October 2020

Six Feet Under-Nightmares of the Decomposed

I wrote a full-length review of this disaster of an album earlier in the month, and yeah, wow. Between the phoned-in performances from the instrumentalists who have proven themselves far above this joke of a band and the half-assed production this would have been a pretty crappy album even without Chris Barnes’ milk-aged vocals. But he’s here, and he’s managed to actually get worse too, gasping his way through the whole album and littering it with these ludicrous “high” squeals that would make Smeagol sound like a more competent death metal vocalist. It’s the worst thing I’ve heard all year, and what’s worse, I don’t think Six Feet Under is stopping.

1/10

With that out of the way, let’s cleanse the pallet right away with some really good shit.

Greg Puciato-Child Soldier: Creator of God

Ever reliable in his artistically integrity, explosive former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman, Greg Puciato, has been pretty sonically and artistically adventurous since the honorable dissolution of the iconic mathcore outfit, his most notable music project being the ethereal, synth-heavy The Black Queen. This year, however, Puciato has gone fully solo for a full-length project, and something told me to get ready for a wild ride, and boy was I right on that hunch. Borne out of an exponentiated process of songwriting that produced songs Puciato deemed unfitting for any of his current projects, what was planned as a small release to ship these songs out of the writing room eventually spiraled into a full-blown debut solo album clocking in at over an hour. A lot of solo projects play like clearly indulgent amateur hour sessions from an artist whose ego has been boosted pretty well from significant success from their main project, leading them to overconfidently try their hand at music they have no business trying it at. And it’s often approached under the understanding that it is a victory lap, more or less, and a satisfaction of creative impulses for the sake of it. Sometimes the resultant material is clearly inspired and showcases a side of an artist that certainly deserves some spotlight. Other times it feels like being trapped in an awkward situation with an acquaintance where they just show you all their newest pedals and production software and you’re just stuck there watching them fiddle around while you nod along and offer the occasional “wow, that’s pretty crazy” every now and then while they don’t pick up on the obvious cues that you are just waiting for them to finish playing with their toys. While Puciato was open about this album being borne from the very creatively borderless mindset that so often damns solo projects, Child Soldier: Creator of God is an actual realization of the type of grand, genre-spanning album that so many solo artists envision themselves making and set out to create, and it’s hardly a whimsical, amateurish crack at the styles within either. Puciato’s foray into sludge metal, industrial rock, harsh noise, darkwave, synthwave, and shoegaze, (1) makes for a hell of a dynamic and exciting track list, and (2) shows a much deeper than average respect for and relationship with the styles being played here. This isn’t some frontman thinking his charisma can carry him through a whole rap solo album; this is a well-rounded artist (also a hell of a frontman, no denying that) giving the most comprehensive look yet into his creative mind. The album leaps around in patches of different styles, strung together mostly by ambient connective tissue of various types, all with a great attention to detail paid to both texture and progression. We get early patches of smooth ambiance, but also aggressive industrial and sludge metal, eventually moving to more soothing and meditative synthy stuff around the middle, finishing with some serene, Have a Nice Life-esque shoegaze. But really there’s no way to sum up this album stylistically without breaking down every single song on here, and that would just ruin the fun and the experience. You really just have to experience it for yourself.

9/10

DevilDriver-Dealing with Demons I

Embarking on a conceptual double-album, Dez Fafara and DevilDriver’s first installment in the pair is a scoop of the, indeed, slightly above average, but unfortunately still plain and predictable modern groove metal they always offer up. I’ll give the band credit for keeping the pace up and clearly putting substantial energy into the performances on this album, while also trying to squeeze in a few shake-ups to their sound, like the clear Gojira-inspired riffage on the opening track. The album loses steam, unfortunately, as its punches lose their impact as it goes on.

6/10

Anaal Nathrakh-Endarkenment

While certainly cultivating a unique sound, Anaal Nathrakh’s unholy fusion of nasty modern blackened grindcore with sweeter metalcore and melodic death metal elements has its mixed results. And while that might at first sound like a relatively critical assessment of the Brits’ eleventh album, I’d say that there is actually a lot to enjoy and take in for at least the interesting mix of styles, most of which are hits rather than misses as well.

7/10

Enslaved-Utgard

Having been a fan of a good amount of their recent output, especially 2015’s In Times, I came out of Utgard moderately disappointed with how infrequently Enslaved galvanized their potent brand of Viking folky, progressive black metal effectively; the few moments the band do channel their strengths cohesively and purposefully left me wanting more rather than savoring those moments.

6/10

In Cauda Venenum-G.O.H.E.

It’s hard to, and indeed seems kind of in just to, sum up a heaping prog metal serving like G.O.H.E., comprised of two 22-minute halves, in a capsule review, but that is kind of the format my current busy circumstances have forced me into. French outfit In Cauda Venenum made a self-titled debut in similar two-long-track fashion back in 2015, and the band’s gothic and somewhat theatrical brand of atmospheric post-black-metal is continued on their sophomore effort here, drawing the obvious comparisons to Opeth and Katatonia, as well as Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Numenorean, and Sólstafir, and apart from the more frequent sample usage and extra drawn-out songs, there really isn’t that much to differentiate In Cauda Venenum stylistically. The band’s second album, unfortunately, resembles so many others in the field with big aspirations and the same inadequate means of getting there.

5/10

Apparition-Granular Transformation

A much more bite-sized early two-track offering, Apparition’s debut EP offers a more promising glimpse into a heady, atmospheric, yet still visceral manipulation of modern death metal that I would be curious to hear in a more long-form format. In a genre as extreme as death metal in recent years has been, finding artists effective at working with negative space can be difficult, but the two songs on Granular Transformation showcase a formidable dexterity from Apparition that I think can take them places.

6/10

Molasses-Through the Hollow

While indeed marred by some rough performances on songs with sometimes more desert to cross than water to make it there, there’s an undeniable occult hypnotism about the Dio-era-esque doom metal hollow that Molasses ritualize their way through.

7/10

Death Angel-Under Pressure

While certainly an odd choice on the surface, Death Angel’s acoustic EP and cover of the famous Queen song actually comes out pretty alright. The acoustic version of Act III’s “A Room with a View” comes off with the energy of something like Rush whenever they went acoustic, and the original acoustic cut, “Faded Remains” isn’t too bad either. The acoustic format did not, however, mask the drabness of “Revelation Song” from last year’s overall disappointment, Humanicide.

6/10

Necrophobic-Dawn of the Damned

The Swedes’ melodic brand of blackened death metal is nothing if not thorough on the quintet’s ninth full-length, Dawn of the Damned, covering all the ground that their fans expect their style to cover and doing so with more compositional and performative stamina than their average contemporary. While the band’s broader compositional approach is akin to the beating of a dead horse, I can’t deny it produces some tasty motifs in the process.

7/10

Bloodbather-Silence

After coming onto the blossoming metallic hardcore scene in 2018 with a standard, but potent enough 14-minute EP, Pressure, Bloodbather are back with another 14 minutes of similar, yet less promising material, doing little to set themselves apart from or on the same level of the likes of Jesus Piece, Vein, Knocked Loose, or Harm’s Way.

5/10

Infera Bruo-Rites of the Nameless

The Bostonians’ fourth full-length is, at the very least, a rather well-executed forty minutes of modern black metal a la Craft or Watain, but beneath the seams the band’s progressive tendencies twist what would otherwise be a fresh, but standard, slab of black metal into a more head-turning offering of the usual shrieks and blast beats.

7/10

Touché Amoré-Lament

While somewhat shaky in their compositional exploration in their fifth LP, the firmness of their emotive post-hardcore foundation allows for Touché Amoré to build upwards relatively steadily without losing that raw vulnerability that has made them so captivating to begin with.

7/10

Gargoyl-Gargoyl

This is the self-titled debut from Bostonian four-piece Gargoyl; a novel blend of dirty nineties grunge and gothic prog metal, Gargoyl come through with one of the more impressive genre fusions of the year, meeting the lofty sufficiency for dexterity with excessive vocal harmonies in a manner so uncanny that would make habe to Layne Stayley proud. While there is the expected room for improvement on the compositional end that many debut projects come with, Gargoyl have laid the groundwork for themselves fantastically and started off on a good foot.

