Friends of I Die: You Die Year End Favourites 2024

And so, another year ends here at I Die: You Die, but not before we go through our now well-established Year End routine. If you’re a new reader, it goes a little something like this; today we post some selections from various friends of the website, then we post out top 25 releases from Tuesday through Friday, with a wrap-up episode of the podcast on Friday. Then we take a hiatus from writing for the website for a fortnight (although we will be releasing our annual off-topic We Have a Commentary next week, and a special year end Pick 5 the following week). It all kicks off with the post below, so special thanks to our contributors this year, it’s always an enormous pleasure to see what they picked to tell our readership (and us!) about. There’s plenty to dig into, so don’t delay, and be ready to make some Bandcamp purchases.

Underworld, Strawberry Hotel
I enjoyed this album because it gives me the feeling of time travel. Some tracks feel like the future. Others escort you comfortably into the past. There’s this sense of a linear story that they capture with this album that has always been their own. And those lead synth hooks get me every time. Stand out tracks “Denver Luna” both the album version and the Euphoria mix with Kettama predating the album release. “Lewis In Pamona” is for fans of the classics, first time listener should invest the time in listening to the full album all in one play.

Graywave, Dancing in the Dust
Graywave is a band that I have been following for a few years that I have put into a genre that I affectionately refer to as “dad-hat goth”. It’s usually music that I consider to be casually dark, but gets it’s message across with the music alone, and not by co-opting a traditional goth style. The pain feels actual and real. Think bands like Soft Kill, Garden of Mary, Eagulls and Cold Showers. Of those bands, I’ve considered Graywave to be the slickest sounding of them all. While there’s a big shoegaze element to it, I sometimes wonder if it’s more because it brings back that miserable feeling I had about myself in high school in the 90s than following any type of ruleset. In the few years I’ve been listening, Birmingham-based Jess Webberley hasn’t wasted one track as filler. Dancing in the Dust keeps that flow going by being an incredibly engaging full listening experience. Heavy and forlorn, I imagine this is what would happen if Chelsea Wolfe joined Asylum Party during her Hiss Spun era. Released via Church Road Records.

Ashbury Heights, Ghost House Sessions, Vol. 1
Throughout their existence, The Ramones thought they were churning out listener-friendly Pop songs. They couldn’t fathom why the rest of world just didn’t see songs like “Beat on the Brat” or “Warthog” in the same light. Ghost House Sessions, Vol. 1 from Ashbury Heights is a collection of 25 Pop songs which run the gambit from perfect (“Hard Week”, “Is That Your Uniform”, “One trick Pony feat Massive Ego”) to damn-near perfect (“Sleeping With a Knife”, “Cutscenes feat. Danny Blu”). In a perfect Ramones world, you’d turn on the radio today and hear “Ghost Electric”.

Curses, Another Heaven
The album I can’t seem to get enough of this year is Curses’ Another Heaven. I’ve been a long time fan of Curses both through his creative remixes and solo work. Always on the edge of innovation, Curses has singlehandedly ushered back in the era of Gregorian Chant in electronic music in the titular song, but contemporizes it in a beautiful way. The entire album is the perfect example of progressive darkwave, with unexpected textures and layering throughout, along with care and consideration for songwriting. Favourite tracks include “Elegant Death” and “Helium” (featuring Marie Davidson). It’s refreshing to hear darkwave with brilliant hooks and inspired use of instruments.

Reflections, Shadow
Over the past few years, I’ve been absorbing releases in the ‘THALL’ category — a niche metal sub-genre championed by Vildhjarta and Humanity’s Last Breath. Their sound is defined by the inhuman guitar work of Calle Thomer and the genre-defining production of Buster Odeholm, often dubbed “Buster-core.” Humanity’s Last Breath’s 2023 album, Ashen, was a standout, pushing metal to its breaking point. I highly recommend it. THALL blends death metal and metalcore, distorting space, time, and rhythm into something arcane and unpredictable. It evokes detachment, dread, and euphoria, often leading listeners through twisting, deceptive breakdowns. Despite its chaos, there’s an implicit “trust” — a feeling that the music will guide you back to its origin. Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it leaves you in the cracks. The Minnesota-based band Reflections navigates this disorienting terrain, occasionally pushing its abstraction past its limits. Their track “Anhedonie” from the Shadow EP — a collaboration with Swedish artists Thomer and Odeholm — delivers some of the most beautifully unsettling moments I’ve experienced in metal in recent memory.


