Hi folks. In case you didn’t notice, we took June and July off of our usual monthly roundup series. We did review a few things (No Cure, Fuming Mouth, Nothingness) and we’d highly recommend you check those albums out if you haven’t yet. But in the meantime a bunch of great shit has come out, and so we’ve rounded up a bevy of summer buttkickers that you might have missed. No time to waste, let’s get to it.
Lammoth – Onward
Atmospheric blackgaze/chiptune from the US
This album makes me smile in a way that few albums do these days. An ode to the most dependable yet unsung and overlooked member of Tolkien’s fellowship, Bill the pony, Onwardโs charm is evident as soon as you clap eyes on the cozy cover art. The music, though? Itโs the real allure, like a warm black metal hug. A dreamy, sentimental blend of atmospheric blackgaze, warm synth, and electronic elements that will charm the socks right off of you. Achingly wistful lines soar, hazy walls of reverbed progressions wash, cutesy little bursts of chiptune bubble over. I found it astonishingly moving; sole member Robert Sanford has captured the sweetness, the unspoken connection, the melancholy and yearning that our animals can bring to our lives through theirs. I canโt recommend it highly enough.ย
– Kep
Vulgarity – Beckoned Beyond
Metalcore from the US
Possibly the nastiest, gnarliest and maybe even just best metalcore album Iโve heard this year, Beckoned Beyond rips from the word go and doesnโt really stop for the duration of its scorching 27-minute runtime. It leans heavy on the death and black metal influences and comes with riffs for days on top of the expected and generous helping of mosh. Feels like it couldโve come out of Belgium circa 1999 or be playing in the background of one of those medieval paintings of the end of the world. It sustains itself really well too, with a menacing little breather at the end of the first half, a couple of massive highlights in โFutile Divinationsโ and โMalice Calculationโ in the second, and a reflective moody acoustic moment saved for the very end.
– Ellis
Snorlax – Toxic Current
Blackened death metal from Australia
Iโm a well-established Brendan Auld fanboy and thereโs plenty of evidence of that fact. Snorlax has always been my favorite of his projects, filthy solo blackened death that feeds my grimy little soul. That being said, I thought 2023โs The Necrotrophic Abyss was weaker than the 2020 debut II, so you can imagine how glad I was to find that Toxic Current is an absolute rager. This record oscillates between inescapable mires of utter blasting vileness and groove-drenched mountains of riff and bone. Itโs well-balanced compositionally, immaculately mixed, and remarkably tight from a songwriting standpoint, clocking in at 31 minutes across 12 breathtakingly packed tracks. Eyes on the horizon for the upcoming Descent record, which is sure to fuck just as hard.
– Kep
Quicksand – Bring on the Psychics
Post-hardcore from the US
Yo does Quicksand just become everyone who likes hardcoreโs favourite band eventually? Think Iโm on that arc for sure right now and like pretty much everyone else I agree that their post-reunion stuff (which now outnumbers their classic original run) is literally all great. Bring on the Psychics might well be the bandโs tightest album to date; itโs a little shorter than 2021โs Distant Populations for starters, but also feels very firmly in touch with the bandโs OG hardcore sensibilities, which, of course, have never really been in doubt. I found it interesting that how in listening to this record I could hear perhaps more clearly than ever the way this bandโs classic efforts must surely have influenced some of the biggest and best in hardcore today like Higher Power and Turnstile. All bangers from Schreifels and co.โ shock!
– Ellis
Cadaver Putrefacto – Eterno sepulcro
Death metal from Argentina
Do you desire the sort of old school death metal that unabashedly worships the bands you love but does it well enough to not pale in comparison? Argentinaโs Cadaver Putrefacto are here for you. Here on their third album they deliver a damn impressive collection of pulverizing riffs and roars, with the influence of Cannibal Corpse being the most obvious: โFrenรฉtica evisceraciรณnโ in particular could all but pass as Corpsegrinder and crewโs work. The tracklist is pure gold too; death metal is the only language you have to know to understand that tracks like โLos ojos del decapitadoโ and โGrotesca abducciรณnโ are gonna be fucking old school rippers. Simply put, itโs a beast of an album that will satisfy any OSDM fan, and thatโs a statement Iโll guarantee.
– Kep
Apostle – A Splinter in the Infinite Noumenon
Avant-garde black metal from the US
Apostle, out of Atlanta, arenโt in the Metal Archivesโa wild thing to be sure, because theyโve been releasing music since 2018 that’s unquestionably metalโbut donโt let that make you think theyโre not worth hearing. This album is cacophonous and overwhelmingly dense at times, dissonant black windstorms and chaotically swirling noise, but at others itโs unexpectedly melodic and haunting, and it can be crushingly heavy too. It strikes that delightful balance between visceral, cathartic, and cerebral; nothing feels less than carefully crafted, but itโs all claustrophobic and horrific, vortices of pure cleansing fire. Frankly, Iโm baffled that I hadnโt come across this band before (this is their fifth! album) and Iโm surprised this record hasnโt gotten more buzz. Listen to it!
– Kep
Current Solace – With Love Comes Loss
Metalcore from the US
Yeah ngl this one feels like it was made for me. Overt and unapologetic but not obnoxious Christian metalcore that sounds like it couldโve come out sometime in the mid-00s. Think Misery Signals or peak Underoath or more recently I Promised the Worldโall angel statues and crucifixes and sepia and dudes in black t-shirts synchronised headbanging in the middle of nowhere, all in 240p of course. As a Christian I resonate strongly with the lyrics and even just some of the track titles, but I imagine almost anyone could find something to connect with in its themes of grief and redemption and a search for meaning, and if Iโm wrong just wait till they drop a breakdown or launch into one of those tear-stained clean vocal parts and tell me it doesnโt hit for you.
– Ellis
Into Darkness – Route to the Other Side
Death metal from Italy
Goddamn does some relentless, astonished harsh-toned death metal riffage just hit the spot sometimes. Italyโs Into Darkness, who recorded this album as a three-piece, play cosmic death metal in the literal sense, which means that they play highly aggressive, prog-tinged death metal in the old school style while screaming literal facts about space and planets and shit like that. The lyrics arenโt particularly decipherable in real time, but their delivery is: the guitars are saw-toothed and MEAN, the riffs are appropriately serpentine at times and satisfyingly direct at others, while vocalist (and guitarist and bassist) Doomed Warrior shreds her larynx to bits in a powerful turn. Itโs really great stuff all around, and if you like OSDM that isnโt afraid to engage your brain then youโll want to check it out. This is the bandโs debut LP, too, so hopefully there will be plenty more stuff to come.
– Kep