Converge – Hum of Hurt (progressive hardcore)
I ran out of time to properly write this up today. I'll try and come back tomorrow or next week and elaborate on just how good it really is. For now though, rest assured that Hum of Hurt is definitely the best of the two (!!) new Converge albums released this year, being packed full of the more adventurous and progressive tendencies that have become the band's trademark and which were noticeably (if not sorely) missing from We Were Never the Same.
August Burns Red – Season Of Surrender (metalcore)
From my review:
"While Season of Surrender isn't a complete return to form for the band who previously gave us genre-defining albums like Messengers (2007), Constellations (2009) and Found in Far Away Places (2015), it is a welcome and forceful reminder of just how good they can be when they cut away all the chaff and focus on writing the best, rather than the wildest, songs they can muster.
....
While I might just find this particular approach more personally appealing, I also think the added directness and groove make for a more instantaneous and memorable experience overall. The band haven't sounded this heavy or direct since Phantom Anthem (2017) ... but they also haven't sounded this tight and passionate either. This accentuated aggression is felt across Season Of Surrender's entirety."
Release Roundup
A. A. Williams – Solstice (doom)
Aeger Anima – The Falling Leaves (progressive black metal)
Alunah/Samavayo – Embers of Belief (stoner prog)
Ancient Rivalry – What Lives Beneath (death metal)
Apostle – A Splinter In The Infinite Noumenon (blackened sludgecore)
Art|Est – Evil Embodiment (death metal)
Baalzagoth – No God, No Savior (death metal)
Bad Stuff – Bad Stuff (gazey synth-goth)
Bedlam Royals – The Gap (post rock)
Black Glow – Waves and Mirrors – Mirrors and Waves (stoner doom)
Belushi Speed Ball – Toxic Waste Was Everywhere in the ’80s (power thrash)
Blood Incantation – All Gates Open (y tho?)
BloodRitual – …and Hell Came with ‘Em (blackened crossover)
Bloody Falls – IV (groove melodeath)
Blüdwyrm – The Blissful Sleep Of Ignorance (blackened sludge-doom)
Callous Faulter – Callous Faulter (progressive post-blackened-death-doom)
Chullachaqui – Epiphanic Perdition (blackened death-doom)
Cyhra – Requiem for a Pipe Dream (melodic prog-metal)
Dead Void – Cranial Devastation (death doom)
Death Cab for Cutie – I Built You a Tower (emo)
Devilz By Definition – Devilz Knight (death metal)
The Dharma Chain – Some Kind Of Pure State (post psyche)
Diabolic Oath – Unholy Barbaric Hymns (death doom)
Dissentient – Black Galactic (death metal)
Ditheist – Cosmic Liar (blackened death metal)
Embryonic Autopsy – Rise of the Mutated (death doom)
Dutch Elm – Dutch Elm (post rock)
Evanescence – Sanctuary (please stop)
Evergrey – Architects Of A New Weave (disappointing mellowdeath/doom)
Fournier – Fournier (death metal)
Frusen Sorg – Smärtpunkter (black crust)
Fucked Up – Year of the Monkey (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Godless – Adversus Parousia (blackened death metal)
Godless – Adversus Parousia (blackened death metal)
Grabunhold – Frostheim (black metal, meloblack)
Gravety – Of Cults and Chaos (trad metal)
Guilt Trip – Armour Of Angels (hard/metalcore)
Gurt – Survival Of The Shittest (shitty sludge-punk)
Hacksaw Tracheotomy – Tome of Diabolical Torments, Vol. 1 (slamming brutal death)
Headhunter D.C. – Rise of the Damned… (death metal)
Horn – Apokalyps 1618 (blackened death metal)
In a Forest Dark – To a God Unknown (post/gothy doom)
Iron Kingdom – Shadows And Dust (heavy/power metal)
Iselder – The 38th Division (black/death metal)
Jared James Nichols – Louder Than Fate (hard rock)
Lovelost – Picking Petals By Your Graveside (post-hardcore, screamo)
Lucrecia – Sedm hříchů (thrashy metal)
Maneating Orchid – Cold Logic (progressive death/grind)
Medusa’s Wrath – The Seventh Plague of Babylon (heavy metal)
Melodius Deite – Voiceless Sonneteer (power metal)
Midnight Rider – Limited Infinity (heavy rock)
Morbid Enema – Hurra Doof (shitty grind)
My Own Will – Misery (groove death)
Nights of Malice – Chaos Exordium (death metal)
No Vale Nada – Quidam (noisy mathcore, skramz probably)
100 Demons – Embrace The Black Light (metallic hardcore)
Oh Hiroshima – And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter (post rock)
Orbital Gate/Vault – New Vegas Gangster Slam (slamming brutal death)
Pretext – Riot Of The Ruined (shitty butt-metal)
Primitive Broadcast Service – Monsters (noise rock)
Pyromania – Satanic Violence (blackthrash)
Raat – Abstraction (post)
Revolting – Supernatural Anthems (death metal)
Rotten Tomb – Vestiges of Tortured Souls (death metal)
Scumsik – Lobotomy (groove metal)
Seven Metal Sins – Legacy Of Chaos (power metal)
Shane Embury – Bridge To Resolution (progressive post-punk)
The 69 Eyes –I Survive (goth rock)
Shooting Daggers – The Real Life Thing (post-hardcore, prog punk)
Sleepbomb – Songs in the Key of Conan (post doom)
Sleeping Pulse – Dreams & Limitations (prog rock/metal)
Slift – Fantasia (kraut doom)
Sons Of Ghidorah – Raining Fire (stoner metal)
Soul Exchange – Slow Descent (slamming crossover)
Space Parasites – Make Me Evil (thrash)
Stranded By Choice – Marooned In Stone (progish metal)
Suicide Forest – World of Decay (ambient DSBM)
Sunderwood – Scorched and Submerged (prog metal)
Thorium – Suburban Rot (death metal/doom)
Tidal Wave – Volume Tree (stoner rock/metal)
Together To The Stars – Iridescence (post-black metal)
Tommy Concrete – Sustained Beating (prog punk, thrash)
TTK – Племя зверя (groove death)
Urkraft – Naturens Skrik (black metal)
Unlucky Morpheus – Gate of Hell (symphonic metal)
Urzah – A Tranquil Void (meloblackened/posty prog-groove)
Voivod – Symphonique (live/symphonic tech-thrash)
Volus – Grim Dark Execution (dissish death metal)
Vithial – Awakened Ancient Spirits (black metal)
W.M.D. – Against All Warnings (tech/speedthrash)
Wes Parker – Super Rare (alt/indie rock)
Xenosis – Hermetic Transmutation (tech-death) Review
Üga Büga – Valley Of The Wolf (stoner sludge)