Top Pick
Cryptic Shift – Overspace & Supertime (jazzy prog-death, aliens)
I don't have much to add to JD's excellent review, Cryptic Shift are back and operating at a much higher level than when we last left them, on 2020's already-excellent Visitations From Enceladus. The songs on Overspace and Supertime sure sound a lot like Atheist and—as good as they are—they could probably also and to be a little shorter, especially the half-hour long "Stratocumulus Evergaol", which is really just three ten-minute songs stuck together, but is also probably the best and most memorable song(s) on the album, so... There's also a pop punk riff in there somewhere, which is pretty unexpected, even for an album as overblown and outlandish as this. All I can really add is that I think this is a far better and more inventive than a certain other alien-themed prog-death album everyone was fawning over the other year; let's see if this one garners as much attention and celebration—it certainly deserves it.
Release Roundup
Acherontia – Pink S#!t Phantom Thunder (heavy metal, stoner prog)
Acerbic – Abhorrent Atrocities Against All Humankind (black/death metal)
Announce the Apocalypse – Void (heavy metal, melodeath-thrash)
Anubis – Anthromorphicide (death metal)
Birtawil – Dua Min (industrial)
Black Rain – Orphans of the Light (hair metal)
Black Reuss – Death (goth rock/metal)
Black Swan – Paralyzed (hard rock, heavy metal)
Blackwater Drowning – Obscure Sorrows (melodeath-thrash)
Bloom Filter – Closed Sets (progressive/dissish death)
Blunt Knife Castration – Blood & Oil (noise-sludge)
Bruecken – Years That Answer (post rock)
Burning Path – Burning Path (heavy/trad metal)
Carpenter Brut – Leather Temple (synthwave)
Cemetery Reign – Confined To Time (black/death metal)
Chalice – Divine Spear (doomy metal)
Crushuman – Imperial (death metal/grind)
Deeper Graves – Pull Me Toward The Dark (post-doom)
Die like Gentlemen – Die like Gentlemen (power sludge?)
Dioivo – Que Soe o Trono (blackened heavy metal)
Discordance – Viscere (tech-death)
Distorted Reflection – Doom Zone (doom metal)
Diva Karr – Call me Nothing, the Absence (noisy/chaotic black metal)
Divine Threat – Pillar of Agony (groove metal)
Drauliht – Truglicht der Revolution (blackened death metal)
Echoes of the Moon – Extract (very noisey post-black)
Faland – Narbenvolk (deathened meloblack)
Farson – Ein Stumpfes Instrument (weird/dissonant tech-death)
Final Gasp – New Day Symptoms (doomy alt-rock)
From Sheep To Wolves – Ephemeris (industrial/groove rock)
Gabriels – Fist of the Seven Stars Act 5: The Final Conflict (progressive/power metal)
German Garcia – Kintsugi (power metal)
Gladenfold – Soulbound (folky power metal)
Gladium Regis – Quest (folky meloblack)
The Gloom In The Corner – Royal Discordance (theatre-kid nu metal)
Glorious Bankrobbers – Intruder (heavy metal)
A Goat as Our Shepherd – Man Proposes, Earth Disposes (death metal, melodeath thrash)
Gorillaz – The Mountain (progish indie-pop, y tho?)
Harrowed – The Eternal Hunger (black doom)
Hathor – On the Edge of the Abyss (blackened death-thrash)
Hating Life – Revenge From Beyond (shitty death metal)
Heksproces – Dejlig er Jorden (post-blackened sludge)
Hela – A Reign To Conquer (melodoom)
Hemlokk – Letter to the Buried (folk)
Imbolc – Sette Cornici di Purificazione (black metal)
Internal Decay – Fires Of The Forgotten (melodeath)
It’sAlie – Wild Games (hard rock)
Izzy And The Black Trees – Kisses To Chaos (post-punk)
JeGong – Gomi Kuzu Can (post-prog, kraut rock)
Joel Hoekstra’s 13 – From The Fade (AOR, Girish-core)
Locus Noir – Shadow Sun (goth metal)
Marlugubre – Per Amor Nymphae (postish meloblack)
Matador – Above, Below And So (post rock/doom)
Mek Na Ver – Noctivaga (meloblack)
Melonball – Take Care (speed metal)
Memorial Gore – Hung Over Flames (groove death/grind)
Mývalyĭr – The Past Tales (groove melodeath)
Necrofier – Transcending Into Oblivion (black metal)
Necrosexual – Road to Rubble (crust punk)
Nerve Star – White Hot (heavy metal)
No Murder No Moustache – As Everything Else Decays (celtic rock/punk)
Nothing – A Short History Of Decay (shoegaze)
Novomundo – The Cursed Cult (groove death)
Olhava – Memorial (post-black metal)
Ossomancer – Banebjed’s Path (folkish meloblack)
Owls Over Oaks – O.O.O. (sludge drone)
Prison Of Mirrors – De Depulchris Occultis et Igne Profanationis (posty disso-black)
Rob Zombie – The Great Satan (spooky industrial metal)
Rod of Correction – Future Class (heavy metal)
Rotten Soil – I Worship Death (death metal)
Scratch One Grub – One (deathcore)
Slaveknight – Altar of Manifold Destiny (deathish black metal)
Sleep Throne – No One Can Save Us Now (black doom)
Speglas – Endarkenment, Being & Death (black metal)
Starless Void/Volt Ritual – Follow the Unknown (stoner rock)
Subversion Trigger – Subversion Trigger (thrash)
Templar – Conquering Swords (trad metal)
Toward the Throne – Midnight (progressive black metal)
Unburier – As Time Awaits (death thrash)
Unverkalt – Héréditaire (black metal)
Varials – Where The Light Leaves (droning doom-deathcore)
Venthiax – Rites Of Ra (black thrash)
Weedpecker – V (post/stoner prog) Premiere
A Wilhelm Scream – Cheap Heat (pop punk)