✦✦✦✧ 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
✦✦✦✧ 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
✦✦✦✧ 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
✦✦✦✧ 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
✦✦✦✧ 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
✦✦✦✧ The best way to enjoy this album is to be open to the idea of what Refused used to be, without thinking for a moment about “The Shape Of Punk To Come.” If you can thread that needle, you’ll have the mindset needed to enjoy this energetic, guttural punk/metal hybrid. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Staggeringly complicated, perverse, and heavy progressive metal; if I had to draw a comparison, it’d be to some segments of latter-era Death or Gorguts. I wish there was more bass (or at least that the bass was more present in the mix), but otherwise this is a tight and compelling listen. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This melodeath album wavers from run-of-the-mill Insomnium to goddamn-great Insomnium. I wish the production was a little crisper (although that might just be my Gothenburg bias showing through), but otherwise the shredding and epicness shine brightly enough. Stand-out tracks like “Valediction,” “Pale Morning Star,” and “Twilight Trails” are must-listens, in any event. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Once again answering the question, “What happens when you give Digital Whammy pedals to everyone in a NYC-area mathcore band?”, Car Bomb’s latest feels like the ill-begotten offspring of Converge and Meshuggah (specifically, the latter’s “Contradictions Collapse/None” split). What is surprising is just how listenable this album is, even while kicking down your doors to claim the prize for Most Twisted Album Of 2019. See the rest here
This work by Metalligentsia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.