7/10

Crippled Black Phoenix-Ellengæst

Through creative gothic flair and full-bodied guest vocal contributions that bolster the somber atmosphere beyond the typical post-metal album, the UK band’s most recent offering of “endtime ballads”, despite its few low points that undo its otherwise immersive atmosphere, serves as one of the more engaging releases under the broader post-metal umbrella of the past year.

7/10

Wayfarer-A Romance with Violence

The Denver-based quartet follow up 2018’s strong emotive case for the potential for evoking cathartic power of the atmospheric black metal which has so saturated the American scene to the point of numbness, their Americana-tinged third LP, World’s Blood, unfortunately, with a fourth LP whose compositional homogeneity and mere few intermittent bursts of enthralling atmospheric instrumentation more represent, rather than advocate the merit of, the saturation of the American atmospheric black metal scene.

6/10

Armored Saint-Punching the Sky

Though I think the structural homogeneity and John Bush’s similarly limited vocal delivery holds it back, with crunchy bangers like “Do Wrong to None” and “My Jurisdiction” alongside more tempered tracks the clearly grunge-influenced “Lone Wolf”, Bush and company provide a relatively stylistically diverse traditional heavy metal album for an age that could use more contemporary representation of classic styles (beyond the entire stoner metal genre LARPing as Black Sabbath too).

7/10

Spirit Adrift-Enlightened in Eternity

But it’s not just the old guard representing their era of classic heavy metal robustly; a year and a half after their energetically melodic third album, Divided by Darkness, which took a triumphant melodic approach to classic heavy metal and doom metal similar to that of Khemmis on their excellent third album, Spirit Adrift ease up a bit on the hyper-soulful approach to guitar melody that had led me (and others I’m sure) to draw the comparison to Khemmis, and instead dive deeper into the headspace of the genre’s earliest progenitors to achieve that unabashedly glorious rallying cry that is evoked by the very front cover of Enlightened in Eternity. While I am personally pretty partial to the very vulnerable and heartfelt melodic approach that characterized Divided by Darkness, the effectiveness with which Spirit Adrift are able to wield the sometimes Maiden-esque, sometimes Testament-esque sounds of the 80’s on this album is undeniably impressive.

8/10

Fever 333-Wrong Generation

Providing the correction to this generation’s answer to Rage Against the Machine (after Prophets of Rage’s insufficient attempted revival) Fever 333 follow up last year’s debut of heavy, fired-up and modern take on rapcore with another 14 minutes of righteous anti-racist hardcore anger that’s attuned to the issues to a level that I wish more artists would at least express in their art. While the EP is 18 minutes long, the last two songs, “The Last Time” and “Supremacy”, don’t match the sonic energy of the first six tracks. The somber piano-led snippet-length ballad, “The Last Time”, should have been the conclusion of the album, but the closing track, “Supremacy”, while as conscious as the tracks before it, is basically a late-stage formulaic Linkin Park track that flatters neither of the two bands. Despite botching the landing though, Wrong Generation is a ripping batch of songs that well represent the current unrest and provide a positive hypothetical idea of what it might be like if Rage Against the Machine were in their prime and active today.

7/10

Mörk Gryning-Hinsides Vrede

The Swedes return from their 15-year disillusioned absence from the studio with a concise and clearly renewed enthusiasm for the energetic black metal that they put forth on Hinsides Vrede. Dynamically bolstered by folk-metal compositional tendencies and more than a dash of that famed Gothenburg melodicism (I know they’re from Stockholm and in fact their melodic approach often does heaven to that of their close neighbors from Uppsala, Watain), Mörk Gryning’s seamless return to music finds them jumping into the modern black metal scene’s advanced compositional rubric with relative ease.

7/10

Zeal & Ardor-Wake of a Nation

Having covered their output since their debut and being a big fan of Manuel Gagneux’ project, it pains me to say, especially given the noble pretext and occasional momentary flashes of sobering messaging, that this six-song mini release really doesn’t capture the unique sonic pallet that has made Zeal & Ardor such an interesting act to listen to for the past few years in the most flattering light. The title track is possibly the least of the offenders here, but all the songs here function by taking a little snippet of sound that samples Zeal & Ardor’s broader stylistic range, and drawing it out across these short, but all too minimally composed tracks in such a way that they lose their momentum very quickly. Like I said, I wholeheartedly appreciate, sympathize with, and support what Manuel Gagneux is doing to lend his band’s platform to the addressing of the dire issue of today’s racism through musical means with this project, and when its social motivation is at the forefront, it’s at its most potent, but musically, unfortunately, it’s just desperately underwritten in a way that doesn’t fairly represent how accomplished Zeal & Ardor really are with their sound.

5/10

Sevendust-Blood & Stone

The flashes of crushing grooves reminiscent of their earlier work on Blood & Stone that highlight how well Sevendust can harness nu/alternative metal to execute pummeling attacks with the right crunchy guitar tone, unfortunately, don’t come frequently enough on their twelfth LP to mirage the exhaustion that has come of the band’s writing process after such frequent, unrelenting output and the all too apparent desperate need for a recalibrating, refreshing break, which they certainly deserve for their tenacity.

5/10

Undeath-Lesions of a Different Kind

In one of those cases where the ridiculously gratuitous album cover actually represents the album’s sound quite well, Rochester, New York five-piece, Undeath mince neither words nor sounds on their debut LP in their 100% upfront, no-nonsense, and wonderfully nasty delivery of death metal. Eschewing even the slightest sense of snobbery or pretense for aimless ambition, the band simply compile the genre’s tried and true elements of bellowing growls, filthy riffs, mean-ass down-tuned chugging, and blood-pumping double-bass with blast beats into an addictive slab of raw, uncured death metal that serves as a testament to the merit of not overthinking shit.

8/10

Griffon-Ὸ Θεός Ὸ Βασιλεύς

On their sophomore LP, Parisian quintet Griffon channel the world innovative ethos that has become rather prominent in their scene into a somewhat short, but definitely sweet offering of modestly ambitious black metal that captures much more effectively than most albums of similar style and lesser imagination, the divine grandeur that the genre so often tries and fails to embody.

8/10

Bring Me the Horizon-Post-Human: Survival Horror

After taking the hard left into current pop music trends very transparently on their controversial, which was at least partially intentional on their part, and ultimately really patchy, but not wholly awful, 2019 album, amo, Oli Sykes and co. walk it back substantially for this smaller release here, back to That’s the Spirit, even Sempiternal, a prospect that might get a lot of the band’s more long-time, metalcore-centric fans excited, but I would suggest those fans temper their expectations of Post-Human: Survival Horror. The band reunite with the anthemic metalcore/deathcore that put them on the map for a good chunk of this album, and the intro track, “Dear Diary,”, might even give some false hope of the prodigal sons returning home. But songs like the cookie-cutter single, “Teardrops”, provide strong evidence that, while the band have re-embraced their old aesthetic, they have not kicked the pop vocal or compositional habits. And the project really does run out of energy in its final third because of this compositional homogeneity. I do want to highlight the song, “Kingslayer”, which features a very in-form Babymetal (I loved their album last year), because their fun, not-so-serious approach to the crossing of J-pop and metal music in their feature on this track among the other songs around it provides a contrast to the more formulaic, disinterested radio pop swagger that Bring Me the Horizon have been trying to jam into their sound that could perhaps inform Bring Me the Horizon’s artistic approach to integrating pop music if they really are so hellbent on doing so. Ultimately though, as much as they want to move into newer territory, this trajectory-revising release shows just how much more solid Bring Me the Horizon are in their metalcore territory than they were on amo. It had its predictable hiccups, but this thing wasn’t too bad.

7/10

Pallbearer-Forgotten Days

With the slow, sludgy, down-tuned riffing of the menacing opening title track and the similar chug of “Vengeance & Ruination” being the sole exceptions, the remainder of Pallbearer’s fouth full-length largely sees them operating in the same niche they have in their three previous albums. And while this could invoke accusations of playing it safe, the brimming heartfelt sorrow and resistance to succumbing to despair across Forgotten Days is enough to wave that away, as Pallbearer showcase just how emotive doom metal can be.

