It was another quiet month here at the site, as our little collective of writers was busy with a bunch of everyday life-related stuff. We’re gonna bring more reviews your way here soon, have no fear. But despite having little time to write about it, we’ve all been listening to plenty of killer music and we’re here to share our monthly favorites with you again.
As usual, the albums we reviewed in full aren’t eligible to be picked as monthly faves. Here are links to those reviews:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra – I’m Done With Self Care, It’s Time for Others’ Harm
Ossuary – Abhorrent Worship
And now on to our picks of the month!
First up, the runners-up:
Kirk: Paralyzed – Rumble&Roar
Ellis: Gridiron – Poetry from Pain
Kep: ♱Velvet Cross♱ – Blood Consumer
And now our May favorites!
Kirk: Lust Hag – Irrevocably Drubbed
Black metal from the US
No, that’s not an artist’s interpretation of a Gallagher show on the album cover, but it sure as hell is what your head will feel like by the end of final track “Humiliation Ritual”. I had a really hard time keeping up with new releases in May, but boy-howdy was this one a doozy. Eleanor Harper’s lethal concoction of death and black metal was sonic medicine for my (lack of a) soul, and I felt like Oliver standing in front of the cafeteria lady with my bowl asking, “More, please?” Because some days you want your head to feel like it’s being smashed by a warhammer.
Ellis: Age of Apocalypse – In Oblivion
Metallic hardcore from the US
Hard to say what’s bigger here, the gargantuan riffs or the soaring melodies. Either way the conclusion is one and the same: this album is bloody huge. It’s not often that hardcore feels quite so epic, but In Oblivion really does. It’s a big step-up on their already killer debut full-length Grim Wisdom, with vocalist Dylan Kaplowitz coming into his own and kinda stealing the show with his formidable range, and producer Taylor Young really nailing the job of capturing the scale and breadth and grandeur of it all—as indeed you’d expect from one of the dudes in Twitching Tongues. Speaking of, there’s a showstopping feature from Taylor’s brother Colin on the towering and theatrical “Snake Oil God”, as well as a rousing appearance from Graham Sayle of High Vis on seventh track “Impulse”, and a predictably savage turn from Shaun Alexander of Demonstration of Power on the violent highlight “Gilded Hatred”. But none of that is to say that Age of Apocalypse need any help really; this is an all-timer right here and you can file all ten of these songs either under the catchiest hard tracks or hardest catchy tracks you’ll hear all year.
Kep: Coltsblood – Obscured into Nebulous Dusk
Doom/sludge from the UK
I fell in love with Coltsblood when I discovered their 2019 split with fellow doomsludgers Un (who broke up last year, RIP). It’s been a long wait for this newest album—and their most recent long-player, Ascending into Shimmering Darkness, came out all the way back in 2017—but the wait was worth it. Comprising four lengthy tracks across 42 minutes, Obscured is both more of what I already loved about Coltsblood and a nice expansion of their sound. It’s like drowning slowly in a filth-ridden lake of oppressive darkness, hopeless and angry but also resigned. These are titanic, funereal tracks, anchored by monstrous sludgy bass and trudging drums, mournful melodies interwoven and highlighted by agonized growls and screams. The closing title track is my favorite, making grim use of organ in a texture that’s as grand as it is harrowing.