Here they are: the objectively best heavy albums of the year! New stuff is on the playlist on Spotify, and you can support To The Teeth via Patreon and Bandcamp (get a patch!).

There are a few new things out too, check out the regular Spotify playlist!

Blood Incantation made the best heavy album of 2024! They're on top of an aggregated list of almost 300 albums that were on international end of the year lists. Blood Incantation follow in the footsteps of Tomb Mold (2023), Chat Pile (2022), Archspire (2021), Oranssi Pazuzu (2020), Blood Incantation (2019), Yob (2018), Converge (2017) and Vektor (2016).

And it was an easy win. Incredibly easy. I mean, we all live in bubbles. Sometimes they merge, some snap, but rarely do we traverse them. But well, we've been living together in one motherfucking huge bubble in space this year, it appears, because the number one hasn't been so overwhelmingly number one-ish before and I think no one is surprised. A complete landslide: Absolute Elsewhere was absolutely everywhere. They had a record amount of points, were on a record amount of lists and were only rivalled by.. (checks lists) well, Blood Incantation in 2019, when they won with Hidden History of the Human Race. Blood Incantation is the first band that won this thing twice! Their previous record Starspawn ended up third place in 2016.

And again: this time there was no competition. Not from the number two, the venerable Opeth, who fought a fierce battle with the even venerabler Judas Priest at place three. Chat Pile, the up-and-comers from Oklahoma City ánd winners of 2022, were knocking at the door of the top three with just one measly point short. The rest of the top ten stayed at a clear distance.

Another American winner, another death metal band, and again it’s the heavenly shredding dorks from Colorado. But while last year was for the death metalheads overall, this year seems to have been proggy. For starters, Blood Incantation’s Absolute Elsewhere is at least as much prog as it is death metal, and Opeth is (back to being) just a prog band that now and then adds death metal elements. And then there’s bands like Oranssi Pazuzu, Ihsahn, Ulcerate, Lowen and Pyrrhon quite high in the list too. Other prog acts like Caligula’s Horse, Bedsore and Anciients penetrated the top-100.

Also notable is that black metal seems to decline a little bit, at least on these kind of popularity contests. You could still call Oranssi Pazuzu black I guess, and you could argue that there's still some left in Ihsahn's material. But you have to dive all the way down to #20 to see the first true black metal band, with Paysage d'Hiver. Much further down there's Gaerea (#39) and Darkthrone (#47).

The highest placed band with the least amount of votes is Wormed. Their Omegon was on just two lists, but that was enough to have them on place #24. Chelsea Wolfe made #21 with just three features on end of the year lists. Behind Blood Incantation it wasn't Opeth nor Judas Priest who had the most features on lists, but Chat Pile.

Disappointments? I thought Hamferð would've ended higher. Just like Oceans of Slumber, Slift, Speed, Fit for an Autopsy and Fleshgod Apocalpyse they ended up with just one point. Other big names that didn't make an impression in this list: Deicide (3 points), Nightwish (3), Pallbearer (4) and Nile (6).

Anyway. The list!

🌶️ The List of Lists

1. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
2. Opeth - The Last Will and Testament
3. Judas Priest - Invincible Shield
4. Chat Pile - Cool World
5. Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose
6. Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
7. Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
8. Thou - Umbilical
9. Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God
10. High on Fire - Cometh the Storm
11. Tzompantli - Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force
12. Pyrrhon - Exhaust
13. Uniform - American Standard
14. Defeated Sanity - Chronicles of Lunacy
15. Ihsahn - Ihsahn
16. Sumac - The Healer
17. Lowen - Do Not Go to War with the Demons of Mazandaran
18. Kerry King - From Hell I Rise
19. Spectral Voice - Sparagmos
20. Paysage d'Hiver - Die Berge
21. Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
22. 200 Stab Wounds - Manual Manic Procedures
23. Unto Others - Never, Neverland
24. Undeath - More Insane
25. Alcest - Les Chants De L'aurore
26. Black Curse - Burning in Celestial Poison
27. The Body & Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven
28. Poppy - Negative Spaces
29. Wormed - Omegon
30. Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project
31. Candy - It's Inside You
32. Inter Arma - New Heaven
33. Necrot - Lifeless Birth
34. Replicant - Infinite Mortality
35. Convulsing - Perdurance
36. Noxis – Violence Inherent in the System
37. Job For a Cowboy - Moon Healer
38. Julie Christmas - Ridiculous and Full of Blood
39. Gaerea - Coma
40. Thy Catafalque - XII: A Gyönyörű Álmok Ezután Jönnek
41. Borknagar - Fall
42. Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
43. Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition
44. Krallice - Inorganic Rites
45. Nails - Every Bridge Burning
46. Couch Slut - You Could Do It Tonight
47. Darkthrone - It Beckons Us All...
48. Better Lovers - Highly Irresponsible
49. Huntsmen - Dry Land
50. Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Æternum

The Small Print

This year I’ve counted the lists from Album of the Year, Angry Metal Guy (2 lists), Bandcamp, Banger TV (2 lists), Brooklyn Vegan, Consequence of Sound, Decibel, Invisible Oranges (2 lists), Last Rites, Loudwire, Metal Hammer, Metal Injection, Metalstorm, Metalsucks (2 lists), No Clean Singing (Andy Synn), Popmatters, Rolling Stone, Sputnik (top 50), Stereogum, The Quietus, To The Teeth (that's me), Toilet ov Hell & Treblezine.

I gave every number one position 10 points. Numbers two got 8 points, numbers three got 6 and the rest of the top-10 positions got 5 points. A top-25 was 3 points, and everything below 1 point. When two records had equal points, the amount of list mentions prevailed. When those were equal as well, the amount of number 1’s (or, subsequently number 2’s) counted.

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