Top Picks
Rivers of Nihil – Rivers of Nihil (progressive death metal)
In its lead-up, Rivers of Nihil had all the hallmarks of a band making a self-titled album in a defiant effort to re-capture and redefine their identity amid such a turbulent and unsure period. Unlike many (lesser) bands in their position, however, Rivers of Nihil have not only succeeded in making a triumphant statement, but perhaps a definitive one as well. For one thing, they seem to have taken the right lessons from The Work. The off-the-deep-end prog fluff that both bloated and weighed-down that album has been eradicated entirely, while maintaining that record's moodier and more contemplative atmosphere and also bringing back some of the band's earlier, driving brutality. As such, Rivers of Nihil perhaps comes off more like a missing link between 2015's more aggressive Monarchy and the progressive magnum opus of Where Owls Know My Name (2017), than it does the follow-up to their previous effort. In essence though, it constitutes the accumulation of everywhere they've been before, while also introducing some newer, melodic elements as well.
Read the rest of my full review here.
The Haunted – Songs of Last Resort (melodeath thrash)
Time once was, when The Haunted were one of my absolute favourite bands. Their discography up to and including Unseen (2011) is pretty much flawless. But between two second- Marco-Aro-era albums that did absolutely nothing for me, and an absolutely atrocious (mostly Aro-related) live performance in support of Exit Wounds (2014), I've more or less checked out of the band during their second post-Peter Dolving period. This hasn't been hard, considering The Haunted haven't put a new record out since 2017's woeful Strength in Numbers, but if Songs of Last Resort is anything to go by, this period of prolonged and apparently rejuvenating absence was the best thing they could have done.
It's not simply a case of absence making the heart go fonder. Songs of Last Resort is an absolutely ferocious return to form that (setting aside my personal penchant for Unseen) instantly establishes itself as the most vital and consistent Haunted record since The Dead Eye (2006). All of the wider praise that was originally lavished on Exit Wounds as a return to the band's more aggressive melodeath roots is wholly applicable here. The album is a sharp burst of violent and explosive thrash metal that is an absolute thrill from start to finish, and a welcome reminder of just how good this band can be when they put the pedal to the (melodic death) metal.
Release Roundup
Acts of Vengeance – Thy Kingdom Come (thrashy groove death)
Aesop Rock – Black Hole Superette (progressive/alt hip-hop)
Albus Diabolus – Compendio Esoterico Elettronico (progressive dungeon synth?)
Antisoph –Ateos (weird/progressive math-rock)
Anzv – Kur (blackened death metal)
Arthos – Ancient Glory (instrumental folk metal, melodeath)
Birth(Defects) – Deceiver/Mirror (punk)
Black Row - Surströmming (alt punk, nu metal)
Blimps – Transient Woodlands (electro-prog)
Bloodhorse – A Malign Star (stoner doom)
Blood Dealer – Designer Antichrist (nope)
Body Minus Head – An Exercise In Self-Sufficiency (crustcore, screamo)
Buntovshchik – Iron Rock (heavy metal)
ButcherBird – Drought/Deluge (hard/mathcore)
Caroline [Polachek] – Caroline 2 (chil/pop/prog rock)
Coltsblood – Obscured into Nebulous Dusk (funeral death-doom)
Confined in Flesh – Confined in Time (death metal)
Conflicto – World of Misery (deathgrind)
Cosmic Sepulcher – Shadow Over the Fall (death-doom)
Crowquill – Ecorche (math/metalcore)
Cwfen – Sorrows (goth rock/doom)
Darker Half – The Elephant Incident (heavy metal covers)
DarkFlow – Imminent End (goth doom)
Darkside Ritual – Chamber of Deathlessness (black/death metal)
The Dead Daisies – Lookin’ For Trouble (hard/blues rock)
Dead End Irony – Battles And Brotherhood (heavy/melodic metal)
Death Kommander – Never To Grow Old (death metal)
Death Rattle – The Moral Chokehold (groove death)
Deep Space Mask – Burn In Hell (heavy metal, thrash)
Def/Light – Eternal Reign (meloblack)
Devoured by the Abyss – Genetic Purification (tech-deathcore)
Desolated – Finding Peace (hardcore)
Diesect – Hide From The Light (nu/electro deathcore)
Disquiet – The Infinite Hell (groove thrash)
Divni San – Dreamlike Tales (heavy metal)
Doobie – Gove ‘em Hell Until You Get to Heaven (Beartooth but worse)
Drifter – Grigori (sludge doom)
Enterré Vivant – Akuzaï (depressive? black metal)
Eschaton – Techtalitarian (tech-death)
Execution – Camisole (blackened death metal)
Flow Kobra – Fly to the Sky (rap djent/emo)
Funeral Baptism – In Solitudine (crusty meloblack)
Furnace – Eternally Enthroned (folky melodeath)
Garbage – Let All That We Imagine Be the Light (shitty-AI-octopus rock)
Gliitch – A Fire Inside (weird goth rock)
Goath – IV: Silencing the Prophets of Deceit (blackened death metal)
Golem Of Gore – Ultimo Mondo Cane (brutal death metal, weird slam)
Graceless – Icons Of Ruin (death metal)
Gridiron – Poetry From Pain (nu metal, rap core)
Grin – Acid Gods (sludge doom)
(Hed) P.E. – New And Improved (absolutely not)
In the Kingdom of Nightmares – Fading Light (groove melodeath)
Jamie Lenman – One Night Stand (y tho?)
