Top Picks
The Big Deal – Electrified (melodic rock, symphonic metal)
It's been a slower start to 2025 than it has been for the previous years. As such, there haven't been a whole lot of new releases making a big deal about, save perhaps for the sophomore effort from Italian melodic rockers The Big Deal. Although the fantastic "Fairy of White" might suggest more of a symphonic affair, most of what Electrified offers up is more in line with the band's melodic metal pedigree, with the dual vocal attack of Ana Nikolic and keytarist Nevena Brankovic giving them a bit of extra edge. Nikolic and Brankovic's contribution to the recent (and otherwise rather excellent) Michael Bolton tribute album Steel Bars (2023) didn't exactly blow me away, they are in fine form here, and the album is further bolstered by bringing in H.E.A.T songwriter Jona Tee to pen tracks like killer opener "Survivor", among others. Not all of Electrified's eleven tracks are quite as strong, but combining its highlights with those of their more hair-metal-inclined debut First Bite (2022) makes for a fun time and the overall refinement suggests bigger things around the corner.
Synaptic – Enter The Void (progressive tech-death)
What Bridget said.
Release Roundup
Aeon Of Awareness – The Embracing Light Of Rarohenga (melodeath)
A.M.E.N. – Argento (not that A.M.E.N., black jazz)
Amid the Ruins – The End Is Nigh (sludge doom)
Axetasy – Withering Tides (speed metal)
Blood Lemon – Petite Deaths (post rock)
Cerebral Hemorrhage – Exempting Reality (death metal)
Ckraft – Uncommon Grounds (progressive/jazzy tech-metal)
Clouds – Desprins (funeral doom)
Coffin Feeder – Dominion of Torment (death metal)
Crimson Storm – Livin’ On The Bad Side (heavy/speed metal)
Day By Day – Dust And Ashes (crusty crossover, death metal)
Destabilizer – Monopoly on Violence (thrash)
Deus Sabaoth – Cycle Of Death (post-black metal)
Dragonknight – Legions (symphonic power metal)
Dripped – Utopia of Euphoric Envisionment (brutal death metal)
Dunes – Land Of The Blind (stoner metal)
Godzillionaire – Diminishing Returns (stoner rock)
Grave Digger – Bone Collector (heavy metal, thrash)
Greh – Dysphoric Devotion (blackened death metal)
Hazzerd – The 3rd Dimension (thrash)
Hesperia – Fra li Monti Sibillini (folky black metal)
Hierarchies – Hierarchies (noisy/blackened disso-death)
Infested Angel – Threnodies to Eternal Despair (blackened death metal)
Kosmogonia – Aella (symphonic folk/melodeath)
Landfall – Wide Open Sky (prog metal, AOR)
Master Sword – Toying with Time (heavy/power metal)
Necrodeath – Arimortis (black thrash)
Necrotech – Necrotechnology (industrial black/death metal)
Nesdam – Find The Truth (melodic alt-metal)
Nexus – Time Eternal (space prog)
Onirophagus – Revelations from The Void (blackened death-doom)
Pestilent Scars – Meadows Of Misfortune (havy metal, melodeath)
Putrefacta – Natimorto (goregrind)
Putrid Defecation – Tales From The Toilet (shitty death metal)
Sarcator – Swarming Angels & Flies (black metal)
Sex Blasphemy – Pungent Ovulations of the Sorceress (blackened death metal)
Shotgun Facelift – Red River Flood (groove metal, melodeath)
Shutdown – By Your Side (pop punk)
Thus Live Humans – Art Deco I (prog rock)
Thy Kingdom Will Burn – The Loss And Redemption (melodeath)
Time Rift – In Flight (hard rock)
Tokyo Blade – Time Is The Fire (heavy metal)
Trauma Bond – Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone (sludge metal)
Tumenggung – Back On The Streets (heavy metal)
Vertex – The Purest Light (brutal mathcore/tech-metal)
Vitriolic – Black Steel Vengeance (blak thrash)