As history has proven, it takes more than a line-up change to stop The Crown. Adding to the band's well-established blend of death, thrash, and punk, their latest album Crown of Thorns adds a hefty dose of Paradise Lost through some G-Mack influenced guitar leads and catchy mid-paced rhythms.
Portland's COFFIN ROT have levelled up with their second album. Dreams of the Disturbed continues the band's commitment to recreating Nineties death metal, with an added emphasis on musicianship
Haggus play a vintage (dare I say, "reeking") form of goregrind that borrows heavily from the speedy, no-frills early years of mincecore. 3 Cadavers, 2 Corpses and a Carcass is a six-song EP that sounds like it was recorded in a pig trough. Meanwhile the companion 7" No End in Suffering showcases the band's more eccentric tendencies, along with a truly impressive variety of unhinged vocal styles.
Finland's Ashen Tomb would probably bristle at being called "progressive", but they should get some credit for how many added wrinkles they bring to a classic death metal sound. Phlegmy vocals, eerie leads, and thoughtful arrangements elevate their grimy debut Ecstatic Death Reign above the usual Incantationcore.
Deivos were part of the same late Nineties Polish death metal explosion that gifted us Decapitated and Lost Soul (among others). Their seventh album Apophenia is in the recognizable Polish style (thrashy, technical, blast-centric), but adds some modern rhythmic flourishes that keep things interesting.
Italy's Perfidious play the kind of thrashing old school death metal that seemingly never went out of style in Europe. Their blasphemous second album Savouring His Flesh has plenty of USDM pinch harmonics to separate them from other death/thrash acts.
Props to Germany's Kanonenfieber for writing a metal album about war that doesn't devolve into jingoism or adolescent power fantasies. Die Urkatastrophe depicts the horrors of the first World War, set to a style of teutonic black/death that recalls the martial austerity of Samael's later albums.
Dreamless Veil is side project from Artificial Brain's Mike Paparo and Dan Gargiulo, in which the duo get to indulge their love of evil and reverb. The project's first release, Every Limb of the Flood, strips all the "gaze" and "post" from USBM, leaving the listener with unadulterated darkness and fury.
1349 first appeared at a time when "True Norwegian Black Metal" seemed to be in danger of going mainstream and losing its (frost)bite; their savage debut was a reminder that Helvete's fires still burned. 20 years and six albums hence, the band has shown they're capable of growth; anchored around a masterclass performance from drummer Frost, The Wolf & The King has plenty of cross-genre interpolation that brings to mind Frost's "other" band.
Dayton's Tryblith successfully recreate that bleak Scandinavian winter from their rust belt locale. Their third album Draconis Maleficium finds a perfect balance between second wave black metal's rawness and its icy grandeur, courtesy of some stellar synths...or maybe that should be "cosmic keys"?
Gaerea play modern, vaguely "post" black metal (as opposed to the "true" kind that looks like 1992 and smells of cheap beer and body odor). Coma is an album where the crystalline guitars of post rock morph into trem riffs, and where d-beats coexist with blastbeats.
To quote Geoffrey Sumner, the fourth album by Denver trio ORYX is a journey into sound. Through four tracks and forty minutes, Primordial Sky uses its glacial pace and discordant riffs to create a morose atmosphere above and beyond what most sludge bands attempt.
Almost 30 years ago, Wolf Brigade (in their previous incarnation as Wolfpack) were one of the bands that introduced me to "the d-beat" on a Dolores/Distortion Records sampler. Appropriate for their new home on Metal Blade, Life Knife Death throws plenty of arena-friendly Lemmy-esque moments and the occasion gallop into the bareknuckle metallic crust punk for which this den have become standard bearers.
A skronking tribute to Black Flag wasn't what I would have expected from three pillars of stoner rock, but that’s what you get with SUN AND SAIL CLUB. On Shipwrecked, former members of Kyuss and Fu Manchu are joined by vocalist Tony Reflex of The Adolescents to create the sequel to Slip It In that we never got.
Canadian grinders FÂCHÉ are set to one speed, and it's "ludicrous". Their second full-length in a ridiculously packed discography, Violent Au Volant is 35 tracks of blast and shred, never letting the listener rest (other than the occasional spoken studio out-take).
The sophomore outing by Human Impact puts the band's new rhythm section to good use. On Gone Dark, songs are propelled by the bass and drums, providing a driving, uncomplicated backdrop for Chris Spencer's distinctive Telecaster and Jim Coleman's electronics.
Danish trio BYE BYE TSUNAMI occupy some skronky terrain between jazz and noise rock. Their first full-length Eating lets woodwinds and electronics roam over an austere bass/drums backdrop, never settling for the prosaic. It seems Weirdsmas season starts earlier and earlier every year.
If you can't get enough of the midi metal of Master Boot Record (or just want to hear an 8-bit version of "Raining Blood"), then Milan's arottenbit will have you dancing like Donkey Kong. You Don't Know What Chiptune Is, the project's first full-length, is the sound of the world's discarded game cartridges rising from their landfills to take revenge on humanity. Dying pacman noises ensue.
