★★★☆ Torrential Downpour are so wonderfully weird. They’re weird even for prog metal, which I gather is the only category crazy enough to accept this band. And this album is equal parts Battles, BTBAM, Mars Volta, UK, and Dillinger. The band rely a bit too much here on digital whammy and trebly screeching for my tastes, but aside from that, this album just begs for multiple listens. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is as much a love letter to Floridian death metal as it is a paean to pot. But beyond both those traits, it’s also an entertaining riff fest, short and sweet, somewhere between Death and Gorguts. Fans of Death will enjoy the numerous nods to Chuck, but otherwise it’s a fun album. See the rest here
★★★☆ Since I’m a graduate of the Steve DiGiorgio School Of Excess Bass, it’s almost impossible for me to not admire this album from Beyond Creation, especially with some of the songs being thinly-veiled excuses for fretless bass worship. And to be honest, those egregious moments are when the album falters the most. See the rest here
★★★☆ If you liked TesseracT’s last album, you’re going to like this one as well for a few reasons (not the least of which is that Daniel Tompkins is the lead vocalist for both bands). It’s lush and layered and gorgeous. I just wish it was slightly more metal than it is. See the rest here
★★★☆ The first half of this double album finds Old Man Gloom in an even more experimental mood than ever before. Sure, we still here the crushing noisescapes that we heard on the group’s previous album, “NO,” but these are shorter now, as are the more “conventional” songs. Speaking of which, the band seem to be caught between different identities. See the rest here
★★★☆ If you love Isis or The Ocean, and you appreciated last year’s Gorguts juggernaut, then this album will likely make you very happy. The metal here is dark and moody and lush. It goes on a bit much (this is an hour that feels like two), but there’s plenty of meaty earcandy throughout. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is JFAC’s most technical, ambitious, and impressive album to date, with the band sounding as much like BTBAM than BDM. For one thing, every performance is tight (special shoutout to Intronaut’s Danny Walker, who handles the drumming duties on this album, and elevates the entire proceedings). For another, Jason Suecof’s production is a perfect fit, and oh my god so much bass guitar all over this goddamned thing I love it! See the rest here
★★★☆ My very first thought was, “Ugh. What crappy production.” That thought lingered for about two minutes, before the rest of this impressive album carried me away. This is forty economically brütal minutes of modern death metal. And by that, I don’t mean a retread of well-traveled territory; even with all the blast beats, 32nd-note riffs, and artificial harmonics at their disposal, this band have crafted some truly non-derivative metal. See the rest here
★★★☆ The closest thing I can compare this to is Cynic’s “Traced In Air.” But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that this album reminded me of UK’s first album, and of BTBAM in one of their less carny moods. Here are a group that manage to intersperse violin solos and flamenco guitars with blast beats and furious palm-mute riffs in a way that feels organic and reasonable, as all of it combines to a lavish soundscape that’s hard to pin down. See the rest here
★★★☆ In ways subtle and otherwise, this album feels like more of the spiritual successor to Decapitated’s “Carnival Is Forever” than that band’s followup album from this year. Beneath have produced a blistering barrage of technical death, tirelessly ferocious but with moments of almost progressive ambition. While there are perhaps not enough changes in dynamics and timbre to make this a masterpiece, it’s still sure to be a crowdpleaser: dark, surefooted, and a bona fide bile-raiser. See the rest here
This work by Metalligentsia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.