We've only just hit the halfway mark of 2024, but it's already been a hell of a year for heavy music.
So far, foundational masters like Kerry King and Judas Priest have leaned extra hard into the fiery sounds that they're known and loved for, while bands like Bring Me the Horizon and Gatecreeper have redefined themselves in boldly inventive new ways.
While it's a year that's seen the return of avant outsiders like Julie Christmas and stoner magnates High on Fire, a rising crop of hardcore, grind, melodeath and prog-doom architects are making it clear that the next generation of heavy musicmakers are here for the long haul.
Below you'll find the 20 best albums — and a few EPs — of the year so far.
Bad Omens - CONCRETE JUNGLE [THE OST]
Though it technically exists as more of an "expansion pack" of remixes, acoustic renditions, live tracks and collaborations than a proper follow-up to 2022's much-loved The Death of Peace of Mind, CONCRETE JUNGLE still surges with an inspired, industrial-driven darkness and total wow moments like the Poppy-assisted "V.A.N." and the HEALTH and SWARM team-up "THE DRAIN."
The whole thing makes us even more excited for when Bad Omens officially level up.
BRAT - Social Grace
With respect to BRAT's self-stylized "bimboviolence" aesthetic, the NOLA quartet's first full-length is kind of the aural equivalent of getting slammed in the face repeatedly with Pop Star Barbie's all-glitter mic stand.
Social Grace is masterfully high-kicking, death-grind heaviness, with its steel-twisting riffs, shrapnel-loaded blasts, and Liz Selfish's gutturally eco-conscious growl fully determined to pulverize you into a hyper-pink paste.
Bring Me the Horizon - POST HUMAN: NEx GEn
Bring Me the Horizon faced serious growing pains during the making of their much-delayed NeX GEn project — with longtime keyboardist-producer Jordan Fish bouncing from the band near the end of 2023. But the U.K. act turned those inner struggles into one of their strongest, and easily weirdest, releases yet.
Pop rock, metalcore, nu-grooves, drum-and-bass, self-help mantras and BMTH's very own AI character all helped thrust the band towards a fascinating, future-forward NeX GEn.
Candy - It's Inside You
ZakQuiram howls that the "connection never felt so real" on It's Inside You standout "LOVE LIKE SNOW," and sure enough, across Candy's subversively noise-switched, collab-heavy third full-length release, the Virginia foursome have linked together their strongest set of songs yet.
From barbed boxing-glove thug-core to dangerously synth-frazzled industrial metal to Novocain-flavored nocturna-pop, it's an adventurous next stage for Candy.
Julie Christmas - Ridiculous and Full of Blood
Julie Christmas puts on a powerhouse performance throughout Ridiculous and Full of Blood. The former Made Out of Babies singer's first solo album in 13 years — on which she's backed by members of Cult of Luna, Candiria, Spotlights and more — showcases a mix of baby-talk breathiness, 0-to-60 shriek-fests and heavy, melancholic crooning, all while spanning styles from anthemic art-metal to "Broadway Showcore."
Christmas sums up the album's adventurous spirit on Blood's opening "Not Enough": "No rest for the wicked."
Civerous - Maze Envy
On Maze Envy's gloom-spiraling "Shrouded in Crystals," vocalist Lord Foul gurgles from the perspective of someone unhealthily transfixed on the jewels found deep within a "kaleidoscope hellscape." That thematic obsession speaks volumes, in relation to the labyrinthian death-doom tunneling of Civerous' brilliant sophom*ore album.
It's a thing of terrifying beauty that demands a closer inspection.
Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project
Nearly 20 years since the Human Air Raid Siren delivered his last solo LP, Tyranny of Souls, Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson delivered the fantastical Mandrake Project.
Thematically, the concept record concerns a character named Dr. Necropolis trying to pull a Lazarus move with a family member. Musically, it brings a chunkier edge than modern-day Maiden, though Dickinson also gets wonderfully weird through some Spaghetti-western galloping ("Resurrection Man"), prog-power ballads and the occasional Peruvian pipe breakdown ("Eternity Has Failed").
ERRA - CURE
The title track to progressive metalcore vets ERRA's sixth album technically presents the band at its most straightforward, in terms of its time signatures.
Don't get it twisted, though. The bombastic, percussive complexity of melancholy bangers like "Cure," "Rumor of Light" or "Idle Wild" prove that the Alabama group's syncopated chops — dialed up to 11 pretty much the whole way through — are still jaw-droppingly off the chain.
Escuela Grind – DDEEAATTHHMMEETTAALL
Escuela Grind's latest entry in their series of "genre" EPs certainly hits up some death-metal standbys — the bone-sawing guitar trilling, the grotesquely-slammed down double-kick beats, that guest spot from motherf*cking Barney Greenway.
However, the group's hyper-specific, four-song punishment ritual isn't just ticking the boxes or playing out like a passionless pastiche. Rather, it's a brief but brutal love letter to one of many subgenres coursing through the quartet's DNA.
Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
The thought of Full of Hell ever sounding "approachable" is utterly comical — the East Coast noise-grind unit's sixth album once again excels in a fracturous, EKG-spiking, blast-intensive cacophony. And surely, is there any pairing more perfectly unsettling than Dylan Walker's fully-shredded vocals and the song title "Vomiting Glass"?
Even when they pump the brakes ever so-slightly, like on Coagulated Bliss' title track, FOH can't help but make an ostensibly funk-adjacent drum break sound like a 180-mph aneurysm.
