Sludge metal lifers, -16-, casually dropped their tenth full-length, Guides For The Misguided (Relapse Records) and it is crushing. Sludge Metal is at its best with bluesy guitar riffs that still feel massive, raspy vocals, and lyrics covering depression, drug addiction, and overall hatred. The L.A. four-piece violently checks off all of those checkboxes. They do so for over forty minutes with minimal to no filler.Continue reading
Getting a Harakiri For The Sky record release in the heart of winter will pull at your heartstrings. Scorched Earth (AOP Records) does just that for over an hour and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is an audible voyage through pain, suffering, and loss that is both cathartic and beautiful. Every song has its own story and emotional journey that compliments the songs around it. Oh, and there’s also a sweet Radiohead cover at the end to ice the cake.Continue reading
Rejoice, fellow death metal fans, Opeth has brought back the harsh vocals! That’s right. Mikael Ackerfeldt and company figured now was the time, as their new album, The Last Will & Testament (Reigning Phoenix Music), has the perfect concept to complement it. The reading of a post-World War 1 patriarch’s last will and testament that spills out family secrets, track by track, section by section of the document (the first seven tracks are named simply after which paragraph is being recited). In terms of instrumentals, this album is my favorite mix of the melodic death metal era of Opeth and the more recent prog-rock era of the band.Continue reading
One of the most exciting bands in the brutal/slam death metal genre today, Peeling Flesh, continue on their way up from the underground in Oklahoma with their latest release, The G Code (Unique Leader Records). In under a half hour, the slams and rap interludes will have your head spinning out of control, smashing into the walls of your room. What’s more, there are quite a few guests on the record to further cement how far Peeling Flesh have come and how much the scene respects them.Continue reading
A new group, known simply as Hatchend, has forcibly hatched its way into existence with members from differing death metal and grindcore bands. The debut album, Summer of ‘69 (Selfmadegod Records) dropped and it goes full throttle for thirty-three minutes. Bringing in their previous influences and dumping them on top of crossover foundations sets up quite the demolition derby of sound.Continue reading
The dog days of Summer are here in the Northern Hemisphere, meaning the days are slowly getting shorter as Autumn and Winter loom in the shadows. Perfectly timed, Kurokuma has released Of Amber and Sand (Self-Released) which is about the concept of time according to ancient civilizations. The use of Middle Eastern influences as well as a baglama solo bring it all together in this thirty-eight-minute journey through the temporary and the permanent.Continue reading
We are into the second half of 2024 and what a year it has been for new music! Even some of the reissues of older recordings coming out so far have been really good. The latest that deserves attention is the 2020 topical album about isolation and loneliness during the COVID Lockdowns, Show Me A Dinosaur’s Plantgazer (AOP Records). The Saint Petersburg post-Black Metal outfit toys with your emotions for nearly forty-five minutes. All while a “fictitious” man lives out his days in lockdown staring at his home plants, pondering about life under the new normal.Continue reading
I’ve been finding lately that splits coming out in the last several years have been reminding everyone why they are a cool, and slightly more affordable, way to showcase music for the masses. DISKORD and ATVM teamed up to put together thirty-five minutes of their brands of death metal on this collective effort, forever known as Bipolarities (Transcending Obscurity Records). Continue reading
Funeral Doom is one of the more difficult subgenres of heavy music to get into. Hell, I am not even sure if I can say I am a fan of the subgenre, moreso some bands or even some albums by said bands.
Nothing beats a sunny day, a cold beer, and some sludge and doom blasting over the speakers as I melt in the heat. Just in time for summer, Fórn is reissuing The Departure of Consciousness (Persistent Vision Records) for its ten-year anniversary. The Boston-based funeral doom/sludge outfit made their name in the Boston scene by bringing some of the heaviest, most beefy riffs. Now they grace us with a reissue of their debut full-length where those riffs are as tasty as ever.Continue reading