Top 11 Albums of the Year - D.M's List

As the years go by and I've been doing this list for some, oh, I don't know, decade and a half or whatever, it seems to me that each list may be increasingly influenced by where I am in my life - which is to say more accurately, what do I feel like hearing?  Which is to say, this comes with an admission: the list that follows may simply be my personal best albums list.  Okay, let me not insult you - it's obvious that this is my list, my name is on the damn thing.  What I mean is that this may be MY list - it may not be the best albums if we're judging on technical prowess or compositional acuity.  It may be simply a list of albums that I enjoyed the most this year.  And so be it.

Okay, a brief review of the rules:
- Must be an original studio composition in 2024
- No re-releases
- No Greatest Hits or compilations of any kind
- No live albums

Without further preamble - 

HONORABLE MENTION – While She Sleeps – Self Hell

I, for one, wasn’t sure rap metal would ever make a comeback.  Nor was I really sure that it should.  And maybe it still hasn’t.  But there’s a couple artists this year that tried to put a toe back in that formerly pristine but now dirtied and forgotten pool.  While She Sleeps was one of them. (Quick shout-out to Ihsahn’s self-titled album for narrowly missing out here.)

EP OF THE YEAR:  Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP

You know how some people are ‘small doses’ people?  I think Alestorm is a ‘small doses’ band for me.  And this was the perfect dose.  As ever with Alestorm, the comedy is acerbic and not for the faint of heart, but that does nothing to reduce its hilarity.  And the title track?  As legit a song as you can imagine.

11 – Reliqa – Secrets of the Future

Not all that dissimilar from While She Sleeps in concept, but this is the better execution.  The band is tight and in control and they know the sound they’re going for, even as it crosses several aesthetic and sonic boundaries.  

10 – Black Note Graffiti – Resist the Divide

Not a single song over 3:45, and punctuated by short, minimalist riffs.  There’s something about the mechanics of this album that’s kind of hypnotic.  Think Static-X, but dial way back on the gain and slow the tempo down to half speed.  But it’s similar in that the constructions are sparse, and I mean that as a compliment.  You can hear every part being played clearly, and no song overstays its welcome.  A better comparison – like a slightly   less-screamy, more deliberate Hellfreaks.

9 – Dungeon Crawl – Maze Controller

I kinda hate how much I like this album, because it is so unapologetically nerdy and based around late nights mainlining caffeine while you watch your graph-paper hero lose hit points because of a bad luck dice roll.  (And yes, I hate it because I’ve been there.)  When you strip that way, thought, there’s a really good, authentic thrash album underneath, and as I look back, I seem to have a place for that on my list every year (last year was Hellevate’s “The Purpose Is Cruelty” EP.)  The guitar work here is fun, the lyrics are appropriately absurd, the whole thing just feels right.

8 – Sundrifter – An Earlier Time

After Sundrifter released the very good “Visitations” back in whatever-the-hell year it was, I remember thinking to myself “damn, if those guys could just focus this a little and keep it within the margins, they’d really make something great.”  Well, now we have “An Earlier Time,” and it’s exactly the apex of Sundrifter could and should be.  It’s all the same cosmic wanderings of a wayward probe, but it’s snappier, more confident, and all around more listenable, while losing none of the signature fuzzy guitar tone.

7 – Dampf – No Angels Alive

Third year in a row.  Third year in a row that some electronic artist cracks my year end album list, by crossing over and blurring the line into metal.  Now, I’m giving myself a little grace here, because this is the second time that the artist has been Dampf, which means this is more than just a coincidence.  Dampf may not write the most technically challenging metal, but there is no question that there’s an understanding of what goes into composing a catchy hit.  There’s something about these songs that hooks you immediately.

6 – Powerwolf – Wake Up the Wicked

Color me a little surprised.  I’ve long been a Powerwolf partisan, but I freely admit that the band had a long run of making a great album followed by a mediocre one.  So imagine my shock when this album comes out comparatively on the heels of last year's “Interludium,” and still bangs with a new bunch of massive songs that only Powerwolf could have written.

5 – Powerman 5000 – Abandon Ship

Am I the only person in the world who has this as a top five album from 2024?  Probably.  And is some of that no doubt because of my personal nostalgia? Possibly.  But this is my list, so tough rocks.  I’m just going to come out and say it – PM5K will never again be the band that wrote “Tonight the Stars Revolt!” That age has passed.  But they also don’t have to be that band again.  After however many years wandering in the desert, the comeback that seemingly began with “Builders of the Future” some ten years ago is real and tangible and authentic.  And this album is a ton of fun.

