Top Picks An Abstract Illusion – Woe (progressive death metal) Today marks one of the most ridiculous release days in the history of heavy music. Death metal leads the charge, with

2 years ago

Top Picks

An Abstract Illusion – Woe (progressive death metal)

Today marks one of the most ridiculous release days in the history of heavy music. Death metal leads the charge, with top-notch albums that can’t even get a look-in here, from the likes of Revocation, Bloodbath and Fallujah. There’s there’s also massive metalcore releases from the likes of Parkway Drive and Stray from the Path, along with one of the year’s most anticipated underground outings from post/gaze favourites Holy Fawn. The best of the bunch though comes courtesy of relative newcommers An Abstract Illusion and their outstanding second full-length effort Woe. Common comparisons to Opeth, Hath, Between the Burried and Me are apt, but there’s also an atmospheric aspect to Woe that sits comfortably alongside recent releases from Tómarúm and Wake as well. The album’s single, sixty-minute song can be a lot to take in, but it’s not to be missed.

See Also:

Warforged – The Grove / Sundial (progressive death metal)

Speaking of last Week’s Most sophomore releases from promising progressive death metal acts, Chicago’s Warforged are back with an album far more memorable and refined, yet no less expansive than their critically acclaimed 2019 debut.

Last Week’s Most Unjustifiably Overlooked Release:

The Butterfly Effect – IV (progressive alt rock)

The reuinted Australian alt-prog originators’ fourth full-length release has been a long time coming, so much so that It completely passed me by. Don’t let the same thing happen to you. IV leans a lot more into the band’s earlier early-Tool-inspired sound while also bringing in a lot of the more melodic and ethereal textures that characterised their later releases. The songs themselves are of a time, but the band themselves have arguably never sounded better.

Release Roundup

Allen / Olzen – Army Of Dreamers (power prog)

Arsena – Blood Rusted Mother Earth (prog metal)

Bloodbath – Survival of the Sickest (death metal)

Crippled Black Phoenix – Banefyre (prog rock, alt rock)

Demon Hunter – Exile (alt rock)

End/Cult Leader – Gather & Mourn (hardcore, metalcore)

Fallujah – Empyrean (progressive death metal)

Grief Ritual – Spiritual Disease (hardcore, sludge)

Highly Suspect – The Midnight Demon Club (nu metal, alt metal)

Holy Fawn – Dimensional Bleed (post metal, post rock)

I Am – Eternal Steel (death metal, hardcore)

Inhuman Depravity – The Experimendead (brutal death metal)

KMFDM – Hyëna (industrial)

The Midnight – Heroes (synth pop, synthwave)

Ozzy Osbourne – Patient Number 9 (grandpas metal)

Parkway Drive – Darker Still (heavy metalcore)

Praise The Sun – The Proffer Of Light (melodeath)

Revocation – Netherheaven (tech death, tech thrash)

Second to Sun – Voices Of Obscurantism (black metal)

Slugcrust – Ecocide (grindcore, sludge)

Stray from the Path – Euthanasia (nu metalcore)

Toadeater – Bexadde (weird black metal)

Toehider – I Have Little To No Memory Of These Memories (prog rock, prog metal)

Valborg – Der Alte (progressive post rock)

Violent Execution – Invasores (thrash)

Wayward Dawn – All-Consuming Void (death metal)

Joshua Bulleid

Published 2 years ago