✦✦✦✧ Another blistering slab of thrash from these modern masters. No one track stands out here as a career definer (as opposed to the band’s eponymous 2013 masterpiece), but what you do get here is trademark Revocation doing what they do best, with a subtle leaning toward more emotional variety. But don’t let that stop you from listening with a gleefully slack jaw. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The first half of this album starts out sounding like Norma Jean doing a decent impersonation of Tool. Not that that’s a bad thing (especially when we’re untold years away from another album from Maynard & Co.); it’s just weird for the usually unbridled metalcore impresarios. But keep listening. The Toolisms fade quickly, the metalcore is still here throughout, and there is a pervasively broodingly quality to the music that builds to a satisfyingly lachrymose conclusion. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Here’s a grungier, even nastier (if you can believe it) ETID album. Less overly metal, but just as twisted and angry. There are palpable traces of QOTSA and Clutch all over the Converge-ish core of the band’s music. There’s also an almost Beatles-esque listenability in the melodies that surprised me… and ETID surprising me just shows that they’ve still got it. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This sophomore effort from Anciients feels like a strong document of a band in transition. This album is more of a grower than their debut “Heart Of Oak,” but it’s got all the same meat on the bone as its predecessor. But their homages to Mastodon and Baroness are more subtle this time around, as the band’s witches’ brew has taken on new flavors; some are additional nods to bands like Tool and Kylesa, and some are clear signs of the band zeroing in on their own voice. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ As much as I love DEP, I can’t help but feel like they took all their learnings from their last album, the most excellent “One Of Us Is The Killer,” and turned their collective backs on that wisdom. “Dissociation” is DEP’s most self-indulgent album in a long time; whether that’s a good thing depends on the listener. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The first two tracks? Super strong shred. Exactly what I want from Periphery. And then the band revert to their personal blend of emo cleans and GIT-type noodling. The emo stuff sounds pretty, but lacks the emotional resonance of a similar move from TesseracT. The ship gets righted in the back half of the album, though; there’s more heaviness, and the band’s melodic side comes back in a more tempered form. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is one of those cases wherein the supergroup is very recognizably a sum of its constituents (you can very clearly strong echoes of DEP, Alice In Chains, The Mars Volta, and Mastodon on the track “No-One Is Innocent” in particular). But there’s novelty here too, a perverse cohesion that melds into something unlike anything presaged by the bandmember’s other bands. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ On their sophomore effort, Sumac retreads their ponderous tonal territory, but one-up themselves by allowing more room for exploration, if you can believe it. There’s just a hint of thoughtfulness here, which serves to rein in Aaron Turner’s self-indulgent tendencies only slightly but to great effect. Whereas the songs on their debut “The Deal” sprinkled heavy passages across a bleak but sometimes forgettable landscape, “What One Becomes” puts more stock in the in-betweens. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Barely metal at times, but a very good prog offering nonetheless. It’s a great fusion of 80s and current sounds, at times sounding as much like latter-era Yes or UK as Porcupine Tree or Leprous. It’s an unlikely combination of sources, which I first heard on their previous EP, but this time it totally works without sounding too much like a gimmick. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ While not entirely groundbreaking, this culmination of Cult Of Luna’s post-metal instrumentals and Julie Christmas’ melodic meanderings is undeniably fresh, winsome, and emotive. The music feels like a synthier fusion of Isis and The Ocean, and the vocals are as entrancing as they are dynamic. This one is a must-listen, and a shoe-in for Arsie competition. See the rest here
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