT OF GOD

Debemur Morti Records

https://ulcerate.bandcamp.com/album/cutting-the-throat-of-god

I can’t think of a band that has a more massive sound than the atmospheric black death of Ulcerate. Their desolate, towering guitar tone feels like a dozen avalanches cascading over a moon-soaked tundra. And then there’s the technicality and depth of their songcraft, the devastating thunderous drums, the monstrous vocals, and that absolute mastery of space in their songs. Ulcerate is an otherworldly colossus with such an inventive, signature style, and Cutting the Throat of God delivers it to near atmospheric perfection.

10. JULIE CHRISTMAS – RIDICULOUS AND FULL OF BLOOD

Red Crk Recordings

https://juliechristmas.bandcamp.com/album/ridiculous-and-full-of-blood

It took Julie Christmas a long while to make this follow up to The Bad Wife, but it was worth every second of that 14-year wait because this is a charismatic and heavy merge of post-metal, avant-garde, sludge, hardcore, noise rock and alt-pop that flows seamlessly from track to track. Julie delivers a blistering performance on Ridiculous and Full of Blood with raw, multilayered vocal pitches that can go from a whisper, to a snarl, to a banshee shriek on a dime. Her voice has such an unrestrained authenticity and soul-bearing vulnerability to it. Nobody sings like Julie Christmas. She is one-of-a-kind; the absolute empress of heavy music.

9. CRYPT SERMON – THE STYGIAN ROSE

Dark Descent Records

https://cryptsermon.bandcamp.com/album/the-stygian-rose

The Stygian Rose is captivating and essential doom that gives Crypt Sermon a more aggressive edge than I expected after The Ruins of Fading Light. They trimmed some of the excess and really buckled down to write some of the heaviest and most interesting song structures they’ve ever done. Along with the increased menace, there are lots of unexpected and gloriously odd tempo shifts, and surprising instrumentation like the spooky synths on the Scrying Orb. The melodic riffs on this album are gargantuan and Brooks leveled up as a vocalist, bringing a real sense of dread and varied bite to his delivery.

8. DVNE – VOIDKIND

Metal Blade Records

https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/album/voidkind

Dvne’s third album delivers a tremendous collision of sludge, prog and post-metal, layered with atmospheric synths, varied vocals and towering melodic song structures. The progressive guitar work on tracks like Eleonora is just massive and cinematic. The fluid dynamics, dense patterns and swirling creative soundscapes throughout create an aura of adventure and discovery that I haven’t heard from the band before. Voidkind is a Holtzman engine of metal, swirling the folds of space on your stereo with widescreen bombast.

7. PALLBEARER – MIND BURNS ALIVE

Nuclear Blast Records

https://pallbearer.bandcamp.com/album/mind-burns-alive

Over the last few records, Pallbearer has maneuvered all the pieces on their sonic board, creating new ways to radiate emotional heft in their songs. That work pays off with this release, which feels like an important musical remodeling for the band. Mind Burns Alive is built on introspective shoegaze balladry with vastly improved vocals and liquid tranquil melodies, but it also explodes into some of the heaviest stuff Pallbearer has ever recorded. And that heaviness feels exponentially magnified by the frailty of the softer sections on the record, not just in terms of riff tonnage, but in expressiveness and connection.

6. GLASSING – FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR

Pelagic Records

https://glassing.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-other-side-of-the-mirror-2

This album is a dynamic, emotionally charged rocket of post-metal that’s assembled from various genres – black metal, shoegaze, doom, noise, ambient and post-hardcore. Glassing somehow manages to fuse all that together and create some of the most engaging and vivid songs in heavy music. One of the main themes of this record is the idea that your sense of self might only be constructed by others, even as you look at your own reflection in the mirror. From the Other Side of the Mirror may be a chimera of different sounds, but it’s also a singular, scorching beast.

5. PYRRHON – EXHAUST

Willowtip Records

https://pyrrhonband.bandcamp.com/album/exhaust

Exhaust is a ferocious and refreshing blast of progressive, experimental tech death that has elements of grind, mathcore, punk and noise rock. It’s dense and intricate with whiplash riffs and contorted song structures, but it’s also weirdly accessible and so very memorable. I tend to play this album on repeat whenever I spin it.

