If this wasn’t an all-encompassing alternative music site, there is a very good chance it would be one that only covered the hardcore and metal scenes. There really is that much of it happening out there well worth your time and ears’ attention, and at several points in the year, I need to remind myself that there’s other music needing to be covered because otherwise, the album and EP reviews section would just be a nonstop feeling of heavy music love.

A theme in this year’s best releases? An audible shift is happening in hardcore. After some very solid years of exciting mainstream crossovers through genre- evolutionary experiments, these newer sounds are hitting the pit like a pile of bricks and circling back to a time where heavier weight is being toppled on top of you. Pure brutality, feeding off as reactionary for these times in all likeliness, as listeners want to fuck shit up (without doing any physical harm to others, hopefully.) It doesn’t mean that boundaries have reached an end point of being pushed, however, and for some of the bands who started that movement, they’ve really hit the mark in putting it all together. These are the Best Hardcore and Metal Scene Albums of 2024.

Balance and Composure – with you in spirit [Memory Music]

It turns out the light they made went against everything Balance and Composure truly were inside. The Doyleston quintet has realized this in the years since initially saying goodbye in 2019 following a foray into dreamy indie rock, and a full circle return in ultimate form in their comeback eight years in the making, with you in spirit, reveals their true nature. Longtime listeners might hear this as an apology from the band to them for all of the right reasons, as they’ve made sure to reconnect with that original energy of tempering moody melodic hardcore with a big, rocky grunge rumble that blocks just the right amount of light, but otherwise is most comfortable seeking answers to big questions in the dark. It’s immaculately constructed this time around, and that hat tip goes out to reuniting with Will Yip in the studio, because he’s always known just how much to let them bleed and where to let their sound shimmer. That doubles for vocalist Jon Simmons, too. Age hasn’t softened his lyrical blows, as he’s still playing guess with God, getting terrified and mortified by mortality, and deconstructing his own self-sabotaging habits in true emo fashion.

Candy – It’s Inside You [Relapse Records]

The experimental nature of Candy really goes into two very different places on their sophomore effort without sounding like a complete disconnect in feeding off one another. The bulk of the A-side of It’s Inside You leans into the Richmond crew’s extremist metal and a hypercore intensities not far removed from their 2022 breakthrough debut, Heaven Is Here, in sounding like acid being poured from a vat all over your body, burning through flesh, muscle and bone as a means to self-medicate living in this broken world. Its in the album’s second half which Candy move past the point of pain, however, by spilling their way into industrial machines and an electronic fusion. There’s not so much a corrosive reaction to that intensity, but rather what could better be described as a discovered connection with feel good chemicals from the surge, transcending you from this earthly hellscape’s grotesque to surroundings more purified.

Cosmic Joke – Cosmic Joke [HardLore Records / Triple B Records]

Cosmic Joke are a dire injection of melodic hardcore punk energy that will at least distract your negative headspace with the sounds of thrashing up skate parks and adrenaline rush for your deadlift goals. SoCal’s Bad Religion influence is brandished right there in press pics of vocalist Mac Miller’s t-shirt, and that’s loudly evident throughout the band’s self-titled debut LP. But Cosmic Joke are also digging their own place into the cement of today’s modern scene by filling the gap between hardcore with smart punk-pop sensibilities that fucks with no adjacencies. What you hear is what you get, and there’s plenty of it to digest with Miller packing on heavy ponderings on modern consumerism (be it capitalistic, content, or our own self-indulgences) and the way it wrecks our satiation levels. It’s no pure supplement for it all, but its effects across its 14-minute, 9-track listen will knock your endorphin levels up just as well.

Drug Church – Prude [Pure Noise Records]

In a sense, as Drug Church trudges on and the band’s cult following becomes part of the masses, there’s been a noticeable deterrence for everything that spills ill will into the headspace of vocalist Patrick Kindlon even though it was that very same poison which simmered the fury to a boil on the band’s early stages. Prude is the Albany post-hardcore rockers’ way of meeting the bitterest at its peak destruction potential, and outlasting it to live a much better next day. The triggers act as catalysts to put Kindlon and company’s rage into focus, but it’s the all-the-wiser punk philosophies in the subsequent melodic reprieves hat put everything into clearer view. “Apologies / Are a wedding night fling / Sometimes it’s best to exit quietly,” he muses metaphorically on “Myopic”, though it doesn’t necessarily pertain to Drug Church’s sound here, as being at peace with your own way definitely doesn’t mean having to go soft.

