Well, 2024 has ticked over to 2025, and that means it’s time to look back and assess what made my list for the top albums of the year. Plenty of stuff to choose from, but, try as I might I can’t separate the first 3 for overall album of the year. Let’s get into it.
Equal Top Albums of 2024. I can't separate these 3.
SONATA ARCTICA – ‘Clear Cold Beyond’
After a slightly more ‘gentle’ time period, from the first notes of this album it’s clear that SONATA ARCTICA are shaking off the shackles in a return to the sounds of yesteryear. This album rips, I just wish they’d tour down this way. Ah, the tyranny of distance.
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM – ‘I Am The Weapon’
Another one of those, ‘How are they going to follow the last album?’ kind of deals, where, they just did. This album is NUTS. Awesome songs, played well. In fact the drumming by Ken Mary, (who you might say doesn’t have a thrash pedigree, no disrespect intended) is what drives this whole machine along, it’s something to behold. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM are knocking it out of the park again and again. They are ahead of the game in their genre, and there is daylight between them and the others behind.
The following albums are in no particular order.
OCTOPLOID – ‘Beyond The Aeons’
Practically impossible to describe but I will do my best. Take yourself back to Opeth’s ‘Ghost Reveries’ album, and imagine if the band progressed from there on that plane that they were on then, instead of getting on a different plane. Listen to this album and you will maybe see it the same as me. This is a top album. Check it out if you haven’t already.
EMERGENCY RULE – ‘The King Of Ithaca’
These guys are local for me, so I have seen them perform many times and each time it was a great experience. I’m glad that they managed to ‘bottle the lightning’ and get these songs out there. What do they sound like? Their website says, ‘It’s Sabbath with attitude, it’s Down with a swagger, it’s Skynyrd with power.’ A reviewer friend of mine says, ‘They’re a 1970s bar-room brawl’. My take is if you wrote songs inspired by EARLY Sabbath stuff and got mid-70s Thin Lizzy to play it, you’d be somewhere in the ball park. Great band, great album, worthy of a spot in this list.
