#ukmetal — Public Fediverse posts

#ThursDeath this week is 2019 LP 'At the Tomb of Sanity' by APOSTATE from Preston, UK.

https://apostateuk.bandcamp.com/album/at-the-tomb-of-sanity

Apostate have an LP from 2022, but I like this 2019 one more. Growly, chunky, riffy, dynamic, OSDM style- you can really hear the bass, too. Has a brief acoustic interlude. And even some quality screams among the growls. Masterful drums. Decent guitar solos. It's a ripping record. No frills or bullshit on this one, just killer death metal. Probably some Cannibal or Morbid Angel in there. Seriously, check the riffage on track 9. Insanely tight, ridiculous shit.

#metal #UK #DeathMetal #UKMetal #PrestonMetal #UKDeathMetal #Apostate #PrestonUK #OSDM @HailsandAles @wendigo @rtw @guffo @AlfeeDee @c0m4 @Kitty @umrk @flockofnazguls @swampgas @nnenov @ttntm @Affekt

Since the last Filter dropped, it still hasn’t stopped raining and storming in my neck of the woods. Consequently, my minions trudge evermore through the thin sheet metal of our ducts as the thunder rattles everything like so many dice in a tabletop nerd’s clutches.1 Yet I must press them and push them, for we have quotas to meet and ravenous appetites to sate.

So it is with shaky hands and discombobulated craniums that my grunts hand over the goods. BEHOLD!

Kenstrosity’s Thrashed Thrall

Ascended Master // Crepuscular Gloom [May 8th, 2026 – Self Released]

Death thrash is best thrash, if you ask this sponge. Something about this unholy combo really rustles my jimmies, especially when its executed with great speed and riff-centered fervor. Cincinnati’s Ascended Master nail that combination right into the grave, boasting a sound that’s three parts Death, one part Atheist, and a pinch of Blood Red Throne. With a sense of groove that gives barnburners “Blood Spilled Upon the Stars,” “Crepuscular Gloom,” and rabid closer “Xenopaleontology” a deadly swagger liable to cause fierce whiplash in all who would headbang to it, debut LP Crepuscular Gloom” is a record pumped full of testosterone and adrenaline. Speedy rippers like “Midnight Mother” and “Ghoul Queen” put the pedal to the metal with a ferocity more commonly associated with Kvaen or Hellripper in the modern pantheon, but the record’s natural engineering and coherent screams hark to earlier times where Death reigned supreme in the scene. However, it would be inaccurate to call it pure worship. Ascended Master have an intense personality and a particular ferocity that allows Crepuscular Gloom to integrate smoothly into their respective category without blending into the crowd. As their career develops from this point, I expect we’ll see their identity bloom and rise with greater distinction, further setting them apart and threatening year-end lists all around. Just wait, you’ll see!

ClarkKent’s Prehistoric Pulls

Ilienses Tree // Toward the Storm [May 1st, 2026 – Meuse Music Records]

Ilienses Tree sow their roots deep into the island the band originates from—Sardinia, just off the coast of Italy. Their name, Ilienses, refers to an ancient Nuragic civilization that, during the Bronze Age, built impressive stone tower structures that still stand today. While the band isn’t nearly so old, their second album, Toward the Storm, dabbles in the sort of slow, deliberate doom that speaks of the patience of those ancient ruins. They lean towards a style of funeral doom that has the brutal power of My Dying Bride, but their record also contains the unpredictable dynamic drumming of Oromet and sneaks into speedier death/doom territory akin to Paradise Lost and Novembers Doom. Ilienses Tree have a mastery over melancholic lead riffs, such as the one that opens “To Not Be Forgotten.” “Sudden Rain” flexes the band’s creative muscle most impressively. Beginning in a slow burn and anchored by a poignant guitar lead, the song has a sudden burst of energy, turns in a lovely duet between arpeggiated riffs and bass, and features several more memorable and distinct guitar leads. Though the songs average nine minutes, they fit neatly into a 38-minute record, and thanks to progressive structures, they never feel overlong. If you’d like some music that simultaneously hits you in the feels and provides a shot of adrenaline, then go towards, not away from, this storm.