Gatecreeper – Dark Superstition
Following the blast-panicked mania of 2021's Unexpected Reality EP, the Arizona death-metal stalwarts learned to let their Dark Superstition breathe.
Working alongside Dismember's Fred Etsby, the band now excel in an extra-hooky kind of melodeath ("Oblivion"), while confidently catchy, mid-tempo anthems like "Dark Star" and "The Black Curtain" suggest Sonoran death metal might be ready for the stadium circuit.
High on Fire - Cometh the Storm
A much-welcomed return from the Pacific Northwest's most faithfully stoned-out metal trio, Cometh the Storm is a maelstrom of overdriven hypno-riffs, cascading drums, and familiarly throaty bellows from the mighty Matt Pike.
Alongside bassist Jeff Matz and new drummer Coady Willis, Pike braves the choppiest of bong waters to salute the Green Goddess and assorted holy stoners ("Lambsbread"), while nevertheless keeping a gravely bloodshot eye on the nuclear warmongers in our midst ("Cometh the Storm").
Imminence - The Black
Imminence's fifth-full-length is pretty bleak. Or maybe that's "pretty" and "bleak."
On the one hand, the Swedish outfit's latest album is impeccably performed — from its precision-force metalcore riffs to its weeping string arrangements. But lyrically, it gets dark while contemplating the herd-like mentality of humanity, or how we might all just be spiraling towards modern life's unavoidable abyss.
Artistically, it's one of brightest spots in Imminence catalog, though it nevertheless draws us further and further into the black.
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
55 years in, Judas Priest delivered a top-to-bottom banger that confidently struts through various eras — think Painkiller's fury mixed with the "Sinner" style moto-prog Seventies flair, and even a bit of Turbo-charged synth work.
Modern-day Rob Halford still harnesses an eagle screech like no other, while the classic twin-guitar harmonies are asheavy as ever. Shields tend to be defensive tools, but Priest are absolutely on the attack here.
Kerry King – From Hell I Rise
Unrelenting thrash nastiness forged in the fires of hell, Kerry King's first post-Slayer project is exactly what fans hoped it would be. King's never going to change the way he leans into his speedily ominous metal riffa*ge, or wham-wonky soloing, but when he's naturally working with a sound as iconic as his, why would he?
From Hell I Rise, which boasts an all-star thrash lineup in addition to King, is impossibly both brutally intense and extremely comforting — like a f*cked-up conversation with an old friend.
Knocked Loose – You Won't Go Before You're Supposed to
Coming off that Coachella-dominating performance in 2023, Knocked Loose could have taken the obvious route and gone extra mainstream with their next release. The good news is that the Kentucky quintet's populist-pleasing You Won't Go Before You're Supposed to still goes plenty hard.
Between the mercilessly chest-collapsing bounces ("Piece by Piece"), disgustingly heavy collabs with Poppy ("Suffocate"), and at least one riff that sounds like a million swarming hornets coming in for the kill ("Blinding Faith"), Knocked Loose once again cemented their place as one of heavy music's most menacingly impressive groups.
A Perfect Circle, Primus and Puscifer – Sessanta E.P.P.P.
This year, Maynard James Keenan rang in his 60th birthday with a bite-sized, but epic-in-scope three-way split between himself and some of his closest friends and collaborators.
The Sessanta E.P.P.P. runs the gamut from incandescent goth-glam (APC) to eye-twitching alt-metal oddness (Puscifer) to beyond-the-outer-limits space prog (Primus). Unique approaches all, but they're united in their quirky, thrilling Maynardness.
SeeYouSpaceCowboy – Coup de Grâce
Ever the genre-twisters, SeeYouSpaceCowboy set out to fuse the "innate emotion of post-hardcore with the cathartic essence of dancing and allure of cabaret/burlesque" for their third album, Coup de Grâce.
You get that, for sure, with the San Diego quintet detonating their most savagely sassy breakdowns yet beneath sensual, candle-lit sax wailing ("Allow Us to Set the Scene"), while vocalist Connie Sgarbossa also belted out '05-grade mall-goth anthems alongside Spiritbox's Courtney LaPlante.
Umbra Vitae – Light of Death
Though the term "supergroup" gets tossed around too often, in the case of Umbra Vitae — the side project from members of Converge, Twitching Tongues, the Red Chord, and more — we're more than willing to tip our hats to their collectively punishing pedigree.
Like 2020's Shadow of Life, the band's sophom*ore collection is an off-the-bone assault of thrash-and-OSDM-celebrating havoc, though it's likewise a deeper set, unafraid to undulate Spanish guitar moodiness or dissonant symphony noise into the mix.
Upon Stone – Dead Mother Moon
Following a pair of EP releases, Los Angeles' Upon Stone finally whipped themselves up into a full-length frenzy for debut album Dead Mother Moon.
The melodeath vibes are strong, with the SoCal quintet drilling into extra raw, but heart-achingly HM-2-dimed guitar melodies. While already on point, the heartily-screamed co-sign from Shadows Fall vocalist Brian Fair on "Paradise Failed" poises Upon Stone as contenders for the American underground metal throne.
Chelsea Wolfe – She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Inspired by a series of hypnosis-therapy sessions, Chelsea Wolfe communed with her past, present and future selves for her sensational seventh full-length release.
After "bathing in the blood of who [she] used to be," Wolfe took the strongest elements of her gothic-metal background and contorted them towards a bold path forward, via trip-hop twitchiness ("House of Self Undoing") and goosebump-inducing ASMR whispering.
