[TREBLE] The 30 Best Metal Albums of 2024

When I first heard Iress’ uniquely dreamy doomgaze sound live around seven or eight years ago (our bands shared a stage, full disclosure) it struck me as elegant and powerful, and it remains so now on Sleep Now, In Reverse, their strongest album to date. The Los Angeles group maintains a seemingly impossible balance between soaring heights and roaring lows, their sound anchored by an undeniable sense of power and muscle while their melodic sensibility aims for weightlessness. They’ve been compared to the likes of Emma Ruth Rundle and King Woman, artists whose music is more metal-adjacent than strictly for-the-riffs. And it’s fitting, but Iress have established a sonic identity all their own, one where a moment of delicate beauty can hit just as hard as a double-bass pummel.