Top Pick
Only Sons – Through the Night Again (progressive mello-metal)
Not a whole lot of notable new releases out this week. ...Which is a good thing! Because it means smaller acts like Only Sons who might have otherwise slipped through the cracks get their time to shine. The Polish act's previous and only other album, Lions and Unicorns (2019), was more of a "southern"-fried, Corrosion of Conformity-style stoner metal affair (while also being a lot better than that band's recent release as well, IMHO). With Through the Night Again though, Only Sons have completely reoriented their sound so that it has more in common with the progressive, mel(l)o(w)death of a band like Evergrey, mid-period Audrey Horne or maybe even In Vein, with a bit of residual stonerish-ness and some occasional Tool-isms (see "Blindman") to give it a bit of extra heft. I don't know what the impetus for the change in style was, but I remain somewhat staggered that an album like this came from a little-known Polish stoner band, and glad that I get the chance to highlight it here after the glut of massive metal releases that have dominated the year so far.
Release Roundup
Abrams – Loon (progressive alt-rock)
Adgar – Máscaras y demonios (progressive melodeath)
Ageless Gateway – Corruptor Of Stars (black doom)
American Sharks – Not Dead Yet (alt/stoner punk)
Anthea – Beyond The Dawn (shitty-goth metal)
Ashley Kilingfelde – Palindrome (shitty death metal)
Atrides – Leda (post sludge)
Atropal – Burn the Skies (instrumental, post-black)
Aziola Cry – Dysphoria Ritual (instrumental prog-metal)
Beneath Purgatory – …of the Depths (meloblack)
Cabaret Fantôme – Hollow Sun (post prog)
Catalysis – Serpentine (groove metal/core)
Class Traitor – The Images Aren’t Mine (sludgey post-metal)
The Cosmic Dead – Beyond The Beyond (psych rock)
Crimson Glory – Chasing The Hydra (prog metal, power thrash)
Crippled Black Phoenix – Sceaduheim (gothy alt-prog)
Crypt Crawler – To The Grave (death doom)
Daemonium Regni – Daemonium Regni (black doom)
Death Warmed Up – Wildcard (hard rock, stolen valor)
Demons My Friends – Survive/Yourself (stoner doom)
Draken – Here Be Draken (stoner thrash)
Dysthymia/Trichomoniasis – Split (noisy goregrind)
Exorcizphobia – Neurosis Unbound (thrash)
The Fals – Where Cold Steel Gleams (black metal/thrash)
Filial – Pensive in Reminiscence (post-black metal/gaze)
From Ashes To New – Reflections (bad/diecore)
.Gif From God – Dissimulation (do people still care about this band?)
Godsnake – Inhale The Noise (melodic thrash)
Gout – Actual Bastard (sludge)
Gurthworm – Circumference (gurth rock)
Hardline – Shout (heavy/melodic metal)
Haze Mage – High Fantasy (trad doom)
Hold My Own – Pay No Mind (hardcore)
Holosoil – Animal (prog metal)
Honeybunches Of Death – Waist Of Money (y tho?)
Ignobleth – Manor Of Primitive Anticreation (sludgy death metal)
Infestuous – Unfathomable Mutagenic Abominations (brutal/trechish death metal)
Kannine – Khaos (brutal deathcore)
Karmamoi – Eternal Mistake (prog)
Kill The Silence – Resolve (post-hardcore, metaclore)
The Last Ten Seconds Of Life – The Dead Ones (boring djethcore)
Lividus – Scarabaeus (prog black, tech death)
Leila Abdul-Rauf – Andros Insidium (psych doom)
Master Dy – Milf Queen (who even…)
Master’s Ashes – How The Mighty Have Fallen (blackened stoner metal)
Mat McNerney – The Bones of the Dead, or Three Turns Counterclockwise (post folk)
Miserably Ever After – Multiple Fatalities (noise sludge)
The Moon And The Nightspirit – Seed Of The Formless (goth/post doom)
Muerto – Eclipsed Realms (black metal)
The Mugshots – Gloomy, Eerie And Weird (spooky rock)
Mylingar – Út (noisy black metal)
Necromancer – Unholy Trinity (black thrash)
Necromorbid – Ceremonial Demonslaught (blackened deathgrind)
Nine Inch Noize – Nine Inch Noize (industrial rock remixes)
Nolove – I tak wszyscy umrzemy (post metal, DSBM)
Occult Hand Order – Meaningless Monuments (post rock)
Ordh – Blind In Abyssal Realms (death metal)
Pilori – Sans adieu (blackened death metal)
Pissrot – Absolute Form (pissy death metal)
Preludio Ancestral – Guardians Of Twilight (power metal)
Primal Warfare – After The Flames (death metal/thrash)
Prince Daddy and the Hyena – Hotwire Trip Switch (alt rock, punk)
Reeking Aura – On The Promise Of The Moon (death metal)
Rise Of Kronos – Slaves Of Time (blackened death metal)
Sabiendas – Puppeteer Of Doom (death metal)
Sandmind – 13 Pragas Infernais (heavy metal, groove thrash)
Severe Overbite – Evil Minds (prog rock, trad metal)
Silence Equals Death – From The Ashes (hardcore, rock)
Since The Fire – Remains Embraced (cunt, troll)
Skjenk – The Thirst Amendment (punk, rock)
Skindred – You Got This (nu/ragga metal)
Sleep Throne – Swamp Mentality (posty sludge-death)
Stench of Sorcery – The Palegold Menace (melodeath)
Sun Fall Down – Burn (prog/occult rock)
Tabestic Enteron – Bērnēdājs (prog/tech death)
They Might Be Giants – The World Is to Dig (Malcolm in the Middle-core)
Thunderor – Bleed For It (speed rock)
Underground Fire – Hollow Grounds (rock)
Vanderlust – The Human Farm (shitty prog metal)
A Very Old Ghost Behind The Farm – Canes Gothi (sludge)
Victorious – World War Dinosaur (Jee Hevisaurus!)
Vile Light – Deceiver’s Blight (blackened death metal)
Wage War – It Calls Me By Name (death/metal-core)
Warren Schoenbright – Two Dances For The End Of Days (black sludge)
Warside – Cognitive Extinction (brutal death metal)
Witchmyth – Spectra Dominus (sludge doom)
Yikes – Yikes (prog skronk)