Release Day Roundup – 2/28/20

Editor’s Note: Longtime reader Remi VL is a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations.

Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open the floodgates and unleash a seemingly endless stream of quality new music. But while some of our Editors and Contributors sit down gleefully each week to dive into this newly stocked treasure trove, others find themselves drawing a blank at the end of the month due to the breakneck pace needed to keep up to date with what’s been released. Which brings us to this Heavy Blog PSA: a weekly roundup of new albums which pares down the week’s releases to only our highest recommendations. Here you’ll find full album/single streams, pre-order links and, most importantly, a collection of albums that could very well earn a spot on your year-end list. Enjoy!

Aktor – Placebo (heavy metal, AOR rock)

Taylor Ashton – The Romantic (indie folk, singer/songwriter)

Audrey Horne – Waiting for the Night (hard rock)

Baklavaa – Sleep Running (noise rock, post-punk)

Banisher – Degrees of Isolation (death metal)

Beneath the Massacre – Fearmonger (brutal tech death)

Bonehunter – Devil Metal Force (blackened thrash, hardcore punk)

Caribou – Suddenly (indietronica, deep house)

CB3 – Aeons (heavy psych, stoner rock)

Charivari – Descent (post-rock, shoegaze)

Dark Fortress – Spectres From the Old World (black metal, progressive death metal)

Electric Feat – Electric Feat (stoner rock, hard rock)

Embrace the Maddness – The Hellwish Chronicles Chapter 2 – Undawning Phantasm (avant-garde death metal)

Five Finger Death Punch – F8 (hard rock, groove metal)

FLUISTERAARS – Bloem (atmospheric black metal)

Four Year Strong – Brain Pain (alt-rock, pop-punk)

The Giving Shapes – Earth Leaps Up (art pop, modern classical)

James Leonard Hewitson – Only the Noise Will Save Me (art rock, indie rock)

Human Impulse – Human Impulse (hardcore punk)

Humulus – The Deep (stoner rock, heavy psych)

Inception of Fall – Builders of the World (melodic tech death)

Infirmum – Walls of Sorrow (death-doom)

Insect Ark – The Vanishing (progressive doom, post-metal)

Intronaut – Fluid Existential Inversions (post-metal, progressive sludge)

It Only Ends Once – Chasms Will Never Be Filled (blackgaze, screamo)

Kilter – Axiom (avant-garde metal, free jazz)

Kvaen – The Funeral Pyer (melodic black metal)

Leaden Fumes- Abandon Ship (doom metal)

Les Hay Babies – Boîte aux lettres (indie folk, folk rock)

lié – You Want It Real (post-punk, goth rock)

Living Machines – II: Inferius (prog metal, djent)

Mindtaker – Toxic War (crossover thrash)

Morbid Death – Oxygen (death metal)

Neaera – Neaera (melodeath)

Neptunus – Planetary Annihilation (brutal tech death)

The Night Flight Orchestra – Aeromantic (AOR rock, hard rock)

Ocoeur – Everything (ambient, electroacoustic)

Orphans of Doom – II (sludge, doom)

The Proper Ornaments – Mission Bells (indie rock, neo-psych)

Real Estate – The Main Thing (dream pop, indie rock)

Regarde Les Homme Tomber – Ascension (post-black metal)

Sectile – Falls Apart (post-metal, prog metal)

Shell of a Shell – Away Team (garage rock , indie rock)

Takeleave – Belonging (downtempo, nu-jazz)

Today is the Day – No Good to Anyone (progressive sludge)

Tombs – Monarchy of Shadows (black metal)

Toundra – Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari (post-rock, post-metal)

Tycho – Simulcast (downtempo, post-rock)

The Undercover Dream Lovers – It’s All In Your Head (indie pop, synthpop)

Frederik Valentin & Loke Rahbek – Elephant (ambient, progressive electronic)

Wasted Shirt – Fungus II (noise rock)

Wishbone Ash – Coat of Arms (hard rock, prog rock)