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!

Top Picks

The Nels Cline Singers – Share the Wealth (jazz rock, jazz fusion)

I may be one of the few people who discovered Wilco because Nels Cline joined the band. I had heard them here and there and read all the rave reviews for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot when it came out, but it really took Nels to join on Sky Blue Sky for it to all click!

I’ve followed Nels since first hearing him on Mike Watt’s Contemplating the Engine Room, and just fell in love with his completely out there playing that fit perfectly with Mike’s “not-quite-punk-rock” writing.

He’s a free-jazz guitar player who keeps inserting himself in places that a weaker musician could never make work, but he never feels out of place. His 2nd lead on Wilco’s Side with the Seeds is one of my favourite things in music, and I’ll follow him wherever he goes.

At first glance, Share the Wealth seems to meld his classic jazz roots with his more modern indie rock career, giving it all a very psychedelic feel. Add in Trevor Dunn on bass and this can’t be anything but amazing!

Remi

Dysphoria – Primal Entrophy (technical deathcore)

Having spent the past five years crafting and polishing this album since their previous release in 2014, Ukrainian tech-deathcore outfit Dysphoria are ready to unleash their best output to date, and some of the most interesting deathcore of the year. The group has worked to incorporate more memorable melodies and seamless transitions between their discordant mathcore chords, tantalizing sweeping skills and enormous breakdown grooves. For some Beneath the Massacre technicality with the youthful pit-destroying energy of modern deathcore, Primal Entropy is my pick this week.

Trent Bos

In Malice’s Wake – The Blindness of Faith (thrash, death metal)

Even with both AC/DC and fellow thrashers Harlott returning to the fold, In Malice’s Wake have easily released the best album of any Australian artist this week. Their fourth full-length continues their progression into death metal as well as their run of flawless records. These Melbournians continue to be a cut above the rest and show absolutely no signs of slowing down.

Josh Bulleid

Of Feather and Bone – Sulfuric Disintegration (deathgrind, death metal)

I’ve been anticipating this album from the first time I heard “Resounding From the Depths” launch into full swing on Bestial Hymns Of Perversion. Not only was that one of the filthiest deathgrind albums I’ve heard in some time, it showed a band bringing new energy to the genre and positioning themselves to be a death metal staple for years to come. Based on the initial singles from Sulfuric Disintegration, and Jon’s enticing review of the album, I’m beyond stoked to finally give this a full spin today and hear Of Feather and Bone further establish themselves as a dominant force.

Scott

Best of the Rest

Accuser – Accuser (thrash)

AC/DC – Power Up (hard rock)

Aesop Rock – Spirit World Field Guide (abstract hip-hop)

William Basinski – Lamentations (ambient)

Beaten to Death – Laat maar, deel een: ik verhuis naar Mastbos (deathgrind)

Blood from the Soul – DSM-5 (metalcore, industrial metal)

Boundaries – Your Receding Warmth (metalcore)

Causa Sui – Szabodelico (psych rock)

The Darcys – Fear & Loneliness (indie pop, funk)

Dark Buddha Rising – Mathreyata (stoner doom, post-metal)

Death Dealer – Conquered Lands (power metal)

Décembre Noir – The Renaissance of Hope (death-doom)

Disparaged – For Those Enslaved (blackened death metal)

DÖ – Black Hole Mass (sludge, doom)

ELFENSJóN – STYX (prog metal, j-rock)

Enigma Experience – Question Mark (stoner rock, hard rock)

Engine Kid – Heater Sweats Nails (noise rock, post-hardcore)

Firing Squad – Police State of Mind (crossover thrash)

FREE THE BIRDS – ÁNDALE (indie pop, alt r&b)

GHØSTKID – GHØSTKID (post-hardcore, trancecore)

Marika Hackman – Covers (alt-rock, folk rock)

Harlott – Detritus of the Final Age (thrash)

Heart Museum – Bitter (melodic hardcore)

Houkago Grind Time – Bakyunsified Moe to the Gore (grindcore, j-pop)

Humanity is Cancer – Humanity is Cancer (death metal)

Intervals – Circadian (prog metal, djent)

Jesu – Terminus (doomgaze, post-metal)

Jucifer – نظم (sludge metal, arabic pop)

Katatonia – Dead Air (prog metal, depressive melodeath)

Katla. – Allt Þetta Helvítis Myrkur (post-metal)

King 810 – AK Concerto No. 47, 11th Movement In G Major (nu-metal, rapcore)

Letterbombs – Burn This Poem After Reading (emoviolence)

Lunatic Soul – Through Shaded Woods (slavic folk, prog rock)

Macabre – Carnival of Killers (avant-grind, death metal)

Mitochondrial Sun – Sju Pulsarer (dark ambient, synthwave)

Molchat Doma – Monument (post-punk, coldwave)

Mustard Gas and Roses – We Are One (stoner rock, post-rock)

Novarupta – Marine Snow (blackened sludge, post-metal)

Periphery – Live In London (prog metal, djent)

Positioner – Unsteady Hands (indie rock, math rock)

Post Truth – Responses to Trauma (post-metal, crust)

Professor and the Madman – Seance (psych rock, Britpop)

Provisions – Outlet (progressive metalcore)

Puteraeon – The Cthulhian Pulse: Call From the Dead City (brutal death metal)

Pyramaze – Epitaph (progressive power metal)

Remnants of the Fallen – All the Wounded and Broken (melodeath, metalcore)

Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol – Burger Babes​.​.​.​FROM OUTER SPACE! (heavy metal, groove metal)

San Leo – Mantracore (heavy psych, drone)

Soulburn – Noa’s D’ark (blackened death metal)

Soulskinner – Seven Bowls of Wrath (death metal)

Emily A. Sprague – Hill, Flower, Fog (ambient, minimal synth)

States of Nature – Light and Seed (post-hardcore, post-punk)

STRYDEGOR – Isolacracy (melodeath)

Sun Crow – Quest for Oblivion (stoner-doom)

Tambourinen – Wooden Flower (krautrock, psych rock)

Told Slant – Point the Flashlight and Walk (slowcore, emo)

Unseen Faith – Evoke (deathcore, metalcore)

Völur – Death Cult (atmospheric doom, folk metal)

We Believe in Hyperspace – Hollow Gold (psych rock, krautrock)

The Wytches – Three Mile Ditch (hard rock, surf rock)

Xerophthalmia – Writhe (brutal deathcore)

Yukon Blonde – Vindicator (indie pop, synth pop)

Yungblud – Weird! (pop rock)

Scott Murphy

Published 3 years ago