Top Pick
Irreversible Mechanism – Graviant (progressive alt-metal)
Irreversible Mechanism have a storied history with Heavy Blog, it seems. Yet, while I recognised both the name and the extremely tech-death coded cover of their 2018 album Immersion, the sound of this third full-length is completely unrecognisable from what came before. Instead of another helping of progressive tech-death, Gravient offers up a meal of very Tool-inspired alt-prog that mixes Ænima (1996) tones with the spacier and more contemplative style of that band's post-Laterauls (2001) incarnation, without the bloated and repetitive song lengths it incurred. Vocalist Pavel Vilchytski also mixes things up a bit on occasion, maintaining an early-Maynard tonality, but also staying within a lower register that sometimes crossing over into Alice in Chains-sounding harmonies and driving bass rumbles. The direct comparison(s) might be hard to get away from, but as far as imitations go, this one is top notch.
Release Roundup
Abbie Falls – Life Is Just A Temporary Plan (nu metalcore, Suicide Season)
Argus Megere – Cerburea Apusului (gpth doom)
Atavistia – The Winter Way (Reforged) (folky/symphonic melodeath/black)
Black Rabbit – Warren Of Necrosis (death metal, melodeath)
Breaths – Violescent (sludgy black-doom)
Buried In Lies – Finding Beauty In Pain (nu metalcore)
Celestielle – Requiem (black doom)
Chaosophy – Aathiel (deathish black metal)
Corrupt – Bibli-kill (good album title death-metal/thrash)
David Galas – The Nihilist (goth rock)
Dawn Of The Dark Age – Ver Sacrum (folk doom)
Death from Above – Reckoning of the Damned (death metal)
Der Rote Milan – Verlust (black metal)
Die Krupps – Will Nicht—Muss!/On Collision Course (industrial/folk? Metal)
Dizzy – Yard Sale (melodic/skate punk)
Doom – Apocalypse (weird/math? metal)
EverRise – Lost (melodeath)
Fleshvessel – Obstinacy: Sisyphean Dreams Unfolded (weird/noisy black metal)
Fright – Unscripted in Chaos (crossover thrash)
Glasgow Kiss – Down In Flames (heavy metal)
The Harbinger – Gates Of Hell (mellowdeath)
Health – Conflict DLC (industrial/electro metal)
Hierophany – Tenebrario (blackened death metal)
House By The Cemetary – Disturbing The Cenotaph (death metal)
Kaosophia – Beyond The Black Horizon (blackened death metal)
Khepra – Anatomy Of Sin (progressive black metal)
Lady Luna and the Devil – Vampiric Visions Vol. II: Living Death (doom)
Lay Waste – Lay Waste (deathgrind)
Lord Of The Lost – Opvs Noir Vol. 2 (y tho?)
Lust Of Decay – Entombed In Sewage (brutal death metal)
Morbonoct – No One Knows We’re Dying (black/death metal)
Nattradio – The Longest Night (DSBM)
Neckbreaker – Mental Void (thrash metal)
Necrocranium – Risen to Fall (death metal)
Nel Buio – Nel Buio (black metal)
NetherDred – Lords Of Mayhem (bad metal)
Nílim – Uncoiling (death/sludge-drone)
Obelisk – Brushed By Darkness (meloblack)
Olde Throne – Megalith (black metal)
Ophelia’s Eye – Severance (groove metalcore)
Orbis de Ignis – Ancestral Strides (melogoth)
Phantom Corporation – Time And Tide (blackened/crust-death)
Pincer+ – Who Are You When No One’s Around (nu metalcore)
Rêvasseur – Reaper’s Gale (melodeath-doom)
Rob Moratti – Sovereign (Ozempic-John-Travolta AOR)
Rotten Sound – Mass Extinction (grindcore) Review
Sacred Leather – Keep The Fire Burning (speed thrash) Premiere
Sator – The Dying Light (sludge)
Second Harbour – Coalesce (emo)
Slamadeus – Pslams and Slamentations (slamming brutal death)
Star.gate – The Moment of a Lifetime (symphonic metal)
Stormsorrow – The Blood Red Horizon (groove metal)
Sun Of The Suns – Entanglement (prog death)
Tenebro – Una Lama D’Argento (death metal)
Ubruxum – Vomiting Dental Gore (brutal death, goregrind)
Unfyros – Star Blood (black metal)
Upon the Altar – Profanation’s Vapor (brutal/noisy blackened death)
Void Paradigm – Tout ira mieux sans nous (sludge black)
Void Paradigm – Tout Ira Mieux Sans Nous (noise/psyche sludge)
Volumes – Mirror Touch (Bad Wolves at home)
Weazzel – Make Money Not Friends (groove metal/thrash)