Top Pick
Master’s Hammer – Maldorör Disco (progressive/electro black metal)
Czech originators of Norwegian black metal Master's Hammer are back with an album that is extremely weird, although not quite as weird as its promotion and early responses had me scared it might be. Maldorör Disco's blend of krautish industrial-disco and spacey black metal is definitely odd, but it also fits in fairly neatly alongside the likes of Rammstein—whose overall sound it draws many direct comparisons to, along with Til Lindermann's particular pronunciations and phrasings—but also trver contemporaries like mid-period Sigh or Samael, or even Paradise Lost. Indeed, the album's sound is more or less perfectly captured by the Egyptian-walking flayed figure on its cover and made even more impressive by how well the band manage to meld its seemingly incoherent components into something inviting, enjoyable and instantly memorable, if nothing else.
Release Roundup
5Rand – Ordhalia (blackened melodeath)
All We Leave Behind – In Absence Of Light (death doom)
Ancient Settlers – Autumnus: Revisited (heavy metal, melodeath)
APRS – Radio Nocturna Vol. 2: Voces Del Pasado (post black/metal)
Bardo Thodol – Sumerian Tragedy (trad doom)
Bezdan – Upon The Altar (death metal/thrash)
Black Magic Tree – Terra (hard rock)
Bloodfield – Homunculus Sapiens (weird/prog metal)
Blut Aus Nord – Ethereal Horizons (weird post/progressive black-metal)
Carnal Savagery – Crypt Of Decay (death metal)
Darklon – Mind Reaper (heavy metal)
Daughters Of Sophia – (4.0°) Tsalmaweth (post-black metal)
Dead And Dripping – Nefarious Scintillations (brutal/gurgly death metal)
Defamatory – Path of No Return (death metal)
dEmotional – New Horizons (metalcore)
Dellacoma – Searching For You In The Darkness (hard/butt rock)
Devilhusk – Sleep Like The Dead (chaotic deathcore)
Doomherre – Plaguelords (melodoom)
Dyssidia – Deeper Wells Of Meaning (prog metal)
Equilibrium – Equinox (electro folk-metal, melodeath)
Esoctrilihum – Monarchy of Terror on the Broken Mind by Voorh's Disease (again? death grind)
Excide – Bastard Hymns (alt metal)
Feather Mountain – A Liminal Step (prog metal)
Gods Of Gaia – Escape The Wonderland (progressive melo/ death)
Grim Colossus – Unhallowed Blasphemies (sludge doom)
Haunted By Silhouettes – Faith Came Crawling (melodeath)
Hell's Domain – Terminal State (thrash)
Josh Freese – Just A Minute, Vol. 2 (alt rock, punk)
Kaunis Kuolematon – Kun ValoMinussa Kuoli (black metal/doom)
Laetitia In Holocaust – I Rise With The Dead (black metal)
male//gaze – Too Late Now (indie punk, noise-gaze)
Malefic Throne – The Conquering Darkness (blackened death metal)
The Old Dead Tree – London Sessions (prog metal)
The Ominous Circle – Cloven Tongues Of Fire (blackened disso-death)
Onsetcold – Apocalyptic Sleep (noise)
Pabst – This Is Normal Now (indie noise)
Paintrail – Nocturnals (post prog)
Pale Horse Ritual – Diabolic Formation (doom metal)
Phantom Vengeance – Ghost Of A Warrior (symphonic metal)
Phobocosm – Gateway (brutal death metal)
Pitchblack – Walking On Burning Ground (heavy metal, thrash)
Slôdder – Narcissist (noise doom)
Starmen – Starmenized II (Kiss at home)
Steel Arctus – Dreamruler (heavy/power metal)
Struck A Nerve – Struck A Nerve (crossover thrash)
Suffering – Things Seen But Always Hidden (black doom)
Summoning Hellgates – Spear Of Conquest (death metal)
The Tea Club – Chasm (96/24) (jazz rock)
Thermality – Concept 42 (blackened melodeath)
Thy Disease – United We Fall (melodeath)
Tickles – Sugar & Plastic Plates (post punk, noise rock)
Triskelyon – Maelstrom Of Chaos (death/black thrash)
Unlucky Morpheus – Gate of Heaven (power metal, visual kei)
Unviar – Disglaç (post/meloblack)
Valiant Hearts – Hidden Realms (post hardcore)
Various – The Downward Spiral: Redux (industrial metal, covers)
Vast Pyre – Bleak (sludge doom)