November 2024 Best Heavy Metal Albums

We wrap up the year with another strong group of metal albums. Our best of 2024 list is coming next month, and our final monthly list of the year is November 2024’s best heavy metal albums.

1. Opeth – The Last Will and Testament (Reigning Phoenix)

Swedish prog giants Opeth‘s fourteenth album is The Last Will and Testament. “The death growls are back” is the first thing you’ll hear when talking with Opeth fans, and folks will be fixated on that. But that doesn’t make this album a prog-death album. Sure, Mikael Åkerfeldt’s superb death growls permeate the album, but it is not accompanied by blast beats or tremolo riffing. This is a metal-infused prog rock album, and an excellent one at that. It is a concept album – the band’s first, believe it or not. It tells the tale of a rich patriarch whose will, when read to his twin children, does not bestow upon them what they were expecting.

This is a musically extravagant album, with arrangements across all eight songs feeling very grand yet cloying and dark at the same time. One can almost feel oneself sitting in the study when the will is read, and the mood and music change as each new surprise in the story is revealed. The Last Will and Testament feels like the culmination of all Åkerfeldt and Opeth have been aiming for since Watershed. Every song is immaculate, with plenty of drama, dynamics, melody, and heaviness. Opeth are no longer a progressive death metal band (they haven’t been for decades), nor are they a ’70s-era prog rock band; they are their own force now, and this album is their declaration of freedom from the shackles of expectation.

2. Tribulation – Sub Rosa In Aeternum (Century Media)

On their sixth album Sub Rosa In Aeternum, Tribulation continue their metamorphosis into a gothic giant. Since this is their first album recording session since the departure of Jonathan Hultén who left after their last album was recorded, it almost immediately takes on a tone in the vein of The Sisters Of Mercy, Paradise Lost and even the High Parasite album from earlier this year.

With this being the band’s fourth album since shifting away from being a death metal band, they still aren’t afraid of reinventing themselves. “Time & The Vivid Ore” is a welcome tune to the ears of the faithful, being more in line with their last few albums, showing that this iteration of the band is embedded well within their underpinnings.If a gradual maturation for these Swedes is what you are looking for, Sub Rosa In Aeturnum shows that you can maintain what got you here, but not in a way that just sees a band rest on their laurels. Tribulation have further solidified themselves as titans of the heavy music scene.

3. Beardfish – Songs For Beating Hearts (InsideOut)

The cult Swedish prog band Beardfish sadly broke up in 2016. They return now with Songs For Beating Hearts, their ninth studio album. As with every other album the quartet remains the same, led by vocalist/guitarist Rikard Sjöblom (who has also played with Big Big Train and Gungfly).

The results of this reunion are fantastic. This is prog rock as it is meant to be: complex, yet melodic and highly enjoyable. The songs are excellent, from the five-part “Out in the Open” to the epic title track, and Sjöblom’s vocals span the breadth from plaintive to hard-rocking. Often when bands reunite the results are tepid at best; not so with Songs For Beating Hearts. Beardfish have released a fantastic prog rock album.

4. Bedsore – Dreaming The Strife For Love (20 Buck Spin)

Bedsore’s passion for prog rock is in full swing on the assured Dreaming The Strife For Love. Their debut album, Hypnagogic Hallucinations, was just an outline for this turn, as keyboards, woodwinds, horns and classical guitars are as vital as any demonic growl. It’s a dramatic turn that was the right call, even if some may find it too far removed from death metal.

Bedsore head onward by holding tight to the past, bringing in musicians to play real instruments and not just synthesizing them all. When an organ rings out on “Fanfare For A Heartfelt Love,” its power reverberates through the song. A cascading array of saxophone, trumpet and flute on opening instrumental “Minerva’s Obelisque” makes for a stunning start to the album. Bedsore have reached an inventive apex with the magnificent Dreaming The Strife For Love.

5. The Gates Of Slumber – The Gates Of Slumber (Svart)

Making a somewhat surprising return to the doom metal populous are The Gates of Slumber with a self-titled slab, their first full-length since 2011’s The Wretch. Vocalist/guitarist Karl Simon sounds as tremendous as ever and the album although it is just six tracks in just over half an hour, the amount heavy riffing you get and still feel as though you aren’t getting cheated for doom sensibilities.

There is a lot to love for fans of the genre as there is a ton of Saint Vitus present in their music as well as Pentagram to complete your dream doom metal blunt rotation. “Embrace The Lie” and “Full Moon Fever” are standouts, but all six songs bring something different to the table. It’s a shame that this album was released so late in the year as some fans may not be looking for new tunes by now, but rest assured The Gates Of Slumber is one of the finest doom metal albums of 2024, absolutely crushing and uncompromising in its approach.

6. Thy Catafalque – XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek (Season Of Mist)

Tamás Kátai, the creator of the avant-garde metal outfit Thy Catafalque, has been especially prolific over the past few years. He follows up last year’s Alföld with XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek, which translates to Twelve: The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet To Come.

A quarter century after their debut album Sublunary Tragedies, Thy Catafalque remain as creative and inscrutable as ever. More than two dozen guest musicians appear on the record, many from the Hungarian metal scene. Opener “Piros Kocsi, Fekete Éj” is melodic and accessible, with the avant-garde kicking in on “Mindenevo.” There are heavy tracks like “Vasgyar” that are contrasted by folkier and proggier numbers such as “Vakond.” The album concludes with a cover of Omega’s “Babylon.” XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek is a dynamic album full of contrasts, with some songs that are instantly engaging and others that take a while to absorb, making for another intriguing Thy Catafalque release.