Nite Songs Top 70 Albums of 2024 - Part 7 (The Top Ten!)

 

And so we come to the bit everybody's been waiting for - it's our Top 10 albums of the year. Did your favourite make it? Read on to find out...

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10.    TUK SMITH & THE RESTLESS HEARTS - "Rogue To Redemption"

Through his time with the Heart Attacks and Biters, Tuk Smith is one of those musicians who's frequently threatened to make a genuinely great album and never quite done it. However, with his new band the Restless Hearts, it would appear that third time's the charm and following on from their promising Ballad of Misspent Youth EP, Rogue To Redemption more than delivers its payload of scuzzed up sneering rock 'n' roll in the best Ramones/Hanoi Rocks/Generation X fashion. An absolutely killer record which proves that good rock 'n' roll is very much alive and well in 2024.

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9.    THE VIRGINMARYS - "The House Beyond The Fires"

The fact that the Virginmarys are a band who seem to keep getting stronger with every release is especially impressive when you consider how many hurdles they've had to navigate in the last decade or so from record deals gone bad to band members leaving. And with The House Beyond The Fires, they've come up with their strongest collection of songs yet, a truly shredding collection of tuneful angst which recalls Therapy? at their best, right from the slow-burning opener White Knuckle Riding to the chaos of closer Urban Seagull.

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8.    CHARLEY STONE - "Here Comes The Actual Band"

One time guitarist with Gay Dad, Salad and Spy '51, Here Comes The Actual Band sees Charley Stone stake out a confident claim as an excellent songwriter in her own right. Here Comes The Actual Band is lo-fi indie at its most tuneful and endearing with the sort of instant earworms that a lot of this genre seems to gently tiptoe around rather than properly embracing. Mixing humour, paranoia and pathos to superb effect, this is a proper gem of an album that you really should click the link above and listen to.

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7.    THE DEAD PIONEERS - "The Dead Pioneers"

Okay so it actually surfaced in late 2023 and was re-released this year but quite simply, this album knocks pretty much every other punk release of either year into a cocked hat. Coming on like a Native American version of Bob Vylan if they'd spent their formative years listening to the Dead Kennedys and Suicidal Tendencies, the Dead Pioneers take a withering look into the septic heart of the Trumpian "American Dream" and promptly chuck kerosene on it before striking a match. Crashing through its 11 tracks in just 21 minutes, this is a hell of an impressive debut album and marks this band as one of the brightest hopes for US punk music in many a year.

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6.    CJ WILDHEART - "Slots"

Although no longer in the Wildhearts, Slots sees CJ simply shrugging and carrying on doing what he does best, slamming through another half hour of solid and tight punk rock. A worthy follow-up to 2023's equally vitriolic Split, this may have literally just made the cut for the list due to how late in the year it was released but suffice to say, it was worth the wait with the likes of The Baddest Girl In The World and Another Big Mistake proving that CJ appears to be very much relishing musical life out on his own. Long may it continue.

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5.    CONTINENTAL LOVERS - "Continental Lovers"

This was a real bolt out of the blue - prior to this, I'd heard of the Continental Lovers on various support bills but never got round to checking them out and suffice to say after listening to this, I was kicking myself. This self-titled album takes the power-pop template and shoves a rocket up its backside with the impressive guitar work and added heaviness taking the whole trip off in a whole new direction. Tunes like St Joan, Dale Arden and Connection all sound like future classics to these ears so hurry up and check this band out before they graduate to the big arenas. Because on this evidence, it's only a matter of time before that happens.

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4.    RICH RAGANY - "You Can Get Dark With Me"

Over a decade now since the first Role Models album and Rags remains one of the most underrated songwriters on this septic isle of ours and You Can Get Dark With Me, his first proper solo album since the break up of the Digressions, is probably his most reflective, not to say some of his best, work to date. There's a real darkness at the heart of songs like the title track and The Great Nothing but the overriding message here is one of hope as epitomised by the superb closing duo of We're Alive Anyway and Worth. With this one, Rags has again shown that he's a guy who can turn his hand to almost anything and make a great album out of it and we're waiting with bated breath to see where he goes next.

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3.    TERRORVISION - "We Are Not Robots"

First album from Bradford's finest in a decade and a half, We Are Not Robots had a lot to live up to but thankfully it succeeded. This is the Terrorvision sound that we all fell in love with back in the '90s writ large and provided reassuring proof that they're still a vital band in 2024. From the pummelling The Night That Lemmy Died and Bleecker Street to the more pop-oriented thrills of Opposites Attract and You Gotta Want To Be Happy, this album has so many earworms packed into it that it's almost an embarrassment of riches and no doubt these songs will sound awesome being bellowed out by festival crowds next summer. It's good to have you back lads.

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2.    THE EMPTY PAGE - "Imploding"

The first new album your correspondent heard this year and it very much set a high bar for what was to follow. Since evolving out of Obsessive Compulsive almost a decade ago, the Empty Page seem to have been growing in confidence with every release and in Imploding, they've come up with a genuine modern day classic. From the goth club stylings of opener Dry Ice through the angry feminist rage of Cock Of The Fifth Form and the chugging I'm A White Hot Blade, Imploding keeps the grunge sensibilities of its predecessor Unfolding but there's a genuine growth and evolution taking place here to superb effect. Give this band a listen and let's get them out to the wider audience that they deserve.

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1.    ZOMBINA & THE SKELETONES - "The Call Of Zombina"

Yup, you read that right. I've never made any secret that Zombina & The Skeletones have long been a favourite band of mine but given the long period of silence as the band dropped into inactivity in the mid-2010's, I was pretty much convinced that Liverpool's most famous ghoul-rockers had been consigned to the cemetery for good. Which is what makes The Call Of Zombina my album of the year - sometimes you don't fully appreciate how good a band are until they've been gone for a while and you've ended up missing them. So to hear the Skeletones roar back with an album which pretty much summed up everything that was great about them in the first place as well as giving it a 2020's nip and tuck in a good way really did feel like a genuinely great moment. Highlights? Pretty much the whole damn thing if you ask me but the chugging The Black House, the pop sensibilities of Don't Kick My Coffin and the pummelling Ghost Train II: Oblivion all saw the classic Zombina sound elevated up to the next level. Quite simply, The Call Of Zombina is the sound of a great band making a comeback which exceeded all expectations and a worthy Nite Songs Album of the Year 2024 winner.

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