The year is winding down, we’re already seeing major year-end lists coming out, and it’s already starting to feel like 2024’s album release schedule is thinning out for the year. That said, every year brings great late-in-the-year records and 2024 is no exception. I highlight eight new ones below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Warmduscher, Fazerdaze, Xeno & Oaklander, The Green Child, and Dorothea Paas.

On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Linkin Park, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige, Silverlites (R.E.M., Screaming Trees, Black Crowes, Joseph Arthur), 070 Shake, Cordae, James Blackshaw, Mugger, Flo, Poppy, Dwight Yoakam, Mile End, Future Terror, Dolly Parton & Family, Euphoria Again, Primal Code, Wallice, Sofie Royer, Stranger Cat, Young Nudy, Star Bandz, Straw Man Army, American Thrills, Dave East & araabMUZIK, Quando Rondo, Berner, Kash Doll, Big Sad 1900, Modem, Johnny Coley, Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens, Adrian Younge, Merely & Malibu, Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice, Mizu, Wussy, Bubble Love, Fightmilk, Heart to Gold, Shawn Mendes, Brooks & Dunn, Jon Batiste, the Less Than Jake EP, Los Campesinos!’ More Hell EP, the Speed Plans EP, the Hitbox EP, the Bayway EP, the acoustic Chelsea Wolfe EP, the Anthony Raneri (Bayside) EP, the Yola EP, the Mutiny EP, the Medium Build EP, the Helena Hauff EP, the Gordi & SOAK EP, the Tinariwen comp, the extended album version of Denzel Curry’s King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2, the Spanish-language version of St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming, TV on the Radio’s 20th anniversary reissue of Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, and MF DOOM’s 20th anniversary reissue of Mm..Food.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Maxo Kream – Personification (Stomp Down)
The remarkably consistent Texas rapper gives us another offering of storyteller rap-infused bangers with help from Tyler the Creator, Denzel Curry, BigXthaPlug, and more

I get the sense that too many people are sleeping on Maxo Kream. He parted ways with his major label, he hasn’t really had a big breakthrough hit. But you know who isn’t sleeping on Maxo Kream? Tyler, the Creator. The two teamed up for one of the biggest highlights from Maxo’s 2021 album Weight of the World (“Big Persona”), and again earlier this year on “Cracc Era.” It helped set the stage for Tyler to make his big return on his massive new album CHROMAKOPIA, which “Cracc Era” would fit perfectly on, but instead the song appears on Maxo’s new album, Personification, which comes out quickly on the heels of CHROMAKOPIA‘s release via Maxo’s own Stomp Down label. Maybe the major label world couldn’t propel him to the heights he deserves, but Tyler might be able to.

Maxo took corners of the rap world by storm with his 2018 debut album Punken, and since then, he’s continued to do what he does best, regardless of outside trends. Personification is no exception. Like its three predecessors, it proves the choice between trauma-unpacking storyteller rap and subwoofer-shaking bangers is a false binary. He’s so often doing both at once, weaving in-depth personal tales in and out of hooks you can hum and beats you can dance to. Maxo is a commanding force on his own but he also knows the power of a good guest verse and Personification is loaded with them. In addition to Tyler, it’s got verses from Denzel Curry, BigXthaPlug, That Mexican OT, Rob49, Skilla Baby, Z-Ro, and Maxo’s brother Josh Kream, and every single one pops out and adds something that makes the album even better. Just as much of a standout is the pitched-up sample of Frou Frou’s “Let Go” that powers the penultimate track “Bang The Bus.” It’s just as fun and just as emotionally heavy as every Maxo Kream album before it, and the way Maxo sticks to a formula without losing an ounce of his urgency is pretty remarkable.

Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien (Warner)
The Pan-African UK rapper is out of prison and back with a vital followup to his breakthrough 2020 debut

Coventry rapper Pa Salieu left a big impact with his 2020 debut album Send Them To Coventry, but his rise was cut short when he was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2022 after being convicted of possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon and violent disorder in connection to a 2018 incident in which one of Pa’s friends, Fidel Glasgow (grandson of Coventry music legend and Specials member) Neville Staple), was stabbed to death. He was released this past September after serving 21 months, and while he was incarcerated, he began writing his sophomore album Afrikan Alien. In a statement announcing the album last week, he says it was built on “real reflections and real experiences [he] processed while [he] was away.”

Like Send Them To Coventry, Afrikan Alien seamlessly fuses together the sounds of the African diaspora. The title track channels jazzy New York rap with a hook from Ghanaian singer Black Sherif. “Soda” embraces Afrobeats with help from dancehall singer Byron Messia. “Dece (Heavy)” and “Regular” are UK drill bangers with hints of Afroswing. Pa bridges the gaps between all the regions, eras, and subgenres that he pulls from so well that they start to not even sound like gaps at all. And that ties directly into the theme of the album; the album artwork features the Pan-African flag, which, along with the crowns and the tribal marks, Pa calls “symbols of where I come from and who I am.” It’s a very personal album, and it’s a reminder that macro ideas and personal experiences often if not always go hand in hand.

Full of Hell & Andrew Nolan – Scraping The Divine (Closed Casket Activities)
The ever-changing Maryland grind band’s latest endeavor is a collaboration with Toronto industrial musician Andrew Nolan

It’s been a very busy year for the Full of Hell crew. They released their great new album Coagulated Bliss earlier this year, their side project Collapsed Skull released a new album and a rap mixtape, and now Full of Hell have teamed up with Toronto industrial musician Andrew Nolan for a collaborative album, Scraping The Divine. It’s a constantly-shapeshifting fusion of electronics, noise, grindcore, powerviolence, industrial, and it has just as much purpose and intent as the “proper” Full of Hell album released this year. Scraping The Divine finds a meeting ground between live-band abrasion and synthetic abrasion, and proves that static white noise and bone-rattling blast beats can be just as delightfully unnerving. Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker calls the album “an ominous warning about our own insignificance in the universe,” and his bloodthirsty shrieks are the perfect vessel for this album’s existential dread.

