Top Picks
Rezn – Cycles In The Infinite Dream (post-prog)
If Cycles In The Infinite Dream had come out before we posted our Top 25 Albums of the Year So Far lists, it probably would have topped mine. This comes as a shock to me as much as it might to some of you. Previously, Rezn have professed a sludgier, doomier product. Here, though, they've taken a turn for more progressive pastures, resulting in a both a lighter and more engaging sound. Elder's Through Zero provides a popular point of comparison. However, there's also an almost uplifting, elated mournfulness to proceedings that reminds me of the first (superior) Pallbearer album, or even Pink Floyd, during its floatier sections—except they also throw a big, stonking Mastodon-style sludge-riff on the end of every other song as well. Fantastic stuff!
Sallow Moth – Hydrophilous Blood (weird prog-death)
This is some very good, weird prog-death.
Release Roundup
Bryan Eckermann – Return to Helmbrook (symphonic meloblack)
Caelestia – Revelations In Black (death metal)
Changing Places In The Fire – Changing Places In The Fire (prog metal)
Charli XCX – Music, Fashion, Film (roo-O-o-O-o-O-ooOk music)
Combichrist – The Venom In The Mouth Of God (industrial)
Cypress Hill – Dios Bendiga (stoner rap)
Coven Japan – Promised Land (heavy metal)
Ddent – Feeding The Void’s Luster (doom)
Divulsive – Spawned In Viscera (slamming brutal death)
Embodiment – Cryptomorph (prog metal)
Eternal Mourn – Winds Of Sorrow (melodoom)
Frostbite Terror – Into the Frozen Depths (folk metal)
Godagainst – Devouring Nameless Abyss (brutal death metal)
Goot – My Time (melodic metal)
Gormoth – The Man Who Became the Universe (ambient)
Gudewife – Atoms, Don’t Die (post rock)
Hopsydian – A Graceful Sin (baddiecore)
Horns Of Abomination – Horns Of Abomination (noisy goregrind)
The Hu – Hun (folk metal)
Into Darkness – Route To The Other Side (black thrash)
IX Of Blades – Way Of The Midnight Wave (proggy trad-black)
Jordsjø – Pestkrønikene (prog rock)
The Larches – Nihilistic Majesties (sludge death)
Litosth – Dreaming (meloblack)
Lockstep – I Know What I Saw (shoegaze)
Madball – Not Your Kingdom (hardcore)
Magic Opera – The Final Flight (symphonic power-prog)
Minipony – Detach (denty tech-sludge)
Mountainscape – Traversing Realms (post-metal)
New Forms – Nothing’s Sacred Anymore (noisey screamo)
North Sea Echoes – How To Cast A Shadow (goth metal)
Profane Burial – Desolate Echoes Of Turmoil (progressive black metal)
Reekmind – Glints From The Crematorium (sludgey death-ddom)
Ripper – Towards Rebirth (thrash death)
Rising Alma – Your Own Story (goth rock)
Scar Chamber – Ugly On The Inside (melodic/butt rock)
The Scepter – Shadows In The Tower (trad metal, speed thrash)
Spread the Disease – The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering. (crusty black metal)
Stay Dead – Beneath The Weight Of Worlds (doom)
The Strokes – Reality Awaits (boring indie, roo-O-o-O-o-O-ooOk music?)
Svjetlost – The Forever Silent (progressive post-doom)
Sôlt – The Millstone (blackened death metal)
Torpor – Ɖungeon Ɖescent (blackened trad-metal)
Toxic Carnage – Shadows of the Past (death thrash)
Tyraels Ascension – Grave Seeker (melodeath)
Vera Lux – Supernova (symphonic folk/power-metal)
The Vicious Head Society – Call Of The Void (prog metal)
Viscera/// – 4. Assets For Psychedelic Warfare (post metal, altgaze)
Vokkr – Golden Forest (gothic black metal)