Steel Druhm’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Steel Druhm
Unlike some of my colleagues, I don’t have all that much to report regarding the past year. Life has been pretty consistent and mostly good, and for that, I’m grateful. Madam X keeps me sane and out of trouble, and most importantly, talks me out of slaughtering the AMG staff when they do any number of idiotic things to challenge my calm and nurturing management style. Entering 2024 I feared the added burden of becoming the new AMG Promo Sump Pool Boy1 would seriously impact my reviewing time. I’m glad to report that it did not, and my output was pretty close to past years. This year also saw me continuing to experience a shift in taste toward the brutish death end of the spectrum and I pray this isn’t the sign of a gradual de-evolution back to my apeish ancestors. If increasingly thick back hair is anything to go by, soon my reviews will consist solely of grunts and angry poo hurling.2
In site news, this year saw the unearthing of several long frozen and forgotten n00bs, a few of which clawed their way from the freezer into AMG staff glory, with a few more still working their way through the thaw. We also ran a casting call from which we intend to cull the best and brightest for this remorseless blog meatgrinder. MOAR blood for the Blood Godz will be the rallying cry for 2025!
I would like to thank the staff for their hard work and continued efforts to make this the best place in the metal interwebz. Your continued commitment to top-notch metal reviewing makes this a phenomenal workplace and I love most of you twice as little as you deserve. A special thanks to AMG Himself for continuing to stoke the flames of the site he founded way back in 2009. Though he isn’t as present as we all might wish, this place lives on in his frowning image.
Here’s to a brand new year and all the possibilities, opportunities, challenges, and wonders it holds for us. May it be a great one for all the writers and readers and may AMG live on in infamy and glory…forever.
(ish) The Eternal // Skinwalker – Australian Gothic doom act The Eternal know exactly how to pluck at the heartstrings of Steel, crafting long, winding odes to sadboi pathos that resonate even on the brightest summer day. Skinwalker is the second release in a row to impress and depress, with a sound merging My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and Lacrimas Profundere to form a trough of despair that runs a mile deep. There are major earworms here and some of the best writing of 2024. If it wasn’t for their constant battle with song lengths, this would have moved up the list considerably. Play this on a cold, gray day and marinate deeply in the sadz.
#10. Satan // Songs in Crimson – Satan has been the most dependable metal act around since 2013’s Life Sentence. Taking the same NWoBHM sound they helped pioneer and making it ever so slightly modern, they’ve churned out album after album of killer material, and Songs in Crimson doesn’t tweak the winning formula. It’s classic hard rock meets metal with guitar heroics in high supply and vocal hooks courtesy of metal legend Brian Ross lurking around every corner. This is a rowdy, raucous homage to all things metal with some of the year’s best guitar pyrokinetics and the fact it comes from a band so long in the tooth amazes me. Dark deals with the Devil were definitely made. Hail Satan.
#9. Nestor // Teenage Rebel – Sweden’s olde boy 80s retro rock act Nestor dropped an album so insidiously infectious and addictive, even Yours Steely was helpless in its sticky clutches. It’s so slick, so disgustingly sugar-coated and loaded with Survivor and Journey worship, but so so fun. Teenage Rebel takes me back to my own teenage idiot phase 3000 years ago when committing acts of antisocial hooliganism and making out with the Prom Queen under the school bleachers were the only pursuits worth pursuing. This thing has so many hooks, so much goddamn cheese, and almost too much 80s energy. Those were the best days, and this is a great album. Nestor is The Way.
#8. Laceration // I Erode – Pounding, punishing OSDM of the first order, Laceration flashes the blade of virtuosity as well, melding influences from various eras of Death, Morbid Angel, and Morgoth into a brutish meat stew of high-level compositional showmanship. The adroit marriage of caveman ugliness and refined guitar heroics is similar to James Murphy’s Disincarnate project and 2020s excellent Portraits of Mind by Plague and that makes for a compelling listen. I’ve returned to this many, many times in 2024 and it keeps its animal appeal every time. It’s also one of the few albums I wish was 10 minutes longer. I underrated I Erode when I reviewed it, so here is my heartfelt contrition and apology to them and you, the filthy, disgusting masses. Do not sleep on Laceration, folks. These cats are onto something special.
