Best Music of 2024

YouTube Music (and being more "thrifty" in retirement) continues to influence my purchasing habits, limiting me to things that I can tell I will want many listens into the future. I always want to reward the artists with an album purchase in that scenario, as that provides more revenue than streaming. It might be even more lucrative if I were to attend concerts and buy merch, but alas I did not attend any shows this year.

So, while my purchase count is quite a bit lower this year than in previous years, there are really no duds in the mix. Unsurprisingly my favorites tend to be progressive and heavy, but as usual a couple "surprises" managed to crack the top 6 this year.

There's a lot to love in the honorable mentions as well: the discordant and chaotic blackened orchestral metal release Opera by Fleshgod Apocalypse very nearly made the list this year, as did what I consider to be Body Count's best album ever. There's a decent amount of symphonic metal in there as well, from mainstays like Nightwish, Ad Infinitum, and Amaranthe. I also wanted to give a special shout out to Master Boot Record for releasing an incredible instrumental metal album that's infused with a ton of technical throwback, perfect for someone like who grew up a computer nerd in the 80's.

Listen and enjoy!

Top 6 albums of the year

#6: It Leads to This by The Pineapple Thief

This has been a super strong year for new music to my ears. It's surprising even to me that this album is one of my favorites of the year, but it sits this far back in the list. When I let YouTube Music just play a "for you" mix in my car, sooner rather than later a Pineapple Thief song will show up in the list and bring a smile to my face.

The Pineapple Thief, for those who aren't familiar with them, is a progressive rock band much whose closest sibling to me is Porcupine Tree. Not only does Bruce Soord's vocals strike a more than passing resemblance to Porcupine Tree front-man Steven Wilson, but they also share one of my favorite modern-day drummers in Gavin Harrison. Their style is a little more mellow than Porcupine Tree, so staying firmly into the rock side of progressive rock vs. metal.

The opening track Put It Right sets the stage perfectly with an opening of just Bruce and a piano, then layering in the percussion and guitars. Every track on the album is solid, and my favorite (if just barely) is the title track. If you find yourself in need of more modern progressive rock, there's hardly a better choice than backfilling your catalog with The Pineapple Thief, starting with this album. They also released an EP this year, so lots to love!

#5: To Build a Sea by Lolli Wren

I have been following The Fairy Voice Mother for a while now. She's a singer/vocal coach who hit my radar mostly because of her song reaction and analysis videos. I did notice that when she did videos of herself singing that she was quite talented there as well.

In what shouldn't have been a surprise move to me, she has pivoted her YouTube following into a burgeoning musical career. Releasing songs under the name Lolli Wren, she's provided an album full of impressive vocal gymnastics, backed primarily alternative pop/rock that's just entrancing to listen to. Here's hoping she catapults into super-stardom, as she's most definitely deserving.

#4: Dragon in Harmony by Marcin

It's hard to be a guitar music fan without knowing about Polyphia, who exploded in popularity in 2022 with their album Remember That You Will Die, due in no small part to songs like Playing God and Ego Death (the latter featuring one of their guitar heroes Steve Vai). A big part of that popularity is the charismatic "front man" (can you even be called that in an instrumental band?) Tim Henson, who was all over YouTube with videos showing guitar play-throughs and being interviewed by music luminaries like Rick Beato.

I haven't watched America's Got Talent in quite a long time, but apparently Marcin Patrzalek (who just goes by Marcin now) went decently far in Season 14 about 5 years ago, right after turning 18. Marcin's brand of instrumental guitar music tends to rely not only on acoustic guitar but also using the body of the guitar as his percussion section in a style that's clearly inspired by flamenco guitarists. He once said "I bought the whole guitar, I'm going to use the whole guitar!" Personally, I found Marcin by way of his collaboration with Tim Henson on the song Classical Dragon. (This also led me to discover other YouTube guitar wizards like Ichika Nito, who I'm sure will end up on a future album list.)

Marcin's first major-release album is filled with a fantastic mix of solo work, collaborations, and some excellent re-interpretations/covers like Heart-Shaped Box (Nirvana), Smooth Operator (Sade), and Clair de Lune (Claude Debussy). It's a must-listen for anybody who loves guitar.

