From enormous metalcore collectives to a herculean one-man project, the year in metal left a deep crater filled with scum, love, filth, and wizards. The big black umbrella that houses the genre has never been bigger or more inclusive as bands keep expanding and redefining the extreme edges of sound and emotion with their music.
The following list of songs and albums, sorted alphabetically, includes metal releases found on Pitchfork’s main year-end tallies as well as an additional 20 records that did not make those lists but are just as worth your time.
Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.
The Armed: Only Love
Inscrutable Detroit hardcore collective the Armed excel at rapturous, alpha-omega moments on Only Love—listening to it feels like doing yoga while on fire. The extreme-pop of their always fascinating, hook-filled third album comes packed within an inch of its life with metalcore guitars, noise-rock synths, and double kick madness in 7/4 time. It’s possible to look at Only Love through the lens of shoegaze, as if My Bloody Valentine tried to scream a hole in the sun. For the Armed, it’s just maximalism as a means of disarmament: This is music that compels you to lay down your defenses and stand in the suffering and joy of life, letting your lungs fill with more oxygen than they can hold. –Jeremy D. Larson
Listen: The Armed, “Witness”
Black Viper: Hellions of Fire
Norway’s extreme-metal reputation has long been centered around the black metal miscreancy of the ’90s, yet its homegrown thrash and speed metal scenes continue to churn out some of the hottest riffs and meanest licks around. Kolbotn and Oslo have emerged as major hotspots thanks to bands like Nekromantheon, Deathhammer, and Condor—all of whom conveniently share members with Black Viper, the latest crew of heavy metal Hessians to come screaming out of the cold. The quartet’s debut is steeped in classic ’80s speed metal tropes and tricks, from its fantastical lyrical focus and manic shredding to the reed-thin, fire-alarm wails on “Metal Blitzkrieg” and flaming fretboard on “Suspiria.” Black Viper succeed in cherry-picking the best lessons from the old school to inject new blood into an aging scene. –Kim Kelly
Listen: Black Viper, “Metal Blitzkrieg”
The Body: I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer.
Is there a heavy band less concerned with the gatekeepers of metal than the Body? After emerging as an obliterative doom duo, they turned simultaneously inward and outward, toughening their tones while inviting collaborators like electronic producer the Haxan Cloak to dismantle their structures. For these 10 tracks, they recruit a litany of guests to sing or scream over songs they built by sampling their own tirades. This creative ouroboros reinforces their scorn for the outside world, marked by “a curse of life” and “monuments to failure.” As industrial in construction as it is in sound, I Have Fought feels like a place where nothing grows, where the end of one cruelty only means the start of the next one. The Body have spent the last decade starting debates about what qualifies as metal; as their animosity grows louder, those squabbles only get harder to hear. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: The Body, “Can Carry No Weight”
Convulsing: Grievous
Brendan Sloan, aka Australian metal act Convulsing, made his sophomore album Grievous entirely by himself. (“Yes, even the choirs,” he notes in the credits.) It’s an impressive feat not just in terms of proggy technicality but also its heady atmosphere. While it certainly sounds bleak, Grievous doesn’t feel solitary. Its spiraling black-hole momentum keeps up from beginning to end, finding a balance between dramatic crescendos and nihilistic howls into the void. It may just be one person, but Convulsing speaks for all of us. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Convulsing, “Relent”
Deafheaven: Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
In 2018, the Smashing Pumpkins (sort of) got back together, and an excellent Smashing Pumpkins album was released. But these two things have absolutely nothing to do with one another, because that excellent Smashing Pumpkins album was actually made by Deafheaven.
