That's Not Metal

We round off the best rock and metal albums of 2024 with lists from Sam and Mark, plus the all important and really incredibly great this year listener poll from all of you to really see who gets crowned.

The That's Not Metal Albums of the Year for 2024 begins, with Perran and Elliot giving their lists of so much that the best in metal, the underground and beyond had to offer.

Our final reviews bag of 2024 happens to feature the biggest rock comebacks of the year and underground heroes, with Linkin Park, The Cure, Opeth, Better Lovers, Many Eyes, Tribulation & Neon Nightmare getting discussed.

Linkin Park 31:45
The Cure 1:01:04
Opeth 1:25:59
Better Lovers 1:49:56
Many Eyes 2:09:03
Tribulation 2:20:08
Neon Nightmare 2:41:53

2025 singles really start coming with Spiritbox, Architects, Killswitch Engage, Machine Head, and Coheed and Cambria, W.A.S.P. go full mental, and we talk the "bad" albums we got into bands on.

Releases:
Opeth - The Last Will and Testament
Body Count - Merciless
Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More
Ocean Grove - Oddworld
Polar - Nova
Fellowship - The Skies Above Eternity
Coilguns - Odd Love
Múr - Múr
Defeated Sanity - Chronicles of Lunacy
Gutless - High Impact Violence
Ante-Inferno - Death’s Soliloquy
Panzerfaust - The Suns of Perdition - Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion
Kruelty - Profane Usurpation
Mallavora - Echoes
Doro - Rock ‘N’ Roll Xmas Party

We hit that point of the year where we have Grammy nominations and Download headliners to either complain about or debunk complaints about, and a mega live review as Sepultura's farewell tour finally arrives on UK shores.

Releases:
Linkin Park - From Zero
As I Lay Dying - Through Storms Ahead
Poppy - Negative Spaces
Full of Hell / Andrew Nolan - Scraping the Divine
Primal Code - Opaque Fixation
Thy Catafalque - XII: A Gyönyörü Álmok Ezután Jönnek
Spider God - Possess the Devil
Chelsea Wolfe - Unbound
Less Than Jake - Uncharted
Mammoth Grinder - Undying Spectral Resonance
Deadbody / Tribal Gaze - Deadbody / Tribal Gaze
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come Obliterated

We once again convene for a review of the UK’s biggest underground event at Damnation Festival and witness legendary returns from Dragged Into Sunlight, Nails, Cradle of Filth, Bleeding Through, Inter Arma, and so many other TNM faves absolutely tearing it up.

Elliot's audio is beaming in through the internet on this one, but we'll be back sounding proper soon.

Releases:
Make Them Suffer - Make Them Suffer
Sólstafir - Hin helga kvol
State Champs - State Champs
The Arrival Note - …Home is So Far From Here
The Body - The Crying Out of Things
Thank - I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed
Klone - The Unseen
Massacre - Necrolution
Yoth Iria - Blazing Inferno
Paysage d’Hiver - Die Berge
Counterparts - Heaven Let Them Die

We convene on Halloween night to talk yet more big reunions at big American rock festivals, the news that Ithaca are calling it a day, and give the definitive answer on whether bands wearing their own shirts is cool or not and whether we're too focused on the size of bands in appreciating their art.

Releases:
Jerry Cantrell - I Want Blood
Japandroids - Fate & Alcohol
Pinhead Gunpowder - Unt
Grand Magus - Sunraven
Ensiferum - Winter Storm
Swallow the Sun - Shining
Harvestman - Triptych: Part Three
Serpent Column - Tassel of Ares
Better Lovers - Highly Irresponsible
Devin Townsend - PowerNerd
Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came
Kids In Glass Houses - Pigs In Glass Houses
Amyl and the Sniffers - Cartoon Darkness
Meryl Streek - Songs for the Deceased
Pom Pom Squad - Mirror Starts Moving Without Me
Fit for an Autopsy - The Nothing That Is
Pøltergeist - Nachtmusik
Butcher - On Fowl of Tyrant Wing
Gaerea - Coma
Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean
Black Curse - Burning In Celestial Poison
Living Gate - Suffer As One
Bunuel - Mansuetude
Behemoth - XXX Years Ov Blasphemy
Enforced - A Leap Into the Dark
Pest Control - Year of the Pest
Fifteen Rhema - Drawing Upon Lost Time
A Year Ago Today - A Year Ago Today
The Cure - Songs of a Lost World
Cane Hill - a piece of me i never let you find
Planes Mistaken for Stars - Do You Still Love Me?
Thirdface - Ministerial Cafeteria
Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Aeternum
Neon Nightmare - Faded Dream
Bombus - Your Blood
Nachtmystium - Blight Privilege
New Skeletal Faces - Until the Night
Mitochondrion - Vitriseptome

We face some of our toughest Album Club challenges yet: Matchbox 20's Ken anthems Yourself or Someone Like You, ponder how Attila's About That Life achieved some kind of longevity, cheer originality in hardcore on Twitching Tongues' In Love There is No Law, and the troubling eternal mystique of Acid Bath's When the Kite String Pops.

This episode was originally published July 2023 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

We convene for conversations on 2024's most monolithic potential landmark records, reviewing Blood Incantation, Undeath, Balance and Composure, High Vis, Touché Amoré, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Chat Pile, as well as scratching our heads at festival clues and Acid Bath(?!), and a toast to the late Paul Di'Anno.

Blood Incantation 45:58
Undeath 1:22:56
Balance and Composure 1:45:20
High Vis 2:00:55
Touché Amoré 2:19:41
Oranssi Pazuzu 2:42:46
Chat Pile 3:09:54

On this Album Club episode we return to the scene of the crime to again preview some of the must-see sets at this year's Damnation Festival: Cradle of Filth's old school origins with The Principle of Evil Made Flesh, Ne Obliviscaris' Citadel, Discharge's Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, and Dragged Into Sunlight's terrifying Hatred for Mankind.