Haujobb, Machine in the Ghost
This close to Xmas is a nightmare for parents with kids in school: all I hear is my 10 year old massacring “Jingle Bells” on the piano, my 15 year old sent me to Whamhalla (probably on purpose, even if she denies it), and my wife got upset when I accused Mariah Carey of having a horrible voice. So the best I can do is to nominate Haujobb’s Machine In the Ghost as album of the year. I don’t do that because Dejan and Daniel are old friends of mine. It’s because they make magic together. Whenever they decide to do something, they do it properly. And always in a way that’s both challenging and pleasing. Great songs, amazing sounds, totally original and unique. In my book that’s the gold standard.

Feyleux, Midnight Hearts
I’ve become pickier and a bit more jaded when combing through all the new post-punk and darkwave coming out at a seemingly relentless clip these days. After reading just the first paragraph of Bruce’s review of Feyleux’s album Midnight Hearts, I knew this album was going to be that diamond in the rough. Midnight Hearts is a darkwave album from start to finish, but it’s shrouded in the kind of mystique and beauty that made me find this genre so alluring in the first place. “Lunaria Swirls” is wintry darkwave that evokes some of the best music being released on Projekt Records in the 90s. Even the more uptempo pieces like “Still of Summer” and “The Empress” are ethereal in mood, with dreary guitar riffs and synthwork as swirly as it is cutting.

While I have an appreciation for all styles of music that fall under the umbrella of Our Thing, it’s the dreamy, floaty, elegant sort that makes my ears perk up in ways no other genre can. Midnight Hearts is a stunning first album, and one that hopefully signifies what Feyleux will do in the future.

XTR Human, Schrank
XTR Human’s Schrank is a Swiss army knife that does it all – listening at home, workout playlist, getting hyped for a night out and great for dancing to in the club. It has a vibe that reminds me of scene dancefloor cuts I enjoyed in the 2000s but it feels fresh – it’s never deliberately nostalgic. Schrank cheers me up every time I listen to it, I think because there’s a real charisma at the heart of the release and it’s just so straight-up fun It’s like po-faced EBM with a very knowing grin and a nudge.

Dark Chisme, self-titled
I don’t always let a band’s live show influence how I feel about them as a whole — after all, you usually spend more time listening to a band’s recorded music than seeing them on stage. Dark Chisme are an exception, because even though the album released in July is great, their live shows are even better. Christine Gutiérrez’s energy is fierce, infectious, and empowering, while partner Erik Schneider is a brooding, propulsive presence on the instrumentation. “Beautiful Obsession Killer” is my standout track, the one I play to clear out the mental and emotional cobwebs, but their “Lucretia” cover transmits much of the same dark, steamy energy as the original — and it’s even better live. It’s been a pleasure to see the attention they’ve gotten here in Seattle, with frequent plays on KEXP, a mention in the Seattle Times year-end best-of list, and a recent hefty grant. They deserve it!

Kim Gordon, The Collective
Kim Gordon’s voice will always be associated with Sonic Youth, but returns to the forefront with her second solo effort The Collective. The Collective is an industrial trap New York no wave masterpiece, with Gordon exploring life through looping distorted drums, feedback, and art scene beat poet vocals in her signature monotone. Her lyrics often appear as simple pictures of day-to-day mundanity shadowing life’s dark patriarchal underbelly in almost a Lynchian way. Gordon spawned from the same 80s world that gurgled and puked out Foetus, Lydia Lunch, and Suicide, and The Collective‘s dirty mechanical meat throb pays allegiance to that time while bulldozing a modern path forward.

Processor & Keep The Weak, Satin Tongue
Since 2020, Processor’s “Royal Leash” has been on repeat in my head, though with this year’s release of “Satin Tongue” (feat. Keep The Weak) it may finally be supplanted. While the EP may not feature anything quite as thumping as Royal Leash, it’s slower tempos do not lack in attitude. The track from which the album gets its namesake is a particular standout with a gentle, moody opening that swells into a beat that should cause anybody to bust into a swagger like they were the star of a gothic Saturday Night Fever.

Thanks so much to all of these pals for their contributions! Tune in tomorrow for the first part of the Senior Staff’s Top 25 releases of the year.