[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which ends in January. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]

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Hi, and welcome to The Obelisk’s year in review for 2024. This is a thing that’s kind of developed over the 15-plus years the site’s been in operation, and it’s something that people sometimes tell me has been a help when it comes to finding new music. I know for myself as well, I’ve referred back to these lists a lot in subsequent years, to see where bands were and where my head was, and so on. Are best-of lists meaningful, at all, in any way? Probably to the person making them, and that’s me, so I’ll proceed.

I thought the format last year worked pretty well, so I’ve hijacked it for use here. Not something I expect anyone to notice, but I did want to mention it on the off-chance. I don’t have a best live album of the year, but there are a few worth talking about, surely.

It’s been a busy, fast year. The barrage of music is overwhelming — and as problems go, that’s among the best ones to have — but I do think we’re seeing some tapering off. Generational turnover is, in fact, a constant, but the 2020s are taking shape now with bands who started making their name around the mid-2010s shifting into headliner status, new bands coming up beneath, more diverse in sound and construction, and with new ideas. This isn’t universal, but it is the ideal vision of the thing. Circle of life and such.

But it’s a lot. Including the 50-releases-strong Quarterly Review last week, I’m well north of having reviewed 400 total different mostly-full-lengths since January. That’s insane. The math is obvious, but I’ll point out anyhow that you could buy an album for every day of the year and have enough for an extra month-plus afterward. An astonishing amount of music, and I’m by no means reviewing everything.

Which brings me to the inevitable last point. I haven’t reviewed everything. If you’re here wondering where Opeth and Blood Incantation are landing on my list, they aren’t. Nothing against either of them, I just haven’t dug into the records since I knew I wouldn’t be reviewing them. The regular standard of doing as much as I can, when I can, about as much as I can, applies.

Please if you disagree with some pick below or other — and if you do, that’s healthy — I kindly ask you to keep things civil in the comments. I’m not here to call people out on enjoying things I don’t — fascism aside — and I know it makes me sad when I break my ass for days to put this together and the first comment is, “NO [WHOEVER]. LIST SUCKS. NEVER READING THIS FILTH AGAIN,” etc. Before you comment, please take a second to read what you put back to yourself for kindness. That’s good for spelling too, not that I’d know.

That’s all the stalling I can do. Time to dive in. Happy holidays.

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The Top 60 Albums of 2024

**NOTE**: If you’re looking for something specific, try a text search.

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60-31

60. Psychlona, Warped Vision
59. Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, The Mind Like Fire Unbound
58. Massive Hassle, Unreal Damage
57. Temple of the Fuzz Witch, Apotheosis
56. Space Shepherds, Cycler
55. Abrams, Blue City
54. Castle Rat, Into the Realm
53. Heath, Isaak’s Marble
52. Weite, Oase
51. Cosmic Fall, Back Where the Fire Flows

50. Troy the Band, Cataclysm
49. Sunnata, Chasing Shadows
48. Skraeckoedlan, Vermillion Sky
47. Acid Mammoth, Supersonic Megafauna Collision
46. Deer Creek, The Hiraeth Pit
45. Big Scenic Nowhere, The Waydown
44. Grin, Hush
43. The Swell Fellas, Residuum Unknown
42. The Gates of Slumber, The Gates of Slumber
41. Coltaine, Forgotten Ways

40. Mountain of Misery, The Land
39. Mammoth Volume, Raised Up by Witches
38. Delving, All Paths Diverge
37. High on Fire, Cometh the Storm
36. Thou, Umbilical
35. The Giraffes, Cigarette
34. Fu Manchu, The Return of Tomorrow
33. Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
32. Daevar, Amber Eyes
31. Causa Sui, From the Source

Notes:

Just in case you’re the type of person who’d say, “Oh how could you have a top 60? after a certain number it’s all the same,” I’ll admit that’s true, but 60 is apparently nowhere near the ‘certain number’ in question for me this year. I agonized over this part of the list. More than the top 30, and more than picking a best short release, best debut, or anything else. I wanted basically a second top 30, and I feel like if I saw this as that, as 30-1, I’d congratulate whoever submitted it on their taste. But maybe that’s just me agreeing with myself.

I like the mix of up and comers and established acts here. Sunnata and Skraeckoedlan, The Giraffes, of course High on Fire, Deer Creek and so on, mixing with up and comers like Full Earth, Daevar, Acid Mammoth, Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Heath, Troy the Band and Weite. I feel somewhat compelled to justify my High on Fire placement, especially looking at the results so far of the year-end poll. They’re amazing, they’re devastating, they’re a singular live act, but I just didn’t listen to the record that much. There. A big part of me feels like it should be top 10 just by virtue of who the band are, but if I did that for everybody who deserved it, I wouldn’t have room for anything new. All I can do is be honest to my own listening habits and opinions. I know High on Fire are really, really good. I know this album is really, really good. That’s why it’s on this list. Should it be higher? Probably. I’m doing my best.

Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. Also, listen to The Giraffes.

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30. Sundrifter, An Earlier Time

Released by Small Stone Records. Reviewed Jan. 29.

You won’t hear me say a downer word about An Earlier Time‘s quieter stretches, but it’s the sweeping moments like “Limitless” that find Boston’s Sundrifter making the most resonant impression. Their third full-length and the follow-up to 2018’s Visitations (review here), it was a strong declaration of who Sundrifter want to be as they continue to grow, and deserved more love than I saw that it got.

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29. Tranquonauts, 2

Released by Lay Bare Recordings and Blown Music. Reviewed Sept. 10.

Oh, look out for Mr. Blogosphere. He’s out here taking a real risk putting Tranquonauts on the year-end list, like the combining of forces between Melbourne, Australia, heavy psych blues rockers Seedy Jeezus and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell wasn’t gonna work the second time around? Wow, Mitchell‘s and Lex Waterreus‘ guitars sure do sound awesome together. Oh — it’s a hot-take! Better get your react videos ready. The internet is terrible. This album offers escape from it.

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28. Chat Pile, Cool World

Released by The Flenser. Reviewed Oct. 21.

At the risk of having to give back my Music-Journalism-Level membership to the Sycophant Society, I’ll dare to point out that Chat Pile are way, way hyped. That happens sometimes. It’s not like they’re out there being like, “Hey we’re the noise rock white dudes shifting paradigms for noise rock white dudes, best in a generation.” It’s people like me with all the hyperbole and comma splicing. I get that too. It’s a sound geared toward inciting a strong reaction, from the sneering sarcasm of the title down. By the way, am I the only one who looks at the title Cool World and thinks of the 1992 semi-animated film of the same name? I kind of hope so. See? Big feelings all around.

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27. Gnome, Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome

Released by Polderrecords. Reviewed Dec. 9.

Rest assured, I don’t, but if I had any friends, I’d be like, “Hey, you should check out this band Gnome from Belgium. They’ve got fun riffs and they beat you over the head with them until you remember them by heart.” And these ‘friends’ would be all, “Wow man, that sounds definitely like something I would ever want to introduce to the scope of my life experiences! Thank you! I’m so glad to be your friend and the world is definitely a better place with you in it.” And then everybody’s day is better, all because of sharing and the shenanigans-laced riff metal proffered by these three behatted miscreants from Antwerpen.

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26. Brant Bjork Trio, Once Upon a Time in the Desert

Released by Duna Records. Reviewed Sept. 18.

Brant Bjork‘s solo band begat Stöner, and Stöner begat Brant Bjork Trio as Bjork, drummer Ryan Güt and bassist Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers, Yawning Man, etc.). I’ll cop to being a nerd for Brant Bjork‘s output generally — it’s a kind of cool so definitively Californian, my NJ-ass self can’t help but admire it — but the chemistry in Once Upon a Time in the Desert is on point to an undeniable degree, and the songs are a reminder of how the back catalog got so strong in the first place. What else could you want?

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25. Sergeant Thunderhoof, The Ghost of Badon Hill

Released by Pale Wizard Records. Reviewed Dec. 12.

