Iced Earth - Incorruptible
“Musical eras come and go, as do the lineups of his band, but Jon Schaffer stands immoveable. Like his hero, Steve Harris, Jon remains a figurehead of both his own band and a fixture on the landscape of traditional/power metal. Iced Earth’s aptly titled 12th studio album adheres to their many trademarks, fusing fascinating lyrics with riffs as big as oak trees.”
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Arcadea - Arcadea
“Quite how Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor found time to work on Arcadea’s debut is anyone’s guess, but there’s no denying that this is a cohesive, convincing detour and considerably more interesting than any of his hirsute bandmates’ innumerable side-projects. Purveyors of oddball, synth-driven rock, propelled along by Brann’s customary clatter, this trio exist at the midpoint between Mastodon’s artful hard rock and the throbbing menace of synthwave acts like Anvil Strykez and Perturbator, with a broad streak of Devo-ish, new wave angularity thrown in for bewildering measure.”
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Currents - The Place I Feel Safest
“It’s taken some time for this djent band to find their way but Current’s new album sees them comfortable in their skin with some exciting songs in their armory. The Place I Feel Safest is frantic, angry, and bleak. Tremor is particularly splendid with an atmospheric blend of raw shouts, jagged and occasionally ethereal guitarwork, and some effective clean choral sections.”
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Entrails - World Inferno
“If you know your Swedeath history, you then know that album number five is the ‘WTF?’ stage for most bands, from Entombed’s alt-rock love letter Same Difference to Tiamat’s trip hop affair, A Deeper Kind Of Slumber. But not Entrails. After all, it took founding member Jimmy Lundqvist two decades to finally release the band’s first album, so why steer the ship into the danger zone now?”
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Impetuous Ritual - Blight Upon Martyred Sentience
“With their perverse tonality crossing into realms of avant-garde noise, Impetuous Ritual’s hellscapes are as oppressive as extreme metal gets. It takes deft compositional control to prevent this style from becoming unlistenable downpours of static, yet the quartet – two of whom warp time and space with Portal – know how to engage listeners while still pushing towards the outré limits.”
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Suffocation - …Of The Dark Light
“It should come as no surprise that, musically speaking,… Of The Dark Light is a direct extension of its three predecessors. Suffocation’s first post-reunion platter, 2004’s Soul To Deny was clearly designed to reassure all of those who thought that the band whose Effigy Of The Forgotten debut still shapes 95% of the current US death metal had since lost their mojo. From the Long Islanders’ eponymous 2006 album onwards, all their efforts have been focused on keeping their feet in the late 80s tradition while dipping their toes into the 21st century. And here they’ve extended that approach by closing the album with a re-recorded track from their 1993 misstep, Breeding The Spawn.”
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Tombs - The Grand Annihilation
“Those following Brooklyn’s Tombs over the past decade will be aware of the quality and consistency with which they have employed influences from shoegaze, goth and death rock in conjunction with black metal. Their fourth full-length solidifies those frames of reference, effectively moving them into their own unique territory and further away from the ‘post-metal’ misnomer.”
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The best new metal albums you can buy this week
