It’s that time of the year when thoughts turn to end of the year polls, and summations of what has gone on in the previous 12 months. Some fantastic albums saw the light of day in 2024, and team member Dave put the gravy boat down long enough to come up with some of his favourite albums of 2024. Listed alphabetically rather than in 1-2-3 style, here are the albums still on rotation on the decks at Casa DGM.
We are constantly being told that in this age of everything right here, right now, consumers of music are skipping tracks if not hooked within 60 seconds or so, and that’s where Amaranthe and studio album number 7 ‘The Catalyst’ excel. 90 seconds in on the insanely catchy title track and already they have delivered an atmospheric intro, EDM pulses, thick drums, razor-sharp riffs, death growls, clean vocals, and the most uplifting and soaring pop chorus since Lady Gaga’s ‘Edge of Glory’.
The stand-out moment on the album? That’s a tough one, but the ABBA-influenced ‘Outer Dimensions’ takes some beating. The layered vocals often give the impression of 2 female voices ABBA-style (shades of ‘Super Trouper’) and that gorgeous bridge from Elize Ryd tips its hat to the line “When you’re gone, how can I even try to go on?” from ‘S.O.S.’. ‘Stay a Little While’ is the gentlest track of the bunch and the duet between Ryd and Nils Molin borders on Roxette 90’s soundtrack territory, which is uncanny because closing out the album is a cracking cover of Roxette’s ‘Fading Like a Flower’ done in true Amaranthe-style complete with Mikael Sehlin’s growls – a superb, fun way to end the album.
Listening to Amigo The Devil is like diving head first into a universe of emotions. And the more you listen to Amigo (AKA Danny Kiranos), the more you want to keep listening. Most times, concentration is required. There are moments on ATD’s third studio album ‘Yours Until the War Is Over’ when the listener can zone out and soak in the atmosphere created by Amigo and his stellar band (‘It’s All Gone’ being a great example), but as a rule, it’s better to pay attention because one of the best songwriters around today is holding court.
Gun-to-head time, ‘The Mechanic’ is perhaps his strongest four minutes, ever. The kind of song that a casual listener hears on a Spotify playlist, loves the romance of it and digs deeper into Amigo and discovers the track that immediately follows on…’Once Upon A Time at Texaco (pt. 1)’ and spits their coffee out once the story of a gas-station armed hold-up (to get money to buy drugs and booze) unfolds “I said we’re going to sing a song called the sound of silence/And you, just open the fucking drawer/But he pulled out a gun like a magician/Well, I’ve also learned some magic through the years/My bullet hocus pocus’ed through the back of his head and made the side of his jaw disappear…”; some pretty dark shit right there, yeah?
One of the best live acts around today, German folk-rock outfit dArtagnan continued the hot streak of form that they have been on of late, with the release of their 6th studio album ‘Herzblut’ – which arrived hot on the tails of predecessors ‘Feuer & Flamme’ (2021) and ‘Felsenfest’ (2022). 3 incredibly strong albums that highlight the roll that the Musketeers from Nuremberg have been on for the last 3 years. Founded by multi-instrumentalists Tim Bernard, and Feuerschwanz’s Ben Metzner, the 6-piece dArtagnan not only enjoys the famous “One for all and all for one” brotherhood ethos of the 1844 Alexandre Dumas novel ‘The Three Musketeers’, but they also like fun and escapism…and drinking…lots of drinking (so much so that a few years back they managed to get The Man in Black himself Ritchie Blackmore to appear in the video for ‘We’re Gonna Be Drinking’ which featured a duet with Mrs. Blackmore: Candice Night, and was filmed in the couple’s own tavern).
The hooks throughout ‘Herzblut’ are massive, and the combination of Metzner’s traditional instruments, with Gusto Strauss’s violin, and electric guitars and drums, is magical. Does it matter that the album is performed in the German language? Nope, not at all. Strap on the likes of ‘Ruf Der Freiheit’, ‘Dem Himmel Entgegen’, and ‘Coeur De La Mer’ for size and the feet will soon be tapping, and that keg of beer will quickly be burst open as the dust gets kicked in the air like some insane ceilidh taking place after the mainstage at Wacken goes dark. The pick of the bunch has to be the stunning title track that features a rip-roaring, fun, duet with Melissa Bonny of Ad Infinitum. With Feuerschwanz making their UK debut at Bloodstock Festival in 2025, is it too much to ask Ben to pull double duties and have dArtagnan make their UK debut on the same day? Guys can multitask after all.
October 2023 saw a sudden announcement on social media (the first official post in 16 months) that the symphonic metal collaborative project Exit Eden would return. A new decade, with a new line-up, and new beginnings, but the same breathtaking results. Featuring Clémentine Delauney (Visions of Atlantis), Anna Brunner (League of Distortion), and Marina La Torraca (Phantom Elite) Exit Eden 2024-style saw the band cutting down the number of cover versions that featured on 2017’s debut album ‘Rhapsodies in Black’, and throw six originals into the mix, and in doing so, sophomore album ‘Femmes Fatales’ is more like an “album” in the traditional sense and one that flows.
The quality of the original material is strong; ‘Femme Fatale’, ‘Dying in my Dreams’, and ‘Run’ all standout. The pick of the bunch cover-wise, is Mylène Farmer’s ‘Desanchantée’ which Clémentine Delauney tackles in her native French, and even though you might not understand French, it is hard to resist the melodies and massive vocal hooks that will have you seeking out the original. Utterly charming; and Bruce Dickinson also rates it. So there.
