September 2024 Best Heavy Metal Albums

Here are our choices for September 2024’s best heavy metal albums.

1. Oceans Of Slumber – Where Gods Fear To Speak (Season Of Mist)

Since appearing on the scene just over a decade ago with Aetherial, Houston’s Oceans Of Slumber have been making their mark. Their brand of prog has been embraced by both fans and critics as their popularity has increased with each album. 2022’s Starlight And Ash was especially well-received, making many year end lists, including landing on our top 10. Their latest album Where Gods Fear To Speak finds them on a new record label, Season Of Mist.

They start strong, with the dynamic title track with mellow and melodic parts contrasted by heavy, doom sections and growls from Cammie Beverly. Starlight And Ash was relatively streamlined, but this time around Oceans Of Slumber return to longer compositions, with four tracks stretching past six minutes. There are also some high-profile guests, with Moonspell’s Fernando Ribeiro and Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne adding their talents to “Prayer” and “Run From The Light.” The album wraps up with a cover of Chris Isaak’s sultry “Wicked Game,” giving it a more somber spin. The combination of creative and varied songs with Beverly’s world class vocals makes Where Gods Fear To Speak instantly engaging, but also reveals its depth with each listen. It’s our pick for September 2024’s best album.

2. Winterfylleth – The Imperious Horizon (Candlelight)

The well-respected U.K. black metal band Winterfylleth had released a studio album every two years like clockwork starting with their 2008 debut The Ghost Of Heritage. However, there was a four year gap between The Reckoning Dawn and their eighth album The Imperious Horizon.

As on previous releases, the compositions are atmospheric and varied with a lot of dynamics and intense vocals from Chris Naughton. Short, focused songs like “The Edge Of Tyranny” and Emperor cover “The Majesty Of The Night Sky” are exceptions. Winterfylleth lean more toward epic songs that let them explore more musical territory. There are two versions of the album’s lengthiest track “In Silent Grace,” one with guest vocals from Primordial’s Alan Nemtheanga. Even the mellow instrumental “Earthen Sorrows” draws in the listener and avoids being mere filler. The Imperious Horizon was worth the wait, another in a long line of quality Winterfylleth albums.

3. Black Sites – The Promised Land? (Self)

Chicago’s Black Sites have been a favorite here since their 2017 debut, In Monochrome. The Promised Land? is their fourth release, and it is no exaggeration to say this band gets better with every release. The lineup may fluctuate over the years, but mastermind Mark Sugar has a vision for this band, and this may be the closest they’ve come to fully realizing that yet.

Black Sites’ influences have remained consistent over the years – Voivod, King’s X, Queensryche – but here on The Promised Land? the band stretches out, diversifies their sound, and hits a songwriting peak. Top it all off with excellent performances (and guest performances) and top-notch production and we have one of the best albums of the year.

4. Blitzkrieg – Blitzkrieg (Mighty)

Another NWOBHM band who owe their forty-plus-year career a debt of gratitude to Metallica, who covered their eponymous 1982 b-side, Blitzkrieg return with a self-titled full length. Judging by its headbanging contents, Metallica’s praise proves well-deserved. Lead singer and sole-remaining original member Brian Ross sounds as good as ever, his rich baritone (eerily similar to Volbeat’s Michael Poulsen) soaring over a surprisingly melodic set of classic heavy metal.

The key to this album’s success is the diverse range of metal genres the band flirts with. Openers “You Won’t Take Me Alive” and “The Spider” feature classic NWOBHM speed riffs, while “Dragon’s Eye” drifts into power metal territory. “Vertigo” and “The Night He Came Home” flirt with prog, and the melodic metal of “Above The Law” is the album’s earworm. Somewhat unexpectedly, Blitzkrieg deliver one of the top metal releases of the year.

5. The Jesus Lizard – Rack (Ipecac)

26 years is a long time for anything, but a gap between albums? That’s something reserved for a unique band and The Jesus Lizard certainly qualify there. Known for their wildly infectious noisy rock albums in the ‘90s, in particular Goat and Liar, are back for the first time since 1998’s Blue with their seventh offering Rack. The lineup includes vocalist David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison and bassist David Wm. Sims, with drummer Mac McNeilly returning after missing the last record, but playing with band live long after that.

Opener “Hide & Seek” is what longtime fans would want from a Lizard record: fat bass, guitar hooks aplenty and Yow’s distinct chaotic ramble on full display. “Lord Godiva,” the only song with origins in the ‘90s and “Alexis Feels Sick” will feel right at home for fans of recent phenomenon Chat Pile who themselves are admittedly big fans of the Lizard as Yow continues to painfully trace over the music with spoken word and shrieking antics. The Jesus Lizard are back and sound like they never left. Rack is one of the most important records in rock this year.

6. Crobot – Obsidian (Megaforce)

Kudos to Pennsylvania’s Crobot for paying attention to the rise of occult metal. By fusing their heavy groove metal riffs and psychedelic flourishes with a doomy vibe, their latest slab Obsidian lunges and lurches like a mad fusion of the U.K.’s Green Lung and Alice In Chains. When a band’s bio includes a version written entirely in runes, you know they’re all in…

The modern, speed metal workouts of the title track and “Metal” gradually give way to a more occult vibe. “Head of the Beast” features a riff reminiscent of Sabbath’s stoner classic “Hole in the Sky,” while “White Rabbit” bathes in those Alice in Chains-style dissonant vocal harmonies, lending a distinctively American spin on the genre. By the time we get to the creepy, spoken word intro to “The Flood” that demarcates this transition to the arcane, we’re in full-on “little people of Stonehenge” territory – and it’s glorious.