Anna Fiori // Metztli [May 21st, 2026 – Self Released]

Sometimes symphonic metal bands grow a touch stale from a failure to innovate, relying too heavily on the gimmick of symphonic instruments. Anna Fiori, however, has created something pretty special, with a Mexican/Aztec twist on the genre. Her band mixes “pre-Hispanic instrumentation” with cinematic symphonics and heavy guitars to create thrilling high-energy music. While some songs hit a more poppy Beyond the Black mold (“En El Vacio”), others take a longer-form route. The nine-minute “Luna Llena (Xiki Noeso)” blends indigenous chants and flutes with orchestral elements that sometimes sound like an exciting score to a whimsical adventure film. The highlight, “Luna Menguante (Nimotemak),” contains a mix of cool riffs, flutes, and blast beats before taking us on a bonkers ride involving operatic singing, off-kilter pianos, a few solos, and perhaps the summoning of a demon or two. While the song compositions are tons of fun, Fiori’s performance ties it all together. She sings in the sweet poppy manner of Epica’s Simone Simons, the operatic style of many a Therion singer, and even some growls in the spirit of Seven Spires’s Adrienne Cowen, if not quite her power. Fiori even briefly raps on a couple of tracks, with a pretty impressive section on the outro track, “Tetzahuitl, Pt. 2: El Origen,” and goes off-script with an infectious laugh on “Entre Mil Voces.” Clearly she’s having a lot of fun. Metztli hits some of the familiar symphonic notes while injecting enough personality of its own to make for an entertaining, and sometimes wild, ride.

Grin Reaper’s Spring Fling

Beyond the Veil // Oblivion [May 1st, 2026 – Wormholedeath Records]

There’s little online information about Tokyo prog metallers Beyond the Veil,2 and while I don’t recall how I stumbled across debut Oblivion, I’m glad I did. Upon listening, I was immediately enamored by their familiar yet enchanting blend of drama and technicality. Fans of Opeth and Dream Theater will uncover a trove of unapologetic prog where Beyond the Veil weaves gorgeously conceived instrumentation into intricate compositions. Oblivion also embraces long-form arrangements, sporting six tracks ranging between seven-and-a-half and sixteen minutes each. Credit to Beyond the Veil, though, because even with such robust runtimes totaling over an hour, Oblivion never feels repetitive or bankrupt of ideas. Quite the opposite, in fact, as each listen reveals new knots to untangle and coils to unwind. Perhaps the facet I’ve come to appreciate the most as I revisit Oblivion is Beyond the Veil’s merger of piano, mellotron, and orchestrations with guitar, bass, and drums. They’re hardly the first band to do this, but each song sounds well-attuned to incorporating the right instrument for the right part rather than spotlighting heavy-handed wankery, allowing Oblivion to soar. While Beyond the Veil doesn’t break the mold with this one, getting lost in Oblivion never sounded so sweet.

Lago // Vigil [May 8th, 2026 – Everlasting Spew Records]

Vigil introduced me to Lago and their infectiously abrasive death metal, and this album is forty-two minutes of unhinged brutality flecked with melody. The blood of Immolation, Morbid Angel, and Incantation pumps through Lago’s veins, delivering unapologetic tangles of dissonant, jangling guitars, fuming blast beats, and murky bass runs beneath Cole Jacobsen’s devilishly demented gutturals. Lago’s brew is potent stuff, swirling and churning with caustic acid that will leave your eardrums scarred and cowed with nary a moment wasted. Complimenting the devastating filth Lago dredges is Gus Barr’s warbling lead guitar, which cuts through the grime with off-kilter shredding. “Behold, Ruin” and “Initiation Rite” hit with the immediacy and aplomb of Immolation, lurching onwards with Brian Miller’s timekeeping straight out of Close to a World Below’s playbook. Meanwhile, “Procession into Slaughter” and “The Land Was a Desert” launch into Azagthoth-tinged, otherworldly riffs. Everything about Lago screams danger, yet once the blood starts flowing it’s impossible to turn away from their murderously addictive violence. Once Vigil has its hooks in you, you won’t want them to Lago.