#7. Föhn // Condescending – I’ve never been a huge funeral doom fan, and it needs to check a bunch of boxes to click for me fully. Along came Condescending by Föhn and tossed my wussy checklist in the poser pyre. This Greek act have a knack for making their crushing compositions compelling and memorable, incorporating frenzied saxophone blasts at times to create a tense, unhinged vibe. Ambient droning segments and harrowing soundbites add flavors and texture to the massive soundscapes and the writing is consistently strong across the album. Condescending was one of the albums that came out of left field and slapped me silly in 2024. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
#6. Blazing Eternity // A Certain End of Everything – Along with Counting Hours, Blazing Eternity filled the sadboi Gothic doom compartment in my metal heart this year admirably. With a sound wrenched from the playbooks of Rapture and Katatonia and finding just the right melancholic mood, the songs on A Certain End of Everything cut deep and bring out the feelz. High-level writing and a commitment to deep despair make this a great companion piece to the Counting Hours opus with enough of a different approach to give it a unique identity. Blazing til the end.
#5. Stenched // Purulence Gushing from the Coffin – I enjoyed of deep death metal in 2024, but it was late-year entry Stenched that really throttled my crypt noodle. Created by one mysterious gent from Mexico, Purulence Gushing from the Coffin is like a romp through a septic tank without the benefit of waders or hazmat gear. It’s sticky, stinky, gross, and lurid, and you will learn to savor the flavor. With sub-basement, indecipherable croakals and slithering riffs, Stenched oozes with the same vicious viscousness as Cerebral Rot and Disma. It’s not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, and it packs a massive scuzz wallop. Just play “Suppurating Cranial Cavity” and you’ll know if you can stand the smell. Stenchmas is the real holiday!
4. Warlord // Free Spirit Soar – I loved Warlord since I was a young pup. Formed in the early 80s by Mark Zonder (later of Fates Warning) and guitar wizard Bill Tsamis, they delivered classy traditional metal with big hooks. Despite the massive talent involved, they missed their chance to realize their full potential. That all changed when the band released Free Spirit Soar following the death of Bill Tsamis. It’s everything Warlord did well but enhanced, enlarged, and made twice as epic. This is classic 80s trad metal that’s endlessly catchy, engaging, and polished to a gleaming chrome. Songs like “Conquerors,” “Worms of the Earth,” and the title track have shadowed my steps all year and I love this thing bigly. Long live the Warlord and R.I.P. Bill Tsamis.
#3. Endonomos // Endonomos – In a year with a few very bright moments for doom metal, Endonomos came out of nowhere and planted me in the cold, dark earth. Blending traditional doom with depressive post-metal, bits of sludge, and weepy sadboi melo-doom, Endonomos hit all the best parts of classic and modern doom, reminding of Ghost Brigade one moment and Fvneral Fvkk or Khemmis the next. The proprietary blend of styles is remarkable and the album simmers and crackles as it explores all the sounds of misery and woe. Songs like “Bereft” and “Resolve” are 2024 high points and the high-level compositions impress and stand up to endless spins, with little details emerging with every listen. So much feelz!
#2. Crypt Sermon // The Stygian Rose – This was the classic doom album that stole the Heart of Steel in 2024. Rebounding from a so-so sophomore outing, Crypt Sermon went back to the basics and reaffirmed their commitment to Candlemassive doom epics while smartly incorporating a ton of classic/trad metal ideas. The Stygian Rose finds them sitting directly in their sweet spot. Some of the best doom songs of 2024 reside here, and the writing is free of the glitches that plagued the prior release. Cuts like “Glimmers in the Underworld” and the massive “The Scying Orb” are pure doom magic with every bell and whistle included, and even the longest tracks flow effortlessly and sizzle all the way. The best pure doom release of 2024 hands down.
