Is there a bastion of the metal world so tenacious or resilient as death metal? Almost 40 years on from the release of Possessed's Seven Churches, the genre continues to thrive in new and exciting ways, its many subschools producing some of the most boundary-pushing music in the metal sphere.
Whether it's the unhinged intensity of grindcore, the ascendant rise of deathcore or just old school veterans like Deicide and Nile putting out top-tier material, there's still plenty to get excited about when it comes to death metal releases. That in mind, we've rounded up some of the year's biggest talking points to offer a selection of the finest death metal had to offer in 2024.
10. Nails – Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast)
Eight years on from the fercocious assault-on-the-senses that was You Will Never Be One Of Us, grindcore brutes Nails stormed their way back into the hearts - and perforated eardrums - of metalheads with comeback Every Bridge Burning.
An apt title for the return of a band that had since been whittled down to just vocalist/guitarist Todd Jones, Bridge... was no less acerbic nor brilliantly disorienting than its predecessors. Flying through ten songs in a little under 18 minutes, Nails even aded a bit of speed metal to their repertoire with the flashy guitar work of Give Me The Painkiller. Nifty. Rich Hobson
9. Job For A Cowboy – Moon Healer (Metal Blade)
19 years ago, Job For A Cowboy were at the forefront of extreme music’s most basic and controversial genre: the pig-squealing, breakdown-ing deathcore. The band couldn’t be further from that now, though. Where their Doom EP reduced death metal to its basest elements, 2024’s Moon Healer was an ultra-sophisticated tech-death thrillride.
On their first album in a decade, Job built a labyrinth of riffs, reinforced by some virtuosic bass chops and accelerating-and-decelerating percussion. It wasn’t all brains over brawn, though. Opener Beyond The Chemical Doorway and finale The Forever Rot especially offered plenty of hard, primal grooves. A PhD in music theory is not required when it comes to appreciating what this lot do – and hopefully we needn’t another decade to hear more of it. Matt Mills
8. Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All (Napalm)
Who's your... erm, mummy? Over 30 years in, there's no question on who metal's premiere Egyptologists are, Karl Sanders and co. still plunging the depths of the Underworld for their tenth full-length.
The results are predictably brilliant. Thundering, imperious and delivered with an unrelenting sense of intensity, The Underworld Awaits Us All explodes with technical brilliance, its many blastbeats underpinned by darting guitars that speak to a level of veteran accomplishment the band have long since achieved. Rich Hobson
7. Meth. - SHAME (Prosthetic)
A punishingly hateful mixture of sludge, noise and death metal, SHAME is less an album than an endurance test for listeners who's souls aren't already black as tar. Abyssal and unrelenting, each track drops like a lead weight on the spine, utterly flooring in just how bleak it all is.
Which naturally means, it's fucking fantastic. If you find yourself turned off by the more cartoonish aspects of goregrind and deathcore's shift to symphonic cleanliness, this record is a headlong drop into slop and muckiness that has us wallowing like pigs in the proverbial shit. Glorious. Rich Hobson
6. Ulcerate – Cutting The Throat Of God (Debemur Morti)
Ulcerate make whatever the opposite of “casual listening” is. Over two decades, the New Zealanders have refined a particularly choking strain of death metal, mixing it with noise and sludge to ensure there’s zero breathing room.
For album number seven, more melody was added to the band’s cocktail of hideous things, but it didn’t make their music any easier to swallow. Although the title track opened with one of their most tasteful and immediate riffs, it only made the following barrage of texture, roars and speeding percussion all the more immense. With To See Death Just Once layering slow, dissonant guitars atop blast beats and The Dawn Is Hollow juddering between aggression and ambience, Ulcerate’s placement as masters of their own subgenre was reaffirmed. Matt Mills
5. Escuela Grind – Dreams On Algorithms (Mnrk Heavy)
Escuela Grind did not stop in 2024. In January, the grindcore nasties leaned into their death metal side on an EP ingeniously called Death Metal. They then toured their asses off for months, before striking a crescendo with Dreams On Algorithms in October.
The New Englanders’ third album smacked with more of the gut-churning deathgrind they’ve always dealt, but also broadened their horizons. This was felt most strongly on finale Turbulence, when singer Katerina Economou flaunted their melodic singing for the first time ever. Beefy hardcore stomps and breakdowns appeared throughout the 10 tracks, which together contemplated the nature of algorithms and how they shape modern society. Smart and primal at the same time, Escuela’s latest reaffirmed the unit as ones to watch. Matt Mills
4. The Black Dahlia Murder – Servitude (Metal Blade)
After the tragic passing of Trevor Strnad, The Black Dahlia Murder found the best way to pay tribute to their fallen frontman was by producing an album worthy of their own legacy. And good goddamn if they didn't do just that with Servitude.
A pinwheeling, frenzied charge through realms of extremity that spanned from the technical to blackened and even melodic, the album reaffirms everything great about The Black Dahlia Murder whilst providing them throughlines to ever-grander levels of songwriting, guitarist Brian Eschbach stepping into the role of vocalist with gusto. Rich Hobson
3. Fleshgod Apocalypse – Opera (Nuclear Blast)
Opera was the album where Fleshgod Apocalypse discovered nuance. Previously famed for making symphonic death metal as subtle as a nuclear holocaust, the Italians explored new, emotional ideas, inspired by the near-death of their singer/bassist.
This concept piece narrated Francesco Paoli’s life-threatening 2021 climbing accident, with Morphine Waltz using the band’s brutality to convey his drug-addled delirium while hospitalised. Elsewhere, though, Matricide 8.21 offered a surprisingly bittersweet chorus where Paoli apologised for scaring his mum. Till Death Do Us Part marked the apex of the evolution, ending the album on a sombre note where soprano vocalist Veronica Bordacchini stole the show. No question, this was the most emotional and essential material of Fleshgod’s 15-year career. Matt Mills
2. Gatecreeper – Dark Superstition (Nuclear Blast)
Gatecreeper make death metal for the masses. Accessibly stompy drum beats and catchy guitar parts have always been part of their vocabulary, but Dark Superstition made their arena-conquering aspirations clearer than ever.
The Arizonans hired some star talent for album three, with Converge guitarist/producer Kurt Ballou behind the desk and Fred Estby, of Swedish death metal figureheads Dismember, co-writing. They also took inspiration from mid-paced goth music to make their 10 most user-friendly tracks ever. The Black Curtain’s verses marched towards a chorus underlined by heroic lead playing, A Chilling Aura excitingly banged and thrashed, and it’s easy to picture all of it getting festival fields to go apeshit en masse. Matt Mills
1. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)
With bands like Frozen Soul and Undeath leading the charge for the new wave of old school, it was left to Blood Incantation to show everyone else just how advanced they'd become in the fields of death metal with the release of Absolute Elsewhere.
After taking a sojourn into the realms of synth with 2022's Timewave Zero, the Denver group took their genre experimentation further than ever before with this majestic, unpredictable opus. Split into two major movements - The Stargare and The Message - Blood Incantation craft a sonic odyssey that touches in on their trademark cosmic death metal whilst also incorporating krautrock, prog and psych in a bewilderingly brilliant way.
It's an absolute masterclass, and there could be no doubt about it being the best death metal album of 2024 - especially considering it already bagged Hammer's album of the year. If the enormous crowds that turned out to see the band play at 2024's Roadburn are anything to go by, this band are set to only get bigger. Rich Hobson
