Heavy Metal Resource-2024 Wrap Up And Best Of

2024 Year End Wrap Up And Best Of

2024 has been a crazy ass year in many ways. We'll focus on the music as that is what we do. Definitely a good year overall. Still no dominance in the U.S. market like decades ago, but there is compensation through other markets that have distribution here. I'll take it. I have my doubts that we would ever see a resurgence of the way it was back in the 70's and 80's. You had a continual evolution in sound back then. In today's market it ends up being more of a steady flow of things we've heard before, so it comes down to the songs themselves. You do see some small things or changes if you like, but overall thing seem decent but not groundbreaking. I fully expect that to be the norm for 2025.

What will be interesting is the small increase in sales of physical media such as CD's. Seems things get yanked from the streaming services and fans are continuing to be concerned with this trend. I've always said, if you have a physical copy, you can pull it out at any time. We have even seen a slight resurgence of cassette tapes and players. A lot of the players are trash, but I do own a couple of Fiio CP13 walkman style players and they sound fine. I actually took a journey through my cassette collection to see how they have fared through the decades. Better than expected. Probably between 5-7% showed some issues. The worst offenders were Mercury Records cassettes, XDR cassettes, and quite a few in the Columbia family. The Atlantic records tapes were phenomenal, especially the clear cassettes. I still have about 50-100 to go through, but can tell you they are holding up well.

We'll get into the best of 2024 in just a minute. I do want to thank the labels for their support, specifically Frontiers, AFM, Rock Of Angels, Century Media, Vanity Music Group, Reigning Phoenix Music and Napalm Records. There are a few others I support, but do not have a direct line to. Also thanks to the people doing the hard work and staying on us to get the word out. Dustin Hardman, Jon Freeman, Dave Tedder, Axel Wiesenauer, Garry Hutchinson, and Curtis Dewar. It's nice to stay aware, and these fine folks are a great help and resource for us. On to 2025!

As far as the best of goes. I typically break it down into 2 categories. Metal and melodic hard rock. Some albums can go either way sometimes. I fit them in where I think they fit best. These pics are personal favorites. I spent time with some great albums. I ended up taking some deep dives into certain artists this year like the band Ten. This took some of my time, but overall, I was able to enjoy a great year of new music and maany different styles. On with the best of....

Metal Category

1. Judas Priest-Invincible Shield (Columbia)

2. Nightwish-Yesterwynde (Nuclear Blast)

3. Nothing More-Carnal (Better Noise)

4. Flotsam & Jetsam-I Am The Weapon (AFM)

5. Emil Bulls-Love Will Fix It (Arising Empire)

6. Devin Townsend-PowerNerd (InsideOut)

7. Unleash The Archers-Phantoma (Napalm)

8. Arctis-Arctis (Napalm)

9. Mick Mars-The Other Side Of Mars (1313 LLC)

10. Billy Morrison-The Morrison Project (TLG/Virgin)

11. Orden Ogan-The Order Of Fear (Reigning Phoenix)

12. Saxon-Hell, Fire And Damnation (Silver Lining)

13. Anette Olzon-Rapture (Frontiers)

Melodic & Hard Rock

1. Nestor-Teenage Rebel (Napalm)

2. Grand-Second To None (Frontiers)

3. Takida-The Agony Flame (Napalm)

4. House Of Lords-Full Tilt Overdrive (Frontiers)

5. Stryper-When We Were Kings (Frontiers)

6. Cats In Space-Time Machine (Esoteric Antenna/Cherry Red)

7. Fans Of The Dark-Video (Frontiers)

8. BlitZ-Kicking Up A Storm [Shock/Vanity Music)

9. Lionville-Supernatural (Frontiers)

10. Powell-Payne-Voilà (Frontiers)

11. Palace-Reckless Heart (Frontiers)

12. Illumishade-Another Side Of You (Napalm)

13. DGM-Endless (Frontiers)

So our metal of the album of the year goes to Judas Priest with 'Invincible Shield'. Honestly, it was tough to pick with that top 4 or 5 albums. Felt things were close. As far as the Melodic & Hard Rock category, I absolutely loved that new Nestor album. You are hard pressed to find a current band who does the 80's better. There are plenty out there, but Nestor to me just seems next level. As far as the rest of that lineup, Frontiers Records kind of releases tons of great stuff in that category, so they will always have plenty in the top albums as far as I am concerned.

Honestly, everything mentioned here is very worthy and it is always hard to narrow down, but we eventually do. There are other great releases in our index. Do check those out. While you are checking things out, be sure to grab physical where you can. Streaming is a sore subject as most artists don't make much from that avenue, but a lot of listeners prefer that option. If we want to continue to have new music from great musicians, it has to be worth their while. Please support through albums, tickets and merchandise.!

I'm looking forward to another great year of music as I hope you all are. With that being said, have a happy new year and as I always say, keep it safe!

Dave