Top 25 Albums of 2024
As usual, these are not ranked in order according to least and most favorite. Instead I have listed them in alphabetical order by artist name.
The top most image links to my playlist on Apple Music and each subsequent album art image links to a related Youtube video and I always try to use official channel videos wherever possible.
Standard yearly reminders: I only include albums in which I found the entirety of the release to be excellent and as such, I don’t include anything on the basis of just a single, and I don’t include rereleases, reissues, or remasters. Anything that isn’t a full original LP release, EP’s and remixes for example, are also excluded, though much to my own chagrin (only because my list is always already so large).
NOTES:
The top 25 is followed by the usual 5 honorable mentions.
Two of the artists on this list have two releases this year that share a single place. This is more or less because I couldn’t really decide which one to choose, so I just listed them parallel as to avoid them taking up an extra spot.
My Top 25
1
65daysofstatic
Disquiet and Utopian Frequencies
Both released September 6th
I’m stating this list of by showing my bias here since 65days tends to always make my year end list. For at least a decade and half they’ve been a core part of the background noise I keep on when I’m writing. One of their songs is actually a theme and a couple of their tracks buzz behind several chapters.
2
Amigo the Devil
Yours Until the War is Over
Released February 23rd
This was probably my favorite and most listened to album of 2024. I love this dude. The music, the honesty, and the humor—it’s all here. When it comes to modern day folk music, Amigo is the whole package and it doesn’t get much better than this.
3
Anciients
Beyond the Reach of the Sun
Released August 30th
Their third album is just proof that they’re not only reliable but also the they have a lot of creative life ahead of them. This album really builds and expands upon the first two and has made them a day one vinyl preorder for me. They pretty much always hit whatever marks they’re aiming for.
4
Bartees Strange
Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy
Released March 22nd
I can’t explain it. Bartees Strange really is something special. Everything is always new and he’s reliably unreliable. I love every release. No doubt his upcoming Horror release will make the next list.
5
Billie Eilish
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
Released May 17th
I don’t really need to explain this. Nor will I. If you don’t know, then what the fuck are you even doing and why do you claim to like music?
6
Black Tusk
The Way Forward
Released April 26th
My go-to for a chaotic blend of hardcore punk and black metal. Never fails to make me feel nostalgic—for chain smoking and vomiting cheap whiskey.
7
Caligula’s Horse
Charcoal Grace
Released January 26th
If you know, you know. If you don’t, what do you have to loose?
8
Childish Gambino
Atavista
Released May 13th
If this is his last, then it’s a great capstone on a breathtaking career in music. And it’ll make the perfect soundtrack going into a 2025 that’ll probably prove how America all of this really is.
Fuck DJT.
9
Crippled Black Phoenix
The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature
Released November 8th
Probably one of my top five favorite albums of 2024. CBP is one of those bands that I always have a hard time describing for people. Narratively and sonically cathartic, this album is a masterclass of what can happen when music is created unconstrained. You have to just give it a shot and hope you get it. It’s definitely something to behold.
10
Darkest Hour
Perpetual Terminal
Released February 23rd
There really is only one Darkest Hour and they never fail. This album is no exception. Legends and pros. Full fucking stop.
11
David Gilmore
Luck and Strange
Released September 6th
This wasn’t ever not going to make the list and I don’t care what anyone says. Gilmore is my number one, all time, favorite guitar player. There is life after Pink Floyd—no matter how shitty Waters wants to be about it—and Gilmore proves that with every single solo record. This is what it sounds like when guitars weep.
12
Doechii
Alligator Bites Never Heal
Released August 30th
If you don’t know me and are stumbling by here thinking this must be a mistake, that this album couldn’t possibly be on this list, then I just ask that you allow me to explain why your wrong.
Because you are.
Eat shit.
13
Eye Flys
Self-titled
Released January 26th
Without reservation, one of the best beatdowns I’ve had this past year. We can toast to the blood and shit and sweat, but maybe don’t drink whatever’s in that filthy goblet.
14
Gary Clark Jr.
JPEG RAW
Released March 22nd
That sound you hear is not your imagination. It’s one of the best bluesmen alive and his 4th album does nothing if not let the universe know that it’s going to require some truly deep magic on it’s part to supplant him.
15
God Is An Astronaut
Embers
Released September 6th
This is another one of those bands that I listen to for ambience while writing. They mix well with the rest of their peers in that category as they strike a nice balance between serenity and urgency without being overbearing which breaks up the 65daysofstatic tracks nicely. This new album is finds them doing what they do best and it’s a pretty relaxing auditory adventure.
16
Jesse Welles
Hells Welles and Patchwork
Released July 4th and September 20th respectively
Both albums released by the folk activist in 2024, basically act as accompaniment to his meteoric rise from a content creator growling and stumping under the powerlines, to full blown musical dissenter. At the risk of being that “I was here before it was cool” guy, I’ve been following Jesse for a long time and it’s been so heartwarming to see him finally getting the credit he deserves. In these rapidly deteriorating times, I’m super stoked everyone’s finding him and that he’s able to give a voice to those who struggle to find one.
