October 2024 Best Heavy Metal Albums

As the year winds down, the quality of new albums isn’t letting up at all. Here are our choices for October 2024’s best heavy metal albums.

1. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)

Directly from the opening sounds of Blood Incantation’s third full-length Absolute Elsewhere, you are transported back to the cosmos. The album marks a return to death metal for the Denver band after diverting to more experimental and ambient music on their Timewave Zero EP in 2022 and single “Luminescent Bridge” in 2023.

Blood Incantation are the very best at what they currently do. The moments of keyboards and particular riffs bring about a sense of 1970s progressive oddities on top of more familiar names like Pink Floyd and Rush, all without sacrificing any of their overall heaviness. In a sign of truly progressive music, the band has clearly defined movements where they display death metal sections that gallop and crush upon repeat while underscoring the progressive, melodic and unusual moments that have made the band a unique entity. This is Blood Incantation’s best work to date, one that will surely be topping many lists at the end of the year. It’s our pick for October’s best album.

2. Iotunn – Kinship (Metal Blade)

If you want to know more about Iotunn, look no further than our 2021 Best of list, where the Danish band’s debut was our fifth-best album. Access All Worlds was a superb modern prog metal album, and many of us who were fans of that album have been eagerly awaiting the follow-up.

Kinship is that follow-up, an album that explores all aspects of humanity from a prehistoric tribesman’s perspective. Kinship takes everything that made Access All Worlds great (the seamless amalgamation of prog, death, and power metal, along with Jon Aldará’s outstanding vocals) and hones the product, giving us a near-perfect blend of everything prog metal fans love.

3. Undeath – More Insane (Prosthetic)

Undeath, one of New York State’s most prominent death metal products, are back with their third LP More Insane serving as a sequel to It’s Time...To Rise From The Grave, an album that was near the top of extreme metal lists in 2022.

Opening salvo “Dead From Beyond” does a great job in being overtly heavy while not lacking in the technicality department as Undeath very rarely compromise their extreme exterior. Instead they intersperse some great leads throughout their songs in a way that makes each iteration of them more and more interesting as they continue to land, like punches from a prize fighter. Undeath properly straddle the line between the kind of extreme you expect from the Empire State and 1990s melodic death metal with more an emphasis on the former than the latter. More Insane is a blast of a record that once again sees this filthy five piece firmly cement their roots on the death metal scene.

4. Mother Of Millions – Magna Mater (ViciSolum)

Magna Mater is the fourth album from Greek prog-metal outfit Mother Of Millions. Their 2019 album Artifacts has been in rotation at this reviewer’s house for the past five years. Magna Mater cranks up the heaviness and the intensity more than a notch, and Mother Of Millions deliver the best album of their career.

George Prokopiou (also of the band Poem) is one of metal’s greatest vocalists, with the ability to wring every last drop of emotion from a lyric without being cliché or overdramatic. On Magna Mater he takes this to the next level, and when you add that to the crushing, epic-sounding music and arrangements – along with the band’s trademark delicate touches on the keyboards – you are left with one of the year’s top prog metal releases.

5. Chat Pile – Cool World (The Flenser)

Midwestern musical machinists Chat Pile follow-up to 2022’s God’s Country with an excursion to Cool World. Back is the noise a la The Jesus Lizard and muddied sludge complete with Stin’s fat bass work and Raygun Busch’s spoken and shouted vocals to help set the band apart from other aural oddities. The 1-2 punch of “I Am Dog Now” and “Shame” welcomes the woe that comes with playing music such as this.

“Frownland” is one of the band’s heaviest songs to date with a bass that is about as oppressive as it can be played and guitars whose devilish distortion add layers to this already complex and violent concoction. The album also displays themes of real-world violence on “Camcorder” and “Tape,” referring to the prevalence of cruel crimes being normalized and easier to digest further cementing Chat Pile’s misanthropic view of the world. If you enjoy noise with an emphasis on heavy sounds and themes with an overwhelming sense of pessimism, then Cool World is the soundtrack to exactly that.

6. Mother Of Graves – The Periapt Of Absence (Profound Lore)

Midwestern melancholy meddlers Mother Of Graves return with their sophomore effort The Periapt Of Absence as they continue to make their mark on doom metal in short order. Mother Of Graves play a particular type of melodic doom that borders on territory that older Katatonia and Paradise Lost did but in their own unique way. Take opener “Gallows,” which displays wonderfully and slowly played doom complete with growled vocals that really sell the feelings of death and dread.

The transition to “Shatter The Visage” showcases more guitar flair with an exceptionally pretty midsection of riffs that help combine the various death and melodic doom sounds to make the complete package that Mother Of Graves are. If you like variety in your doom metal and don’t mind shedding a tear along the way, look no further than one of the year’s best doom metal albums and one of the metal’s very best too. The Periapt Of Absence is the sound of Mother Of Graves continuing to hone their craft.