For the past half-decade, the San Francisco-bred band have been experimenting with the soluble qualities of black metal, heating it up and melting it down until it evaporates into dream pop. But more than ever before, on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, their atomic fusion of melancholy and infinite madness assumes the lighter-waving splendor and communal ecstasy of arena rock. The elegant piano-led build of “You Without End” (aka Deafheaven’s “Tonight, Tonight”) and serene, stargazing sway of “Near” are disarming enough, but it’s the 11-minute “Honeycomb” that best illustrates Deafheaven’s shifting priorities: What begins as a blast-beat blur gradually dissolves into a Siamese Dream of an outro that’ll have you scouring the liner notes for a James Iha cameo. Of course, George Clarke’s tonsil-ripping growl remains several degrees more fearsome and ferocious than even Billy Corgan’s most anguished wails, but then, what do you think a raging rat in a cage is supposed to sound like? –Stuart Berman
Listen: Deafheaven, “You Without End”
Dödsrit: Spirit Crusher
With its black metal-influenced, melodic, but still aggressive hardcore punk, Dödsrit is a perfect example of how powerful and complex a properly executed metal/punk crossover can be. Spirit Crusher is the project’s second full-length and first for Prosthetic, a metal label that’s plucked most of their current roster straight from the punk underground. The band’s ability to confidently wield both atmospheric melodies and full-throated crust belligerence is stunning, exemplified most clearly on the black metal-steeped “Ändlösa ådror” and its ambitious, multi-layered title track, which spans a full 15 minutes of fury. –Kim Kelly
Listen: Dödsrit, “Ändlösa ådror”
Ghastly: Death Velour
Finland’s Ghastly cast death metal in a velvety aura. On their second record, bandleader Ian J. D’Waters and new guitarist Johnny Urnripper sting like ’90s death metal should, while smoothing out the genre’s burly skin. With “The Magic of Severed Limbs,” an Asphyx stomp becomes lighter and more fleeting, and closer “Scarlet Woman” lumbers even more toward doom. Even though romantic death metal is a niche of a niche of a niche, Velour makes the case that sensuality can go beyond putrid, gurgling guitars. –Andy O’Connor
Listen: Ghastly, “The Magic of Severed Limbs”
Horrendous: Idol
Horrendous are one of the few death metal bands who mine the sounds of the past with a gaze towards the future. While it’s a more focused record that tamps down on the high-flying moments of their 2015 album Anareta, Idol still has a few grand statements. “Soothsayer” and “Devotion (Blood for Ink)” have an almost arena-ready thrust, death metal that thinks at the level of Metallica and Megadeth in their prime. In “Obulous,” they reveal a vibrant machine equally versed in destruction and fun, with a guitar solo that transforms from cacophonic to cockily assured. It’s a beautiful record not just in its tranquil moments (the gorgeous interlude “Threnody”) but also in its sophisticated compositions. –Andy O’Connor
Listen: Horrendous, “Soothsayer”
Ilsa: Corpse Fortress
Named after a cruel Nazi ghoul, obsessed with bottom-shelf horror gore, and raised with D.C. DIY ethics, Ilsa remains one of the most bizarrely punk death/doom bands in existence. The quartet’s fifth album is a beautifully depraved dive into the grossest, slimiest depths of death metal savagery and shuddering doom. The crusty impulses are there, lurking beneath the muck on tracks like “Rückenfigur,” but rancid death remains their primary concern. The creepy-crawly riffs on horror vignettes, like the crusty, churning “Old Maid” and distortion-smeared “Drums of Dark Gods,” come slick with blood and slither straight down your spine. The burly guitar tone is an instrument in and of itself, and vocalist Orion’s serrated roar is the perfect delivery method for their morbid tales. –Kim Kelly
Listen: Ilsa, “Old Maid”
Mammoth Grinder: Cosmic Crypt
At the intersection of death metal and D-beat is Power Trip drummer Chris Ulsh, who revived his main band Mammoth Grinder after a four-year hiatus. While he switched to bass and handed riff duties to Iron Reagan’s Mark Bronzino, Cosmic Crypt still has all of Ulsh’s touches, from Master-style death polka (“Superior Firepower”) to punkifed Swedeath (“Rotting Robes”) to bleak death-doom (the first half of “Human is Obsolete”). It leans more on the death metal end of Ulsh’s spectrum, markedly in his deeper vocals. Still, his no-nonsense hardcore ethos persists, maintaining an ultra-lean, streamlined attack even among the strictest adherents to old school death metal. –Andy O’Connor
