50 Best Reviewed Albums of 2024
This year's most acclaimed Rock, Metal, Hardcore, and Punk(ish) Albums.
These are the 50 Most Critically Acclaimed Rock, Metal, Hardcore, and Punk(ish) Albums of 2024. (This is not a list of my personal favorites.)
I assembled and organized this Top 50 by meticulously reviewing dozens of recently published year-end critics’ lists (scroll down to see them all1).
The list was weighted based on how often an album appeared and where it ranked relative to the rest (methodology similar to Album Of The Year).
Stream N’ Destroy celebrates all that is Rock, Metal, Hardcore, and Punk-adjacent. (If this list were strictly metal, Blood Incantation would be No. 1).
I gathered the most popular songs from each album into a Spotify playlist.
Fontaines D.C. Romance (XL Recordings)
The Cure Songs of a Lost World (Lost Music/Universal)
MJ Lenderman Manning Fireworks (Anti)
Mannequin Pussy I Got Heaven (Epitaph)
Kim Gordon The Collective (Matador)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Wild God (Play It Again Sam)
The Last Dinner Party Prelude to Ecstasy (Universal)
Jack White No Name (Third Man/Legacy)
Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)
Amyl and the Sniffers Cartoon Darkness (B2B/Virgin)
Knocked Loose You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (Pure Noise)
SPRINTS Letter to Self (City Slang)
Chat Pile Cool World (Flenser)
IDLES TANGK (Partisan)
Still House Plants If I don’t make it, I love u (Bison)
Chelsea Wolfe She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (Loma Vista)
Kim Deal Nobody Loves You More (4AD)
Bring Me The Horizon POST HUMAN: NeX GEn (Sony)
Judas Priest Invincible Shield (Sony Music)
Gatecreeper Dark Superstition (Nuclear Blast)
Twenty One Pilots Clancy (Fueled By Ramen)
Opeth The Last Will and Testament (Reigning Phoenix)
Shellac To All Trains (Touch And Go)
Crypt Sermon The Stygian Rose (Dark Descent)
Poppy Negative Spaces (Sumerian)
Linkin Park From Zero (Warner)
Redd Kross Redd Kross (In The Red)
Oranssi Pazuzu Muuntautuja (Nuclear Blast)
David Gilmour Luck and Strange (Sony Music)
Sumac The Healer (Thrill Jockey)
Thou Umbilical (Sacred Bones)
High On Fire Cometh the Storm (MNRK Heavy)
Kerry King From Hell I Rise (Reigning Phoenix)
Inter Arma New Heaven (Relapse)
Undeath More Insane (Prosthetic)
Gouge Away Deep Sage (Deathwish Inc.)
Spectral Voice Sparagmos (Dark Descent)
Spectral Wound Songs of Blood and Mire (Profound Lore)
200 Stab Wounds Manual Manic Procedures (Metal Blade)
Job For A Cowboy Moon Healer (Metal Blade)
Touche Amore Spiral in a Straight Line (Rise)
Darkthrone It Beckons Us All (Peaceville)
Ulcerate Cutting the Throat of God (Debemur Morti)
Tzompantli Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force (20 Buck Spin)
Bruce Dickinson The Mandrake Project (BMG)
Hulder Verses in Oath (20 Buck Spin)
Speed ONLY ONE MODE (Flatspot Records)
High Vis Guided Tour (Dais Records)
Nails Every Bridge Burning (Nuclear Blast)
Ihsahn IHSAHN (Candlelight)
AllMusic, Alternative Press, Associated Press, The Atlantic, AV Club, Bandcamp Daily, BBC, Billboard, Bleep, BrooklynVegan, Business Insider, Classic Rock, Complex, Consequence, Consequence (Metal), Coup De Main, Crack, Dazed, Decibel, DIY, Double J, The Economist, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Exclaim!, The FADER, FLOOD, The Forty-Five, Gorilla vs. Bear, HuffPo, The Los Angeles Times, Loud and Quiet, Louder Than War, Loudwire, Metal Hammer, Metal Injection, MOJO, The New York Times, NME, No Ripcord, Northern Transmissions, NPR, Paste, People, Pitchfork, Pitchfork (Metal), Pitchfork (Rock), PopMatters, PopMatters (Metal), PopMatters (Rock), The Quietus, RIFF, The Ringer, Rock Sound, Rolling Stone, Slate, SPIN, Stereogum, Stereogum (Hardcore), Stereogum (Metal), The Telegraph, TIME, Treble, Treble (Metal), Uncut, Variety, The Washington Post, The Wire, and more.