Five albums in, a post-arrival Sergeant Thunderhoof stand ready. They know who they are, what they want their songs to do, why and how to make it happen. The Ghost of Badon Hill gives a conceptual focus to unite material intentionally sprawling, and lets listeners immerse in a narrative all the more easily for the quality of its songcraft. Self-recorded, it is masterful in performance and assured of its execution, pored over but not overworked; the happy accidents might have been left in on purpose, but they still sound like accidents. And Sergeant Thunderhoof still sound like a band driving themselves toward the unknown.

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24. Early Moods, A Sinner’s Past

Released by RidingEasy Records. Reviewed March 29.

Doom metal is lucky to have Early Moods laying out a template for the next generation to hopefully follow. The Los Angeles five-piece’s second full-length, A Sinner’s Past, refined the lurch of their 2022 self-titled (review here), and the combination of hard touring and progressive craft continues to bode well as they look toward their next offering. They’ve put in their work, however swift their ascent to this point might feel, and they’re about one great record away from standing among the best doom of the 21st century. You could easily argue they’re already there. Every reason is accounted for on A Sinner’s Past.

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23. Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics

Released by Interstellar Smoke Records. Reviewed Oct. 22.

Iceland’s Morpholith enter the conversation with Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics, which has cosmic-doom breadth and bong-metal crush to spare in the first four minutes of “Psychophere” alone, never mind anything that surrounds. The band’s debut is a bombastic plodder, beating out the march to a futuristic — and cold — vision of the riff-filled land that may or may not be Reykjavik in the wintertime while simultaneously being both very much of weed and not outwardly about it, seeming to have much more than addled, Mid Atlantic Ridge-heavy riff worship because — look out! — they do. If cosmic doom is ever going to be more than a loose thread connecting YOB and Ufomammut, bands like Morpholith need to keep pushing it forward like this. “Dismalium.” I dare you.

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22. Lamp of the Universe Meets Dr. Space, Enters Your Somas

Released by Sound Effect Records. Reviewed May 24.

Lamp of the Universe is multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and vocalist Craig Williamson, based in New Zealand. Dr. Space is synthesist, keyboardist, producer, bootlegger and bandleader Scott Heller. The ‘meeting’ of these two expanded minds takes place over two extended tracks, one vinyl side per, of lush psychedelic and multi-tiered drones, absolutely perfect for the zone-out hypnosis you’ve been trying to put yourself in all day but for that pesky consciousness. I wish I could come up with some kind of ritual awesome enough for the keyboard textures in “Enters Your Somas” or the propulsive space rock thuddenchug of “Infiltrates Your Mind,” but some sounds are just too cool for the planet. Come see how the freaks get down.

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21. Dool, The Shape of Fluidity

Released by Prophecy Productions. Reviewed May 15.

I spent some significant time with Dool‘s The Shape of Fluidity this Spring, before and after seeing them at Roadburn (review here), which was another highlight of the year. The album’s triumph, in songwriting, in transcending genre bounds and in conveying its theme of breaking loose from the gender binary, gave my parent-of-a-trans-kid self a hopeful vision of a future beyond dark, hateful rhetoric or implied/real violence. It showed me a possible path to victory on what will be and already is a hard road. It was there when I needed it, which is a specific ideal of art providing care. I’ll never forget that.

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20. Buzzard, Doom Folk

Self-released. Reviewed May 13.

Granted the Western soundscaping at the outset of the eponymous “Buzzard” lays it on thick, but it’s supposed to! We’re talking fire-and-brimstone earthbound Americana folk with a doomly rhythmic cast, given the self-aware title of Doom Folk by the solo artist Buzzard, aka Christopher Thomas Elliott, laying it on thick is the point. Elliott has a follow-up out soon already. Thinking of Doom Folk as the beginning of a creative progression makes its nuance and individualist drive even more exciting, but the rawness of this debut, the straightforwardness of its structures and the resulting memorability are part of the appeal for sure.

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19. High Desert Queen, Palm Reader

Released by Ripple Music. Reviewed April 30.

Seven bangers. Not a dud in the bunch. Two nine-minute songs and you still couldn’t say a moment of High Desert Queen‘s rightly anticipated sophomore LP is wasted. Not when you’re building up to the roll of “Head Honcho,” certainly. The Texas outfit built on the good-time largesse and party-but-not-a-party-so-cool-you-don’t-feel-welcome vibing of 2021’s Secrets of the Black Moon (review here) and set themselves vociferously to the task of being the change in heavy rock that they wanted to hear. Palm Reader‘s infectiousness is a strength, both in terms of a catchy piece like “Ancient Aliens” or “Time Waster,” and also in the overarching positive-framed mood and heart so clearly put into the material.

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18. Ufomammut, Hidden

Released by Supernatural Cat and Neurot Recordings. Reviewed May 21.

Now a quarter-century on from their start, Italian trio Ufomammut have yet to put out a record that didn’t sound like a forward step from the one before it. And Hidden is their 10th album. The band are progenitors and refiners of a cosmic doom sound that is unto itself, and cuts like “Kismet” and “Leeched” manage to be both lumbering in their massive-tone grooves and sprawling with a synthy ambience that, though certainly influential, is immediately recognizable as Ufomammut. Hidden is part of a creative trajectory, to be sure, and the arc is ongoing, but there’s more than enough substance here to leave a crater behind in the listener’s brain.

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17. Iota, Pentasomnia

Released by Small Stone. Reviewed March 20.

In its arrangement as five separate dreams taking place over its component tracks, the only thing Pentasomnia doesn’t take into account is that another Iota LP was a dream all on its own even before music actually happened. A full 16 years after shaking the galaxy’s core with their 2008 debut, Tales (discussed here, and here), the three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Joey Toscano (Dwellers, Hibernaut), drummer/producer Andy Patterson (The Otolith, ex-SubRosa, etc.) and bassist Oz Yasri (ex-Bird Eater) making a comeback — let alone it actually being good — was nigh on unthinkable. Then you heard “The Intruder” and reality shifted just a bit. Pretty sweet.

16. Kanaan & Ævestaden, Langt, Langt Vekk

Released by Jansen Records. Reviewed Oct. 18.

Few albums in 2024 were as entrancing as Langt, Langt Vekk, the hopefully-not-a-one-off collaboration between Norwegian progressive heavy instrumentalists Kanaan and neofolk contemporaries Ævestaden. Both adventurous outfits in their own right, the combination of elements, from live drums and synth to traditional plucked strings and Norwegian-language vocal choruses, works stunningly well. That little bit of fuzz in “Habbor og Signe,” or the cymbal wash behind “Dalebu Jonsson” — the songs are full of these little nuances or flourishes waiting to be found, but even with the most superficial of listens, the achievement resounds, whether one approaches from a viewpoint of heavy rock, prog, folk or psychedelia.

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15. DVNE, Voidkind

Released by Metal Blade. Reviewed May 6.

You know, I’ve kind of dug DVNE records all along, and I can’t really call Voidkind a surprise after 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), but these songs — “Eleonora,” “Sarmatae,” “Abode of the Perfect Soul,” among others — hit me much harder than I had expected, and the more I listened to try to twist my head around “Reliquary,” the more the album as a whole revealed of its character and detail. I review a lot of stuff, and I hear more than I review, so I don’t always get pulled back by every record, but Voidkind kept calling for return visits.

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14. Orange Goblin, Science, Not Fiction

Released by Peaceville Records. Reviewed July 22.

Look. If you’re reading this, I know I don’t have to tell you about Orange Goblin. Even if you don’t already have a soft spot for the long-running UK doom rockers, they’re perfectly happy to pummel one into you with Science, Not Fiction, their first album since 2018 and a realignment toward a harder-edged heavy rock sound, where the last, say, two records had leaned more metal. I heard some griping about the production not helping, but I heard absolutely nothing to complain about here. The band are on fire and the recording shows it, the songs aren’t necessarily any great progressive leap but for sure they’re Orange Goblin songs, and for a band who owes nobody proof of anything, they set a high standard and deliver accordingly, like god damned professionals should.

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13. Spaceslug, Out of Water

Released by Electric Witch Mountain Recordings. Reviewed May 14.