8/10

Bleeding Out-Lifelong Death Fantasy

The very new act and fresh Profound Lore signing, Bleeding Out, certainly display more dynamic capability than your average local grindcore scene’s biggest names here on their 18-minute debut for the label, but as of now it is still just a glimpse of potential for more effective future implementation. It’s a good start, though, and I’ll be looking forward to a more long-form project from these guys.

6/10

Evildead-United States of Anarchy

Every year we get the resurrection of some long-inactive old-school band who seem to have found that missing spark at last; we’ve seen the return of smaller bands to the studio like Angel Witch or Sorcerer and long-awaited revivals of iconic acts like Possessed. This year, Los Angeles’ Evildead has seen fit to make their commentary on the massive ongoing sociopolitical upheaval. Despite my love for the 80’s thrash scene they were born out of, the combination of the utterly lame band name, logo, and covers for either their ‘89 or ‘91 albums never really made me want to check them out, but seeing the horridly cheesy and incoherent cover of United States of Anarchy (I mean how much more on-the-nose can you get), my morbid curiosity got the best of me. Maybe I’d be wrong to have judged them by their cover, plenty of my favorite 80’s albums have particularly goofy cover art. So what do we get from Evildead in 2020 with this fucking album? Well, it’s not as poorly performed as the past few Anvil albums I’ve had to review have been, but Jesus the lyricism is similarly cheesy 5th-grade-level stuff and smacks of silly political incoherence that essentially boils down to “enlightened centrism” with mix of that good ol’ Illuminati-conspiracy-theory belief that no political thrash album is apparently complete without. I mean there’s just basic acknowledgment of the prominent problems of the day and the fact that both major political parties are bad and that corruption is rampant all throughout DC, but Evildead not only barely scratch the surface, they apply the same level cynicism to the “both sides” they criticize with no substantiation to their criticism despite that mindset being a big reason for our being where we are right now, mixed in with the occasional conspiracy-paranoia about the shadowy underworld running everything, so no real solutions or even proper addressing of these problems. Like, the same level of criticism is levied at right-wingers and communists, like communists are at all why this country has gone to shit. And the generic Anthrax/Megadeth type of thrash instrumentation, while rumbly and mixed well to highlight its bass heaviness, doesn’t exactly make it easy to get past the commentary deficiencies on here.

4/10

Emma Ruth Rundle&Thou-May Our Chambers Be Full

Rounding off their year (at least I think), with a long-teased collaboration with Emma Ruth Rundle, Thou finally present their massive sludge-doom sound in a much more flattering light than the previous cover albums this year did. Thou’s original material continues to highlight just why their relatively stiff sound is much more cut out for that, original material, than for trying to bend beyond its flexibility to tribute grunge songs. And while Thou being back in their more effective department, Emma Ruth Rundle’s contributions, beyond just her gorgeous and ethereally haunting vocals, to the album’s atmosphere, dynamic, and structuring really take the collaboration to the next level. Not to say that Thou are completely overshadowed and relegated to the background on this record or that they don’t contribute to a fair share of the legwork here; the workload is shared pretty equally, and both collaborators have their moments of prominence, but Emma Ruth Rundle’s ever-present gothic/folky influence really directs the music in a way that plays to Thou’s strengths in a way I’m not sure they would have been able to on their own. It’s great work from both of them, and I’d be eager to hear Thou find more collaborations like this in the future that push them into doing more interesting things with their crushing doom sound, as opposed to the rather tepid collaborations with The Body.

8/10

Auðn-Vökudraumsins Fangi

Sadly, three albums in, Auðn have only barely exceeded the bare minimum for naturalistic atmospheric black metal, with no signs of significant improvement to be found. The Icelandic band earn points for their earnest delivery, but they never seem to fully make it out of the rut that the genre’s many contemporary acts have dug.

5/10

Botanist-Photosynthesis

The black metal traditionalists might have had to accept that the floodgates to bright ambience and serene shoegaze in the genre have been opened and that there’s no going back now, but even as an avid Deafheaven fan, I’m sometimes momentarily surprised at just how heavenly some black metal has gotten lately, and this new album from Botanist is one of those albums. And while it sometimes slips into some of the current wave’s typical ruts, the sheer blindingly illuminating aura of this album when it reaches those high points (and it does so frequently) is enough to pull it out from those gutters and high into the cosmos. Yeah, another splendid offering of nature worship from Botanist.

8/10

Mr. Bungle-The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo

Making their return after over a decade, Mike Patton recruits both Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian for the long-awaited fourth Mr. Bungle album, which is titled in homage to the first Mr. Bungle demo which it is comprised largely of much clearer re-recordings of. Ever impressive, Mike Patton balances aggression and eccentricity like a tightrope walker on this project too, while his bandmates do the same with thrash metal’s natural adrenaline rush while pushing the genre into new compositional and stylistic territory without sacrificing that crucial whiplash. It’s a great time, and definitely one of the year’s best thrash albums.

8/10

Carcass-Despicable

While they’ve been much less prolific since their reboot than they were prior, Liverpool’s melodic death metal pioneers simply continue to demonstrate their excellence in this seemingly effortless four-track appetizer to next year’s Torn Arteries. Anyone familiar with the band’s brutal form of melodic death metal will certainly be pleased with the four quite sufficiently pulverizing cuts here; those who may only be familiar with some of the band’s many less muscular imitators might be surprised, and pleasantly so, with the Englanders’ ability to lay on the infectious guitar melody without sacrificing an ounce of force.

8/10

Zeal & Ardor-Wake of a Nation

Having covered their output since their debut and being a big fan of Manuel Gagneux’ project, it pains me to say, especially given the noble pretext and occasional momentary flashes of sobering messaging, that this six-song mini release really doesn’t capture the unique sonic pallet that has made Zeal & Ardor such an interesting act to listen to for the past few years in the most flattering light.

The title track is possibly the least egregious of the offenders here, but all the songs here function similarly by taking a little snippet of sound that samples Zeal & Ardor’s broader stylistic range, and drawing it out across these short, but all too minimally composed tracks in such a way that they lose their momentum very quickly, never to regain it until a defibrillation attempt by the next song.

Like I said, I wholeheartedly appreciate, sympathize with, and support what Manuel Gagneux is doing to lend his band’s platform to the addressing of the dire issue of today’s racism through musical means with this project, and when its social motivation is at the forefront, it’s at its most potent, but musically, unfortunately, Wake of a Nation is just desperately underwritten in a way that doesn’t fairly represent how accomplished Zeal & Ardor really are with their sound.

5/10

Holy shit! It’s been awhile and the year is almost over and there’s so much to say so I better make this quick.

The new Bullet for my Valentine album is okay.

The new Oceans EP is nøt okay.

Deathcore is alive and well in 2021.

Fortitude pretty great but I still prefer Magma just slightly.

Washing machine noises!

What the hell was that EP, Serj?

I think Frontierer might have beat Car Bomb at their own game.

What the fuck, Marilyn Manson?

The new Full of Hell is like a spar with a ferocious fighter whose movements you’ve figured out and now know how to sufficiently defend; was hoping to get my ass kicked.

Oh yay, Porcupine Tree is back :|

Cryptosis filling the metal ecosystem’s Vektor-shaped hole with the debut of the year.

Obviously I’m psyched for Khemmis this week.

A tour was not the announcement I was hoping for, Meshuggah :/

Corey’s best mask yet.

You’re telling me that took you guys ten years, Fred. It’s not like Tool who just took their sweet time the get around to making their album, you were in production hell and label disputes for this unfinished mess for the better part of last decade. Amazing. I love it.

Best Cradle of Filth album in at least a decade.

Support Cane Hill on their independence.

This Converge / Chelsea Wolfe collab better be as good as it damn well should be.

They did not need to make school this hard.

Kin is the album The Valley should have been.

Idk if I want Deafheaven to give pure shoegaze another try; I know they can do better, just not sure if they will.

None of you should listen to me after I gave Endarkenment a 7/10 last year, I clearly can’t be trusted. (9/10 at least)

Bad Wolves, Asking Alexandria, Black Veil Brides still addicted to making absolute trash.

