✦✦✧✧ After a treacly intro, OG deliver another solid suite of melodeath. There’s not a lot of envelope pushing here, which is not surprising for this band. Still, strong musicianship and standard-setting catchiness are coupled with tasty riffs in a way that proves that the formula still works well enough to get the job done. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is a really interesting slab of avant-garde grindy blackened deathy metal, reminiscent of Gorguts, Artificial Brain, Torrential Downpour, and Kronos Quartet. It’s insanely ambitious and highly inventive. The album loses points for its uneven production, however. While this is certainly not for everyone, if you’re the kind of metalhead who also likes jazz, this is a must-listen for you. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ A nicely balanced bit of retro death metal, with touches of grindcore and… Converge? See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is Matt Pike et al at their most Motörheadesque. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Can Immortal still bring the frostbitten fury after parting ways with Abbath? Yep: this is classic Norwegian black metal, with all the wind-whipped ferocity you remember from albums past. Therein lies the rub: there’s not a whole lot newness here, and the album does feel a bit by-the-numbers. Still, this is a lovingly produced testament to an important band that still has plenty of bite. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ First off, don’t let the 4-song-66-minutes thing fool you: there are definitely sections and breaks in those tracks. That said, this feels like Sumac’s attempt at pulling a Catch Thirty Three. And the band pull it off a surprisingly high percentage of the time. Yet, this brand of post metal can’t seem to consistently bridle their experimentalism to the yoke of listenability. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Groovy, surly, and above all tight as a drum. This band have improved their parlor trick of making catchy, accessible, technical death metal with feel. The title track alone is worth the price of admission, but the whole album is a Must Listen. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ This album feels like an unholy blend of every major nu-metal band’s example of their One Album After Their Last Good One. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is not exactly what I came to expect from Pig Destroyer. It’s oddly accessible… for a grindcore boot to the teeth. It’s also full of hints at a (dare I say) progressive streak running under the surface, if not quite erupting right on the skin. More than anything, this makes me excited for the next thing PD put out. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This is Tristan Shone at the top of his game. Nasty, brutal, uncompromising industrial. This is also pretty much not metal. See the rest here
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