✦✦✦✧ Skinlab walk the thin line between revigoration and rehash, with just enough nu-metalisms to remind you who you’re dealing with (without the whole thing sounding dated). Most interestingly, there’s also enough shared DNA here with heavy acts like Tombs, Machine Head, and even Sepultura to make this music sound both familiar and novel. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Run, don’t walk to your nearest wifi enabled device (or if you are JaPaBo, inefficiently procure a hard copy in the format of your choice) to listen to this gem. For the first couple of tracks, which come out of the gates hard, it’s like you are listening to the best DM album of 1991 you somehow missed, but with better production. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The secret to this album is the free experimentation that Jinjer indulge in. The result reminds me of Destrage with less examples of inhuman shredding. But don’t worry: you’ll still get your Periphery, SikTh, and Mudvayne fix. It’s kinda nuts that Jinjer put out two excellent albums this year; crazier still that this latter release is the better of the two. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Much of what I wrote regarding my first listen to F2A2’s previous album The Great Collapse still applies here: this is some heavy and satisfying Gojiracore! If anything, this one is more of an experiment than its predecessor; that some of those experiments don’t pay off is to be expected. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ For their second album, Bad Wolves took their SiriusXM-friendly groove metal formula and… made it less interesting? See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ 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
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