As it was happening, 2024 didn’t feel like it made a lot of sense musically, but now that I look back on it, everything seems to have fallen into its proper place. Be it because of my lethargy on getting to new releases that I’d turn out to love or because of late-in-the-year releases shaking things up at the last minute, my album rankings have changed quite a lot; finally though, they feel correct. For what it’s worth, my number one pick hasn’t changed since it released back in January.
Honorable mentions
Synestia & Disembodied Tyrant – The Poetic Edda: Do you like symphonic deathcore like everyone and their mom seems to nowadays? Well, then you’d be remiss to not listen to the best symphonic deathcore release ever.
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: If you knew the shit I’d gotten here for liking this album, you’d know I wouldn’t be putting it here unless I actually did like it. It’s good progressive pop; deal with it, Christopher.
Earthshine – Surrounded by Our Friends: My band released music last year, and it is without a doubt the music I love most from 2024. I think it’s pretty good.
10. Hideous Divinity – Unextinct
Style: technical brutal death metal, dissonant death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Nile, Hate Eternal, Rivers of Nihil
Rapid and hefty guitars, ever-blasting drums, and foundational bass riffage combine on the Italian death metalers fifth output to make Unextinct not only one of the best albums of the year but the best in Hideous Divinity’s ever-growing discography of progressive and technical brutal death metal. From the dynamic vocals and frenetic solos to the dissonant bent that several tracks take, Unextinct is an album made by mature musicians, confident in their craft now more than a dozen years into their career, and yet still willing to take risks. If you too were disappointed by Nile’s 2024 output and instead wished for something more daring and modern, look no further than Unextinct.
Recommended tracks: Quasi-Sentient; More Than Many, Never One; Leben ohne Feuer
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
9. Replicant – Infinite Mortality
Style: technical/dissonant death metal, avant-garde metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Imperial Triumphant, Machine Head
As much as I’ve grown to love the headier branches of dissonant death metal a la Ulcerate and Ad Nauseam in the past few years, there is still nothing quite so satisfying to me as the absolutely bone-crushing and neck-snapping heft of dissonant bands like Replicant, and believe me, there’s a lot more mutilative metaphors I could use to describe Infinite Mortality. The guitar tone is face-melting; the drums are leg-breaking and can probably be detected on seismographs; and the vocals, more so than anything, are absolutely throat-shredding. Mike Gonclaves delivers bellow after bellow, each more gruesomely engrossing than the last, and as the vocals make you just morbidly curious enough to pull you in, the rest of Replicant readies riffage that would make any other band’s heaviest moments seem anorexic. I didn’t know if Replicant could top 2021’s Malignant Reality but Infinite Mortality did just that.
Recommended tracks: Acid Mirror, Orgasm of Bereavement, Pain Enduring, Planet of Skin
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
8. Ὁπλίτης – Παραμαινομένη
Style: avant-garde black metal, dissonant black metal, mathcore, zeuhl (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Plebeian Grandstand, Frontierer
Like some sort of nefarious skin walker, Ὁπλίτης always manages to take whatever genres it sets its sights upon and infect them with their unique brand of vitriolic black metal. On Παραμαινομένη those genres were mathcore and zeuhl, and the raging, ragged heap of skin and bones that results from the transmutation may just be Ὁπλίτης’s best work yet. From the spastic woodwind solos that adorn nearly every track to the incessant deluge of pounding drums and equally percussive riffage that distinguish the album from every other black metal release of 2024, Παραμαινομένη is an album hitherto unmatched in both sound and intensity.
Recommended tracks: Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ παραμαινομένη ἐμοῦ…; Συμμαινόμεναι Διονύσῳ Ἐλευθέριῳ
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | original review
7. Convulsing – Perdurance
Style: dissonant death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ulcerate, Ad Nauseam, Gorguts
Now I know I just said that I prefer the down and dirty style of dissodeath that bands like Replicant serve up over the headier stuff, but on Perdurance multi-instrumentalist Brendan Sloan did the impossible and truly fused the two. Over the course of the album, we see Convulsing unfurl into its true form, shifting from the knotted and dense riffage of bands like Replicant and Heaving Earth into the more melody-driven and assonant (if you will) style of bands like Ulcerate and later Gorguts. As such, we listeners are not left wanting as Perdurance simply delivers all that any fan of dissodeath loves.
Recommended tracks: Inner Oceans, Flayed, Shattered Temples, Endurance
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | original review
6. Resuscitate – Immortality Complex
Style: progressive death metal, metalcore, djent (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Between the Buried and Me, Periphery, Native Construct, Vildhjarta
I have something of a reputation as a -core kid here at The Subway, and although I’m too young to have actually grown up in the scene, I do have a soft spot in my heart for everything -core; after all, it’s how I got into metal music in the first place. That being said, metalcore and all its derivatives have been appearing less on my year end lists, and now it seems that Resuscitate is the only holdout in a list surrounded by dissonant and progressive death metal. Thankfully, Immortality Complex more than earns its place; the exceptional vocals both clean and harsh take what is already exceedingly well done modern metalcore and add an addictive emotional edge that keeps me coming back for more. While I still have my issues with its zanier songwriting choices, Immortality Complex remains one of last year’s best albums.