Knocked fucking Loose!

Trivium powering through what should be a stagnant phase of their career through sheer tenacity, absolutely respect the dedication.

King Woman or Hiss Spun, I still can’t decide.

I DO NOT get the hype around Spiritbox’s decent djent riffs and gutless top 40 choruses.

Donda was kinda lame.

Idk what’s going on with Fear Factory, but they could probably still be making legendary albums if not for it.

Beast in Black is the cheesiest shit ever and I love it.

Billie Eilish with another solid album.

I discovered that it is indeed possible to implode due to the sheer magnitude of cringe.

Jim Breuer was never funny, he just knew how to do Brian Johnson’s voice, but now his “comedy” is physically painful to watch.

Holy shit, Altarage!

2021 has not been the best year for Profound Lore.

Come on Dream Theater..

You could’ve picked a much better act to tour with, Korn, than the washed up whiny racist uncle Aaron Lewis clown show experience.

Cannibal Corpse keep on Cannibal Corpsing :)

Why has god abandoned us?

So Brent Hinds is still a piece of shit.

Plasmodium’sTowers of Silence is like taking too much of an edible in outer space.

That’s more like it, Godspeed.

They did not need to make life this hard.

I’d like a refund.

Doom metal on Bandcamp needs a serious rejuvenation.

Archspire are not human.

For the most part I don’t think metal has a huge problem with it, but I hope artists across the board (but much more importantly, bookers and promoters) take note of what went down at Astroworld.

Any day now, Wrest

Any day now, Gorguts

Any day now, Neurosis

Any day now, Necrophagist (hahahahahahaha lolololol)

Any day now, rogue asteroid.

For some reason is didn’t expect Sinner Get Ready to be all that great, but it’s the best album I’ve heard since starting this blog.

My 25 Favorite Metal Songs of 2020

There are always a lot of songs worth appreciating at the end of the year, way more than 25, and I have done like 90-song lists before, which is nuts. But I’m trying to not go utterly insane this year; it’s been insane enough on its own. I’m keeping this one kind of on the short side so that I can put more energy not the top albums I want to highlight. As with each list, the weird, picky compulsive side of me has a weird selection process that basically tries to exclude stand-alone singles that could be featured more fully as part of an album in the future, like Gojira’s “Another World”. It’s not perfect, but it feels weird to include songs like that here when they could make a future list as part of an album too. So here they are, my 25 favorite metal songs of the year:

25.An Autumn for Crippled Children - “Silver”

One of the most ethereal and human moments on an ambient black metal album this year, “Silver” in all its fuzzily produced glory captures the genre at its most vulnerable in a rather succinct package and I can only love and respect it.

24.Sylosis - “Arms Like a Noose”

Another standout among many, “Arms Like a Noose” finds the UK act bringing a metalcore influence to modern melodic thrash, and a retro-flavored breakdown that, in better times, would undoubtedly make the pit explode into a frenzy and the rest of the crowd headbang in full unified swing.

23.Carach Angren - “Frankensteina Strataemontanous”

Meshing a marching palm-muted chugging rhythm with unhinged, anxiety-inducing piano chords, the title track to the ever-theatrical Dutchmen’s sixth album is an much of a bop as a menacing symphonic black metal track can be.

22.The Acacia Strain - “Crippling Poison”

With a sick, stomp-dancing riff at its core, this song is a furious deathcore chugger that captures the hardcore ethos that makes The Acacia Strain such a powerful force in deathcore when they’re at their best the way they were on this past album.

21.Trivium - “The Defiant”

This one seemed to be the under-the-radar hit for the band this year, in a few of the same ways “Caustic Are the Ties That Bind” was on In Waves. Indeed the two sound kind of like sister songs in their emotive guitar-powered melodies (the harmonious solo here seemingly taking a bit of a cue from Khemmis) and anthemic catharsis. It ends on a pretty bright and hopeful note, that I was a little cold on at first, but have really come to appreciate now. It’s a bold, beautiful track that captures Trivium at their best.

20.Suicide Silence - “Two Steps”

After the embarrassment of their self-titled album in 2017, Suicide Silence came back hard with the lead single to this year’s redemptive Become the Hunter, which reinvested in the band’s knack for combining tasty grooves and scary breakdowns that made them such a force to be feared in the deathcore world.

19.Undeath - “Entranced by the Pendulum”

It was hard to pick a favorite from the uniformly filthy and delicious Lesions of a Different Kind, but I really liked the vocal hooks, the drum accents, and variety of riffs (especially the low-string-bending at the bridge) of “Entranced by the Pendulum”, which made a consistent standout as I came back to the album over and over again after it came out.

18.Alestorm - “Tortuga”

The way the true Scottish pirate metal outfit expanded their sound to involve trap, electronic music elements, and a rap feature on this absolute party of a song give me hope that there is plenty of treasure left in Alestorm’s chest and that the band will defy all the expectations of those who thought they would run out of ways to make music about the pirate’s life.

17.Lamb of God - “Resurrection Man”

Lamb of God’s self-titled effort this year was a pretty low-risk affair, but “Resurrection Man” was stark exception in the middle of the track list, its more scowling first half exploring a variety of unusual guitar styles for the band to build the tension that breaks into a more quick-paced headbang-fest and an absolutely slamming breakdown that makes it hands down the highlight of the album.

16.Carnation - “Iron Discipline”

The Belgians kicked off their practically illegally heavy sophomore release with an energetic, infectious, growl-along banger that certainly captures their emphatic no-bullshit approach to death metal at its most diplomatic, offering a chance to join in the vicious death metal attack before it blasts every in front of it to death.

15.Humavoid - “Aluminum Rain”

Stirring together off-kilter rhythms, jazzy piano chords, a tasty central Meshuggah-esque eight-string groove into a wicked, and a groovy synth-driven bridge into a dizzying prog banger maybe even too mad scientist for Devin Townsend, “Aluminum Rain” stands out as a bolstering highlight in the Finnish outfit’s breakout LP among several tracks of ambitious modern progressive metal.

14.Nearea - “Carriers”

Another solid cut on an album of gems, I found myself coming back to “Carriers” the most out of any track on Nearea’s self-titled album this year for how it kind of just has it all in terms of what made the band’s comeback album this year so exciting. Combining melodic death metal at its most furious with metalcore at its punchiest, it is a sharp, deadly ripper of a track.

13.Avatar - “A Secret Door”

The highlight anthem from the band’s most recent theatrical musical release, Avatar go big and high-soaring on “A Secret Door”, with a pretty palpable power metal influence that absolutely blows the house down.

12.Khemmis - “Down in a Hole”

The thriving Denver doom optimists released a little compilation EP this year whose lead single was a glorious and synthless cover of Dio’s iconic inspirational synth metal anthem, “Rainbow in the Dark”. But the band put out three cover versions this year, and that was not the cover that blew me away the most. Khemmis took part in a multi-artist tribute to Alice in Chains’ grunge cornerstone, Dirt, and they got to cover the albums depressive acoustic ballad, “Down in a Hole”. While Code Orange were getting props for going acoustic for their live cover of the song earlier this year and doing a pretty good job, Khemmis kept the amps on and the results were stunning. The band make the song come to them and the grungy depression that Alice in Chain poured into the writing of the song pairs so unbelievably with Khemmis’ solemn, but hopeful doom metal; it’s an utterly goosebumps-inducing cover, and I can’t urge everyone enough to check it out.

11.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Oikeamielisten sali”

After its lengthy, but warped string intro’s serving as a breather from all the psychedelic mayhem preceding it, “Oikeamielisten sali” plunges Oranssi Pazuzu’s psychedelic black metal magnum opus into a spinning, spiraling world of flashing lights and disorienting sounds that feel like an unreal, but vivid nightmare’s plunge into a tunnel to hell.

10.End - “Pariah”

The pit-karate-inducing highlight of what I think has to be the metallic hardcore album of the year, End show just why their no-bells-and-whistles approach to the sound is so potent on the fiery and crushing “Pariah”, whose concluding breakdown brings the already chaotic and technically impressive track to a deservedly violent climax.