Kingdom Of Nightmares – Fading Light (prog/melodeath)
Kristeva – Kristeva (sad post-rock)
Krocophile – Sewer King, King of the Sewer (slamming brutal death)
Kusanagi – Paramnesia (proggy post-rock)
Lazarus Casket – Spiritual Warfare (black metal/core?)
Lift The Curse – Don’t Bury The Dream (melodic metalcore)
Loathfinder – Broken Branches and Torn Roots (DSBD)
Lord Vigo – Walk The Shadows (power doom)
Lost Eternity – Fragments of Truth (prog/power thrash)
Low Before The Breeze – A Hole Beneath The Home We Shared (sludgey black metal)
Maps And Foils – Nulle Part (progressive post-hardcore)
Meluniblis – Ifrits of Jinnestan (brutal death metal)
Merfolk – Sundaland (weird/disso death)
Miley Cyrus – Something Beautiful (pop)
Monumentum Damnati – From Beyond (blackened melodeath/doom)
Mouth Breaker – You'll Remember Tha Name (beatdown hardcore)
Necrolisis – Templo de Fraude (death metal)
Needless – Premonition (power thrash)
Neurotech – Exo Escapism (electro-metal)
No Horizon – No Horizon (emo metalcore)
Obsidian Tongue – Eclipsing Worlds Of Scorn (progressive/doomy black metal)
Obstruktion – The End Takes Form (crossover death metal) Premiere
Onirik – Curling Serpents Under Stone (black metal, meloblack)
Planning For Burial – It's Closeness, It's Easy (shoegaze, post-metal)
Puteraeon – Mountains Of Madness (death metal, melodeath)
Quadvium – Tetradōm (instrumental bass-prog)
Redikin – The Crux (alt/goth metal)
Reject The Sickness – Signs Of The End (progressive melodeath, metalcore)
Satin White – Born (y tho?)
Serenitus – Tranquility in Insanity (death-doom)
Shallowsky – Shallowsky (melodic baddiecore)
Shrouded in Darkness – 11:11 (funeral doom)
Spark Of Life – Plagued By The Human Condition (emo, pop punk)
The Speaker Wars – The Speaker Wars (rock)
Speculative Fiction – Indifferent Engine (post-hardcore)
Stone From The Sky – Bakeneko (post rock/metal)
Stray from the Path – Clockworked (nu metal/hardcore)
Svart Vinter – Isvind (meloblack)
Syncatto – Memento (nu prog, shred)
Tassi – Idamon Novasah-Liva (post-black metal)
Thurifer – River Red (melodeath)
Tragik – Crescendo (hard/melodic rock)
Trivax – The Great Satan ("the blackened metal of death")
True North – Either Way, The Sun’s Exploding (emo pop)
Ty Segall – Possession (indie rock/pop)
Vader – Humanihility (death metal)
Vaneno – Chaos, Hostility, Murder (sludge)
Variety Jones – Shell Shocked (hard rock)
Vildhjarta – + där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar + (djent) Review
Interim – Violet in Red (alt/goth metal)
We Are Resolute – Full Armor (heavy metal)
Weeping Sores – The Convalescence Agonies (progressive funeral/death-doom) Review
Wolves At The Gate – Wasteland (metalcore)
Wormrot – TNT (new/old/live grindcore)
Zig Zags – Deadbeat At Dawn (hard rock, garage punk)
Zlórtcht – A Cynical Theocracy (doomish black/heavy metal)