Top Pick
Harboured – We’re Only the Love That We Lead (progressive post-black/metal)
I don't know what it is about softer, more progressive-leaning, green covered post-black metal albums this year, that seems to be the best of what that increasingly exhausting/ed genre has to offer this year (see also). I don't even know if post-black is the right thing to be calling this album, maybe more "blackened/ish post metal", and there's a buch of post-hardcore in there as well. Whatever it is, it's certainly very posty, and very good as well. And all from a couple of guys from Allegaeon and the drummer from Emasculator and folkster Oak, Ash and Thorn. Go figure!
Release Roundup
A – Prang (alt rock)
Abandon Agony – Endbringer (melodeath)
Acidez – La ley de la calle (punk, hardcore)
Aeverius – Imminence (groove melowdeath)
Akiavel – ScelestVs (melodeath)
Anna Fiori – Metztli (prog metal)
Armored Saint – Emotion Factory Reset (heavy metal)
As the Sun Falls – Songs from the Veil (posty melodeath/black)
Ataraxia – Sylfaera The Fair (folk)
Barren Canyon – A Virulent Stream (post-black metal)
Bear – Anhedonia (alt metal/core)
Blindead 23 – Deuterium (blackened mellowprog)
Blood Prophecy – Road to Hero (melodeath)
Blossom Death – Spirit (doom metal)
Boys From Heaven – The Wanderer (AOR)
Burial Clouds – Burn Holy (doom sludge)
Caught In A Mirror – Neoncore (Electric Callboy very at home)
The Circle Of The Elect – Kaoskarma (black metal)
Corpse Water – …Something In The Water (brital death metal)
Corrossive – Inmortuae (blackened death metal)
Crimson Day – Dark Dimension (heavy metal, thrash)
Dan Byrne – This Is Where The Show Begins (hard/melodic rock)
Dark Millennium – Come (prog doom)
David Eugene Edwards – Mercurial Silence (goth country)
Deathstorm – Cascophonies (death thrash)
Desecresy – The Secret Of Death (death metal)
Dimmu Borgir – Grand Serpent Rising (more like bland serpent rising)
Downfall Of Nur – And The Firmament Will Burn… (progressive post-black)
Du Cane – Veil Of The Abyss (prog rock/metal)
Ecotage – Redemption (Heaven Shall Burn-core)
Elvenking – Rites of Disclosure (ower folk)
Embrace Of Souls – The Battle Of The Dead (power metal)
Ersedu – Gore (symphonic black/doom)
Fable – Long Hath The Night Dwelt (doom/occult rock)
Fatal Vision – Four Sides To Every Story (soft/melodic rock)
Goat the Head – Death by Default (crusty/blackened death metal)
Goddess – Ritual Of The Cloven Hoof (stoner rock/metal)
Gridiron – Lights Out (hardcore, nu/rap metal)
Heaven Is Sleeping – Heaven Is Sleeping (sludge doom)
Hellevate – Killicon Valley (groove/death thrash)
Hexenaltar – Descending Curse (black/death metal)
Horrific Visions – Remnants Of Atrophy (brutal death metal)
Hourswill – Ensemble (prog metal)
Infestation – Rituals Beneath the Crimson Sun (slamming blackened death)
Impure Wilhelmina – Le Sanglot (progressive post-black/gaze) Review
Jpegmafia – Experimental Rap (experimental rap)
Lore – Psychotic Trance Of The Black Nights (black metal)
Maebe – Brain Paint (post/math rock)
Maliciouz – Sympathypnotic Intercession (sludgey/funeral doom)
Mansvara – Sable Odes To Nihility (blackened death metal)
Marmozets – CO.WAR.DICE (indie/cowboy rock, general disappointment)
Moonlight Haze – Interstellar Madness (opera metal)
Necrotesque – Et Mortui Resurgent (death metal)
Night Spectre – Night Spectre (heavy/speed metal)
Noituma – Yhdeksän sairautta (folk metal)
Northborn – S/T (melodeath)
Opera IX – Veneficium (doomy black metal)
Oracle Of Worms – Cult Of Suffering (weird/noisy/blackened death metal)
Piolun – Exolvuntur (black metal)
Requiem In White – The Visible Heaven (post prog)
Rival Cults – Our Gods Need Blood (goth rock/punkl)
Sandstorm – Dungeon Of Death (heavy metal)
Sauvageoness – A Maze Deep In (post-pop, indie-gaze)
Serpent From Eden – Serpent From Eden Featuring Nick Menza (hard rock)
Shewolff – We’re All Gonna Fukking Die (crusty black-thrash)
Skip Danko B-Movie Road Club – Trippin’ On A Chinese Market (rock, punk)
Solipsism – Pedagogy for the Existentially Exhausted (meloblack)
Sonus – Planes Of Torment (heavy rock/metal)
Vision Divine – A Clockwork Reverie (melodic power metal)
Witching Hour – Descending…Where Time Has Ceased To Exist (doomy black-thrash)
XCIII – In Puncto Ad Inferna Descendunt (weird/blackened electro)
Xcomm – Time To Burn (hardcore)
Your Spirit Dies – It Is Well… (groove metalcore)