Top Picks
Symbiotic Growth – Beyond the Sleepless Aether (progressive/posty black metal)
I wasn't really sure which album I was going to highlight this week. There's a lot of good stuff out, but nothing that's particularly rising above for me. That was, until Canada's Symbiotic Growth came in clutch with their fantastic new record Beyond the Sleepless Aether. Enslaved are an immediate touchstone—so much so that I'm sure the main riff to "Spires Of The Boundless Sunset" sounds like a specific latter-day song of theirs that i can't quite place. As the album develops, however, Ne Obliviscaris become a more obvious point of comparison, with the songs expanding into ever more extravagant and elongated arrangements as the album goes on. As with NeO, the longer, postier passages do drag on a bit, but there's always a pummeling riff or cathartic melody waiting around the corner to bring the energy back up again, and the band is granted an extra tech-death tinge, thanks to the ferocious efforts drummer Dan Favot of Fractal Generator (who also have a new album out next week).
As I said though, there's a lot of other good stuff out this week as well. Those who prefer things a little more straight forward will find a lot to like about the new Wretched Path record, while those who dig dissonance should definitely check out Pillars of Cacophony. Aussie veterans Nothing provide a groovier take on prog-death with their long-awaited second album The Self Repair Manifesto, which is sure to please fans of Psycroptic and Atheist in equal measure, and Industrial Puke have certainly developed a very cool crossover sludge-thrash sound, even if the songs themselves don't really stand out. The first half of the new Deafheaven is also brilliant, even if the latter part trails off a fair bit, and the new Arch Enemy is a lot of fun, even if I don't like it anywhere near as much as their last one. The less said about the new Underoath album though, the better...
Release Roundup
1st0 – 2nd Chapter (power metal)
Accuracy – Grotesco impulso (death metal)
Alien Weaponry – Te Rā (folky nu/groove-metal)
Alliance – Before Our Eyes (AOR, rock)
Allocer – Worship (blackened deathcore)
Alpenstock – Boudu Story (prog rock)
Amenra – De Toorn / With Fang And Claw (post-blackened doom-drone)
Arch Enemy – Blood Dynasty (thrashy melodeath)
Autumn’s Dawn – We Lost Our Hope Along The Way (blackgaze)
Backxwash – Only Dust Remains (hip-hop)
Blended Brew – Roll The Dice (rock)
Break the Habit – Крізь Мутне Скло (weird crossover death)
Bright Ophidia – Quiet And Calm (progressive/nu? metal)
Bringers of Disease – March of the Burning Tower (black-doom)
Brkn Love – The Program (hard/alt rock)
Burden of Despair – Confutatis (death-doom)
Capitalist – In the Days of the Crimson Sun (crusty black metal)
Chamber Mage – By Light Of Emerald Gods (power trad)
Chiaroscuro – Chiaroscuro (blackened melodeath)
Crawling Chaos – Wyrd (groove death)
Cruzeiro – Hic Sunt Dracones (heavy/doom metal)
Cult of Fire – The One, Who Is Made of Smoke (black metal)
Highsociety – Datamosh (electro metal, baddiecore)
The Darkness – Dreams On Toast (please stop)
Daevar – Sub Rosa (sludgy doom-metal)
Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power (progressive post-black/gaze)
Dead Meadow – Voyager To Voyager (psychedelic stoner-prog)
Decrepisy – Deific Mourning (disso death-doom)
Desert’Smoke – Desert’Smoke (stoner metal)
Don Airey – Pushed To The Edge (hard rock)
Doomsday – Never Known Peace (Power Trip)
Eight Lives Down – Fates (melo/groove death)
