Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction™! Let’s make a list!
The middle of summer is rarely the best time for the metal release schedule. While there have been some notable July releases over the years, it seems like labels tend to fit their highest-profile releases into the Autumn. Still, for July of 2024, there was a slate of solid recommendations from the staff and readers, making this one of those months when it’s both good and hard to be the king.
“Let’s play a little game, shall we? If I put a gun to your head, and it’s a big deadly gun, what genre would you guess Finland’s Octoploid play based on the album artwork alone? Yes, I know the genre tags are right under the title of this article. I assume nobody reads those. Anyway, my first assumption viewing the artwork was stoner sludge. I couldn’t have been farther off, and that excited me beyond reason. I had to check it out. Pronto. Immediately after smashing the play button on their debut record Beyond the Aeons, I reveled in absolute joy to discover the deceptive artwork was as much a red herring as I had hoped!” Tentacle play is A-OK.
