✦✦✦✧ A borderline great hardcore album that succeeds precisely because it gives you all the tropes you’d expect, only it pushes each’s intensity up to the maximum. Brickwall compression! Breakdown! Overdriven scream! Sudden left turn! Repeat! Familiarity does not always breed contempt. Now shut the fuck up and break something! See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Turnstile’s third album takes the experimentation of its predecessor and makes it look safe and timid by comparison. Here, the post-hardcore quintet set out to see just how far they can push and expand the limits of the beloved genre that they have so faithfully served. Track after track is full of surprises and delights. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I like the idea of a metal album inspired by a collection of horror flicks (Child’s Play, Hellraiser, Candyman) as much as the next guy. And I have a surprisingly high tolerance for radio-friendly melodic metalcore. Together, they feel at odds with each other, the music’s J-Pop tendencies clashing with and belying the subject matter’s demands for gross heaviness. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Dated, trite, and worst of all, just not very interesting. It’s almost like the band identified the most interesting, successful parts of the album’s 2018 predecessor Down Below, and resolved never to do that stuff again. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ A weirdly accessible and effectively moody album from this well-beloved German black metal band, Noktvrn introduces experimental elements with mixed results. Even with their misfires, it’s a compelling album worth listening to. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ As was the case with 2017’s Red Before Black, this album starts off by giving the people what they want: traditionally disgusting old-school death metal. And just like its predecessor, this album waits until a third of a way in, before revealing the really great stuff. From “Condemnation Contagion” on, this album showcases the band at their most reinvigorated and, dare I say, catchy? See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ All of the trademarks you’d come to expect from this Ukrainian quartet are still here: the chaotic changeups, ferocious riffs, adept performances. But there aren’t many memorable moments, as opposed to the genre-shaking hits from Micro and Macro. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is fucking ridiculous. The shredding, the changeups, the sheer number of strings… The production’s quantization and brickwall addictions notwithstanding, this is a must-listen for any tech death fan, and easily one of the genre’s best of 2021. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I was going to come right out and heap praise on Bruce’s vocals, but honestly everyone sounds great here. Not a single member of the band are phoning it in. That said, 80 minutes is a big investment in an album that doesn’t offer many iconic moments or hooks. Also, is it a concept album about board games? See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ ETID is as vital and imaginative as ever on this album, but this time around their mathy metalcore maelstrom feels more political than I recall them being before, in ways both overt and subtle. The album is chock full of pleasing surprises and upheavals. The whole band sound great, but special props to vocalist Keith Buckley, whose range is as impressive as his commitment to every style he reaches for, and to newcomer Goose Holyoak on drums, fresh off a few years with my other fave metalcore standardbearers Norma Jean. See the rest here
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