Release Day Roundup 4/7/23

Top Pick

Lo! – The Gleaners (blackened sludge death)

Lo! are one of those bands whose output I am continually intrigued by but still feel are a way off capturing their full potential. Having said that, The Gleaners is easily the closest they've come, delivering the band's most merticulously crafed and memorable material to date.

The early half of the record contains some of the most abrupt and abbrasive material Lo! have leant their name to, cribbing consistently from the Converge playbook and culminating in what is probably their strongest single offering yet in the blistering "Rat King". From there the album transitions into captivating cosmic horror, via its epic title track, before ultimately culminating in the "Mammons Horn".

The Gleaners is an impressive outing to be sure, and one which should go a long way toward catepaulting the band into the next stage of their career. As I alluded to above though, I still think the best is yet to come, which is an exciting prospect in itself.

Release Roundup

Aisles – Beyond Drama (prog rock)

Angel Vivaldi – Away With Words Part 2 (instrumental prog shred)

Anthropophagous – Abuse of a Corpse (death metal)

Arched Fire – Trust Betrayal (heavy metal, thrash)

Asystole – Siren to Blight (dissonant death metal)

Atemporal – Thorn Genesis (weird blackened death doom)

Ayyur – Prevail (blackened post doom)

Bacchus – II (atmospheric black metal)

Black Denim Rage – State of Emergency (heavy metal, crossover thrash)

Blood Moon Wedding – Blood Moon Wedding: An American Nightmare (prog rock, opera punk?)

Blood Rage / Cremulation/ Born Undead/ Gouger – Don’t Go in the House (death metal, deathgrind)

Bloodrust – At Glory’s End (death metal, melodeath)

Cemetery Trip – Rot Warp (trippy black metal)

Children of the Reptile – Heavy Is the Head (heavy metal, thrash)

Cicada the Burrower – Blight Witch Regalia (psychedelic blackened drum and bass jazz)

Cineastre – Cineastre (black metal, dark folk)

The Colony – Have Hope (prog metal)

Colosso – Zero (brutal death metal)

Covet – Catharsis (math rock)

Cultura Tres – Camino de brujos (groovy sludge thrash)

Cursebinder – Drifting (black metal, dissonant melodeath)

Descent Into Maelstrom – Dei Consentes (progressive tech death?)

Devangelic – Xul (death metal)

Dystersol – Anaemic (melodeath)

Enduring Revery – Carrier (experimental hardcore, avant-garde metal)

Ernte – Albsegen (black metal)

Exdestrier – Glorious Barbarism (blackened prog sludge)

Facs – Still Life In Decay (progressive post punk)

Fire-Toolz – I am upset because I see something that is not there. (electro-industrial, progressive electronic)

Found Missing? – Blind Leading The Blind (alt rock, nu metal)

Grin – Black Nothingness (sludge doom)

Grottos – Ч​е​р​е​з т​о​п​и (post-black metal, post-hardcore)

Headwreck – Reflection Room (modern metalcore)

Healthyliving – Songs Of Abundance, Psalms Of Grief (post doom)

Heathen Foray – Oathbreaker (folk metal, melodeath)

Heretic Plague – Context Is A Stumbling Corpse (brutal death metal)

Imperial Demonic – Beneath the Crimson Eclipse (black metal)

Kärbholz – Kapitel 11: Barrikaden (hard rock, alt punk)

Kardinal Sin – S.A.L.I.G.I.A. (symphonic metal, power metal)

Larvae – Entitled to Death (death doom)

Lucifer’s Fall – Children of the Night (doom metal)

Lurk – Aegis (sludge doom)

Mast Year – Knife (noisy post hardcore)

Maudiir – Soliloque (black metal)

Nachtmuse – Darker Skies (heavy metal, symphonic metal)

Nekus – Sepulchral Divination (sludge death, death doom)

Númenor – Tales from the Edge of Time (power metal)

Omnicidal – The Omnicidalist (death metal, thrahy melodeath)

Paraphilia – The Memory of Death Given Form (brutal death metal)

Paul Gilbert – The Dio Album (heavy metal, grandpas shred)

Penumbra – Eden (symphonic metal, goth metal)

Powerwolf – Interludium (symphonic power metal)

Raider – Trial By Chaos (blackened thrash)

Rise Of The Northstar – Showdown (nu metal, weebcore)

Ruadh – 1296 (black metal, folk metal)

SaintBreaker – Unrelenting Violence (crossover thrash)

Saviorskin – Invicta Mori / DoomFather (gothic death metal)

Scowl – Psychtic Dance Routine (alt rock, punk)

Shredhead – I Saw You Burn (groove thrash, death thrash)

Sijjeel – The Concurrent Cycle (brutal death metal, tech death)

Sins of Magnus – Secrets of the Cosmos (psychedelic speed doom)

Stillbirth – Homo Deus (brutal death metal)

Stormhaven – Blindsight (brutal prog death)

Sunmass – There’s Nothing Here (stoner doom)

Sunrot – The Unfailing Rope (sludge doom)

The Supervoid Choral Ensemble – The Supervoid Choral Ensemble (prog metal, post metal)

The Crooked Whispers – Funeral Blues (blackened stoner doom)

THECODONTION / CEREMENTED – Split (weird black metal, death metal)

Thy Art is Murder / Fit for an Autopsy / Malevolence – The Aggression Sessions (deathcore, metalcore)

Tribulation – Hamaratia (goth metal)

Urarv – Substratum (avant garde, progressive blackened folk doom)

VHS Head – Phocus (glitch-hop, vaporwave)

When Plagues Collide – An Unbiblical Paradigm (brutal death metal, symphonic deathcore)

where mermaids drown – Reminisce (instrumental post rock)

Wolf Spider – VI (tech thrash)

Worthy Of The Crown – Inertia (metalcore, deathcore)

Wrack – Altäre der Vergänglichkeit (blackened post doom)

Yskelgroth – Bleeding of the Hideous (blackened death metal)

Zlórtcht – Welcome to the Zlortchterhaus (crusty doom metal)