✦✦✦✧ First off, I can’t in good conscience call this metal. That said, this is clearly one of the best metal albums of the year. The Armed are the closest group I can think of that truly treat the genre like it’s one equal color on their palette; they’re not metal-with-embellishments, and they’re not pop with high gain guitars.

✦✦✧✧ Former Arsies winners The Armed return with yet another slab of performance art (noise) that is about as metal as The Mars Volta or Boris, which is to say: tangentially. Still, Ultrapop hits my ears as subjectively more interesting than its predecessor Only Love. Pitchfork loves this album, so there’s that.

✦✦✧✧ Giving my beloved The Armed the benefit of the doubt, this is definitely some next-level noise art. However, the dearth of actual tunes here is notable, and a detriment to the album. I’ll listen to it again to see if it grabs me any more, but after my first listen, I’m not (yet?)

★★★☆ On paper, there should be nothing remarkable about this album. It’s extreme noisecore, produced by Kurt Ballou, with no real standout performances throughout. But in a strange way, that chimaeralike quality is the album’s greatest strength; without the distraction of distinctions, the resulting impact is more pure and devastating.