Top 20 Best Metal Albums of 2024
With 2024 about to come to a close, it is that time for me to start posting my best of lists. I decided to start with my favorite metal albums I listened to this year. I was a bit hesitant about the Toonaleaves album because it is more folk than metal but I decided to anyways because there definitely is more metal influence on Ballads of Innocence and Experience than on By the Tree, The Bards... .
I definitely had a difficult time which would be my number one pick between the 2nd album by the metal supergroup Exit Eden and the Brazilian symphonic metal band Soulwitch. I love both albums a lot, and they get lots of play time in my boombox or streaming when I am working during the week. After giving up on Nightwish this year because of their crap album Yesterwynde which was 100x more boring than Human :ll: Nature, I decided to peruse Spotify to find some bands that would satisfy my symphonic metal needs. I got lucky with Soulwitch. Principium is definitely the album Nightwish should have put out. I said what I said, and totally not sorry for it.
Thanks to Spotify (no love for the business end of things though), I discovered the pirate metal band Pirate Queen (also first all female pirate metal band) and their debut album Ghosts. I have been listening to that album daily. The title track is such a banger. Hard not to get that song stuck in you head.
In recent weeks, I discovered some metal bands from Spain (Indar, Celtian, and Xeria). Indar has only so far released a handful of singles but I love every single they cranked out. Celtian is a folk/metal band. Their music is not too different from the Celtic folk/metal sounds of Twilight Blooming from Sichuan province in China expect they sing in Spanish. My absolute favorite of the three bands is the symphonic metal band Xeria. Really great music. Love both albums.
I don't know why I never checked out the folk metal sounds of Ensiferum but I did now especially since Madeleine from my absolute favorite metal band Eleine sings on "Scars of My Heart". Winter Storm is a fabulous folk/metal album.
Outside of the symphonic and folk/metal sounds, I totally dug the death metal sounds of Emasculator whose band members are from both the US and Prague. Really heavy AF. Not on my list, I wanted to keep it to 20, melodic death metal band Warbells' new EP Ruin was a great introduction to their music for me. They get an honorary mention for entertaining me with Ruin.
I definitely will be posting my favorite non-2024 releases that I listened to this year sometime this week because those bands and their albums definitely deserves some love and a shout out from me (i.e Eleine, Ignea, Deathless Legacy).
02. Soulwitch: Principium
03. Pirate Queen: Ghosts
04. Ensiferum: Winter Storm
05. Alterium: Of War and Flames
06. Xeria: Fuego
07. League of Distortion: Galvanize
08. Oceans of Slumber: Where God Fear to Speak
09. Visions of Atlantis: Pirates II: Armada
10. Emasculators: The Disfigured and The Divine
11. Xandria:Universal Tales
12. Eleanor: Effigy of the Flowing Tears
13. Celtian: Secretos de Armory Muerte
14. Chimeras: Silent Cries in the Stifling Haze
15.Tears of Tragedy: Wonder Arts
16. Ad Infinitum: Abyss
17. Geladen: Echoes of Defiance
18. DengeL: The Garden of Earthly Delights Part 2
19. Toonaleaves: Ballads of Innocence and Experience
20. Huri Hau: Radical Dreamers
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