Top Picks
Nequient – Avarice (weird/sludgy/progressive tech-death/grind)
I got carried away re-arranging my pedal board, and I also wasn't quite done giving the new Amity Affliction album a kicking, so this one's coming in hot! There are a lot of big-name releases out this week, but none of them are really doing it for me. Again then, we must look to the smaller artists to carry us through these unfulfilling times, for it is there that we can aquatint ourselves with the marvelous oddity that is Nequient's Avarice.
As you could probably tell from the the delightfully twisted video for the delightfully titled "Christofacist Zombie Brigade" that Eden premiered earlier this year, this is some delightfully weird shit. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it, other than it's an odd mix of the seemingly opposed sub-genres of sludge metal and grindcore with a bit of tech and prog death mixed in, but also doesn't really sound anything like Soylent Green, who are the only other band I can think of that really matches that description (and are also apparently still a thing?). Perhaps they also remind me of a more controlled and accessible (dare I say enjoyable) Pyrrhon, although that might just be the cover art. A lot of it sounds like early Baroness with Pig Destroyer vocals, or a sludgier take on more recent Napalm Death outings. There's even some classic Kvelertak-style heavy metal accents along the way, and the last song also indulges in some full-blown Black Sabbathian doom. It's a fucking trip, that's for sure.
Release Roundup
The Amity Affliction – House Of Cards (incidentally hilarious metalcore) Review
Anubis – Anthromorphicide (heavy metal, death thrash)
Archaic Oath – Determined To Death And Beyond (meloblack)
Armed For Apocalypse – The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me (sludge metal/core)
At The Gates – The Ghost Of A Future Dead (samey/unremarkable? melodeath) Review
Astraya – Atropine (post/goth doom)
Atlantic Ridge – Atlantic Ridge (black metal/doom)
Atmancer – Zeropointfive (sludge)
Atreyu – The End Is Not The End (who even listens to this?)
Atsuko Chiba – Atsuko Chiba (indie/psych prog) Premiere
Aversio Humanitatis – To Become The Endless Static (black metal)
Barendhate – Estonia (blackened crust-sludge)
Battleroar – Petrichor (power metal)
Black Revelation – No Light upon Us All (doom metal)
Blindead 23 – Deuterium (doom sludge)
Bone Reaper – Obsessed With Death / Driven to Kill (thrashy melodeath)
Bringers Of Disease – Sulphur (blackened death metal)
Cavs – Sojourn (funky jazz)
Cardiomyotomy – Beautifying Loathsome Cadavers (slamming brutal death)
Chevreuil – Stadium (noise sludge?)
Cnoc an Tursa – A Cry for the Slain (meloblack)
Cnoc An Tursa – A Cry For The Slain (melogoth)
Corrosive Agent – Vastator Mundi (melodeathcore)
Creye – IV Aftermath (Ronan Keating-core)
Death Lens – What’s Left Now? (pop punk)
Degreed – Curtain Calls (melodic prog-metal)
Demon Spell – Blessed Be The Dark (King Diamond)
Devil’s Cut – Roadkill (nu Nickelback)
Devoid Of Thought – Devoid Of Thought (noisy black metal)
A Dream of Poe – Katabasis: A Marriage Among Ashes (goth doom)
Druid Stone – Only for Initiates (noisy noise-doom)
Dust Lovers – Green Screens (synth metal, new wave)
Dyecrest – Defying Gravity (melodic/symphonic metal)
Dysmorfectomy – Black Hole of Intertwined Corpses (try finger…)
Eternal Dark – Cugetări (death metal)
Einar Solberg – Vox Occulta (orchestral prog-metal)
Elegant Weapons – Evolution (melodic rock)
Failure – Location Lost (progressive alt-rock) Review
Fall Of Messiah – Geen Lands (post rock/metal)
FangSlinger – Welcome To The Lost Souls Saloon (shitty southern metal)
Foo Fighters – Your Favorite Toy (who cares rock)
Generation Radio – Take Two (pop rock, AOR)
Golgotha – Hubris (black/goth doom)
Gorgar – Gorgar (death metal)
Gus G – Steel Burner (shred)
HighWay – Last Call For Rock’N’Roll (dudes rock?)
