✦✦✦✧ Not quite as Carcassy as their previous effort, which is a good thing; this is still very much an alternate-universe grindcore album in the best tradition of Exhumed, but now with 25% more originality woven into the mix. In fact, there’s enough originality here that, somewhere around the third half of the album, one tends to forget that this sounded like anything other than a wholly original collection of shreddy tunes. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is the best and most interesting Trivium album since 2011’s “In Waves.” It’s shreddily heavy even when it’s not trying to be (dude, blast beats!), even as the band suppress their muscularity long enough to tick the other checkboxes. As always, Trivium are more transparent than most with their influences and “this-sounds-just-like”s, but the unpredictability of their mood swings helps offset that. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Fast and furious, with just a hint of innovation to keep things fresh. While perhaps not as insta-classic as “Everblack,” this is a more successfully experiment suite of songs than even that esteemed album. Consistently energetic and enjoyable from start to finish, the band even manages to squeeze a bit of walk-on frippery into the album’s economical 33 minutes. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The disjointed nature of Chelsea Wolfe’s previous album “Abyss” is better comingled here, undoubtedly thanks in some measure to the production guidance of Kurt “Not My First Rodeo” Ballou. The same disparate influences from last time are still here: Massive Attack, V.A.S.T., Chris Cornell, Tori Amos, Wolves In The Throne Room. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Fear Factory meets Overkill meets Gojira meets Meshuggah meets Lamb Of God meets a runaway train meets a goddamned meat grinder meets a fist to your face. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is a clear step up for the band from their previous album, 2014’s “Language.” The music here hews a little closer to Chimp Spanner or TesseracT territory, without ever really going full ham. The rest is, of course, ambient techno-djazz. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Ufomammut have for years toiled to perfect the tricky subsubgenre of accessible progressive stoner doom. With that context, their latest album is a towering achievement in that pursuit. Emotive. Interesting. Exotic. Wandering. Concise. Hypnotizing. And now with 50% nastier bass tone! Worth at least two listens. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ All hail the long-awaited return of the British band’s unique jazzy-gothy-doom-death alchemy. If anything, this Akercocke album is their most experimental, evoking in rapid and unpredicted fashion the works of Opeth, vintage Rush, Cocteau Twins, Napalm Death, Powermad, U.K., Leprous, Porcupine Tree… and on and on. A fascinating and rewarding listen. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This album surprised me. Surprisingly compelling riffs adorn like filigrees a sturdy base of energetic doom, adding an energy and diversity that I don’t remember from past Paradise Lost albums. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This latest album is quintessential Haunted, but not in a way that relies on the proven formula. There is a reinvigorated savagery here, as well as a new melodic sensibility throughout. Those two observations don’t normally coexist well, but on “Strength In Numbers” they thrive in equal measure. I know that, when reviewing their last album “Exit Wounds,” I’d said that it was the best thing the band’s done since “The Dead Eye.” See the rest here
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