What I didn’t get about Spaceslug until I finally saw them live at Desertfest New York (review here) was just how metal the impact of their songs can get. It’s not necessarily that they’ve grown more aggressive, unless you want to incorporate harsh vocals or shouting — “Tears of Antimatter” also has gently-delivered barely-there spoken word, so it depends on the story you want to tell — but the blend of melancholic doom, heavy psychedelia and melodic fluidity that has become Spaceslug‘s stylistic wheelhouse is not to be missed. Out of Water finds them at their broadest and least concerned with genre, and brings into relief how special a band they’ve become. Also it rocks.

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12. Craneium, Point of No Return

Released by The Sign Records. Reviewed April 1.

No secret how Craneium are doing it on Point of No Return; it’s right there in the songs. All of them. “One Thousand Sighs,” “The Sun,” “A Distant Shore,” “…Of Laughter and Cries,” “Things Have Changed” and “Search Eternal.” Texture and hooks, heft and scope and melody and crash and shove, classy progressive execution and swaggering conjurations. Most of all, songs that stay with you. Chances are, if you heard this record and gave it its due attention at some point in your time with it, you didn’t have to do much more than read the titles to have the tracks playing in your head. That’s not a coincidence. It’s craft. It’s a willful outreach on the part of the band and material. It’s what makes you want to sing along. And why would you not?

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11. Guhts, Regeneration

Released by Seeing Red Records and New Heavy Sounds. Reviewed Feb. 5.

More on it below, but for the moment, suffice it to say that the bludgeoning and/or scathe of Regeneration at its most intense and the depths its mix seemed to find, the debut full-length from New York post-metallers Guhts dared visceral emotionality in a way few records so heavy could or would hope to. The willing-to-break-her-voice-if-necessary performance of Amber Gardner and the weighted undulations surrounding from guitarist Scott Prater, bassist Daniel Martinez and drummer Brian Clemens, the open sway, unfettered crush, and quiet spaces offsetting all that bombast result in both a chaotic feel and an applicable world. Therefore it must be modern. Fine. It sounds like the future.

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10. Heavy Temple, Garden of Heathens

Released by Magnetic Eye. Reviewed April 11.

As to how Philadelphia’s Heavy Temple managed to fit so much swagger onto a single platter, you’d have to ask them, but their second album, Garden of Heathens, landed hard in tone and attitude alike. Songs like “Extreme Indifference to Life,” “House of Warship” and the galloping payoff of “Jesus Wept” ahead of the thrashy finale “Psychomanteum” affirmed what was set out in 2021’s Lupi Amoris (review here) and their earlier short releases while marking out and conquering decisively new territory in their sound. I know it was recorded two years ago or something like that, but it’s still a band beginning to realize their potential in craft and performance, and if a third LP happens sooner than later, so much the better.

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9. 1000mods, Cheat Death

Released by Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug and Ripple Music. Reviewed Nov. 11.

Whether one embraces Cheat Death because the songs kick ass or because 1000mods are so vivid and uncompromising in pushing themselves forward from release to release, I don’t think you’re wrong. The forerunners of their generation in Greek heavy rock remain among the finest Europe’s heavy underground have to offer, and the atmosphere they’re able to conjure alongside the straight-ahead Matt Bayles-produced punk-metal hooks of these songs is emblematic of why. Without ever giving up their foundation in heavy rock, 1000mods have consistently refined their processes and grown as songwriters. The joke of Cheat Death is how alive the material feels.

8. Ruff Majik, Moth Eater

Released by Sound of Liberation Records. Reviewed Oct. 3.

Faced with the considerable task of following up the to-date album of their career, Elektrik Ram (review here), just one year later, South African heavy rockers Ruff Majik did not flinch. Instead, Moth Eater takes the outright charge and sharpness-minded efficiency of its predecessor in a stated trilogy that began with 2020’s The Devil’s Cattle (review here) and sets it as the foundation for a confident, creative growth and sustainable expansion of sound. They’re a little more willing to dwell in parts, and they’re well aware of how catchy they can be, but also, they know the power of momentum and they’re fully in control of the narratives they’re telling. As Moth Eater readily demonstrates, it’s hard to know which of that it is that makes them most dangerous.

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7. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Nell’ Ora Blu

Released by Rise Above. Reviewed May 16.

It’s hard to overstate the accomplishment of Nell’ Ora Blu, and I’m well aware that the critical sphere is full of plenty who’ve spent the better part of 2024 trying. Reasonable. The completeness of the world Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats built in the work based around the concept of soundtracking a giallo film that didn’t exist was singularly evocative. With original dialogue recorded (in Italian) specifically for ‘movie’ ambience, Uncle Acid took what had always been an influence on the band’s sound within genre-cinema and its methods of storytelling, and flipped the process on its head by creating its own story. Their influence is already well spread throughout the heavy underground, for sure, but in bringing a vision to life, this might be the album Uncle Acid have been working toward all along.

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6. Vokonis, Transitions

Released by Majestic Mountain Records. Reviewed Oct. 29.

A forward-thinking masterwork from even before “Deadname” sneaks a layer of acoustic guitar under the mountain of distortion in the verse lines and “Arrival” and “Transitions” give evocative chronicle to the album’s trans-experiential theme — it is the band’s first since guitarist/vocalist Simona Ohlsson transitioned, and admirable for both its projected triumph and vulnerability around that — the fifth full-length from Vokonis continues the progressive path they have walked for the last decade-plus. A lineup change has brought some shift in dynamic, but a new strength of voice behind the material that makes “Phantom Carriage,” “Chrysalis,” and, suitably enough, “Arrival,” feel like a declarative pinnacle, and having something to say makes the raw impact of its heaviest moments all the more powerful.

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5. Greenleaf, The Head and the Habit

Released by Magnetic Eye Records. Reviewed July 3.

There’s little funnier to me about heavy rock as it exists in 2024 than the idea that Greenleaf would be a band people take for granted. “Oh, Tommi Holappa and Company putting out another collection of classic-heavy and blues-rocking bangers? Business as usual, I guess.” Until you listen to the album, maybe. Then you get the tumble of “Avalanche,” the hooks in “Breathe, Breathe Out,” and “A Wolf in My Mind,” the subdued-bluesy pair “That Obsidian Grin” and “An Alabastrine Smile” to remind how you much this band has been able to grow since Arvid Hällagård made his first appearance with them a decade ago, the way they’re able to move through a jam and land in a groove as solid as “Oh Dandelion,” reminiscent of Clutch in its start-stop funk but defined by its own persona. Every Greenleaf record is a gift. If feeling that way means I’m not impartial, good. We understand each other.

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4. Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, Big Dumb Riffs

Released by Permanent Teeth Records. Reviewed March 19.

Promises made, promises kept. Austin-based crunch purveyors Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol stripped any and all excess out of their approach on Big Dumb Riffs, resulting in a quick-feeling collection of memorable, heavy tracks that, whether fast like “1800EATSHIT” or slow like “In a Jar,” are united in the album’s central stated purpose. Already an established brand of heavy revelry, the three-piece didn’t change anything radically in aesthetic terms, but the songs found their target one after the other, front to back, and were clever and well composed, however willfully lunkheaded the central riffery might have been. They’re headed to Europe in Spring, and I’m already hearing rumors of a next record, so keep an eye out in 2025.

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3. Slomosa, Tundra Rock

Released by Stickman Records and MNRK Heavy. Reviewed Sept. 9.

Slomosa‘s released-in-2020 self-titled debut (review here) was a salve to many in troubled times, representing a next-generation hope for underground heavy in energetically-delivered, classic-feeling songs. Tundra Rock, which gives a name to the band’s style seemingly in direct answer to anyone who might class them as ‘desert,’ confirms the Norwegian four-piece at the forefront of an up and coming cohort of younger acts beginning to find their expressive modus and step beyond their root influences. Tundra Rock finds Slomosa doing this while giving their dual-vocal live dynamic vibrant studio representation and growing their material in character and melody alike. Heavy rock and roll is Slomosa‘s for the taking.

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2. Brume, Marten

Released by Magnetic Eye. Reviewed April 29.

