Release Day Roundup – 4/22/22

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

Audrey Horne – Devil’s Bell (heavy metal, hard rock)

Remember how disappointing that last Iron Maiden album was? Devil’s Bell is like the complete opposite of that. Audrey Horne (who started as the Lynchian side projects of members of Enslaved and Gorgoroth) really nailed down their core sound on previous record Blackout (2018) and return here with a record that keeps the good times rolling while also bringing a darker, classic heavy metal edge. Two decades into their career, the band themselves might be considered a part of the old guard, but they still run laps around their influences.

–Josh Bulleid

Black Matter Device – Autonomous Weapons (mathcore, chaotic hardcore)

In what’s likely to be one of the standout mathcore releases of the year, Black Matter Device return with their highly-anticipated 2nd (or 3rd, depending on whether you call their 2019 release an EP) full-length Autonomous Weapons through our friends at Dark Trail Records. BMD take the futuristic tones and technicality of a Frontierer, with the old-school zany energy of Calculating Infinity-era Dillinger. And don’t miss them headlining day 1 of Mathcore Index Fest 2022 in Chicago later this summer!

Last Week’s Biggest Surprise: Rivers Ablaze – The Black Hole Era (progressive death metal)

–Trent Bos

Best of the Rest

A Good Rogering – Systematic Paralysis (alt-metal, alt-rock)

ASkySoBlack – Autumn In The Winter (alternative-gaze, post-hardcore)

Amenra/Cave In/Marissa Nadler – Songs Of Townes Van Zandt Vol. III (dark folk, neo-folk)

Bloodred – Ad Astra (black metal)

Caliban – Dystopia (metalcore)

S. Carey – Break Me Open (indie folk, ambient pop)

CARRTOONS – Homegrown (r&b, neo-soul)

Ornette Coleman – Genesis Of Genius (free jazz)

Corpsessed – Succumb to Rot (death metal)

Credic – Vermillion Oceans (melodic death metal)

deathCAVE – ii (blackened sludge, doom metal)

Desecresy – Unveil In the Abyss (death metal, death-doom)

Udo Dirkschneider – My Way (heavy metal)

Einvigi – Yö Kulje Kanssani (post-black metal, blackened folk)

Roger Eno – The Turning Year (ambient, modern classical)

Erasers – Constant Connection (hypnagogic pop, progressive electronic)

Extinction in Progress – Shades of Pale (progressive death metal, melodeath)

Feral Light – Psychic Contortions (black metal, neo-crust)

Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia (post-punk, goth rock)

Green-House – Solar Editions (new age, progressive electronic)

Kirk Hammett – Portals (instrumental metal)

James Heather – Invisible Forces (ambient, modern classical)

Huntsmen – The Dying Pines (sludge metal)

Jeanines – Don’t Wait For A Sign (jangle pop, twee pop)

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Omnium Gatherum (garage rock, psych rock)

Livewire – A Cold Day In Hell (speed metal)

Donovan Melero – Chelsea Park After Dark (emo rock, singer-songwriter)

Miseration – Black Miracles and Dark Wonders (death metal, blackened death)

Neptunian Maximalism – Set Chaos to the Heart of the Moon (drone metal, avant-garde metal)

Northlane – Obsidian (djentcore, alt-metal)

Novarupta – Carrion Movements (post-metal)

Ocean Grove – Up In The Air Forever (alt rock, nu-hardcore)

Overo – Waiting For The End To Begin (screamo, post-hardcore)

Path of Might – Deep Chrome (progressive sludge, stoner metal)

Jon Porras – Arroyo (drone, ambient)

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets – Night Gnomes (heavy psych, stoner rock)

Pusha T – It’s Almost Dry (southern hip-hop, gangsta rap)

Real Lies – Lad Ash (balearic beat, ambient house)

Spiritualized – Everything Was Beautiful (space rock, garage rock)

THOS ÆLLA – Sempiternal Mobocracies (melodic black metal)

Tyrannus – Unslayable (black metal)

Undeath – It’s Time… To Rise From The Grave (death metal)

Vanum – Legend (atmospheric black metal)

Vile Creature and Bismuth – A Hymn of Loss and Hope (doom, sludge)

Wardruna – Kvitravn – First Flight Of The White Raven (folk metal)

Patrick Watson – Better in the Shade (art pop, chamber pop)

Yarostan – II (screamo, post-metal)