By Greg Maki
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I feel like a broken record, saying it year after year, but man, what a year for heavy music. 2024 was full of genre- and subgenre-defining and defying releases by artists new, old and older—not to mention some of the highest profile moments we’ve seen in our space in some time, maybe ever. So let’s get right to it: Here are the best metal and hard rock albums that found their way into our ears in the past 12 months.
HONORABLE MENTION:
Bewitcher – “Spell Shock”
Cane Hill – “a piece of me i never let you find.”
Gatecreeper – “Dark Superstition”
Myles Kennedy – “The Art of Letting Go”
Stone Horses – “Redemption Chronicles”
10. Jerry Cantrell – “I Want Blood”
“Simulate the feel of all that’s true and real …”
Following the surprisingly upbeat and mellow 2021 album “Brighten,” Jerry Cantrell is back to his dark and brooding ways on his fourth solo album, “I Want Blood.” With its plodding riffs and layered vocals, Cantrell doesn’t stray far from the signature Alice in Chains sound—and why should he when he’s that band’s primary creative force? With just nine songs, the record is sharp and focused in a way AIC hasn’t felt since “Black Gives Way to Blue” (2009). With new music from that band nowhere in sight—six years and counting since its most recent album—“I Want Blood” fills that hole and then some.
Key tracks: “Vilified,” “Afterglow,” “I Want Blood”
9. Lucifer – “Lucifer V”
“Who will wake you from this nightmare?”
On its fifth effort, Lucifer continues to trade in the ‘70s-inspired occult rock sounds that have been its hallmark throughout the past 10 years. Now with a stable lineup after much turnover in its early days, the band sounds looser and more energetic than ever before on “Lucifer V,” which contains some of its best songs yet. Big riffs, scorching solos, catchy hooks and mesmerizing vocals—it’s a formula even Satan could love.
Key tracks: “At the Mortuary,” “Riding Reaper,” “A Coffin Has No Silver Lining”
8. SETYØURSAILS – “Bad Blood”
“Your hate changed me for the better …”
German band SETYØURSAILS isn’t well known here in North America, and I cannot begin to understand why. Sure, its brand of metalcore has been done by countless others over the past quarter century, but SETYØURSAILS does it so well that it reminds you why genres and subgenres come to be defined in the first place. Each of the 10 songs that make up the band’s second album is distinct and insanely catchy, while frontwoman Jules Mitch is a spark plug, alternately vitriolic, contemplative and playful. “Bad Blood” might be the most overlooked metal record of 2024.
Key tracks: “Best of Me,” “Dangerous,” “Bad Company”
7. Ihsahn – “Ihsahn”
“I veiled the face of what I had become …”
While best known as the driving force behind influential Norwegian black metal band Emperor, Ihsahn has been a solo artist for nearly two decades, and that part of his career is where his ambition flourishes. His self-titled eighth solo LP mixes and matches elements of progressive, symphonic and black metal with no desire to be pigeonholed into any one of those subgenres. Self-produced by Ihsahn and written and recorded over a period of three years, the album is cinematic in scope and one can feel how much this music means to him. A full orchestral version of the album heightens the emotions even further. More than just a record, “Ihsahn” is a powerful, moving piece of art.
Key tracks: “The Promethean Spark,” “Pilgrimage to Oblivion,” “At the Heart of All Things Broken”
6. Kittie – “Fire”
“Who do you think I am to let my kingdom fall?”
When you think comebacks in 2024, most will think immediately of Linkin Park. But let’s not forget the return of pioneering Canadian quartet Kittie, whose album “Fire,” its first since 2011, is almost shockingly good after so much time away. Pulling far more influence from groove, thrash and death metal—along with occasional forays into a more accessible hard rock sound—than the nu metal scene that gave birth to the band in the late ‘90s, this is a razor sharp modern metal record. The songs refuse to sit in one specific formula, and there isn’t a single wasted second across this lean, 35-minute album. Kittie’s comeback might not be one we deserve, considering the misogynistic treatment the band members often received during their initial run, but it surely is one we needed this year.
