A lot can happen in the space of thirteen years, and with this being our fourteenth crack at identifying our favourite twenty-five records to be released in the calendar year it’s impossible for us not to think about what’s changed and what hasn’t in the styles of music (and even in some case the same artists) which have been represented in each iteration of our Year End list. Are the differences between this year’s list and 2011’s more the result of broader changes within dark music or personal changes in the tastes of two increasingly middle-aged goofs from Vancouver? Who’s to say? Certainly not us, which is as good of a way as any to reiterate that this, as always, is a wholly subjective exercise – we always want to hear other folks’ opinions regarding their faves of the year so long as differences of opinion are recognized as that, differences of opinion not fact (a nigh impossibility online today, we know, but we’re dreamers). In any case, let’s dig into entries 25-16!
25. Lustmord
Much Unseen Is Also Here
Pelagic Records
The first standalone LP of original solo material from Brian Williams’ Lustmord in four years, Much Unseen Is Also Here arrived in the wake of the sprawling The Others project, a series of releases documenting Lustmord’s influence on everyone from Enslaved to Zola Jesus. With the plaudits taken care of, Williams is back to work at what he does best here – pushing the dark ambient sounds he pioneered in ever richer but still eerily subtle directions, with all manner of acoustic and wind instrumentation being deployed (to torture an extended mataphor, Williams employs the grammar but not the rhetoric of symphonic and cinematic composition). On pieces like “An Angel Dissected”, Williams wields the harrowing yet immaculately tasteful set of sound design and compositional tools he’s sharpened over a career spanning more than forty years with the eye of a sculptor and the cold-bloodedness of a butcher. Read our full review.
24. Normal Bias
Kingdom Come
Synthicide
Matt Weiner of TWINS and Chris Campion of Multiple Man’s long-awaited first LP as Normal Bias certainly delivers on the funky body music stylings of their 2022 debut EP, but also demonstrates the duo’s burgeoning synthpop chops. With EBM as a rhythmic foundation, they make a meal of their melodies and arrangements, with clever dips into italo, Kraftwerkian electro-pop, blue-eyed soul and beyond; songs like “Holy” and “Earth Dies Burning” strike a careful balance between soulful melodics, danceability and stylized production that makes use of classic sounds to tasteful effect. It’s the rare album that feels both so novel and timeless in its execution, and with the tunes, the poise and the danceability to back it all up. Read our full review.
23. LEATHERS
Ultraviolet
Artoffact Records
Shannon Hemmett’s LEATHERS project has existed for almost as long as her tenure as a member of Vancouver post-punk darlings ACTORS. The long wait for her debut album was defined by a slow but steady stream of songs that showed a marked focus in on the project’s aesthetics and on Hemmett’s own development as a songwriter and frontperson. Ultraviolet is the culmination of that development process, and the rewards are ample; borrowing some neon synthwave markers and applying them to sweet electropop tunes, it brims with poise and class, never needing to rely on cheap throwback production markers to sell its songs. The stunning “Day For Night” is the LEATHERS experience in a nutshell, shoegazy atmosphere and dreamy reverie rolled up into a tightly written ballad delivered with unshowy confidence and sincerity. The saying goes that good thing that comes to those who wait, and Ultraviolet is the graceful, cool case in point. Read our full review.
22. Unit 187
Killcure
Metropolis Records
Simply put, Killcure feels like a record that shouldn’t exist. By all rights, there’s no way that Vancouver industrial act Unit 187 should have been able to return after the tragic loss of vocalist and co-founder Tod Law nearly a decade ago, and yet 2024 brought us an LP of material featuring both unfinished songs from Law and brand new material, all rendered with the kind of high-definition acrimony that has always been the band’s trademark. OG member John Morgan is joined by longtime associates Chris Peterson and Ross Redhead, and new vocalist Kerry Vink-Peterson, who not only manage to capture the roiling, cantankerous spirit of the classic material, but reinvent it via blasts of caustic synth programming, crashing percussion and waves of guitar noise, as ugly and invigorating as anything ever to bear the Unit 187 name. It’s a record that triumphs over death itself by being as mean and vicious as the world it was born into. Read our full review.
21. Kurs
Dreamer
Swiss Dark Nights
Kurs’ 2021 debut put forth a fully developed vision for electro-industrial music, stripping the compositional style of classic Front Line records down to its barest and coldest frame while imbuing the compositions with a ghostly miasma. With Dreamer, Valerio Rivieccio proves that Muter‘s strength was no fluke, creating an evenly flowing and self-contained experience of biomechanical dread and spectral suffocation which rewards repeat listenings and treating it as a unified work rather than a checklist of tracks. Enshrouding tight programming in the atmospherics of dark electro, Dreamer refreshes and revives the uncompromising menace of previous post-industrial masters. Scant few records these days demonstrate half of the interest in or aptitude for the styles and sub-genres Kurs trades in, but fans of them have an absolute masterclass in mood and execution to revel in. Read our full review.
