Alcest — Spiritual Instinct
✦✦✦✧ 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
First Listens With Three-Star Ratings
Lacuna Coil — Black Anima
✦✦✦✧ 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
Refused — War Music
✦✦✦✧ 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
Dysrhythmia — Terminal Threshold
✦✦✦✧ 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
Insomnium — Heart Like A Grave
✦✦✦✧ 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
Car Bomb — Mordial
✦✦✦✧ 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
Borknager — True North
✦✦✦✧ This is everything you could possibly want from a Norwegian black metal band. You can almost feel the icicles dangling off this album. It’s also a better example of the potential fusion between vintage prog and modern metal. This album is atmospheric and folksy and energetic and so epic. In other words, this album is what I’ve really wanted from Opeth for quite some time now. See the rest here
The Agonist — Orphans
✦✦✦✧ This is an enchanting extreme metal (and then some) album, combining the glossy symphonic sensibilities of Blind Guardian with adroitly placed hints of TesseracT, The Contortionist, and even Protest The Hero and Gojira. Aside from the clever and surprising songwriting, the MVP on this album is unquestionably vocalist Vicky Psarakis, who deftly pulls out all the stops, pivoting from wannabe-operatic to hard rock to cookie monster and back again in a way that should finally free her from predecessor Alissa White-Gluz’s shadow. See the rest here
Exhorder — Mourn The Southern Skies
✦✦✦✧ Pioneers of Southern groove metal Exhorder are back, and as ferocious and energizing as ever! Technically, this is rethrash, except that this album very much feels like what you’d expect if the band had just continued the trajectory they started in the late 80s. The truth is, this is their second reunion, and they’ve been disbanded longer than they’d ever been together. See the rest here
The Number Twelve Looks Like You — Wild Gods
✦✦✦✧ This album from kings of the second wave of mathcore TNTLLY (their first in a decade) seem to fill a void left by The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle, and pre-Parallax BTBAM… but really it’s anyone’s guess what the band are actually trying to do with this. This album is nothing short than a compendium of inventiveness; believe frontman Jase Korman when he says, “This album is like a galactic freak show advertisement to aliens, telling them to come see this insane place we call Earth.” See the rest here