Redshift // Down the Wire [May 29th, 2026 – Pale Wizard Records]

As a massive Rush fan, Redshift’s Down the Wire immediately caught my attention with ample parallels. A power trio wielding buttery smooth bass lines, Lifeson-leaning chords, and Tiago Martins’ tender tenor call to mind Canada’s greatest export for all the right reasons. Yet Bath, England’s Redshift is more than a Rush clone, and on Down the Wire they bounce and whip in syncopated flurries and chromatic runs while dabbling with vocoded vocals and deathly roars. As the best prog does, Redshift explores vast territory in a commensurately brief runtime. Opener “The Routine” hits the Rush influence hard and early, but “The Clown” draws upon Synchestra-era Devin Townsend kookiness while “The Rogue” dabbles in Yesified eclecticism and even features guest keys from Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen). One thing Redshift steers away from is the self-seriousness associated with a lot of prog, and Down the Wire radiates a pervasive sense of fun. Trumpets and samba-coded melodies enliven “The Rogue” while “The Singer” assaults with fierce growls, wicked solos, and perfectly balanced instrumental interplay. Down the Wire fires on all cylinders, scorching with progressive songwriting and so much replayability that I regret not getting the chance to write a review in full. If you’re Down to the Wire and need a prog fix quickly, Redshift is a clever choice that won’t disappoint.

Spicie Forrest’s Nostalgic Nugget

Haste the Day // Dissenter [May 1st, 2026 – Solid State Records]

I haven’t heard the name Haste the Day since 2008. At the time, I was on the tail end of my metalcore phase and pushing into heavier styles, so while I recognized their quality, I didn’t latch on to them as I did other acts of their ilk. It’s a shame, because Dissenter is the sound of my adolescence. Slinging the same emo-flavored metalcore as early As I Lay Dying and August Burns Red, the Indianapolis-based six-piece offers 39 minutes of beautifully aching nostalgia. Stephen Keech’s lead vocals sound pushed and strained (complimentary), evoking the emotion of early Linkin Park (“Shallows,” “Grave”). Guitarists Scott Whelan, Brennan Chaulk, and Dave Krysl are so in sync, delivering stellar layered riffs and leads felt in the soul (“Burn”). When Michael Murphy’s bass comes to the fore, as on “Liminal,” he brings a heaviness and intensity that hurtles me back to middle school like it was just yesterday. Dissenter is a bit heavier and faster on the front end, but even the not-quite-overwrought power ballads of the back half maintain their drive and pacing thanks to Giuseppe Capolupo’s kit work (“Adrift,” “Escape”). For those of us who cut our teeth on acts like Haste the Day, late-career and comeback albums can be an anxious affair, but I’m happy to report that Dissenter is a worthy walk down memory lane.

#nowplaying

Dirty Habit by Nuns of the Tundra 🤘

#metal #ukmetal

When it comes to discerning the difference between doom and stoner metal, I subscribe to the Ned Flanders school of thought. While doom tends towards darker atmospheres at a slower pace, stoner metal generally grooves with a chiller vibe. Now, there are (at least two) exceptions, and it gets kind of tricky, one of which is the compound stoner-doom genre. This label nicely fits Druidess, who have become a staple of the UK doom and stoner scenes since the release of their 2024 EP, Hermits and Mandrakes. Two years later, this Newcastle upon Tyne quartet has finally dropped its independently-released debut LP, Trip Meadow. Whether a British stoner-doom scenester or a newcomer, you’re surely wondering whether Druidess’s musical trip feels like strolling through a meadow or slogging through a jungle.

Druidess travel through the crevices of Mount Doom and the streets of Stonerville, but they also haunt the alleys of Psychedelphia. Guitarist Daniel Downing powers this English engine, doling out an array of Sabbathian riffs that brood, gallop, and descend, often in the same song (“A Forest Witch’s Daughter”). Beneath Downing is drummer Sam Armstrong, who hits hard but sprinkles in peppery jazz accents, keeping things rhythmically dynamic (“Descended from Giants”). The highlight, however, is vocalist Shonagh Brown, who knows how to hold a straightforward verse and develop a sticky chorus (“Knightingales”). Brown claims Joan Jett (The Runaways) as a major influence, but I also hear Laura Donnelly (King Witch) in her penchant for effortless power.1 Draping Druidess’s stoner-doom core in a psychedelic haze is keyboardist James Hill, whose organ plinks owe a debt of gratitude to The Doors while recalling a contemporary band like Green Lung. If the presence of organ sounds insufficiently psychedelic, then you’ll be glad to hear that a saxophone occasionally moans melancholic melodies2 (“Trip Meadow,” “A Witches’ Sabbath”). Aesthetically and performance-wise, Trip Meadow brings home the goods.

