Review: Khabal – The Divine Deception
This blackened deathcore album will chill you with its brutally crushing downtuned riffs, and agonizing gutturals. If you’re not mentally prepared for this album, I’d turn elsewhere.
Review: Giant’s Knife – Oracle
A solid atmospheric, djenty debut album from a small band in Minnesota.
Review: No Living Witness – Cosmic Simulacra
A very unique, genre-bending take on black/death.
Review: Noctambulist – The Barren Form
Dynamic, technical dissodeath offering a bleak, suffocating, atmospheric take on a crowded genre.
Review: URNE – SERPENT & SPIRIT
An absolute sludge metal riff factory with shades of thrash and hardcore.
Review: Voland – Voland III: Царепоклонство – Il culto degli Zar
Both members have done a great job of taking a less-traveled subject in metal and portraying it with every tool at their disposal.
Review: Syncatto – A Place to Breathe
A fantastic blend of classical and metal that makes for the most interesting instrumental album of the year.
Review: Scythelord – Earth Boiling Dystopia
Progressive dystopian-space-thrash that isn’t a Vektor clone. A must-listen.
Review: Quiet – …and so it was
An exciting debut occasionally marred by overzealous style shifts.
Review: Terra Odium – Ne Plus Ultra
Two former members of Spiral Architect teamed up to bring the 90s into 20s, but did they succeed?