Firewalker – Hell Bent [Triple B Records]

There are plenty of references to fire, demons, and fury throughout Hell Bent. Sophie Hendry is full of all of them. “How he tries to steal my joy / I must be the Devil’s favorite fucking toy!,” she growls through gnashed teeth in the album’s opening headcharge, “Devil’s Favorite Toy”. The next song is a self-immolating anthem called “Carry My Own Torch”, and after that, its title track incinerates with a guest spot from Trapped Under Ice and Angel Du$t frontman Justice Tripp before throwing the whole damn kerosene tank onto the blaze with “Lit Up With Fire”. On the band’s sophomore effort and first album in 7 years, they can’t be contained or ignored. They’ve mastered the art of pyrotechnic hardcore here in putting their instruments through the kiln, resulting in a refined yet heavier metallic armor that allows them to run full force into the flames. The sound remains gnarled with grit and soot in between its crevices while the ignition source remains the spirit of an aggressive refusal to not be stepped to that can only be born out of Boston hardcore.

Glitterer – Rationale [ANTI- Records]

Ned Russin is searching for something that keeps himself from disappearing. That’s been the common thread between each and every Glitterer album since Title Fight went away as he continues seeking out some of life’s biggest answers through obtuse yet impressionistic grunge-core. Rationale at least finds a resolve to the band’s sound four albums in resulting in their most fully charged listed to date. The keyword being “band,” as he’s now ingrained his live band of guitarist Connor Morin, keyboard Nicole Dao, and drummer Jonas Farah properly into Glitterer’s rigid sparks, forming a fuller body with blood pumping behind blistering emotions to a greater degree. With the added limbs, the hooks grab more muscularly and everything that’s plugged into Glitterer’s circulatory system is a headrush. It’s hard to disappear when you’re so visibly there like that. Here, Glitterer have become more real than ever.

Gouge Away – Deep Sage [Deathwish Inc.]

There would be no modern hardcore scene breaking preconceived boundaries like it is right now without Gouge Away’s influence kicking down walls. Through it all, Gouge Away had been missing in action. The pandemic years made for loss studio time as members splintered across the country and took on other projects while the world stood still. Deep Sage, recorded in their newly adopted Pac NW meeting ground, is chapter three from Gouge Away which hears Christina Michelle alongside guitarists Mick Ford and Dylan Downey, bassist Tyler Forsythe, and drummer Thomas Cantwell sinking even deeper into their skin. It’s Gouge Away’s fuel to their original formula fully concentrated for both combustibility and slowburn, if now with wiser rage heard in crackling shoegazing embers and turbulent headcharges that dig incision points into the psyche and creates pop blisters. They’re not as outright visible as they are in the blue sky scourge of Militarie Gun or Scowl, but Gouge Away claim comfort in their own self-made chaos when letting the thrill of it take over them. Whereas others are chasing the escape from those feelings, Gouge Away are running straight into them.

Infant Island – Obsidian Wreath [Secret Voice]

For the past decade, Infant Island have been separating themselves merely from aesthetics shared with their Virginian peers and originators pageninetynine and City of Caterpillar to the more modern flare-ups across coastlines in Deafheaven and Portrayal of Guilt that have been offered up to the alter of the void. Obsidian Wreath, the Frederickburg band’s third full-length effort, is outstanding from everything before it in the scene because of how they sonically place a scourge upon mankind’s footprint on this Earth. Decay and the perceived end times by our own hands are recurrent themes throughout the listen, with it being devastatingly funereal of what’s impending. On the way to the end, the band lends kerosene to the fire already burning, charring the surface from various degrees of screamo both cathartically dramatic and extremely brutalist, towering black gaze, and cold, cratering post-rock ornation. The epitaph needn’t read so grave, as Infant Island create life from death, and the presence of an entire community around them creates its own optimism from the ashes that there’s a beauty when you at least go down together.

Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To [Pure Noise Records]

Heavy music that hits you with something harder than just impact will always be made by artists who make you feel like you are genuinely being brought within an inch of your life. On their third studio effort, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, Knocked Loose exponentialize it to confront the most terrifying of existential matter on their biggest, hardest, and fastest collision course with oblivion yet. A top of mind panic attack aboard an airplane is the catalyst of the listen. Blind faith, fake prophets, fake friends, and struggling under the weight of everyday anxieties surge through the mind across the listen, and Bryan Garris alongside guitarists Isaac Hale and Nicko Calderon, bassist Kevin Otten, and drummer Kevin Kaine are hellbent on smashing through each and every one of them. Stylistically, they’re still very much the savages of shifting tectonic plates from the Earth’s core they were on their 2019 breakthrough, A Different Shade of Blue, even from the gravity of a bigger stage. Though now bolstered by production of mainstream metalcore studio guru Drew Fulk, there’s a greater degree of intensity and weight behind the way their sound hits the sensory surface.

One Step Closer – All You Embrace [Run for Cover Records]

On their sophomore effort, All You Embrace, One Step Closer have figured out a very, very sweet, hard to crack spot in their melodic hardcore formula that heavily figures in punk-pop and emo anthemry of a very early 2000s scene scale without sounding like they’re clinging onto glory years. Perhaps this is because they’ve still got their youth, but they’ve also got wisdom beyond them from all that time spent traveling the world over since releasing 2021’s breakthrough debut LP, This Place You Know. Where they were once were at war with the smallness of their worn out hometown surroundings, the Wilkes-Barre crew are already looking for a way to find their way back to simplicity in rallying missives on loss of both the romantic and platonic form, all from thousands of miles away. If This Place You Know accomplished an escape through sheer melodic grit and shoving boulders out of their path with determination, All You Embrace‘s energy is as limitless as the world that has opened before their eyes, even in its big scary thoughts and realizations.