The songwriting, however, sometimes sails the Inconsistent Sea. The songs hovering around 4 minutes deliver memorable jolts of Iommian riffs and Jettian choruses (“Mandragora,” “The Hermit of Druid’s Temple”). Even when Druidess expand to the 6–7 minute range, they usually do a good job balancing subdued excursions and tempo shifts with solid songcraft (“The Forest Witch’s Daughter,” “A Witches’ Sabbath”). A few tracks, however, could’ve definitely been pared down, the major example being the 10-minute title track. “Trip Meadow” opens with a sultry saxophone groove before reducing to an ominous organ line obliterated by a crushing doom riff. From there, it takes too long for the song to get to its good (not great) chorus. At around the 8-minute mark, however, Druidess goes off on gothic riff variations, variations that would’ve hit even harder were they to have come sooner.

I must also mention that Trip Meadow shares much in common with Druidess’s previous jaunt. Five of the album’s seven songs, in fact, appear on the Hermits and Mandrakes EP. Druidess does sonically improve these cuts for Trip Meadow, especially the vocal mix. Whereas Brown sits awkwardly atop the band on the EP, her voice feels prominent but porous on the LP, commingling with the fuzzy guitar tones while still carrying the tunes. It is disappointing, however, that roughly 70 percent of the material here exists on another release. The two new songs, though quite good, are not the strongest material on display. As discussed, “Trip Meadow” embodies enormous potential only partly realized. Meanwhile, “Descended from Giants” contains mighty fine bass-work, a neat pseudo-breakdown, and killer concluding wails, but it also retreads ground already covered.

Trip Meadow trips in a few ways, but ultimately, it’s a trip worth taking. If you’re already familiar with the Hermits and Mandrakes EP, the debut LP will probably feel like a tedious (albeit sonically improved) trek through well-worn terrain. If you’re like I was, however, ignorant of the EP and desiring of quality stoner-doom, then you should definitely take a stroll through Druidess’s comforting meadow of fuzzed-out riffs and fantastic vocals. At 41 minutes, Trip Meadow gets away with its redundancies because it sounds so good. If subsequent musical adventures tighten the songwriting while exploring experimentation under a cozy psych aesthetic, Druidess may find Greatness as a future destination.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Instagram | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 26th, 2026

Born of the ashes of former project Messenger, UK post-rock duo Liminal Sky, comprised of Jaime Gomez Arellano and Daniel Knight—and featuring Mat McNerney (Hexvessel, ex-Beastmilk), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), Anders Møller, Karin Park (Årabrot), Daniel O’Sullivan, Lars Horntveth, Alicia Nurho, Tore Ylwizaker, Ole Alexander Halstensgård, and Matt Rozeik—represents the next chapter in Arellano’s and Knight’s creative vision. Occupying a desolate space in the post realm that I haven’t covered in an official capacity since Latitudes dropped Part Island, upcoming debut All Tomorrow’s Darkness struck me in much the same way. Beautiful, inconsolable, tender, and graceful, Liminal Sky tugged at my heartstrings and called to my spirit.

An emotional and loving affair, All Tomorrow’s Darkness owes its gravity and poignancy to primary vocalist and lyricist Mat McNerney, impassioned by the recent loss of his mother. While it’s very clearly heard in McNerney’s vocal delivery across the record, Liminal Sky’s songwriting too reflects that heartbreak with crystalline clarity. Especially in their longer form compositions (“In Some Secret Universe,” “Algebra of Unknowing,” “All Tomorrow’s Darkness”), sweeping arcs and delicate plucked melodies inform the shape of mourning, of catharsis, of release, and of loss that All Tomorrow’s Darkness embodies. Its more energetic cuts (“A Solitary Future,” “Forget Me Not”) don’t disturb that shape, but rather recontextualize it as if to emphasize the unpredictable nature of grieving. As a whole, All Tomorrow’s Darkness represents a highly intelligent, deeply thoughtful, and highly resonant experience that offers its heart to those who would hear it, in the hopes that they would hold it with warmth and understanding.

Nowhere is this intimacy more effectively conjured than in centerpiece “Penance,” featuring Karin Park’s soothing croon. It is a stunning work, reminiscent of White Ward and Latitudes at their softest, but especially sorrowful, almost regretful. There’s a pain to this song which echoes some of the hardest processes that come with mourning the loss of a loved one, and it brings greater substance to its more energetic companion piece, “The Weight of Heaven.” In some strange alchemy, hookiness and subtle bounce fit “The Weight of Heaven” like a glove, almost as if the upshot of weathering the storm is clarity, acceptance, even hope. And yet, existential uncertainty and an ominous foreshadowing persist as undercurrent through songs like “Algebra of Unknowing” and “Oar on the Mooring” to remind the listener that clarity, that acceptance, and that hope is fragile. To further personify this message, All Tomorrow’s Darkness glides gently through all of these movements with a floatiness that belies its forlorn, heavy heart.

