Top Picks
Benthos – From Nothing (progressive tech-metal, mathcore)
Italy's Benthos showed a ton of promise with their 2021 debut II, but I definitely didn't see them going in a more mathcore direction on this second album. The foundational building blocks they shared with us in the Anatomy of feature we did with them are certainly still in play, with the band's sound still often providing parallels with tech-prog heavyweights like The Contortionist, Animals as Leaders, Tesseract and Periphery in their more melodic modes. On from Nothing though, these comparisons remain mostly rooted in Gabriele Landillo's versatile vocals, while the rest of the band delve into more mathcore-tinged territories, that become progressively more prominent as the record goes on.
It's in these more extreme moments that From nothing proves its most exciting. The middle section becomes increasingly chaotic, introducing more and more elements in a manner reminiscent of fellow Italians Destrage, while later inspire direct comparisons to the Dillinger Escape Plan, Between the Buried and Me and even a bit of Meshuggah here and there. At other times times the album tends to meander, especially in its earlier moments—to the point where some of the softer songs feel somewhat repetitive and interchangeable. It's the balance between these two extremes though that really makes the record pop, and if Benthos can hone in further on the more novel and exhilarating sides of their sound, they could well wind up producing something that rivals their influences.
Release Roundup
alqemiste – Omnis (pop metalcore)
Aneuma – Flesh and Bone (melodeath)
Angell – Veiled by Woe (deathened black metal)
Annisokay – Abyss Pt. II (melodic djent)
Bjorn Riis – Fimbulvinter (posty prog)
Black Map – Hex (rock, alt-metal)
Blood Abscission – II (weird black metal)
Bloody Run – War Violence (thrashy death/grind)
Bodily Stew/Hematoespermia – Split (goregrind)
Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE (yAWN)
Breichiau Hir – Y Dwylo Uwchben (posty emo)
Buzzard – Mean Bone (stoner doom)
Caronte – Spiritvs (stoner/psych doom)
Cbzk – Dybuctwo (industrial rap-metal)
Church Of The Sea – Eva (post-doom)
Cytotoxin – Biographyte (tech-death)
Defiance – Blossom (hardcore)
Destinity – Ascension (melodeath)
Diabolizer – Murderous Revelations (death metal)
Dream Evil – Thunder in the Night (heavy/power metal)
Doomnezeu – Al Doilea Legământ (doom)
Elvenking – Reader Of The Runes: Luna (folky power metal)
Epica – Aspiral (symphonic power metal)
Eternal Thirst – The Nesting of Chaos (power metal/thrash)
Exiled Hope – Apocrypha (symphonic goth/power-doom)
Exorcism – Spectral Aggression (thrash)
Fainthearted – Reflections (metalcore)
Final Dose – Under The Eternal Shadow (crusty black metal)
Fragda – Glorification of Witchery (blackened deathcore)
Fomies – Liminality (psychedelic prog-rock)
Fryktelig Stoy – Incandescent (blackened drone-doom)
Gabestok – Alle dør i fremtiden (black metal, crust punk)
Grey Czar – Euarthropodia (fuzzy prog-rock)
Handgemeng – Satanic Panic Attack (stoner rock/metal)
Headphone Jacks – Discipline (stonerish rock)
High Council – Cruel And Unusual (trad metal)
Hursan – Hursan (sludge-core)
Idle Heirs – Life Is Violence (post-metal)
Imperishable – Swallowing The World (blackened melodeath)
The Infernal Deceit – The True Harmful Black (black metal)
Instinctive – Embrace (metalcore)
In The Woods… – Otra (mellowdic folk-metal/doom)
Kaschalot – Anemoia (instrumental prog/math-rock)
Komatsu – A Breakfast For Champions (stoner sludge)
Leper Colony – Those Of The Morbid (death metal)
The Lord Weird Slough Feg – Traveller Supplement I: The Ephermal Glades (trad-metal/rock)
Lumens – Lumens (hardcore, metalcore)
Magnolia Park – Vamp (baddiecore)
The Man-Eating Tree – Night Verses (mellowdeath/doom)
The Mars Volta – Lucro sucio; los ojos del vacio (prog rock)
Mentalist – Earthbreaker (heavy metal)
Messa – The Spin (proggy doom) Review
Miss Vain – Sempiternal Drive (folk metal, melodeath)
Neptunian Maximalism – Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu (psychedelic doom)
Nightsteel – Nightsteel (heavy/power metal)
Once Awake – Far Out And Beyond (metalcore)
Painted Life – What You Seek Is Seeking You (progressive metal/core)
Promised Downfall – Catharsis (metalcore)
Putrid Offal – Obliterated Life (death/goregrind)
Revengin – Dark Dogma Embrace (symphonic metal)
Rock-Out – Let’s Call It Rock N’ Roll (hard rock)
Röyksopp – True Electric (electronic, dance)
Rulaman – Death Whistle (doom metal)
Ryoji Shinomoto – Children Of Bushido (why tho?)
Samtar – The Bog Of Cosmic Delusions (prog doom)
Soliloquium – Famine (death doom)
Sons Of Ra – Standard Deviation (post jazz)
Sonum – The Obscure Light Awaits (blackened disso-death)
Speedway – A Life’s Refrain (punk, rock)
Stander – Collapsing (weird post metal, doomgaze)
Sumerian Tombs – Age of Eternal Night (doomy black metal)
Sunborn – Love Is God (electro-djent)
Taraban – Oath (country metal)
Tears’ Heaven – Godfall (goth metal)
Teen Mortgage – Devil Ultrasonic Dream (punk)
Thraxas! – Violent Vacation (groove thrash)
Valhalore – Beyond The Stars (symphonic folk metal)
Versatile – Les Litanies Du Vide (symphonic blackened-death)
Vital Flesh – Century of Sin (brutal death, slam)
Vortex – Alien Realms (symphonic blackened-death)
Vulvectomy – Aberrant Vaginal Gestation (slamming brutal death)
Within Destruction – Animetal (anime metalcore)
Wurmian – Immemorial Shrine (meloblack