Exmortus — Ride Forth
✦✦✦✧ This is glorious neoclassical speed metal, and a paean to cokehead Vikings everywhere. See the rest here
First Listens With Three-Star Ratings
Toothgrinder — Noctural Masquerade
✦✦✦✧ This is a pleasantly unusual and self-assured album that claims metalcore roots, but this music is as likely to remind you of Periphery or Symphony X or American Head Charge as it will of Killswitch Engage. In particular, the band do a masterful job of melding melodic sensibilities with wall-of-noise mayhem. See the rest here
Agoraphobic Nosebleed — Arc
✦✦✦✧ This is as tasty and heavy a slab of noise as you’d expect from the grindcore supergroup helmed by Scott Hull. It’s also a bit of a curveball, if you’re expecting just another helping of Pig Destroyer, as this is decidedly more sludgey than that. But it’s just as earnest and convincing in this form, due in no small part to Katherine Katz’s gutwrenching vocals. See the rest here
Kamelot — Haven
★★★☆ Sure, power metal may not be the most admired genre in the business, but given that… this album is pretty much flawless. It feels like a more energetic Soilwork, cross-bred with some Symphony X for good measure. Everything you’d look for is here in spades: tasty guitar work, pounding drums, a healthy bottom line, lush keys and strings, and very strong vocals (which is surprisingly rare in this field). See the rest here
Turnstile — Nonstop Feeling
★★★☆ Prong meets Sick Of It All meets Slayer meets 311 meets Helmet. And yet it works! The album’s twelve tracks (27 minutes total!) each hold surprises for the listener, and every twist and turn feels surprising and fresh and youthful and fun. You do get the sense that this is an early record, to be supplanted in the near future with bigger and better; likely, the band’s embrace of nostalgic production values contributes in no small part to this feeling. See the rest here
SikTh — Opacities
★★★☆ This EP is an excellent return from the long-dormant but well-beloved prog metal quartet. Their djent stylings are less front-and-center this time around, which I think is appropriate given the state of the subgenre. More importantly, you’ve got great headbanging moments, interesting chord progressions, and their best production to date. See the rest here
Abyssal — Antikatastaseis
★★★☆ This is a pretty good poor man’s Gorguts. 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
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
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
