Top Picks
Assemble the Chariots – Ephemeral Trilogy, Part 1: Unyielding Night (symphonic death-metal/core)
This is some very good symphonic deathcore. Extremely good, in fact. Assemble the Chariots’ sound might not be quite as unique as when Simon first wrote about them, but their quality still well and truly speaks for itself. I’m not sure yet whether I prefer Unyielding Night to the most recent efforts by subgenre titans like Brand of Sacrifice or Shadow of Intent, but I’m absolutely certain that it puts Lorna Shore’s Pain Remains (2022) to complete shame (even if it blatantly cribs a few of its ideas along the way).
Deathcore textures are certainly present throughout Unyielding Light, especially across the record’s latter half, but there are also a lot more traditional extreme-symphonic metal elements in play here than you get from many of Assemble the Chariots’ peers. Unlike the general, symphonic-metal malaise that surrounded last week’s Atavistia offering, there are plenty of specific moments—such as the croaky vocal sections and the openings of “Admorean Monolith” and “Evermurk”, or the extremely Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia-sounding mid-section of “As Was Seen by Augurers”— that I can point to on Unyielding Night and say, “that sounds like Dimmu Borgir” or “that bit sounds like Septic Flesh” (and maybe even “that bit sounds like The Black Dahlia Murder covering Kataklysm’s “Ambassador of Pain”, in the latter’s case as well?). Their expanded palette helps Assemble the Chariot stand out from the crowd, while also bringing some much needed variation and kineticism to what has now become a rather oversaturated and often monotonous corner of the metallic spectrum.
A bit of extra trimming would still definitely help, especially when it comes to the narrative interludes. Given Unyielding Light already begins with a minute-and-a-half-long intro track, it probably didn’t need another one three songs later. Likewise, the nearly two-minute long “Last Line of Defence” is pretty inexcusable and while the nearly-four-minute ethereal outing “Ephemeral Stream” is a more justified change of pace, it also brings the album’s much-accumulated momentum to a screeching halt. I also hate the asymmetrical artwork, but the music itself is virtually flawless and otherwise exhilarating. Thanks to Nate for pointing this one out.
Release Roundup
Absorb – Smog (sludge doom)
Abyssielle – Through Sun and Stone (black metal)
Aquelarre – Aldebarán (progressive/power metal)
Art Of Attrition – …And It Will All End Forever (symphonic deathcore)
Battlefront – Among The Corpses (hard rock, horror punk)
Beasto Blanco – Kinetica (industrial prog metal)
Beyond All Hope – Life Cycles (deathcore)
Bloodcrown – Sound Of Flesh And Bone (blackened death metal)
Brain Pain – The Magazine (rock)
Cabal – Reworks (deathcore remixes)
Category 7 – Category 7 (heavy metal, thrash)
ColdCell – Age Of Unreason (doomy black metal)
Coughin Vicars – Curses & Prayers (post-punk, rock)
Culled – Psycles (death metal)
Death Racer – From Gravel To Grave (black thrash)
Defacement – Duality (brutal/blackened disso-death)
Demon Spell – Evil Nights (heavy/speed metal)
Disloyal – Divine Miasmata (blackish death metal)
Dream Evil – Metal Gods (heavy/power metal)
Duskwalker – Underground Forever (death metal)
El Supremo – Signor Morte Improvvisa (psychedelic prog-doom)
Ghost – Rite Here Rite Now (heavy/occult metal)
Ghost of Agony – Ashen Kingdom (death metal)
Gods & Punks – Death (psychish doom metal)
Grid – The World Before Us (weird sludge)
Grotesque Desecration – Dawn of Abomination (slamming brutal death)
Harvestman – Triptych: Part Two (weird/post folk)
Herzblut – Radikal Verliebt (pop punk)
Imperia – Dark Paradise (progressive/symphonic metal)
Incessant – Entropic Aeons (black metal)
Intolerance – Waking Nightmares Of An Endless Void (death metal)
Iress – Sleep Now, In Reverse (doomgaze)
Ironflame – Kingdom Torn Asunder (heavy/power metal)
Ivory Primarch – The Portrait (blackened doom)
IX Of Blades – Death Card In Reverse (black metal)
Jugulator – Imperator Insector (progressive/tech-death thrash)
Kahfa – Le Poison Et La Reine (stoner doom)
Kaonashi – A Second Chance At Forever: The Brilliant Lies From Casey Diamond (pogressive post-hardcore)
Krypt – Great Spawn of the Worms of the Earth (instrumental death metal, meloblack)
Krypticy – The Non-Return (death metal)
Laceration – I Erode (death metal)
Madame Frankenstein – The Eyes of the Mountain Are Mine (shitty stoner doom)
Mayhemic – Toba (black thrash)
Monument of Misanthropy – Vile Postmortem Irrumatio (brutal death metal)
Morcaint – Mornië Utúlië (post-black metal)
Mountaineer – Dawn And All That Follows (gazey post rock)
Nebula Orionis – The Long Path to Nowhere (very-post black metal)
Nether – The Blood Of Rats (deathend black metal)
Oresund Space Collective – Orgone Unicorn (jazz prog)
Orpheus Omega – Emberglow (modern melodeath)
Pagan Impaler – Buried Alive (black thrash)
Painted Shield – Painted Shield 3 (prog rock)
Pohl – Mysteries (weird/noisy psych-rock)
Powerwolf – Wake Up The Wicked (symphonic power metal)
Respire – Hiraeth (post-blackened hardcore)
Sacri Monti – Retrieval (heavy metal, psych-rock)
Santa Cora – Elementum (proggish metal)
Scald – Ancient Doom Metal (epic doom)
Season of the Witch – Vol. 2 (stoner doom)
Shinto Katana – Left for Dead (hardcore, metalcore)
Sirius – A Quest For Life (power doom)
Soulbound – obsYdian (industrial/nu metal)
Spacecorpse – Shapeshifter (proggish death metal)
Spread Thin – World Of Snakes (grindy hardcore)
State Faults – Children Of The Moon (post-hardcore, screamo)
Steve Plunkett – Straight Up (bad rock)
Summoning The Lich – Under the Reviled Throne (proggish death metal/core)
Teardrops – Something To Cry About (indie punk)
The Other Sun – Daimon, Devil, Dawn (surf doom?)
Trail Of Giants – Devil (instrumental melodeath-doom)
Transcendent – Awaken (bad metal)
Tyraels Ascension – Hell Walker (metalcore)
Überserker – Ineffable Force of Will (black tharh)
Vagrant Son – Bleed Me (modern/melodic metalcore)
Verni – Dreadful Company (punk, thrash)
Void Witch – Horripilating Presence (death metal)
A Wake In Providence – I Write To You, My Darling Decay (progressive/symphonic deathcore)
Wall Of Palemhor – Sing And Bleed (groove metal, melodeath)
Wormwitch – Wormwitch (black metal)
Wraithfyre – Of Fell Peaks and Haunted Chasms (symphonic black metal)
Wurm Flesh – Teratogenic Malformation (brutal death, slam)
Zombie Ritual – Day of the Zombie Demons (death metal)
Roxxxy was robbed!