2024 was a difficult year at first. It started very slow and apart from a few forlorn underground pieces, there wasn’t much that struck the fancy of the old geezers over at the RMR Review Desk. So, how were we ever going to field a genuine Top 10 series with no good material to show for? But fear naught, by late spring the crop started showing some promising results. And – boy – the harvest took a somber turn with many a malevolent piece hitting the desk of the surly Guardian ov the Review Pipe.
So, here we are. Dark times result in desperate measures. You’ll find no lightly structured folk pieces this time, but a playlist much more extreme than in former years. And there’s nothing we can do about that, especially when the material ominously glows in the terrible obscurity of the otherworld. And we never thought that a prog piece could yield a record oozing with viciously evil and acid-laced contempt, worthy of any daemon-ridden Black Metal piece. Brace yerselves for the onslaught.
Behold the first record, we’re opening the gate to the left!
Hell:On – Shaman
Nobody does it like Hell:On. Usually, shaman-esque shenanigans won’t fly over here. It just won’t fit and the sitar usually makes things worse. Now, exceptions confirm the rulez, as we say. Shaman here boasts one of the best fusions of oriental music and Black Metal that appeared on this zine to date. An almost flawless execution, to use vile corporate speak for once. And that indeed is a new experience for this here crew. So, hail to Hell:On and their newsflash from shamania-center.
Veilburner – The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom
Take Cover! An assault of daemonic musings in dissonance and – total metallic bedlam is roaring your way. The band achieved this feat with an astoundingly precise and sometimes otherworldly musical geekery. And that fascinated this here crew to no end. Veilburner‘s wild excursions into the vilest depths of occultism led to a record that should be on every metal connoisseur’s collection. A thing that often sounds like one of Indiana Jones’ worst fever dreams that won’t let you leave until you have consumed the last grimy drop of its terrible wisdom. A worthy addendum to this year’s Top Ten list. You have been warned.
Corpus Diavolis – Elixiria Ekstasis
One of the best cuts of French Black Metal hit us through the newest abomination Corpus Diavolis threw at us. A piece all about goaty fornication wrapped in the dense shrouds of old school ’90s BM. An intensely wild and terrible description of invocations and dark blasphemous rituals that may appear in liberal France but would be banned in more Puritan necks of this world. I hope this band doesn’t plan any tour over in the US. The stakes would already be burning before they even arrive.
Opeth – The Last Will and Testament
Who ever said that progressive Metal should be part of Metal o’ The Light, right? Well, this here record exudes a hissy viciousness, a drip-drip of acid contempt that stems from greed. Almost vampiric attitudes prevail, ready to suck the riches out of the dead Patriarch’s remaining possessions. Or are there any? Well, the stellar tale will enlighten you. Murderous intrigue and family mystique straight ahead in an evil robe of hate and mistrust await you. Opeth created an unusually geeky masterpiece that we could not resist. And neither will you.
Slaughter The Giant – Abomination
Okay. The RMR crew expected to be brutalized. The things we do for the annual Top 10, right? But boy, Slaughter the Giant took their newest witches’ brew to the next level. And then some. All these shenanigans in the fiends cathedral merited a proper metal response. And this specific Abomination answered with a vile assault on our eardrums, to the point of foundering in a ferocious onslaught of sharp metal shards and general bedlam. The outcome was one of the best Extreme Metal records currently on offer over at the RMR office tower. Buckle up and hit play!
Isolert – Wounds of Desolation
If you look for a trve Black Metal band in their prime, then Isolert is your go-to act. The band unceremoniously slammed a monolithic piece of excellently carved extremes onto the RMR zine. An avalanche of ’90s Scandinavian fare with a modern flair that we could not resist. From somewhat scratchy beginnings to refined Black Metal geekery. And this is why our Greek brethren appear for the second time on one of our Top 10 Record lists.
Kanonenfieber – Die Urkatastrophe
This band might not cover any of the occult undercurrents many of the other albums on this here 2024 Top 10 list do. But, by Jove, the depictions of the atrocities the WWI meatgrinder entailed for sure deserve the left-hand path. The roaringly ferocious and often gloomily powerful Black and Blackened Death Metal smartly fits into those tales of blood and barbarity. A wall of sound ready to crush yer ass if you don’t pay attention. They had huge guns mounted on rails 100 years back. Unleash hell, as they said back in time. But have a care, on the other side, the fiend will wait for your mangled soul. Welcome to slaughterhouse purgatory!
Eternal Storm – A Giant Bound to Fall
Is the damned thing too long for its own good? At some 69 minutes, it sure is. Yet, the record managed to hold our attention with stellar Atmospheric and Melodic Death Metal. A wildcard to greater things to come later. This sophomore piece stole the prize from its debut album and took off to score a new record. A tour-de-force that will teach the mean minions of metal how delicate, dreamy, prog-laden, and – at the same time – unreasonably harsh Doom Death Metal ought to sound. The RMR crew had trouble dissecting themselves from the wall of sound and return back to reality.