20. Spectres
Presence
Artoffact
Regardless of whether you’ve been checking in album by album or, like us, regularly catching them live, the shift Vancouver’s Spectres have been making away from their street punk and deathrock roots to the warmer and sunnier climes of C86 sounds and pure new wave has been a slow process. With Presence, that transformation feels complete. Connoting the likes of The Wake and My Favorite, it’s sometimes a weary record, sometimes a joyous one, but at all times one possessed by a surfeit of emotion and honesty, with Spectres’ always solid knack for hooks being buoyed up by rich and warm summer harmonies. Die-hard fans of their original, much more aggressive material may scoff, but even the gloomiest of goths and crustiest of punks are likely to melt by the time penultimate track “Falling Down” glides through their speakers. Read our full review.
19. Pøltergeist
Nachtmusik
Bad Omen Records
Quickly sharpening themselves from a rough but intriguing proof of concept into a fully invigorating new presence on the Canadian scene, Calgary’s Pøltergeist approach anthemic, romantic post-punk of the Chameleons school from a decidedly metal perspective on Nachtmusik and the result is one of the freshest rock records of the year. While still rough around the edges, it’s a record packed full of immediate and lasting tracks, and the band’s got the ‘patting your head while rubbing your belly’ trick of shredding while brooding down pat on the Maiden-goes-peace-punk riffing of “Yesterday Fades” and the muscular stoicism of “Cold In September”. Rather than being formalist exercise in genre-bending for its own sake, the passion frontman Kalen Baker holds for all of the sounds, genres, and influences brought to bear on Nachtmusik is apparent, and points towards Pøltergeist continuing to wend a singular path through the Albertan hinterland. Read our full review.
18. Data Void
Strategies Of Dissent
Metropolis Records
Data Void, a collaboration between James Mendez of Jihad and Don Gordon of Numb, was always going to be aimed at dyed in the wool rivetheads. The issue of course, is that many such collabs and one-offs fall into the gap between classic aesthetics and modern production. Strategies Of Dissent has no such failings, though. There’s the rock solid programming of “Crash, Burn And Resurrect” that has all of the swing and punch of any classic number either member of Data Void might have had a hand in, updated just enough to suit modern tastes without sacrificing grit. On the flip side, closer “Echoes Of Ritualized Performance” absolutely nails the cinematic, dread-filled style of dark electronics so many newer acts shoot for but fall short of, with the right amount of violent guitar. Aging gracefully, or aging aggressively? For Data Void, they’re one and the same. Read our full review.
17. XTR Human
Schrank
WIE EIN GOTT
Johannes Stabel has been zeroing in on the sound of his latest LP as XTR Human for years now, cultivating his body music bonafides with songs that grew ever more clamorous and strident with each release. SCHRANK is the culmination of those efforts, with Stabel showing that he not only knows his way around a club-ready banger, but that he can do it any number of ways; you’ll get songs that slot easily into the current techno crossover sound (“Neid”) next to numbers that draw deeply from classic wave (“Übeltäter”), and plain old club rave-ups (“EBM Train”). And through all of it you get Stabel himself selling the hell out of it, matching the intensity and pace of his material through vocal presence and no small amount of teutonic machismo and charisma. Play it at the club, play it in your home, play it in the gym, or the streets, SCHRANK is a record that makes its own sweaty, body-moving context wherever it goes. Read our full review.
16. MVTANT
Electronic Body Horror
Dream
In one of the year’s most memorable concert moments, MVTANT set-off a fire alarm at Verboden festival with his smoke machine, then continued to perform through the deafening ringing to an unevacuated and enthusiastic crowd. That incident was a perfect metaphor for Electronic Body Horror, a slab of cool, punky tunes that pulse with livewire energy. Leveraging a small but effective toolset, MVTANT’s first proper LP is a raw expression of cyberpunk angst, replete with grimy digital funk, crushed samples, and vocals that ping pong between hissed threats and nervous breakdown howls. That might make it sound like a fraught or unpleasant experience, but it’s quite the contrary; every thudding kick and every hard-bitten synthline feels tangible and proximal, making the listener a participant in the record’s cathartic purges. In a year with no shortage of music that reflects how charged the world around us is, no album felt quite so immediate, nor so vital. Read our full review.
Come back tomorrow for entries 15-6 of our annual Top 25 countdown!
