Release Day Roundup: 11/17/23

Top Pick

Akersborg – Feelantropicoco (jazzcore)

I've extolled the virtues of a good FFO previously, and a mix of Mr Bungle and Refused is certainly an eye-catching recommendation. In Akersborg's case, it's also pretty accurate. The opening two tracks of Feelantropicoco have a definite Bungle-esque feel about them, and a lot of what follows is highly reminiscent of their fellow, Scandanavian hardcore pioneers. I'd also throw in a bit of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Blood Command at their most unhinged, with the whole thing adding up to something The Armed might have sounded like, if they'd stuck with extreme experimentation, rather than going down the "ultrapop"/boring indie-rock route following Only Love (2018). The band themselves feature multiple members of elctro-funksters Aiming for Enrike, and the album also features guest spots from members of Kvelertak, and Beaten To Death, among others, firmly cementing their sound within the more playful end of progressive hardcore.

As fun as Feelantropicoco is, there's still a lot of room for future refinement. Despite the album's eccentric array of influences, and in spite of being promoted as a modern-day Shape of Punk to Come (1998), there really isn't all that much original about it. As wide ranging as its pool of influences are, they are also all readily recognisable (with something like Only Love itself staking a far stronger claim to the title. Nor does Feelantropicoco have the song craft or memorability of Refused's genre re-defining masterpiece. Yet, while this debut effort is far from the finished product, but It's still early days for Akersborg, and its possible that this may well wind up being their Untitled (2018) or Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent (1995) instead.

Release Roundup

Acrolysis – Revolution (thrash)

Aeon Winds – Night Sky Illuminations (post black metal)

Aeternus – Philosopher (blackened death metal)

Alchemy Of Flesh – By Will Alone (death metal)

Altars Of The Moon – The Colossus And The Widow (post-doom)

Andre 3000 – New Blue Sun (Jethro Tull-core?)

Antiquus Scriptum – Compêndio do Mal (Ou Crónicas de um Mago) (dungeon synth)

Apoplexy – Destiny (blackened death metal)

Astral Experience – Espiral – Clepsidra, Pt.2 (prog metal)

Ayvu – Hera’yva (black metal)

Bassoon – Succumbent (instrumental prog)

Bewitcher – Deep Cuts & Shallow Graves… (black’n’roll)

BlackStream – 666 Swords... In Your Skull! (really weird black metal)

Blood Prophecy – Last Battle, Under the Starry Sky (blackened power metal, melodeath)

Bloodphemy – Dawn Of Malevolence (death metal)

Bog Wizard – Deck of Ruin & Revelation Soundtrack (instrumental doom)

Bull Elephant - The Long War (post-death doom)

Buried Souls – Zone 63 (death metal)

Cabrakaän – Aztlan (blackened power metal?)

Carcinoid – Encomium To Extinction (brutal death-doom)

Care Of Night – Reconnected (melodic rock, AOR)

Celeste - Epilogue(s) (blackened post-death)

Ceremonial Bloodbath – Genesis Of Malignant Entropy (brutal death metal)

Chained To The Dead – Discography Of Debauchery (death metal)

C.L.S.M. – Infinity Shit (crust punk)

Condemned – Daemonium (brutal death metal)

Corroded – Plague (industrialish metal)

The Crown Remnant – Rise Of The Wicked King (prog metal)

Cruel Fate – Destin Cruel (death metal)

Cyan – Pictures From The Other Side (lounge prog?)

Danny Brown – Quaranta (actually, this time)

Dead Cosmonauts – Parasomnia (post-doom)

Death’s Head And The Space Allusion – Luc-II-Farul (poorly mixed electro/power metal)

Deliquesce – Cursed With Malevolence (brutal death metal)

DGM – Life (melodic prog metal)

Dolly Parton – Rockstar (Rob Halford! ...but also Kid Rock?)

