25 best albums of 2024 so far (2024)

Alkaline Trio’s 10th studio album has all of the sinister, macabre elements that have always made this band a standout, and feels more akin to early Alkaline Trio and Good Mourning than their more recent releases. Now, the layers of the Chicago outfit have been beautifully peeled back and stripped down, the guts of the band left sonically exposed. Less power chords, more riffa*ge; less self-deprecation, more snarling at the world with an ominous glare. Built upon this radically raw foundation, a consistently urgent punk tempo, and truly thoughtful melodies, they dive headfirst into harmonious lyricism. Across the tracklist, they traverse further into the horrific abyss than ever before — though not in the fantastical sense. Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs peers outward, and recognizes that the reality of our world today is the greatest atrocity, and the apocalypse, to say the least, is now.

The ambitious 26-track project, self-described as an “experimental expansion” of Bad Omens’ THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND, is the most multi-faceted picture of the buzzy British rock band we’ve received yet. It’s expansive, challenging all preconceptions of their sound with a range of live recordings, reimagined fan-favorite tracks, new metalcore anthems, and features a host of massive collaborations like HEALTH, Poppy, SWARM, and more. Bad Omens are both reintroducing themselves to their listeners and showcasing their creative growth. The form that rock has taken here takes us on a charged journey through brash industrial, warped, guttural electro-punk, and pulsing metalcore — which, in an exciting, maniacal way, often veers off the map.

Beth Gibbons approaches her solo album with the despair and desperation that her performance in Portishead has always wrought. However, on this project, Gibbons goes elsewhere when it comes to instrumentation — she’s translated folk music to her own language. Acoustic guitars and strings carry her croon, though it has a tendency to wander off, scrounging around for curious, thoughtful sounds. On one track you can hear metal spoons hitting a piano while Gibbons digs deep into catharsis. While speaking to death, motherhood, and menopause, she self-reflects with trembling, felt sorrow. The sounds swell and recede around her, flowing from full orchestral moments to beautifully bare. The raw, revelatory album easily holds some of Gibbons’ best work, and a feverish closing track that leaves a lasting impression.

Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT distinguishes itself from her other records in that it’s meant to be listened to in full. Influenced by Radiohead, Deftones, and Mazzy Star, its themes of intimacy and immersion are bolstered by its sleek album artwork, which sees Eilish floating underwater underneath a white door. Featuring ambitious production from her brother/longtime collaborator FINNEAS (“LUNCH,” “CHIHIRO”), raw ballads (“SKINNY”), and bittersweet yearning (“BIRDS OF A FEATHER”), the album makes good on its title by having her vulnerability throb.

Bob Vylan haven’t lost any of the rage and spunk that erupted on 2022’s The Price of Life. Now, however, the duo are older and wiser, using their signature grime punk to sharpen their message and leave listeners feeling just as enraged about the ever-dismal state of the world. Just as before, they aren’t afraid to tackle big topics, from toxic masculinity (“He’s A Man”) to the cost of living (“Hunger Games”), or add levity (“Reign” includes a cheeky barb at how they were robbed of the U.K.’s Mercury Prize), but it all sounds increasingly more confident, ambitious, and defiant.

Originally scheduled for September 2023, NeX GEn was finally released May 2024 as a surprise drop, and announced to be Jordan Fish’s final project with the group. Upon our long-awaited listen, we can safely say the album is as chaotic and urgent as its release schedule — but because it's Bring Me the Horizon, they pull it off with flying, albeit potentially seizure-inducing colors. In recent years, we’ve seen BMTH slip into a heavier and more experimental space, creating their own totally unhinged sound that fuses metalcore, digicore, electronica, and pop punk. On this album, however, the follow-up to 2020’s POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR, they’ve catapulted it all to new heights. With features from Daryl Palumbo, Lil Uzi Vert, Underoath, and Aurora, this is certainly one of BMTH’s most challenging, and exciting, projects to date.