17
Kendrick Lamar
GNX
Released November 22nd
If it bothers you, were not friends and probably won’t be.
Live more broadly or waste away.
18
Killer Mike
Michael & The Mighty Midnight Revival, Songs for Sinners and Saints
Released August 2nd
Second year in a row Mike made this list and once again he proves that he is far more than just one half of Run the Jewels. The man is an absolute beast of a storyteller. Sit down, maybe with a preroll or your favorite gummies, and let yourself be a receiver of ideas.
19
Mountain Caller
Chronicle II: Hypergenesis
Released January 26th
Mountain Caller is an excellent instrumental band.
If any of my beta readers or anyone from Mountainview stumbles across this—and you’ve either been in a workshop with me or been a mentor—it maybe of interest to you to know that, if my work-in-progress novel had a soundtrack, it would be Mountain Caller’s chronicles. I have a whole playlist that includes Chronicle: Prologue, Chronicle I: The Truth Seeker, and Chronicle II: Hypergenesis.
Thematically Mountain Caller is the musical equivalent of my novel. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, it’s fine, but maybe one day it will.
Hopefully Chronicle III isn’t far behind.
20
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
Is It The Clouds?
Released January 19th
My top five favorite guitarists of all time are as follows:
David Gilmore
John Frusciante
Gary Clark Jr.
Gina Gleason
Scott Lucas
Omar is number six. Other than that, I refuse to explain myself.
21
Omnigone
Feral
Released July 26th
One of my favorite of this generation’s punk bands and one of the best punk albums of 2024. This shit has been on repeat off and on since it came out. The farther into the dark our nation collapses, the more we’re going to need this shit.
Keep it on hand.
Fuck DJT.
22
Opeth
The Last Will and Testament
Released November 22nd
Anyone that knows me knows that not only is Opeth one of my all time favorite metal bands but they have no doubt heard the story of how it took me discovering them twice to get there, once with Orchid and then again, when Blackwater Park came out. It’s a long and beautifully sad story. They’re a great band to see live.
This however, is actually not one of my favorites of theirs.
Is it great? Yes.
But I am actually in that minority group of old school Opeth fans that were perfectly happy that they’d shed the last of their death metal roots and were running freely into progressive and psychedelic rock. I didn’t need the growls to come back and I’m kinda sad they found purchase here. You either love Sorceress or you hate it. I love it so fuck off.
It’s still great album though.
Here’s hoping they stop using AI on the monitors while on this tour. It’s super fucking disappointing.
23
Tierra Whack
WORLD WIDE WHACK
Released March 15th
If you have a better idea of what could go on this list instead, don’t bother. You’d be wrong.
24
Tyler, The Creator
CHROMAKOPIA
Released October 28th
Arguably the best rap album of the year. I’m not going to argue about it. Even if it’s not, it’s definitely one for the history books. This record will never, and should never, be forgotten.
25
Zeal & Ardor
GREIF
Released August 23rd
On their 4th album Zeal & Ardor find somer early creative ways to alter the formula that separates them from their contemporaries and give us a fantastic album in which it’s thematic elements complement and contradict one another in varying degrees.
It works so freaking well. This band is always a day one vinyl preorder for me.
Honorable Mentions
Basically while I’m working through the top 25, I make a separate list of the albums I really want on the list but can’t find room for, and then from that list I pick my five favorites.
As I’ve said, this whole process is extremely difficult for me and involves something they used to call Aspergers.
Below are those 5.
1
Father John Misty
Mahashmashana
Released November 22nd
The closest thing I’ll ever get to anything even remotely resembling a priest.
I came to the Tillman train late, when I saw him perform Pure Comedy on SNL in 2017 prior to that albums release, and I’m on it for the long haul. Love this dude.
2
Fit for An Autopsy
The Nothing That Is
Released October 25th
Any year in which Fit for An Autopsy releases and album, is a year in which they make the list. This is the first time I’ve ever had to regulate them to Honorable Mentions. Not because it’s not up to standards, it’s just that there was so much stuff and I had to make a tough call.
I’m still not sure it was the right one.
Either way their seventh album builds on the layered approach that they’ve previously taken with 2019’s The Sea of Tragic Beasts and 2022’s Oh What the Future Holds. The result is another death core album that reaches just far enough outside of the genre confines that it should be considered progressive death.
But genres are bullshit and this band is one of the best in the business.
3
Fish in a Birdcage
Mentors
Released December 20th
IYKYK.
Find somewhere comfy, turn the lights down, and chill the fuck out.
4
Tones And I
Beautifully Ordinary
Released August 2nd
I begrudge no one some good bops and I’d ask that no one begrudge me mine.
Because Toni made a whole fucking album full of them. Start to finish its hard not to catch myself bouncing to it.
5
Ingested
The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams
Released April 5th
A band that does a good job of balancing the expectations it they have for themselves as well as what their base has for them. They continue to outdo themselves and absolutely obliterate whatever mechanisms attempt their cacophonous results happen to pass through.