Seth – La France des Maudits
Black Metal in French is irresistible to this crew. Especially when Seth set their sights on a new album. Now that they ceased salivating over burning churches and such, they turned their attention to the cursed ones of France. A succession of the damned, chiseled out by the immense BM prowess this band brings to the stage. This devilish offering ruthlessly searches for the arrival of Lucifer, no less. An excellent succession of the best Black Metal 2024 had on offer. So, let’s all go check things in Paris. Perhaps we find the fiend somewhere. But then, I hear that he’s residing in the UK currently.
Fleshgod Apocalypse – Opera
For a long time, nobody was quite certain if Fleshgod Apocalypse would ever return to the stage. Francesco Paoli‘s recovery from his climbing accident took its time and conflicting reports filtered out of the walled city of Perugia. So, imagine the surprise of the RMR crew when – suddenly – a violent thunderclap of a record hit our turntable. Opera contains everything FA should have done already – eons ago. A fine, genuine fury, a laser-focused theme and production, new-found boundless energy, and – finally – an immersive use of Veronica Bordacchini‘s many talents. That brought about one of the best, if not THE best record this band ever produced. A truly worthy winner of the top spot of this year’s Top 10 contest.
Near Misses Ov the Mighty Ten!
A top 10 never is an exact science. If your zine is worth its salt, you get more good material than will finally fit into these narrow listings. And we would be remiss not to dispense honorable mentions to those bands that only just about missed the elitist few. So, here goes, in no particular order.
SIG:AR:TYR – Citadel of Stars
When Daemonskald speaks, the RMR Review Desk starts to listen. Black Metal is not only rituals and daemons on a rampage, it is also a genre used to describe epochs, landscapes, and fantasy lore. SIG:AR:TYR sent us on a journey to the stars, underlined with one of the juiciest Atmospheric Black Metal offerings to appear on this zine to date. As always, you’ll find a pig-headed slab of juicy metal. But at the same time, you won’t be able to dissect yourself from its hypnotic pull. A powerful beacon to the famed citadel of stars.
Vredehammer – God Slayer
The hammer of wrath brought us a piece worth of its calling. From beginning to end the record beats you to a pulp with its merciless pounding of Brutal Metalz Vrom Ze Underworld. This thing feels like a bunch of sledgehammers working on you for almost 40 minutes of airplay. A whole friggin’ army of orcs assaulting your granite-adorned abode. A relentless battering of your eardrums with scarce attempts to melodics. In short, this feels like a mid-tempo metal avalanche en route to visit with their brethren from Anaal Nathrakh. Take that.
Oceans of Slumber – Where Gods Fear To Speak
There’s some light in this very dark list of terrible metal hammer blows. And at the outset, the thing might sound too weak for the terrors of 2024. More progressive than spiteful Death Metal, the record nonetheless sports its bite. And it magnanimously waltzes down its set path of intricately set patterns, running roughshod over a number of styles, moods, and flavors. One of the revelations of this year’s roster on RMR. One that truly deserves a spot on this here list. Oh, and for the ‘not harsh enough’ crowd: The piece goes to a place where gods fear to speak. Sounds like a hellish abode, and not of this world. But maybe that’s just me?
Panzerchrist – Maleficium Part I
The witch hunters are on the prowl again. This time with a record that feels like a slow-motion trainwreck moving towards you that you cannot escape. A record that builds its bile slowly and spews it straight on you at the worst possible moment. This – thing is as malevolent as the story it tells. And it will leave you frightened and cold in its terrible wake once it is done with you. In other words, a perfect candidate for this here dark and terrible list of metal gems from hell.
Darkend – Viaticum
Sometimes it seems to me that the closer you move to the Vatican, the better the Black Metal becomes. Darkend yet again slammed a beast of a record onto our review pipe. A barebone and astonishingly powerful mix of modern and traditional Scandinavian fare recorded in good old lo-fi style. True rituals to send the dead on their journey to hell with enough nourishment to make it to their very own purgatory. Be careful what you wish for, right?
The Letdown of 2024!
Wormed – Omegon
Many pints of ink were spilled by extreme music protagonists on the shiny Death Metal riches some obscure Spanish act was about to dispense in 2024. Yet somehow, Wormed only managed to unleash an alien handful of records since 1998. This – in itself – isn’t bad karma, of course. The record, however, was about as graceful as a rioting space ogre on cold turkey in search of the next shot of spice. You will get refined Brutal Death Metal at a high level of technicality, true. But the overladen delivery is as cold as outer space with a ton of gibberish thrown at you for good measure. And this treatment didn’t somehow catapult this crew into metallic rapture that other corners of the metal multiverse so glowingly announced. Much to the contrary.