Top Pick
Xenobiotic – Dante (eventually-progressive/technical-deathcore)
Dante starts off a lot more generically than I would like. From about track(/circle?) four or so, however, it ups the progressive and technical elements significantly—creating something that sounds like a mix of mid-period Decapitated and Fallujah. It's a much better album for it and, while I wish they would have gotten there shorter, but I definitely enjoy where they ended up.
Release Roundup
Acranius – Whiteout (slamming brutal death/core)
Akem Manah – Threnodies (blackish goth-doom)
Aldheorte – The Wild Divine (black metal)
Axe Dragger – Axe Dragger (heavy metal)
Bitter Branches – Let’s Give The Land Back To The Animals (noise rock, hardcore)
Blackbraid – Nocturnal Womb (black metal)
Black Lung – Forever Beyond (posty prog-rock)
Bosse-de-Nage – Hidden Fires Burn Hottest (progressive/post-black metal)
The Darts – Halloween Love Songs (goth rock, horror punk)
Desert Collider – Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity (Kyuss-core)
Desert Storm – Buried Under the Weight of Reason (progressive stoner-metal/sludge)
Epigram – Obsolescent (meloblackened death metal)
Erra – silence outlives the earth (bad/boring metalcore)
Expiatoria/Il Segno del Comando – Voci Notturne (doom metal)
Face Pulp/Hibernaut – Split (sludge doom)
Fell Harvest – Way of the Scythe (prog doom)
Filth – Welcome To Shell Town (death/horrorcore)
Froglord – Lower & Slower (sludge doom)
From Ashes Reborn – Chasing Utopia (melodeath)
Full House Brew Crew – Glasgow Grin (groove death/core)
Gjenferd – Black Smoke Rising (stoner metal)
Gravemass – This Is The Way (deathened black metal)
Hibernaut/Face Pulp – Split (stoner doom)
Karelian Warcry – Veripellot (deathened black metal)
Kerry Kaverga – Bestiae Somnium Noctis (post metal)
Leaves Eyes – Song Of Darkness (sopranic power metal)
Legionary – Never-Ending Quest For Purpose (melodeath, metalcore)
Lizzard Wizzard – Worm War III (not King Gizzard)
Lömsk – Act II – Of Iron and Blood (black metal)
Lords Of Salem – Supersonic Vampire Pussy (Rob Zombie at home)
Lost Society – Hell Is A State Of Mind (Avenged Sevenfold at home/ruining my Amaranthe concerts)
Machinae Supremacy – Machinae Supremacy (heavy/prog metal)
Mega Colossus – Watch Out! (heavy metal) Review
Metal de Facto – Land of the Rising Sun – Part 2 (power metal)
Miserere Luminis – Sidera (post metal)
Mollusk – Cursebreaker (sludge drone)
Moon Tooth – Bastard (alty prog-metal)
More – Destructor (heavy metal)
Nailed Shut MA – A Promise Made, A Promise Kept (blackened deathcore)
Nefastis – Shadows At The Light Of Dawn (symphonic folk/black)
Noise River – Ruminations (prog rock)
Oathbound – Colors In Grey (modern metal)
The Primer – Perpetual Cycles Of Violence (brutal deathcore)
Putrisect – Putrisect (death metal/doom)
Quälen – Veri Virtaa Edelleen (crusty black metal)
Raibard – Postscript (psych/prog rock)
Red Usurper – Churn (groove metal)
Rosa Faenskap – Ingenting Forblir (“patricidal black metal”) Premiere
Savage Beat – Bright Lights, Tall Shadows (hard rock, punk)
Sermon To The Lambs – Sermon To The Lambs (brutal death metal)
The S.E.T. – Self Evident Truth (hardcore)
Shatten – Gegenwart (indie/kraut rock)
Soul Meanders – Abysm Of Time (gothish doom)
Subcutaneous Exsanguination – Eradication Fascination (brutal death metal)
Tardigrade Inferno – Hush (absolutely not)
Temple Of Void – The Crawl (death-doom)
Terravia – A New World (prog metal)
Triumpher – Piercing the Heart of the World (symphonic/blackened power-metal/doom)
Ukć – Anomalie – Upadek konającego ćwierćwiecza (progish meloblack)
Unreal City – Blood Memory (crossover thrash)
Virodh – Harvest Of Desolation (noisy death metal)
Vreid – The Skies Turn Black (progressive black metal) Review