4. DÖDSRIT – NOCTURNAL WILL

Wolves of Hades Records

https://dodsrit.bandcamp.com/album/nocturnal-will

This album blew me away when I first heard it because it’s such a thundering, triumphant album of unadulterated black metal joy. Nocturnal Will is propelled by shimmering twin guitars, classic acoustic strums and beautifully heavy melodies with a heartfelt atmosphere. And it just roars by with a thunderous, flowing tempo.

One of the things that really struck me is that almost half of Nocturnal Will is instrumental, which is such a dynamic choice because you get lost in the heroics of this explosive, uplifting music and then suddenly the anguished black metal howls kick back in, injecting a sense of longing into the music. And that just elevates the songs to even greater emotional heights for me.

3. ISLEPTONTHEMOON – ONLY THE STARS KNOW OF MY MISFORTUNE

Bindrune Recordings

https://isleptonthemoon.bandcamp.com/album/only-the-stars-know-of-my-misfortune

This album has become essential late-night listening for me because it has such a vulnerability and tenderness to its organic mix of depressive black metal, shoegaze and post-rock. I feel the weight of sadness, mourning and quiet anger on this record in a way that I don’t on anything else this year. It’s heartbreaking, heavy music that brings me back to times when I was an emotional heap on the floor after someone I loved passed away, or when a relationship ended and my heart was shattered. Only the Stars Know of My Misfortune is the perfect title for this record because when I listen to it, I instantly want to look up at the night sky and let all my despair drift into the cosmos.

2. AQUILUS – BELLUM II

Northern Silence Productions

https://aquilus.bandcamp.com/album/bellum-ii

This was my number one album at midyear and I honestly didn’t think it would be dethroned because it’s such a sweeping and singular album of classical symphonic, heart-rending atmospheric black metal. The arrangements on Bellum II are some of the most stunning and cinematic I’ve heard, not just this year, but any year. All the tracks feel so completely necessary to the whole, like they’re these real and integral experiences. When I play Bellum II, I live completely in these songs. They evoke so many different emotions and memories in me, it’s like I’m listening to a soundtrack of my own life. Bellum II is a darkly beautiful and intimate album that really reminds me how deeply majestic and personal metal can be.

1. IOTUNN – Kinship

Metal Blade Records

https://iotunn.bandcamp.com/album/kinship

As soon as I finished listening to this album for the first time, I knew it was my favorite of the year. If I was a mad sorcerer who could craft a heavy metal laboratory through technology and magic, procure any instruments on this earth or the next, and command a horde of dark minstrels to help me construct the perfect metal record, I’d make a masterpiece exactly like Kinship.

Iotunn has delivered everything I long for in a timeless metal album. It’s a heavy, uplifting progressive saga for the ages steeped in heartfelt emotion with phenomenal musicianship and songcraft. The way it deftly merges genres into something that sounds uncategorizably original and flows so dynamically is nothing short of majestic. The drums and bass crack and boom. The guitars churn and soar like imperial starships in hyperdrive. Jon Aldara’s lyrics are celestial and enchanting, and his voice unleashes them with such staggering passion and earnestness that they often leave me breathless.

When I listen to Kinship on my headphones I can’t help but marvel, wide-eyed, at the intricate song structures and arrangements. When I listen to it on my car stereo, I have no choice but to crank it up and belt out the infectious choruses at the top of my lungs.

Kinship is the most epic and memorable metal album I heard in 2024. It’s absolutely exhilarating.

Thanks for checking out my Top 40 list, metalheads! It is my devil-given duty to tell you that you must now listen to episode 155 of the Metalheads Podcast, a 5-hour countdown extravaganza featuring The Top 25 Metal Albums of 2024 from all 6 hosts – George, Will, Jay, John, Matt and yours truly. It’s available on your favorite podcast app or right here on the Metalheads Podcast website.

Our individual Top 25 lists are also available in print on The Top 25 Metal Albums of 2024 page, along with the official Metalheads Top 25, a calculated master list based on all our ranked albums and their positions.