First Listens With Three-Star Ratings
Capra — Errors
✦✦✦✧ It doesn’t get more hardcore than this, Capra’s second album. This album may have a runtime of 31 minutes, but you definitely get your money’s worth here. Anyway, it’s hard to criticize anything on here, without feeling the guilt of spending time outside of the swirling circle pit that this music requires.
Cryptopsy — As Gomorrah Burns
✦✦✦✧ Mein gott… this is some furious, nasty, grindy techdeath! The riffs come fast and furious, are really interesting and unique, and at times could even be described as “catchy.” Fans of Carcass, Archspire, and Gorguts will love this; anyone else will be too scared to complain. Ya gotta hear this at least once, and I do mean all the way through, but don’t think the 33-minute runtime means an easy listen.
Soen — Memorial
Pupil Slicer — Blossom
✦✦✦✧ As tempting as it is to pigeonhole this album as post-mathcore, there’s clearly more going on here, with the band toying with listenability, hooks, and expectations. Don’t be surprised to hear synthwave cozying up to moments of shred, industrial, or even prog… there ain’t a dull moment on this one, folks, so strap in and enjoy this unique ride.
TesseracT — War Of Being
✦✦✦✧ I haven’t been this justifiably excited about a TesseracT album since Altered State. This is the band at their darkest yet. The two stars here are bassist Amos Williams and vocalist Daniel Tompkins, turning in a career-best performance in a career full of great performances.
Criticisms: the album, and most of the songs, are possibly 10-15% too long.
The Zenith Passage — Datalysium
✦✦✦✧ This absolutely shreds, which one would expect, being that this band is, what, 75% The Faceless by now? Tech death bona fides aside, this music finds itself at times in the unfortunate uncanny valley between Unpredictable Metal Mayhem… and Just Goofy. This is territory best ceded permanently to Protest The Hero.
Keep Of Kalessin — Katharsis
✦✦✦✧ The good news is that this album is a clear progression from 2015’s Epistemology, more cohesive, anthemic, and self-assured. It’s a barnburner of a symphonic black metal album, one where musicianship (largely that of Obsidian, naturally) is showcased in a way not normally heard in this genre. The bad news isn’t all that bad: this album is maybe one track longer than it needs to be.