A record that didn’t need to be loud to be heavy, Brume‘s Marten is without question my most-listened-to album of 2024. That needs no qualifying. I had high expectations going into it after seeing the San Francisco band at Desertfest New York 2022 (review here), and Marten surpassed every hope I might’ve been able to harness for it and then some. The collective voice of the band incorporating multiple viewpoints from bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Susie McMullan, guitarist/vocalist Jamie McCathie, drummer Jordan Perkins Lewis, and in her first appearance as a full-on member of the band, cellist/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon, Amber Asylum, etc.), resulted in a fluid but deeply divergent collection, comprised of songs that went where they wanted to go — or didn’t, thank you very much — according to their own whims and purposes. It is a landmark for Brume and, if any number of subgenres are lucky, a blueprint from which others will hopefully learn.

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2024 Album of the Year

1. Elephant Tree & Lowrider, The Long Forever

Released by Blues Funeral Recordings. Reviewed Oct. 25.

I acknowledge breaking my own rules here — splits are always, until and including this year, categorized as short releases in these lists — but when it came to it, the thought of putting Elephant Tree and Lowrider‘s The Long Forever anywhere else, considering it as anything else, seemed ridiculous. Especially if you count writing the liner notes for it, I’ve gone on at length about the release as an intersection of crucial moments for the respective bands, with Lowrider following their first album in 20 years, Refractions (review here), and Elephant Tree answering the progressive statement of their own second LP, Habits (review here), both released in 2020. The storyline gets deeper as Elephant Tree also look to reestablish themselves following a near-fatal accident suffered by guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley, melding rawness of tone with lush vocal harmonies, and Lowrider drag fuzz-rock traditionalism kicking and screaming into a reality of being both fun and intelligent. There ultimately was nothing else to call The Long Forever than the album of the year. If that comes with an asterisk because it’s a split, it doesn’t lessen the effect of hearing it at all. So yeah, I’m breaking the rules of the game. I’m inconsistent. Unprofessional. Biased. I don’t know what to tell you except love makes you do crazy things. In these songs themselves — do I even need to talk about the collaboration — and in the drive behind them, that’s what most resonates here.

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The Top 60 Albums of 2024: Honorable Mention

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If the 60 above wasn’t enough, here are more leads to chase down, alphabetical but in kind of a hyper-specific, ass-backwards-seeming way:

Acid Rooster, Alber Jupiter, Altareth, Alunah, Astrometer, Bismarck, Black Capricorn, Blasting Rod, BleakHeart, Blue Heron, Bongripper, Boozewa, Caffeine, Carpet, Castle, Cleen, Clouds Taste Satanic, Codex Serafini, Cold in Berlin, Cortez, The Cosmic Dead, Crypt Sermon, Daily Thompson, Deadpeach, Deaf Wolf, Demon Head, Destroyer of Light, Dopethrone, Duel, Earth Ship, Elephant Tree, Emu, Familiars, Bill Fisher, 40 Watt Sun, Ghost Frog, Goat Major, Guenna, Heath, High Reeper, Hijss, Horseburner, Ian Blurton’s Future Now, Insect Ark, Inter Arma, Kelley Juett, Juke Cove, Kalgon, Kandodo, Kant, Kariti, Kungens Män (x2), Kurokuma, Leather Lung, Legions of Doom, Lord Buffalo, Magic Fig, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, Magick Potion, Magmakammer, Mammoth Caravan, Massive Hassle, MC MYASNOI, Merlin, Methadone Skies, Monkey3, Morag Tong, The Mountain King, Mount Hush, MR.BISON, My Dying Bride, Myriad’s Veil, No Man’s Valley, Norna, The Obsessed, Oryx, Pallbearer, Patriarchs in Black, Pia Isa, Planet of Zeus, Red Mesa, Rezn, Rifflord, Sacri Monti, Sandveiss, Satan’s Satyrs, Saturnalia Temple, Scorched Oak, Sheepfucker & Kraut, Slift, Slower, Slow Green Thing, SoftSun, The Sonic Dawn, SONS OF ZÖKU, Spacedrifter, Spiral Grave, Spirit Mother, Stonebride, Sun Blood Stories, Sunface, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Swallow the Sun, The Swell Fellas, Swell O, Temple Fang, 10,000 Years, Thomas Greenwood and the Talismans, Thunderbird Divine, Tigers on Opium, Traum, 24/7 Diva Heaven, Valley of the Sun, Vlimmer, Void Commander, Weather Systems, The Whims of the Great Magnet, Whispering Void, White Hills, Per Wiberg, Esben Willems, Worshipper, WyndRider…

Notes:

With the eternal caveat that I’ll be adding to the honorable mentions for the next few days as people drop names they remembered and I forgot, I’ll say I can live with the list as it is now. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m happy with it, but I’ll live. I felt like there was just too much good stuff in the 60-30, stuff that deserved a better look, and god damn, look at the honorable mentions. You’re gonna tell me Rezn wasn’t top 30 material? Or Inter Arma, or 10,000 Years (who I still need to review), or Kandodo or Cortez, or Bongripper, Blue Heron, Merlin, Slower? Mount Hush, Vlimmer, Destroyer of Light — I could do this all day. That Carpet record. That MR.BISON record. Valley of the Sun. I see these names and want to punch myself. Then I see the names in the top 30 and I go, “Well…” and kind of have to hold off. I guess that means it turned out to be a pretty fantastic year.

I know for a fact I didn’t hear everything that came out, and I’m willing to bet that any number of people who see this will have their own opinions on the best albums of 2024 from top to bottom. I celebrate this difference and look forward to being exposed to new sounds because of it. Let comments fly, please. Once again, my only ask is that you keep it kind as relates to my own list(s) and any other picks someone might offer. If I’ve got facts wrong, something was a Dec. 2023 release instead of Jan. 2024, whatever, by all means, let me know. But we’re all friends here and being a jerk about it solves nothing.

And yes, I’ll admit to projecting some self-criticism in the Elephant Tree/Lowrider selection for album of the year. All I can tell you is I stand by that pick. It’s that because when I was putting together the list, it couldn’t have been anywhere else. I don’t love breaking my own arbitrary rules nearly as much as I love imposing those arbitrary rules in the first place, but sometimes apparently one is forced from one’s comfort zone to their own general betterment. Who knew?

Of course we’re not done yet.

—

Debut Album of the Year 2024

Guhts, Regeneration

Other notable debuts (alphabetical):

Azutmaga, Offering
Buzzard, Doom Folk
Castle Rat, Into the Realm
Cleen, Excursion
Coltaine, Forgotten Ways
Full Earth, Cloud Sculptors
Goat Generator, Goat Generator
Goat Major, Ritual
Grave Speaker, Grave Speaker
Guenna, Peak of Jin’Arrah
Hashtronaut, No Return
Heath, Isaak’s Marble
Hijss, Stuck on Common Ground
Kalgon, Kalgon
Kant, Paranoia Pilgrimage
Kitsa, Dead by Dawn
Leather Lung, Graveside Grin
Legions of Doom, The Skull 3
Magic Fig, Magic Fig
Magick Potion, Magick Potion
Morpholith, Dystopian Distributions of Mass Produced Narcotics
Myriad’s Veil, Pendant
Neon Nightmare, Faded Dream
Plant, Cosmic Phytophthora
Rabid Children, Does the Heartbeat
Saltpig, Saltpig
Semuta, Glacial Erratic
SoftSun, Daylight in the Dark
Spacedrifter, When the Colors Fade
Sun Moon Holy Cult, Sun Moon Holy Cult
Ten Ton Slug, Colossal Oppressor
Tet, Tet
Tigers on Opium, Psychodrama
Tommy and the Teleboys, Gods Used in Great Condition
Troy the Band, Cataclysm
Weather Systems, Ocean Without a Shore
Esben Willems, Glowing Darkness
Young Acid, Murder at Maple Mountain

Notes:

First about Guhts: From the Andy Patterson recording and parts of the songs themselves, Guhts weren’t hiding influence from the likes of SubRosa or Julie Christmas, Made Out of Babies, etc., but what Regeneration did so well — and what I was trying to convey above — was take those recognizable elements and redirect them toward an expressive individuality. That album could be punishingly heavy or sweet and soothing and the fact that you never quite knew which was coming next was a major asset working in the band’s favor. There are a lot of killer debuts on this list, and plenty I’m sure that I’ve left off because, well, I’m inept, but Regeneration was so sure of what it was about and so crisp in making that real through sound that it’s still stunning.

