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.

Album Review: Powerman 5000 - "The Noble Rot"

 
How many different bands has Powerman 5000 been now?  The band that recorded “True Force” and “Mega!! Kung-Fu Radio” (or “The Blood Splat Rating System,” if you prefer,) was not, thematically, the same band that had an impactful landing with “Tonight the Stars Revolt!” and then was star-crossed with the non-release of “Anyone For Doomsday?”  Which is turn was a different band than gave the world “Transform” and “Destroy What You Enjoy.”  Which, again, was not the band that composed the re-birthing album “Builders of the Future” and the follow up “New Wave.”  

It’s been a continual journey of reinvention spanning nearly thirty years for PM5K, which is reflected most obviously in the changing music, but also in the shifting landscape of the band’s membership since the release of their hallmark effort in 1999.  The one curse of having released a platinum album is that there are fans who will hold a band to that standard for the duration of their natural lives, and thus Powerman 5000’s (and really, frontman Spider’s) musical journey to find new sounds comes as anathema to those who have never matured past “When Worlds Collide.”

Yet, none of us are the same people we were in 1999 (and there’s probably a fair percentage of those reading this who were not even born then,) and who are we to judge an artist’s attempt to grow and change and evolve?

With that as the backdrop, we come now to Powerman’s new effort, “The Noble Rot.”  In America, we struggle mightily with the concept that any public person can be two things at the same time.  Russell Crowe can be a great actor and a difficult personality.  Michael Jordan can be a sublime talent, an antagonist to his teammates and possibly a sociopath.  These things are not mutually exclusive.  Which fits into the conversation of “The Noble Rot” because there are inalienable truths of this record – this is another reinvention of Powerman 5000, and is it a fun album that can stand on its own merit.

Many moons ago, we had occasion to interview Spider, and he confessed to the fact that some of his critics are spot on – he has absolutely been trying to tap into the sound of popular music, and infuse that into his own style.  He is fascinated by the structure of pop songs and is aware of just how difficult it is to write something that appeals to a large base.  He views this (or did at the time,) as a sort of grand life-quest, which has come home to roost for “The Noble Rot.”  PM5K had been trending toward beat-based electronics for years – each album cycle saw the band pivot ever so much closer to the target, shedding the cocoon of metal and industrial and trying to grow the gossamer wings of something more.

And you needn’t get far to see the effect.  “Cannibal Killers That Kill Everyone,” leads the album and is most emblematic of the Powerman of old.  It’s the most infectious song that the band has written since the haunting lilt of “I Can’t Fucking Hear You,” and repeats a simple but effective chorus until it is destined to become a crowd chant.

The album acts though, as if it wants to get that out of the way, for the experience never returns to the same idiom, and what we get from that point forward is varying degrees of an electronic pop album that possesses certain metal aspects.  “Brave New World,” the album’s second track, kicks off what can only be described as an album-long tribute to new wave, Billy Idol and David Bowie.  Almost all of the proceedings sound like a blend of those elements, combined with “Pretty Hate Machine” and oh, some Powerman 5000 to flavor the mix.

The album’s first single is “Black Lipstick,” which comes with a fun video, but musically is one of the record’s weaker offerings.  For all that Spider wants to tap into his love for dark wave, this romp about a fleeting love affair is too melodramatic and too far out of bounds for the band’s style, even in the wake of their current re-invention.  The 69 Eyes have written this same song a hundred times and have done it better at least half that.  “Black Lipstick” also has the strange fate of making it sound like Spider and Peter Steele may have had encounters with the same woman.

Other than that and the utterly flat “VHS,” though, the album bounces along with enough retro goth charm to evoke a smile from the listener. Spider has not spent his years of toil and study idly; to some degree he’s found the working formula, and it’s all to the credit of “The Noble Rot.” 

When the band released “New Wave,” one of the more common themes of the reviews of it was that it was fun, but lacked real substance or staying power.  This is not true for “The Noble Rot,” which stands strong with memorable tracks like “Play God or Play Dead.”

Twice, we see the possibilities of real synthesis between the ‘old’ Powerman and the ‘new.”  Both “Special Effects” and “Movie Blood,” stick to the game plan of heavy-handed synthetic beats, but bring some teeth with loud, brash choruses and snapped off vocals that ring true to the ear of the Powerman purist.

To that end, tip of the cap all around to the production team.  The bass is deep and resounding, the riffs, for what they are, cut effectively, and Spider sounds convincing and brazen in his intonations.  It’s rare in the digital music age to be wowed by the mere production of a record, but “The Noble Rot” positively bristles with rich sounds and deep experiences.

This new album sees Powerman 5000 in a new space, but, it is a space in which Spider and company appear to feel very comfortable.  The songs are punchy and catchy, which is exactly the kind of thing Spider has been building toward for more than ten years now.  Powerman 5000 is dead; long live Powerman 5000.