As a result of such fluidity, my perception of All Tomorrow’s Darkness’ hour-long expanse warps and shrinks. This, in turn, makes what should be a difficult, emotionally taxing experience remarkably easy to revisit. Its accessibility granted by direct, uncomplicated songwriting also affords a certain approachability that helps open up a listener not only to receive something so deeply steeped in pain and anguish, but also to respond in sympathetic release. That same simple songwriting, while effective and inviting, also results in some lightly recycled instrumental ideas. Across All Tomorrow’s Darkness, melodies, rhythms, and pacing occasionally reach a level of homogeneity and eerie familiarity such that every now and again I lose my place. I imagine that this might be on purpose, perhaps to reinforce an impression of liminal space and limbo that often manifests in the grieving process. If so, I’m not certain that Liminal Sky’s songwriting scaffolded that concept—outside of standout examples in “In Some Secret Universe” and “Algebra of Unknowing”—well enough to have the desired effect. Instead, and especially after multiple spins, it negatively impacts recall and weakens the album’s memorability.

Liminal Sky rekindled something inside me that I had forgotten after years apart from this little corner of the post world. In spite of its slow and soft approach, All Tomorrow’s Darkness strikes the spirit with accuracy and emotional heft. What few minor songwriting weaknesses it displays on occasion constitute an easily overcome obstacle to my appreciation of the experience. If anything, those very flaws help showcase how well-conceived and thoughtfully executed Liminal Sky’s debut is everywhere else. Imperfect, but easy to listen to and devastating to hear, All Tomorrow’s Darkness bears the soul of its creators with a candid vulnerability worth taking to heart.

Rating: Very Good!
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Karisma Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: June 19th, 2026

Few luminaries in metal can suckerpunch you right in the feels quite like Patrick Walker of 40 Watt Sun and the legendary Warning. Seriously, he could be singing to you about proper chinchilla care, and many would be left a sobbing, blubbering mess as he caterwauls about what treats and bathing clay to get for your new furry little friend. If you need proof of this, go give 2006’s sorrowful masterpiece (and recent Yer Metal is Olde inductee) Watching from a Distance 45 minutes of your time, and when you’re done splashing cold water on your face to remove the tears and redness, you’ll be hard-pressed to disagree. No one could predict that Walker would resurrect the project, as he seemed happy(?!) and content to continue with 40WS, but with its 2016 resurrection and now new album Rituals of Shame, all eyes are on Walker and crew to deliver.

And deliver, they did. Just like its immediate and legendary predecessor, Rituals is 45 minutes of a band taking its dear, bittersweet time to wrest every milliliter of sadness out of you. From the opening seconds of the title track, Walker and 40WS bandmate Wayne Taylor smother you flat with subdued riffs and simplistic yet effective melodies, even before a single word is muttered. But once Walker begins singing, ho-boy, that familiar yearning ache returns in full depressing force. Weathered by years of life experiences, Walker’s bellowing vibrato haven’t lost an ounce of effectiveness. In fact, they’ve become more potent over time, channeling that feeling that can only be delivered by someone who’s been through various wringers and back through honest conviction. It feels like they never disbanded, only resting until the time is right.

The other four songs also ensure that no light escapes or gets in. Closer “Teacher” hits with the same level of effectiveness as “Bridges” and “Footprints” did on Watching, but not taking as long to do so. Returning bassist Marcus Hatfield and new drummer Andy Prestidge (also of 40WS) added just enough variations of fills, rhythms, and flourishes, but mostly kept to a simple, heavy, and driving sound, again amplifying the anguish conveyed by Walker, his lyrics, and voice. And that’s the key to the effectiveness of Rituals and Warning as a whole; you don’t need flashiness, technical proficiency, or tricks and studio wizardry to be effective. Sometimes, brutally transparent honesty, wide-open space for your instruments to breathe and reverberate, and your emotions in the here and now are more than enough to get your message across.

