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Release Day Roundup: 10/25/2024

Rounding up another massive release day, featuring new albums from Gaerea, Buñuel, Devin Townsend, Fit For An Autopsy, Better Lovers, Schammasch, Iotunn, Gigan, Entheos, Black Curse, Enforced, Living Gate, Isaurian, Vokonis and the Pixies ...and also Atreyu again, unfortunately.

3 months ago

Top Picks

Gaerea – Coma (progressive/posty black metal)

I don’t know if anyone was really asking what the intersection of Misery Signals, Deafheaven and Fallujah might sound like,* but Gaerea have gone ahead and answered them anyway. The Portuguese sect have long been tipped as the next big thing in black metal, and this fourth outing is sure to propel them to the next level of mainstream notoriety, while also perhaps alienating some fans of their earlier, more-traditional—albeit always heavily melodic—black metal sound.

Perhaps the best single point of reference is that Fallujah album that also has a big eye on the cover, except that Gaerea are leaning more into the floatier, post-side of their genre, rather than away from it, and that there's a lot more actual "Misery Signals style metalcore" in play here than that band got oddly accused of incorporating. Most notable is the section from about 0:35–1:10 of "World Ablaze", which would fit comfortably on any Misery Signals or Misery SIgnals-influenced metalcore album, but strip away the overlaid tremolo and dial back the blast-beats a bit and you could say the same about a lot of these songs (particularly "Unknown").

A lot of Coma's postier side also points to the type of "hyper" metal being espoused by the likes of Spider God and Astronoid, but the equally accentuated metalcore heft and melodicism ensures that the songs remain both captivating and energetic throughout, with some of its more progressive interludes also reminding me of Rvers of Nihil as well. While sombre, existential despair is still very much on order, Coma—as its rather striking white cover suggests—is a much more uplifting affair than you might expect from a nominally black metal album, and the band manage to ride its exhilarating all the way through to its conclusion.

In what is perhaps Coma's single, and only glaring fault the final track "Kingdom of Thorns", sort of just ends out of nowhere, and it can take a second to realise that the record is actually over. Then again, Coma is certainly an album that is all about the journey, rather than the destination. Moreover, while its specific musical direction might come as a surprise, Coma's quality can hardly be doubted. What may still come as a shock though is just how well Gaerea manage to harness their seemingly disperate and largely unprecedented influences to deliver what is sure to be a landmark album in their career, if not the modern black metal genre itself.

*You might add Mgła to that mix as well, but at this point why would you want to...

Buñuel – Mansuetude (progressive/sludgy noise-rock)

Here's a rather cool one for you. Buñuel are a new band fronted by ex-Oxbow vocalist Eugene S. Robinson, following that band's sudden and somewhat dramatic demise earlier this year. The rest of Buñuel is made up of members from other bands I've never heard of, being Afterhours, A Short Apnea, The Framers and Il Teatro Degli Orrori, but the album features guest spots from a bunch I definitely have, including The Jesus Lizard and Couch Slut. Oxbow were a band I was aware of if not particularly familiar with. I always liked what I heard from them though, and I definitely like what I'm hearing from Buñuel so far. On its surface it reminds me of a sludgier Fucked Up, and I'm sure there are a ton of more accurate and enlightening noise-rock comparisons to be made. You'll have to discover those for yourself.

Release Roundup

9mm Parabellum Bullet – You Need Freedom to Be You (post-hardcore, math rock)

Acid Mass/Bloodletter/Grozov/Ninth Realm – Faster than the Devil III (crossover/black thrash)

Acres – What It’s Like To Feel Worthless (modern/melodic metalcore)

Adamantra – Act III: Pareidolia of Depravity (symphonic prog-metal)

Aiwaz – Darrkh…It Is! (goth doom)

Alex Nunziati – Impending Catastrophe (death metal)

Amyl and the Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness (alt/indie punk)

Ancient Curse – Dimension 5 (heavy metal)

Andrea Palmieri – Reflections (heavy metal)

Anialator – Death Is Calling (crusty grind)

Ankor – Shoganai (modern/electro metal)

Antipope – Doors Of The Dead (heavy metal)

Arthropod – Mysterious Cities of Gold (psychish indie/synth-folk?)

Ataraxie – Le Declin (funeral doom)

Atreyu – The Paronoia Sessions (the actual worst thing I've ever heard? who asked for this?)

Autumn’s Grief – Dead Among The Living (prog metal)

Avtotheism – Reflections Of Excrable Stillness (blackened dissodeath, drone?)

Bellfast – The Warrior Celt (folk metal)

Better Lovers – Highly Irresponsible (medi-core)

Bind Torture Kill – Sauvagerie (death metal/grind)

Black Aleph – Apsides (post/drone)

Black Curse – Burning in Celestial Poison (blackened death metal)

Black Note Graffiti® – Resist The Divide (alt metal, ®)

Black Oak County – III (butt rock/metal)

Blackevil – Praise The Communion Fire For The Unhallowed Sacrament (tradish black metal)

Blasphemous – To Lay Siege And Conquer (blackened death metal)

Bog Wizard – Journey Through The Dying Lands (sludge doom)

Burial Remains – Adversarial (death metal)

Butcher – On Fowl Of Tyrant Wing (black thrash, speed metal)

Cane Hill – A Piece Of Me I Never Let You Find (nu djent-core)

Casandra’s Crossing – Garden Of Earthly Delights (heavy metal, hard rock)

Cats In Space – Time Machine (bad rock)

Chained To The Dead – Only Hunger Remains (brutal death metal, goregrind)

Challenger – Force Of Nature (trad metal)

Chokecherry – Messy Star (posty alt-rock/gaze)

Daytona – Garder la Flamme (melodic rock, AOR)

The Dead Flowers Graves – Elemento (doom/occult metal)

Deadform – Entrenched In Hell (industrial black metal, death crust)

Deimos’ Dawn – God Of Pain (groove/death thrash)

Devin Townsend – PowerNerd (really boring prog-rock, bait and switch)

Dhyana – Amituofo (doom drone)

Dirty Shades – Stuck In Motion (alt-prog)

Disarray – Religious Disease (deathish thrash metal)

Dismalimerence – Tome: II (symphonic black metal)

Doomsday Profit/Smoke – Split (posty sludge-doom)

dUg Pinnick – Thingamajigger (hardish rock)

Ealain – Leyenda inmortal (power/folk metal)

Elephant Tree & Lowrider – The Long Forever (stoner prog)

Emasculator – The Disfigured and the Divine (brutal death metal)

Enforced – A Leap Into The Dark (crossovery thrash)

Entheos – An End To Everything (tech-death/core)

The Fall of Creation – Enlightenment (doomy melodeath)

Fit For an Autopsy – The Nothing That Is (progressive/increasingly melodic deathcore)

Ghosts Of Glaciers – Eternal (post/doomy black metal)

Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus (proggy disso-death)

Gore – A Bud That Never Blooms (nu/alt-metal)

Greg McCandless – Face First (instrumental prog metal)

Haliphron – Anatomy Of Darkness (symphonic black metal)

Hate Angel – Extinction Ritual (black thrash)

The Holy Flesh – Advocate, Martyr And Redeemer (black metal)

Infernal Cult – Necessity Of Unreal (blackened death metal)

Intöxicated – Under the Sign of the Red Light (thrash metal)

Iotunn – Kinship (doomy/blackish prog-metal)

Isaurian – The Pulsing Rush (post rock, doomgaze)

Ixion – Evolution (mellowdoom)

Just Buried – Necro​-​Macro (death metal)

Kids In Glass Houses – Pink Flamingo (pop rock)

Kings Of Mercia – Battle Scars (hard rock, melodic metal)

Lankester Merrin – Dark Mother’s Child (power metal)

Lay Of The Autumn – Of Love And Sorrow (symphonic/power metal)

League Of Distortion – Galvanize (pop/electro-metal)

Leatherhead – Leatherhead (thrash)

Living Gate – Suffer As One (brutal/techish death metal)

Lostregos – Nai (blackened death-doom)

Loudblast – Altering Fates And Destinies (death metal, melodeath)

Low Flying Hawks – Makebelieve (sludgy post metal)

Maledicted – Dreams from Irkalla (death metal, melodeath)

Massive Scar Era – Assyad (egyptian folk metal)

Mercyless – Those Who Reign Below (death metal)

Methadone Skies – Spectres At Dawn (instrumental post-prog)

Midnightmares – Shadow People (symphonic/goth metal)

Mindless Sinner – Metal Merchants (heavy metal)

Nitrogods – Valley Of The Gods (heavy metal, hard rock)

Nuclear – Violent DNA (groove thrash)

One Morning Left – Neon Inferno (electro metal)

One With The Riverbed – Succumb (posty black metal)

The Pale Horses – Enchantress (psyche-sludge/doom)

Peach Melba – Melting Face (alt rock, indie punk)

Perfidious – Savouring His Flesh (death metal)

Pixies – The Night the Zombies Came (alt/indie rock)

Poltergeist – Nachtmusik (goth rock/metal)

Pounder – Thunderforged (heavy metal)

Psychonaut 4 – …of Mourning (progressive/blackened doom metal)

Recently Vacated Graves – Musk Of Death (death metal, melodeath)

Recidivist – Madness Malformed (death metal)

Reckless Manslaughter – Sinking Into Filth (death metal)

Remina – Erebus (post-doom)

Sallow Moth – Vial (brutal death metal, progressive deathgrind)

Schammasch – The Maldoror Chants: Old Ocean (progressive black metal)

Sedimentum – Derrière les Portes d’une Arcane Transcendante (death-doom)

Seething Akira – Cancel Estate (nu/electro metal)

Self Deception – Destroy The Art (alt/butt metal)

Sentient Horror – In Service Of The Dead (death metal)

Sheer Division – Saalammbo (doomy stoner rock)

Si Dios Quiere – No Angels (metallic hardcore)

Silhouette – Les Dires de I’Ame (post/mellowblack)

Sissourlet – Rituals in the Catacombs (blackened death metal)

Skarlett Riot – Caelestia (modern metal)

Skinflint – Baloi (blackish thrash)

Smoke/Doomsday Profit – Split (doom-sludge/gaze)

Soccer Mommy – Evergreen (alt/indie pop)

Solarnaut – There’s A Light In The Blur (psychish doom)

Sordide – Aainsi Finit Le Jour (sludgy black metal)

The Spirit – Songs Against Humanity (meloblack)

Spirit In The Room – Passengers (psychish rock)

Symphony of Heaven – Ordo Aurum Archeia (melodeath)

Taking The Head Of Goliath – Futility Of The Flesh (brutal deathcore, slam)

Tarfania – Where No Wolf Howls… (black metal)

Thaw – Falling Backwards (post/droney black metal)

Tigerwine – Toil & Spin (alt/post hardcore)

Traktat – Dogmatic Accusations (black metal)

Trauma Ray – Chameleon (alt-doom/gaze)

Triumpher – Spirit Invictus (heavy metal, power thrash)

Trucker Diablo – Social Hand Grenade (hard rock, groove metal)

Turkey Vulture – On The List (punk rock/metal)

Turmion Katilot – Reset (electro-folk metal)

Twisted Mist – Gehenna (doom)

Upiór – Predator of Fear (blackened death metal)

Vananidr – In Silence Descent (black metal)

Various Artists – American Psycho Comic Series Soundtrack (make it stop)

Visions of Disfigurement – Vile Mutation (slamming brutal death)

Vokonis – Transitions (progressive doom/stoner-metal)

Weep – The Constant Strain of Life (posty black metal)

Wizzerd – Saturnalia (stoner doom)

Joshua Bulleid

Published 3 months ago