A lot to celebrate on this list. Full Earth at the outset of a hopefully long-term progression. Tigers on Opium with attitude and craft. Castle Rat giving stage drama studio life. Weather Systems picking up where Anathema left off. Promising starts for Pontiac, Hashtronaut, Neon Nightmare, Cleen, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Buzzard, Magic Fig, Legions of Doom, and Heath, among others. If you’re worried about the state of underground heavy music, you don’t need to be. Granted the future of anything is unknowable even before you apply “uncertain times” caveats and all the rest, but bands are stepping up to carry the torch of established sounds and pushing themselves to realize new ideas — whether that’s Guhts and Magic Fig or Tigers on Opium, or Legions of Doom, Ten Ton Slug, Weather Systems and Monolord’s Esben Willems, new players or ones who’ve been around for decades.

If you want a top ten — and who doesn’t? — in addition to Guhts, make your way through Full Earth, Sun Moon Holy Cult, Morpholith, Guenna, Coltaine, Troy the Band, Young Acid, Emu, Buzzard and Kant to start, and you can dig deeper from there. That’s actually 11, but I don’t care. More new music won’t hurt you.

We press on.

—

Short Release of the Year 2024

Moura, Fume Santo de Loureiro

Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, Singles, etc.

Aktopasa, Ultrawest
Alreckque, 6PM
Bog Wizard, Journey Through the Dying Lands
Conan, DIY Series Issue 1
Cortége, Under the Endless Sky
Cult of Dom Keller, Extinction EP
Michael Rudolph Cummings, Money EP
Deer Lord, Dark Matter Pt. 2
Eagle Twin & The Otolith, Legends of the Desert Vol. 4
Fuzznaut, Wind Doula
Fuzzter, Pandemonium EP
Geezer & Isaak, Interstellar Cosmic Blues and the Riffalicious Stoner Dudes
Harvestman, Triptych EP(s)
Hermano, When the Moon Was High
Hollow Leg, Dust & Echoes
Holy Fingers, Endless Light Infinite Presence
King Buffalo, Balrog
Lurcher, Breathe EP
Okkoto, All is Light
Ord Cannon, Foreshots EP
Orme, No Serpents No Saviours
Pelican, Adrift/Tending the Embers
Pontiac, Hard Knox EP
Rope Trick, Red Tide EP
Sacred Buzz, Radio Radiation
Smoke & Doomsday Profit, Split
Spiral Guru, Silenced Voices EP
Toad Venom, Jag har inga problen osv​.​.​.
Trigona & IO Audio Recordings, Split
Various Artists, International Space Station Vol. 2

Notes:

This category includes so much and can range so vastly between an EP that’s about 30 seconds short of being a full album to a standalone single released just for the hell of it to a band’s first rehearsal room demo. “Short releases” encompasses a lot, and as noted above, I’ve already broken my rules about where splits go. What about The Otolith and Eagle Twin? Geezer and Isaak? Smoke and Doomsday Profit? Trigona and IO Audio Recordings? The International Space Station four-wayer? If I’m crossing lines, don’t these also need to be considered as full-lengths?

You know what really sucks about it? This is an argument I’m going to have with myself for probably the next year. An existential crisis playing out in the back of my mind. More important? The Moura EP. The soundtracky textures the Spanish folk-informed progressive psychedelic rockers brought to the follow-up for their second album were both otherworldly and ground-born, and the material put emphasis on how much care and craft goes into their work while retaining the organic core against the threat of pretense. It was my most listened to short release of 2024, followed by Pelican, Holy Fingers, Pontiac, Toad Venom, Hollow Leg (x2), and Sacred Buzz. A new King Buffalo single was a late-year boon, that Hermano was worth it for the previously-unreleased studio track alone, and strong showings from Michael Rudolph Cummings, Deer Lord, Conan and Cortége, along with the aforementioned splits, assured that through the entire year, attention spans would receive consistent challenge in the movement from one thing to the next.

By way of a familiar confession, my list of short releases is nowhere near complete. It never is, and it never really could be. I’m sure there will be some I left out that I’ll add in for honorable mentions, etc., but I stand by the Moura pick for best short outing. They brought a soul to it that put the lie to the notion of EPs as between-album gap-fillers, and in a year that didn’t lack substance among its brevity-focused options, Fume Santo de Loureiro stood out in character, aesthetic and songwriting. Nobody else is making music quite like Moura.

If you have more to add here, by all means, please and thank you. Comments are below.

—

Live Albums

Live Album of the Year 2024

Temple Fang, Live at Krach Am Bach

Castle, One Knight Stands: Live in NY
Danava, Live
Elder, Live at Maida Vale
Snail, Thou Art There
Stöner, Hittin’ the Bitchin’ Switch
Sula Bassana & Skyjoggers, Split
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Live at Bankastudios Maastricht 22​-​12​-​2023

Notes:

Fewer releases listed here than last year, but some killer ones for that. I put Temple Fang out there as live album of the year, and since we’re late in the post I’ll tell you honestly that it probably could be any of these on a given day. Danava’s live record crossed decades in badassery, the Sula/Skyjoggers split captured the vibe of a club night in Germany, the Whims of the Great Magnet’s live release made an excellent predecessor to their out-this-month studio album, Snail recorded theirs at a show I put on, Stöner capture the end of their two-album cycle with an awesome set, and Elder are Elder. The Maida Vale recording is short, and their songs are long, or you probably would’ve heard a lot more about that this year. If/when they do a proper live album, it will be a no-brainer.

But the Temple Fang has it all in molten progressivism, heavy tones, immersive psychedelia and outright soul, and of the bands I’ve managed to list here — if you want to add to the list, please do — there’s nobody who so much defines what they do by its live incarnation. Temple Fang’s music changes every night. They follow where it leads in a different way, and the ritualization of their performance comes through in Live at Krach Am Bach resoundingly. I’m not saying a bad word about their studio work to this point, but their heart manifests in a different way and at a different level onstage. They’re a great band and this shows a big part of why.

—

Looking Ahead to 2025

Names, right? This one’s all about the names? Get to the names, jack? Okay, calm down.

With eternal appreciation to the folks of fine, upstanding moral character in the ‘The Obelisk Collective’ group on Facebook for the assistance, here’s a smattering of what one might look forward to in 2025:

Aawks, After Nations, All Them Witches, Amber Asylum, Author & Punisher, Bandshee, Black Spirit Crown, Bog Wizard, Bone Church, Borracho, Bronco, Buzzard, Dee Calhoun, Causa Sui, The Cimmerian, Clutch, Conan, Corrosion of Conformity, Daevar, Dead Meadow, Dead Shrine, Demons My Friends, Dream Unending, DUNDDW, Dunes, Flummox, Fuzz Sagrado, FVZZ POPVLI, Gaytheist, Gin Lady, Gnarled, Gnod & White Hills, Gods and Punks, Godzillionaire, Haze Mage, Kaiser, Kal-El, King Buffalo, Lamassu, Lo-Pan, Madmess, Mantar, Masters of Reality, Messa, Seán Mulrooney, Mouth., New Dawn Fades, Nightstalker, Øresund Space Collective, Pentagram, Pesta, Pothamus, Dax Riggs, Seedy Jeezus, Slomatics, Slow Wake, Stoned Jesus, Stone Machine Electric, Temple Fang, 3rd Ear Experience, Triptykon, Trouble, Turtle Skull, Warlung, Weedpecker, Yawning Balch, Year of the Cobra, YOB… and because it still hasn’t happened and someone invariably calls me out if they’re not listed: Om.

If you have names to add, “smash that comment button,” in the parlance of our times. Only don’t really smash it because you might hurt your hand or break your phone with your awesome strength.

