Release Day Roundup: 7/25/25

Top Picks

Haxprocess – Beyond What Eyes Can See (progressive death metal)

While recently yelling at clouds, I bemoaned Blood Incantation getting a lot of credit for doing something that better bands have been doing for 30-years at this point. They seem like genuine dudes and they’re not at all the type of band I feel good about bringing down, but my personal opinions are also compounded when current bands like Haxprocess are also out here doing the same thing but better as well. I enjoy Blood Incantation’s music to some degree, but my main problem with Absolute Elsewhere (2024) especially (besides the overemphasis upon its originality) is the stop -start nature of its compositions, which unceasingly alternate between definitively death metal and pure prog sections with abrupt (if not entirely hard) cuts in between—as though letting two actually meet and mingle might unleash apocalyptic ancient aliens upon us or something.

Haxprocess might not veer as far in the progressive direction as Blood Incantation do, but there are moments, such as the later sections of “Confines of the Flesh” or the many mid-sections of “Thy Inner Demon Seed” when they still go full prog, and both here and in the more subtle moments, I find that they do a far better job of making it all flow seamlessly together—both across the album’s full forty-five minutes and within the four around-ten-minute-long compositions it comprises. The skronky metres and rhythms they employ obviously bring Gorguts to mind, but also that largely overlooked and best Immolation album Failures for Gods (1999) in the rawness retained therein, and there is an off-kilter brutality at its heart that suggests something Morbid Angel might have eventually stumbled upon, had they not departed for more radikult pastures. What the band perhaps still lack at this stage is an inherent memorability, and it still becomes a bit exhausting by its final fourteen-minute offering, but as far as displays of otherworldly, progressive death metal mastery go, it’s impossible to deny their potential.

Black Magnet – Megamantra (industrial metal/core)

When we left Black Magnet they were in the midst of metamorphosisising into some kind of industrial-metal supermonster. Now the Oaklahoman industrialists are back, in a much more aggressive and openly hardcore form. Although it may be less interesting to see them doing the same thing every other band influenced by Harms Way and Code Orange have been doing over the past decade now, they also arguably do it better than anyone else, outside of those two originators.

Black Magnet’s enhanced quality perhaps comes from how far they lean into the actual industrial side of their sound. When this band rip off Godflesh’s “Like Rats” on “Endless”, they at least have the decency to make it sound like Ministry are covering them while being run though an actual grinder. Elsewhere, “Better than Love” and “Night Tripping” bring to mind early (read: up until Golden Age of Grotesque-era) Marilyn Manson, “Spitting Glass” is built around a danceable, Nine Inch Nails-esque backbeat to the fore, “Birth” takes a stab at White Zombie and “Coming Back Again” sounds like Health by way of Helmet. Unlike previous industrial exciters 3Teeth, Black Magnet still manage to sound merely influenced by these artists, rather than adopting their sound wholesale (although the main riff to "Smokeskreen" sounds a lot like a Smashing Pumpkins song or something I can't quite place). I still don’t think Megamantra is quite the finished product, but I’m definitely excited to see where Black Magnet go, if only to see just how hot their microphones can get.

Also, I lack the knowledge and reference points to talk about it intelligently (or even unintelligently), but that Tyler, The Creator album is probably actually the best thing out today though...