Welcome to Pitchfork’s metal column, where this month columnist Sam Sodomsky revisits some of his favorites from throughout the year.

At a time when streaming has made the act of listening increasingly passive, metal’s biggest releases continue to demand your full attention. That can mean technical death metal workouts with lyrics that read like cyborg parables, a single track that unfolds dramatically over the course of two LPs, or a damning dirge of atonement for years spent within a cult. You’ll find all three and much more on this unranked list, including an overwhelming amount of newer bands keeping metal ambitious and edifying. Listen closely and repeatedly to the chaos represented below.

Artificial Brain: Infrared Horizon [Profound Lore]

The Long Island technical death metal quintet Artificial Brain eschew some of the year’s more popular themes (namely politics) to focus on one subject for the entirety of sophomore album Infrared Horizon: artificial intelligence. The band’s squealed sci-fi anthems are executed with enough complexity and movement to suit the subject matter, with a subtle but distinct jazz influence in its more melodic parts. The added nuance goes a long way, but Infrared Horizon succeeds in large part because of its pure dystopian power and chaos.

Bell Witch: Mirror Reaper [Profound Lore]

Originally conceived as two movements titled “As Above” and “So Below,” the third LP from Seattle’s Bell Witch was set to explore the middle ground between life and death. The record changed shape, however, after the sudden death of the band’s former (and founding) drummer/vocalist Adrian Guerra in 2016. Music that might have once been allegorical became literal, and, with a haunting low-end refrain that spans the record like a repeated mantra, Mirror Reaper emerged as a transcendent, unyielding howl into the void.

King Woman: Created in the Image of Suffering [Relapse]

King Woman’s debut LP is the sound of being haunted—a sludgy, psychedelic nightmare. Frontperson Kristina Esfandiari writes primarily about the deeply religious, cult-like atmosphere she grew up in, but her music doesn’t simply rail against such institutions. Esfandiari offers searing interrogations of her own past, alongside a four-piece band that's just as fervent. “You strip a sense of self from me, and it all remains a blur,” she sings in “Worn.” Marked by clarity and purpose, Created in the Image of Suffering exists in defiance to Esfandiari’s memories.

Planning for Burial: Below the House [The Flenser]

The reference points for Thom Wasluck’s one-man band Planning for Burial have always helped him stand out. He incorporates shoegaze influences more subtly than most of his peers. His ambient passages feel seamless and expressive, not just like atmospheric filler. He loves Mount Eerie and can approximate the feeling behind Phil Elverum’s lo-fi folk for snowed-in solitude. On his sweeping third album Below the House, Wasluck wrote his most ambitious collection of black metal epics and droning mood pieces yet. He now exists at the center of his own eclectic universe, one that we hope will serve as a touchpoint for many metal acts to come.

Power Trip: Nightmare Logic [Southern Lord]

One of the year’s defining metal moments arrived when crossover thrash quintet Power Trip caught wind of their music being played on Fox News. “CEASE & DESIST,” they announced before clarifying: “Let’s get something straight: we wouldn’t be happy about being played on any major ‘news’ network, but most especially Fox.” Accordingly, it would be a shame if Nightmare Logic was heard exclusively in the context of the Trump-era fury that was unavoidable back in February, when Power Trip released their vicious sophomore album. Nightmare Logic is far more fun than that would suggest. An eight-song whirlwind of gang vocals, whiny guitar solos, and instantly shoutable anthems, the album sounds like a timeworn classic that just so happened to arrive at the exact moment of peak American rage.

Ragana: You Take Nothing [An Out]

“I wanted to write a song that could encompass every feeling of powerlessness I had ever felt in my life,” Oakland duo Ragana wrote regarding their simmering anthem “You Take Nothing.” That impulse came from a fight over a beloved dog following a breakup, but the song itself speaks to the more universal struggles at the heart of Ragana’s sophomore album. You Take Nothing is their first record not to be shrouded in artful haze or lo-fi mystery, now with every riff clear in the mix and every word shouted as to sound as cutting as possible. The result is a furious and fatalistic album that feels like one long “fuck you” to the world.

Sorcerer: The Crowning of the Fire King [Metal Blade]

Though they formed in 1988, the Swedish doom metal band Sorcerer didn’t release a full-length album until 2015’s In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross. It’s an ambitious collection of Satanic power ballads spilling over with gloomy theatrics and soaring melodies, and Sorcerer amplifies all its strengths on their sophomore album, The Crowning of the Fire King: bigger hooks, heavier riffs, and more voices in the ominous, on-the-verge-of-ridiculous chanted sections. Some bands come back with a few stories left to tell; Sorcerer returned with one worthy of a new beginning.

Spectral Voice: Eroded Corridors of Unbeing [Dark Descent]

Listening to Spectral Voice’s long-awaited debut is like descending slowly in quicksand. Things that are usually held against the genre—murky production, unintelligible vocals, a lack of dynamics—are used in the Colorado quintet’s favor, resulting in a grim, immersive listen. Drawing inspiration from both doom and death metal, the band prefers riffs that stumble dizzily instead of progressing, and blast beats that propel with futility against melodies that seem eternally locked in place. With Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, Spectral Voice finds inspiration in stasis and power in collapse.

Spirit Adrift: Curse of Conception [20 Buck Spin]

Curse of Conception, the sophomore album from Arizona quartet Spirit Adrift, begins and ends in tranquility. Between the twinkling, acoustic intro of “Earthbound” and the closing psychedelic harmonies of “Onward, Inward,” Spirit Adrift crafts an album that thrills for every second of its nightmarish bell curve. For an eight-track album, Curse of Conception is action-packed and relentless, raging between astral energy and terrestrial agony.

Suffering Hour: In Passing Ascension [Blood Harvest]

The members of Minneapolis’ Suffering Hour refer to their music as “cosmic blackened death metal,” a mouthful of a description that perfectly suits their debut. One of the year’s most singular metal albums, In Passing Ascension spirals through various shades of darkness like an increasingly terrifying acid trip. Guitarist Josh “YhA” Raiken imbues Suffering Hour’s nihilistic tales with the kind of lead parts that make these songs sound like living things, commanding their presence without ever staying in place very long.