2024 has been a year filled with some of the most diverse album releases for many to enjoy. Everything from Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N Sweet, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, or Knocked Loose’s You Wont Go Before You’re Supposed To. It’s been a packed year, metal included has had one lively year between new albums like POST HUMAN:NeXt GeN from Bring Me The Horizon and farewell tours like The Death of Issues tour. So how do these monumental albums turn out?  

For tight grooves and an album that turned hate into rage, Death is Little More punches its way into #4. A little more than half an hour of fast chunky riffs, screams that you can feel the rage boiling through your speakers. Some of the most extreme yet funny callouts, and catchy clean choruses. That in parallel with the lead vocalist balances superbly. Not to mention how the drummer is the backup vocalist and his dirty vocals r just as nearly as his cleans. Death is Little Morewhile heavy like grief, isn’t just a chunk-fest. Sections of songs flow back and forth from almost shoegaze esc and let the atmosphere create itself. Songs like “Blames Burden” or “Inhale The Grief” feature some of the most heavy but melodically complex compositions, all to have sections that transition into a softer feel and sound. Just to come back and give a beautifully heavy chorus.  

While not heavy and filled with screams you could hear from monumental vocalists, The Crucible of Life takes heavy and spins it on its head in the number three slot. Lyrically the album is filled with talks about past and present love, self-improvement, and evil exes. The vocalists manage to tie this all together with emphatic powerful clean singing that could rival Beyonce or Taylor Swift. Guitars serve groovy low-tuned riffs that with the drum get you moving along even when they are plain and simple like white bread. Dreamy cleans that compliment the vocals and drums, and leads so catchy you might as well be listening to a Taylor Swift song. Not to say the guitarist isn’t able to shred as in the track “Love & Co” the guitarist goes from voicing out a moving passage he ending it with a devastating sweep run. While not stereotypically heavy, what the album lacks in raw smackdown, it makes up for in bouncy “heavy” fun. 

Not only does this make it for a spot in one of the heaviest albums of 2024, The Black shoots out of the dark as the most grandiose at number two. With climatically low guitars and deep gutturals that will blow you away, the album mixes in a fair amount of violin and orchestra work. Featuring frequent use of string quartets and the singer’s own violin playing. This plays well into the album as even songs where the vocalist can be found screaming for most of the track. His violin steps in and shines through along with his distorted vocals on heavy tracks like “Continuum”. Shining their own light when paired with the vocalist’s almost ethereal clean singing, as when both his chest voice and mixed voice climb to those higher octaves. Drives the amplitude and shear rawness throughout the whole album. Techniques like the vocalist screaming into the pickups of his violin, turn The Black into one of the most sonic, complete, and raw albums of the year.   

Taking us home to number one, You Wont Go Before You’re Supposed To cover all in its absolutely rushing atmosphere. Not only does the album already create a mood from the opening song only to dive deeper and show off with blast beats, visceral screams, and dense guitar work. In just 33 minutes the album hammers into listeners the pure destruction and ferocity with songs like “Suffocate”, featuring Poppy. Combining breakdowns and drum patterns commonly found in regeton. Tracks like “Moss Covers All/Take Me Home” where in a combined three minutes become the single most unholy and creepy tracks of the year. Monumental continuations of songs like “SlaughterHouse 2”, part two responding to Motionless in White’s 2023 track. Where Brian Garis of Knocked Loose formerly added his lines in breakdowns to the former song “SlaughterHouse”. The roles are flipped as Motionless in White’s singer features himself in the same wayGaris did in his song. Leading near the end with “Sit & Mourn” where not only do we have sheer rage, but we have an eerie ambiance created early in the song. Lyrics of loss and mourning and promise, only to be left with an emotionally, and physically heavy bridge breakdown for the last minute and a half of the song. Ending with a call and response, leaving the singer to reflect on himself.