#3: Charcoal Grace by Caligula's Horse

I am a huge fan of Caligula's Horse. I discovered them shortly into 2016 with their album Bloom, which surely would've been placed onto my 2015 list had I heard it in time. I was blown away by my first introduction to them with the official video for Firelight, opening me up to the wealth of progressive rock and metal bands hailing from Australia.

Their newest release may be my favorite yet from them. It's packed with incredible songs throughout, including the 24-minute title track which is split into four movements, but it was really the video for Golem that had set up the hype way back in November of 2023. Releasing in January, it was the first 2024 album I picked up this year, and it's been in constant rotation ever since. It's excellent as a driving accompaniment in the car, if you can prevent yourself from going a bit to fast during the heavier sections. 😄

#2: Melodies of Atonement by Leprous

Leprous has been a band that I've enjoyed for several years, but I've always felt they were held back by a muddy production quality. There is incredible talent here, especially vocalist Einar Solberg, but really this latest album was the one that put them over the top for me. This would've easily been my #1 album of the year had it not been for Opeth. But that's a story for the next entry.

The entire band is really fantastically talented, as you'd expect for a progressive metal band, but it's really Einar's vocal prowess that entrances the listener. This is their most experimental album, and it blends not just progressive metal and rock, but also electronica and pop moments that is reminiscent of Australia's Voyager, but pushed even further to the edges (and heavier to boot). The production here is near-perfect, accompanied by incredible music videos. I would really love to see them catapult into mainstream popularity, beyond the niche of prog metal listeners. They really do have what it takes, and now just need the hard work and luck to make the leap. Plus? That transition from the absolutely beastly guttural scream into the "la la la"s in Like a Sunken Ship always makes me grin with juxtaposed joy. I defy you not to be curious then astonished by the structure of the song.

#1: The Last Will and Testament by Opeth

It's been nearly two decades since Opeth lead vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt has used non-clean vocals on an album, on the 2008 album Watershed. At the time, he credited the change to the fact that he'd been getting tired of death metal, and wanted to shift to a sound that was more aligned with his favorite 70's style progressive rock albums. The release of 2011's Heritage showed that the band could still be dark and heavy without the death vocals, and acted as a transition album of sorts that really split the community's opinions. The 2014 followup Pale Communion felt like it completed the transition to a straight 70's style progressive rock style. It even saw the return of Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson to do backup vocals as well as mix the album. The two have had a decades long friendship cemented in their love of 70's progressive rock. Steven got into the Opeth orbit by meeting Mikael and convincing him to let him produce what became their magnum opus record Blackwater Park, as well as the two albums that followed it (Deliverance and Damnation).

We have to go back even further to 1999's Still Life to see the last time Opeth has put out a concept record. So it was a double surprise then when The Last Will and Testament was announced to be both a concept record, as well as the return of Mikael's legendary growled vocals. Some had suggested that the transition in the 2010s to pure clean vocals was due to his inability to effectively growl, but as this new album illustrates, his growling technique is still in absolute top form.

The concept of the album is thus: a patriarch chooses his death and will reading as the time to reveal all the dirty secrets of the family. The tracks are simply titled §1 through §7, plus an epilogue song titled "A Story Never Told". The growled vocals on the album tend to represent the patriarch, with the clean vocals picking up the story telling aspects. A truly brilliant choice was to bring on Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull to give spoken word performances as the scumbag lawyer. Of course, Ian lends his incredible flute performances to several key moments in the album, which already leverages orchestral elements. The album is the perfect blend of Opeth's older aggression and later groovy, even jazzy, progressive rock style. The pinnacle of this for me is §5, which is both incredibly complex and layered, but still audibly quite approachable.

I don't think anybody other than Opeth could've written an album like this, as successfully as this, and they have amazingly told this incredible story without a single track even hitting the 8 minute mark. This has done an incredible job overshadowing some other fantastic releases for the year to land in my #1 spot. Picking three songs was quite a challenge, as this album yearns to be experienced from front to back.