Top Pick
Bedsore – Dreaming The Strife For Love (very-progressive death metal)
A week and several listens later and I'm still not really feeling that new Opeth album. This, on the other hand, is hitting the spot nicely—bringing back that classic Opeth sound, but with a blackened edge, that helps temper the overblown prog that has plagued the Swedes for almost a decade and a half at this point, and which is still very much in play here. ...I mean, just have a look at them!
Release Roundup
Abysmal Death – De-liberación (blackened prog-death)
Against I – Songs For The Dying (modern metal, melodeath)
Altar Ov Asteria – Ena (black metal)
An Autumn – Ethereal (post-black metal)
Aoidos – Oizys (black metal)
Apostasie – Non Est Deus (folkish black metal)
Asgaard – Lullabies For Harlots (electro-goth)
Ass To Mouth – Enemy Of The Human Race (sometimes-forgivable deathgrind)
Astral Doors – The End Of It All (power metal)
Astral Emptiness – The Sublimation (progressive/technical deathcore)
Awenden – World Map I (posty ambient)
Big Muff Brigade – π (stoner metal)
Borehead – Vita Est Morte Est Vita (not the borehead!!!)
Brimstone – Brimstone (progish metal)
Condolence – Dying (death metal)
Corrosive Elements – Cut The Serpent’s Head (death metal)
Cryptorium – Descent Into Lunacy (noisy/blackened death metal)
Cyphonism – Bound to the Kyphon (death metal)
Czort – Monumenty (black-doom)
Dark Embrace – Land Of Witches (melodeath-thrash)
Deep Valley Blues – Sangue e Veleno (noise/stoner rock)
Demon Bitch – Master Of The Games (bad trad/speed-metal)
Denigrate – To The Goddess Unknown (blackened melodeath)
Der Rote Milan – Schlund (black metal)
Desiderat – Ipsoma (instrumental prog-death)
Desierto – Ferocactus (crusty sludge-death)
Detest The Sun – Moonspells And Everlasting Sorrow (doomy meloblack)
Dewfall – Landhaskur (melo/black metal)
Dying Grotesque – Celestial (death metal)
Dying Men – High Hopes & Low Tunes (doom metal)
Eard – Melancholia (doomy post-black metal)
Echoes Of Gehenna – The Dreaming Void (deathened post-black metal)
Empty Throne – Unholy (death metal)
Endemic – Fetid Plagues (slamming goregrind)
Eurynome – Miserere (chill funeral doom)
Feral Forms – Through Demonic Spell (death metal/grind)
Fessus/Kill The Lord – Pilgrims Of Morbidity/Decrowned II: Trinity Ablaze (death metal)
Festergore – Constellation Of Endless Blight (death metal)
Filii Nigrantium Infernalium – Pérfida Contracção do Aço (black metal)
Fire Action – Until The Heat Dies (melodic rock, AOR)
Frust – New Moon (post-black metal, doom)
The Gates Of Slumber – The Gates Of Slumber (sludge-doom)
Garden Of Stone – The Grave Mistake (blackened doom)
Gorgon – For Those Who Stay (black metal)
Grapeshot – Oblivion (alt/groove metal)
Grave With A View – Raw Illumination (blackened death metal)
Hidden Mothers – Erosion/Avulsion (progressive post-hardcore)
High Dragon Priest – High Dragon Priest (black metal)
Ice Exiled – Reset the Sky (power metal)
Ice Howl – Reborn and Reforged (heavy metal)
Infernalivm – Conquering The Most High (death metal)
Inverted Cross – Eternal Flames Of Hell (black thrash)
Konkhra – Sad Plight Of Lucifer (death metal, groove thrash)
Maladie – Symptoms IV (weird/whacky rock, melodeath?)
Mandroid Of Krypton – Cosmic Sarcophagus (doom thrash?)
Mefitis – The Skorian//The Greyleer (progressive/deatheneed black metal)
Metsän alttari – Metsän alttari (blackened folk metal)
Mezmerizer – Whispers Of Leviathan (doom metal)
Mutank – Think Before You Think (thrash)
Necronomicon Ex Mortis – The Mother Of Death (death metal)
No Kings Allowed – A New Era (metalcore, melodeath)
Noitasapatti – Sankarin Matka (meloblack)
Nokturna – Fractured Reality (thrash)
Not Now Norman – Go Hard Or Go Home (alt/punk rock)
Old Wainds – Stormheart (melo/black metal)
Örnatorpet – Fordomdags (dungeon synth)
Ossuary – A Morbid Lust for Death (death metal)
Pestilent Hex – Sorceries Of Sanguine & Shadow (symphonic black/death metal)
Plaguefever – Flail Of Pestilence (black metal/thrash)
Project: Ultimate Satan – The Opus Satantas (noisy blackened death, symphonic goth metal)
Radiation – Reactor Collapse (black/death thrash)
Reese – Long Streets (altish rock/metal)
Ritual Fog – But Merely Flesh (crossoverish death-doom)
Rotpit – Long Live The Rot (death metal)
Sahg – More Of Nothing (heavy/doom metal)
Salem UK – Outer Limits (speed metal)
Scythrow – Blameless Severed Extremities (death metal)
Skam – From The Depths (alt rock/metal)
Sons Of Ghidorah – Hallowmas (shitty alt/prog-metal)
Soulers – Endless Forest (sludge doom)
Soulskinner – Gloryfied By The Llight (death metal, melodeath)
Starmonger – Occult (stoner doom)
Steel Inferno – Rush Of Power (speed thrash)
Stenched – Purulence Gushing From The Coffin (death metal/doom)
Terminal Violence – Moshocalypse (thrash)
Thomas Polychuck – Thomas Polychuck (prog shred)
Thy Legion – Grand Cosmic Funeral (blackened death metal)
To Nowhere – Violent Kicks And Dirty Sounds (alt metal)
Total Hate – Forthcoming Age Of The Reaper (black metal)
Under Assault – Deadly Experiments (thrash)
Ulver – Liminal Animals (gothy synth-rock/pop)
Utility Provider – Challenger (weird alt-metal)
Vidres a la Sang – Virtut del desencís (blackened death metal)
Völva – Desires Profane (black metal)
Vrazorth – Emergence (black metal)
The Watcher – Out Of The Dark (heavy metal)
Warpstormer – Warpstormer (stoner sludge)
Wolvencrown – Celestial Lands (meloblack)
Wretched Fate – Incineration Of The Pious (death metal)