Release Day Roundup – 4/15/22

Editor’s Note: Do you think we “missed” an album this week? Click here.

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

Monuments – In Stasis (melodic tech metal, melodic metalcore)

The best djent band have returned, and you have to hand it to them (B Ella). The heavy parts are heavier, and while the melodic parts might not be more melodic than those of Chris Barretto’s powerhouse performance on Phronesis (2018), new vocalist Andy Cizerk more than holds his own against his predecessors and the tech metal scene at large, proving once again that Monuments are more than just a decent debut.

Last Week’s Best Album: Crown Compass – The Drought (progressive metal); Techy prog metal from former members of Textures, Cynic, Pestilence, and Exivious, with occasional glimpses of early-Meshuggah-style tech thrash. Cool stuff.

–Josh Bulleid

Best of the Rest

A Wilhelm Scream – Lose Your Delusion (punk rock, melodic hardcore)

Abstracted – Atma Conflux (progressive death metal)

Atoll – Prepuce (brutal death metal)

Berated​/​Barren – Chainsaw Deth Cult Split (deathgrind)

Bodysync – Radio Active (Euro house, UK garage)

Cancer Bats – Psychic Jailbreak (“southern” hardcore)

Chapin – amber, lovely (indie folk, singer/songwriter)

Cremation Lily – Dreams Drenched in Static (ambient, industrial)

Egregore – The Word Of His Law (blackened death metal)

Epitathe – II (progressive death-doom)

Flock of Dimes – Head of Roses: Phantom Limb (indie rock, art pop)

Fozzy – Boombox (heavy metal)

Grayscale Season – Do You Like Violence (djent, metalcore)

Greyhaven – This Bright and Beautiful World (post-hardcore, chaotic hardcore)

High Pulp – Pursuit of Ends (jazz-fusion)

Kharon – Journey Into the Abyssal Void (Hellenic black metal)

Kurakan – Via Aeterna (deathcore)

Nonsum – Blood & Spirit (doom metal, atmospheric sludge metal)

Olamat – Realms (death metal, deathcore)

Ophelia’s Eye – Hopeless World (melodeath, metalcore)

Patterns of Decay – Patterns of Decay (post-thrash, metalcore)

Samora Pinderhughes – Grief (post-bop, spoken word)

Pye Corner Audio – Social Dissonance (ambient, progressive electronic)

Rivers Ablaze – The Black Hole Era (blackened prog death)

Seer – Vol 7 (progressive black metal, doom metal)

Skanda – ΛSCENT (prog metalcore, djent)

Small Professor & AJ Suede – Hundred Year Darkness (jazz rap, cloud rap)

Carmel Smickersgill – We Get What We Get & We Don’t Get Upset (avant-pop, experimental electronic)

Solus Ex Infernis – Exogenesis (tech death)

Spanish Love Songs – Brave Faces Etc. (emo-pop, acoustic)

Strange Pop – Ten Years Gone (art rock, prog rock)

These Arms Are Snakes – Duct Tape & Shivering Crows (post-hardcore, alt-rock)

The Troops of Doom – Antichrist Reborn (death thrash)

Viande – L’abime dévore les âmes (atmospheric death metal, blackened death)

Kurt Vile – (watch my moves) (psych folk, folk rock)

Visions of Annihilation – The Inception of Chaos (death metal)

Vundabar – Devil for the Fire (post-punk, indie rock)