Top Picks
Dawn of Ouroboros – Bioluminescence (progressive/post-black metal/gaze)
Dawn of Orouboros's brand of gazey, progressive post-black metal isn't usually my sort of thing. Guitarist/keyboardist Tony Thomas's main band Botanist certainly isn't, but Biolumanescence definitely is. Maybe it's because the addition of Tómarúm drummer Chris Stropoli has caused them to lean more into the progressive, rather than post side of their sound, but I was absolutely stunned by the album upon first listen and it has only gotten better with each listen. It's also one of those albums that seems to get better as it goes, but then I go back to the earlier tracks (often immediately) only to be blown away all over again. Whether or not the genre tags draw you in, this is a record well worth listening to. Bioluminescence may well be the best new album I’ve heard all year year, and it's definitely the best one you have.
Whitechapel – Hymns in Dissonance (brutal/groovy deathcore)
Don't think you're getting out of here without a big, stomping mainstream(ish) metal release to compliment the dulcet, organic tones described above—especially when this new Whitechapel album is an absolute beast! Much has has been made of Hymns' alleged return to the band's earlier This is Exile (2008)-style sound. However, it's cleaner production and propulsive grooves remind me a lot more of their mid-period output, especially 2010's severely underrated A New Era of Corruption, except with the brutality cranked all the way up, in the way we've come to expect from a modern deathcore album. Indeed, what Hymns in Dissonance reminds me of most is Brand of Sacrifice sans symphonics. If anything though, Whitechapel's less chaotic approach only makes their music more monstrous, with the newer band's epic menace underlying delivered instead via malevolent guitar melodies and textures that underlie, rather than overwhelm proceedings.
As with many modern deathcore records, Hymns does become a bit one-note after a bit, but there's little to complain about if you dig what they're doing and echoes of the more ambitious arrangements that crept into their sound over the last couple of records reverberate through standout offerings like "A Visceral Wretch" and the devastating title-track. They managed to make "666" sound evil and cool again on the opening track! Hymns in Dissonance is an album that is unlikely to win the band many new fans in the way that some of their recent albums have, but it will surely go a long way toward setting a new land-speed record and just goes to show that—even after all these years—Whitechapel simply do deathcore better than pretty much anyone else.
Release Roundup
Adamantis – Reforged (power trad)
Aeons of Ashes – Currents (melodeath)
Akaamelda – Death Equals Relief (melodeath)
Amber Asylum – Ruby Red (post/ambient doom?)
Apocalyptians - Oracle of Catastrophe (death metal)
Arcane Sight - Endless Ground (progressive metal)
Avenger of Blood – Revenge Is My Name (blackened death-thrash)
Avulsed – Phoenix Cryptobiosis (death metal)
Balance Breach – Save Our Souls (modern metal/core)
The Baptized – Exilion (post prog)
Begrime Exemious – Festering in the Void (thrashy/blackened death metal)
Betrayers – Falling Through the Hourglass (grindcore, death doom)
Bind The Sacrifice - This World Is Of Blood (blackened tech-deathcore)
Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy (alt/indie rock)
Bonejammer – Carcinogenesis (crossover grindcore)
Bulletsbetweentongues – Fragility (nospacecore)
Carnal Forge – The Fractured Process (melodeath thrash)
Chordoma – Chordoma (brutal death metal)
Christian Mistress – Children Of The Earth (heavy metal/rock)
Ciel – S.R.A.T.M.E.O. (doomy post metal)
Combust – Belly Of The Beast (hardcore, crossover)
Crown Magnetar – Punishment (brutal deathcore)
Cryptosis – Celestial Death (symphonic black metal, tech-thrash?)
