Top Picks
Grief Ritual – Collapse (blackened sludgecore)
As Mr Lordi once said: It's time to get heavy!* England's Grief Ritual are the kind of band I wish Church Road Records signed more regularly. Which is to say a band that sound more like the mighty Employed to Serve (or at least how that band used to sound...). In this case, you're going to want to crank the sludge up singnificantly, while also throwing a nasty black metal edge into the mix. To that end, Grief Ritual are perhaps more comparable to label-mates Burner, or breakout UK contemporaries Conjurer, though far more charmingly aggressive and contingently stubborn than any of the above.
In fact, the most direct comparison is probably Californian crossover death-metal colossi Xibalba, and the riff at the start of "Fault" sounds like "Dead Behind the Eyes" by While She Sleeps run through a death metal filter. Fans of No Cure's I Hope I Die Here EP form late last year will also find a lot to love here, even if Collapse isn't quite as efficient in its onslaught. At eleven-tracks long, it can get a tad exhausting and why they didn't both open and close with "Consumed" is beyond me, but other than that, no complaints. ...except for all the ones about the fucking government, man.
*Yeah, the power beat is back, hey hey hey, monster squad attack!
Lunar – Tempora Mutantur (porggy prog-metal)
Now this is how you do a progressive death metal album. Tempora Mutantur is the fourth full-length outing from Sacramento's Lunar, who bring together the distinctive influences of modern progressive metal titans like Between the Buried and Me and Opeth with almost tech-thrashy death metal breaks that bring to mind later-period Death and the all the other early prog-death metal bands from back when Blood Incantation were but a glint in Chuck Schuldiner's eye, and blend it with a refreshingly classic-rock-tinged and specifically Camel-esque prog rock sensibility that flows as seamlessly as the seasons it's themed around, not to mention this sentence itself—throw in guest spots from Wilderun and Calligula's Horse guitarists Wayne Ingram and Sam Vallen, as well as Thank You Scientist trumpeter Joe Gullace and you've got yourself a pretty hearty prog rock stew going!
Release Roundup
Admire The Grim – Resist (melodeath)
Alder Glade – Holocene Extinction (post-black metal)
ASkySoBlack - Touch Heaven (posty alt-rock, Deftones)
athousandangelsandseven – athousandangelsandseven (chaotic math/grindcore, screamo)
Antiquus Scriptum – Phenomena (The 7th Seal) (thrash/black metal)
Antiquus Scriptum – Kharites’ Secret Gardens (Or Lost Tales in the Fading Light) (symphonic/industrial electronic)
Balefire – Balefire (death metal)
Black Talon – Scenes Of Agony (thrash)
Blackslash – Heroes, Saints & Fools (heavy metal)
Burn Down Eden – Dismal Epiphany (deathened meloblack)
Cartographer - A Flair For The Obscene (post-hardcore, emo)
Chainfight – Chainfight (crossover death metal)
Chris Harms – 1980 (please stop)
TheCityIsOurs - Will You Still Love Me? (melodic metalcore, alt rock)
Confess – Destination Addiction (brutal/groove death, not that Confess)
Consumption – Catharsis (death metal)
Deadend- The Butterfly Effect (baddiecore)
Dani Hart – Slaying Bluebeard (rock)
Dejecter – Oblation Husk (sludgy death metal)
Dysmorphic Demiurge – Of Chaos and Eternal Night (brutal death metal)
Enterprise Earth – Descent into Madness (brutal/techy deathcore)
Exul – Perpetual Catastrophe (tharsh)
Fallbrawl - Dunkelheit (post-black metal)
Faustus – Act I (death thrash)
Flash Forward - Renegade (pop/alt rock, emo)
Forsaken Hill – The Fortress of Solitude (symphonic melodeath)
Great American Ghost – Tragedy Of The Commons (modern metalcore)
Guts – Nightmare Fuel (death metal)
Hexjakt – Hexjakt (doom metal)
The Hellacopters – Overdriver (rock)
I Don’t Do Drugs, I Am Drugs – I Don’t Do Drugs, I Am Drugs (prog metal)
Jaye Jayle – After Alter (post-goth)
Jonathan Hultén - Eyes Of The Living Night (goth folk?)
Kardroz – Severe Dysfunction (black/death metal)
Kilmara – Journey To The Sun (melodic metal)
Kouristus – Milen Ja Maaliman Rappio (crust grind)
L.S. Dunes - Violet (post-hardcore, emo)
Laid to Rest - Chaos (groove metal/core)
Lysergic – Black and Blue (groove death, metalcore)
Maceration – Serpent Devourment (death metal)
Mad Act – Party Off (doom metal)
Mad Parish – The Dust Of Forever (prog rock)
Mephitic Corpse – Sickness Attracts Sickness (goregrind)
Moon Fever – Forever Sleep (alt rock)
Nachash – Eschaton Magicks (black/death metal)
The Night Flight Orchestra – Give Us The Moon (y tho?)
Nyctophagia/Seeping Protoplasm – Split (goregrind)
Plague of Stars – Extinction (symphonic death metal, melodeath)
Plasticdrop – Life, Death And Miracles (rock)
Praetorian – Pylon Cult (black doom)
Queen of Dreams – Subnivium (prog/power metal)
Rats Of Gommorrah – Infectious Vermin (groove death)
Relics of Humanity – Making The Shape Of Infinity (brutal death metal)
Repugnator – Foul Transfixation (brutal/blackened death metal)
Ryder – Menagerie (melodic rock/metal)
Scruda – Fury Among Ruins (death metal)
Second to Sun – Thunderbolt (black metal)
Selvans – Saturnalia (progressive meloblack)
Shrieking Demons – The Festering Dwellers (death metal, death-doom)
Spesimin – Skull Worship (death metal)
Steel Machine – Deliverer of Sin (speed metal)
Stoneside. - Homage (post rock/metal)
Tayne – Love (industrial/electro metal)
Theworstinme - Medusa (electro/alt rock)
Tyrann – The Slaughter House Tapes (heavy metal, punk)
A Tyrant’s Lament – Offerings Of The Inhumane (death metal, melodeath)
Unreal Overflows – Slaves of the Inhuman Future World (death metal)
Usquam – Ex Nihilo (symphonic black metal)
Varkensstad – Verwelken (blackened stoner metal)
Void of Hope – Proof of Existence (black metal)
Weed Demon – The Doom Scroll (stoner doom)
The Weeknd – Hurry Up Tomorrow (R&B, synth pop)
Within A Tragedy - Living Lifeless (techish metalcore)