It doesn’t hurt that Rituals is a massive improvement in some areas in terms of mastering and production. You can hear and feel Hatfield’s bass, and Prestidge’s drums don’t have that annoying “My Dying Bride in an empty bathroom” sound1 that permeated on Watching, so kudos to Tom Dring for engineering the drums perfectly. Thankfully, Chris Fullard and Adam Gonsalves left the guitars and Walker’s voice alone, as what wasn’t broken sure as hell didn’t need fixing. The only drawback to Rituals is this isn’t something I could listen to all that much. Not because of the quality, which is stellar, but it hurts to listen to on an emotional level. If you were in a good mood before listening to this, you sure as shit won’t be when you’re done. That said, if you need to purge and get whatever the fuck is making you sad out, I can’t think of a better album to do so with.

And that’s the… I refuse to say “appeal,” but I’m at a loss for words otherwise, of Warning. You don’t go into their music for gains at the gym, to romance your significant other, or to bask in someone’s ability to up and down a fretboard as fast as humanly possible. You listen to Warning to reflect, to purge, and to feel. And if you’re anything at all like me, you’ve been waiting a damn long time for a worthy follow-up to Watching from a Distance. Thankfully, Warning gave us exactly that. Welcome back.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Relapse
Websites: warningdoom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/warningdoom | instagram.com/warningdoom
Releases Worldwide: June 19th, 2026

Got my fucking BEAUTIFUL red vinyl copy of Cryptworm's new masterpiece. Does NOT get much better than this. 2026 AOTY contender for me, of course.

#metal #DeathMetal #vinyl #Cryptworm #2026Albums #2026Records #Bristol #BristolMetal #UKMetal #UKBands @wendigo @HailsandAles

Does Void of Light refer to a source of luminescence, or is it shorthand for its total absence? The group might know something about the latter, hailing as they do from the northerly latitude of Glasgow, Scotland. Their musical medium—a sludgy, atmospheric post-metal—also reflects a dichotomous embodiment of light and dark: often crushingly heavy and thematically bleak, but also upliftingly melodic. Asymmetries—another nod to duality and imbalance—is a debut four years in the making, drawing together the fragments of brutality and reflective ambience from the preceding EPs into a bold statement on who Void of Light are. And decisive that statement certainly is.

Void of Light’s approach to post-metal is rich and dynamic, layering leaden riffing, melancholic melody, and flexible tempos around one another to augment the music’s ability to captivate. Strikingly, flatteringly akin to Deadly Carnage in the expert intermingling of delicacy and harshness (“Still the Night Skies”) and an ever-evolving rhythm, the album flows gracefully. Dips into The Ocean of steady, progressive builds, tangles with LLNN-levels of skull-bashing heaviness (“Mirrorings”), and even flirtation with black metal (“Ends,” “Mirrorings”) compliment a nuanced, emotional soundscape with heart and bite.

Asymmetries by Void of Light

The magnetism of Asymmetries is felt gradually and with progressive strength, like approaching a planet’s gravitational field. Things begin almost understatedly in “The Passing Hours,” with a loose, modulated melody and a steady onward crush that only hints at the depths to come. That is, before the final act gives the game away when soft singing gives way to a jubilant guitar solo over the rush of blackened percussion: a dramatic backdrop for the final reprise. These soaring, energetic guitar lines weave in and out across the record, communicating joy and bittersweet blueness as they variously dance (“Silver Mask,” “Ends”) and float (“The Passing Hours,” “Still the Night Skies”) over the comparative bluntness. Gentle (“The Passing Hours,” “Ends”) and impassioned (“Silver Mask,” “Still the Night Skies,” “Mirrorings”) cleans add still more layers of emotion as they move in pitch and volume with or in brilliant opposition to the instrumentation, and equally ardent screams (“Silver Mask,” “Still the Night Skies”). None of this would be half as stirring, however, were it not wrapped around the multidimensional rhythmic core that spills over from the percussion to riffs and vocals alike. Rippling fills and agile rolls thread texture upon which singing floats or screams rain down (“The Passing Hours,” “Mirrorings”). Frequent slides into snappy off-beats (“Silver Mask,” “Ends”) and impressively rich, cascading blackened tirades (“Ends,” “Still the Night Skies,” “Mirrorings”)—the kind you’d expect from Panopticon—intensify already incendiary peaks where aforementioned guitars dance or soar.

