Culture
Suggested Listening 2024: Nicholas Kobe
By: Nicholas Kobe
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WOUB Culture’s Suggested Listening series highlights the music that resonated with WOUB Culture contributors and regional artists in 2024. Today we spotlight Nicholas Kobe, WOUB Culture correspondent.
The Top Ten Metal Albums of 2024, summed up in single sentences
In my very brief time in music journalism so far, I’ve realized there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” years for music. Metal in particular may sometimes disappoint in the mainstream, but thrive underground, or vice versa. 2024 however, was a success on all fronts for metal
After spending the year asking bands like Judas Priest, Journey, and Def Leppard to distill their ethos into one sentence, I figured it was only fair to impose the same challenge on myself. Here are my one-sentence reviews for some of the best metal albums of 2024.
Powerwolf – Wake Up The Wicked: Power metal titans Powerwolf have had their formula of campy, theatrical, spooky power metal figured out for a while now, and in my opinion, the band is still executing at a high level.
Saxon – Hell Fire and Damnation: Saxon started the year with some of their tightest and catchiest songs, establishing 2024’s theme of “classic bands produced by Andy Sneap still can put out some of their best material.” See Nicholas Kobe’s interview with Biff Byford of Saxon right here.
Kerry King – From Hell I Rise: Slayer guitarist Kerry King takes the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach to thrash metal; and with a fantastic lineup, particularly Mark Osegueda on vocals, From Hell I Rise is a promising debut that fills the Slayer-shaped hole in my heart. See Nicholas Kobe’s interview with Kerry King here.
Poppy – Negative Spaces: Negative Spaces takes what already works about Poppy’s ventures into metal, and refines it to an arena-filling scale without losing any of the creativity.
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere: Sci-Fi meets Prog meets Metal in a record that explodes with conceptual brilliance and technical proficiency in a way that warps the listeners into an outer-space world, rather than putting them into hyper-sleep.
Gatecreeper – Dark Superstition: This album satisfies my yearly craving for good old-fashioned, riff-fueled death metal on a big bloody slab; taken to the next level by simple, but memorable riffs, and a consistent pommelling drive through its brief runtime.
Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To: I’m sorry for what I said about Knocked Loose at Sonic Temple last year, this record’s relentless brutality proved these guys deserve to be at the forefront of modern hardcore.
Frail Body – Artificial Bouquet: Despite discovering this album the most recent out of anything on this list, Artificial Bouquet’s desperately shrill vocals, thundering bass, and use of ambient melodic moments make it a record that grows on me with every listen.
High On Fire – Cometh The Storm: Cometh The Storm was worth the wait, and delivers a “weight” of its own with dense, exhilarating sludge metal that serves as a reminder that High of Fire is in a league of its own.
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield: Few bands last 50 years, and even fewer do it without overstaying their welcome, but only Judas Priest can drop career highlight after career highlight 19 albums in.