Brat brilliantly opens up the floor, literally and proverbially, for a contemporary generation to experience catharsis, empowerment, and relatability through sugary music with a uniquely snarky edge. Riffing on the London rave music she was raised on, with a new air of sophistication around her craft that doesn’t exclude her trademark chaos, Charli XCX combines electroclash, club music, and hyperpop. It’s a punch in the gut that you want to dance to — and the topical lyrics reflect this. Tracks touch on SOPHIE’s death, the contentious relationship between female artists, and offer raw musings on the biological and social programming around motherhood. Somehow, Charli is both championing and name-checking pop culture through the platform of gritty club music. The following slew of starry remixes feature Lorde, Robyn, Yung Lean, and more, further reinforcing the album’s undeniable impact.

Chelsea Wolfe is no stranger to darkness. In fact, it’s her specialty. On the new album, Wolfe wades into its treacherous depths in the aftermath of a relationship — but this time reemerges with a newfound self-awareness and sense of hope, in spite of what may continue to haunt her. While embracing Wolfe’s trademark edge and Bauhaus-folk style, SROTS… is an honest and cathartic album, a shift reflected beautifully in its sonic landscape and eerie lyrical motifs. Thoughtfully incorporating complex references, from trip-hop to heavy-metal breakdowns, Wolfe offers us a twist on melancholic witchiness, and a clear message: “Let go of limits and doubt…I nurtured me, I came back stronger.”

To describe NYC’s beloved, jazz-infused psych-pop group in one word, playful comes to mind. It’s proven more so than ever on their latest album, AMAMA, which sees the band throwing caution to the wind, and reaping the benefits. Forgoing traditional song structure, classic music theory, and orthodox tempo arrangements, across 12 tracks, Crumb sweep you off your feet into a dizzying and joyful listen. Complex and thoughtfully eclectic instrumentals are key on this album, their density balanced by lyrics that shy on the lighter side — one track introduces a turtle hit by their tour van, another details bedbugs the band got from a motel in their early days. Experimental synth sounds alongside heavily distorted guitar are the foggy backdrop for brilliant jazz-inspired drums that flick up and down in tempo at a moment's notice. It’s a lucid, dream-like, lively listen that will certainly keep you on your toes.

Having gone through broken friendships, mistrust, and trauma together, on the precipice of disbanding, DIIV were determined to try again and grasp at what they could to make peace and music again, not to mention work as a democracy. Not unlike the band’s own arc, the album revolves around finding hope, despite darkness, and destruction. To record, they camped out in the Mojave with guitars, and books on Zen poetry, humanity’s failures, and psychological warfare. There, they created Frog in Boiling Water, an LP as much as a manifesto on late-stage capitalism and impending societal collapse. They impart a sonic message to match, against melodies repetitive guitar parts hum — lead and rhythm anxiously passing the torch back, and forth, like a grim call-and-response, reverb and distortion flickering in and out ominously, breaking the metronomic pattern. There’s a synesthetic, tactile, depth to it all that makes clear the conversation, experience, and meaning go far beyond 10 songs on a tracklist.

From the ashes of their pulsating, hardcore-infused noise rock, Fort Lauderdale’s Gouge Away returned with a new album and a new sound this year, after taking some distance and time apart during the pandemic. The sonic landscape shifted from full-on brashness, now leaning more grungey shoegaze, giving vocals some respite from the screeching wail that’s permeated their past discography as it slinks into softer ranges. That being said, the urgent chaos that is at Gouge Away’s core hasn’t bowed out entirely — these slurred, muted moments are there to uplift said screams, which pierce through more poignantly than ever. Heavy riffs on a few tracks are boosted by the foggy, lo-fi space — in many ways, the distance seems to have allowed the band to become their best selves. Deep Sage sees them chipping down the marble block, closing in on their final form.