Listen: Mammoth Grinder, “Superior Firepower”
Pig Destroyer: Head Cage
After hearing Head Cage, you wouldn’t dare ask Pig Destroyer if everything was OK—you’d ask them if anything was OK. These dozen tirades limn a landscape where sweet love is brittle, country rivers run red, panaceas beget apocalypse, and civil society enforces conformity. On the splintering “The Adventures of Jason and JR,” two pals can’t even go to the local hardcore show without being harangued by Dick Cheney. Pig Destroyer have been perennially belligerent by design; supported now by their first-ever bassist, they are dangerously unpredictable, mutating between grindcore batteries, doom explosions, and power electronics. The agility is dangerous, each new terror disguised by yet another shape. Within the bedlam, they bury bona fide hooks, little lures to bring you toward the violence. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: Pig Destroyer, “The Adventures of Jason and JR”
Portal: ION
On their fifth record, the jagged mazes of the Australian enigma that is Portal become clearer and more startling. “ESP ION AGE” is a homage to no wave via death metal, with guitarist Horror Illogium unleashing rapid skronk bursts that spiral out of line, barely held together by Ignus Fatuus’ drumming. Horror Illogium drives “Phreqs” with compacted, screeching clusters, ending with hornet swarms coming in and out of focus. Gorguts’ 1998 album Obscura comes to mind not just in the slashing guitars, but by how Portal squeak and chop in ways that shouldn’t work but still do. ION isn’t just nonlinear, it feels never-ending. –Andy O’Connor
Listen: Portal, “ESP ION AGE”
Rebel Wizard: Voluptuous Worship of Rapture and Response
With his one-man metal project Rebel Wizard, Australian musician Bob Nekrasov takes ghoulish pleasure in melding the edges of metal’s disparate subgenres. In his hands, grim black metal is packed with anthemic riffs; lo-fi noise ascends into melodic power metal. It all befits an artist who worships at the altar of Queensrÿche’s “I Don’t Believe in Love” but also says he’d sooner “shove a watermelon into the eye of my penis” than clean up his sound. The 10 brilliant and brilliantly titled songs on his latest full-length (example: “Drunk on the Wizdom of Unicorn Semen”) could initially scan as a provocation, but Rebel Wizard is having too much fun to pick any fights. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Rebel Wizard, “Drunk on the Wizdom of Unicorn Semen”
Skeletonwitch: Devouring Radiant Light
Devouring Radiant Light is the record Skeletonwitch nearly never made. After a decade of relentless recording and touring behind hell-raising thrash, the Ohio quintet kicked out their former singer and considered breaking up; instead, they returned recharged with Adam Clemans, a dynamic vocalist and strikingly sensual lyricist who empowered Skeletonwitch’s hard reset. Sky-wide streaks of atmospheric black metal, neon electric leads, and folds of compositional derring-do counter their primeval wallop, its blunt force whittled into svelter forms. Devouring Radiant Light is the old friend who disappeared for a summer, only to return with wider eyes and a stronger jaw—you can hear the joy and confidence in every move they make. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: Skeletonwitch, “Fen of Shadows”
Sleep: The Sciences
As Juuling has taken over high schools around the country, it’s only appropriate that some lifelong stoners in their 40s would come back to remind us that the only acceptable way to inhale vapor is through a bong. Sleep started when its members were teenagers; back then, their now-legendary guitarist Matt Pike had white dreads that flopped around as his guitar solos ascended to heaven. Aside from a new drummer (and Pike’s hair), not much has changed for the band. Sleep are still dedicated freaks and effortless doom metal masters who use their skill to write praise songs to the sweet leaf. Their extended odes boast very sick solos and repetitious bass that burrows deep into your skull. The Sciences, the band’s first album in more than a decade, dropped by surprise on the international marijuana holiday, April 20, and while that’s cute and all, it’s a good listen all year round. Throw your vape in the trash, call your dealer, and crank it. –Matthew Schnipper
Listen: Sleep, “Marijuanaut’s Theme”
Sumac: Love in Shadow