Emortualis – La fine di tutte le cose (blackened death metal)
Fleshspoil – The Beginning Of The End (blackened death metal)
Forlorn – Aether (progressive/post-metal, djentgaze)
Frosthymn – Frosthymn (meloblack/-thrash)
Fugit – Cieli di porpora (progressive/eletro post-black)
Galgeberg – Cerberus (death metal)
Gallower – Vengeance & Wrath (blackened speed-metal)
Ginevra – Beyond Tomorrow (melodic rock)
Grey Aura – Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk (weird/progressive black metal)
Grumo – Sons of Disgust (deathgrind)
Highway Chile – Rat Race (heavy metal)
Himura – Diabolvs vs. Diabolvs (deathgrind)
Industrial Puke – Alive to No Avail (crusty crossover, sludge-thrash)
Invent Animate x Silent Planet – Bloom In Heaven (progressive metalcore)
Jivebomb – Ethereal (hard/grindcore)
Judicator – Concord (power metal)
Kavrila – Heretics I (prog doom)
L’Ira del Baccano/Yama – Tempus Deorum (post-doom)
Lady Beast – Inner Alchemist (speed metal)
Lauren Babic – Too Much And Never Enough (nu/baddiecore)
Liliths Army – Doll (when keeping it real goes wrong)
Lucifer’s Child – The Illuminant (black metal)
Manic Aggression – Violence Is a Virtue (thrash)
Memphis May Fire – Shapeshifter (bad metalcore)
Mercy Ties – Reflections And Criticisms (sludgey hardcore)
Mind Snare – 33 Curses at the Nazarene (death metal)
Ministry – The Squirrely Years Revisited (y tho?)
Necrólisis – Templo de fraude (death thrash)
Nospūn – Ozai (prog metal)
Nothing – The Self Repair Manifesto (progressive death metal)
Nothing More – Carnal Deluxe Edition (melodic/prog rock)
On My Command – Conquer (power metal)
Orbital Gate – Demonstration of Post-Apocalyptic Warfare (slamming brutal death/core)
The Overmold – The Overmold (ambient doom)
Panthalassan – From the Shallows of the Mantle (progressive power metal)
Paths to Deliverance – Ten (black metal)
Pillars of Cacophony – Paralipomena (progish disso-death)
Sammale – Ikiharmaja (Evergrey) (folky post-black metal)
Satsuma – This is My Outside Voice (screamo)
Savage Master – Dark & Dangerous (heavy metal)
Sawed Off – Fields of Blood (slammish death metal)
Seizure – Black Spells and Broomsticks (doomy/symphonic power metal)
Serpent Rider – The Ichor Of Chimaera (blackish doom-metal)
Seven Sisters – Shadow Of A Fallen Star Pt. 2 (prog/power metal)
Severed Angel – When Eternity Ends (symphonic power metal)
Shiver of Frontier – Power of Great Spirits (symphonic power metal)
Sicksense – Cross Me Twice (Lacuna Coil at home)
The Slime – Crabwalk To Oblivion (crossover thrash)
Smoke Mountain – The Rider (stoner rock/doom)
The Snake – Always Bites Back (indie rock)
Sonus Mortis – Synapse the Hivemind (symphonic death metal)
Svartsyn – Vortex of the Destroyer (blackened death metal)
Teitanblood – From The Visceral Abyss (droney death-doom)
Telepathy – Transmissions (post metal)
Torn From Oblivion - Transcend (techish metalcore)
Tyrmfar – Symbiosis (blackened death metal)
Unalei – Fato Illacrimata Sepoltura (progressive/opera metal)
Underoath – The Place After This One (bad/iecore)
Unfleshing – Violent Reason (blackened crust-grind)
Unsolicited – Life Energies (instrumental prog/tech-metal)
Urn – Demon Steel (heavy metal, black thrash)
Varia – The Changing of Tides (progressive post-hardcore/metalcore)
Vale – No Tomorrow Worth Knowing (ambient, blackgaze)
Vigilhunter – Vigilhunter (heavy metal, speed thrash)
Vulvarine – Fast Lane (hard rock)
The Warriors – Burn Yourself Alive (hardcore)/h
W.E.T. – Apex (melodic rock/metal)
Wretched Path – Sea of Death (death metal, melodeath)
Yelena Eckemoff – Scenes From The Dark Ages (jazz prog)