4 – Dead Poet Society – Fission

One of the most unique bands going.  Minimalist beats, heavy rhythms, guitar tone not heard since Soundgarden’s “4th of July”…this is a heady mix of styles and colors, and it takes a steady hand to be able to balance all of those into music that’s even listenable, let alone good.  Extra props for “Hurt,” which is probably my Song of the Year…as someone who is also in a non-traditional career (yes, I have a job, and no, it’s not writing about music,) that tune hits close to home sometimes.

**It merits mention, there’s a gap here.  These albums are all great, but the next three were on a level all their own in 2024.**

3 – Transit Method – Othervoid

The sensibilities of Rush, but paired with the beats and rhythms of a punk band?  Hell yeah, sign me up for all of that.  It’s not every year that a band new to me crosses my (virtual) desk and absolutely pins my attention to the wall until I’ve heard the whole thing.  Can’t even remember who the last one would have been.  The Hawkins?  Red Eleven?  Doesn’t matter.  That’s how I felt listening to Transit Method.  And I hope you do, too.

2 – The Warning – Keep Me Fed

Ugh, I went back and forth on this a hundred and fifty times.  I even complained to my compatriot Chris about it.  I haven’t had this much trouble deciding between two albums for #1 since 2014, when I battled internally for a week over Red Eleven’s “Round II” and Destrage’s “Are You Kidding Me? No.” (I picked Red Eleven then, and I stand by it…about half the time.)  I can’t understand why the Warning haven’t conquered the world yet.  The talent, the songs, the aesthetic…this band has everything you want in a world-wide hero rock group.  It must only be the fallow period for rock fandom that we find ourselves in that prevents them from ascending.  Although, every time I see them, it’s in a slightly larger venue…In the meantime, this is certainly the album I spent the most time with this year, but it did ultimately fall short to…

1 – Combichrist – CMBCRST

Some years ago, Combichrist took flak from their fans for gradually moving away from a pure industrial style, incorporating more and more metal elements.  I personally think it’s the best decision the band ever made, as every album since that point (perhaps beginning with the DmC soundtrack?) has been better than the previous, culminating in this masterpiece of doom, gloom and as KMFDM coined the term, the ‘ultra-heavy beat.’  Some of the best riffs of the year were recorded for this album.  What puts it ahead of The Warning at #2?  The Warning, for all their greatness, worked with more professional songwriters.  And as Chris has so passionately explained on our very pages, there’s no sin in that, none at all.  But when you’re deciding between masterpieces, that extra little degree of authenticity for Combichrist matters.

D.M's Top 11 Albums of 2021

May we please start with talking about how happy I am about this list?  Legitimate difficult decisions had to be made in order to compose the list you’ll read below, and make no mistake, that’s a wonderful thing.  Not since 2014 have I been so privileged as to have to agonize who’s going to make the final, very finite, cut.  

To add on to the lengthy and probably overly analytical conversation that Chris and I had, I think part of what’s happening here is that maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, the baseline of music is improving.  Does that necessarily mean a new wave, a burgeoning fad that will sweep the music-imbibing public and usher us into a blessed era of radio-conquering prosperity?  Nah, probably not.

But don’t lost hope!  Part of what really sets this list, and the choices it forced me to make, apart from some of its predecessors is that a number of bands, many listed here in the embellished Honorable Mention section, fell into two groups – they either wrote amazing singles, but couldn’t maintain that momentum over a full album, or wrote a great, memorable record, but not so different from their previous accomplishments.  Originality, or in a baser sense, novelty, can break ties here.  So, there’s good news all around; there were a lot of worthy records that are still worth the investment of your time even if they didn’t crack this list, and also that this list must contain, as the kids say, some real bangers.  Shoot, I'm even giving away the elusive EP of the Year award, which I don't get to do every year.

Brushing all that aside, here’s part of the litmus test for me with how highly I personally consider the list below – when my coworkers at the office, who are dimly aware that I might be a person of varied interests when separated from the confines of my career, asked me who my top artists where this year, I could rattle off all eleven of these records without a second thought.  I haven’t been able to do that in literal years.

Before we begin, a recap of the rules:
-All qualifying albums must be original studio material – no live albums, no compilations, no re-releases, no covers albums.
-There are eleven albums here, because, of course, it goes to 11.
-Honorable Mention would normally just be one album, but I’m so pleased with 2021 as a musical year (and only as a musical year,) that I’ve decided to reward a number of albums.

