[Archive - Riffs] #BsaS2024: Brady's Top 20 Albums of 2024, Pt II + More Honourable Mentions
Note: This was originally posted to our old blog on 31st December, 2024. As luck would(n’t) have it, the entire website suffered an untimely death during NYE 2024 (RIP). Fear not, it’s evidently back!
This 'Riff' is part of the Behind Screen and Speaker: 2024 series - a culmination of the year in review across many artistic domains, plus more!
See here for the introduction to the series, which will have a lot more 2024 and 2025-related content coming soon!
And for Part 1 of Brady’s Album of The Year: 2024 Top 20 - link for that badboy is right over here. You’ll also see the full list of albums for discussion right below this blurb.
Peace Love and Grindcore xoxo - Brady.
Artist details including relevant album streams, socials/Bandcamp links and mini-review synopses are available for each discussed.
Let's not waste any further time and get straight into it, folks!
Reiterating that these aren't in any ranked order - let's continue with the next 5+ LP's for mini-review.
Synopsis:
Holy brutal technical dissonant Hell, Batman.
I'd prefer to note this less as an 'album' and more of a 'swarming, tremolo-laden dissonant vortex of Lovecraftian-horror goodness', matched equally by the grandiose and obscure esotericism by way of lyrical themes.
Akin to Portal et al but also inhabiting aural celestial magnitudes infinitely more vast, Vitriseptome is a crushing experience that flies far past a mere sonic or emotional level. This shit hits existentially. And to pull that off in today's oversaturated disso/prog/experimental/kitchen-sink DM scene? That, friends, is a feat to behold. Nasty, awesome business.
Canucks know how to craft brutality; must be that weather eh?
Synopsis:
An absolute bruiser that wastes NO time, and thus neither shall I. Blistering and technical, Lower Form Resistance is as much a mechanised death-grind/thrash assault as it is informed by organic, thuggish hardcore sentiment. Relentless and confrontational, the discordance-heavy din is punctuated by slamming breakdowns and solid grooves thoughout.
A head-on collision with intellectual sneering and apish, primal rage, this is an early-2024 that demands to be brought back into the metal lexicon as we wrap up such a stellar year in the heavy scene. Really looking forward to seeing what these guys produce next after such a brazen and skilful full-length!
Veilburner - The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Release Date: Nov 15th
Album Stream:
Synopsis:
This band can truly do no wrong at all. Following up the stellar blackened-death/avant-garde mysterium invoked via previous LP VLBRNR, The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom continues to progress the bands' experimental sojourn to even weirder and more unsettling domains. The labyrinthine nature of the compositions are marked equally by gut-wrenching dissonance as they angular, steep and caustic about-turns through the entire piece.
The vocal range from guttural barks, piercing shrieks and all in between feel like a deft extension of the musical horror. It's an overall aesthetic that stirs Pyrrhon-style discomfort but with no insignificant amount of brain-melting fun. Yet another example of a choice addition to the TO roster, but more importantly the expansive and unbounded ethos of extreme metal in the 2020's.
Crypt Sermon - Heavy Is the Crown of Bone
Label: Dark Descent Records
Release Date: Nov 15th
Album Stream:
Synopsis:
Okay, let's lay off the chin-stroking tech-nerdiness, flat-stick brutality. Let's get traditional, heavy and epically doomy! As a crust-punk-coded lover of sludge, doom and the [slow heavy metal music playing] end of the metal spectrum, I'm admittedly not as into the epic-doom, Candlemass/Cathedral-flavoured contingent as I used to be.
Where I have to make a glaring exception to this is Crypt Sermon's latest. Incorporating a wide palette that brings traditional heavy metal bombast through genuinely crushing riffage and themes, their latest LP is a clear indication that powerful, melodic vocal stylings are not mutually exclusive with sonic heaviness.
Honestly? It's just a joy to listen to, and evokes as much NWOBHM flair as it does modern cave-dweller doom-metal sentiment. If you're like me and a bit of a fringe-dweller around metal's more esoteric, edgy and extreme periphery, I strongly encourage you to give this pearler a shot. Stuff it, it's going back on now.
Ulcerate - Cutting The Throat of God
Label: Debemur Morti Records
Release Date: 14th June
Album Stream
Honourable Mentions, Part Deux.
See Part I (link above ) for the first list of Honourable Mentions, as well as some brief synopses on a few albums.
2024 has been far too incredibly stacked to warrant riffing off just one infographic, so I'm adding even more good stuff onto the pile!
Rather than run another gamut of mini-reviews, I've decided that In the near future, I'll be discussing pretty much *all* of these albums with my face on our podcast.
Here’s our ‘cast links again:
Note: ISC Podcast is also available on: Our Youtube Podcast Page, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, GoodPods, iHeartRadio, PocketCasts and RadioPublic.
