Best Albums of 2024 (Part 1)

Okay, I'm counting down my top ten albums of the year.  I have seven honorable mentions this time out, but those will be included with Part 2.  These are simply ranked by how often I've returned to them throughout the year.  For example, I might think #10 is objectively better than #4 (which I don't, just an example), but for whatever reason, I didn't listen to it as much.  So those are the ground rules.  All genres are welcome, although I'll concede that this list is mostly metal.  Metal is, like, what I do.  Let's go!

10. Sarcasm ~ Mourninghoul

Whether you call them a melodic death metal band or a melodic black metal band, these Swedes have their default setting set to "destroy."  I dig everything they have ever released, but this one, in particular, is compulsively catchy.  My favorite tracks (or the ones I'm most likely to hum to myself while grocery shopping) are "Lifelike Sleep" and "A Lucid Dream in the Paradigm Stream."

9. Dool ~ The Shape of Fluidity

Less metal and more spooky rock, this is their third full-length album.  I could be wrong, but I believe they share members with The Devil's Blood.  This is actually what I have playing right now.

8. Unaussprechlichen Kulten ~ Haxan Sabaoth

Beastly stuff with Lovecraft flavoring.  In July, I wrote that this record is "thronged with dank, smelly riffs that are broken up by intermittent blastbeats and inoculated with a heavy dose of occult atmosphere."  Huh, I should quote myself more often.

7. Suldusk ~ Anthesis

Dreamy, witchy black metal.  Female-fronted, not that it matters.  NOTE: That's not the album cover.  The actual cover features nudity, so I'm erring on the side of caution for once.

6. My Silent Wake ~ Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief

Contemplative death/doom.  I just discovered this thing a couple of weeks ago, but I knew it had to be on this list.  It turns out that I've written about the vocalist before without realizing it.  I gushed over his side project (Thy Listless Heart) in a past edition of Now Playing.  It's a small world?  By the way, this is classified as doom, but much of the music is delivered with a mid-paced gallop.  You don't have to be a doomhead to appreciate it.

Look out for Part 2 in four, maybe five days!