Asymmetries, as a name, can only be used complimentarily here; perhaps the worst that could be said is that the album might get even better as it progresses. If I had to be incredibly harsh, I would point to the oft-repeated pattern of songs lapsing midway into stripped-back plucking and singing before the reprise of heaviness. Even then, songs don’t sound the same, and the formula is an effective conduit for tension and emotion, formula though it may be. Really, though, Asymmetries feels ideally formed and structured to deliver the maximum impact as it is: the rhythms growing more fluid and restless, the layers of sung and screamed vocals more multiplicitous, and the returning spaces of poignant ambience serving to gradually dial up the pathos as well as the more tangible force of the riffs, drumbeats, and roars. If the ascendant singing in the final act of “Silver Mask” lifts you up, wait until “Still the Night Skies,” and the cascading multitracking on “Mirrorings”. If “The Passing Hours” jolts you into attention with its final forcefulness, wait until the sudden savagery that closes “Ends” and then how the following songs stack this ardour with that singing, and the consistently gorgeous waves of clear and hazy melody.

Asymmetries’ power was not instantly obvious, but with every listen its grip grew tighter and the sky around it lost its colours as they were drawn into the void. Void of Light effectively communicate a dichotomy between light and shadow in their sad, uplifting, harsh, fragile debut. And if this is where they’re starting from, then heads, hearts, and score-safety-counters everywhere will need to watch out in the future.

Rating: Great!
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ripcord Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 3rd, 2026

#ThursDeath this week is new LP 'Infectious Pathological Waste' the almighty CRYPTWORM from Bristol, UK just released. The cover is gross/gory, so attached here is an image of the red vinyl that I have ordered and is on the way to me now. WHAT a record.

https://cryptworm.bandcamp.com/album/infectious-pathological-waste

Cryptworm are one of my favorite metal bands, and this is my AOTY for 2026 so far. Gonna be tough for something to beat it. Nasty, thick, killer production and riffs.

#metal #DeathMetal #Bristol #UKBands #UKMetal #Cryptworm #2026Albums #2026Records #riffs @HailsandAles @wendigo @guffo @rtw @swampgas @c0m4 @nnenov @AlfeeDee @pephorror @umrk @Kitty @flockofnazguls

UK disgusting death metal fiends Cryptworm have been quite prolific since 2022. Featuring members of Cryptic Shift and Rothadas, their Spewing Mephitic Putridity debut was a nauseating dose of raw sewagecore that made Autopsy seem hygienic by comparison. They followed that up barely a year later with Oozing Radioactive Vomition, and things felt a bit rushed and less impactful. They wisely took some time off thereafter, and now they return with third outing, Infectious Pathological Waste. While their overall approach hasn’t changed much from album to album, the quality of the writing has varied. This time, it feels like they put a bit more thought into the compositions, and some of the vile charm of the debut resurfaces through the slime and scuzz. Nothing does the heart good quite like seeing a happy Cryptworm!

Opener “Gallons of Molten Hominal Goo” greets you like a decaying old friend, and the gruesome, repulsive sounds contain the distinct aroma of early Carcass. This lump of excrement could have appeared on Symphonies of Sickness and fit like a maggot in a gunshot wound. The riffs are fairly rudimentary but have weight, and the vocals by Hanyi Tibor (Rothadas) are a cross between an industrial garbage disposal and a frat-house beer-belching contest. They are fucking disgusting, purulent, and utterly incomprehensible, but damn if they aren’t entertaining. “Maimed and Gutted” is a standout, going for a frantic thrashy panic attack with Cannibal Corpse-isms buried in the basement. It’s a road-grader of a brutal death song that veers into slam territory at times, and the riffs are greasy, sticky, and bellicose. My favorite macabre ditty is “Embedded with Parasitic Larvae,” where, intentionally or not, Tibor sounds like an undead version of the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. I cannot tell you why this enhances my enjoyment as much as it does, but fuck yes, Chef!

Infectious Pathological Waste by Cryptworm

On “Drowning in Purulent Excrementia,” they go extra slammy, and kitman Jamie Wintle starts to hit something that should be the pong snare, but it sounds like he’s beating on a skull or a femur. It’s weird, but I kinda like it, and it’s way better than that godawful PONG-PONG-PONG sound some tech and slam bands foist on you. Not every track is a sure-fire hit though, with “Gastrointestinal Seepage” feeling a bit too leaden and lethargic, though I appreciate Tibor’s extra nasty vocals where he seems to be coughing up a hairball full of razor blades and asbestos. I could complain that this feels like a very one-note album, but what death metal album isn’t really? At a tight 32 minutes, it goes by fast enough, though several tracks do have bloat issues that crimp enjoyment. The style Cryptworm opt to play necessitates keeping things in a 3-4 minute window, and when they push further, things get ropey and dopey.

