This list isn't to say I don't have more than ten favorite albums in 2024 because this year has been chocked full of great music. Maybe I'm just more in tune or something; I don't know. A couple years ago, I remember doing this list and saying up front that I felt like I spent way more time listening to older music. Not this year; I could barely keep up, and every time I thought I had this list finished, something else came my way and made me rethink everything. Here then, is perhaps the most tentative top-ten list I've done since 2013, when I kind of bitched out and did eleven.
Note: I did away with the numbering because the order is interchangeable and impossible to commit to. That said, Numbers one and two are definitely my favorite albums of the year.
• Zeal and Ardor - GREIF
The first Zeal and Ardor record written by the band, not just founder Manuel Gagneux, and it's fantastic. Very different from previous albums, but that's the thing that impresses me the most about this band - the evolution. From a mission statement that would have worn out its welcome in the hands of most others, Manuel has shepherded this project to new heights, and there's never a moment I'm not 100% enthralled.
Buy HERE.
• Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Another left-hand turn from Ms. Wolfe! There are moments on this record that remind me of mid-90s trip-hop, a la Poe's first record. There are also moments where I feel the dark echo chamber of Chelsea Wolfe's mind, and it continues to draw me into her strange, Stoner-brand Desert Psyche Rock. There's something so expressive about every aspect of the music Ms. Wolfe creates - I'm literally transported into what feels like a very clearly defined psychic space, each album its own specific time and place. Her world only briefly syncs up with the 'real,' which makes listening feel like I am literally catching onto pieces of her consciousness. It feels intimate and a little scary at times, like a lot of the best music does.
Buy HERE.
• Shellac - To All Trains
Yeah, like the final Shellac album wasn't going to be on this list. I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the band's previous record, and this one... shit, I've had a lot of internal trouble accepting this record simply because it's release dovetailed with the death of one of the most important persons in modern music. A Chicago native, like myself, and what's more, one of the last bastions of integrity turned up to eleven, Steve Albini. But Shellac's character is something etched into me across the divide since 2000's Thousand Hurts, the first Shellac record I bought and fell deeply in love with. The cynicism, the in-jokes that long-time listeners fall in on simply by having gotten to know these strange men who play jagged, angular analog indie rock with fists... it's all just such a pleasure, and I will miss it for the rest of my days.
Buy HERE.
• Moon Wizard - Sirens
• The Cure - Songs For A Lost World
• Amigo The Devil - Yours Until the War Is Over
• Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves
• Oranssi Pazzuzu - Muuntautuja
Oranssi Pazuzu's Muuntautuja is the first record the band has released since I became a fan. I'm still not familiar with their entire body of work to date; it was late last year that the members of Baroness put this band on my radar by way of their "What's in My Bag?" on the Amoeba Music YouTube channel, but the moment I hit play on their Live At Roadburn album from 2017, I was hooked. I suppose their off-kilter approach to psychedelic Black Metal scratches the same itch for me that Blut Aus Nord does; the songs are all cohesive but unlike anything I've ever heard before. This was especially true the first time I hit PLAY on the track "Valotus". It was late; I was buzzed, had headphones on, and didn't quite understand what exactly I was listening to. It was music, yes, but there was such a "Cosmic Occult" element to the sounds and arranging that I wasn't sure how most of what I was hearing was being made or orchestrated. I knew at that exact moment this would be an album that would earn my devotion by confounding me, by pushing the boundaries of what I like and listen to and comprehend about music.
• Drug Church - Prude
I was only really familiar with Patrick Kindlon's name as one of the two writers on We Can Never Go Home, the comic/graphic novel released by Black Mask Comics back in 2014. After that, I followed him through a few more series, not realizing this band I started hearing about counted him as singer. When my good friend Jacob recommended 2022's Hygiene that year, it slowly became a go-to, and as it did, my research revealed Kindlon's involvement. Which, of course, only made me love Drug Church more. Now, with Prude, I can honestly say Kindlon's lyrics are among my favorites out there at the moment. Lyrics aren't something I adhere to easily; I like a lot of music where I couldn't sing along if I tried. But Prude is sharp and astute from the jump, and every track kicks ass musically, as well.
Buy HERE.
• Ministry - HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES
I don't know how Uncle Al keeps doing it, but Ministry continues to not just be relevant ideologically, but musically as well. Goddamn, if this isn't my favorite album of theirs since 2008's The Last Sucker. The samples are spot-on, the lyrics angry but (mostly) thought-provoking, and the songs blaze a path from track one through to the end, with penultimate track "Cult of Suffering" and its guest vocals by Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz weighing in as my favorite song of the year.
Buy HERE.
