Top Picks
El Moono – The Waking Sun (progressive post-hardcore, alt rock/metal)
I’m not entirely sure how a band can be “back with … their highly anticipated debut album,”* but there’s scant other releases out this week that I’m interested in,** so I’m giving Brighton’s El Moono a shot. I'm also not really sure how to describe their sound. Scott Described them as a mix of alternative and stoner rock, and the band describe themselves as a "genre-phobic" "post-hardcore/alt-metal four-piece." To me though, they like they sound kind of like like a happier, proggier Deftones, except instead of the usual Chino-isms that signal that style, their singer sounds like a mix between Greg Puciato and Josh Mckeown of the now sadly defunct Palm Reader.
In fact, Palm Reader is probably the better comparison to make, as The Waking Sun sounds like something that band could have made had they cut back some of the aggression and continued down the more progressive path they'd trodden across recent albums, and not at all dissimilar to the one song we have from Mckeown's new band Vower, who also feature ex-members of British prog bastions Black Peaks. While their sound is fairly obtuse, it's not overly distinct at this stage, and the songs themselves can get a bit meandery, but it's early days for El Moono yet and The Walking Sun is a hell of a foundation from which to develop.
*Apparently we featured their 2022 7-track “concept EP” in a previous roundup, so there you go.
**That new Knocked Loose album is fine.
Last Week's Most Unjustifiably Overlooked Release
Chaska – Rites Of June (progressive melodeath, folk metal)
I missed this one last week, but it was also on a bunch of other lists for this week, so I don't know what happened there. Either way, it's better and more interesting than anything else out this week, so I'm including it here.
I've been bemoaning my loss of love for Dark Tranquility over in the Discord, but I'd never have guessed the answer to spicing things up would be to add a little pan flute to the mix. Nevertheless, that's exactly what these progressive Peruvian melodeathers have done, and the results are persistently astounding. Truth be told, these songs would stand apart without the pan flutes, as examples of masterful melodeath in the vein of the aforementioned Dark Tranquility, a somewhat less depressed Insomnium, or even a more adventurous modern Soilwork. There's also a wonderful classic rock edge to a lot of the lead work that especially shines through on tongue-in-cheek love ballad "Possession" and the blistering lead work on the live-studio reworking of older offerings "Bicolour Cannibalism" and "Nymph of the Lake." The pan flutes don't always mesh as well into proceedings as they could, but they're attention-grabbing for sure, and—against all odds—Chaska even stick the landing—
Release Roundup
After Time – Arcane Horizons (symphonic power metal)
Anette Olzon – Rapture (symphonic/power metal)
Arab Strap – Rock Action (electrified indie rock)
Bad Beat – L.P. 2024 (hardcore)
Belushi Speed Ball – Stellkira (crossover thrash)
Binary Creed – Leash of Noise (prog/power metal)
Borer – Bag Seeker (stoner sludge)
Bossk – .4 (progressive post rock/metal)
Callus – Gravis Decennium (alt metal, stoner sludge)
Coldborn – The Unwritten Pages Of Death (black metal)
Crownshift – Crownshift (heavy/prog metal)
Darkness Everywhere – To Conquer Eternal Damnation (melodeath)
Demersal – Demersal (stuff Trent likes)
Devourer – The Wicked Ones (blackened death metal)
Dodsferd – Wrath (black metal)
Downcross – White Tower (black metal)
Electro Sound Parade – Nessun Dorma (Rammstein but make it melodeath)
Exit – The Red Room Session (melodeath thrash)
Flamekeeper – Flamekeeper (power trad/doom)
Fragmentum – Corn Ritual (corny black metal)
Freedom Call – Silver Romance (power metal)
God Mother – Sinneseld (crusty crossover)
Grave Ghoul – The House of Dead Flesh (death metal)
The Hazytones – Wild Fever (doom metal)
Hot Water Music – Vows (alt/indie rock)
Illusion Of Fate – Portals To Kur (melodic black metal/core)
Ivanhoe – Healed By The Sun (heavy/melodic metal)
JD Miller – Empyrean (melodic/pop metal)
Jours Pales – Dissolution (dramatic black metal)
Just One Fix – Submit Or Death (thrash)
Kill II This – Variant (alt metal)
Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (brutal/monotonous hardcore)
Last Word – Trial of God (melodeath)
Lichen – Spear & Stone (black metal)
Like Moths To Flames - The Cycles Of Trying To Cope (metalcore)
Lynx – Claws Out (shitty speed metal)
Machiavellian God – Beyond The Void (symphonic melodeath-doom)
Mandoki Soulmates – A Memory Of Our Future (proggy prog)
Markgraf – Hohenbaden (blackened heavy metal)
Missiles – Weaponize Tomorrow (goth rock)
Napalm Ted – Succumb into Madness (grindcore)
Necrophagia – Moribundis Grim (blackish death metal/doom)
Paradox Rift – Ensnared (weird death/grind)
Pontifex – From The Pale Mist (black metal)
Powerman 5000 - Abandon Ship (literally Rob Zombie at home)*
*Charli XCX did it better.
Primitive Warfare – Extinction Protocol (brutal death metal)
Putrified – Death Darkness Decay (death metal)
Red Rot – Borders Of Mania (doom sludge)
Riot V – Mean Streets (sword-weilding seals riding motorbikes while pretending to be cowboys metal)
Rossometile – Gehenna (modern/electro metal)
Sarcoughagus – Remnants (death metal)
Satans Taint – Guardians of Valhalla (shitty death metal/melodeath)
Scoured – Scoured (post doom)
Sebastian Bach – Child Within The Man (heavy/hair metal)
Shroud Of Despondency/LanzerRath – Split (black metal)
Sidus Atrum – Tom Sky (blackened mellowdoom)
Six Feet Under – Killing For Revenge (actually semi-decent death metal)
Smoke AxD – Vaya Con Dios (industrial metal/hardcore)
Sonic Universe - It Is What It Is (funk rock)
Southtowne Lanes – Take Care (alt rock,, post-hardcore)
Soziedad Alkoholika – Confrontación (hard rock)
Stretch Arm strong – The Revealing (‘member these guys?)
Suffersystem – Disintegration of the Individual (death metal/thrash)
Sunnata – Chasing Shadows (progressive/folk doom)
Svneatr – Never Return (black metal)
Syk – eartHFlesh (blackened death metal)
Take Offense – T.O.tality (crossover thrash)
The Tangent - To Follow Polaris (prog rock)
The Treatment - Wake Up The Neighbourhood (Airbourne at home)
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – Nell Ora Blu (Giallo-core)
Unhallowed Deliverance – Of Spectres and Strife (Brutal/techish Death Metal)
Unleash The Archers – Phantoma (AI Power Metal)*
*Orden Ogan did it better. (So did Symphony X.)
Vaticinal Rites – Cascading Memories Of Immortality (death metal)
Vestindien – Verdande (psychedelic prog)
Vhäldemar – Sanctuary Of Death (heavy/power metal)
Warlord – Free Spirit Soar (power metal)