Top Picks
Dream Theater – Parasomnia (progressive metal)
Parasomnia might not be the best Dream Theater album since Mike Portnoy left the band—but it also might be. While I'd probably still give the edge to the self-titled (2013) and A View from the Top of the World (2021), this remains a refreshingly direct record that—if not a complete return to form—still sees the prog-metal masters sounding noticeably more energised than they have for almost a decade-and-a-half at this point.
As it's singles suggest, Parasomnia is a heavier and more immediate offering that harks back to the first Portnoy-era's post-Train of Thought (2003) outings. From my first few listens, it reminds me a lot of Systematic Chaos (2007), both in its more direct approach, and also because it's back half drops off a fair bit, following an extremely strong beginning. Twenty-minute closer "The Shadow Man Incident" is the most superfluous and trite example of the "epic" closers which the band have become infamous for and have also been trotting out for more than two decades at this point. It's become expected at this point, and they really need to just stop doing songs like this. Everything that comes before, however, feels positively reinvigorated. The distinct Metallica influence that underpins a lot of their earlier riffing is in full force here, alongside some more unexpected, albeit brief, influences like Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan.
There's also no denying just how distinct and driving Portnoy's drumming is, compared to Mike Mangini's perfectly proficient, yet rather undistinguished performance(s) during the interim. Parasomnia also has a significant the edge over the Mangini records is in its memorability. As much as I like some of those albums, I couldn't sing or hum a single second of them off the top of my head. This album, on the other hand, is overflowing with choruses and riffs that have stuck with me from the moment I heard them, and each song has its own distinct identity within the record as well. Seems like a low, but it's one Dream Theater have failed to clear for a long time and here they absolutely bound over it.If there are better albums out this week, then I don't know who wrote them, and none are quite as exciting (or astonishing) as the idea that Dream Theater might still have albums like this in them. ...They still have the worst album covers though.
Release Roundup
-(16)- – Guides For The Misguided (sludge metal)
Berlial – Nourishing The Disaster To Come (blackened death metal)
Bikini Beach – Cursed (noise rock, punk)
Call Me Amour - Call Me Amour (bad alt/butt rock)
Cease To Be Human - First Flame's Fragments (techy deathcore)
Corpse Locker – Prime Evil (nu/groove metal)
Corpsing – Viewing The Invisible (weird/brutal death metal)
Darko – Dethmask 3 (electro deathcore)
The Crimson Armada - Ceremony (deathcore, melodeath)
Days Of Jupiter – The World Was Never Enough (alt rock/metal)
Daze of June - Stages of Erosion (progressive/melodic metalcore)
Dead Air – Elements (alt rock)
The Defect – Death X Destiny (alt/electro-metal, baddiecore)
Di’Aul – EvAAve (sludge doom)
Ereb Altor – Hälsingemörker (folky meloblack, viking metal)
Extinguished – Foul Stench Adoration (shitty death metal)
Facs – Wish Defense (indie/alt rock)
Fumes – Skeletal Wings Threshold (black metal)
Fvzz Popvli – Melting Pop (stoner rock/metal)
Ghost Hollow – Examinations Of The Heart (altish rock)
Gin Lady – Before The Dawn Of Time (psych-rock)
Gyasi – Here Comes The Good Part (hard rock)
Impending Doom – Towards the Light (groove deathcore)
Inborn Suffering – Pale Grey Monochrome (blackened funeral doom)
Jinjer – Duel (nuish groove/tech-metal)
Juliet’s Not Dead – King And Queen (hard/butt rock)
Klaw – Gods and Creators (clown thrash)
Lärm – Into Perpetual Silence (blackened death metal)
Lavandula – Fuck Beauty… …Embrace Death (death doom)
Legado de una Tragedia – Lovecraft (power metal)
Lesath – Cold Silence (depressive blackgaze)
Majestica – Power Train (power metal)
Marko Hietala – Roses From The Deep (heavy/power metal)
Morast – Fentanyl (blackened sludge-doom)
Neurostrike – Neon Uprising (industrial metal, synthwave)
Neverland Ranch Davidians – Shout It On The Mountain (punk, rock)
Noctambulist – Noctambulist II: De Droom (post-black, shoegaze)
Noiseast - Roomer (metalcore)
Norilsk – Antipole (death-doom)
Obscura – A Sonication (progressive/plagiaristic? tech/melodeath)
Open Kasket – Trials Of Failure (crossover death metal)
One Hundred Thousand - Liminal (posty alt-prog)
Pariah System - Divine Madness (metalcore)
Pathogenic – Crowned In Corpses (groove djent)
Phrenelith – Ashen Womb (brutalish death metal)
Pulse - Body Is Reality (teach/deathcore)
Redwood – Sky Offering (stoner rock/metal)
Saber – Lost In Flames (heavy metal)
Sarkasm – Carnival Of Atrocities (death tharsh)
Squid – Cowards (alt/indie rock)
Storm Death – Chaos Will Reign! (blackened death metal)
Stud – Under Silver Sky (heavy metal)
Theoden’s Reign – Citadel of the Stars (folky post-black, hobbit bullshit)
Thundermother – Dirty & Divine (hard rock)
Trespass – Iconoclast (blackened death-grind)
Triune – Triune (progressive melodeath)
Tumbleweed Dealer – Dark Green (psychedelic/stoner prog)
Unreqvited – A Pathway To The Moon (post-black metal)
Walnut Grove DC – Deeper (heavy/stoner metal)