9.Ulcerate - “Inversion”

Similarly to how the self-titled Nearea album was hard to choose from, picking a favorite off Stare into Death and Be Still was a wonderfully difficult task because the band hit the mark with each song in kind of the same way. The guitar playing across the album is incredibly creative and emotional for such thick, titanium-clad death metal, and the band indeed surrenders not a shred of what makes the genre so great to listen to in its more simplistic forms, which I think the particularly heart-wrenching guitar work on “Inversion” demonstrates the most. It’s a good taster for anyone who might be skeptical that death metal can manage to resonate with your innermost melancholic ponderings on death while still firing on all cylinders.

8.August Burns Red - “Three Fountains”

The grand, gorgeous, and heartfelt metalcore closer to the band’s ninth full-length builds up through already-emotional guitar melodies to a glorious sing-along climax that rounds the album off on such an inspiring note.

7.Emmure - “(F)inally (U)nderstanding (N)othing”

Frankie Palmeri and company went hard this year, and I think the opening track from Hindsight best captures the band’s singular directive of making concussion-inducing, furious bangers from front to back and making everything as aggressive and punchy as possible. There’s no one to push around here at home, but that central riff, that verse beat, and that groovy bridge rhythm all make me go fucking stupid wherever I am. Absolute unit of a song.

6.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Ilmestys”

The slow-building and spooky intro track to Oranssi Pazuzu’s masterpiece, “Ilmestys” captures the band’s impeccable form and creative evolution in its subtle, understated opening passage that ultimately opens up like a blooming kaleidoscopic flower into the colorful climax that sees the track out. It’s a stunning, hypnotizing track that manages to encapsulate everything that the Finnish visionaries have been working toward with their psychedelic black metal sound in one seven-minute bite. Crazy to think that that’s just the first song on the album too.

5.Red - “The War We Made”

2000’s alternative metal often gets a bit of a bad rep and is treated like it’s not welcome here anymore in the metal world, at least among the critic class. Well I’m not in that class so I get to enjoy the open-hearted catharsis of alternative metal anthems like “The War We Made”. And it really is one of the band’s best songs and a great example of the genre in general. I dare anyone to honestly stand in front of those strings, those power chords, and that soaring vocal delivery and not feel something resonating in the core of what makes them human. It’s a beautiful song in such simple ways that don’t really beckon much contemporary critical dissection, but that simple openness has been the style’s biggest strength, which Red show wholeheartedly on this song.

4.Code Orange - “Underneath”

The album it came from may have found the Pittsburgh metalcore visionaries in a bit of a phase of growing pains as they try to enhance the industrial aspect of their metallic hardcore sound, but the closing title track of Underneath showed none of it, finishing the album off on a confident, swaggering, and effectively heavy note that packs the hardcore punch they’ve built their reputation on into an infectious alt metal structure without losing any potency. They may not have nabbed album of the year again or even the metalcore album of the year this year, but Code Orange definitely come away with the year’s best standalone metalcore song.

3.Imperial Triumphant - “Atomic Age”

Capturing perhaps the best on the album the deliriously foreboding forest of towers of the big apple, “Atomic Age” spirals down and around through experimentally jazz-infused and nightmarish angular guitar leads in the back of terrifying screams and growls that only add to the psychosis. It feels like being dropped from the top of the Empire State Building over and over and over again and scrambling for safety as the windows of the countless stories rush by.

2.Oranssi Pazuzu - “Uusi teknokratia”

Not that any song on Mestarin Kynsi is particularly lacking for its length or anything, they’re all incredible acid trips of dizzying black metal, but the album’s longest and most dynamic song has to be the most freakish, deceptively welcoming, and other-worldly of the bunch. This song really does take you to another world and entangle your senses there.

1.Deadspace - “A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars” (parts 1 and 2)

Deadspace hit an incredible new high with their sole full-length this year, and the title track in its two phases perhaps best captures the shivering, transfixing power of their more unshackled depressive sound. Everything about it, the drawn-out screams and bellows; the somber clean guitar passages; the depressive distorted chords; the heavenly choir, all sounds like the chilling but undeniably compelling farewell of a long-suffering soul finally seeing the glimpse of peace and release in its welcoming of an afterlife. It’s a song that confronts the heavy concept that DSBM deals with in the kind of candid and forthright manner that makes it so compelling when done well. The song’s abstract lyrics deal with the general sorrow that has surrounded the band’s music and the way the band as a whole has made use of their scars for their art. Deadspace announced their disbandment with the release of this album back in March, and the lyrics portray this act as one of bowing out through suicide (as a band, by disbanding, not literal suicide) to represent the finality of what they have sung about so much throughout their career. While not pairing with a literal death, this album, and this song serve as part of the departing act the way Blackstar served as David Bowie’s farewell and the way Purple Mountains served as David Berman’s suicide note. A Portrait of Sacrificial Scars and its title track is Deadspace’s suicide note as an art project, and one that comes fittingly after a gradual refinement of their sound that mirrored the depressed mind’s spiral from melancholic sorrow to malignant despair, ending their career on a chillingly glorious high note. Being that I’m giving an incredibly dark, DSBM song my top spot, I’d just like to clarify that I’m not suicidal in any way right now, nor advocating it. My top song in 2018 was Andrew W.K.’s “Music Is Worth Living For”, and all the music this year, despite its crushing atmosphere on all of us, and as dark as much of that music is, still is. It’s just, 2020, you know.

Albums I Missed in 2019

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so eager and excited, yet also hitting myself so much, to write about music I didn’t write about last year. Weirdly, I knew about the vast majority of these projects at the very least and for whatever reason, I just didn’t get around to hearing them until this year, some of which I am very disappointed in myself for missing last year and even for not getting the chance to include them in my best-of list, but that’s what this is for, eh. Anyway, here are the albums I wish I talked about last year.

Lice-Woe Betide You

Nikolas Kvarforth and Teitanblood linked up last year for an album of unstable character. Shifting from soothing ambient black metal to more self-loathing varieties within the genre, Lice only really establish a liquidy planting in black metal, but do alright in surveying the genre through Kvarforth’s ever-committed vocal performances.

Northlane-Alien

Northlane broke through the djenty metalcore ceiling on this album with a combination of tastefully enhanced electronic production, more cleans to balance the screams, and the evolved knack for the sick riffs and calculated breakdowns that any band needs to thrive in the genre. While not every song is a banger, Alien’s is an overwhelmingly stacked track list, and I recommend it enthusiastically.

Humanity’s Last Breath-Abyssal

This is the album that would’ve made my year-end honor list. Humanity’s Last Breath have carved out an interesting little niche for themselves within deathcore and made quite the improvement upon it even without much selective pressure. The band takes a pretty gratuitously turned-up and up-to-date techdeathy approach to deathcore, but their industrial effects-laden grooves and pedalboard-dancing breakdowns have given them a unique identity within deathcore, and on Abyssal, the Swedes put all their chips in the middle and hone in on what makes them difficult. And it’s a winning hand; Abyssal is packed with angular, groovy bangers and creative breakdowns that show that the band are clearly up to date with the fresh rhythm styles of both deathcore and metallic hardcore. Honestly, it’s just an addictive, delicious crop of bangers, and I wish I got to it last year. It’s made quite the addition to my workout playlist though.

Diocletian-Amongst the Flames of a Bvrning God

Apocalyptically war-minded New Zealanders Diocletian made an unfortunately pretty underwhelming return from their brief hiatus, but somewhat lengthy, studio absence through Profound Lore with the chaotic, but aimless blackened grindcore. Aesthetically and productionally it has a lot going for it, but the completely one-note, everything-at-the-wall approach leaves the album with few standout moments and feeling like a vague recollection.

Uniform & The Body-Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

Uniform & The Body linked up again for another underwhelming collaboration of halfway-committed material last year. I enjoyed both artists’ most recent albums, but after the disappointing diminishing returns of the pair’s Mental Wounds Not Healing the previous year, I wasn’t exactly thirsty for another jam session between the two just a year later. And the second joint effort once again earns the term “effort” rather generously.

