Another year has come and gone, 2025 seemed to go by more quickly for me than past years but then again I have been feeling that way at the end of each year here for the past many. Since it is the start of a new year it has been a tradition here at TDC to create BOTY lists. Over the years we have had many different contributors to this effort and I always appreciate the input by the friends of the site. My long-time friend CarlG is the most enthusiastic about maintaining this tradition I think this is because he is truly a death metal fanatic, he has a lot of free time, he loves to write, and he is strongly opinionated. I have always liked this tradition as well but last year chose not to post a list since I did not have time to listen to a large amount of what was released. This year is really no different, I am currently going through my September folder and have not had a chance to listen to many of the releases in my October, November, and December folders. The reason for this is that for the past 2 years, I have been making a concerted effort to listen to everything I download/purchase. I have been going through each folder in chronological order and listening to everything and as a result I have been 2-3 months behind the newest releases. Even with that being the case this year I have decided to create a list of my favorites based only on what I have posted here at the site.
Since this isn't a BOTY list in the traditional sense I decided to incorporate a bit of user feedback into the selections for my list. I am factoring in the number of times a file is downloaded and using this as a criteria to determine which albums are eligible for consideration. I am making an assumption that the number of downloads equates to how popular an album is with the people who visit TDC. I know this may be a flawed metric because there are many other sites providing download links and I typically post new releases long after other sites have so the number of downloads may not be truly representative but that is what I am going with this year.
To provide context here are some statistics,
There are currently 244 releases from 2024 posted @ TDC
50 albums are represented in this list
Only full-length albums and no EPs included
Average downloads for these albums = 67
To qualify for the list the album must have been downloaded at least 30 times
The order of ranking is based solely on my preference for the album
I hope you enjoyed the list and possibly found something that you may have missed throughout the year. I am looking forward to another strong year for metal in 2025 but I probably won't get to it for a few more months while I continue to jam to what came at the end of 2024 \m/\m/
Well, here we are again at the end of one and the beginning of another. It is bewildering how quickly the sand rushes through the hourglass as the years pass by in the blink of an eye. Hell, The Death Chamber celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year and while it doesn't seem like I have been staring at this computer screen for that long I guess that I have. One thing I can say for sure is that there has been so much great death metal over the past decade and every year excellent new bands arrive on the scene and the genre just keeps getting stronger and 2022 has been no different. Truly another exceptional year for the genres that we love. I counted again this morning and I have ~575 new releases this year and even if only 70% of them were worth a damn that would still be over 400 worthy albums to take away from this year. I remember when my love of metal was first forming back in the early '80s I was lucky to be able to get 3-4 new albums in a month and now I get about 2 every day. It is an embarrassment of riches that we enjoy in this digital age of distraction and from what I can tell I am just scratching the surface because I really don't dive too deeply into all of the black, thrash, power, prog, doom, grind, gore, and core releases that come out every year but I am glad that there are others around here who do and they can recommend the correct paths to take down those corridors.
From the minuscule sample that I did get into, there was a lot to like and many bands deserving of praise and mention such as Shed The Skin, Writhing, Rise Of Kronos, Antropofagus, Order Ov Riven Cathedrals, Criminal Element, Acephalix, Werewolves, Corpsegrinder, and more recent releases that grabbed me by the throat such as The Antichrist Imperium, Rebel Souls, Phobophilic, the second and newest Carnal Savagery release this year, and Okult all of which I felt compelled to mention.
There is also a very long list of bands/releases that I won't mention at all that are still highly worthy and deserving of praise because they brought me a lot of headbanging enjoyment throughout the year but now I will get to the heart of the matter and bring to your attention the bands that I spent the most time air drumming and strumming too in 2022.
Alright, enough is enough, as is always the case with these year end lists I could keep going but I have to drive a stake through it somewhere. 2022 was another exceptional year in death metal and I still have a lot of stuff that I haven't given nearly enough attention to yet but the flood of releases keep coming and I already have four 2023 releases to get in to, so I am already behind. I wish everyone the best in the new year and I have no doubt that it will be another great year in metal \m/\m/
Well, here we are two weeks into the new year and two years into the Roaring '20s and pretty much all of the past two years has been a shit mess for humankind but one thing that sickness, isolation, hysteria, thought-control, paranoia, and stupidity has given us is a fertile breeding ground for death metal releases. Another thing that is for sure is the death metal genre is not dying it is like Frankenstein's monster and Godzilla rolled into one and the beast just keeps getting stronger.
As has been the case for the past few years, I have not had the time to thoroughly listen to and absorb many of the new releases that came out in the past 12 months but I did give it more of an effort in 2021 especially in the latter half of the year and I am ready to put my list of favorites out into the digital ether. As has been the case in the past I am not making any claim that this list is a comprehensive ranking of the best death metal/thrash metal albums of the year, just a collection of the releases that wrecked my neck and made me want to break some shit in my own home over the past year.
As always is the case there will be several notable omissions from my list that may make some people say if he didn't include (insert name of band/album here), then this asshole doesn't know dick about death metal and I am fine with that because we all have assholes, I mean opinions, and I want to use this space to shine a light on the releases that I like and maybe others have overlooked, so if you find 1 release on this list that you missed over the past year and end up liking it, then I have accomplished my mission.
I know that ^^^^ was lazy as hell but I got to get this done 😐
There were so many more albums that I enjoyed this past year but I have to put a stake in the ground here and call it quits, so I can move forward into 2022. Here's looking forward to another stellar year in metal and hopefully a much better year for the human race.
