Hello! I promise, no musings about the turning of the seasons shall be found in this intro; I have been overusing the theme as of late. Instead, I would like to offer up some thoughts about hype. There have been a lot of hyped (and overhyped) releases in the last few months. I used to hate that stuff - I would hold off on checking out releases (and books and games and movies) until all the excitement wore off. There was something cloying about it, a pressure to consume whatever it was that was being hyped and to force a commentary about it, whether I had one or not.
But, over the years, I have tried to combat that feeling and instead "ride" hype out, using the overall excitement to fuel my own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; I still get hit with these episodes of revulsion about [THE CURRENT THING]. But what I definitely don't do is voice those feelings anymore. I found that was the main engine that was fueling my discontent with the hype; the need to publicly set myself against things that I wasn't necessarily as excited about as others. I set that aside almost entirely and try to let the hype go by me, even (and especially) if I don't share it myself. And let me tell you, it has made me much happier, more able to take things in stride as they come and enjoy them whether they were being enjoyed by others or not.
So! Here are some fantastic albums from last month. Some of them are very hyped; others not so much. Regardless, they are all excellent and I invite you to make up your own minds about them.
-Eden Kupermintz
Pyrrhon - Exhaust
New York’s Pyrrhon are one of those bands that continually release music that’s simultaneously excellent and risky. Experimentation has been the name of the game, resulting thus far in a string of uniquely excellent records. Rarely content to sit still in a particular sonic idiom, each new album feels like a new and unpredictable adventure, which makes the consistent quality of their releases all the more impressive. But last month’s release of their should-have-been-anticipated new record Exhaust made me feel a different sort of elation compared to the band’s previous releases. Where each new album up to this point has felt like its own unique and wild sonic odyssey, Exhaust feels instead like a culmination of sorts. It’s both weirdly controlled and (comparatively) accessible compared to the band’s earlier work, and also feels… delightfully familiar? Like a scum encrusted blanket being wrapped around your lacerated body on a cold winter’s eve on some rat-infested street corner in Manhattan, Pyrrhon have here distilled the sonic magma they’ve deployed for nearly two decades into something that could be described as a definitive career statement. It’s glorious, and one of the best albums of their entire career.
Words like “familiar” and “accessible” are often pejorative when it comes to discussing music, but I can assure you that here they are employed in the most positive possible light. Exhaust proves Pyrrhon still ain’t for the normies, and their penchant for the weird and dissonant remains as intense as ever. But here it feels more direct. More focused. Even somehow more violent. There’s an almost hardcore bent to this record, bringing a grimy, edgy bite that feels like something the band has toyed with in the past but had yet to fully lean into. “Out of Gas” exemplifies this more punk-adjacent aesthetic perfectly with its repeating bass line and spoken-word ranting. It’s a bold direction that fits the band’s aesthetic remarkably well.
But if Exhaust is anything, it’s a dissonant/technical death metal record, and a damn good one at that. “Not Going To Mars” and “The Greatest City On Earth” are both great examples of the band leaning into death metal songwriting that feels a lot more immediate than on many of their previous releases, allowing riffs to breathe longer and thematic passages to take a more prominent and recognizable role in each composition. It’s not a simplification as much as it is a distillation and refinement of what Pyrrhon are already good at, and it works to a fault. This one of the most instantly headbangable and repeatable Pyrrhon releases to date, without ever compromising the strangeness and aggression that made them so special in the first place.
2024 has genuinely been a banner year for death metal, so the fact that Exhaust belongs near the top of a legendary cycle pile is a feat in and of itself. This is one of the best death metal records I’ve heard in quite some time, and arguably Pyrrhon’s best. Only time will tell if it holds up to classics like What Passes for Survival, but I’m thinking it has a pretty good chance.