Hokka – Via Miseria IV (absolutely not)
Imundície/Organic Brain Disorder – Crônicas Cruentas da Ultraviolência Demencial / Crime Report: Homicidal Dismemberment (goregrind)
Infected Dead – Invicta (techish death metal)
Inhale – Blue Moment (thrashy melodeath)
Jim Papadatos – Judgement Day (instrumental groove metal)
John Corabi – New Day (y tho?)
Kaasin – The Underworld (melodic rock)
Kneecap – Fenian (Irish hip-hop)
Konquest – Dark Waters (heavy metal)
Krooked Tongue – I Know A Place (stoner rock)
Kõdu – Kirjad sõgedate külast (meloblack)
Lightning Bolt and OOIOO – The Horizon Spirals / The Horizon Viral (electro noise)
Living Fast – Running Across Steel (heavy/speed metal)
Luciferian – Where Rivers of Sorrow Flow (meloblack)
Lynx – Trinity Of Suns (trad metal, prog rock)
Metric – Romanticize the Dive (electro/indie pop)
Mortuary – Great Black Earth (blackened death-thrash)
Necroccultus – The Afterdeath Blackness (death metal)
Necrotted – We Are the Gods That Tear Ourselves Apart (groove death/core)
Nixil/Drouth – Toward Dead Temples (crusty black/death)
Novem – Hellmouth (blackened deathgrind)
Nuclear Messiah – Black Flame (heavy metal, melodic/prog rock)
Omnivortex – Throne of Absolute Chaos (death metal)
Oracle of Worms – Cult of Suffering (death metal)
The Order – Empires (heavy metal/rock)
Oscura Metrica – Obnubilatio Psychasthenica (black metal)
The Overthrone – Reclamation (blackened melodeath)
Pig’s Blood – Destroying The Spirit (brutal/blackened death metal)
Plini – An Unnameable Desire (prog, shred)
Portrayal Of Guilt – Beginning Of The End (nu black-metal, industrial hardcore)
Poignard – Riposte (speed metal, thrash)
Poseydon – Time is a River and the Waters are Red (death thrash)
Powerrage – Beast (power black)
Premier Jester – Turn You On (Electric Callboy at home)
The Prestige – Isthmos (post-hardcore)
Pure Wrath – Bleak Days Ahead (post-black metal)
Qattara Depression – What is the Depression? (stoner/sludge doom)
Rahvira – In the Darkness of Silence (black metal)
Rake-Off – Total Venom (crossoverish thrash)
Riverflame – Lunar Crusades (meloblack)
Roman Candle – Unadulterated (metalcore)
The Saddest Landscape – Alone With Heaven (gothy/post-blackened hardcore)
Saratoga – En Estado Puro (heavy metal)
Scimitar – Scimitarium II (noisy black metal)
Sepultura – The Cloud of Unknowing (groove/death thrash)
Seum – Parking Life (stoner metal, sludge)
Sewer Altar – Fever Dreams Of Vengeance (deathgrind)
Shadowlands – 004 (post goth)
Since The Death – Entangled (prog/tech-ish death)
Six Feet Under – Next To Die (shitty death metal)
Tabernis – Seasons Of The Dark Hive (folk)
Terminally Your Aborted Ghost – Putrefaction in Parallax (brutal death metal)
Terror – Still Suffer (hardcore)
30 Denari – Kindly Plotting For Riot (goth rock/metal)
Thy Sanatorium – Thy Sanatorium (symphonic black/death/prog/thrash)
Tons – Stoned Villains (stoner/psych rock)
Toxikull – Turbulence (heavy metal)
Undercroft – The Killer Sword (death metal)
Ural – Anthropic Genetic Involution (thrash)
Vaeovon – Spiritual Nullification (noisy black/death)
Volcandra – Beyond The Will Of Mortals (melodeath)
Vomit Forth – In the Name of the Father (brutal death/grind/core)
Weaving Shadows – Existential Decay (shitty doom)
Whirlwind – 1640 (heavy metal)
White Tundra – Stories From The Dark (stoner doom)
Witch Piss – The Devil Doesn’t Burn (stoner sludge)
Witherhoard – For All Who Have Been Broken (melodeath)
Xorsist – Aberrations (death metal)
Üga Büga – Valley of the Wolf (stoner rock/metal)