Green Day kicked off the year properly by delivering their 14th studio album, Saviors. As their first record with producer Rob Cavallo in over 10 years, their latest packs in plenty of loudness and political barbs while incorporating references to the music that shaped them. At times, it reflects Billie Joe Armstrong’s desire to make a “straight-up punk-rock record” (“1981,” “Look Ma, No Brains!”), whereas other songs get more melodic and lush (the title track, “Father to a Son”). Ultimately, though, Saviors can be best described as three Bay Area veterans getting in a room and still allowing music to be their escape.

Recruiting Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats for a softer touch, IDLES’ TANGK is quite unlike their other records. Rather than getting the crowds moving through Joe Talbot’s bludgeoning yells, IDLES take cues from dance music to make people feel good again. That’s probably best heard on its lead single “Dancer” featuring LCD Soundsystem and “GIFT HORSE,” which sink into an intense groove. By embracing gratitude and grace, the band subvert the raucous expectations of their older songs while driving their message home — their version of love songs are just as powerful as a scream.

Following their Coachella throwdown in 2023, Knocked Loose returned with a record that will only make their pits more lawless and their name more revered. You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is a complete monster of an album, built for sweaty screamalongs that features both uncompromisingly heavy collaborations (“Suffocate”) and guttural bangers that prove why Bryan Garris is one of hardcore’s finest vocalists (“Blinding Faith”). All at once, it’s clear that Knocked Loose have set themselves up for a properly wild year as they prepare to head out on tour with Slipknot in August.

Laura Jane Grace split her time between her hometown of Chicago and St. Louis to pen her second solo album, Hole In My Head. In this new alien environment, Grace embraced unfamiliarity to anchor her new record, which resulted in standouts like “Punk Rock In Basem*nts.” Elsewhere, “Birds Talk Too” is inspired by staring up at the sky while being “high as f*ck” in Amsterdam, while the acoustic ballad “Cuffing Season” finds the strength to be vulnerable again.

In the years since they released Patience, Mannequin puss* have been operating on a whole new level. I Got Heaven sees the band set out to make a record that goes hard live but can also be listened to as a “solitary experience.” “Split Me Open,” for one, was written while new member Maxine Steen (guitar, synths) and Marisa “Missy” Dabice took acid in the woods, whereas the title track speaks of being stuck inside loneliness and grief. Live, the band “engage in the collective rage” for people looking for a release. That’s best heard on “Loud Bark,” where Dabice builds to a chilling climax until she has nothing left to give.

As a follow-up, Submarine is a daring but necessary departure, subverting CINEMA with thoughtful detail. The Marías’ reverence for film still exists, but the strings that made those songs so divine have slipped away as they tap into dream pop, trip-hop, and heavier electronics. Opener “Ride” takes that leap forward with full-throttled bass and Auto-Tuned vocals that sound gargantuan, launching you deep into another world. Clearly, this is not the Marías that you have come to know. This is a wickedly different experience, and band, for that matter, and they welcome you to take part in its alienness.

Through 10 tracks, Maya Hawke’s transcendent new album, Chaos Angel, comes to terms with acceptance and surrender, all within the realm most relatable — relationships. On the LP’s delicate, tender first track, “Black Ice,” Hawke, between breathy gulps, the slight whistle of air against teeth, and a fuzzy blanket of distortion, coaxes the listener into an angelic world, weaving through writerly verses and landing on the track’s charged refrain, “Give up, be loved, give up, be loved, give up, be loved…” The album is like a Victorian doily — delicate and dainty, though inherently complex and deeply, skillfully crafted.

Mk.gee set out to “reclaim guitar music” on his debut LP, and it seems like he’s succeeding. The enigmatic artist’s idiosyncratic style is funky genre-bending, falling somewhere between experimental indie-folk, alternative, and R&B. His sound is powerfully simple, yet challenging and complex. Through the album, Mk.gee has built a world that’s entirely his own, one which relies on the foundation of reverberating, explorative, Ry Cooder-esque guitar parts, which are trailed by his whistling, cracked tenor. There is an overwhelming humility to this sound, an unshrouded self-awareness that permeates the home-recorded album as well as his live sets. With wistful production that calls to mind Phil Collins, the experimental style of Taj Mahal, or the unabashed uniqueness of a young Prince, Two Star & The Dream Police is a trailblazing and fluid LP suited for fans of any genre.

