Let's face it this might be the last top ten list for this genre I get to make as the world could end at any moment these days. These are the bands that best celebrated the coming apocalypse as Sludge should. After I sort through the top 10 albums of all the respective genres, I use those lists to compile the top 10 albums of the year. 2024. The very fact these bands made it on the list speaks to how great these albums are, so it's not a slight that the number 8 album is above the 9th album, there is something that just gives it an edge that makes me want to listen to it more. After all, we can try to look cool and pick the hippest bands for a list, but at the end of the day what makes an album the best is that it makes you want more, you look forward to listening to it again. Perhaps you can find your next favorite on this list; and have included links to reviews of these albums if you want to check out the audio on these guys. Anyway here are the top 10 Sludge albums of 2024
10-Ufomammut- " Hidden"
Italian psych-progsters are back with a renewed thunder. This is their tenth album so they know what they are doing. It moves in a manner that is not the doom they self-identify as until it does slow into a more sludged-out trudge. The commanding vocals are more sung than howled, though often splitting the difference between the two. The band continues to excel.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/04/ufomammut-hidden.html
9-Swamp Coffin -"Drowning Glory"
This band from England approaches sludge with almost hard-core-like aggression as they stomp into the riffs, which is a great deal different from how the Southern-fired sludge of America, takes a more bong-broiled attitude towards it. Sludge is really what happens when punks try to play Doom. This theory is further nuanced when considering the differences between when it's tackled by crust punks vs hard-core kids who grew out of the scene. The hard-core leanings are more noticed when the pace picks up and it becomes sludge in guitar tone only. Even then there are a few riffs with more of a lumbering groove.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/swamp-coffin-drowning-glory.html
8-Autolith - "Artificial Heaven"
This Memphis-based band excels at creating a deliberate atmosphere they trudge with authority. Their strength as a band is the ability to recognize they can only effectively crush you by giving you the chance to catch your breath, rather than just a single-minded assault on your ear drums. The album washes you in their beautiful darkness.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/11/november-is-doom-autolith-artificial.html
7-Canopy - "Empty Light'
One of Atlanta's best-kept secrets has just unleashed a new EP that will elevate its status in the metal community. These guys are going above and beyond, as what kept me listening was not the screamed vocals or punchy sludge accents, but the way the chords rang out to create a sense of melancholy. Just being heavy for the sake of being heavy is an easy task, but pouring your pain and depression. These guys are solidly on the side of sludge, there is a penchant for post-rock guitar wandering to balance out their monolithic crunch with the breathing room needed to create a dynamic juxtaposition
Sludge fans should find themselves pretty content when this album roars to life. It takes you back to the early 2000s when bands like Isis were the newest most exciting force in metal. The hype around sludge has ebbed to the point bands are not self-identifying as that much these days. No matter what this band from Ohio tells you, they are not post-doom or doom gaze they are sludge. They should be proud as they are doing a fine job of it and bring a convincing level of atmosphere to these songs, that keeps them from sounding like the raw pound of cavemen.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/02/oldspeak-st.html
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/04/couch-slut-you-could-do-it-tonight.html
4-Inerth -"Hybris"
Meeting somewhere in the bleak wasted land where sludge intersects with death metal, this band from Spain pulls from a wider range of influences including post-punk and crust. There is a very natural feel to the production of this album that captures the sonic nature of what they do organically. More commanding in the overt sense than what Neurosis did they owe a little more to Sepultura. Though their songs are painted with a dystopian darkness rather than blood-red aggression.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/06/death-is-june-inerth-hybris.html
3-Sect-"Plagues Upon Plagues"
This band is comprised of who's who of post-millennial Hard-core. At the mic former Cursed vocalist Chris Colohan, who is giving an impassioned performance, with a husky croon that winks in the direction of Neurosis. His approach gives the dark tension of the music, more depth and makes more of an impact when it does get time to scream and kick the riffs driven by former Earth Crisis guitarist Scott Crouse. Darker and denser than the bounds metallic hard-core if what finds them lumped in here.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/05/sect-plagues-upon-plagues.html
2-Chat Pile - "Cool World"
Expectations are high for this one as 2022's "God's Country" made it to number six on the Top 10 Punk Albums of the Year list. This album feels a great deal angrier. Where every band always says this will be a heavier album than our last, these guys just delivered. They still care about songwriting, perhaps even more so, as the almost industrial sludge beatings give way to nuance. They fell short of bringing the kind of sonic darkness as the band who took the top spot this year, but should still be celebrated for the great album they delivered.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/09/chat-pile-cool-world.html
1-Glassing -"From the Other Side of the Mirror"
In 2021, this band earned the 7th spot on the overall metal top 10 for the year. They have a history of ruling, and it's not stopping. This album was darker and more melodic, giving me more of what I wanted from them. At times, the screamed vocals offset what might otherwise be creepy bass-driven shoegaze. They get feral and deface your eardrums with their tangible sense of anguish. Though none of this is contrived or thought out from a marketing perspective by a record label this is just where they are, perhaps even angrier than the previous album though there is a wide range of emotional colors being used here making them the best sludge album of the year with the inner apocalypse they project outwardly.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2024/04/glassing-from-other-side-of-mirror.html
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