—

THANK YOU

It was among my primary goals for this post that it should be shorter than last year’s, and it looks like I’ll achieve that with room to spare, so I’m glad. Sometimes I get carried away, I think I probably don’t need to tell you.

Before I let go of 2024 — actually I still want to review that The Whims of the Great Magnet studio release and I’ve got a Darsombra video premiere set before the end of the year, news to catch up on from like the last two weeks and a whole lot more to cover — I’d like to take a moment to thank you one more time for reading and for being part of this project this year and each year it’s been ongoing. Your support is absolutely what keeps this site going and it means more to me than I can ever hope to comprehend.

Thank you to The Patient Mrs., who in the course of a given week let alone year puts up with more of my bullshit than any human being should ever have to. “Yes, love, the world’s ending and we have no money and the house is falling down around us and the dog needs to pee, but I just need two or three hours to go sit and write about riffs — is that cool?” Or better, when I’m pissy about it. The “my wife is a saint” routine is pretty played out as far as dudely excuses for being selfish, lazy and/or dumb go, but well, I am all of those things on the extreme regular and she hasn’t booted my ass to the curb yet. I find this to be a reason to celebrate and a thing to appreciate. I am loved and cared for in ways I could never hope to earn.

Thank you to my family for their support, year in and year out. They’ve all got Obelisk shirts and they all wear them, and while I’m not sure they understand the true depths of egoistic depravity involved in this project, they’ve been on board with it since the start, and this includes my wife’s side of the family as well. I am incredibly lucky to have the life I have.

I’m going to keep listening to music, keep writing about it as much as I can. I’m not quite as generally panicked about it as I used to be — older, busier in different ways, over the FOMO, maybe a little more discerning in terms of taste? — and I’m significantly less likely to break my brain answering email, but I’m doing my best.

The Obelisk presses on into what will be a busy 2025. I’ve got trips slated to Planet Desert Rock Weekend in Las Vegas this January, Desertfest Oslo in May, Freak Valley in Germany in June, Bear Stone in Croatia in July, and Desertfest New York in September, with more hopefully to come. I look forward to these adventures and to doing the writing that will happen as part of them, and one more time, I thank you for your time and attention in reading, in the past, now, and in the future. I’m taking tomorrow off. All the way off. Back on Monday for more.

Much appreciated,
JJ Koczan

Craneium have signed to Majestic Mountain Records. The Finnish progressive heavy psychedelic rockers aren’t yet at a full year’s remove from putting out their most vivid realization to-date, Feb. 2024’s Point of No Return (review here), but as is their wont, they’re ready to move forward. Streaming on the player below is a band-made video for “Empty Palaces,” a new, (at-least-for-now) standalone single to mark the occasion as they continue to write for their next outing.

If you know Craneium, having either caught wind of Point of No Return or any of the Turku four-piece’s prior LPs — 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here), 2018’s The Narrow Line (review here), or 2015’s Explore the Void; they also had a split with Black Willows in 2018 (review here) and various singles and odds and ends as fodder for Bandcamp perusal — the new song represents them well. I don’t know if it was tracked at the same time as Point of No Return, but they list a 2022 recording date, and the team of producer Joona Hassinen at Sweden’s Studio Underjord and mixing/mastering engineer Karl Daniel Lidén is consistent across both album and single, so if it’s a leftover from the album sessions, it’s one well chosen to feature by itself.

Point of No Return isn’t short on hooks, with songs like the leadoff “One Thousand Sighs,” the emotive and atmospheric cast of “A Distant Shore” or the side B highlight “Things Have Changed.” “Empty Palaces” works in this vein but is slightly shorter and more direct in doing so. Its verse picks up around a comfortably-paced swinging groove, as the vocals of Andreas Kaján — he stars in the video as the frontman very much not involved in lugging equipment back and forth, which is what guitarist Martin Ahlö, bassist Jonas Ridberg and drummer Joel Kronqvist are up to throughout; to be fair he’s busy playing along to the song — draw the listener toward the melodic catharsis-release of the chorus. There’s nothing too tricky happening structurally, and there doesn’t need to be.

The band have long since proven themselves able to conjure grand expanses of tonal reach, but fuzz rock is still somewhere at the core of that. “Empty Palaces” doesn’t revisit their past even if it’s stripped down in comparison to some of the songs on the record, but it hits in a different way, which, again, makes it work well as a single. See? I knew we’d get back around to the point eventually. One strives for the kind of efficiency Craneium show here.

Enjoy the clip, congrats to the band on joining forces with Majestic Mountain (and to the label on the pickup of a killer band), and here’s looking forward to what comes next:

Craneium, “Empty Palaces” video premiere

Martin Ahlö on “Empty Palaces”:

“A friend of the band gifted us a book on old Egyptian magick, and some of the spells carried really empowering messages. It also inspired the themes that we explored a lot in our music at the moment: the inevitable decay of mankind’s empires and monuments at the hands of nature and time.”

Joel Kronqvist on “Empty Palaces”:

“We’re beyond excited to share a new single called “Empty Palaces” with the world. This track is the perfect blend of our signature 90’s edge mixed with the soulful, retro vibes of the 70’s.”

Craneium is back with a new track ‘Empty Palaces’ and the first to be released on Majestic Mountain Records!

Their latest album, “Point of No Return,” released on February 23, 2024, dives deep into this sonic universe. Tracks like “One Thousand Sighs” and “The Sun” promise an auditory journey through expansive landscapes, both physical and emotional. This album marks a continuation of their evolution since the critically acclaimed “Unknown Heights” in 2021, which was also the start of their venture with The Sign Records.

Video created by Craneium. All music written, arranged and performed by Craneium.

Recorded and produced by Joona Hassinen at Studio Underjord, Finspång, Sweden October 2022
Mixed and mastered by Karl Daniel Lidén.

Craneium are:
Andreas Kaján – vocals, guitar and keys
Joel Kronqvist – drums and percussion
Jonas Ridberg – bass
Martin Ahlö – guitar

Craneium, Point of No Return (2024)

Craneium on Facebook

Craneium on Instagram

Craneium on Bandcamp

Majestic Mountain Records webstore

Majestic Mountain Records on Facebook

Majestic Mountain Records on Instagram

Each successive full-length from Turku, Finland’s Craneium up to this point has been a progressive step forward from the one before it. It’s where that progression has brought them that makes their fourth long-player, Point of No Return, a special moment. As the sweeping, lush and gorgeous crescendo of opening track “One Thousand Sighs” to its final peak — a tonally rich and urgent but not too fast chug pushed forward by emphatic snare carefully placed in the mix, surrounded by layers of melodic vocals in a dynamic movement that prefaces the encompassing breadth of much of what follows before dropping with residual echo to a sentimental intertwining of acoustic and electric guitar as denouement across the last 40 seconds of its 5:34 — the band’s mastery is glaringly obvious, a brightness cast in kind with the Jaime Zuverza cover art. Point of No Return is the four-piece’s second outing backed by The Sign Records after 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here), and sees them working again with that album’s producer, Joona Hassinen, who also mastered late-2018’s The Narrow Line (review here), at a Studio Underjord now relocated from Norrköping to Finspång, Sweden, while Karl Daniel Lidén of Stockholm’s Studio Gröndahl handled the mix and master.

Across the six songs and deceptively-expansive 37 minutes, whether it’s in the underlying performances of guitarist/vocalists Andreas Kaján and Martin Ahlö, bassist Jonas Ridberg and drummer Joel Kronqvist, or the more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts grandeur they cast in the memorable choruses of “One Thousand Sighs,” “The Sun,” “A Distant Shore,” “…Of Laughter and Cries,” “Things Have Changed” and “Search Eternal” — yeah, that’s all six; it’s front-to-back — or the way even the most impact-minded stretches complement and maintain the atmospheres harnessed through contemplative, patient, purposeful semi-drift, the overarching mastery can’t be ignored. More than a decade on from first getting together in 2011 and nine years after their debut LP, Explore the Void, got them picked up by Ripple Music for a 2016 release, Craneium present themselves as mature and intentional in their craft, graceful in rhythm and melody alike, and aware of what they want their songs to be doing and how they want each to inform the greater context and undulating flow of the album as a whole.

