Hard to believe that 2024 is halfway over, but hey, that’s the inexorable march of time for you, right? As always, we here at Last Rites World Headquarters And Royal Order Of The Moose Lodge 151 strive to stay on top of the latest and greatest in the world of heavy metal, and as always, great records fall through the cracks. So we like to use this week, the first week of July, to round up at least some of those records and beg for your forgiveness for only just now getting around to writing them up. So without further preamble, please forgive us for not heaping praise upon these exceptional offerings of metallic glory at any particular point in the past six months, and here we go. Better late than never, right?
JUDAS PRIEST ‒ INVINCIBLE SHIELD
released March 8; Sony
What? Didn’t expect champion? The inclusion of Judas Priest in Missing Pieces isn’t so much an apology for somehow not reviewing Invincible Shield when it dropped back in March or because the world needs more words on one of metal’s most legend’ry acts, but more because we really like writing about Judas Priest. So here we are.
Invincible Shield is album number three in the Richie Faulkner era, and from the first verse of the totally irresistible opener “Panic Attack” on, it’s pretty clear that there’s no letdown to be had after the resurgence brought with Firepower. More than that, however, because Invincible Shield probably tops Firepower, it ends up being the latest Priest album to rightfully claim “Best Since [insert album title that is probably Painkiller]” status.
Invincible Shield brings over 50 minutes of no-filler modern Priest, largely maintaining the mode of Firepower with chunky riffs, a lot of high-flying Painkiller-power metal drive (minus the touch of brutality), oodles of shreddy solos, and passages with the classic dual leads still driving things (the finale of the towering title track). Oh, and of course more catchy Rob Halford vocal parts than you can shake a horse whip at, again proving both his timelessness and refusal to age (other than maybe tuning the guitars a touch lower for his comfort). Throughout the album Rob still sounds super swaggeriffic (“Gates of Hell”), just a little menacing (“Escape from Reality”), majestic as hell (“Trial by Fire”) and comforting in the way only Rob can sound comforting (“Crown of Horns”).
We never really doubted Rob, of course. We just wondered if Priest could keep their surprising resurgence going, and with album number 19, they squash any doubts. [ZACH DUVALL]
JOB FOR A COWBOY ‒ MOON HEALER
released February 23; Metal Blade
WAIT, DON’T SCROLL PAST THIS ONE!!!
Look, I realize that the core audience of Last Rites is likely grizzled grey-beard vets who have seen many an inept band garner attention that’s more deserved elsewhere. I have no doubt a terrible name like Job For A Cowboy, their rise through MySpace and being the primary culprits for the creation of deathcore did nothing to help assuage vitriol and dismissal in 2005. But, you know what’s great about life (sometimes)? Things can CHANGE. In fact, the only remaining member from the band’s origins is vocalist Jonny Davy. Along with past members went the open-chord breakdowns and piercing pig squeals.
So, what is Job For A Cowboy in 2024 and why would I bother putting Moon Healer amongst these pages where they are likely scorned, forgotten or never even heard of?
I would like to humbly request that you click play on the included Bandcamp link for “A Sorrow-Filled Moon” (ok, ok, the song and album titles aren’t helping anything either). What may strike you first is the absolutely exceptional playing of former Cephalic Carnage bassist Nick Schendzielos. He is the MVP of this album. While he plucks away, the drums slowly build, we get a mini guitar lead, vocals kick in, they pause, and we get another lead. The song leverages space to feel big for a stretch as it slows down before launching into a longer sustained guitar lead that eventually dive bombs into full-tilt death metal speed. Throughout, the track weirdly blends an aura of Obscura with Slugdge’s modern take on death metal as it remains engaging, dynamic and balances technicality with space that doesn’t overwhelm the listener. If you enjoy that one but want to know what it’s like when they go for the throat start-to-finish, hit the “The Agony Seeping Storm” that immediately follows.
I’m not saying this is going to rocket to the top of your year-end list, but I do think those who dismissed Job For A Cowboy because of the demo the band released in high school might just be pleasantly surprised. [SPENCER HOTZ]
NIMBIFER ‒ DER BÖSE GEIST
released April 12; Vendetta
The cool thing about raw black metal is that anyone and their mother can create a raw black metal project. The terrible thing about raw black metal is that anyone and their mother can create a raw black metal project. All jokes aside, I’m a massive fan of black metal, from the sometimes overly produced records to the ones that sound like they were recorded in a 15th-century castle with a Fisher Price microphone submerged in Devil’s Spit hot sauce.
When raw black metal is done right, for me, there’s nothing within the metal genre that evokes emotion more. The rawness fits perfectly with the aesthetic—black and white album covers, band members in spiked gauntlets, evil incarnate…you get the picture. Speaking of “evil,” the latest LP from German black metal outfit Nimbifer, Der böse Geist, translates to “The Evil Spirit” and lives up to its name. While a raw black metal release, Der böse Geist weirdly sounds thick and packs quite the punch. Those in the LastRites family have heard me preach for a few weeks now that this record sits atop the list of my favorite releases as we cross the year’s halfway point. I didn’t know that upon its drop a few months ago, but as I’ve spent more and more time with it, I can’t shake it. I return to it every week, still mesmerized by its haunting yet conquering atmosphere.
