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

3 years ago

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!

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Top Picks

Deluge – Ægo Templo (blackened hardcore)

Ferocious mix of post-black metal and dark post-hardcore from France. Cleverly crafted with some progressive elements tied in, it should appeal to fans of both sides of the genres it fuses. Up there with Svalbard for some of the year’s best emotionally charged atmospheric metal.

Trent Bos

Hey Colossus – Dances / Curses (heavy psych, noise rock)

After stumbling on Four Bibles (2019), I was surprised that I hadn’t heard about Hey Colossus sooner. A prolific rock band with consistently great cover art? Sounds right up my alley! Dances / Curses takes what I enjoyed about Four Bibles and kicks it up a notch, essentially channeling the more direct, post-punk elements from the Swans playbook and channeling them through a heavy psych lens. The band are loud and fuzzy when they need to be but always maintain a swirling, hazy atmosphere that’s effortless to vibe with throughout the album.

Scott

Kylie Minogue – Disco (electro-pop)

Despite being Australian and having a severe penchant for gay-friendly pop divas, Kylie Minogue’s music never been my particular cup of tea. However, in a relatively slow week for more extreme releases, Disco really hits the spot. The album does exactly what it says on the tin blending classic ’70s disco vibes with modern pop sensibilities, in the vein of Carly Rae Jepsen and Dua Lipa’s recent releases. More than three decades since first doing “The Loco-Motion,” “our Kylie” has delivered the feel-good soundtrack of (southern hemisphere) Summer 2020.

Josh Bulleid

Mountain Caller – Chronicle I: The Truthseeker (post-metal, prog rock)

London’s instrumental rockers Mountain Caller are dropping their debut album. If you’ve heard the couple of singles they’ve released thus far, this might blow your mind, cause they play the confidence of a band who’ve been doing this for years. On the surface, an instrumental heavy psych/stoner band who might find fans from those who love Elder, Weedpecker, Somali Yatch Club, etc. But Mountain Caller dabble into a bit of everything, with elements of post-metal, progressive rock, and even some black metal style blasts. This is based on two songs. I’m looking forward to this as much as anything else left to come this year! Also, check out that cover art!!

Remi

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Best of the Rest

Acid Mess – Sangre De Otros Mundos (heavy psych, prog rock)

Aduklt Life – Books of Curses (post-punk, punk rock)

albinobeach – The Ladder (post-rock, prog rock)

Alter Bridge – Walk the Sky 2.0 (hard rock, alt-meta)

An Ocean of Light – Vestigios De Melancolía (post-black metal, blackgaze)

The Anima Effect – Manifesto (progressive metalcore, djent)

Ànteros – .​.​.​y en paz la oscuridad (progressive post-hardcore, screamo)

Arcing Wires – Prime (jazz fusion, prog rock)

Ólafur Arnalds – Some Kind of Peace (modern classical)

AVOID – The Burner EP (post-hardcore)

Big Lad – Hand Tools (noise rock, psych rock)

Bitch Falcon – Staring at Clocks (alt-rock, art rock)

Blood Bishop – Celestial Monk (heavy psych, stoner rock)

Bloodsoaked Necrovoid – Expelled Into the Unknown Depths of the Unfathomable (death-doom)

Cazador – Cazador IV (post-hardcore, midwest emo)

Countless Skies – Glow (progressive melodeath)

Dark Quarterer – Pompei (epic prog metal)

Darkenhöld – Arcanes & Sortilèges (black metal)

Dorcha – Honey Badger (art pop, psych rock)

DVNE – Omega Severer (post-metal, prog metal)

Eleanora – Mere (post-hardcore, post-metal)

Electric Poltergeist – Death by the Road (stoner rock, hard rock)

Eoront – Gods Have No Home (atmospheric black metal)

Thomas Erak and The Witching Hour – Thomas Erak and The Witching Hour (alt-country, indie rock)

Eternal Idol – Renaissance (power metal, symphonic metal)

Fates Warning – Long Day Good Night (prog metal)

Focusrights – ew, music! (chaotic hardcore, mathgrind)

Seamus Fogarty – A Bag of Eyes (folktronica, progressive folk)

Froglord – Amphibian Ascending (stoner metal, sludge)

Garmarna – Förbundet (Scandinavian folk, neoclassical darkwave)

Gidge – New Light (ambient techno, microhouse)

goner – A Hell For Horses (mathgrind, harsh noise)

Hammock – Into the Blank / Madi (ambient, modern classical)

High As Hell – Razorblade Dream (groove metal, hard rock)

Infernal Throne – Back to the Abyss (blackened thrash)

JPEGMAFIA – EP (experimental hip-hop, industrial hip-hop)

Jucifer – نظم (folk metal)

Kense – mistakes were made (math rock)

Kimono Drag Queens – Songs of Worship (psych rock, prog rock)

Loudblast – Manifesto (death metal)

L’uomo Nero – Andiamo Nel Deserto (desert rock, blues rock)

Lykantropi – Tales to Be Told (folk rock, psych rock)

Makari – Continuum (alt-rock, post-hardcore)

Melatonin Owls – Cycle (alt-rock, indie rock)

Nebula Orionis – Aether (atmospheric prog metal, post-metal)

NESTA – Fighting on Arrival (deathcore, djent)

Nothing Is Real – I Control You (progressive sludge metal)

NUMAN – Continuous (math pop, post-rock)

Plural – Trip Key (math rock, electronic rock)

Pole – Fading (experimental electronic)

Potion – Cemetary (tech metal, mathgrind)

Procession of Spectres – EP MMXX (dissonant black metal)

Regionals – Teenage Seance (post-hardcore, indie rock)

Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie – Scribble (plunderphonics, sound collage)

Sangre de Muerdago – Xuntas (psychedelic folk, Galician folk)

Science Man – II (noise rock, hardcore)

Serpents of Secrecy – Ave Vindicta (stoner metal)

Shaidar Logoth – Chapter III: The Void God (atmospheric black metal)

Sólstafir – Endless Twilight of Codependent Love (prog metal, post-black metal)

Soul Glo – Songs to Yeet at the Sun (hardcore, noise-rap)

Sun Sleeps – Care Less (ambient, minimalism)

Surma – The Light Within (prog metal, symphonic metal)

Thelonious Monster – Oh That Monster (post-punk, indie rock)

Tuung – Tunng Presents​.​.​.​DEAD CLUB (folktronica, indie folk)

Winning Streak – We Need a Plan (skate punk, melodic hardcore)

WRECK OF THE MINOTAUR – A Little Roy One on One (emoviolence, mathcore)

Scott Murphy

Published 3 years ago