This is conveyed in Frida Eurenius of Spiral Skies guesting on vocals to help put that already-noted apex of “One Thousand Sighs” over the top, as well as Skraeckoedlan‘s Robert Lamu contributing lead guitar to “The Sun” — I’ll note also what seem to be keyboard or piano strikes in that song’s verse; Lamu‘s band employed similar urgency in “Mysteria” from their own new album for a nice shout-out — and, for a just-them example, the way the final solo of “A Distant Shore” holds its tension in Kronqvist‘s soon-fading toms as the non-lyric vocals (ready for an audience singalong as much as they are an epilogue), far-back Mellotron and airy guitar end side A only to have the initial crash of “…Of Laughter and Cries” immediately reground with the more uptempo groove that follows. With a direct shift, that bit of contrast echoes how the buildup of “The Sun,” which is Point of No Return‘s most fervent shove, responds to the quiet finish of “One Thousand Sighs” just before, and though the interaction changes as the couple seconds of silence on side B between the penultimate “Things Have Changed” — the chugging verse and declarative chorus of which mirror “The Sun” in their grounded execution — and “Search Eternal” are tense with anticipation, Craneium nonetheless feel mindful in these pairings and their arrangement across the two sides, each set up such that its procession complements the other.

The split on the vinyl version (I’m not sure there is a CD; take that, ’90s heads), between “A Distant Shore” and “…Of Laughter and Cries,” makes for three songs on each side, and the symmetry of construction extends to “A Distant Shore” (7:35) and “Search Eternal” (7:23) each as the longest running track among its respective three. It’s not the most radical difference between those and the others between five and six minutes long, but still a choice that feels purposeful, especially as “Search Eternal” enters its final outward-pointed movement in a midsection marked by near-elephantine keyboard swells and cycles of guitar that, indeed, seem to be exploring and finding their way forward. And that “Search Eternal” has a hook in its early going is no less representative of Point of No Return as a whole.

On sound alone, it and “A Distant Shore” both work as grand finales. The side-A-capper plunging into Mellotron-laced melancholy and a post-stoner float, and its chorus stands ready to imprint itself on your brain, but the way its riff hits more straight-on before the cymbal wash and danger-zone guitar lead into a heavier rush — still methodical in the detailing with key or guitar sounds peppered in the momentary tumult — before the solo brings “A Distant Shore” to a head and it recedes into the aforementioned, immersive ending, Ridberg‘s bass and Kronqvist‘s drums tasked with keeping feet on the ground through the transition as the melody and ambience lend an aspect of drama without feeling like Craneium have pushed too far and gotten lost. What makes “Search Eternal” function so well where it does is how it emphasizes the fluidity of everything preceding. Beginning with resonant low end fuzz and moving swiftly into its verse, it lacks nothing for fullness of sound at its heaviest — and the mix is a significant space to fill — but Point of No Return would be a much different album if volume was its only priority.

Further, the ease with which they turn from a few measures of bombast to the march-through-the-cosmos instrumental ending, while evocative of the stated climate-crisis thematic, underscores the point of the directorial role they’ve played a songwriters. It’s not that they’ve given up the riffy foundations from whence they’ve come, but while the core “The Sun” could be read as extrapolated from Songs for the Deaf-era Queens of the Stone Age, there’s no denying that Craneium take that particular charge and use it toward their own ends. That, coupled with the care and attention so clearly paid to the root performances and the additional layers constructed around them, affirms Point of No Return as the defining statement of Craneium‘s tenure thus far. Accordingly, where their own ‘search eternal,’ i.e., their collective ambitions in sound, craft and expression, might take them from here feels broader in possibility than it ever has.

Craneium, “Things Have Changed” official video

Craneium, “One Thousand Sighs” official video

Craneium, Point of No Return (2024)

Craneium on Facebook

Craneium on Instagram

Craneium on Bandcamp

The Sign Records on Facebook

The Sign Records website

My understanding of the situation is that Turku, Finland, heavy progressives Craneium finished recording their upcoming fourth LP, Point of No Return, in Oct. 2022. That was a month after premiering a video for “Victim of Delusion”, which was issued as a standalone digital single following 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here), which was their first album for The Sign Records.

That’s plenty of lead time. I say put the thing out Friday. “One Thousand Sighs” sure sounds ready to be heard, let alone either of the tracks they’ve put out as singles thus far, “Things Have Changed” (true: the band have grown) and “The Sun,” which boasts a guest appearance from Skraeckoedlan‘s Robert Lamu. All told, Point of No Return runs six songs, and as someone listening to it right now, I’ve yet to find a dud in the bunch.

I can only imagine the relief Craneium will feel to get this out after sitting on it for a year-plus. Note the Karl Daniel Lidén mix and master and keep in mind ideas of clarity and refinement. Their choruses speak more to the listener here than they have before. I’m interested to get to know the songs better and I’ll hope to have more before the record’s already been out for like four months or some such.

From the PR wire:

Craneium are set to release their fourth album “Point of No Return” in February 2024 via The Sign Records. The Finnish four piece’s upcoming, studio recorded effort is their most ambitious one yet, washing over you through a constant ebb and flow of fuzzy heaviness, complemented by psychedelic melodies and atmospheric passages. The album follows their 2021 studio effort “Unknown Heights” (The Sign Records), “The Narrow Line” (2018, Ripple Music), and “Explore The Void” (2016, Ripple Music).

The album was recorded by Joona Hassinen at his new Studio Underjord in Finspång, Sweden with mixing and mastering duties handled by legendary Karl Daniel Lidén (Studio Gröndahl). The band has long admired his work with giants such as Lowrider and Greenleaf, and we are more than pleased with the end result. With the songwriting expanding upon the Craneium sound with atmospheric guitar leads and heavy riffing, the dynamics have become more polished and clean. Conceptually, the lyrics deal with the climate catastrophe and the responsibility of mankind for planet Earth. The artwork was handled by psychedelic artist Jaime Zuverza and complements the music perfectly.

Craneium is:
Andreas Kaján – Vocals & Guitars
Martin Ahlö – Vocals & Guitars
Joel Kronqvist – Drums
Jonas Ridberg – Bass

https://www.instagram.com/craneiumband/
https://www.facebook.com/craneiumband/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7fRtbrVBXuRjfpdyEiOBRK
http://craneiumband.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thesignrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/the_sign_records
https://linktr.ee/TheSignRecords
http://www.thesignrecords.com

Craneium, “Things Have Changed” official video

Craneium, “The Sun” (feat. Robert Lamu) official video

Last I heard from Finnish outfit Craneium, the Turku-based heavy rockers had finished recording their next full-length for The Sign Records, following up on 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here). Frankly, it still hasn’t been that long since that record came out, so it’s not really a worry that instead of news about the next album, the new song “Sands of Gold” arrives specifically pointed out as a standalone single rather than a herald of an LP to follow.

If it’s the ubiquitous pressing delays, cost-of-everything concerns, or whatever else might be behind putting this out before moving forward with a new album, it doesn’t really matter. New Craneium is welcome regardless, and if this is the capstone for their Unknown Heights era, it both reminds how cool that record was and makes me look forward to what’s coming next.

YouTube stream is at the bottom of this post. If you prefer another service, there’s a bunch linked in the PR wire info that follows here:

Craneium release stand alone single “Sands of Gold”!

The new single from Finlands’ Craneium is called “Sands of Gold” and it oozes of heavy blues rock, desert sand and gasoline. But it’s more than a heavy rock tune with a lot of drive, it’s also a song filled with hope.

The stand alone single was written during the sessions for the bands’ latest album “Unknown Heights” (2021). The band recorded the song at V.R. Studio in Turku together with Joona Hassinen from Studio Underjord.

Listen to the single via your favorite streaming platform or right here: https://orcd.co/sandsofgold

Guitarist Martin, who also handles the lead vocal duties on the track, explains:
“The line ‘we all must do our part / got a new world here in our hearts’ is inspired by a quote by anarcho-syndicalist Buenaventura Durruti. The song is about believing in your thing and staying true to your ideas, even if it at times may seem dark. Something we all could use a little more of right now.”