Mesarthim-Ghost Condensate

The sole release of the ordinarily far more prolific Australia-based solo studio project Mesarthim, Ghost Condensate’s moderate forty-minute offering split only into two twenty-minute pieces follows the same format of ambient black metal that draws its atmosphere from a very gradual and synthy push and pull. I reviewed the project’s two releases this year and found the spacy sound quite to my liking actually. Ghost Condensate, though, with its much more predictable compositional plot, simply doesn’t reach the same highs as Planet NineorThe Degenerate Era did this year.

This Gift Is a Curse-A Throne of Ash

Honestly, the generic title and generically occult imagery of the album cover kind of put me off and kept me from giving this album a listen until this year. Despite its superficially orthodox look, A Throne of Ash combines a lot of unorthodox sounds and compositional choices to make for a pretty thrilling, unique, and vibrant blackened death metal album.

Dawn Ray’d-Behold Sedition Plainsong

Ireland’s anti-fascist black metal stalwarts, Dawn Ray’d, have always delivered their message through rather subtle means on face value, but through the kind of second-wave-influenced atmospheric black metal that should reach the fans of the scenes they intend to combat. Though perhaps a little too evolved and “Deafheaven-y” for the average chud to get into (though it’s closer to something like Wolves in the Throne Room), Behold Sedition Plainsong is a fine example of the genre and a noble project that deserves support and respect at the very least for helping black metal not be as uniformly of a hotbed of shitty music and even shittier ideology.

The Deathtrip-Demon Solar Totem

Definitely one of the more dynamic black metal albums of last year, Demon Solar Totem takes the dark ethereal sounds of the second wave and today’s sprawling naturalistic atmospheric black metal on a progressive trip. The album does fall into a few typical ruts here and there, but at least it’s a variety of them, making for an interesting enough black metal voyage.

Haunt-If Icarus Could Fly

While the band’s second album felt like a bit of a step down from their beautifully melodic debut, I wish I had covered it last year when it came out, and covered Haunt in general earlier, given that they started up basically when I started this blog up and I’ve enjoyed their output pretty enthusiastically since hearing them. The old-school revivalists burst onto the scene with their full-length debut, Burst into Flames, in 2018 after a few splits and an EPs. I loved the refined melodic approach to the old guard style that the band made on that album. It captures the aesthetic of the time with the informed influence of the modern metal musician’s expanded melodic arsenal. And while “sophomore slump” might be a harsh term for an album that still accomplishes rather well what it set out to do, there’s a clear dialing back of the types of modern influences that the debut had on If Icarus Could Fly in an attempt to more deeply emulate the sound of old, which I don’t really think was necessary to boost the band’s aesthetic. Thankfully they rebounded pretty well this year with the one-two punch of Mind FreezeandFlashback.

Year of the Knife-Ultimate Aggression

This was the quick, but effective 25-minute debut hardcore slugfest from the Delaware-based quintet whose hastily followed-up sophomore album this August I found disappointingly less thrilling. Even in a Code Orange world of metallic hardcore taking charge and stealing the spotlight through industrial means, Year of the Knife follow more closely in the footsteps of bands like Harm’s Way and Knocked Loose, who may not be toying with electronic elements too much but who have taken keen note of the effectiveness of livening up the approach to hardcore’s groove. And Year of the Knife captures that ethos and that approach rather well on Ultimate Aggression, making me wish not just I had covered it in February, but that I had its energy in my workout playlist all year.

Cloudkicker-Unending

Another full-length from the prolific studio project, Cloudkicker, Unending is a pretty unsurprising, but fulfilling the soothing instrumental prog/post-metal album for the purpose it serves. There are few lovely little licks here and there and the album carries a general air of relief very well, so it does work very well for what it is.

Mortiferum-Disgorged from Psychotic Depths

The Washington band’s debut full-length is a decent contribution to the ultra growly, glacially heavy death/doom genre, but unfortunately without a lot of imaginative composition or stylistic shake-up, Disgorged from Psychotic Depths only just checks a bunch of boxes on the rubric. That being said, the album does offer a few glimpses of potential creativity that I do hope to hear more of in this band’s future.

Kmac2021-IMPOSTER

Internet funnyman Kmac2021 is more well known for his home-production tips and tricks to help bedroom djent kids get that savory Misha tone everyone wants and for his comprehensive countdown list of the top ten numbers of all time. But last year Kmac directed some of his talents away from his YouTube memelording and into a candid EP of the djenty deathcore he lovingly goofs on in his videos. The results were pretty standard melodic proggy djentcore, but quite respectable enough to earn Kmac some applause for his juggling of instrumental responsibilities and vocal techniques. I do want to highlight and shout out the title track though, which deals with the specific emotional distress of imposter syndrome, a very personally relevant phenomenon for me this year, and it’s been encouraging to hear a djenty anthem about overcoming that specific form of self-doubt.

The Acacia Strain-It Comes in Waves

The Acacia Strain rather quietly and abruptly released this quick batch of songs just before the end of last year, and it didn’t really flinch anyone. Thankfully the band’s follow-up this year was much more revitalized and got them back on track, but It Comes in Waves was concerningly unexciting for a band actively putting so much hardcore energy into their music.

Fever 333-Strength in Numb333rs

In their externally ascribed quest to be this generation’s Rage Against the Machine, Fever 333 on their debut album hit all the contemporary political notes and issues that they need to, but musically slip a bit too often into becoming a new version of Linkin Park. “Prey for Me/3” and “The Innocent” are absolutely fist-raising anthems for a fight for a more just world, and the rest of the album’s lyrical content, while rather simple and straightforward, is very in touch and aware of what lies at the root of so many problems these days. And while I hope the band kind of weed out those compositional tendencies that make some songs sound more peppy than they should, the concentrated fire they pack into their performances makes me excited to hear where they go from here.

Worm-Gloomlord

This came out just at the tail end of last year, but I wish I had heard it then because I think I would have liked to shout out its nasty, slimy, slow-dripping death sludge, which seems to be pretty in vogue at the moment with prominent acts like Undergang, Primitive Man, and Warp Chamber getting a lot of love lately. Gloomlord is the Floridian band’s second album, and for as ambiguous as its one-word title is, I feel like it lives up to it. The slowly trudging distorted riffs that allow the percussive highlights to feel like they knock you around in a despressed trance that the ominous atmospheric guitar work lays down capture that first part of the compound word, while the punchy, monolithic death metal core gives the music its lordship. Definitely worth a listen for any fan of slow, doomy death metal that hasn’t heard it yet.

The Hu-The Gereg

The Hu’s brooding and unique form of folk metal made The Gereg arguably the breakout debut album of last year. I’ve personally always loved traditional Mongolian folk music (if it’s not a misnomer to call it folk music), and I’ve always thought that the low-register string arrangements and chants and throat singing would sound really good in a metallic setting. Unlike most European or American folk metal, The Gereg is generally more shadowy and gradual, not that it is entirely without its unifying fun moments. But it’s generally more atmospheric in the ways that most listeners of European and American metal would be familiar with. And it does stay generally within these more meditative atmospheric bounds, never getting too heavy or overbearing, using subtle metallic textures to enhance its traditional instrumentation. It’s definitely an interesting listen at the very least and worthwhile for all to check out for its uniqueness.

November 2020

System of a Down - Protect the Land / Genocidal Humanoids

The Armenian-American nu metal revolutionaries reconvene after 15 years of studio silence for a quick two-song punch to raise funds for their war-steeped homeland. The songs are a good warm-up-sounding appetizer of two very distinct sides of System of a Down that certainly do not on their own set up the precedent for any further new material. For now though, I’ll take whatever positives I can get out of this year, and a couple of new System of a Down songs are certainly that.