Draconian – Pestilence (progressive power metal)

Dyssebeia – Garden Of Stillborn Idols (blackened melodeath/core)

Earthside – Let The Truth Speak (modern prog metal)

Eldritch – Innervoid (classic prog metal)

Elitist – A Merge Of Grandeur (dissodeath)

Exulansis – Hymns Of Collapsing (progressive/symphonic folk)

Exulansis – Overtures Of Uprising (progressive/symphonic blackened death metal)

Fellahin Fall – Urbana (doomy goth metal)  

Foetal Juice – Grotesque (death metal)

Fuel Eater – Echoes Of Absurdity (stoner metal/doom)

Gridfailure – Shards In The Wire (weird spooky noise/drone)

Gut Ripper – Necrowork (shitty death metal)

Harbinger of Storms – All of the Stars Are Dead (blackened death-doom)

Harmagedon – Dystopian Dreams (stoner death-doom)

Hell Gate – Vagues d’Amertume (post-black metal)

Hell’s Addiction – 9 O’Clock Horses (hard rock)

High Spirits – Safe on the Other Side (heavy metal/rock)

The Holy Nothing – Vol. 1: A Profound And Nameless Fear (stoner doom)

Horrenda – Handprints (black metal, groove metal)

Hyperia – The Serpent’s Cycle (thrash)

Infection Code – Sulphur (blackish melodeath)

Jason Blake – Slightly Different Paths (instrumental prog)

Khanъ – Слънцата на Момчил (folk metal)

King – Fury And Death (melodic black metal, blackened melodeath)

The Last Eon – Infernal Fractality (brutal blackened death metal)

Macabre Demise – Grave(y)art Gallery (brutal death metal)

Messier 16 – death Poems (progressive post black metal)

Miara – Hungering Inside (modern melodeath)

Mike Mangini - Invisible Signs (heavy/prog metal)

Mmth – Infinite Heights (post rock)

Mormant De Snagov – Invocation Through Revocation (melodeath-doom)

Nail Within – Sound Of Demise (death thrash)

Narrow Cold – Blinding Lust (melodeath-doom)

Nattfly – Sånger för den kalla modern (shitty black metal)

Neurectomy – Overwrought (brutal tech death)

Obsidyen – Litany Of Iah (blackened death metal)

Palehorse – Hunting Grounds (progressive groove death)

Pestilent Empire – Pestilent Empire (instrumental prog-death)

Plaguemace – Reptilian Warlords (death metal)

Post Profit – Self Defeater (alt rock, grunge)

Psychic Trash – Psychic Trash (hardcore punk)

Pugnale – Purified in Emptiness (blackened grind)

Racetraitor – Creation And The Timeless Order Of Things (post grind)

Rank And Vile – Worship (blackened deathgrind)

RIP – Maldita ficción (thrash)

Ritual Clearing – Penitence (black metal)

Ritual King – The Infinite Mirror (stoner prog)

Robots Of The Ancient World – 3737 (stoner metal)

Rogue Deal – Escape from Justice (thrash/speed metal)

Sadhus The Smoking Community – Illegal Sludge (sludge metal)

Sadus - The Shadow Inside (techish death thrash)

San Leo – Aves Raras (noise prog)

Savage Blood – Wheel Of Time (power metal)

Senescere – Ameliorate (melodeath)

Signum Regis – Undivided (heavy power metal)

Soars – Repeater (post rock)

Soledriver – Return Me To Light (heavy metal, melodic rock)

Solothurn – Servitude (sludgy metal/rock)

Suffocate Faster – This Is The Way Vol. 2 (deathcore, powerviolence)

Surgery of Doom – Manifestation of Darkness (shitty doom)

Temic - Terror Management Theory (progressive tech metal)

Terromania – Nyctophobic (heavy metal)

Texas In July – Without Reason (metalcore)

Thorium – Extraordinary Journeys Pt. I (heavy metal)

Urna – Diamond Tears (instrumental sludge-doom)

Vansind – Mørket (folk metal)

Venus – Obscured Until Observed (weird tech death)

WarBand – OverAmped (thrash)

Wicked Smile – Night Time Riders (heavy/hair metal)

Wind Walkers – What If I Break? (melodic rock/metal(core?))