-Jonathan Adams
The Flight of Sleipnir - Nature’s Cadence
Not much remains of the intense infatuation that the metal scene had with atmospheric, US black metal. That is both a good and a bad thing. It’s bad because there were plenty of excellent albums released during that period where you couldn’t move but hit an album described as “Cascadian” and there will be less now. But it’s good because, at the tail end of its ascension, the movement, style, genre, whatever you want to call it, lost a lot of its originality and sank into formulaic expression. It was less in the actual music being written (though there was plenty of repetition there as well) and more in the aesthetics of it, both in the production of the music and of the rest of accouterments of an album. Therefore, I, and many like me, became hungry for things that shared thematic roots with that style of atmospheric black metal but approached things differently.
Enter The Flight of Sleipnir. These Denver based folks (where else) have been playing their unique take on the nature-centered, pagan, atmospheric style of black metal so prolific in the US for a long time now. But they really first came to my attention with Skadi, which was released in 2017. I still hold that nothing quite sounds like that release, not even the band’s own work after it. There is something so warm in the production, whether intentional or not, that really sets the album apart. Eventide which followed it was excellent but took the band’s work in a colder direction, more aggressive, haggard, and black metal. And now we find Nature’s Cadence which, in many ways (you guessed it) brings those two albums together.
Much of that warm production is still there, especially on the drums. Just listen to “North”, the majestic and close to twelve minutes long opening track of the album. In those fuzzy, reverberating kicks and undulating cymbals, in the beautiful and delicate folk passages, there lives the spirit of Skadi that first drew me to The Flight of Sleipnir (well that, and the gorgeous, Norse mythology inspired artwork). But here, it has been paired with the sharper edge of Eventide, as the blistering vocals and equally intense guitar riffs which make up the meat of the track (especially after its middle passage) showcase.
All of these elements come together to create yet another unique release from The Flight of Sleipnir, further answering the question “what if a doom band made atmospheric black metal?” The answer is that it would rule, a lot, and strike the exact chord of wonder and musical contrast that I always loved the US black metal scene for. Nature’s Cadence is one of the best things to come out of the musical milieu that was created after the death of that scene, as it fragmented into more varied (and, in my eyes, more interesting) sounds.
-EK
Foxing - Foxing
Foxing is not a band I expected I’d be writing about this year. While being a long-time fan of their albums throughout the 2010’s, they were more melodramatic rejection angst, and greasy falsetto emo choruses reeking of cigarette smoke than typical “heavy blog material”. This is coupled by the fact that they are on the heels of a relatively disappointing previous album Drawn Down the Moon, which saw them shift further into an extravagant retro-indie-art pop sound that didn’t completely nail the landing. It felt like Foxing was at a crossroad in their evolution. They could easily continue to shift into a more approachable pop sound, yet they did nearly the complete opposite. In one of the biggest surprises of the year, Foxing have bounced back with their most daring, raw, heavy and best album to date. In the words of Chat Pile, “there’s more screaming than you’d think.”
The hype for this new self-titled album was cemented through their early single “Hell 99”, an unexpectedly noisy modern screamo track fueled by dense, anxious passion. One of the first take-aways upon listening to this was that it sounded like Foxing has been listening to a lot of The Armed, channeling elements of their intense “ultrapop” sound. This comes across in both the noisy production choices, and the frantic, contagious energy of the delivery. To attach a singular genre to this shifting and eclectic album is difficult, but noise rock is a consistent presence. Vocal distortions and squealing synths bleed over repetitions of thoughtful melodies and jangly distorted guitar. It’s probably for the best however that the entire album isn’t exactly of this ilk. You still get long moments of the melancholic brooding, gentle synth coated post-rock instrumentals, and powerful, yet teetering over the edge of breaking vocal delivery they’ve been known for. But that’s just one part of the bigger picture that is this brilliant album. Tracks like the back to back bangers “Looks Like Nothing” and “Gratitude” display their whole breadth, getting the sentimental melancholy that builds into cathartic barrages of cacophony. Bounding all of this however is what has always been core to their sound, pure human emotion.
Foxing takes the successes of the tasteful pop experiments on the previous album, the earnest emotions worn on their sleeve of their early work, with a grown-up expression of fury and rage that feels daring and fresh, but still authentic to them. It’s the full scope of the Foxing experience delivered at peak form, one crafted for a packed sweaty venue of people ready to collectively be moved.
