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PersefoneLingua Ignota: Part I

✦✦✦✧ More prog metal perfection, although I can’t help but feel like this one has been sanded a bit too smooth. Still, for a five-track, 26-minute half album, this is a remarkably unrushed and hauntingly mature release. New vocalist Daniel Rodríguez Flys definitely fits in nicely here with the rest of the band.

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VitriolSuffer & Become

✦✦✦✧ This album gives me chills, y’all. And not just because the band obviously took to heart my critique of their promising yet flawed 2019 debut, fixing or improving upon everything on it. Seriously, aside from the already-stellar shredding or vocals, Vitriol have improved their scores for every one of my criteria, resulting in a new benchmark for modern techdeath.

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KMFDMLET GO

✦✦✧✧ Poppy Eurodisco industrial which still works well enough. It kinda reminds me of a more party-friendly Rammstein, or a more aggressive Yello, if that means anything to you. (Oh yeah.) If you’re not already a fan of KMFDM, this isn’t going to bring you into the fold. But if you do already dig KMFDM, I’m sure you’ll eat this up.

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Enterprise EarthDeath: An Anthology

✦✦✦✧ Continuing their exploration of kitchen-sink post-deathcore, EE sacrifice cohesion for a cavalcade of endlessly tasty bits. This turns out to be a winsome choice, and a recipe for a grower of a record. As was also the case of its predecessor, the album is possibly 15 minutes too long for my attention span, but so what?

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Caligula’s HorseCharcoal Grace

✦✦✦✧ This album marks a subtle pivot for the band, emerging from CoViD as a djentier yet still proggy version of themselves (less Textures, more TesseracT). The music still tends to groove, it shreds when it needs to, and is remarkably listenable for an album that has three longform pieces (counting the 22-minute four-part title track).

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SaxonHell, Fire And Damnation

✦✦✦✧ Man, Saxon just don’t give up! Their twenty-fourth studio album is guaranteed to get your fists pumping, my olds. Also, I’m a sucker for historically-themed midtempo metal, and this album that in spades, from the Battle Of Hastings to aliens in Roswell NM). Who needs to stray from the formula when you’ve got The Goods?