Anti-Peat’s Favorite Albums of 2024

There’s a through line here and its thoughts from the first year back music reviewing. In this case, it’s knowing I’d have probably missed The Dry Land without being part of this band of merry maniacs whose opinions I respect — or loudly disrespect if more amusing. That’d have been a shame as Huntsmen’s mix of sludge-meets-americana soundscapes and vocal dramatics is right up my alley. It’s emotional, interesting in its progressions, just melodic enough, and full of interesting contrasts. The Dry Land flits through styles — sludge, post-metal, black metal, folky doom, straight up country — and at no point does it feel less than a single cohesive story. Finding Huntsmen was a real perk to being at The Goat Review and the best part of the story? None of us even reviewed it. Our bad!

Music often weaves its magic upon me by creating connections in my brain, making the songs representative of other powerful images and ideas. With Moss Upon The Skull, it’s that sense of the primeval wild, and how we imagine our ancestors might have survived in a time of nature red in tooth and claw. There’s an expansive quality to Quest For The Secret Fire in which passages flow into each other seamlessly, letting you lose yourself in the music before twisted, claustrophobic melodies shock you back out. That dynamic, combined with the clever use of synths and quieter passages, adds a darkness and weirdness that elevates Moss Upon The Skull’s Florida-inspired take on death metal and inspires all those links in my mossy skull. It’s been a poor year for my taste in death metal, but the trip that is the Quest For The Secret Fire has been welcome indeed.

It’s been a strong year for French black metal, as you’ll see as you keep scrolling. I’d joke about how albums about French Republicanism were like buses but in fact, I was never waiting for them at all to begin with. More fool me. Griffon’s secret sauce on De Republica is very simple — melody. De Republica isn’t short on atmosphere and songwriting contrasts and all those things that keep the Anti-Peat charged with negative energy, but the one thing Griffon do outstandingly is melody. This is melodic black metal of a very satisfyingly varied and aggressive nature, with the Dissection worship mixed up with solid riffing and a number of short lived but atmospheric acoustic moments. A lot of the albums listed here have sneaked up on me this year, but I knew De Republica would be in the mix from the beginning.

Among the myriad ways I find to gently vex the powers that be here, one is constantly asking whether someone else is covering an album. It is a matter where I’m far too British for my own good. If I didn’t dilly-dally so, I’d have snaffled Pillar of Light before our newest member did and much fun I’d have had too as Caldera simply sounds colossal. It’s denser than an idiot made out of basalt, a melding of post-metal, sludge and doom designed to mimic the weight of mountains and grief. Needless to say Caldera exerts a powerful gravitational pull, one that I don’t try to escape. Who needs escape when you have angry men screaming ‘Goodnight’ over punishing riffs? It does start to wear thin towards the end of the 55 minute run time but that one flaw aside, Pillar of Light have released a great debut.

That fuss I make about this place stopping me from missing albums? I know because nobody mentioned Fossil Gardens and I almost missed it altogether. Look, this hasn’t been an on top of it year, alright? Hail Spirit Noir’s avant-garde, progressive approach to black metal borders on gothic territory with the crooning vocals and ambient breaks, but the core here is abundant tremolo abuse, thick layers of the stuff that gives rise to bright uplifting melodies. At its best, when the parts build on each other and create beautiful songs like “Curse You, Entropia”, Fossil Gardens should be far higher on this list. I haven’t yet decided whether Hail Spirit Noir gave enough of their best for that though, or whether it spends too much time on the quiet moments. As such, Honorable Mention sounds right for now. Sorry Chelsea Wolfe — the black spirit has once again overwhelmed me.

If there’s one album on this list that feels different to the others, it’s LVME’s Of Sinful Nature. Yes, I know it might be odd to say that about a black metal album on a black metal-centric list, but this isn’t my sort of black metal. I generally ignore the releases tagged dissonance. I’m not looking for thick productions or brutality. Of Sinful Nature focuses on all these things but won a place in my regular spins anyway. The why of that lies in the way the whole comes together to create this wriggling protean mass that draws you into its embrace and constantly pushes something new and interesting. It's full of strange melodies and interesting, almost jazzy drum fills. Of Sinful Nature is an album to lose yourself in — and a good reminder to keep looking outside of my comfort zone.

Here's another one I might have missed if not for being a writer here. In fact, I only discovered it because I was searching the site for high scores to see what everybody was overrating. However, I was immediately intrigued by Seth, particularly after the opening songs. Not that I didn’t enjoy the very direct aggression on “Et que Vive le Diable!” but La France des Maudits' peak happens when Seth slow down and leans on their symphonic side. They’re restrained with that element, using it for just a vital hint of melancholy and bombast on tracks like “Dans le Cœur un Poignard”. The stylistic change sets us up for the final onslaught of “Le Vin du Condamné” where Seth combined the two parts of their sound to great effect, proving themselves both superior song writers and album constructors. That’s what set them apart from the rest and got them on this list. Maybe Bobo didn’t overrate Seth all that much after all.

In the lead up to Borknagar’s Fall, I did a discography run in order to prepare. I’ve always had this fear of lacking the context to discuss music. Enjoyable as that run was, I didn’t need to know the past to appreciate the mix of driven fury and restrained force that Borknagar bring from the beginning of “Summits”. Yeah, it’s cool that some parts sound more like The Olden Domain than other recent releases but Fall stands on its own feet. All you need to know is that Fall is a mix of black metal and prog rock dedicated to losing yourself in the splendor of nature. It treads the line between virtuosity and simplicity in its musicianship, and opts for lengthy, ambitious compositions to get that atmosphere of nature at its most epic. And it rocks. I liked Fall then and like it more now — no history lessons required!

A cistvaen is a stone burial chamber popularly associated with Celtic saints and Cistvaen’s mix of atmoblack and doom metal does a spot on job of evoking the atmosphere you might associate with such places; somber, contemplative, and rough-hewn. It took me time to catch on to what Cistvaen are doing — I initially wrote this for the Last Call articles — but I've fallen in love with At Light's Demise over the last month. Cistvaen have all the traits of good atmoblack but combine that with powerful deathdoom melodies and interesting rhythms to create something far ahead of the pack. I can even hear the bass! At Light’s Demise might be the best atmoblack record of 2024, and hopefully a record label will give Cistvaen’s next release their backing.

Back before I was even officially a reviewer here, I wrote that there’s a limit to how much you could love such an obviously derivative record as Towards the Nightside. But what’s the limit on loving music that’s just great, listen after listen? Secrets are playing the music of mighty storms over the fjords and midnight sorceries in forbidden forests. They gallop with the magnetic fury of ghosts hunting in the sky, they brood with the sinister majesty of frostbitten mountains, and they snarl with the fury of fallen angels. Secrets do all the second wave black metal things and nail them in all their dark glory. It’s really that simple and every time I think it mightn’t be enough, some icy hook reminds me that it is. And if Towards the Nightside wears its influences openly, who cares? Secrets’ rendition of it is better than many of the originals.

Writing a blurb for something you’ve just reviewed is surprisingly difficult. How are you meant to distill those thoughts into something fresh and interesting when they’re still so fresh in your mind? The answer is to be like Thyrathen, and hurl yourself into the task whole heartedly. It’s that sense of exultant emotion that kept me listening to Lakonic and eventually persuaded me they should list. Thyrathen songs are at once both a whole bunch of fun, with their infectious energy and hooky melodies, and grand and evocative of there being something more. It’s a neat trick and one that I wish a lot more pagan metal bands would learn. The songs on Lakonic are more than mere rabble rousing tracks too thanks to the delicate and smart balancing of Thyrathen’s many instruments and the skill with which they’re played. Lakonic is a complete package and will keep getting spins for a long time.

I fell for Locrian’s End Terrain from the get go. The combination of wistful synth melody and grinding, agonized noise right at the start of “Chronoscapes” sent me straight to what passes for my happy place. While Locrian rarely hit me in so exactly a sweet spot for the rest of End Terrain, they still lure me in with their mix of dreamy soundscapes and nightmare jaggedness. I like End Terrain for its boldness and ambition too. It’s a mix of drone, krautrocky ambient, post-punk guitars and black metal ferocity that creates something akin to the hypnotic woe of doom metal without sounding anything like it. Another way of describing End Terrain is as the weird artsy loner cousin of all those poppy gothic metal albums we’re getting these days. If you’re up for beautiful decay and ugly remains, then Locrian have an album for you in End Terrain.

There's nothing like reviewing to clarify your taste. Mine is for bands that take a beauty and the beast approach to their sound, using enough of the sounds of extreme metal to give their work abrasiveness but also emphasizing melody. Sear Bliss get that. The ultra-melodic, trombone heavy atmoblack on Heavenly Down is just what the doctor ordered, especially when combined with a thick, gothic air of defiant melancholy. That said, many try this formula and fail — few succeed like Sear Bliss. Part of it is the aforementioned trombone — there’s times when Heavenly Down sounds like a funeral for an angel struck down in war. Most of it though is the songwriting and just nailing what they do. Last year, my list emphasized ambition over execution. Now, after analyzing the shit out of some thirty-odd albums, I’m going with what hits and long live mopey melodies with distorted vocals.

I tend to like death metal best when it’s combined with other ingredients. With Absolute Elsewhere, Blood Incantation have laid down a perfect example of how to make that mix work. Yes, I would enjoy their Morbid Angel influenced approach to death metal even if that’s as far as it went but add in that big prog synth element and you get a record that I loved instantly. Blood Incantation approach the combination less as a cocktail and more as a layered cake — first one flavor, then the other. First crazed death metal, then expansive, almost meditative synths, and then some prog guitar for good measure. People’s response to Absolute Elsewhere will usually be decided by whether they think the two flavours represent one amazing whole or some nasty mess. I believe it’s the first and that this is about as good as 2024 got. Blood Incantation have given us a multi-faceted tribute to the idea of cosmic madness that grooves, dreams, and straight up crushes.

My biggest question when reviewing Endtime Signals was whether I was letting history dictate my reaction. Whether I had found lasting excellence or just wanted to because it was Dark Tranquillity. Now I know. Endtime Signals might be my key to fully appreciating what Dark Tranquillity have become, for as much as I want The Gallery mk 2, these synth drenched bursts of melancholic mania are addictive. Songs like “Enforced Perspective” and "A Bleaker Sun" impress with their feverish energy but the best of Endtime Signals lies in its ballads. In particular “One Of Us Is Gone”, the tribute to former guitarist Fredrik Johansson’s untimely passing, will go down in their classics list for its sense of crushing hollowness and shimmering melodies. There’s a catharsis that comes with the sorrow that defines Endtime Signals, and that signal only grows stronger with every listen.