“Sands of Gold” is out now on all streaming platforms via The Sign Records: https://orcd.co/sandsofgold

Craneium is:
Andreas Kaján – Vocals & Guitars
Martin Ahlö – Vocals & Guitars
Joel Kronqvist – Drums
Jonas Ridberg – Bass

https://www.instagram.com/craneiumband/
https://www.facebook.com/craneiumband/
http://craneiumband.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thesignrecords/
http://www.thesignrecords.com

Craneium, “Sands of Gold”

Finnish heavy rockers Craneium are barely one year removed from Oct. 2021’s Unknown Heights (review here), but they’ve finished putting their next full-length to tape, working with Joona Hassinen as producer, as they will, en route to mixing/mastering by the increasingly-esteemed Karl Daniel Lidén. That’s a whole process in itself, of course, but I saw the announcement the follows here and bothered guitarist/vocalist Martin Ahlö for more info, and as you can see below, a previously recorded single will arrive in February. To me, that says maybe a release in mid-summer?

Depends obviously on pressing delays, but being done tracking is an occasion worth marking just the same. Live dates coming soon? So much the better.

Unknown Heights came out through The Sign Records and I expect the next album, whatever they end up calling it, to do the same. Here’s what they had to say on it:

That’s a wrap! Recording your own music can be quite a nerve-racking experience. That’s why we wanted to do it at Studio Underjord together with Joona. He manages to take the stress out of the equation and has guided us through our process with calm and precision. We’re one big step closer to #craneiumvol4

Thanks for an unforgettable week ❤️ It was dreamy as fuck!

No release date is set for the album yet, but we had good songs written already and decided to hit the studio. We love working with Joona Hassinen so we went to his new studio in the Swedish forests. The mixing and mastering will be done by Karl-Daniel Lidén since we are amazed with what he did on the Greenleaf, Dozer, Lowrider albums (among others).

We will soon publish more live dates for the winter and spring, and a previously recorded single will be released in February.

Craneium is:
Andreas Kaján – Vocals & Guitars
Martin Ahlö – Vocals & Guitars
Joel Kronqvist – Drums
Jonas Ridberg – Bass

https://www.instagram.com/craneiumband/
https://www.facebook.com/craneiumband/
http://craneiumband.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thesignrecords/
http://www.thesignrecords.com

Craneium, Unknown Heights (2021)

Turku, Finland’s Craneium released their new single, ‘Victim of Delusion,’ on Sept. 2 through The Sign Records. The thus-far digital-only offering is the band’s first inkling of moving forward from their 2021 third album, Unknown Heights (review here), though to be fair it hasn’t even been a year since that came out. And the grainy look of the video below directed by Joni Tuominen isn’t an accident either, matching as it does the rough aesthetic edges that permeate in most of the song.

There’s a surprisingly doomed feel throughout “Victim of Delusion.” At the halfway point into the just-under-four-minute piece, they drop out to a proggier break that feels specifically drawn from the European retro set — now almost retro itself — but gives way to an organ-laced (unless I’m hearing things) and charged solo before guitarist/vocalists Andreas Kaján and Martin Ahlö bring the chorus back around for a final runthrough near the end. With Jonas Ridberg‘s bass and Joel Kronqvist‘s drums added to the march, and lyrics like the standout line, “Good things will never come to pass for you nor me,” I feel like the nod to doom noted above is justified on more than one level, and it pulls away from some of the more psych moments on Unknown Heights, but there’s still plenty of ethereal energy to coincide with their terrestrial, dirt-dance riffing.

I’m not ready at all to declare a twist in the direction of Craneium as a whole — standalone singles are their own beast anyway, sometimes — but the harder edges in “Victim of Delusion” hits as something of a surprise and it seems worth noting for anyone else who’s followed the four-piece since at least the last record. Where will 2023 take them? Shows would be my guess. They’ve been a well-kept-secret of heavy for heavy heads, even releasing through labels like The Sign and Ripple Music — no minor shakes, as far as this kind of thing goes — so hopefully as the air continues to clear in the post-pandemic age and the everybody-tours-this-Fall-yes-we-mean-everybody-even-you-get-going leads to a more evened-out live music sphere, Craneium will be able to get out and be a part of it. They usually work at a three-year clip between records, so I’m not expecting a new record, but certainly I’ve been surprised before and am willing to be again.

For now, I hope you enjoy the video. PR wire info and comment from the band follow below:

Craneium, “Victim of Delusion” video premiere

Stream the single:
https://orcd.co/victimofdelusion

Heavy fuzzrock outfit Craneium shares the standalone single ”Victim of Delusion”. The single is the first release from the Finnish four piece since their third studio album ”Unknown Heights” from 2021, and is released together with a music video.

Joel from Craneium comments:

“Our new single Victim Of Delusion is a straightforward rocker in true retro style. It’s fuzzy and it’s bluesy. Dare we even say it’s a bit proto metalesque? Lyrically the song talks about how nothing good comes out of trying to control people. Instead it’s easy to end up a delusional lonely person. To accompany the song we wanted to make a video that tips the hat to retro psychedelic filmmaking. We teamed up with music video maker Joni Tuominen who had an idea on a video with acid fried aesthetics. It turned out great and we had a blast doing it.”

Craneium’s latest studio album ”Unknown Heights” was released on The Sign Records during the autumn of 2021. The album is available on white/blue splatter vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and all streaming platforms.

Get the album:
https://craneiumband.bandcamp.com/album/unknown-heights
https://freighttrain.se/?s=craneium

Craneium has released two albums through California label Ripple Music, an independent cassette release and two split vinyls with 3rd Trip (FIN) and Black Willows (CH). Their third album “Unknown Heights” was recorded and mastered by producer Joona Hassinen (Studio Underjord) and released during the autumn of 2021 on The Sign Records.

Craneium:
Andreas Kaján – Guitars and Vocals
Martin Ahlö – Guitars and Vocals
Jonas Ridberg – Bass
Joel Kronqvist – Drums

Craneium on Facebook

Craneium on Instagram

Craneium on Twitter

Craneium on Bandcamp

The Sign Records on Facebook

The Sign Records website

Good show. Starts heavy, stays heavy. Gets a little rocking by the end, but even the Acidemia jam that caps has a good sense of heft behind it. I noticed last episode had a pretty fair amount of drift — and this one isn’t entirely without, as you’ll notice — but I guess sometimes those aggro tendencies surface. Plus I’ve been very much enjoying the new LLNN album, and you can’t really start with that and not keep going with more extreme fare. Or I can’t, anyway. Or at least I didn’t. So there.

The Pecan joined in on the voice tracks, which was fun. I tried to get him to say his letters but he was like “up yours,” as ever. He knows them, and I guess that’ll have to do for now. But he got such a kick out of hearing himself on the playback that he started sprinting back and forth across the sectional in our living room, so I’m glad to know he at least enjoys taking part, even if having your toddler on is about as un-metal a thing I can think of. I’ve always maintained I have no business being on Gimme, even before they renamed it. It’s nice to be right every once in a while, even if it’s gonna feel bad when they eventually shitcan me.

Either way, thanks for listening and/or reading. I hope you enjoy.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 08.20.21

LLNN	Obsidian	Unmaker
Yanomamo	Dig 2 Graves	Yanomamo/Slomatics Split
Churchburn	Scarred	Genocidal Rite
VT
Sky Pig	The Strain	Hell is Inside You
Guhts	Eyes Open	Blood Feather
Year of No Light	Réalgar	Consolamentum
Blackwater Holylight	Around You	Silence/Motion
Deep Tomb	Endless Power Through Breathless Sleep	Deep Tomb
Starless	Pendulum	Hope is Leaving You
VT
Craneium	Shine Again	Unknown Heights
Kal-El	Mica	Dark Majesty
Crystal Spiders	Morieris	Morieris
Solemn Lament	Celeste	Solemn Lament
VT
Acidemia	Caximbo	Podridão

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Sept. 3 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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