50 MESHUGGAH
Immutable ATOMIC FIRE Immutable played with Meshuggah’s longestablished, peerless sound, from Tomas Haake’s percussive persistence and Fredrik Thordendal’s dial-up-connection solos to Jens Kidman’s mecha-rasp. Each track was a smouldering exploration of concept, adding more flesh to an increasingly organic sound driven by the remorseless mechanism concealed within. With genre-inventing and defining records in their rear-view mirror, this melding of man and machine ploughed ever forward.
49 DARKHER The Buried Storm
PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS For all the drones and hide drums that have followed in Wardruna’s wake, this year’s most potent summoning of that ‘solemn space’ came from the north of England. Steeped in folk’s ageless undercurrents and a sense of slowly percolating awe, the second album from Jayn Maiven, aka Darkher, was akin to the lament of a sole, ghost ship inhabitant, drifting into a state of abandoned grace. A journey between ungaugeable marker points, The Buried Storm left a deep, indelible mark.
48 JO QUAIL The Cartographer
BY NORSE MUSIC A cellist whose nextlevel musicianship has made her an indemand artist in the metal scene, Jo Quail’s knack for weaving the most organic and enrapturing of spells took on new dimensions with The Cartographer. Commissioned by Roadburn festival, this was a five-movement suite that, like Darkher, had an adrift-at-sea aura, but one whose ultimate, ecstatic destination was encoded into every strand. Keeping you on tenterhooks throughout, this was the vast, immersive vision of a true master.
47 KREATOR Hate Über Alles
NUCLEAR BLAST Has any thrash band aged more gracefully? Four decades after leading the scene’s Teutonic movement, the Essen aggressors are still walloping their hordes with lightning rhythms and melodeath guitar chops. Hate Über Alles wowed once again by scooping in a dollop of power metal, making the choruses of Midnight Sun and Strongest Of The Strong mighty enough to fold steel. Other songs, like the title track and Killer Of Jesus, raged faster than some bands still in their 20s.
46 KORN Requiem
LOMA VISTA Anyone wondering what a ‘happy’ Korn album would sound like got their answer with Requiem. Following 2019’s pitch-black The Nothing, which found vocalist Jonathan Davis grappling with grief, on the nu metal veterans’ 14th album he turned a corner. While these tracks remained knee-deep in the band’s trademark tar-thick grooves, a dash of hope glimmered in the towering Let The Dark Do The Rest and Start The Healing, resulting in their most nuanced effort to date.
45 FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY Oh What The Future Holds
NUCLEAR BLAST Relentlessly crushing and unflinching in its purpose, the New Jersey natives elevated the deathcore genre on their sixth album, resulting in a modern classic from a band on career-defining form. Encompassing the savage and the serene, the record never fell into repose over its 10 eargasm-worthy tracks. From the expansive grooves of the Gojira-esque and triple-guitar Gothenburg riffery, to filth-encrusted breakdowns and impassioned
