By Scott
My listening in 2024 was pretty much split between new ones by old favorites and old ones that were new to me.
Opeth, The Last Will and Testament (2024).
I’ve enjoyed Opeth’s prog rock era and it makes me feel old to realize 2011’s Heritage was thirteen years ago. I still think of this as a recent development in their sound. But Opeth has meant a lot to me for many years, and hearing the return of the death metal elements in The Last Will and Testament was extremely satisfying. This album strikes a good balance between their classic and more recent styles, and including Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull for some spoken word parts and a bit of flute is a nice touch. The songs don’t quite jump out at me individually yet, but this is a concept album and meant to be appreciated as a whole piece of work.
Ihsahn, Ihsahn (2024).
This dude is no stranger to combining orchestral elements with metal, and as much as I love this approach at times, and especially the classic Emperor albums, I still think that style can be a little corny. But not here. Ihsahn’s solo albums are inventive and interesting, and this one adds a layer of orchestral accompaniment that’s unobtrusive, scaled back, and even a little weird, so that it actually complements the frenetic intensity of the music instead of smothering it.
Darkthrone, It Beckons Us All... (2024).
This was the year I caught up with Darkthrone’s most recent handful of albums and I’ve been enjoying the hell out of them, capped off with this latest one. This band has gone through a few stylistic changes over the years, but they’ve settled into a wide-ranging, expansive sound that comes across like a tribute to the idea of “heavy metal” itself. I also like the idea of these two dudes simply getting together every year or so, writing and recording an album, putting it out there, and going on with their lives, purely according to what they want to achieve as a band.
Devin Townsend, Powernerd (2024).
I love just about anything Devin Townsend releases, although I think he’s sometimes too prolific for his own good, and some of his more experimental/ambient stuff is fine but not for me. This album feels like a solid chunk of music, without excessive ornamentation or experimentation for its own sake: a straightforward, even simple bunch of songs that all have plenty of atmosphere but aren’t especially complicated. The bonus tracks, which sound like someone turning the dial through a series of radio stations, all featuring Devin in his more eclectic mode, are there if you need them.
Pat Metheny, Dream Box (2023).
I love the story behind this album. Metheny, like many musicians, makes little recordings for himself to capture ideas, try things out, and so on. He was on tour when one day he discovered a folder on his computer, full of recordings that he didn’t even really remember making. He listened to them and realized that there was an album in there, so he picked out the best tracks and voila: Dream Box. This is a very mellow, quiet collection of songs, all of them improvised and spontaneous, perfect late-night music.
Neil Young, Archives, Volume III (2024).
I splurged on this, in part because I already own the first two volumes in this archival series, and I suppose that one day they might be worth a lot of money...so, eventually, when our society collapses and we begin to experience the full onslaught of ecological destruction and dystopian terror that is sure to come, I will be able to barter my set of Neil Young archives for food and medicine. Also, the songs are pretty good!
Alexander “Skip” Spence, Oar (1969).
The only album by a talented but troubled musician and former member of Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane. Spence played all the instruments and recorded this at some point during a downward mental health spiral, and there are ways in which this album is not “good,” but it’s unique and memorable, and it draws you in unlike anything else I listened to this year.
MC5, Back in the USA (1970).
Many people disliked this album when it was released: the sound was too clean, too tight, and too carefully controlled, especially compared with MC5’s explosive debut, the raw live recording Kick Out the Jams. But in retrospect, this album sounds great—and like a forerunner of late 1970s punk to come—and I prefer it to the first one.
Clutch live, performing all of Blast Tyrant.
This band is always fun as hell to see live, and celebrating the 20th anniversary of this album, well, it was a lot of fuckin’ fun! Adding an encore of songs from their first album (and earlier!) was a nice bonus.
Dave Marsh, Kick Out the Jams (2024).
This is a long overdue, and necessary, follow up to Marsh’s 1985 collection Fortunate Son, and it contains samples of his writing from the early 1980s to the present. Even if you don’t always agree with Marsh, who can be feisty to the point of truculence, he’s very often insightful and funny, and he writes with a sense of political commitment that never devolves into mere rhetoric or one-dimensional thinking.
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