Richard HolmesLegends returned. Fretboards melted. And some of the best voices in metal soared. Yes, 2024 was a big year for classic heavy metal.
So raise those horns and let your locks fly (if you have them), as we count down the best trad metal albums of 2024.
10. Traveler – Prequel To Madness (No Remorse Records)
Traveler’s Priest x Maiden combo gave the NWOTHM scene a serious headrush in 2018. Since emerging from Calgary with their self-titled debut, the quintet have proved themselves a formidable live force, while on record, they’ve delivered the goods time and again.
Third album Prequel To Madness saw Traveler revelling in their high velocity, retro futurist heavy metal, personified by Take the Wheel and The Law. Maple leaf mayhem? It’s the band’s stock in trade.
And as Heavy Hearts pounded on, and Matt Ries and Toryin Schadlich’s danced across their fretboards, you just knew the Canadian crew were living their dream. Rich Holmes
9. Haunt – Dreamers (Church Recordings)
Haunt founder Trevor William Church is a prodigious talent. And the Californian is about both quality and quantity. Just delve into his extensive back catalogue if you want the evidence.
Dreamers, incredibly, was the band’s tenth full-length in eight years. But there were no signs of fatigue as the glorious Steel Mountains loomed large, Serenade wove its magic, and the title track sparkled with the slick twists and 80s licks we’ve long associated with Haunt.
More of the same?
Absolutely.
But Dreamers reinforced Haunt’s status as NWOTHM champions. RH
8. Lucifer – Lucifer V (Nuclear Blast)
January 2024 set the bar impossibly high when it came to what would pass as a vintage year for trad metal.
Just a couple of weeks after Saxon dropped Hell, Fire And Damnation, devilish five-piece Lucifer celebrated a decade of doom-laden mischief in typically defiant fashion.
At the time we almost trembled across the keyboard writing ‘Johanna Platow Andersson’s reassuringly sinister tone only serves to ratchet up a sense of deep foreboding’.
But believe us when we say that listening to Lucifer V on vinyl with the lights down and a single candle for company is a uniquely eerie experience.
The record was hotly anticipated and we’d happily queue at the gates of Hell for another copy. Simon Rushworth
Check out the full verdict here.
7. Accept – Humanoid (Napalm)
‘When it comes to trad metal par excellence, Accept no substitute.’
The opening line of April’s gushing review of the hard as nails Humanoid said it all.
But we said some more, just for good measure.
We celebrated Accept for the enduring flag bearers of Teutonic trad they’ve always been.
And we marvelled at the evergreen Wolf Hoffman’s ability to reinvent, refresh and let rip.
Humanoid put a spring in our step as the clocks moved forward.
And a belting record bolted on yet more fist-pumping metal anthems to a 2024 soundtrack weighed down by horns to the sky bangers. SR
Read the full review here.
6. Stryper – When We Were Kings (Frontiers)
Perhaps lazily lumped in with the hair metal heroes of the mid 80s Sunset Strip scene, California’s Stryper have always erred towards trad metal… as well as to God.
And the band’s faithful devotion to meaty riffs has manifested itself in some of the genre’s finest records of the last decade.
Michael Sweet’s piercing vocal range and love of a NWOBHM-styled solo was never more evident than on the white hot When We Were Kings.
In fact, Stryper’s third record of the 2020’s often sounded more like Priest than Priest.
It’s a popular misconception that Sweet and co. went soft — and stayed there — somewhere around 1988. This Kings-sized trad metal triumph proved otherwise. SR
5. Grand Magus – Sunraven (Nuclear Blast)
It’s been 25 years since Grand Magus (formerly Smack) started mixing doom, stoner and trad to dizzying effect.
And sure, there’ve been a few bumps along the road.
But as soon as pounding Soundgarden-meets-Tygers Of Pan Tang opener Skybound pummelled our speakers we knew this was going to be good.
Sunraven was a lesson in loudness: Janne ‘JB’ Christofferson crushed everything his path as a remarkably robust record rolled on with relentless zeal.
The totemic title track set the tone but Hour Of The Wolf and The End Belongs To You were this absorbing album’s highlights. SR
4. Satan – Songs In Crimson (Metal Blade)
Russ Tippins and Steve Ramsey just keep evolving. Newcastle’s equivalent to Smith/Murray, along with imperious singer Brian Ross, are key to Satan’s post-reunion success.
And the ever-inventive pair drew on their progressive leanings to shape an intricate, intelligent record that touched the rock’s stellar realms, as well as occasionally kicking you in the gut.
The astral Era (The Day Will Come) rubbed shoulders with Frantic Zero’s high velocity riffery and Turn The Tide’s British steel, as the NWOBHM veterans continued on their upward trajectory.
Thirteen years after they reignited, Satan’s reign was unstoppable. RH
Check out the full verdict on Songs In Crimson.
3. Bruce Dickinson – The Mandrake Project (BMG)
By the time this record emerged, Brucie hadn’t released a solo effort in nearly 20 years.
Given the rigours of his day job, his pilot’s career and on a more serious note, his brush with cancer, we can more than forgive him for that.
But as Afterglow Of Ragnarock lit up last winter, it was clear that Dickinson’s seventh studio album could match – or even better – anything in his canon.
And so it proved.
The revered frontman gifted us some of the finest moments of his solo career as The Mandrake Project unfurled: Many Doors To Hell, Eternity Has Failed and Fingers in Wounds were brand new anthems from a singer and songwriter at the top of his game. RH
2. Saxon – Hell, Fire And Damnation (Silver Lining Music)
It’s nearly a year since Barnsley’s finest unleashed Hell, Fire And Damnation on the trad metal masses.
But it’s almost half a century since S.O.B. and Coast joined forces to create the riff laden behemoth that became Biff Byford’s Saxon.
And in all that time the big man has rarely sounded so focused, furious and full of life.
In January we wrote that Saxon’s 24th long player was ‘A devilish deep dive into the annals of the past, mixing brutal reality with broad strokes of mystery’.
But forget the historical narrative: Hell, Fire And Damnation trad metal melodies hit every note with bludgeoning brilliance.
Read the full review here.
1. Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (Sony Music)
Is Invincible Shield the finest Judas Priest album since Painkiller?
We’d say so.
Because it embodied everything that’s so special about this legendary band.
The shock and awe. The speed and steel. Their sheer, overwhelming passion for heavy metal.
To an extent, it picked up where Firepower left off.
Rob Halford stood defiant in the face of father time. Richie Faulkner stood head and shoulders above his peers.
But Halford and co. had sharpened their blades since 2018. They struck deep with the opening combo of Panic Attack and The Serpent And The King. These songs were urgent, furious and unbridled.
It was clear we had something very special on our hands. And as arena-level anthems like Trial By Fire and Gates Of Hell were unlocked, the metal gods roared. RH
Enjoyed our Best Trad Metal Albums of 2024? Check our Rushonrock’s Best Thrash Metal Albums of 2024 here.
Grand Magus photo (top) by Johan Baath.