Kerry King — From Hell I Rise
✦✦✧✧ A thoroughly passable Slayer-adjacent album. Don’t expect too many revelations or surprises; even Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda sounds more Arayaish here than usual. See the rest here
Category: First Listens
Aborted — Vault Of Horrors
✦✦✦✧ Holy hell. This is Aborted’s best work since at least Retrogore, and may even surpass The Necrotic Manifesto (their previous high water mark). This album answers every criticism I had from the previous two efforts, sticking closer to their tech death basecamp while still being experimental and borrowing moves from almost every other modern metal genre (with the exception of black metal). See the rest here
Job For A Cowboy — Moon Healer
✦✦✦✧ After seven years away, JFAC treat us with this powerhouse album, a followup to 2014’s Sun Eater. The band continue to hone their punishing brand of techdeath, flirting with a more experimental approach to their songwriting. The riffs on here: sheer madness. Shout out to the always great Navene Koperweis filling in on drums this time around (but everyone turns in epic performances here). See the rest here
Ministry — HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES
✦✦✧✧ Al-Pal ushers in 2024 with what is allegedly Ministry’s penultimate album. What that means is more guitar-forward industrial, with a shiny new production patina and not-at-all-novel spoken word samples, acting as a backdrop for anything that a left-leaning American might rail against these days (toxic masculinity, white nationalism, climate change, MAGA, you name it). See the rest here
Ihsahn — Ihsahn
✦✦✦✧ So, when I said that Ihsahn is my favorite Norwegian composer since Edvard Grieg, I didn’t mean that he had to go quite so orchestral with the music. The lush arrangements here often work, but when they don’t work, they sound as awkward as Michael Kamen and the SF Symphony’s contributions to Metalica (ie, conspicuous and ill-fitting). See the rest here
Klysma — Death
✦✦✦✧ At last, brutal death metal for Gen-Z metalheads! Almost all songs under 3 minutes long! No dynamics, just grossness! See the rest here
Mick Mars — The Other Side Of Mars
✦✦✧✧ I was going to say that I don’t know who this collection of lukewarm rockers is for, but I realized that I do know: it’s for Mick Mars, of course. See the rest here
Judas Priest — Invincible Shield
✦✦✦✧ Folks, this album is maybe everything I ever wanted from Priest. It’s anthemic, shreddy, speedy, gritty, and even more energetic than 2018’s Firepower. Andy Sneap’s production is top-tier, of course, but that only serves to showcase how great the whole band sound. Only time will tell if tracks like "The Serpent And The King" and "Trial By Fire" will take places aside "Painkiller" and "Breaking The Law"; regardless, this album is a must-listen. See the rest here
Ace Frehley — 10,000 Volts
✦✦✧✧ Shake them buns! See the rest here
Persefone — Lingua 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 RodrÃguez Flys definitely fits in nicely here with the rest of the band. See the rest here