Celebrity Sex Scandal - The Fundamental

I don’t want to be too hard on this album because I genuinely don’t think it’s particularly ill-conceived or transparently lazy; it just kinda didn’t work out. Celebrity Sex Scandal are a pretty hefty eight-member ensemble from San Antonio, Texas who got their start partially through an online crowdfunding campaign. The band dazzled eager fans with their odd, cockeyed approach to the gratuitous genre layering of progressive metal and experimental rock, and the band’s third album unfortunately just goes to show that experimental doesn’t always equate with good, of course, because not every experiment is a success. In fact it’s kind of suggestive in the name that most of it isn’t. The thing that makes The Fundamental not such a hit as an experiment is that it’s really more messy than experimental. While it tosses together the disparate likes of funk rock, sludge metal, southern rock, and swing into a blender with a bunch of unusual instrumental components, at the core of it all and most prevalent in the mix of styles is this stale post-grunge alternative rock/metal that also dictates the direction the music goes in, which ultimately leads to the individual compositions being surprisingly predictable for an eccentric experimental album (and not in a flattering way). There are a few pretty rough performances throughout the album too. I get that this album is obviously pretty tongue-in-cheek and that some of its forced oddity is meant to serve the purpose of parody, but it doesn’t exactly salvage the mostly unappealing compositions and performances throughout, not that there aren’t a few relative bright spots. Overall though, I’m just not feeling the band’s superficially wacky genre-orgy style on this album. Still, I will be eager to hear whatever the band have in store for us next; hopefully this was just a hiccup in the grander scheme of things. And I hope they keep at it with their experimental ambition.

4/10

Blood from the Soul - DSM-5

If not outright masterful, nearly everything Jacob Bannon touches is at least vibrant as the sun itself. The prolific Converge frontman teamed up with Napalm Death bassist Shane Embery to revive the latter’s long-defunct moniker from the early 90’s, Blood from the Soul, which had but one industrial metal to its name before its resurrection through Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. Embery had originally paired with Lou Koller of Sick of It All for the first album’s industrial hardcore leanings, and with Bannon in the other chair in the cockpit two and a half decades later, Blood from the Soul takes on a much different life with DSM-5. It’s rather predictable and holistic blend of the types of aggression of both members’ main bands isn’t necessarily a bad thing on the principle of it being foreseeable, and the album does cross-breed pretty well the death-metal-leaning grindcore of modern Napalm Death with the fiery chaos of first-wave metalcore of Converge, two genres that marry quite well to the surprise of no one watching.

8/10

Surma - The Light Within

Making their debut for Metal Blade Records after making some pretty noticeable noise from the tiny Faroe Islands, Surma go big and theatric with their take on symphonic neoclassical metal on The Light Within. And I can see why their label saw Surma as a promising prospect (though Metal Blade also shamelessly milk Six Feet Under and the hotly disputed “fake” Batushka for whatever cash is in those udders, so make of that what you will), but Surma’s writing chops with the huge pallet they choose to paint with are clearly still maturing, their appeal coming largely from the natural grandiosity of the medium they work with. A few exceptionally compositionally accomplished songs like “The City of Winds” and “The Selkie (Kópakonan)” do suggest that this band can indeed live up to their expectations; it’s gonna take a lot of work though.

6/10

Ghostemane - ANTI-ICON

As much as it may get metal’s puritans’ panties in a bunch, yes, musicians who create largely outside the realm of metal can also have some metal cred up their sleeve that we just don’t see too much. And Floridian rapper Ghostemane has plenty of prerequisites in metal to justify his presence in the scene and his wielding of the genre. The 29-year-old got his start in the music world in local hardcore bands and has taken a ton of influence from nu metal and industrial metal, and that comes through in no uncertain manner on ANTI-ICON. Bristling with an unregulated darkness, Ghostemane traverses ANTI-ICON with brooding, Manson-like, low-register moaning as well as amped up hardcore quick-spit rap verses about the most self-loathing depths of depression and the depravity of the most aggressive and sinister intrusive thoughts. And sure, the edginess is pretty over-the-top across the whole album to the point of including an extended and rather isolated sample of someone choking severely that slightly repulse even a death metal fan, but there’s something so fresh, honest, and addicting about the unabashedly masochistic mesh of sounds here. The consistency of the gritty industrial center and the punchy metallic hardcore accents across the album are mountainous evidence that this isn’t some quirky side quest for Ghostemane. He knows his shit and he’s not messing around. With no high-brow filter over the cup, Ghostemane’s pitch black brew on ANTI-ICON is an upfront and captivating illustration of a disturbed mind in its lowest of lows that puts brutal emotional honesty before poetic eloquence, and it makes you appreciate it for its willingness to be unattractive and unembarrassed.

8/10

Of Feather and Bone - Sulfuric Disintegration

After an explosive sophomore release in 2018 (Bestial Hymns of Perversion) Of Feather and Bone suffer only a mild third-album slump in their pivot toward the more hazy, cerebral tendencies of other bands on the Profound Lore label. The more cerebral Sulfuric Disintegration points the band in a more cavernous, more compositionally abstract, and potentially more promising direction within death metal’s foggier waters for future releases. While I do prefer the band’s debut for their current label, I think this album sets them on a course for things ahead that will soon outshine what they have released so far. That being said, there are plenty of nasty riffs and filthy bass lines to salivate over on this, so enjoy the present too.

7/10

Sólstafir - Endless Twilight of Codependent Love

Apart from the heart-wrenching character that the sometimes strained vocal performances across it give it, Sólstafir’s seventh album isn’t all too stylistically different from most albums in their catalog or their post-rock/metal field. Yet the band make quite the case for why they are indeed one of the most vital participants in the echo-soaked genre after its peak, and with a variety of styles. “Dionysus” recalls the band’s earlier black metal era, while “Úlfur” recalls White Pony-era Deftones. The stoic folksy post-rock closing track, “Hann For Sjalfur”, ends on a fitting, somber note, but the top prize has to go to the heart-crushing “Her Fall from Grace”, whose standard post-rock guitar melodies serve as a stark reminder of just how powerful the saturated genre can be. Endless Twilight of Codependent Love captures well all the themes its title implies in a raw, cathartic, and open-hearted stream of emotive post-metal sorrow and blackgaze languish.

8/10

Dark Buddha Rising - Mathreyata

Dark Buddha Rising, who paired up with Oranssi Pazuzu last year for the mind-warping Syntheosis under the name Waste of Space Orchestra, return to their own solo ventures, just as their fellow psychedelic black metal collaborators did earlier this year, in injecting a little bit of magic mushroom hallucinosis into black metal through spacy, freakish synth work. While not quite as psychedelically wild as Oranssi Pazuzu’s transforming of more traditional black metal Mestarin Kynsi,Mathreyata follows a similar pattern of progression through heavy, dizzying atmospheres that build to fulfilling climaxes with a more ambient, droning, and meditative form of blackened post-metal that the band of course give a little dose of LSD to. And the results are intriguing at the very least. I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys atmospheric black metal at its most meditative or Sunn O))) for thee enveloping atmospheres their music can create.

8/10

Jesu - Terminus

Embodying the creative rot of the genre as a whole on this album, Jesu are back with another offering of forgettable, unconvincing indie-post-rock-influenced post-metal.

5/10

Live Without-Mannequin

Colliding filthy guitar tones a la Bloodbath or Cannibal Corpse with the visceral rage of hardcore and lyricism even more blunt and less poetic than what is usually associated with the genre, it’s good to hear Live Without still sounding lively and fucking shit up while swearing gratuitously and emphatically. This quick, 5-track EP isn’t doing anything innovative or particularly interesting, but goddamn can you feel the commitment to the metallicization of hardcore and the hardcorification of groove metal. I do hope they keep at it because they have quite an energy that can be deadly if they harness it to its fullest.

6/10

Ghøstkid-Ghøstkid

Jumbling together the bristling melodic metalcore of Architects with the focus on cool of amo-era Bring Me the Horizon with a writing style that hearkens to being in a Hot Topic in the mid-2000’s, Ghøstkid’s debut album has a lot that just doesn’t appeal to me without a lot of convincing, and Ghøstkid’s unspecial, average performances aren’t doing any of that necessary convincing.

