Editor’s Note: I’m glad to welcome longtime reader Remi VL as 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. -Scott Murphy
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!
A Great Adventure or Nothing – The Portal (cinematic prog metal)
A Winged Victory for the Sullen – The Undivided Five (ambient, modern classical)
Ancient Crypts – Inhaling the Fumes of a Burning Carcass (death metal)
Angel Witch – Angel of Light (heavy metal)
Bare Bones – Rival Minds (hardcore, hard rock)
Blind Guardian – Legacy of the Dark Lands (power metal, symphonic metal)
Calibre – The Agony (metalcore)
Cannabis Corpse – Nug So Vile (death metal)
Chtonic Deity – Reassembled In Pain (death metal)
Cinema Cinema – CCXMD (post-punk, noise rock)
Clouds Taste Satanic – Second Sight (stoner doom)
Cold War Kids – New Age Norms 1 (indie rock)
Counterparts – Nothing Left to Love (melodic hardcore, metalcore)
Dawn of Disease – Procession of Ghosts (melodeath)
Golden Core – Fimbultýr (stoner metal)
Hysteria – Night Closing In (heavy metal)
I Built the Sky – The Zenith Rise (prog metal, djent)
Killer 7 – 7 Ways to Kill (thrash)
Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka (indie folk, soul)
Kosmokrator – Through Ruin… Behold (blackened death-doom)
Kucoshka – Women and Police Everywhere (experimental mathgrind)
Locean – Chav Anglais (noise rock)
Jeff Lynne’s ELO – From Out of Nowhere (pop rock, symphonic rock)
Mappe Of – The Isle of Ailynn (folktronica, avant-folk)