Key tracks: “Vultures,” “One Foot in the Grave,” “Eyes Wide Open”
5. Category 7 – “Category 7”
“Here is a true perspective/I’m known to be destructive …”
The recent cancellation of what was to be Category 7’s debut tour in early 2025 put a small damper on what otherwise has been a successful launch for this new metal “supergroup”—not every band gets a shoutout from James Hetfield. Featuring vocalist John Bush (Armored Saint, Anthrax), guitarists Phil Demmel (Kerry King, Machine Head) and Mike Orlando (Adrenaline Mob), bassist Jack Gibson (Exodus) and drummer Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall, Overkill), Category 7 is made up of not just names known to most metalheads but musicians who have put in the work over the decades. They’re all pros who probably didn’t need to start a new band, but sometimes the music—and the people you’ll be making it with—simply calls to you. Blending a bunch of different styles of metal, this self-titled debut hews closer to John Bush-era Anthrax than anything else on its members’ resumes, though that might be just because his voice is so identifiable. You won’t hear him, though, on the record’s shining moment, the instrumental “Etter Stormen,” an absolutely scorching and epic eight minutes of metal mastery.
Key tracks: “Land I Used to Love,” “Apple of Discord,” “Etter Stormen”
4. Blood Incantation – “Absolute Elsewhere”
“What does it mean to be human?”
Hearing the fourth studio LP from Denver, Colorado, death metal crew Blood Incantation is a revelatory experience. In fact, labeling the band as “death metal” feels like a disservice. And that’s not a slight against death metal; “Absolute Elsewhere” is just so much more, an audacious sci-fi epic and a rumination on the very nature of human consciousness. The album consists of just two songs, each divided into three “tablets,” for a total running time of about 43 minutes. So while it’s weighty and features long instrumental passages of both aggression and contemplation, it never overstays its welcome—experimental and daring yet concise compared to most other prog records. Blood Incantation has changed the game for death metal.
Key tracks: “The Stargate,” “The Message”
3. Knocked Loose – “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To”
“Strangled by every mistake …”
The third full-length from Knocked Loose rocketed the Kentucky hardcore act to stardom throughout 2024. “You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To” is 27 minutes of metallic fury, with frontman Bryan Garris’s tortured, high-pitched screams the perfect complement to the band’s bottom-heavy wall of massive riffs and pummeling rhythms, and two killer guest spots (Poppy and Chris Motionless of Motionless in White). Capping the year off with a Grammy nomination and a live appearance before an unsuspecting national TV audience, the ascension of Knocked Loose is a victory not just for the band itself but heavy music everywhere.
Key tracks: “Suffocate,” “Don’t Reach for Me,” “Sit & Mourn”
2. Judas Priest – “Invincible Shield”
“And nothing can stand in our way …”
After more than half a century, amid lineup changes and very real health concerns, Judas Priest is as mighty as ever. “Invincible Shield,” the band’s 19th studio record, proceeds in the “Painkiller”-esque vein of previous album “Firepower” (2018) while subtly throwing in a bit of a glossy, ‘80s-like sheen a la—gasp!—“Turbo” (1986). It feels like it shouldn’t work based on that description, yet it’s a triumph through and through, a celebration of the band’s long history and something of a redemption for its most maligned era. With Glenn Tipton still on board as a songwriter—and also credited with guitars, along with Richie Faulkner—while he battles Parkinson’s disease, the sound is unmistakably Priest—punched up via the crisp, modern production of touring guitarist Andy Sneap—even if the internal chemistry is not what it was for so many years. Continuing his reign as the undisputed Metal God, Rob Halford’s superhuman shriek has lost none of its power—what a gift he is, arguably the greatest voice in the history of metal. While nothing is assured, chatter seems to indicate that this is not the recording swan song for Priest. (An even 20 albums seems like a nice way to wrap things up.) But whatever comes next has a colossal act to follow in “Invincible Shield.”
Key tracks: “Panic Attack,” “The Serpent and the King,” “Invincible Shield”
1. Poppy – “Negative Spaces”
“Maybe I’m the one I’m running from …”
Everything came up Poppy in 2024, starting with collaborations with Bad Omens (“V.A.N.”) and Knocked Loose (“Suffocate,” which earned a Grammy nomination) and continuing through the release of her new album, “Negative Spaces.” The enigmatic performer has released an exorbitant amount of music in the past eight-plus years—six full-lengths and another half dozen EPs—and it now feels like it’s all been building to this newest collection of tunes. Working with producer Jordan Fish (ex-Bring Me the Horizon) and co-writer Stephen Harrison (House of Protection, formerly of Fever 333 and The Chariot), Poppy throws all the disparate genres she’s flirted with throughout her career—pop, industrial, metalcore, nu metal, alt rock and more—into the pot and stirs them up in thrilling fashion. She’s never written the same song twice, and on first listen, it’s impossible to predict where “Negative Spaces” will go next. But every twist and turn works exceedingly well, strengthening the overall work while continuing the journey of one of the most fascinating artists working in heavy music today.
Key tracks: “have you had enough?,” “they’re all around us,” “new way out”