Cult Of Extinction – Nightmare Ascension (blackened death metal)
Dead Etiquette - Self Destruct (metal/deathcore)
The Death Wheelers – Ecstasy Of Mold (crusty metal)
Deathless Legacy – Damnatio Aeterna (symphonic/occult metal)
Destruction – Birth of Malice (deathy thrash)
Downward – Downward (alt rock, emo)
Down To The Heaven - Project: Earth (modern/electro metalcore)
Edge Of Paradise – Prophecy (melodic/progressive metal)
Edyakaran – Pantheon (post metal)
Engineer Of Death - Forced To Stay Here (brutal hardcore)
Erocis – The Sunken Lands (folk metal, melodeath)
Exordium Mors – Sworn To Heresy (black metal, thrash)
Fermentor – Agreement (instrumental prog-death)
Formis – Bestiarius (deathened meloblack)
Frogg – Eclipse (progressive tech-death/metal)
Gentle Beast – Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier From Outer Space (stoner metal/doom)
The Gift is a Curse – Heir (progressive/post black metal)
Gorepig - The Harvest (nu? deathcore)
Grey Mountain – Grey Mountain (post doom)
Guiltless – Teeth To Sky (post sludge)
Harvest Of Ash – Castaway (sludge doom)
Hexabrot – The Order Of Things (proggy melodeath)
Holy Death – Paradice (crossover death doom)
Hypermass – Apparition Day (alt/groove metal)
Impurity – The Eternal Sleep (death metal)
Ingrown – Idaho (hard/grindcore)
Irony of Fate – Equinox (melodeath)
Istapp – Sol Ter Sortna (progressive meloblack)
Jethro Tull – Curious Ruminant (prog rock, Grammy metal)
K L P S – K L P S (sludgy post-metal)
Kaiser – 2nd Sound (stoner metal)
Kryptograf – Kryptonomicon (prog rock)
Lady Gaga – Mayhem (Master Card pop)
Living Tales – Hades (heavy/symphonic metal)
Maison Dieu – Herbacea (post rock/doom)
Maltuka – Black Rite (death metal)
March of Scylla – Andromeda (prog metal)
Mass Burial – May Darkness Come (death metal)
Mircalla – Paradox 333 (goth doom)
Moros – Recrudescent Horror (brutal death-doom)
Mortuaire – Monde Vide (death doom)
Mylingen – Svartsyn (meloblack)
Myth Carver – Twist of Fate (heavy metal, trad thrash)
Necrambulant – Upheaval Of Malignant Necrambulance (slamming brutal death)
Necrochakal – Golgothian Orgies Of Bestial Lust (death metal/thrash)
Nephylim – Circuition (melodoom)
Niviane – Queen Of Phantoms (power melodeath)
Northwind – Jään valtakunta (melo/black metal)
Orchid – The Skull Sessions (grindcore, screamo)
Outburst – Devouring the Masses (thrash)
Outrun the Fall - Break Through (butt rock)
Overdrivers – Glory Or Nothing (hard rock/metal)
Pain of Truth x Sunami - Coast To Coast (hardcore, crossover)
Planetary Ghost - Arbiter's Grounds (tech death/core)
Pyres – Yun (sludgy stoner-metal/doom)
Raging Speedhorn – Night Wolf (groove metal)
Rainbows Are Free – Silver and Gold (stoner rock/doom)
Rainbows Are Free – Silver And Gold (stoner metal/doom)
Reekmind – Mired In The Reek Of Grief (sludge death)
Sacrosanct – Avenging Angel (heavy/power metal)
Sadist – Something to Pierce (tech/prog death)
Scalpture – Landkrieg (thrashy death-doom)
Severed Tongues - Fragments (progressive metalcore, djent)
Seizure – Black Spells and Broomsticks (symphonic power metal)
Selvforakt – Ormstukken (blackish crust punk)
Shrine of Denial – I, Moloch (blackened death metal)
Smith/Kotzen – Black Light/White Noise (hardish rock)
Solar Monolith – The Crooked Path (stoner doom)
Spider God – Possess the Devil: The Original Album (hardcorish? black metal)
Spiritbox – Tsunami Sea (techish alt-metal)
Staticlone – Better Living Through Static Vision (hardcore punk, noise rock)
Stygian Path – The Lorekeeper (folkish metal)
Swervedriver – The World’s Fair (alt/indie rock, shoegaze)
Throne Of Iron – Adventure Two (heavy/trad metal)
Til the End – Dark Kings (blackish melodeath)
Tommy Concrete – Robot Corpse (prog death)
Torpedo Torpedo – Arrows of Time (stoner rock/doom)
Trench Foot – Cavernous Necrophagy (death metal)
Tropic Gold – Sick To Death Of Everything (electro-rock, baddiecore)
The Unguided – Hellven (electro/symphonic melodeath, metalcore)
The Vice – A Great Unrest (goth sludge)
Voidchaser – Trust (progressive metal, melodeath)
War Magic – Atomic Rites (sludge death)
The Wildhearts – Satanic Rites of the Wildhearts (hard rock, alt metal)
Wildfire – Rise (heavy/power metal)
Zac Leaser – Ascension to Light (tech death)