In 2024, many of black metal’s bigger names remained quiet. But the quality of the scene, from Quebec to the Alpine peaks, from the wind battered Yorkshire coast to Norway’s freezing fjords, shone brightly.
Daub on that corpsepaint, tighten that bulletbelt, grab a flaming torch and lift the lid on Rushonrock’s Best Black Metal Albums of 2024.
10. Andracca – To Bare The Weight Of Death (Vendetta Records)
Back in January, we tipped Andracca as a band to watch this year… and this record cemented their status as one of UKBM’s brightest hopes.
Steeped in melancholy and mired in suffering, To Bare The Weight Of Death was an emotional outpouring from guitarist/vocalist Kieran Dawes, the passion of his lyrics matched by a ferocious, unrelenting score.
Dramatic, finely forged songs like Antithesis of Hope and Oceans of Fire showed how far this quartet had come since 2018’s Morgulduin.
With To Bare The Weight Of Death, Andracca had truly arrived.
9. Ante-Inferno – Death’s Soliloquy (Vendetta Records)
Yorkshire’s Ante-Inferno had been threatening to make a record like Death’s Soliloquy for years.
Light and shade were expertly balanced on tracks like An Axe. a broadsword. a Bullet, where shimmering clean guitars gave way to stirring sweeps of blackened riffery, and Towards Asphyxiating Darkness exhibited Ante-Inferno’s total command of epic, seaborne melodies.
This was easily the best album in the band’s career: and another sign of UK black metal’s creative riches.
8. Paysage d’Hiver – Die Bege (Kunsthall Productkionen)
Paysage d’Hiver translates to ‘winter landscape’. It’s apt for a Swiss artist whose music feels like a freezing Alpine wind.
More akin to 2020’s Im Wald than its abrasive follow-up, Gesiter, Die Bege (the mountains) led us into glacial terrain, a place shaped by hypnotic, cyclical chord progressions and trance-state dynamics.
Best served cold on a snow-capped peak, Transzendenz I, II and III lifted the listener into higher realms of consciousness, while Verinnerlichung caught us in a punishing night storm.
And throughout Die Bege, Paysage d’Hiver’s bold vision held true.
7. Blaze Of Perdition – Upharsin (Metal Blade)
Did Blaze of Perdition (pictured top) take a misstep with 2020’s The Harrowing Of Hearts? Its post-punk and avante-rock flavours gave the record a lighter taste than some of the Poles’ earlier work… and maybe that disappointed a few fans.
Upharsin, though, saw them dive headlong into a furnace: it was punishingly heavy, both sonically and emotionally, and threatened to you drag you under. Niezmywalne, for instance, was like a vice around the soul, while Przez rany descended into hopelessness.
Propelled by volleys of blastbeats, the album surged with primal power, yet retained Blaze of Perdition’s sense of sonic freedom.
6. Mork – Syv (Peaceville)
2021’s towering Katedralen was our Black Metal Album of the Year back in 2021. It was a towering sonic edifice and highlighted Thomas Eriksen’s skills as a BM architect.
Its successor, last year’s Dypet, didn’t quite hit those highs – but Syv certainly does. The Norwegians’ seventh album was a rich, diverse effort, its dark tapestries interwoven with star-gazing melodies, its black metal core enveloped by a kaleidoscopic haze.
The astonishing Heksebål was as close Mork have come to Enslaved’s Viking prog, while Holmgang’s charred folk smelled of ancient Pine forests, and on Utbrent, the band loosed surging, angular riffs, before ascending to the cosmos.
Inventive and enthralling, Syv saw the band stay close to their Norwegian roots, while continuing to evolve.
5. Uprising – III (AOP Records)
“Uprise, for their may be no tomorrow” bellowed Uprising mainman W on this album’s title track.
It was typical of the passion and anger flowing through III.
Indeed, W – known for his work in Bavarian black metallers Waldgeflüster – certainly didn’t hold back.
This was a torrent of vitriolic black metal which railed against injustice, wealth inequality and our headlong dash into environmental catastrophe. Hell, even Donald Trump made a cameo appearance.
Powered by the kitwork of Panopticon’s Austin Lunn, Uprising conjured a fistful of anthems, which blazed with defiance and bristled with arcing riffery.
It all made for a memorable third chapter.
Check out the full review of III here.
4. Spectral Wound – Songs of Blood and Mire (Profound Lore)
The world really woke up to Spectral Wound when 2021’s A Diabolical Thirst hit: and three years later, they Quebec act span heads again with Songs of Blood and Mire.
It was more of the same. Thankfully.
Indeed, there was certainly no need for this confident quintet to change direction. Not while they’re building serious momentum.
Dripping with spite and ice pick tremolo riffs, cloaked in a graveyard mist and pitted with deft tempo changes, this record was the work of a band at the top of their game. Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal? Whatever that is, it sounded damn fine on Songs of Blood and Mire.
Perched over the point where 90s BM and its modern offspring converge, Spectral Wound are turning into an apex predator.
3. Dödsrit – Nocturnal Will (Wolves Of Hades)
Multi-instrumentalist Christoffer Öster bottled lightning back in 2017, when he served up Dödsrit’s self-titled debut. A white hot fusion of black metal and crust, it scorched the underground.
Dödsrit – who’ve since become a full band – have since built up a fearsome reputation for boundary blurring extreme metal, thanks to Spirit Crusher and Mortal Coil.
And Nocturnal Will could be their magnum opus.
Marrying d-beats and blasts to blackened medieval melodies, the quartet really took off on this album: each one of the record’s six songs was laced with unforgettable hooks and sublime fretwork, and blazed with passion.
The likes of Celestial Will drifted much closer to BM than we’d heard before… and in Irjala, Dödsrit birthed a bona fide, blackened crust anthem.
Four albums in, the Swedes were still doing it their way: it sounds spectacular.
2. Hulder – Verses in Oath (20 Buck Spin)
Believe the hype.
Hulder’s second full-length was everything fans hoped it would be and more.
Guided by black metal’s ancestral spirits, the Belgium-born, US-based artist crafted a record which was more 1994 than 2024… and we mean that in a good way.
Once the incredible Boughs Ablaze ignited, the way was clear for Hulder to work her Earth magic across Verses in Oath, a record rooted in the early works of Ulver, Enslaved and Satyricon, which flowed and cascaded into glorious unlife. Its transitions were exquisite, the delivery breathtaking.
Solemn and savage in equal measure, Verses in Oath was a masterclass in ancient black metal songcraft… and the album Hulder needed to make.
1. Winterfylleth – The Imperious Horizon (Candlelight Records)
Imperious by name, imperious by nature: Winterfylleth’s latest opus saw the band spread their wings a little, with keyboardist Mark Deeks sprinkling more magic dust onto their trademark sound.
The title track especially benefited from the Northumbrian’s imaginative touch: a complex, beautifully arranged piece, it stood up to anything in the quintet’s canon.
Elsewhere, Primordial’s AA Nemtheanga leant his formidable vocals to A Silent Grace in a much welcomed collaboration, To The Edge Of Tyranny, all bristle and bile, took us back to 2008’s The Ghost Of Heritage, and then there was Upon This Shore – a perfect distillation of Winterfylleth’s 15-year plus career, and testimony to their supreme musicianship.
The Imperious Horizon didn’t feel as immediate as its predecessor, The Reckoning Dawn. But as a rich sonic journey, it was arguably more rewarding.
Enjoyed checking our our Best Black Metal Albums of 2024? Check our our Best Death Metal Albums of 2024 here and our Best Metal Punk and Black Thrash Albums of 2024 here.
Blaze of Perdition photo (top) by Justyna Kaminska.