Recommended tracks: Immortality Complex, Radiating the Disease, Reclamation
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
5. Misanthropy – The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance
Style: technical death metal, brutal death metal, progressive death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Archspire, Analepsy, Atheist, Devourment
This right here is why we here at The Progressive Subway wait until the year is actually over to publish our best of the year lists. Sure, our practice in patience may prevent us from truly squeezing every last click out of our readership, but it helps us in highlighting stellar end of year releases like that of Misanthropy’s The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance. Pulling from nigh every corner of the death metal spectrum, Misanthropy’s swinging, intense, and wholly organic strain of technical death metal is a salve to any earaches induced by overproduced and lifeless technical DAW-core. There are riffs abound, influenced by works as diverse as the gallops and dueling guitars of Iron Maiden to the tremolo picking and trills of Ad Nauseam. And did I mention the whole thing was recorded live? If that doesn’t grab you hook, line, and sinker I don’t know what will.
Recommended tracks: Of Sulking and the Wrathful, A Cure for the Pestilence, Descent, Sepulcher
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
4. Iotunn – Kinship
Style: progressive death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Amorphis, In Mourning, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium
Iotunn’s Kinship is a masterclass in the style of expansive prog death that they unveiled on their debut. Jón Aldará’s towering vocals steal the spotlight with their powerful growls, dramatic belts, and ethereal cleans. The Gräs brothers’ guitar work is equally captivating, weaving triumphant leads, intricate solos, and atmospheric textures into cohesive and exhilarating longform compositions. Anchored by a superb rhythm section and memorable motifs, Kinship delivers an immersive journey through Iotunn’s cosmic soundscapes. With this release, Iotunn should be firmly placed amongst the up and coming progressive death metal elite.
Recommended tracks: Kinship Elegiac, Mistland, Twilight, Earth to Sky
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
3. In Vain – Solemn
Style: melodic death metal, progressive metal, black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Insomnium, In Mourning, Disillusion, Countless Skies
By this point I’m beating an unfortunate ungulate by telling you that if you didn’t listen to Solemn in 2024 and you call yourself a fan of progressive death metal, you’re either doing yourself a major disservice or you’re lying. And it’s not just me; damn near everyone I see online loves this album for its decadent and triumphant choruses, boisterous horn and string sections, and searing blackened death moments. Further differentiating it from the crowd of downtrodden melodic/progressive death metal is its truly uplifting tone that’ll have you raising your fist in bliss as yet another masterfully composed chorus washes over you. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir, but if you haven’t yet, you must hear In Vain’s Solemn.
Recommended tracks: Shadows Flap Their Black Wings, Beyond the Pale, Eternal Waves, Watch For Me on the Mountain
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
2. Orgone – Pleroma
Style: progressive death metal, dissonant death metal, folk, chamber music (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Gorguts, Maudlin of the Well, Ephel Duath
Despite the adamant praise my colleague Zach lobbed at this release, I—in my infinite wisdom—decided to only listen to it around a month ago; oh, what a fool I was. How does one go about describing a release such as Pleroma? For one, it is progressive death metal unlike anything else in the sense that it eschews the Opethian riff heritage for a lineage that can instead be traced back to bands like Gorguts and Demilich. By infusing the sounds of early dissodeath with folk and chamber music a la Maudlin of the Well, Ephel Duath, and chiller Hypno5e, Orgone claims a vast terrain of musical soundscape entirely unexplored by anything I’m aware of. You may notice I struggle to describe this album without comparison, but that is really because I lack the appropriate vocabulary to truly describe it. Simply put, Pleroma must be heard to be understood.
Recommended tracks: Trawling the Depths, Schemes of Fulfillment
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | original review
1. Vitriol – Suffer & Become
Style: brutal death metal, progressive death metal, technical death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Hate Eternal, Cattle Decapitation, Job for a Cowboy, Rivers of Nihil
What is there to say about Suffer & Become that I haven’t already said? If you follow us, you already know how much I love this album, but allow me to reiterate; this is brutal death metal made with the singular purpose of delivering the album’s message. Every element from the deeply poetic lyrics to the aching and starkly unique leadwork to the vicious, nigh inhuman drumming deliver the message of evolution through hardship. As I said in my review, this feels like an album that Vitriol needed to make, as though their artistic integrity demanded it of them, and damn am I glad it did. Suffer & Become is my favorite album in years, probably since Warforged’s I: Voice. Now that’s saying something.
Recommended tracks: Shame and its Afterbirth, The Isolating Lie of Learning Another
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | original review