Without further ado, here we go:

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order) -

The Browning – END OF EXISTENCE
Charred – PRAYERS OF MALEDICTION
Employed To Serve – CONQUERING
Fear of Domination – VI: REVELATION
John 5 & The Creatures – SINNER
K.A.A.N – KAIZEN
Phantom Elite – TITANIUM
Powerwolf – CALL OF THE WILD
Steel bearing Hand – SLAY IN HELL

EP Of The Year – The Hawkins - AFTERMATH

Not going to go into a ton of detail here for an EP, but man, why isn't there more of this?  I mean, I get it, leave them wanting more, but there's barely enough here to know I'm thirsty for this!  Infectious and groovy and melodic and perfectly paced.  A lot to like.

11 – Andrew W.K – GOD IS PARTYING

I have been doing a year-end best of list every year since I dared call myself a music journalist, which was all the way back in 2008.  To that point, Andrew W.K's iconic "I Get Wet" had been released six years prior, and his career was already considered long past toast.  Now, nearly twenty years after the revelation that you truly could write a record where every song was about partying, we get another worthy landmark in the pantheon of Andrew W.K...and it's about as far from a party album as you can imagine.  Moody, temperamental and introspective, Andrew W.K wanted to show us all that he could execute a serious record while performing all the instruments himself, and he did just that, with great aplomb.  It is true that this is a singles record - not every song here is a home run.  But the moments that are elevated to greatness are sublime in their orchestration.

10 – We Butter The Bread With Butter – DAS ALBUM

I liked this album a lot the first time I heard it.  To the point where I would be listening to it in idle moments at work, and coworkers were starting to notice (generally followed by either a request to know what that awful racket was, an ask to turn it off, or some combination of the two.  Philistines.)  Then, suddenly it was lost to me.  And now, in reviewing everything I listened to this year, it finds itself back in the fold, earning top honors.  I won’t lie, it’s not the easiest listen – there’s a density of sound here that rivals anybody on the market, to the point where the album can be physically exhausting to listen to if you’re not prepared for it.  The deep bass tones and cavernous percussion are relentless and insistent, but if you’re willing to distill the music a little, there’s a lot of rhythmic sensibility contained in here, and once you get a taste for that, the album unfolds.

 

9 – Beartooth – BELOW

Let’s not bury the lede – the opening riff of “Devastation” is the best pure adrenaline guitar riff written this year.  And that’s no idle boast or one-off, because “Below” is end-to-end positively turgid with great riffs.  Real down and dirty metal purists are going to balk at the dramatic, melodic, singalong choruses that borrow from less authoritarian heavy genres, but don’t be intimidated by their ignorant condescension.  Beartooth can hammer with the best of them, and excels in writing songs that can change gears but still stay coherent within the musical narrative.  I feel like if I say “Below” is a rich man’s Avenged Sevenfold album, that both obfuscates some of the album’s genius and belittles the idiomatic accomplishments of both bands (because “City of Evil” is awesome,) but for some reason I can’t get that phrase out of my head.

 

8 – 6:33 – FEARY TALES FOR STRANGE LULLABIES: THE DOME

France, as a country, has for centuries been considered the beating heart of European art and culture (with apologies to Italy and specifically the city of Florence,) so refined and so scrutinizing in its taste that what the French culture deems worthy of merit must truly be beyond reproach.  So it logically follows that only a French experimental band could get away with writing a devilishly catchy song called “Holy Golden Boner.”  6:33 returned for the first time in six years with an album that made up for lost time by putting more words in the title (bonus points for a cool album cover,) and also stands as a stark improvement over the charming but flawed “Deadly Scenes.”  Regardless, at its best moments, 6:33’s music always sounds like a collection of demented, impish showtunes, and “Feary Tales” provides a whirlwind trip of exactly that over its wayward one-hour runtime.  Close your eyes and you can almost see the choreography.

 

7 - Vaelmyst – SECRYPTS OF THE EGOCHASM

As Chris and I have discussed at some length on this site over the years, there are several splinter genres of metal that have been all but played out – there’s little to no more room for experiment, expansion or idiomatic adjustments.  We normally make this argument with specific regard to power metal, but if we’re being honest in our heart of hearts, death metal is also in many ways a dry well.  And yet, Vaelmyst found a way to take all the desiccated mores of an overplayed idiom and revive them in such as a way as to be interesting and novel and dare I say, catchy?  The concept of catchy death metal often seems like a contradiction in terms at best and anathema to a possessive fanbase at worst, but the fact that I caught myself humming some of Vaelmyst’s better riffs during quiet moments at work speaks to the power that this band has unlocked.  And that was after having listened to the record just once.  I found myself going back to this album over and over throughout the months subsequent to its release, whenever I needed that particular fix for death metal done right.

