I Found This Voice In My Record Collection: 2024

It feels like this has been a rough year for a lot of people. That's obviously true in a global sense, but I'm thinking closer to home, where too many friends and loved ones have had to cope with brutal situations over the last twelve months. In the scheme of things, I've had precious little to complain about, though I will say that there was a large chunk of 2024 where it felt like all our time, energy and, frankly, money was being diverted away from anything you might describe as fun. On the positive side, we got away for a long weekend in Bristol and a few nights in a shepherd's hut on the Welsh border, plus daytrips to Whitstable and London, the Hampton Court Flower Show and a boat ride out to the wind farm off our patch of Sussex coast. I had an 80 minute chat with Paul out of Blood Incantation, and caught up with old friends at various times. And if I needed a boost towards the end of the year, I certainly got it from my birthday celebrations, seeing my Aunt and cousins for lunch before being staggered by a brilliant turn-out of chums old and new for drinks. Endless gratitude to everyone who could make it, and to Anna for making me celebrate the occasion in the first place.

This column is dedicated to John Hunt, Chris Wild and Rob Brown, and to their loved ones.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

As is so often the case, when everything else is going to shit, music has been a constant balm this year. In fact, it's been a ridiculously stacked year for excellent albums, with so many bands who've placed highly in previous year-end reviews returning that this has been one of the hardest ever to compile. It was a particularly strong year for noise rock and adjacent territories, meaning that this list is even more than usually dominated by bands of white blokes making a racket on guitar. I didn't listen to much (new) hip hop in 2024, and somehow not many electronic long-players really grabbed my attention. It was another great year for jazz, but in all honesty I didn't listen to any of those key albums enough for inclusion here; similarly, folk was twisted and revisited by an exciting bunch of sonic explorers - but only one such record made it into this Top 20, which I could easily have made a Top 25, or longer still...

20. Big Brave – A Chaos Of Flowers