Strawb's listianity - The top 15 albums from 2024 (and more)

A very strawb round up of the year

Every year there will be grouches who complain that there’s no good music (or movies/tv shows/etc), and every year I respond by saying that there’s always good music, and if you can’t find it that’s on you. That being said, I feel 2024 was better overall than the last few, with many albums that I enjoyed enough to listen to, until Bandcamp told me to pay up. I had a good time with the sheet this year, absquatulating to my heart’s content and not forcing myself to fill gaps. I burned myself out on hardcore punk in 2023, listening to countless mediocre records by adult men who lack any sort of intelligence (emotional or otherwise), and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. Towards the end of 2024 I made a conscious decision to ignore hardcore and screamo demos, despite any “great dudes, backed hard” comments tied to them, and it’s worked out wonderfully so far.

To 2025, to consuming good and bad art, and to overrating non-metal albums.

Honorable Mentions

HM5 - Theurgy - Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence - 7/10

Technical brutal death metal with some of the wildest guitar noises I’ve heard all year. Reminded me of Nithing with how many “what the fuck” moments pop up.

HM4 - Malignancy - Discontinued - 7/10

Brutal tech death that has actual memorable riffs. Four people at the top of their instrument class go hard for half an hour and leave you begging for more.

HM3 - Kendrick Lamar - GNX - 7/10

A much-needed return to fun beats and hard bars after his last therapy session of an album. Very close to making onto the proper list but the guest rappers bring it down.

HM2 - DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Sorcery - 8/10

Ol’ reliable hits us with a second album for the year, a tighter and more replayable affair than the first.

HM1 - Collapsed Skull - Your Father’s Rage Evaporated in the Sun - 8/10

Hard as nails powerviolence that mostly justifies its 33-minute length. The best Dylan Walker album since 2021’s Garden of Burning Apparitions.

Best EPs

5 - Imminent End - Flesh Exporter - 7/10

Down and dirty deathgrind. It riffs and blasts and rips through seven songs in ten minutes, with just enough variety and personality to stand out.

4 - Sewer Haul [fka Slovgh] - Emetic Fluid Transaction - 7/10

The platonic ideal of slamming goregrind. Quite the feat when there’s a seemingly endless supply of utter garbage in both genres.

3 - Shadow Pass - EP - 7/10

I’ll admit my bias since three of my friends are in this band but I truly feel that the songwriting here stands head and shoulders above your average screamo group. No gimmicks, no bullshit, not a second wasted.

2 - Zorn - Endless Funeral - 8/10

Five more tracks from the best blackened punk band out there. Real gremlin shit. The performances here are even better than their album from last year.

1 - Fake Dust - Tour Promo - 8/10

Possibly my most-played release of the year. All killer, no filler, insane riffs and drumming, feral vocals, a masterful distillation of what makes grindcore great in under four minutes.

Best Albums

15 - Pyrrhon - Exhaust - 8/10

As great as What Passes For Survival is, it’s a bit of a, well, exhausting listen, unlike this album. Diminishing the avant/jazzy bits was a great decision in my eyes.

14 - Replicant - Infinite Mortality - 8/10

What if From Wisdom to Hate-era Gorguts had bigger and nastier breakdowns? Replicant investigate, and what they find will SHOCK you.

13 - Horsebastard - Horsebastard - 8/10

Grindcore is fast, right? This is faster. And even faster than that. So absurd and so good that it forgives the ten year wait since their last album.

12 - Melt-Banana - 3+5 - 8/10

Album title equals score. A well-earned return to their spastic form after a couple albums that could almost pass for “pop.” Amazing how a band that’s older than I am is still finding ways to improve upon their unique sound.

11 - Bagus Shidqi - Njondhil Njondhal - 8/10

I got into jathilan (this style of Indonesian gamelan-based dance music designed to put you in a trance) over the summer thanks to a book detailing the history and impact of cassette tapes, particularly in countries where what music could be imported or played on the radio was strictly controlled. I can’t describe why I like this music other than it makes me feel good. Some of those vocal melodies make me ascend.

10 - Tenue - Arcos, Bóvedas, Pórticos - 8/10

Blackened screamo has had a good year overall and this one takes the cake. More screamo bands should try going this hard, the blasts and vocals are phenomenal. I would strongly recommend against screamo bands attempting a smooth jazz interlude like Tenue does on “Distracción” because there’s no way in hell they’d pull it off as well.

9 - Cosmic Putrefaction - Emerald Fires Atop the Farewell Mountains - 8/10

The better progressive death metal album that was released on October 4th (sorry Blood Incantation, I just do not like Pink Floyd like that). Improves upon their last album with heavy seven-string guitar riffs and a good vocal variety.

