✦✦✦✧ This is clearly intended to be Cattle Decap’s nihilistic master opus, and I can’t fault their approach: capitalize on the winningest moments from Monolith Of Inhumanity and The Anthropocene Extinction, set the action in space, and lace in some blackened death for even more epicness! See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ It’s ironic that an album that starts with a track titled “FUTURE METAL” trades so heavily in clichéd tropes. The metal gems on here are fewer and farther between the increased reliance on J-Pop, and honestly most of this album sounds like the soundtrack to Beat Saber… but don’t sleep on truly interesting and fun tracks like “Elevator Girl” or “Night Night Burn!” See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Slightly more melodic black metal, with loads more atmosphere than the band usually deliver, and just a hint of progressive friendliness to taste. It’s a subtle and cohesive admixture, and definitely scores highly on emotionality and immersiveness. Perhaps my favorite Abigail Williams album so far! See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Mildly engaging bleeps and bloops occasionally mixed with elements of currently popular music genres. I have no need to ever hear this again. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ I tried to listen to the new Leprous album (after not hearing any of their last few). My god, it’s fucking awful! I barely made it through half. Not even is it not metal, it is… I don’t know what the hell it is! Not even prog rock. Maybe vaguely in the vein of moodier stuff by bands like Marillion or Talk Talk, but not proggy either, and with vocals that are so ridiculously over the top falsetto that they sound like Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, but without any hint of irony. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ All of the ferocity you’ve come to expect from these glitchy metalcore legends. What makes this album interesting is how the band simultaneously pummel the listener and hold their fire for better pacing throughout the album. The album’s back half is as compelling and brutal as its front half, not an easy feat for anyone in this genre. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Shoegazey black metal/post-black done to perfection. That is to say, it’s moody, meandery, and slippery. The album’s high marks are a testament to how well the emotionality works. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Symphonic tech death that feels like a cross between The Faceless and Fleshgod Apocalypse. When it’s on (“Sisyphean Cycle”, “Consume And Assume”, “Desmoterion”, it’s fucking on. Otherwise, the music here does trend toward the derivative or at least very familiar. That’s pretty much the worst criticism I can level against this otherwise epic and impressive shredfest of an album. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ It makes a lot of sense that gothic metal would appropriate some of the milder, more polished elements of djent. And it makes a lot of sense that gothic mainstays Lacuna Coil would lead the charge. But what will blow your mind is just how much this new version of the Lacuna Coil formula works (or at least doesn’t outright fail). See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Speed metal and black metal, two subgenres that don’t often get successfully blended together, find an uneasy alliance in 1349’s latest album. Or rather, this happens in different ways throughout the album, which feels like at least three slightly different EPs, bookended by a few recurring “Tunnel Of Set” interludes, themselves a continuation of a trick first heard on 1349’s Demonoir album. See the rest here
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