Anyone can make a concept album (which is not to say that it’s easy, but that it doesn’t depend on a particular musical style). That said, when it comes to the rock-opera-style concept album, the tendencies towards elaborate instrumental explorations and grand, dramatic spectacle often found in progressive rock and metal, provide particularly fertile ground. Pink Floyd, Queensryche, The Who, and many others have followed this path (coloured by their own particular musical approaches).
Having been seven years since the release of their stellar debut full-length album Solipsist (Unique Leader Records), it was sadly seeming to be the case that Technical Death Metaller’s The Zenith Passage were perhaps going to be lost to the annals of time. Therefore it is a given news of a follow-up on Metal Blade is very welcome news and perhaps a sign of bigger things to come from them and as evidenced on Datalysium, time appears to have been kind to them.
Powered by an insatiable appetite for thoughtful tempos and laborious aggression, Outer Heaven exhausts everything they have with Infinite Psychic Depths (Relapse Records), eleven songs rife with bombastic energy and acidic vocals.
To be perfectly frank, the biggest issue with Static Abyss’ Aborted from Reality (Peaceville Records) is that they decided to release the album the same year as Obituary’s recent destroyer, Dying of Everything. It’s been a consistent thorn on the side of Chris Reifert and Greg Wilkinson for quite some time as Obituary has always outshined their most well-known project, Autopsy, as well.
It All Returns to Nothing (Church Road Records) is the debut album from London-based four-piece Burner, and has been highly anticipated by those in the know, who have been following the singles releases the band have been drip-feeding since the end of 2021. And Burner are the latest in a long line of artists who have found a suitable home on Church Road Records, one of the UKs thriving independent labels for heavy music.
It has been nine years since Scar Symmetry released their previous album and the first in a planned trilogy, and time has seemingly not been the kindest to them since then with a plethora of delays (am pretty sure we can all guess one of them by now) preventing them releasing any form of follow up.
For a band named after one of ‘tallica’s finest songs from their early vintage period, you might be forgiven for thinking that Boundless Domain (MNRK Heavy) is a record full of modern Thrash Metal bangers … but you’d be wrong. Creeping Death purvey pure and unadulterated Death Metal, taking in all forms of the gory art with splashes of old-school, blackened, and doom thrown in the mixer.
Within the ferocious realm of UK underground scene, the all-around relentlessly fiery thrash/death unit The Bleeding have been hitting the ground since 2010, (technically) kickstarted by the release of first full-length entitled Rites of Absolution (2017) after several years of releasing EPs and demos, followed by second-full length Morbid Prophecy (2019). Having been noticeably compared to the likes of Exodus, Kreator, Death, and Demolition Hammer, they never cease to present the best of reaping thrash-death metal eclectic rawness.
Every once in a while, there is an itch in the back of my brain, and the only way to scratch it is to listen to Swedish Death Metal. With such luck, into my ears goes the full-length debut of Imperishable, appropriately named, Come, Sweet Death (Hammerheart Records). Blistering, chainsaw-like guitar riffs with epic leads, relentless drum work, and harsh raspy vocals is everything to expect from that sweet Gothenburg flavor of death metal. This scorcher of an album hardly lets up across the thirty-eight-minute blaze and will be sure to leave you either exhausted or ready to jump out of an airplane.
If you would have told me a few years ago that I’d be reviewing Dave Ellefson’s new Death Metal band I probably would have thought that you were fucking with me. Megadeth has always been a favorite of mine and I have always enjoyed catching him live. He’s been a thrash titan for years, is heavily involved with his Christian faith and just comes off as a laid-back and mellow dude. The last type of project I thought I’d ever see him as a part of is a skull-crunching Death Metal group.