High On Fire — Electric Messiah
✦✦✦✧ This is Matt Pike et al at their most Motörheadesque. See the rest here
Category: First Listens
Immortal — Northern Chaos Gods
✦✦✧✧ Can Immortal still bring the frostbitten fury after parting ways with Abbath? Yep: this is classic Norwegian black metal, with all the wind-whipped ferocity you remember from albums past. Therein lies the rub: there’s not a whole lot newness here, and the album does feel a bit by-the-numbers. Still, this is a lovingly produced testament to an important band that still has plenty of bite. See the rest here
Sumac — Love in Shadow
✦✦✦✧ First off, don’t let the 4-song-66-minutes thing fool you: there are definitely sections and breaks in those tracks. That said, this feels like Sumac’s attempt at pulling a Catch Thirty Three. And the band pull it off a surprisingly high percentage of the time. Yet, this brand of post metal can’t seem to consistently bridle their experimentalism to the yoke of listenability. See the rest here
Psycroptic — As The Kingdom Drowns
✦✦✦✧ Groovy, surly, and above all tight as a drum. This band have improved their parlor trick of making catchy, accessible, technical death metal with feel. The title track alone is worth the price of admission, but the whole album is a Must Listen. See the rest here
P.O.D. — Circles
✦✧✧✧ This album feels like an unholy blend of every major nu-metal band’s example of their One Album After Their Last Good One. See the rest here
Pig Destroyer — Head Cage
✦✦✦✧ This is not exactly what I came to expect from Pig Destroyer. It’s oddly accessible… for a grindcore boot to the teeth. It’s also full of hints at a (dare I say) progressive streak running under the surface, if not quite erupting right on the skin. More than anything, this makes me excited for the next thing PD put out. See the rest here
Author & Punisher — Beastland
✦✦✧✧ This is Tristan Shone at the top of his game. Nasty, brutal, uncompromising industrial. This is also pretty much not metal. See the rest here
Unearth — Extinction(s)
✦✦✦✧ Once again, Unearth bust out of their metalcore pigeonhole and bring us an expansive, reimagining of the genre. Do I detect hints of Acacia Strain, Meshuggah, and Machine Head between the breakdowns? Headnoddin’ good times, brah! See the rest here
The Ocean — Phanerozoic I: Palaezoic
✦✦✧✧ While I applaud Robin Staps and his voracious creativity, this time around the result feels less focused and enthralling. The music starts out in solidly familiar territory, but then veers into post-metal, sounding at times like Deftones and A Perfect Circle. You would think this would be a good thing; I’m just not sure it is. See the rest here
Monuments — Phronesis
✦✦✧✧ More or less, this is an embodiment of everything that djent is trying to get away from. See the rest here
