Combichrist — One Fire
✦✧✧✧ Who even wants to make industrial anymore? This is fucking awful. See the rest here
Category: First Listens
Fleshgod Apocalypse — Veleno
✦✦✧✧ This is a fun record to listen to. That said, whether you’re already a fan of FGA or are only hearing of their brand of orchestral tech death now for the first time, this album’s unvaried production and all-too-familiar riffage suggest that you should listen to the band’s previous album “King” instead. See the rest here
Pelican — Nighttime Stories
✦✧✧✧ Less entertaining than the band’s prior album “Forever Becoming,” this collection of instrumental sludgy post-metal songs asks too much indulgence in its aimlessness. I’m sure I’d like it a lot more if I was baked out of my fucking skull, but that should be a value-add, not a requirement. See the rest here
Dreadnought — Emergence
✦✦✦✧ While I’m enthusiastic about the idea of “prog doom” (“doom prog”?) on paper, this album is a tough one to get aboard, likely because the outcome of such a formulation is (by definition) shoegazey and moribund. Still, this album is probably the best prog doom implementation you can find. Props to vocalist/guitarist/flautist Kelly Schilling for girding the whole album with a sumptuous lushness, although really the whole band is committed to this layered enterprise. See the rest here
Whitesnake — Flesh & Blood
✦✦✧✧ Shake them buns! See the rest here
Baroness — Gold & Grey
✦✦✧✧ I’m still not sure if this is metal. I will say however that I thoroughly enjoy pretending that this album has like 5 bass guitars on every track. See the rest here
After The Burial — Evergreen
✦✦✦✧ Have I ever said “djentcore” before? Because that’s what this is… and I kinda dig it. The best track on the album is its opener, “Behold The Crown” (which might win for use of pinch harmonics alone, and boy do they make a meal of it here). However, there is an almost-great tinge to almost every aspect of the album, from songwriting to riffage to production. See the rest here
Warforged — I: Voice
✦✦✦✧ An intriguing debut album of progressive blackened death metal that is more surefooted than it has any right to be. Think latter-day Gorguts cross-pollinated with Fredrik Thordendal’s “Sol Niger Within.” It’s pervasively dark, ambitiously imaginative, and hugely atmospheric (in a way that feels more earned than you typically get from black metal bands these days). See the rest here
Death Angel — Humanicide
✦✦✧✧ If you’ve ever listened to this band over the past 37 years, this album will not come as any great surprise. I wouldn’t even call it re-thrash, but that’s part of the band and album’s strength. The riffage and shredding are top-notch, although the songwriting only approaches greatness here and there. See the rest here
Flub — Flub
✦✦✦✧ This debut album from tech death supergroup Flub (featuring members of Alterbeast, Rivers Of Nihil, and Vale Of Pnath) manages to tick every box your expectations may already have, while still hewing far from their more traditional roots. There’s an added lightheartedness that works well enough. Is this the perfect union of technicality and accessibility? See the rest here