#1. Counting Hours // The Wishing Tomb – Readers of the site know I dearly loved the cold, melancholic sound of Finnish melodic doom-death act Rapture. They just had a special something and I always wish they had released more material. My prayers were answered when the guitarists from Rapture formed Counting Hours and dropped The Will debut in 2020. It was close enough in style to the Rapture days to satisfy without being a mere copy and the writing was top-notch. 2024s follow-up The Wishing Tomb took their sound, smoothed it out, polished it, and made it even more captivating. Bleak, somber doomscapes are woven, marrying heaviness with beauty, and touching on influences like early Katatonia, Dawn of Solace, and other equally downtrodden acts. The Wishing Tomb is such a success because the songs are filled with so much emotion and force the listener to feel things. It’s all beautifully grim and gorgeously dark and I keep returning time after time. Don’t let these Hours pass you by.
Honorable Mentions:
- Grand Magus // Sunraven – The lords of the sword return with their best album in years and you will feel embiggened
- Blitzkrieg // Blitzkrieg – Brian Ross does it AGAIN, keeping NWoBHM alive for another year single-handedly
- Cardiac Arrest // The Stench of Eternity – The world slept on this two-ton slab of OSDM and you’re all dumber for missing it
- Hands of Goro // Hands of Goro – Mortal Kombat-themed NWoBHM-inspired tomfoolery should not work, but by Kano’s red eye, work it does!
- Castle // Evil Remains – Gritty Sabbathian occult metal with dark edges and captivating vocals straight from the crypt coven
- Amethyst // Throw Down the Gauntlet– Old timey early 80s-style metal with hooks and a big dose of Blue Öyster Cult
- Tim Montana // Savage – A country rocker explores his metal/grunge/alt side and it ends up way more entertaining than it should
- SIG:AR:TYR // Citadel of Stars – The Canadian one-man epic Viking metal guru does it once more and sends you to the heavens via Valhalla
- Mother of Graves // The Periapt of Absence – Melancholic doom-death borrowing from all the best oldies and making it sound new and refreshing
- Cemetery Skyline // Nordic Gothic – When an all-star line of melodeath masters come out with a goth rock album, you fookin’ listen!
Song o’ the Year:
Crypt Sermon – ”Scrying Orb” – Classic doom perfection
Review Defense o’ the Year:
Look here, I love Judas Priest more than you and have for way longer too (because I’m olde). Invincible Shield is still a 3.0 though. Those saying otherwise are just babbling fools and they’ve built a temple to madness.
Steel Addendum: And now, as an extra special bonus feature, here’s Mark Z‘s goat vomit-filled Top Ten(ish) of 2024 in all its gruesome entirety!
#ish. Hellbutcher // Hellbutcher
#10. Antichrist Siege Machine // Vengeance of Eternal Fire
#9. 200 Stab Wounds // Manual Manic Procedures
#8. Vomitrot // Emetic Imprecations
#7. Bewitcher // Spell Shock
#6. Nails // Every Bridge Burning
#5. Diocletian // Inexorable Nexus
#4. Blood Incantation // Absolute Elsewhere
#3. Invocation // The Archaic Sanctuary (Ritual Body Postures)
#2. Mayhemic // Toba
#1. Coffins // Sinister Oath – Since their 1996 formation, these Japanese doom-death behemoths have been delivering riffs heavy enough to break the Richter scale. Yet with Sinister Oath, they may have just released their most accomplished album yet. More than almost any of their other works, this record deftly balances the band’s monolithic grooves and more atmospheric sensibilities, resulting in a diverse set of songs that gets better as it goes. While you still get the traditional Coffins fare in tracks like “Spontaneous Rot,” you also get chuggy onslaughts (“Sinister Oath”), stoner-doom forays (“Everlasting Spiral”), punky pummelings (“Chain”), and a final three-song run that might just be the best fifteen minutes of music in the band’s career. It’s all a rib-crushing good time that could please fans of everything from Cianide to beatdown hardcore, and—even in an already stacked year—it got more listens from me than almost anything else.
Honorable Mentions:
Song o’ the Year:
- Chapter – “A Decade of False Hope”
#2024 #BlazingEternity #Blitzkrieg #CardiacArrest #Castle #CemeterySkyline #CountingHours #CryptSermon #Endonomos #Föhn #GrandMagus #HandsOfGoro #JudasPriest #Laceration #MotherOfGraves #Nestor #Satan #SIGARTYR #Stenched #TheEternal #TimMontana #Warlord
