Top Pick
Møl – Dreamcrush (progressive post-black metal, emo?)
There's a new Urne record out this week. It may have been my most anticipated album of the year, until the new Converge got announced at least. As you can probably tell from its lack of top-pickedness, it also turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I was going to review it, but then Angry Metal Guy published their review of it, which is more or less word-for-word what i would have said—except to characterise their sound as clearly thrash-based, rather than post-metal/or post hardcore—so it seemed redundant to review it again here. I might put the blame upon myself, except we have the new Lamb of God and Sylosis albums as well, and they both slap pretty hard. It's a big month ahead for riffs, even if we're off to a bit of a limp start.
Instead, I find myself this week enamored with the new one from hotly tipped Danish post-blacksters Møl. This is surprising for two reasons. One, is my general distaste for post-black metal—low-effort examples of which—I assure you—are on the precipice of being blanket banned from these roundups, just like their postless counterpart, and would have been long ago if I could actually tell the difference between good and bad examples of the basic form. Two, is the uneasy addition of brighter, almost emo-leaning aspects showcased in the singles leading up to its release, which had both me and longtime fans of the band a tad concerned.
Dreamcrush overcomes both these reservations by so obviously excelling within its filed, while simultaneously bursting beyond it. The emo digressions also make perfect sense in context. Lead single "Garland", while jarring in isolation, works perfectly as the centrepiece of album, while the luscious "Crush" serves as the perfect album closer, coming across like a mix between that last Astronoid album and later Woods of Ypres gone gaze. If that description doesn't make any sense, it's because Dreamcrush has a personality all of its own, even as it draws obvious (admittedly normie) comparisons to Deafheaven. I'm not really sure where this fits in with Møl's own evolution, but—from an outsider's perspective—it's as if they've taken the softer sound implied by that band's Sunbather (2013) and even some of the post-punk experimented with on Infinite Granite (2021) and Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (2018) and absolutely run with it. It's no New Bermuda (2015), and I doubt it will be received as rabidly as Lonely People With Power was last year, but it might just be the next best thing.
Release Roundup
Anal Trump – Fuckin' Bitch (grindcore)
Axe Victims – Hypnotized (when keeping it unreal goes wrong)
Banisher – Metamorphosis (death thrash)
Bethesda – Bethesda (ooer!)
Blackwater Holylight – Not Here Not Gone (post-rock, alt-gaze)
Bödel – Dödsbringaren (crust)
Buddah – Amyotrophy (death metal)
Buzzcocks – Attitude Adjustment (grandpa punk)
The Chuck Norris Experiment – Hot Stuff Vol. 3 (hard/southern rock)
Circular Ruin – A Sermon in Tongues (crustish black metal)
The Crown of Yamhad – What Ghosts Reveal (post goth-doom)
Cyclone – Known unto God (thrash)
Deathmarch – Violent Retaliation (crust death)
Defaced – Icon (brutal death metal)
Dreamkillers – Proiphys Cunninghamii (y tho?)
Exil – Karga (goth doom)
Eximperitus – Meritoriousness Of Equanimity (brutal prog-death)
Fili Bibiano’s Fortress – Death Is Your Master (heavy metal)
For Ruin – Painted in the Colours of War (meloblackened death metal)
Francis Rossi – The Accidental (rock)
Gavran – The One Who Propels (sludge doom)
Gibbeting – Execution Rampage (brutal deathgrind)
Gorrch – Stillamentum (blackened/disso death-doom)
Hällas – Panorama (synth pop, rock?)
Hanabie. – Hot Topic (electro metalcore, Kawaii metal)
HarXson – Can’t Kill Us (death thrash)
Hate Complex – Dissonance (nu deathcore)
Hellmaze – Dead Flesh Rising (groove metal, death-doom)
Hér – Monchrome (folk)
Hot Ram – Near Fall (sludge doom)
Indica Blues – Universal Death Heat (stoner doom)
Invictus – Nocturnal Visions (brutal death metal)
It It Anita – Hi Hi Ha Ha (alt/noise rock)
Jagged City – There Are More Of Us, Always (post-metal)
Joyce Manor – I Used to Go to This Bar (indie rock, pop punk)
Kosuke Hashida – Moment Of Silence (death metal)
Krateros – Lost In Translation (progressive metal)
Legion DC – Life After Ashes (thrash)
Lone Wanderer – Exequiae (funeral doom)
Lord Elephant – Ultra Soul (stoner metal/doom)
Malignant Aura – Where All Of Worth Comes To Wither (death metal/doom)
Minus Youth – Lines Crossed (hardcore)
Nightmarer – Hell Interface (disso-death) Review
Nödtveidt – Black Light Pantheon (deathened/folky black metal)
Noirnoise – Plant Resilience (rock)
Obscurity – Ascheregen (melodeath/black)
Our Mirage – Fractured Minds (nu baddiecore)
Pillar Amongst Willows – Kindred Odyssey (progressive black metal)
Pits – Macabre Luxuria (black metal)
Planet Hunter – Soothsayer (alty stoner-rock/metal)
Profane Elegy – Herezjarcha (black metal)
Qasu – A Bleak King Cometh (noisy post-black/doom)
Rave In Fire – Square One (melodic rock)
Redwood – Time To Lose (stoner rock/doom)
Roth – Alles Endet (blackened folk metal)
Scrüda – Extreme Speed Violence (deathgrind)
Shields – Death & Connection (post/electro metalcore?)
Shine – Wrathcult (blackened death metal)
Sidious – Malefic Necropolis (black metal)
Skulld – Abyss Calls To Abyss (crusty death metal)
Stabbing – Eon Of Obscenity (brutal death metal)
Summer Of Hate – Blood & Honey (doom/occult rock)
Sweatmaster – More! (punk, rock)
Tarlung – Axis Mundi (stoner/death-doom)
Teutonic Slaughter – Cheap Food (death thrash)
Thy Sanatorium – No Flag Left To Burn (boobies!)
Uninhibited – From Flesh To Void (death metal)
Urne – Setting Fire To The Sky (progish groove/stoner-tharsh)
Vandor – The Ember Eye Part II: The Portal of Truth (power metal)
Vaulderie – Sanguinoctum (black/death thrash)
Vault – Forced Evolutionary Virus (slam)
Viamaer – In Lumine Lunae (post-black/gaze)
Wicked Leather – Season Of The Witch (heavy/doom metal)
Witch – The Hex Is On… And Then Some (heavy metal)
Wolfenstein – Death Brigade (blackened death-thrash)
Wstret – Enlightened Misanthropy (brutal blackened-death)