Cavalier & Child Actor – CINE (Backwoodz Studioz)
Brooklyn-raised, New Orleans-based rapper Cavalier paints a vivid picture of his former neighborhood on his third project of 2024

Cavalier already released one of this year’s most beloved underground rap records with April’s Different Type Time, followed by the second installment of his Death Tape series with Quelle Chris, and now he’s released another new album, with a cover photo that seems to be recreating a 1975 Jean-Paul Goude picture, and which was entirely produced by Different Type Time contributor Child Actor. Quelle Chris appears on two songs on this album, one of which also features ELUCID, whose Armand Hammer partner billy woods released it on his Backwoodz Studioz label and helped plant the seeds for a collaboration between Cavalier and Child Actor in the first place; the pair met at the pop-up release show for Armand Hammer’s 2023 album We Buy Diabetic Test Strips and started talking about doing a project together that night. In Backwoodz’s bio for this album, they draw a parallel to Spike Lee and make the claim that if Different Type Time is Cav’s Do The Right Thing, then CINE is his Crooklyn, Lee’s semi-autobiographical film set in the borough he was raised in. Similarly, Cav–who grew up in Brooklyn but now lives in New Orleans–drops you right in the middle of his former neighborhood and paints vivid pictures with his deeply personal tales. Child Actor sets Cav’s stories to a genre-bending backdrop that embraces jazzy boom bap at one moment and something much more far-out and psychedelic the next. With Cav already releasing one high watermark of his discography this year, it’s no small feat that he’s already got another album that’s this cinematic and immersive.

Rauw Alejandro – Cosa Nuestra (Duars/Sony Latin)
The reggaeton superstar invokes 20th century New York City and salsa music on his latest album, with help from Bad Bunny, Feid, Pharrell, and more

Reggaeton superstar Rauw Alejandro is back with his latest album, Cosa Nuestra. The album takes inspiration from 20th century New York City, where the Puerto Rican singer’s grandmother immigrated to in the 1930s/’40s and where his father grew up in the 1970s, and its title comes from the 1969 salsa album of the same name by Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe. Salsa has a presence on the 67-minute album, as does trap, disco, synthpop, rock, and plenty of reggaeton, and Cosa Nuestra is fleshed out with much more live instrumentation than we usually hear on a Rauw Alejandro album. “The Colón-Lavoe Cosa Nuestra had the elegance and the musicality and the instruments, which you will hear on this album,” Rauw told Billboard. “It’s the first time I use my band and live music on almost an entire project. I usually write with my keyboard and my computer, but on this project I’m going to the roots.” Guest appearances come from Bad Bunny, Feid, Romeo Santos, Pharrell Williams, Laura Pausini, and more.

Deadbody / Tribal Gaze – Deadbody / Tribal Gaze (Closed Casket Activities)
Two hardcore/death metal crossover bands come together for an ass-kicking split

Deadbody is one of the most death-metal-leaning of all the bands to feature hardcore/metal workhorses Taylor & Colin Young (God’s Hate, Twitching Tongues, etc), and their latest release is a split with the hardcore-infused death metal band Tribal Gaze, who Taylor is a frequent collaborator and vocal cheerleader of. It’s total primal caveman shit on both sides of this split, and each band has their own distinct way of doing it. Sometimes stuff in this realm starts to blur but you’ll hear the clear change when Deadbody’s half ends and Tribal Gaze’s kicks in. That all said, you know what you’re getting here and this is not the kind of music to overly pontificate about. Turn it on, turn it up, and let it kick your ass.

Mammoth Grinder – Undying Spectral Resonance EP (Relapse)
Power Trip drummer Chris Ulsh’s death metal project returns with its first new music in six years

As Power Trip’s comeback continues, we now also get the return of Mammoth Grinder, the death metal project led by Power Trip drummer Chris Ulsh. Previously a full band (and still one at live shows, like the ones they just played on tour with Nails, 200 Stab Wounds, and the mentioned-above Tribal Gaze), Chris handled all the instruments and vocals for Mammoth Grinder’s first EP in six years, Undying Spectral Resonance, and it packs just as much of a punch as their previous material. A shortie but a goodie, the EP has one interlude track and four proper songs of ass-kicking, old school-style death metal injected with thrash and D-beat. What more could you want from this band besides a longer release?

Secret World – Guilt Is Good EP (Sunday Drive/Last Ride)
The Australian hardcore/alt-rock supergroup leave you wanting more on their super fun debut EP

Secret World is made up of members of an array of Australian hardcore bands (including Speed, Downside, Hand of Mercy, Hellions, and Beerwolf), and they make melodic, anthemic, hardcore-infused alternative rock that sounds like the Australian hardcore scene’s answer to bands like Militarie Gun, Drug Church, and High Vis. This particular trend is starting to get a little oversaturated, and Secret World aren’t doing anything totally new, but they do it really well. If you like those three aforementioned bands, you’ll probably agree that their debut EP Guilt Is Good is a total blast. All four songs are punchy, catchy shout-alongs that sound like they could’ve been the single. Like every good punk debut EP should be, it’s brief, filler-less, and leaves you wanting more.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Warmduscher, Fazerdaze, Xeno & Oaklander, The Green Child, and Dorothea Paas.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode with The Offspring.

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