8 - Floating Points - Cascade - 8/10

If you’re listening to something and can’t tell if it’s techno or house, it’s probably tech house. And if it’s tech house, I will probably love it. The pacing is fantastic, throwing a progressive electronic breather towards the back half does wonders for it feeling like an “album” rather than a collection of songs.

7 - Confidence man - 3am (La La La) - 8/10

It seems that all Confidence Man needed to do to finally make a great album was leave Australia. A love letter to 90s dance music that doesn’t let its cheekiness get too much in the way of the hooks.

6 - Bad Bad Hats - Bad Bad Hats - 8/10

Ten pop songs that are addictive, snappy, and sweet like bubblegum. Power pop stays on top in 2024.

5 - Liquid Mike - Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot - 8/10

Big power pop melodies with big drop-tuned guitar riffs will always work for me. It’s a very easy genre to play but a very difficult one to master, and these guys have that special sauce.

4 - Invertebrates - Sick to Survive - 8/10

The kind of album that immediately reignites my love of punk, and reminds me that I’ll always be a punker at heart, not a metalhead. It’s everything I want out of an album like this, and doesn’t feel too short like most of the 14-minute hardcore/punk albums that have come out recently.

3 - Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God - 8/10

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to call this Ulcerate’s masterwork. Appears “dissodeath” but it’s actually quite harmonious and beautiful at times. A truly fantastically written and performed album, it’s a bit of a coin toss between this and Gigan for death metal album of the year.

2 - Gigan - Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus - 8/10

Tech grind stretched out to death metal song lengths. Extremely inventive, just about everything here is so entirely my shit there’s no way this wouldn’t place high on the list. I lose my mind every time he turns the ring modulator on.

1 - Bodysync - Nutty - 8/10

Another year, another pop/dance album at the top of my list. These guys simply get it when it comes to what makes dance music good and fun. Never fails to make me happy. I knew this was going to be my AOTY as soon as I heard it.

Best Songs

5 - Dazy - “Big End”

I’ve long been a fan of Dazy’s blend of power pop songwriting and shuffling alt-dance drums, and this is one of their best. Nothing new, just further honing the formula. This belongs in the credits of an early-2000s buddy comedy.

4 - Kendrick Lamar - “Squabble Up”

The most infectious song Kendrick has written since “Humble”; that song was a victory lap after his masterful To Pimp a Butterfly, and this one is a victory lap after having his Drake diss track hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Most of my plays of GNX started simply because I wanted to hear this song.

3 - Magdalena Bay - “Tunnel Vision”

The album this comes from is good but this song in particular consistently blows my mind. The verses are dissimilar enough from the chorus that it shouldn’t work, but somehow they pull it off. Chock full of hooks and personality.

2 - Pony - “Freezer”

One of a handful of loose singles from this year, and their best song by a country mile. Power pop perfection, plain and simple.

1 - Wishy - “Planet Popstar”

Always odd when the non-album single is better than most of the songs from the album. That main guitar riff sounds like something that I would come up with in my room and play it incessantly, so it’s nice that they also play it incessantly in the song.

Best non-2024

5 - Cryptopsy - Blasphemy Made Flesh

I’ve loved None So Vile for a long time but I might prefer this one. Pretty much the platonic ideal for brutal death metal.

4 - Plaids - Plaids

The best emocore album not released in the 80s by a band from Washington DC.

3 - Sepulcher - Mausoleum Tapestry

Death metal, thrash, and doom have never sounded this good together.

2 - Sheila E - The Glamorous Life

Somehow I didn’t know that the classic title track was Sheila E (and, by extension, Prince), nor did I know that the rest of the album is nearly as good.

1 - Todd Terje - It’s Album Time

I had been meaning to listen to this pretty much since it came out a decade ago, and thanks to a birthday gift from my sister I can confirm that it lives up to the hype. Not sure if space disco gets better than this.

Most Embarrassing Albums

5 - Kaiser Chiefs - Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album

Remember 2000s indie rock? They’re playing nu-disco now, and before you ask, no the singer does not have the vocal chops for such a thing.

4 - Linkin Park - From Zero

Specifically Mike Shinoda’s trap flow in the last song, but really the whole package.

3 - Mercury Rev - Born Horses

I’d listened to Deserter’s Songs back in the day but was not prepared for their current state, which is cringe-ass spoken word over chamber pop.

2 - Mötley Crüe - Cancelled

The title track is exactly as “incoherent boomer” as you’d expect and they cover “Fight for Your Right.” I don’t think I need to say anything else.

1 - Spaced - This is All We Ever Get

You know hardcore is in a bad state when “We have Scowl at home” gets signed to Revelation Records.