4/10

Killer Be Killed - Reluctant Hero

The, possibly, most high-profile metal supergroup, Killer Be Killed, are back after a lengthy break following their self-titled 2014 debut with a rather similarly well-rounded sophomore effort. Sepultura founder and current Soulfly leader Max Cavalera, dynamic frontman of the late Dillinger Escape Plan and The Black Queen Greg Puciato (who just put out a fantastic solo album a month ago), Troy Sanders of Mastodon, and Converge drummer Ben Koller make for a rather promising and lineup. Though it takes some time to break into its shoes, a few songs in to build some momentum, Reluctant Hero is a pretty boisterous display from the star-studded alliance, who really have no excuse to fail with their combined pedigrees in the album’s thorough combination of relatively straightforward thrash, groove metal, and sludge metal. The multi-vocal attack serves some of the more dynamic trade-offs well, but with three of them singing, I think they could have gone a little harder on layered vocal harmonies and dizzying trade-offs. Indeed, the album’s greatest weakness is perhaps how unambitious it feels for a project made by the joining of four metal giants, especially in comparison to their works with their respective main bands. Despite feeling largely like a less-proggy, safe version of an early Mastodon album, Reluctant Hero delivers the no-nonsense thrashers and groovy bangers it needs to, and any complaints about it are mild and largely overshadowed by the exciting dynamic exchanged among the four superstars here.

7/10

Tombs - Under Sullen Skies

After whetting our pallets with their EP, Monarchy of Shadows, back in February, Tombs are back with their main course of the year, Under Sullen Skies. I was a little lukewarm toward the Brooklyn band’s first release this year, but this LP really steps it up for them not just in terms of its more comprehensive look into their sound and their ability as a band, but also in the performances. The band virtuosically juggle black metal, death metal, and doom metal on Under Sullen Skies with impressive fluidity across the album without the track listing coming across disjointed. There’s also a greater sense of conviction and emotional potency on the performances here compared to this year’s earlier EP. Tombs more than delivered after what they teased earlier this year suggested they would come through with, showcasing an expansive range of stylistic talents through dazzling and constantly engaging performances, and I’m glad the longer format of this LP lent itself to a better showcasing of their abilities.

8/10

Liturgy-Origin of the Anomalies

Just a year after the surprise release of H.A.Q.Q., the polarizingly bright and philosophical Liturgy are back with another offering, albeit somewhat shorter, of heavenly, awe-inspiring transcendental black metal. Though the first few songs in the album traverse an odd array of neo-classical ambient styles, the album does eventually settle in to the sound Hunter Hunt-Hendrix formed on Aesthethica. Origin of the Alimonies is almost entirely instrumental though, and it’s jumbled flow and composition make it feel a lot like an afterthought from H.A.Q.Q. and its creative process.

6/10

My Dying Bride - Macabre Cabaret

After a satisfactory, but hardly thrilling thirteenth LP after a five-year gap, My Dying Bride bounce back quickly with a bit more potent and raw of an EP, capturing the sorrow that surrounded the band for the past half decade more fully than their LP did.

6/10

Sodom - Genesis XIX

We’ve long known what to expect from Germany’s blackened thrash pioneers basically ever since M-16, but album after album Sodom keep the riffs coming and the pit circling with ample energy, Genesis XIX being wonderfully no different. Lobbing one riff-laden screamer after another drizzled with a the war-themed commentary that they and thrash in general have come to be known for and a tasteful amount of aged cheese, Genesis XIX makes up for its predictability with a forceful demonstration of confidence in what continues to motivate the Teutonic thrash titans to stick to their Gatling guns on the metallic battlefield, and the reward for their undying dedication is victory in securing one of the year’s best thrash albums.

8/10

MSW-Obliviosus

While the majority its slow, somber dirge plays more like a stream-of-consciousness therapeutic processing of the tragic loss its creator experienced through the medium of doom and ambient black metal, Obliviosus has its flourishes of beautifully solemn instrumentation (particularly the build in the middle of the closing title track), and an open-hearted listen easily lends tangible insight into the sorrow that inspired it. What it lacks in structural cohesion and musical wealth it supplements well enough with candid expression.

6/10

King 810-AK Concerto No. 47, 11th Movement in G Major

Flint, Michigan’s rapcore representatives have had a hard time connecting their intentionally controversially violent lyricism and live presentation to the systemic ills that have plagued their tragically notorious hometown, but the band did tone down the machismo a bit on last year’s oddity-laden Suicide King in favor of a more solely musically ear-catching strategy. While I wasn’t particularly into that album, it might have been just the reset that King 810 needed to recalibrate on this year’s more meat-and-potatoes rapcore album, AK Concerto No. 47, 11th Movement in G Major. It might not have been a super sudden or even conscious decision to ease off the edginess this time around, which might be a tough choice to make for a band basing so much of their identity on their bravado, but the result of the band’s turning the spotlight away from their theatrics and more fully onto the music is an album that feels more honest and more focused. The brutal truths of their environment aren’t smoothed out or whitewashed, and honestly, if this is what their independent journey is going to look like, I’m here for it.

7/10

Psycroptic - The Watcher of All

Teasing with a little two-song taster, Psycroptic flex their techdeath muscles indeed, but they’re doing the bare minimum when it comes to refreshing the hype that built around their name after 2018’s As the Kingdom Drowns. The songs here are solid enough in the basics of technical death metal, but they provide just an inkling of the keen compositional instinct that bolstered their prominence in 2018. I’d say I slightly prefer the greater intricacy of “A Fragile Existence” to the speedy, but more predictable, title track.

6/10

Lie in Ruins-Floating in Timeless Streams

Lie in Ruins have failed to really dazzle me with their early output so far, after two full-size albums, despite their now-extensive experience in the field. But bubbling with a whole lot more energy and a more palpable sense of confidence in their direct approach to (slightly blackened) old-school death metal the Finnish band’s third LP here might be change in tides for them, a potential start of a new era in their career. Floating in Timeless Streams finally captures the raw, gritty sound of 90’s death metal in a more flattering light, hopefully giving the band some momentum heading forward.

7/10

Scour-Black

Another prominent supergroup (if we count Phil Anselmo’s many musical projects as such), Scour, which started back in 2015 and only put out two EPs and a Bathory cover barely eclipsing a half hour of material total until this month, is the Pantera frontman’s intended venture into black metal. I say “intended” because it’s not as pure of a black metal venture as the genre’s finicky purists might grant it; for my money, there’s no point really deliberating it pedantically. It’s black metal. But the various members’ pedigrees with grindcore and death metal from experience with bands like Misery Index and Cattle Decapitation do show through here, and while that would lead naturally to the suggestion that what Scour produce would be under the banner of blackened death metal, I don’t think that label really captures it. Epecially on Black, whose sound is intensely focused on sinister darkness and evil, just whose players can’t help themselves from breakneck speed and nasty growls, Scour are clearly playing black metal. Black plays much like a Watain album just with even faster elements and more death growls influenced by Cattle Decapitation’s semi-blackened deathgrind. There’s also the occasional groove-focused section like the rhythmic riff of “Propaganda” and the delicious palm-muted groove of “Flames”, but it never feels unlike black metal. Regarding Anselmo and potential valid concerns about his (hopefully just drunken) racist shenanigans (to put it generously) potentially coming through in the lyrics, there’s nothing to really worry about here. The guy has clearly been loving him some Portal lately (as shown by his wearing their t-shirt in the bands promo photos), and the lyrics here mainly just mimic the heady, ultra-abstract (kinda nonsensical) surrealism that that band employs. I think this project’s brevity is a clever move on the band’s part, leaving a thirsting for more, making me really hopeful for a full-length sometime in the future, because this extremely grindcore-influenced, and rather fresh, approach to black metal is so savory and addictive.

8/10

Hatebreed - Weight of the False Self

While Jamey Jasta might have become more well-known as a podcast host than hardcore frontman for the past few years, that hasn’t lessened the impact of Hatebreed’s blood-pumping, grind-motivating, weight-slamming, room-cleaning metalcore. In a way, perhaps his visible juggling of his label-owning business ventures and his career with Hatebreed alongside his newfound role as the Joe Rogan of the metal world is what gives his life-coaching lyricism weight and Hatebreed’s individualist motivational ethos its life, or at least its cred. Weight of the False Self is a familiar half-hour motivational speech through hardcore for anyone who’s come into contact with Hatebreed or the scene they emerged from, and that’s not a bad thing here. The band continue to get their reps in on their metallically muscular sound and on the rhythmic grooves and hardcore breakdowns they need to maintain their technique and musical physique. While still being just another day pumping iron, gym analogies aside, this album is a great representation of how invigorating standard, but committed hardcore can be, and I’m sure I’ll be lifting to it a lot in the coming future.

8/10