Abyssal — Antikatastaseis
★★★☆ This is a pretty good poor man’s Gorguts. See the rest here
Category: First Listens
Behold! The Monolith — Architects of the Void
★★☆☆ This album finds the star-crossed band aiming for Mastodon-style sludge… and just missing the mark slightly. The music lands in this uncanny valley where it’s too wanky to effectively grab you the way that great stoner metal usually does, and at the same time too often the music is also sleepier than you’d want from a fun shredfest. See the rest here
Ensiferum — One Man Army
★★★☆ My first though, on hearing the typical-for-folk-metal intro, was “God, I fucking hate folk metal.” And then the actual metal proceeded to kick my teeth in. It drags about two-thirds of the way through, but then the band throw a wild curveball with the disco stylings of “Two Of Spades.” See the rest here
Strung Out — Transmission.Alpha.Delta
★★☆☆ No-nonsense punkthrashrock. As odd as that phrase seems, it’s the best description I’ve got for this album. Once it starts, the ride don’t quit. It’s a bit simplistic and without a huge amount of variety, but it’s excellently executed for what it is. Also, it’s got a good beat, and I can bug out to it. See the rest here
Author & Punisher — Melk En Honing
★★★☆ This latest album from Tristan Shone is dystopian in a way that most industrial acts only give lip service to, evocative of Skinny Puppy and NIN at Trent’s most experimental. It’s also awfully heavy, and yet manages to be catchy (just not in a Taylor Swift way). It’s perhaps one track too long for my tastes, but coming from someone with a documented distaste for the terminally slow, that’s saying a lot. See the rest here
Dark Sermon — The Oracle
★★☆☆ This is some excellently moody doomish metal, but it’s ponderous in length, and after a while I kinda tuned out. I could tell now and then that interesting stuff was happening, but those gems are surrounded by a whole lot of interchangeable plodding. I rate this 2 out of 4 grunts. See the rest here
White Widows Pact — True Will
★★★☆ This is music designed to be heard at painful volume in a smoky beer-stained bar, a winning blend of grindcore and sludge. It sounds like Carcass and Entombed had a nasty baby. See the rest here
Intronaut — The Direction Of Last Things
★★★★ This is the prog metal masterpiece that I always knew Intronaut had in them. On this album, the band have managed to showcase all of their strengths: tight performances, complicated rhythms, dynamic moods, and tips of the hat to worthy progenitors like King Crimson and Tool. There’s not a lot on here that will come across as unfamiliar to Intronaut fans, and that’s great news. See the rest here
Panopticon — Autumn Eternal
★★★☆ This album is rooted in atmospheric black metal, but also evokes The Ocean, Opeth, even some 80s goth. The doom+bluegrass+folk+goth fusion here is seamless, and in a surprise twist the resultant sound comes across as more heartfelt and upbeat than one would expect. More importantly, this album is eminently listenable. See the rest here
Enabler — Fail To Feel Safe
★★☆☆ This is another brickwalled slab of noise, short-ish and intense as you’d expect from Enabler. You’ve got a handful of standout tracks that feel like fresh territory, and you’ve got a number of tracks here that feel painfully and regrettably rote by now.
All of that said, I actually listened to this album twice. See the rest here