In Isis, Old Man Gloom, and a dozen assorted projects, Aaron Turner established a love of complicated songs that nested their meanings inside multiple movements. But he’s never gone quite as deep or dissonant as he does on Love in Shadow, the unapologetically artful and knotty third album from Sumac. Inspired by recent sessions with improvisational auteur Keiji Haino, Sumac turned the spaces between down-tempo torment and mid-tempo churn into expressionist rock deconstructions. Love in Shadow is a record about the perseverance love demands, about how it can get or make the best of you; built with blocks of tangled briars and undeniable uplift, these four enormous songs ferry you through hell without shielding you from its reality. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: Sumac, “The Task”
Thou / Ragana: Let Our Names Be Forgotten
Recorded in memory of those lost in the Ghost Ship fire, Thou’s latest in a long line of split EPs is an especially compelling entry into the doom titans’ mile-long discography. It also sheds light on one of the underground’s greatest secrets: Ragana. The Bay Area anarcha-feminists offer three slices of thoughtful, emotionally rich blackened doom, and their abiding love for screamo and gentler sounds shows on tracks like the whispery “Inviolate,” the harsh brightness of “The Sun,” and the tense, howling “The Void.” For Thou’s part, they skew heavier and nastier, using crackling feedback and seasick vocal harmonies to build an aura of general unease. It’s a perfect match: Ragana lifts us up towards the light, Thou brings us crashing back down to hell on earth. –Kim Kelly
Listen: Ragana, “Inviolate”
Tomb Mold: Manor of Infinite Forms
Inspired by classic Finnish death metal and role-playing video games like “Bloodborne,” Tomb Mold’s second album is a familiar dose of gnarly, dissonant mayhem, propelled by blast beats and breakdowns. While there’s no shortage of faithful recreations of the genre’s heyday, Tomb Mold evolved their sound with frenetic energy and cleaner production, a surprisingly welcome shift from their scuzzier past releases. Thanks to dual guitarists Derrick Vella and Payson Power, they also returned with enough killer riffs to ensure it's not just mood music. There’s a pounding heartbeat beneath all that decay. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Tomb Mold, “Abysswalker”
Vein: Errorzone
The “amen break” that comes three seconds into the start of Errorzone is one of my favorite moments in music this year. Once the building block of drum and bass music, now it’s the sound of this Boston metalcore band having fun, not being so po-faced about metalcore. It signals that their debut LP is going to whip around turns showing you flashes of Fear Factory and Slipknot and then Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge. Listening to it feels like competitive spinal surgery: tearing you open, doing something insanely complicated and ill-advised, and sewing you up in just 27 minutes. Vein move quickly and play with diamond-sharp accuracy: a flurry of blast beats will last only a few moments before the chugging of a breakdown slams thing into first gear, and some air-raid siren comes to announce some groove metal. It’s the great sound of a band bouncing between caring a lot and not giving a shit. –Jeremy D. Larson
Listen: Vein, “Virus://Vibrance”
Voivod: The Wake
The Wake is the proggiest, knottiest, and most immersive record from the Canadian thrash legends in decades. It’s a daring and intricately composed showcase for their two newest members—guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain and bassist Dominic “Rocky” Laroche—and it’s every bit as unified as their sci-fi landmarks like 1988’s Dimension Hatröss. Standing proudly among this year’s returning legends like Judas Priest’s Firepower, The Wake is filled with cyborg nightmares and apocalyptic opuses that could have come from no other band at no better time. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Voivod, “Obsolete Beings”
YOB: Our Raw Heart
Since the start, Yob have been an outlet for the various crises of Mike Scheidt, the titanic singer whose rumbling bellow and bell-clear falsetto have mapped canyons of despair and cliffs of hope. In 2017, though, he found himself facing an intestinal infection that nearly killed him—twice. Scheidt funneled the malaise and his once-doubtful recovery into Our Raw Heart, a seven-song epic that reckons with pain as a method of temporary mortal transcendence. During “Beauty in Falling Leaves,” he finds deliverance in emotional intimacy, singing “Your heart brings me home” in a hook so wide and welcoming it summons “November Rain.” Yob’s deliberate motion and high volume have long made them a power trio nonpareil; on Our Raw Heart, it becomes clear that metal is merely the exoskeleton, protecting the soft body so vulnerably revealed during these soulful odes to everyone. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: YOB, “Beauty in Falling Leaves”