 

6 - Erdling – HELHEIM

Erdling and I have danced around for a few years ago, but we’ve never been able to connect in any meaningful way.  Their album from last year, “Yggdrasil,” is as close as we’ve come to me giving them real accolades….until now.  For this, their fifth full-length album, Erdling locked in on the magic formula and found just the right combination of melody and groove and synth-industrial might to make “Helheim” stand out not only from their own catalogue, but from the effort of a lot of worthy contemporaries this year.  By the way, singles be damned, “Vogelfrei” is the best offering on this record.  NDH has spread out from beyond it’s original borders by a wide margin, but Erdling is proving that the home country still brews some of the best.

 

5 - CueStack – DIAGNOSIS: HUMAN

This was a latecomer to the list, and I admit that there may be some projection here on my part – “Diagnosis: Human” reminds me in many ways of the pomp and circumstance and hook-y energy of Peter Tägtgren’s excellent side project PAIN, and my fandom of that band is such that I might be pleased just to hear something that reminds me of that in the first place.  That’s not to say that CueStack can’t stand on their own, far from it – they exist at the burgeoning crossroads of electronic music and metal, and this debut full length shows the promise of a full synthesis of the two genres, ranging from the typically aggressive to the impressively muted.  In what typically can be a caustic mix of overwhelming sounds, CueStack found a way to weave some nuance into presentation, so the ceiling is high.

 

4 - Fear Factory – AGGRESSION CONTINUUM

I’m grinding my teeth a little that I have this album this high, but game has to recognize game (the implication here is that I also have game, when most contemporary evidence points to the contrary.)  As I said at the time of release, I didn’t want to like this album, since it was released on the heels of the most serious acrimony of a band who has spent much of their career soaking in acrimony.  Some of the members may be possessed of some…difficult….character traits.  Nevertheless, this is the best Fear Factory record since “Archetype,” and it’s not especially close.  Maybe even since “Obsolete.”  All of the proper violence of the band’s, well, archetype, is represented here in full, but couched within that cacophony is the proportionate mixture of riff and groove that has always made FF stand out from their contemporaries.  This is a really great effort, regardless of circumstances.

 

3 - Bokassa – MOLOTOV ROCKTAIL

In cooking, there is often equal reverence for the competing skills of ornate, detailed and time-intensive preparation, and the ability to do the simple with a level of practiced magnificence.  Bokassa’s album from 2021, “Molotov Rocktail,” fell squarely into that second camp.  Mixing some tenets of stoner rock, gutter punk and straightforward metal, the band assembled a roaring diesel engine of edgy rock, blending all the complementary elements into the blast furnace at its heart.  The album also possesses a chef’s kiss blend of sarcastic fun, gritty realism and implied menace to make for a listen that’s easy and accessible, but never boring.  The entire proceeding is punctuated with chant-worthy punk sing-along choruses that help bind the hooks and melodies into easily hummable touchstones.  In the modern era of music, it’s hard to impress solely by doing the simple things better than anyone else, but that’s what Bokassa has done here, and they should be celebrated for it.

2 - Dead Poet Society - -!-

What’s happening to me?  There was a time in my life when I would have bypassed this album without a second thought.  Maybe I’m becoming more open-minded, or, as I prefer to think, perhaps the world has finally come around to see music my way (unlikely.)  If I said to you ‘Breaking Benjamin on steroids,’ that’s an oversimplification of what’s really happening here, but it lends some idea of the contents of “-!-“. The attraction to Dead Poet Society’s album comes from the deep juxtaposition of earnest, clean vocals and impossibly throaty rhythm.  It’s an insistent, deep sound that hasn’t really been heard since the microcosm of Soundgarden’s “4^th of July,” and Dead Poet Society artfully stretched that out into an entire record.  The record doesn’t utilize a lot of virtuosity, but as rare as it is to say, that kind of styling is unnecessary here and would have actually been a mistake.  “-!-“ is all about fury and emotion and the undulating earth beneath our unsteady feet.