Nimbifer strays far from the stereotypical—and sometimes correct—assumptions regarding the raw black metal realm. Each instrument can be heard on the album—even the forbidden bass—adding some color to the usual black-and-white aura of the genre. Der böse Geist is an entity in and of itself, which is the best way to put it. It bleeds character through its substance. Each moment enhances the next. From the minute “Der Wind” echoes through your speakers, Nimbifer sets a triumphant tone with earworm melodies that you’ll find yourself humming in the days following your inaugural listen. The echoes of the vocals, howling like a tortured spirit in the night, will slither between your nerve endings.
The album’s high point, “Schlangenmaul” is by leaps and bounds my favorite song of 2024 thus far. The melodies shine brightest (or dim darkest?) here. The buildup to the finale is a testament to the band’s songwriting and keen attention to constructing and liberating tension. Another standout moment, “Auf endlosen Pfaden und haltlosen Strömen,” nearly clears the eight-minute mark. Here, Nimbifer lays out each section’s criticality. I wouldn’t say the rhythm section is necessarily an unsung hero since it truly is the backbone of the LP, but some of the band’s best efforts are bestowed here.
There’s more than enough to keep you returning for more on this new Nimbifer album. If you typically stray away from the raw BM scene, I urge you to give this one a shot. This is a special release and one that I hope to see on the various end-of-year lists come December. I can assure you it’ll be on mine. [JOSH HEATH]
HAMFERÐ ‒ MEN GUÐS HOND ER STERK
released March 22; Metal Blade
Longtime purveyors of Faroese death-doom Hamferð lumbered back onto the scene in 2024 with their third full-length, a hulking beast from the briny deep. Pierced through with national tragedy, Men Guðs hond er sterk is a mournful meditation on their homeland’s most deadly whaling accident. Light listening this is not, but if that’s what you expect from death-doom then buddy, you’re walking off the wrong plank.
Sorrow and rage are palpable in every element. Riffs rise, fall forward and crash. Leads strive for salvation and wail in defeat. Drums hammer forward inexorably like the steady slip of time towards the end, and above it all vocalist Jón Aldará roars with crushing growls and pristine, mournful cleans.
Men Guðs hond er sterk is a work of vicious vitality and oceanic power. I could eagerly and capably argue its merit to death fans, doom fans, death-doom fans… Hell, I’d put a healthy wager on trad fans as well. Let Hamferð drag you into their depths and may you be swallowed into the frigid dark. [ISAAC HAMS]
ABYSSAL – GLACIAL
released June 6; Transylvanian Recordings
Sloooooooooooowwwww your roll this summer and dive into the frigid glacial silt lake that is Abyssal’s aptly titled eighth full-length, Glacial. Admittedly, it feels a bit weird to obsess over a record as slow and cold as this amidst a time when sun and fun-styled music typically eclipses such things, but divergent magnetism theories prevail, especially when the inverse is as good as this single-tracked 43-minute trip into isolated funereal meditation.
What’s notably impressive here is how Glacial manages to conjure the classic era of Japan’s Corrupted (2005’s El Mundo Frio certainly comes to mind) whilst in unison increasing the shrouded despondency many of us have come to expect from classic funeral doom. As such, expect plenty of ebb and flow that underscores the juxtaposition of loooonnng stretches of serenity counterweighted by measures of ample heaviness that will by Hell flatten you right into the dirt. Life’s burdens clearly don’t take a vacation in the summer months, and Glacial is precisely the sort of record I expect chief architect Fernando Ruiz creates in order to help vent such weighty emotions out into the stratosphere. Now, by extension, you can as well.
Bonus: by picking up a personal of Glacial you will not only get the year’s most top-shelf funeral doom release to date, you’ll be supporting one of metal’s most elite underground labels, Transylvanian Recordings! [CAPTAIN]
BLACK PYRAMID – THE PATHS OF TIME ARE VAST
released May 3; Totem Cat
It has been a long slumber for Massachusetts’s Black Pyramid. Although they surfaced briefly for a split in 2020, The Paths of Time are Vast is the stoner doom trio’s first album in 11 years. If that delayed gestation gives you pause, this magnificent album is more than happy to kick you in your giblets. Black Pyramid’s not so secret weapon is the Big Fuck-Off Riff, these massive, impossibly catchy granite slabs of gritty melody that bowl you over but pull you in at the same time. “The Crypt on the Borderland” and “Take Us to the Threshold,” in particular, take an almost unseemly amount of pleasure in setting the listener up for the drop of these heaving, titanic themes.
But it’s really Black Pyramid’s songwriting skill that makes The Paths of Time are Vast a fully unmissable album, and one whose 70 minutes truly fly by in what feels like a fraction of the time. The album opens in more traditional doom/stoner territory, with Andy Beresky’s voice landing about halfway between Ozzy and Matt Pike, but each song is both a self-contained miracle and a carefully latticed piece in the album’s full arc. The brief interlude “Astral Suicide” turns on a hypnotic, Middle Eastern theme, while open “Bile, Blame and Blasphemy” drops a surprisingly emotional twist late in the song with a driving, yearning refrain that feels distant kin to SubRosa. Then, on the sprawling, three-part title song, the band rockets off into drifting, spacier psych with nods to Ancestors and fellow New Englanders Elder. All of this adds up to a strikingly diverse yet confidently unified album. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]
