★★★☆ This is perhaps the heaviest album I’ve heard all year. It’s also bleak, and harrowing, and nihilistically listenable. Here, the band weaves together thin tendrils of thrash and djent into their otherwise devastating slab of doomcore. This album is not the world’s easiest listen, but its power is undeniable. See the rest here
★★★☆ On their third album, Deafheaven turn up every conceivable figurative dial. And happily, that includes turning up The Metal. Technically, Deafhaven are as black and shoegazey as they’ve ever been. But there’s also something new here: crisp riffs occasionally bobbing on the surface. This album is also 15 minutes shorter than their last effort, which works in everyone’s favor. See the rest here
★★★☆ FFAA are an early candidate for Most Improved this year. Unlike their previously self-disinterested album Hellbound, this one most certainly has a plan for itself and for the listener. The opener takes a minute to get going, but that’s pretty much the only break you’re going to get. The rest is brutality, like a batshit insane cross between Gojira and Job For A Cowboy. See the rest here
★★★☆ Your very first instinct will be to write off this album as unimaginative grindcore, perhaps with some more Ballouesque tendencies. This is perhaps understandable, considering the lo-fi production values or the fact that we start off with blast beats. But what follows is a wide-ranging collection of songs that are surprising, progressive, novel, and above all brutal. See the rest here
★★★☆ The band return to purvey their peculiar high-gloss brand of atmospheric djent, and once again I liken the sensation to being crushed by ten tons of craft paper: heavy as fuck, but somehow hollow. My biggest worry going into this listening experience was that, in losing vocalist Ashe O’Hara (replaced in vintage djent-musical-chairs fashion by former TesseracT and Skyharbor vocalist Daniel Tompkins), the band would take a step backward. See the rest here
★★★☆ This album chronicles the band taking a couple of half steps in jazzier, erratic directions. In other words, it’s slightly more BTBAM than their previous album. But it’s still guitarwankery at its finest, and I’m stoked that the band are venturing out into new territories while still repeatedly coming back to Shredsville. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is one fun and energetic album to listen to (although the metal in the music’s DNA is by now very hard to grok anymore). This feels very much like a sequel to the band’s previous album “Gloss Drop”, with more emphasis on Ableton-style electronics than ever before. As always, John Stanier’s drums nail down a fierce and infectious rhythm throughout, but Ian Williams and Dave Konopka alternate fluidly between atmospherics and grooves. See the rest here
★★★☆ A darker, and yet more expansive turn from the usually uber-predictable kings of melodeath. Everyone in the band is in top form, of course, with special props to Dick Verbeuren and Sylvain Coudret on drums and rhythm guitars, respectively. As for the songsmithing, the departures from their norm are generally very welcome, and at times remind me of Dream Theater, Gojira, and other proggy bands (each at their own darkest). See the rest here
★★★☆ The first track is arguably the weakest song on this album. It’s a warmup, a tone setter. It’s also a good gatekeeper to the rest of the album: if you can’t stomach the first five minutes, you might miss all the really good parts of this deceptive shower. This is Ghost, returning to the form of their debut album: unabashedly fanboyish of the best parts of the 70s, joyously rockin’, and genuinely epic. See the rest here
★★★☆ There are two kinds of music on this album, both seemingly from a sleep-deprived night in a house much too big for comfort. The first type of music is fuzzy and bassy and sumptuous and perfectly disorienting, familiar with but still unlike Godspeed, Sleep, Russian Circles, V.A.S.T., and St.Vincent. That stuff is pure win, and a must-listen. See the rest here
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