Robert Adams/ The Best Of Heavy Metal In 2024

Season’s greetings to one and all. Yes folks, it’s that time of the year once more. It only seems a matter of weeks ago that I was sitting down to reflect on 2023. Now, with 2024 hurtling towards its finish line, here we are again. It has been yet another splendid year for music, and here are some of my personal highlights that kept the wheels of Bobby’s Rock Bus turning.

Album Of The Year: Frost* – Life In The Wires 

Frost* released an album of sheer perfection with Life In The Wires. Everything you could possibly want from a modern progressive rock album is found within the grooves of this masterpiece. The musicianship is extraordinary, the songwriting and arrangements perfection, and the production is a delight to the ears. 

It is a double concept album, and it is all the better for it. I also had the sheer pleasure of interviewing Jem Godfrey for MetalTalk a couple of weeks before Life In The Wires was released and found him to be very engaging. He even wrote down my idea of a Carnet t-shirt as tour merchandise. 

To use an English gentleman’s phrase (I am Scottish), Jem is a top chap indeed. When I’m taking about this album, I find myself running out of superlatives. If you have heard Life In The Wires, you will know what I mean. If you have not, please don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourselves. You can thank me later.

More Fantastic Albums

There were other fantastic albums released in 2024 and here are some that piqued my interest and passed the test with flying colours. I stress that everything in this article is my own opinion and, as such, isn’t gospel. 

If you feel like you would like to give any albums I mentioned a try, then that’s wonderful. If you don’t, then that’s fine too. Music is, after all, subjective and there is no right or wrong opinion. These are just mine.

Vola – Friend Of A Phantom 

Before I give you my thoughts on this fantastic Vola album, I urge you to check out Paul Hutchings fantastic review of it. He put in words much better than I could ever do here. I managed to see Vola when they supported Devin Townsend at The Royal Albert Hall a couple of years ago and I was blown away. 

Back then, they were touring in support of their wonderful Witness album. Friend Of A Phantom takes everything that was great about Witness and cranks it up to 11. The band are sounding a lot heavier these days and the addition of Anders Fridén from In Flames guesting on album opener Cannibal takes the heaviness to new levels. It is a fantastic album.

Gun – Hombres

Gun, the veteran Scots rockers, had the finest year of their career in 2024, starting with the release of their magnificent Hombres album. An album so good that I bought it twice!! I know!! Scotsman spends his own money twice on the same album!! If that is not a recommendation, then I do not know what is. 

I bought the normal version of the album and it blew me away. A UK album chart top ten position followed. Then I bought the live edition of the album, featuring a stunning live set recorded at the legendary Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow. 

Sold-out tours followed the release, and a Scottish Album Of The Year award was presented to the band before yet another sold-out Barrowland gig recently. The Scottish rockers are certainly on a roll and I cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store for them.

Opeth – The Last Will And Testament 

It’s always a good year when we get a new album from Swedish metallers Opeth. After a few albums that were more prog than Metal, The Last Will And Testament saw the Metal return, along with a new member, former Paradise Lost drummer Waltteri Vāyrynen.

It has been five long years since In Cauda Venenum and Opeth fans worldwide have been chomping at the bit for new material from the band. The Last Will And Testament certainly did not disappoint. It is a concept album dealing with the reading of the will of our protagonist and there are no song titles as such. Instead, each track is a chapter of the will and its repercussions as it’s read out. 

Mikael Åkerfeldt said that the vocal growls were reintroduced in this album as a character device. It works really well and it is great to hear them back. As usual with Opeth, the musicianship and songwriting is top drawer, and it is a cracker of an album.

Devin Townsend – Powernerd

It’s been a hectic year for Canadian maverick Devin Townsend. He has moved house, which is one of the most stressful things anyone can do. He has built a state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos studio in his new house, and he had three albums on the go at the same time. 

There is also the short European tour he did supporting Myles Kennedy recently. I don’t think the man knows what a holiday is! Powernerd is the first album of the three he is working on to be released. He said that he set himself a challenge to write and record a straight up “rock” album in two weeks.

Powernerd was the result and it is glorious. Most artists would give their left arm to write and record an album this good in six months, never mind two weeks. As I write this, Townsend is putting the finishing touches to The Moth, which is a musical he has been talking about for around five years. It sounds epic.

Axolotl will be the third album he will be releasing, and he said that it will be the weirdest of the three. Coming from him, that is some statement.

Special Mentions

Also released this year and just outside my top five were fantastic albums from Cats In Space – The Time Machine, Kris Barras Band – Halo Effect, Orange Goblin – Science, Not Fiction, Phil Mogg – Moggs Motel and Massive Wagons – Earth To Grace.

Gig Of The Year

The Almighty – Cambridge Corn Exchange

My gigs in 2024 have been few and far between but the top of my selection was The Almighty. I saw The Almighty numerous times in Scotland when I was a nipper. Then I had the privilege of doing press for the band while I was working for the late Roland Hyams at Rock Hard PR. Safe to say, I have loads of gigs by The Almighty under my belt and I have never seen them play a bad gig.

The Almighty gig at Cambridge Corn Exchange, the first of this year’s Three And Easy gigs, was off the scale great. I’ve never seen them as tight or hungry as they were that night. It was simply joyful and made this old rocker’s year.

The other two gigs I attended this year deserve special mention.

The Stranglers 50th Anniversary Tour

This was a very special gig by The Stranglers. They decided to do something special for their 50th Anniversary and played two sets at Cambridge Corn Exchange. The first set was a selection of deep cuts and rarely played gems, and it was fantastic.

After a short break, we were then treated to a proper The Stranglers gig with the hits present and correct. Even feeling under the weather, Baz Warne did a sterling job and it was an unforgettable evening.

The Damned 

The Damned were the first band I saw live back in 1981 and 43 years later, I saw them for the second time, and they were incredible at Cambridge Corn Exchange. Dave Vanian was in top voice, Rat Scabies and Paul Gray were a formidable rhythm section and Captain Sensible blew me away with how good a guitarist he was.

They played a set that leaned heavily on three classic The Damned albums – Strawberries, Machine Gun Etiquette and The Black Album. The hits were present and correct, Love Song, I Just Can’t Be Happy Today, New Rose, and Eloise.These sat alongside deeper cuts like Plan 9 Channel 7, Curtain Call, Limit Club, There Ain’t No Sanity Clause andBeware Of The Clown. 

We were even treated to an impromptu version of Pink Floyd’s Arnold Layne. It was a fantastic set, and I certainly will not leave it as long until I see The Damned again.

So there we have it kids, the music that stood out for me in 2024. It’s been yet another fantastic year for rock music andthe bullshit of “rock music is dead” is just that, bullshit.

Special thanks go to our wonderful editor, Steve Richie, our live editor, Ian Sutherland, our reviews editor, and fellow Celt, Brian Boyle. I am just a small part of a fantastic team here at MetalTalk.

Ultimate thanks go to you, our readers. Without you, we would not be here. I wish every single one of you a rocking Christmas and a rolling New Year. Here’s to 2025

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