Before the Smile ever revealed that they had a second album on the way, they were road-testing new songs to hundreds of eager heads that never thought they’d see Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood share the same stage. “Bending Hectic,” released in June 2023, was an epic preview of what was to come — a car-crash ballad that builds into a towering calamity. The rest of the songs on Wall of Eyes are nowhere near this extreme, but they offer up a similar transcendence as the band wade further into psychedelia, jazz, and krautrock. It’s a softer, looser approach that’s anchored by rhythmic complexity, forgoing the rage of their debut to allow a deeper trance to take hold.

These days, Parker Cannon has been spending time in his hardcore/pop-punk crossover band No Pressure and returning to the 200-cap rooms that he dominated during the Story So Far’s come up. This summer, though, the band made good on their six-year absence with their new album, I Want to Disappear. Produced by Jon Markson (Drug Church, Drain), the record features an elevated combination of combustive pop-punk bangers (“Big Blind,” “You’re Still In My Way”) and more sophisticated numbers that channel the grief of losing a parent (“White Shores”). Put simply, this one was certainly worth the wait.

Making a true concept album is a creative feat that SeeYouSpaceCowboy eagerly faced across 12 hot-blooded tracks. With a style that has shifted from album to album, SYSC offer some of their sharpest, most mature work without sacrificing any sass. Fusing Myspace pop punk and metalcore, this project sees the band sonically self-actualizing in a space shaped by angst-ridden post-hardcore bands like From First to Last, Drop Dead, Gorgeous, and the Devil Wears Prada. Their world-building efforts have seeped into every facet of the album, guided by Connie Sgarbossa’s elegant, disquieting vocals and complex lyricism, tumbling into classic hardcore breakdowns that have been pummeled into danceability by a thudding bassline. Tracks are doused in ominous dangers, destruction, and screeching urgency — as much as lust, desire, and prevailing, non-confirming love. Coup de Grâce says it’s not always either or — it can be everything, together.

Technically a double disc album, this release stands as Sum’s eighth, and final, project. Showcasing the styles that spanned the Canadian band’s career, Heaven focuses on their early pop-punk sound — think All Killer No Filler and TRL — where Hell harnesses the heavier side of Sum that ramped up around 2004’s Chuck, with Metallica-inspired guitar parts and metal-infused tempos. The final album really encapsulates where Sum 41 are today, an alt legacy looking at themselves, at their 28-year arc, and at their fans with love and respect. It might be time to move on, but they’ve made sure to leave us all with an epic Sum 41-style sendoff
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After building out an extensive world over the past near-decade, twenty one pilots returned to conclude the mind-spinning narrative that began with Blurryface. Clancy, while not as immaculately detailed as Trench or as poppy as Scaled and Icy, draws from all the varying styles that the band have pulled off thus far (reggae, rap, alt-rock, etc.). As with everything that Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun do, the details are abundant everywhere you look. Made complete with videos for every song, which are just as much a part of the story as the songs, the duo are capping off the years-long saga on a serious high note.

On Model, Wallows surf the waves of early aughts indie — riding on wistful, romantic music that surges from bubbly mirth and crashes into despondent blues, only to rise again. It’s both soft and energetic, with the smirking cadence of the Shins, while other tracks taste more like early Phoenix, a swirl of addictively quirky anthemic pop. The band offer us a whiff of an era where iPods were full of steady, joyful rhythm, witty lyricism, and Oxford Commas — though their ever-sharpening sound is uniquely thoughtful, solidly in the present, and has plenty of personality, three times over. It’s fun, jangly, and full of heart — an ideal summer playthrough.