14 years between solo albums is a lengthy time, but it’s not like Slash hasn’t been busy since he released his 2010 self-titled debut album. Follow-up effort ‘Orgy Of The Damned’ follows the same path as the debut album: different vocalists for each track, and one killer instrumental track thrown in to allow Slash to flex his muscles. But unlike ‘Slash’ which only featured original songs; the follow-up is all cover versions, with a heavy lean toward the Blues. Part of that fun factor is that Slash (as he did in his debut) has created a welcoming environment. In some instances his choice of vocalists (Demi Lovato and Dorothy immediately spring to mind) has him thinking out of the box in a way that will have Blues purists/keyboard warriors breaking out in a cold sweat as they furiously type “To play the Blues, you have to have lived the Blues”.
The highlight of the album, however, is one of the R&B and Soul-infused moments on ‘Orgy of The Damned’ where Demi Lovato knocks it out of the park on the classic ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’. Near 8 minutes of perfection that includes Slash on the talkbox, and copious amounts of wah-wah from both Slash and fellow guitarist Tash Neal. 2 moments to single out: at 03:58 when Slash ramps it up and the band comes in for a monster jam, and a few minutes later at 06:23 when Lovato’s stunning vocals and Slash’s guitar merge seamlessly. Slash’s version of the 12-minute original from Motown giants The Temptations has to be out there somewhere.
In that rush to sound original, much gets left to the wayside; song craft for one, conviction, and a connection with the listener would be some others. South Wales trio Sonny Jim gets that. As they explain with regards to the new EP ‘Wrong Side of Hell’: “We’re not reinventing the wheel, just trying to write killer no-nonsense rock tunes.” On that front, with ‘Wrong Side of Hell’ Sonny Jim have nailed it. Utterly nailed it. With 5 tracks coming in at a combined running time of 16 minutes, the trio of Jay Donagh (vocals), Lloyd Jenkins (guitar), and Robbie Brewster (drums) are not hanging around. No overstaying their welcome. Get in, slap the listener around the chops, and get back out again in the time that it normally takes a prog metal act to get to the fucking point on one song. And in Donagh, Sonny Jim have arguably the strongest rock vocalist on the independent scene. Hair-raising I tell ya.
With the world lurching from one shitstorm to another, an out from the barrage of doom and gloom is often needed and that’s what The Hot Damn! offer up on their Day-Glo-filled debut album ‘Dancing On The Milky Way’. Guitar-driven, bubblegum-pop with an edge and heaps of delicious vocal harmonies. With ‘Dancing On The Milky Way’, The Hot Damn! have created an album that crosses many genres and opens up so much potential.
With the advent of Taylor Swift’s global domination, so many young girls are picking up a guitar for the first time, and that’s healthy. You see, young music fans don’t give a shit about genres in the same way that we grizzled, cynical wankers do: they either like it, or they don’t. That’s why Paramore opening for Taylor Swift makes sense, and why Taylor Swift’s enthusing over The Darkness is fantastic. Coming soon to a stadium near you: Taylor Swift with special guests The Darkness, and opening act The Hot Damn! – and if Taylor cannot leave ‘Murica because Trump is back in power and has her shackled in chains, then expect to see The Hot Damn! warming the crowd up for Shania Twain and The Struts in a field somewhere; the same “Let’s go girls” vibe, but with a wall of Marshall stacks for added oomph.
With ‘Pirates II – Armada’, Visions of Atlantis managed to accomplish what Gore Verbinski and Disney failed to do with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise and created a sequel worthy of the original. Having delivered on ‘Pirates’ in 2022, the European symphonic metal veterans grabbed the ball and ran with it by doubling down on the timeless themes and imagery that pirates conjure up, and in doing so, created arguably their strongest album thus far. Beginning with the alluring ‘To Those Who Choose to Fight’ (which echoes the creepy, mysterious intro to the first PotC movie ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’) ‘Pirates II – Armada’ is masterful.
The key selling point of VoA is, of course, the magical co-vocals from Clémentine Delauney and Michele Guaitoli, and here, they are both untouchable. The songs are bigger than before (more bombast, more arrangements, more strings!) and linger on long after the album finishes (that word again: album, because this is an album in that it has a beginning, middle, and end. And it flows). ‘Monsters’ is magnificent; ‘Tonight I’m Alive’ is hypnotic; ‘Magic of the Night’ makes you want to dance; and the 7-minute epic ‘Where the Sky and Ocean Blend’ ends the album perfectly. ‘Pirates III’ is surely moored just off the horizon; and will no doubt banish the memories of the dreadful third movie in the PotC franchise: ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’
After two compilation albums of Patreon material that Dutch artist Charlotte Wessels released: ‘Tales From Six Feet Under’ (2021) and ‘Tales From Six Feet Under Vol II’ (2022), the ex-Delain vocalist/lyricist/songwriter has captured lightning in a bottle with her debut full-length album ‘The Obsession’. As varied and eclectic an album as you are as likely to hear this year, ‘The Obsession’ bursts to life with the opening track ‘Chasing Sunsets’, and doesn’t let up until the last notes of the closing track ‘Soft Revolution (2024)’ fade away some 40 minutes later. Created in 2021 as a solo home-studio project for her Patreon community, ‘Soft Revolution’ featured Wessels’s soothing vocals alongside digitally created instruments; fast forward 3 years, and here it is in all its glory with a full band. Calling it spinetingling is an understatement.
Had ‘Soft Revolution (2024)’ not featured on ‘The Obsession’ then there is the chance that ‘The Crying Room’ might have been the standout track on the album (although, that does change daily with ‘Praise’ and ‘The Exorcism’ running it a close second). A spellbinding triumph from start to finish, and ‘Soft Revolution (2024)’ repeats the success of the original in 2021 and takes Track of The Year.