Top Picks
Make Them Suffer – Make Them Suffer (surprisingly stanky electro-metalcore)
Late(er)-career self-titled albums often signal a potentially divisive change in direction or major line-up change, with the band in question employing to the eponymous moniker in an attempt to reassure their fans (and themselves?) that they're still the same old band at heard (see: Suicide Silence, Lamb of God, Avenged Sevenfold, hell, even Metallica). For whatever weight a band directly identifying themselves with an album carries, such appeals often wind up less convincing than intended. Make Them Suffer, however, have managed to pull it off, both by making their transition more gradual, and by switching to a hard-hitting electro-metalcore sound that suits them far better than the semi-progressive symphonic deathcore of yore.
Make Them Suffer is stripped-down and streamlined, and all the better for it. Gone are the ill-fitting symphonics, which have been replaced with a layer of surprisingly subtle electronics that accentuate rather than overpower their surrounds. It's a trendy sound to be sure, and the album takes more than a few cues from fellow Australian metalcore titans Polaris, but Make Them Suffer also do it better and go harder with it than almost any other band around (that aren't called Void of Vision). From start to finish, this album is an absolute beast that regularly evokes the likes of Glass Cloud, Monuments and even the mighty Meshuggah themselves, while always remaining more memorable and accessible than any of their previous material, and many of their contemporaries as well. The one-two of "Doomswitch" into "Mana God" is particularly potent, but the whole thing is utterly lethal and a massive step up for a band who have always been brimming with potential but never really nailed the sound(s) they were going for, until now.
Counterparts – Heaven Let Them Die (brutal hardcore/metalcore)
This is some very good brutal hardcore/metalcore. Goes extremely hard, with a bit of mathy dissonance thrown in there to spice things up. There's also distinct and distinguishable song structures, which is nice. It ends rather abruptly, but other than that, it's pretty bulletproof and probably the best example of this style I've come across since Chamber.
Release Roundup
1000mods – Cheat Death (alt rock, stoner prog)
Abschwörzunge – Whorl (noisy/blackened disso-death)
Aerkenbrand – Hedenfarne Æventyr (weird/folky prog rock)
Alarum – Recontinue (progressive/jazzy death metal)
Astral Fortress – It Comes in Waves (dungeon synth)
The Arrival Note – …Home Is So Far From Here (post-hardcore, emo)
Aua – Painkiller No. 1 (prog/krautrock)
Auriferous Flame – The Insurrectionists And The Caretakers (doomy black-thrash)
Bantar – This Heat Is Exhausting (post rock)
Bissesvinet – Blodager (weird/psychedelic electro-prog)
Blasphemous Division – Sempiternal Flames of Chimaera (brutal black/death-metal)
The Body – The Crying Out Of Things (noise, drone)
The Browning – Omni (bad/electro metalcore)
Chaos Invocation – Wherever We Roam… (meloblack)
Codespeaker – Scavenger (sludgy post-rock/metal)
Crippled Black Phoenix – The Wolf Changes Its Fur But Not Its Nature (prog/post rock)
The Death Of Money – Error After Era (alty post metal)
Defences – Shadowlight (modern metalcore)
Delain – Dance With The Devil (electro-pop metal)
Disparaged – Down The Heavens (blackish melodeath)
Distant Past – Solaris (heavy metal)
Drownship – Tidal Passages (post metal)
Earthburner – Permanent Dawn (death metal/grind)
Ershetu – Yomi (symphonic meloblack)
Fiende – Snart er Alt Glemt (black metal)
Furious Descent – Judgement Day (crossover groove/death-metal)
Ghost Frog – Galactic Mini Golf (apacey alt rock/grunge)
Gorenado – Slam Inferno (slamming death/grind)
Hand Of Juno – Psychotic Banana (nu/industrial metal)
Haywire – For Better Or Worse (hard/grindcore)
Heavy // Hitter – Moments Of Misery (beatdown hard/deathcore)
Impellitteri – War Machine (heavy metal)
In Dakhma – He Who Sows The Ground (groovy death-doom)
InnerWish – Ash of Eternal Flame (melodic/power metal)
Isleptonthemoon – Only The Stars Know Of My Misfortune (blackgaze)
Kaalbaar – Hail Mangoth (stoner doom)
King Satan – The Devil’s Evangelion (electro folk-metal)
Klapan – Pandemonium (nuish groove-metal)
Klone – The Unseen (alt-rock, butt prog)
Legendarium – For Eternal Glory (power metal, melodeath)
Magick Potion – Magick Potion (stoner rock)
Marble – T.I.M.E. (symphonic metal)
Massacre – Necrolution (death metal)
Molder – Catastrophic Reconfiguration (death metal)
Morgue Walker – No One Left Alive (brutal death metal, goregrind)
Moss Upon the Skull – Quest For The Secret Fire (prog/tech death)
Neal Morse & The Resonance – No Hill For A Climber (prog rock)
Neander – III (post rock)
Necroferum – Visions From The Necrorealm (death metal/doom)
Nevergreen – Harag és Remény (gothy melodeath)
NinjaWitch – Order Of The Red Horse (psych doom)
Nurcry – Renacer (buff-horse metal)
Paragon – Metalation (heavy metal)
Paysage d’Hiver – Die Berge (black metal)
The Pineapple Thief –Last To Run (prog/alt rock)
The Plot In You – Vol. 3 (post hardcore, ambient/electro)
Ploughshare – Second Wound (noisy/dissonant black metal)
Possessive – Res Ipsa Loquitur (blackened death-doom)
Primal Scream – Come Ahead (psychedelic/indie rock)
A Scar For The Wicked – Acolythus (melodeath)
Sea of Snakes – Bow to No One (stoner doom)
Seven Kingdoms – The Square (melodic/powerish metal)
Shrykull – Beyond Subconscious Realms (death metal/grind)
SoftSun – Daylight In The Dark (gothy post-rock)
Sol Invicto – Loosely Aware (alt/groove metal)
Solstafir – Helga Kvöl (black/folk metal)
State Champs – State Champs (pop punk)
Stranger Vision – Faust – Act I Prelude to Darkness (prog metal)
Suidakra – Darkanakrad (folky melodeath)
Tactical Pagan – Tactical Pagan (industrial electronic)
Tame The Abyss – They Live Again! (rock)
Thank – I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed (noise/alt-punk)
Tides From Nebula – Instant Rewards (post rock)
Tungsten – The Grand Inferno (melodic/power metal)
Urban Death – Abstention (sludgy death/grind)
Various/Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come: Obliterated (progressive hardcore)
Valkyrie’s Fire – Ascension (shitty speed/power metal)
Valontuoja – Luonnon Armoilla (meloblack)
Verbannt – Falsche Versprechen (black metal)
Witchpit – Forever Spoken (sludge)
Witnesses – Joy (mellowdoom)
Wormsand – You, The King (sludge prog)
Yesterdaze – Sentences (good alt-rock, bad pop)
Yoth Iria – Blazing Inferno (meloblack/death)