-Trent Bos
Korrosive - Katastrophic Creation
Heavily nostalgic and often sci-fi themed, death thrash feels like the metal equivalent of recession pop: the escapist, maximalist bangers that emerged in the Great Recession. As the world confronted terrifying uncertainty and bleak futures, pop became a glittering bubble determined to live like there was no tomorrow. Forget your worries on the dancefloor and get lost in the beat.
Like recession pop, death thrash embraces an all-in approach that unites massive riffs with deadly aggression. Fantasy and sci-fi themes build new worlds to which we can escape, avoiding the anxieties of climate change and wannabe authoritarians with galloping adventures through bizarre lands. We lean into collective nostalgia and community by moshing in dingy dive bars. We’re here, but land somewhere else through the power of heavy fucking metal.
Canadian kaustic metal dealers Korrosive continue the 2024 trend of heart-pounding, head-banging death thrash releases, joining the likes of Nuclear Tomb, Hemotoxin, Dissimulator, Molten, and Imperialist with the devastatingly addictive Katastrophic Creation.
Korrosive deliver a ripping dose of otherworldly intensity on Katastrophic Creation, their third album. Their sound channels classic thrash perfectly – only turned up to 11 by a meaty dose of death metal. Tracks like “Maelstrom” are so immersive that you’ll find yourself attempting to shout alongside vocalist Rad Zarei on the very first listen. Murderous chants march into death-defying riffs, pummeling you into submission before pumping you full of adrenaline. The album is nothing but delightful, vicious fun – perfect for escaping the hellscape of reality.
-Bridget Hughes
Further Listening
Ingurgitating Oblivion - Ontology of Nought
Ingurgitating Oblivion emerged after seven years with another dose of extremely avant-garde, dissonant, jazz-laden brutal death metal that makes the length between their releases feel totally reasonable. Ontology of Nought is a densely complex and sophisticated album, hindered to an extent by its length, some production choices and arguably self-indulgence, but carried by one of the best drumming performances you’ll hear this year. Like the new Blood Incantation, the brutality is broken up by a number of non-metal sections, yet instead of 70s prog worship and psychedelics, the atonality shifts into dark ambience and otherworldly smoky jazz that is just as much of a trip.
-TB
Kanonenfieber - Die Urkatastrophe
German war-hating melodic black metal project Kanonenfieber has been teetering on the edge of greatness for the last half decade, and with their second full-length release Die Urkatastrophe have finally crossed over that hallowed threshold into best-of territory. Without question one of the most enjoyable, powerful, and aggressive black metal releases of the year, there’s little to criticize this record for. It’s close to a masterpiece of its space, and a record I’ll be returning to for years to come.
-JA
Dungeon Crawl - Maze Controller
Usually when I say “D&D metal” you probably immediately think of power metal but no. This is speed and thrash metal with a tinge of heavy metal about swords, sorcery, dice, and spells. It also fucking slaps, a real belter of an aggressive album that manages to conjure all of the right fantasy vibes. Critical hit!
-EK
Ripped to Shreds - Sanshi
The latest from Bay Area heavyweights Ripped to Shreds worships death - literally. Inspired by death and the afterlife in Chinese folklore, Sanshi explores the rituals of death from Taiwan and China for a grisly journey through funeral rites, hellish legends, and forgotten souls. In true RtS fashion, meaty guitars are mashed with relentless drums and nauseating growls. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, and surrender to the unstoppable onslaught of Sanshi.
-BH
Further listening
Blue Heron – Everything Fades (stoner/sludge doom)
Cyborg Octopus – Bottom Feeder (progressive/tech-metal, melodeath)
Item 9 – 2 (brutal death metal, noisegrind)
Dreamless Veil – Dim Golden Rave (posty/deprssive black metal)
Giant Walker – Silhouettes (progressive alt-metal)
Glacial Tomb – Lightless Expanse (progressive death metal)
Odious Spirit – The Treason Of Consciousness (weird prog/tech-death)
Eccentric Pendulum – Perspectiva Invertalis (prog/tech-death)
Papangu - Lampião Rei (jazzy prog rock)
A Swarm Of The Sun – An Empire (post metal)