 

1 - Cave of Swimmers – AURORA

It doesn’t seem possible that the best album of the year could be produced by a mere two musicians, but here we are.  While “Aurora” is impressive in its depth and intricacy and layers, the album also impresses upon the attention from the first strains.  Riding that line between instantly catchy and philosophically interesting is perhaps the most difficult of all feats in music, especially in metal, where one is almost invariably sacrificed for the good of the other.  And that’s before we reconcile with the idea that the lyrics and themes from this album range from the relatable, to the typically prog, to the utterly ridiculous.  Yet every moment is packed with some distinct hook, some well-orchestrated edge, some synthesis of percussion and guitar that rings true in the ear in the listener.  “Aurora” is as bold a statement of arrival as we’ve had in recent years, and Cave of Swimmers is not to be missed.

 

 

Album Review: Dead Poet Society - "-!-"

 

There was a time when ‘alternative’ meant something.  The Stooges, occasionally theorized as the first ‘alternative’ band, were so named because they were not quick rock and not quite punk, and thus were labelled with an altogether new term, announcing them as quite literally an alternative to either of those common cores.  Eventually, ‘alternative’ came to mean a genre all of its own, with its own conventions and hang-ups and devotees, and ultimately, lifespan.  Fast forward some years after the popular death of alternative, and the word has been reclaimed back to its original meaning.  Thus we find Dead Poet Society and their album “-!-.” Meet the new alternative.

Dead Poet Society reminds in many ways of the versatility and variability of last year’s excellent Mollo Rilla album “Viva El Camino,” with the notable and important exception that DPS replaces the alcohol-infused, jaunty swagger with a dire, broken-glass heroin trip, which is meant as a compliment.  The scary, shambling thud of “.SALT.” is so deep with bass as to bring memories of Soundgarden’s “4^th of July,” and the lyrical content is just as sparse and haunting.

The dichotomy of the thin vocals of Jack Underkofler against the backdrop of a churning, guitar blast furnace is the real story with “-!-“ and both parts are necessary if the album is to have its intended teeth.  When Underkofler chooses to go into the dark spaces, there is a genuine feeling of discomfort, a tangible unsettling of the nerves as the band thuds out power chords while his vocals feel lithium-high, like a singer from a different song, disaffected and disassociated with the band behind him.  Yet, as with the album’s star cut “.intoodeep.,” it’s impossible to imagine what that alternate song could sound like.  The performance is like a piece from another puzzle that happens to fit into this one masterfully.

For all the experimentation and unique aural combinations of the album, the dirty secret here is that Dead Poet Society has pulled entire chapters out of the old alternative playbook.  That’s not an insult – it’s a testament to a level of study and mastery that few bands with so little popular history can employ.  Closing the eyes and concentrating, it’s not so hard to strip the jagged distortion and profanity from “.burymewhole.” and hear a song that would feel just as at home on a Toadies record. 

Now, a lot of that comes from the band’s skillful placement of infectious, singalong choruses.  Most of the songs lyrically detail some manner of grisly consequence, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to string together a few lines that would be easy to chant at a show once the world is open again.  The slow build “.getawayfortheweekend.” serves all the better to allow for the catharsis of a high-speed chorus.  Following the song through its motions is akin to getting on and off the highway repeatedly – up to speed, slow down on the ramps, up to speed again.  It’s an agitated ride for sure, but as we’ve discussed, “-!-“ balances on the atom-thin edge of frayed nerves for its entire duration.

As is part and parcel with alternative rock albums, there are a couple of throwaway ballads; others will no doubt laud them for their sincerity and earnest expression of confused, youthful emotion, but there’s nothing to be said about them that hasn’t been said about any ballad or emotional tune written by a rock artist over the last seventy years.  There are as they are – a necessary change of pace on the album?  Sure, why not. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, those same songs also fit much more cleanly into the common molds of alternative rock, so it’s also the limit of the weight they can carry.

There may end up being some territorial pissing here – rock fans may say the album is theirs, and same goes for metal fans and alternative fans, the last of whom had been presumed dead for much of the last decade.  More likely, as the fans of those genres are fit to do, there will be arguments for why “-!-“ ISN’T a welcome addition to their genre’s stable.  Those arguments are myopic and frankly stupid, and miss the point of creative music as an experience.  

All that is said to say this; in the last fifteen months or so, there’s been a creeping tide of bands who are completely oblivious to the mores of genre convention, and that same rising crest has been absolutely to the benefit of music listeners everywhere.  The best moments in the discovery of new music are when a listener can say “I haven’t heard someone do that before,” and this is the same lofty space we find Dead Poet Society occupying.  Add in the fact that this marks the band’s full-length debut, and “-!-“ is not only one worth adding to the shelves, but an optimistic harbinger of the band’s future.