Top Pick
Killswitch Engage – This Consequence (melodic metalcore, death-thrash)
I promise you, I'm sitting on some very cool, progressive/underground promos to hit you with over the coming weeks, but right now, it's the big-name metalcore bands who are leading the charge. I also can't fight who I am. Killswitch Engage have always been one of my favourite bands and This Consequence only adds further conviction to that statement.
Much like last week's metalcore comeback, This Consequence is by far the heaviest among recent Killswitch outings—certainly since their first two/three records, if not ever. While the band's trademark melodicism is still here in spades, this album also sees the band further bolstering the ever-present thrash undercurrent that has been steadily growing in stature over their last few records. The surprisingly brutal barrage of lead single "Forever Aligned" and the eqaully thunderous beginning of album opener "Abandon Us" echo throughout the rest of album. Tracks like "Where It Dies" and "Discordant Nation" are pure thrash ragers, while more savage cuts like "Collusion" and the colossal "Fall of Us" often border on death metal.
Riff for riff, this is easily the most consistent Killswitch Engage record of the second Jesse Leach-era. I'd still rank Atonement (2019) at the top, personally, since This Consequence lacks songs as momentous or memorable as "The Signal Fire", "The Crownless King" or "As Sure As The Sun Will Rise"—although I think I'm probably alone in that assessment. For all its overt aggression, there is still something a bit stifling about Adam Dutkiewicz's spotless production style, which the band cut through a bit more successfully on previous records, and—like its predecessor—I do think its sub-optimally sequenced, although I haven't quite worked out the correct order yet.* The the album's weakest offering, the sludgy, blast-beat laden "Broken Glass" also feels a bit telling, given it shares a title with the trademark song by modern metalcore maestros Malevolence, but they are the exception to the rule, and the rest of the record mor ethan proves that they're still the band to beat.
*I think it probably starts with "Forever Aligned", hits "Requiem" early and then finishes with "The Fall of Uss", but everything in between remains a mystery.
Release Roundup
The 7th Guild – Triumviro (power metal)
Abduction – Existentialismus (black metal)
Acid Magus – Scatterling Empire (alt sludge/doom)
Across The Swarm – Invisible Threads (groove death)
Airforce – Acts Of Madness (dudes rock)
Aitheer – The Serpent (post metal)
Antlers – Hypothermia (instrumental symphonic-metal)
Anxious – Bambi (indie rock, pop punk)
Beyond Frequencies – Everything I Am (modern/pop metal)
Bloodfeast Ritual/Necronomicon Ex Mortis – You’ve Got Red on You (death metal)
Bong-Ra – Black Noise (blackened industrial)
The Boy That Got Away – Peacetime (stonerish rock)
Caballero – Caballero (speed metal, thrash)
Cages – Better Mistakes (post-hardcore, emo)
Claymorean – Eternal Curse (heavy/speed metal)
Cross Bringer – Healismus Aeternus (post-black metal/ hardcore)
Culak – Wayfarer (post-folk?)
Dal Av x Jackson Rose – Petrichor (modern metalcore)
The Dark – The Dark (alt metal)
Defiled Serenity – Within The Slumber Of The Mind (melodeath)
Dehydrated – Victim (death metal)
Drugs Of Faith – Asymmetrical (grindcore)
Ellis Mano Band – Morph (rock)
Enbound – Set It Free (melodic/power metal)
Exision – Uhreina ajassa (folk metal, melodeath)
Fractured Insanity – Age Of Manipulation (death metal)
God Complex – He Watches in Silence (chaotic/brutal hardcore)
Gràb – Kremess (black metal)
High Moonlight – Lycans (hard rock/metal)
Homeskin – Soul Washed Bleach (blackened mathgrind)
Horizon Ignited – Tides (djent-core)
Incantvm – Maleficia (folky black metal)
Indian Nightmare – Banished into Endless Chaos (heavy/speed metal, thrash)
Jason Bieler and The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra – The Escapologist (samba prog?)
Karla Kvlt – Thunderhunter (doom drone)
Katerina Nicole – Serene In Violent Oceans (alt-goth)
King Zog – Second Dawn (sludgy doom metal)
Kwoon – Odyssey (posty post-rock)
Malacath – Eternal Roar Of The Thunder And Rain (black metal)
Manntra – Titans (power metal)
Marrowomb – Phisenomie (brutal/blackened death metal)
Matalobos – Phantasmagoria: Hexed Lands (progressive melodeath)
Maud The Moth – The Distaff (opera doom?)
Mean Mistreater – Do Or Die (speed metal, thrash)
Melvins / Napalm Death – Savage Imperial Death March (vinyl-only metal)
Mitochondrial Sun – Machine Dialectics (ambient electronic)
Morax – The Amulet (heavy/doomish metal)
Nachtblut – Todschick (symphonic/folky goth metal)
Necronomicon Ex Mortis/Bloodfeast Ritual – You’ve Got Red On You (death metal)
Necrovision – The Gouging Process (death metal)
Ocre – So Often Lifeblood Comes From Ashes (posty alt-sudge)
Old Skin – Wails Of Ten Thousand (sludge doom)
Omega Purge – The Last Monarch’s Fall (progish groove metal)
One OK Rock – Detox (pop rock)
Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness (brutal death metal)
Punchcard – Soapbox Hero (pop punk)
Räum – Emperor of the Sun (doomy black metal)
Retromorphosis – Psalmus Mortis (brutal tech-death)
Rick Pierce Group – Brick By Brick (hardish rock)
Sacrifice – Volume Six (thrash)
Sarkom – EFor A Few Fixes MorexceedIn2Chaos (black metal)
Scare – In The End, Was It Worth It? (blackened crust)
Scumripper – For A Few Fixes More (black/crust thrash)
Seventh Station – On Shoulders Of Giants (weird/actually symphonic metal)
Shadow Of The Talisman – As Above, So Below (progish thrash, alt-groove)
Shepherds Of Cassini – In Thrall To Heresy (instrumental stoner-prog)
Shrike – The Divine And The Serpentine (progressive metal/core)
Silverstein – Antibloom (post-hardcore, emo)
Sin Of God – Blood Bound (brutal death metal)
Sinner Rage – Power Strike (heavy metal)
Spy – Seen Enough (hardcore)
Stinky – Solace (post-hardcore, alt-metal)
SweetBeast – Illusions (doom metal)
Taste of Doom – Para Bellum (thrash)
Temple Of Discord – In The Ashes (stoner rock/metal)
To Obey A Tyrant – Frigore Inferni (deathcore)
Traitors – Phobias (djeathcore)
Twins Crew – Chapter IV (heavy/power metal)
Voidfallen – The Rituals of Resilience (symphonic black/melodeath)
Vultures Vengeance – Dust Age (heavy/speed metal)*
Whereafter – Blessed & Depressed (alt/mellowdoom)
Wrekmeister Harmonies – Flowers In The Spring (drone)
Wren – Black Rain Falls (sludgy post-metal)
Xenotrone – Into The Void (prog/tech-death)
Yawning Balch – Volume Three (stonerish post rock)