Good morning and HAPPY MONDAY, everyone!

I did promise recently that my Top 24 of 2024 list was nearing its completion, and I’m pleased to announce that it has finally been published.

We’re going to dive head-first into writing about some of those top releases from last year and from years past, as well as trying to catch up on some of the hits of today, as I am determined to put an end to the lengthy semi-hiatus I’ve been stuck in for roughly the past two years (and intermittently over the past dozen or so years?)…

The world is such a fucked-up place these days, and it seems it’s only getting worse, and like most of you I have no idea what the hell to do about it. But at the very least we can try to cope, and if listening to music helps in any way, then I will try to do my small part in getting the word out there.

One quick housekeeping note, and while we’re on the subject of how fucked-up the world is: as I was finally putting 2024 to rest I came across one more charity benefit compilation from last year that I had forgotten to share here at the time…

Various Artists – Riffs for Palestine (Beaver Mosh x Fiadh Productions, 29 July 2024)

From the Fiadh Productions Bandcamp page:
 

Fiadh is honored to host Riffs for Palestine, a compilation organized by Maddie of Beaver Mosh, an incredible YouTube channel that features reviews and interviews with all your favorite metal musicians. All proceeds will be donated to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Since its establishment in 1968, PRCS has been catering to the health and welfare needs of Palestinians and all those in need with the help of its 4200 staff and 20 000 volunteers in the oPt (West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip) as well as in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The Society offers high-level health, social and cultural services, carries out comprehensive interventions, and disseminates humanitarian values, International Humanitarian Law and the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

 
Artists featured include:
Adzes
Anti-Blossom
Auriferous Flame
Chromarama
Crimson Dreams
Dark Watcher
Desdenova
Educated Owls
End Of All
Get Well
Lascaille’s Shroud
Lust Hag
Mnajdra
Nuestros Derechos
Power Failure
Ratrace
Rhinderpest
Soulmass
Sublation
SVNEATR
Tachanka
Touching Grass
Trench Gun
Úzkost [*see below for more info]
Venemous Echoes
Verdant Grey

 
Artwork by Luke Oram

Find the compilation at Fiadh Productions, where you can name whatever price you wish, and all proceeds will be sent to the PRCS for their humanitarian relief efforts, as described above.

 
Beaver Mosh: YouTube
Fiadh Productions: Bandcamp | Instagram

[*] Pittsburgh-based blackened doom/hardcore entity Úzkost have also released a video for their contribution to this compilation, “For Property and Profit”: