Top Pick
Dead Icarus – Zealot (metalcore)
While the remaining members of Atreyu have been occupying themselves by being the worst band they (or anyone else) could possibly be, original vocalist Alex Varkatzas has been busy putting his money where his mouth is.Around the time he parted ways with Atreyu, Varkatzas expressed the desire to start “a super heavy band” with “some sick Swedish riffs” and “super heavy breakdowns,” (before going on to decry his old band's new material as "fake heavy") and with Dead Icarus, he has done exactly that.
Here Varkatzas has joined up with Enterprise Earth guitarist Gabe Mangold and drummer Brandon Zackey (now also of Whitechapel) to form Dead Icarus, who already delivered a killer EP earlier this year, and are now back with an even better album of all-new material. The band definitely take their cues from the early 2000s metalcore wave that Atreyu helped define, except they go about a thousand times harder. Bleeding Through, The Agony Scene, Blood Simple and Pantera all provide more immediate points of reference than Varkatzas' old act, and Mangold (who I'll remind you has already had his dextrous hand in one of 2024's best albums) is let loose here to shred his heart out as required.
Zealot's production, which was also handled by Mangold, is rather more sterile that you might want it to be, and the mix tends to get a bit muddled with certain headphone setups. The album's final track, "Betrayal Shaped Daggers", is also built around a riff that is literally just "Clenching the Fists of Descent" played even faster, but if Machine Head themselves are going to open their new album with a slowed-down version, then I'm happy to let them have it. Dead Icarus might not be the most original or inventive band around, but it's the passion of their delivery that counts, and with that Zealot is absolutely ripping.*
*I meant to write "dripping", but I think the typo is more accurate.
Release Roundup
A Beautiful Day To Die Alone – Last Minute Of Happiness (post-dsbm)
Aelvica – Aelvica V: Vengeance (dethened black metal)
Alien Carcass – Entropic Visions Of A Celestial Heaven (noisy/brutal blackened death metal)
Anomalie – Riverchild (folky meloblack)
Arctis – Arctis (electro-pop metal)
Asgrauw – Oorsprong (melo/black)
Assassin – Skullblast (thrash metal)
Back from Death – Enslaving the Dead (death metal)
Barren – The Hanged Man (sludge-doom/drone)
Beardfish – Songs For Beating Hearts (prog rock)
Besieger – Honor In Obliteration (shitty death metal)
Besra – Equilibrium (sludgy post-metal)
Bipolarity – Skema Propaganda Global (techish deathgrind)
Black Aeons – Entering The Shadows (meloblack)
Black Denim Rage – Chaos Of War (speed metal)
Bog Filth – Bog Filth (sludge-doom)
Bombus – Your Blood (hard rock, alt metal)
The Bottle Doom Lazy Band – Clans Of The Alphane Moon (wobbly sludge doom, bad-PKD metal)
Brothers Of Metal – Fimbulvinter (symphonic power metal)
Burial – Rejoice In Sin (meloblack)
California Villain – Saints & Sinners (heavy metal)
Carved Memories – The Moirai (blackened death metal, melodeath)
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean – Sisyphean Cruelty (sludgy death-doom)
The Chronicles Of Manimal And Samara – Origins (progressive folk metal)
Cień – Maledictio (black metal)
Clay J Gladstone – Is This How I Die? (pop punk)
Coma Hole – Hand Of Severance (hard rock/metal)
Cripta Blue – No Return (stoner prog/doom)
Crucifixion Ritual – Desecreation Of The Archangels (brutal death metal)
Cryptic Brood – Necrotic Flesh Bacteria (death metal)
The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (grandpa goth)
Dead Nexus – Call of the Void (death metal)
Deaf Lizard – The Last Odyssey (stoner rock/metal)
Deer Lord – Dark Matter Pt. 2 (stoner/psych-doom)
Deithesis – Equilibrium (doom metal)
Delusions of Godhood – Salvation’s Withdrawal (melodeath)
Dragoncorpse – The Fall Of House Abbarath (power deathcore)
Dreadmask – Thy Prime Dread (groove/melodeath)
Dying Hydra – Strange And Beautiful Things (sludgy/psychish doom)
Ekoh – Pressure (pop-metal, rnb-core)
Eldingar – Lysistrata (doomy black metal)
Electric Frankenstein – Reanimated Rock (hard rock, horror punk)
Empusa with Devastation – New Sense of Self (melodeath)
End it All – Unyielding Hate (brutal metalcore)
Endless Dark – The Kingdoom (mellowdeath/doom)
Ephialtes – Melas Oneiros (progressive melodeath)
Ethereal – Downfall (melodic/prog metal)
Etherius – Hymns Of The Crimson Raven (melodic shred-thrash)
Everto Signum – Beastiary (blackened death metal)
The Fallen Prophets – Primordial Instinct (symphonic blackened death metal)
Fact Pattern – The Same Outcome (electro-prog, alt-rock)
Firemage – Ignis (symphonic folk metal)
Flying Lotus – Spirit Box (electronic)
Foul Body Autopsy – The Discovery Of Witches (death metal, melodeath)
Frostbite – Relentless Grief (meloblack)
Ginny Luke – Devil At My Heels (hardish rock)
Gravekvlt – Full Moon Fever (crusty/blackened death metal)
Herin – Hiding In Plain Sight (prog rock)
High Inquisitor Woe – Painted Vision Of An Era Forlorn (stonery doom metal)
Himiltungl – Djupt Under (folk metal)
Holy Death – Sad But True (death-doom, Metallica)
i Häxa – i Häxa (dark ambient, trip-hop?)
InnerWish – Ash of Eternal Flame (heavy/melodic metal)
Isbjörg – Falter, Endure (progressive alt/pop-rock)
Jester Majesty – Plains of Heaven (prog metal/thrash)
Klogr – Fractured Realities (alt/prog metal)
Lifesick – Loved by None, Hated by All (crusty hardcore, power violence)
Mälevolent – Dark Tranquil Night (posty black metal)
Mental Torment – Dead Shot Revival (mellowdoom)
Mitochondrion – Vitriseptome (brutal/blackened disso-death?)
MyEnemy – Castaway (groove thrash)
Mythbegotten – Tales From The Unseelie Court (symphonic power metal)
Nachtmahr – Verboten! (industrial metal, synth rock)
Nachtmystium – Blight Privilege (progressive/dodgy black metal)
Necrotic Divinity – Morbid Fascination (death metal)
Neon Nightmare – Faded Dream (Type O Negative)
New Skeletal Faces – Until The Night (goth rock/punk)
Overrider – Sparse Vector (weird noise/alt-rock)
Paganizer – Flesh Requiem (death metal, melodeath)
Petrale – The World Down There (progish black metal)
Planes Mistaken For Stars – Do You Still Love Me? (post-hardcore)
Powerflo – Gorilla Warfare (electro/nu/bad metal)
Qaalm – Grave Impressions Of An Unbroken Arc (mellowdeath-doom)
Recidivist – Madness Malformed (regular death-doom)
Rimbacher – High Hopes On The Rocks (hardish/melodic rock)
Rorschach Test – Fallen (industrial metal)
Saltwound – The Temptation Of Pain (beatdown deathcore)
Serpent Fire – Pathways (synthonic melodeath)
Shaarimoth – Devildom (blackened death metal)
The Shallow Souls – An Age Of Darkness (doom metal)
Skullovich – The Age of Steel (blackened trad/power metal)
Slaughter the Giant – Abomination (deathened meloblack)
Slechtvalk – At Death’s Gate (melo/black, Immortal)
Sleepless – Through Endless Black (doom thrash)
Slower – Rage And Ruin (psych doom)
Sorry… – Drowned in Misery (ds/bm)
Spineless – Dysphonia (progressive/goth doom)
Spitfire – Trinity (deathy thrash)
Stahlkeller – Huckepack (crossover thrash)
Summoning Death – Tombs of the Blind Dead (death metal)
Throwlight – Monster (symphonic/melodic metal)
Thyrathen – Lakonic (folk/pagan metal, meloblack)
Tommy Concrete – Unrelapsed (death metal, prog-grind)
Tribulation – Sub Rosa In Aeturnum (goth metal)
Tryblith – Draconis Maleficium (black metal)
Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia (experimental hip-hop, neo-soul)
Ulver – The Red Light (post-prog, synth pop)
Vessel – The Somnifer (stoner rock/doom)
Viikate – Hiljainen (folky pop rock)
Vipërwitch – Road To Vengeance (heavy metal)
Vola – Friend Of A Phantom (prog/tech metal)
Volume – Joy Of Navigation (A Trip Through The Eternal Unknown) (stoner rock/metal)
Vulgar Butchered – Suffering from the Beginning (brutal death metal)
Weegee – Primitive Thrill (post-punk, doom?)
Weltschmerz – III: Non Sequitur (black metal)
Whale Fall – V (post rock)
Wizard Tattoo – One Of These Knives (blackened heavy metal)
Worst Ways – Worst Ways (hardcore)