Regional Justice Center – FREEDOM [Closed Casket Activities]

For the past several years, Ian Shelton has been informing listeners through extreme hardcore on the modern day incarceration system with his pre-Militarie Gun band Regional Justice Center. He would know this better than most given that his brother, Max Hellesto, was behind prison walls under legally blurry circumstances, prompting the formation of the band. Having now served his time, it’s a fitting point for RJC’s third chapter to bring Hellesto formally into the band to put his scream behind the experience. Full of fastcore speed and a power violence intensity, FREEDOM SWEET FREEDOM forces your ear closer to hear Shelton’s emotions from looking on the outside in as well as Hellesto’s reckoning not only with what he saw and felt during his time in lockup, but the fallout on his future as someone cursed with a permanent criminal record behind their name, to be deemed a pariah by anyone with a closed mind, and is now rewired with perpetual anxiety in wondering if they may ever lead a “normal” life again. The rage custom created for maximum pit potential is secondary to the way it will leave you asking yourself if the debt paid to society truly ever does go away.

SPACED – This Is All We Ever Get [Revelation Records]

Buffalo’s SPACED have been making a promising noise in the progressive hardcore underground with their expanded world view on the sound over the past few years through a string of demos, singles, and their 2022 comp, SPACED JAMS. This Is All We Ever Get, released by the venerable Revelation Records, doesn’t mess around through a no-frills pile-on. Vocalist Lexi Reyngoudt’s righteous rage against capitalism’s crushing weight bleeds over into existential inquiries of the mind. Behind her, guitarists Joe Morganti and Donny Arthur, bassist John Vaughan, and drummer Dan McCormick ensure each message crashes correctly with just enough bounce to every bang in a psychedelic groove. It’s a colorful explosion of thoughts fit for the pit’s modern day makeover.

SPEED – ONLY ONE MODE [Flatspot Records / Last Ride Records]

Hardcore is going through a sea change at the moment, and SPEED are the answer to getting you to the other side. The energy shift on the horizon is hungry for something heavier, harder, faster, and the Sydney band’s debut full-length, ONLY ONE MODE, is the answer — a perfectly evolved transition for the scene since igniting it with their 2022 breakthrough EP built around muscular raw power, grooved adrenaline, heart-beating emotion, and high intensity cardio that amounts to coronating the hulking crew led by Jem Siow as the freshest freaks of nature coming from the pit. SPEED, in name, are no false flag either. They rep their ethos of holding up community unity, authenticity, and Southeast Asian pride through a fast and hard tour de force that never once relents across the 23-minute-long, 10-track listen, bridging the steps between Madball, Trapped Under Ice, and Have Heart with what’s in the water right now when listening to Drain, Big Boy, and SPY tipping the scales back toward metallic, chugging heaviness.

Thirdface – Ministerial Cafeteria [Exploding In Sound Records]

An untamed, unbridled aggression was in no shortage of display on Thirdface’s 2021 breakthrough debut, Do It With A Smile, yet that energy has not only shifted but is splintered and grinds on the Nashville band’s sophomore follow-up, Ministerial Cafeteria. Noise — in an almost jazz-like rhythm chaos — has been turned up and vocalist Kathryn Edwards is more at war with her own brain as well as the very societal structures that deplete it from getting properly synced to healthily mind its way through the world. Even though most of the listen’s tracks break apart at just under two minutes, those sudden stops between its pile-on of riffs and drums are critical. They not only give Thirdface the space they need to breathe rage out resoundingly, but they’re a symptom of existing in a world where trauma overload is in no short supply — which they’re all too comfortable in serving up to you on a tray.

Touché Amoré – Spiral In A Straight Line [Rise Records]

An apt working title for Touché Amore’s sixth studio album could be Is Refined By. For the last decade and a half, the Los Angeles post-hardcore vets have made sure to paint the picture behind each album cycle with motif. The torments of youth album. The adulting album. The existential crisis album. The grief album. The post-grief album. Spiral In A Straight Line breaks the cycle with no one common thread running through it, though Jeremy Bolm does have a lot of big anxious thoughts on problems that don’t ever seem to go away. What we thought was the epitome of cohesion in their form of aggression on 2020’s Lament has only gotten more precise in its execution here. You don’t really need to press your ear close through the screams and shouts to find those details either. Tighter hooks, razor sharp textures, and layered effects make softer turns remain heavy-weighted at the heart. Lou Barlow even enters the scene while Julien Baker cements her place as the band’s ringer for the devastating climax in moments that continue to push Touché Amoré’s art of hardcore evolution forward into expanded territory, if slightly but surely.