With the end of the year looming I want to start getting some of my favorite albums of 2024 posted. The problem? Some of my favorite albums, particularly in metal, are over at Nine Circles where I somehow have managed to stay writing since 2016. The solution? Get a post listing, linking, and highlighting some of those reviews over here at Consuming the Tangible. I won’t tell you where these albums rank on my list (you’ll have to check 9C in late December for that), and the plan is in early January to do a round of all my favorite music for the year in a manner similar to what I did back in 2021.
With that, let’s dig into some great metal.
What…you thought we weren’t going to review the new Opeth? Everyone and their brother were posting opinions on how good (or not) it was…even before they heard nothing more than the first single. Hell, I found one guy who devoted a 20-minute YouTube video talking about how he has “early access” and heard the whole album. Patent bullshit. But now we can talk. The Last Will and Testament is available to all. I had about a week of digital listening prior to release, but since then have soaked in the vinyl, the Dolby Atmos version, and the digital version more times than I care to admit, and the long and short of it is this: God DAMN, this record…(read the rest here)
There are bands that are slaves to genre, and bands beholden to none. The journey from the first to the second can often be rife with fractures both small and large, but thankfully Pennsylvania’s Crypt Sermon have charted a true path over the course of three albums. Their latest, The Stygian Rose, arrives with phantom tendrils that lead back to their doom and traditional roots, but the trail is littered with cast aside homages and influences, all prefixes abandoned in favor of the one, the only word that matters. Metal. Of the most righteous kind…(read the rest here)
Okay, right up front there’s stuff we need to get out of the way: of course I love It Beckons Us All……., the latest slab of unadulterated, 100% pure Grade-A metal from the legendary, the colossal, the towering behemoths that are individually Fenriz and Nocturno Culto (aka Ted), and collectively known as Darkthrone. This should not come as a surprise – I love every Darkthrone album. Okay, so right off the bat you’re now warned: there’s little to no objectivity to this review. But as I’ve said over and over again during the eight years I’ve been writing for the site, when do any of these reviews have any objectivity? With the air now clear, let’s dive in and see why I love this album so much. Deal?…(read the rest here)
There’s never enough time in the day for everything you love. That’s just a simple fact of life. Try as you might, you get caught in the current and float along, missing things as you struggle to keep your eyes for next solid object to carry you through the waves. And so it was that Liminal Shroud entered my orbit just late enough that I added All Virtues Ablaze to my 2022 list of albums that “should” have made my end of year list instead of my proper list. Mistake acknowledged, because it’s been a constant presence when I want great melodic black metal that caters to all my particular penchants. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, so here we are with Visions of Collapse, which pushes the band’s sonics even further into “Chris is gonna LOVE this” territory. Let’s jump into the “why’s” below…(read the rest here)
Here’s something you don’t read or hear about everyday: band hires a permanent keyboard player, then makes sure their new album isn’t so focused on filling every ounce of space in the mix. It’s refreshing, and one of the highlights Scottish sludgy progressive/post metal outfit DVNE have taken to heart on their third full length Voidkind. I wouldn’t say there are a bevy of musical surprises here, but what is here has been refined and distilled to the essence of the band’s identity, and continues the band’s ascent as one of the premier groups executing this kind of music…(read the rest here)
What even is psychedelic, anymore? Increasingly in the metal community, it’s short-hand for “weird shit to offset generic metal riffs” rather than anything truly exploratory, or takes you to another level of existence and works to create a mood, an altered experience over the course of an album’s length. PR’s gotta PR though, and after listening to so many bands and albums tagged with that particular word, it’s become wearying. But three minutes into the opening track of Muuntautuja, the sixth full-length from Finnish legends Oranssi Pazuzu, I felt transported, shifted to a plane of being at once disturbing and evocative, a sonic realm few bands can travel to. Yeah…psychedelic fits here…(read the rest here)
So many bands continue to expand, to get more ambitious and exploratory as they progress in their careers. Sometimes it works; oftentimes in the loose and shaggy folds of a new direction the spark that made the band come alive for many listeners gets lost along the way. Somerset, UK’s Sergeant Thunderhoof have a lot to prove after their barnburner of an album in 2022’s EOY charter This Sceptered Veil, and their approach was to get more compact, more focused on that album’s successes and distill the essence of everything I love about the band into 45 minutes of pure rock heaven. So yeah…The Ghost of Badon Hill is not only great, but possibly the best album the band have released to date. My only problem is going to be figuring out just how high to put it on my list come December…(read the rest here)
Well, THIS was a left-turn I don’t think anyone saw coming. Anyone who checked out 2020’s Hypnagogic Hallucinations from Italy’s Bedsore were aware of the subtle shades of prog and psychedelia coloring the band’s death metal, but that’s all they were: shades. It was more than enough to not only get me to pick up the vinyl, but add them to my favorite albums of 2020. And here we are four years later with Dreaming The Strife For Love, and those shades of prog and psychedelia have completely washed over the death metal. Not enough to make it unrecognizable, but enough that we have to question how to classify Bedsore moving forward. What’s NOT a question is the quality: for this particular prog-nerd it’s a stunning late year release that in the few weeks I’ve been listening has me struggling to find out exactly where it needs to sit on this year’s list…(read the rest here)
It’s truly been a great year for music; I was surprised at how many records – metal or otherwise – lifted me up this year. I may not be able to write about them all; in fact, there are a number of other albums I DID write about over at 9C in abbreviated form but didn’t include because I want to try and get to a full review over here. They’ll all find at least a mention when my full post comes out. Until then, check these out if you have a taste for metal and let me know what else you loved in 2024.
Consuming the Tangible 