Tibor does a tremendous, unpleasant job on vocals, sounding completely inhuman at all times. His unbelievably cartoonish subterranean croaks are a thing of hideous beauty, and I can’t get enough of them. His guitarwork is also to be applauded, borrowing the most objectionable bits of gristle from Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, and Incantation to fuel the Cryptworm diet. Some of the leads are quite hooky, and I especially love the big beefy power chugs that dot the landscape. As on Oozing Radioactive Vomition, however, the songwriting can be inconsistent, and they don’t always know when enough is enough. There are some sick burners here to aggravate the savage altered beast, but a few tracks feel underbaked and deliver weaker tentacle slaps.

Cryptworm are a band I can’t help but root for as I root around in their repellant leavings, but I want them to be MOAR consistently deadly with their offal hammer. There’s plenty of fun stuff on Infectious Pathological Waste to marinate in, and it all reeks of the slaughterhouse. When it’s good, it’s rurl good. When it’s just okay, it’s still pretty fookin’ entertaining. Someday these chaps are gonna get their maggot larvae in a row and then, watch out! Until then, there are worse ways to kill brain cells than these odious odes to the grave.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Me Saco Un Ojo
Websites: cryptworm.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/cryptworm | instagram.com/cryptwormofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026

In 2019, English retro metal maniacs Aggressive Perfector came out of nowhere to blindside me with a nasty mash-up of classic 80s metal, speed, and quasi-blackened evil called Havoc at the Midnight Hour. It was an endearing nostalgia ride through the early days of extreme metal, stealing body parts from Venom, Mercyful Fate, and beef-brained thrashers like Rigor Mortis and Nasty Savage. It was rough around every single edge, but it packed the same kind of past-obsessed punch as Deceased and made me love it. It took these sonic miscreants some time to get back in the marketplace with new material, but Come Creeping Fiends promises to have everything from the debut turned up to 12.5 and then some. And in this, they aren’t fibbing. This is another slab of over-the-top excess in the name of unholy overkill, and it sounds like a bunch of local bar bands covering Venom’s early material after too many shots of Jägermeister. That’s a good thing, right? RIGHT??

If you like your metal loud, unhinged, but oddly melodic and catchy, you came to the right Satanic mass. Opener “Dead Undead” is a wild and woolly smush of Venom and early Mercyful Fate with some Desaster crammed in to see if the mixture explodes. It does. This thing is hairier than Yours Steely with a full midvinter pelt, and just as fragrant. It’s not far from the usual Deceased output, and frontman Dan Chainsaw (formerly Dan Holocausto) sounds a whole lot like the legendary King Fowley as he roars, rages, and retches against the dying of the light (and the closure of the All-You-Can-Eat $8 buffet at King Egg Dynasty Kitchen). His vocal excess is excessive, and it’s laid on top of a weird collection of traditional, thrash, and NWoBHM guitar segments without much thought given to how well it fits or doesn’t. You go from a Sodom or Desaster riff one minute to something from Motörhead’s Another Perfect Day era, and though this hodge-podge recipe seems ill-advised, it works, and the song is stupid, brainless fun. “Strange Companion” sounds like a lost hit from Deceased, and I loved it the moment it assaulted my ear sockets. It’s bombastic but melodic and memorable, though you should never try to sing along with it in public, ever. “Fiend in You” keeps the strange times rolling with a number that’s hooky and hard rocking but extremely confrontational vocally. It reminds me of the days I worked for my older brother doing construction during summers in High School, and basically just got screamed at for 10 hours a day. I like it anyway, though!

“Obscene Cult” robs Candlemass blind of the riff from “Bewitched” and repurposes it for much nastier deeds done way cheaper than dirt. You won’t be able to unhear “Bewitched,” so it sounds like some absolute nutter is screaming over the song about Satanic masses and corpse defilement. “Harlot’s Curse” is the most ambitious track in that it dumps the most 80s influences into the smoothie machine, hoping for a new taste sensation. You’ll hear about 20 bands you know by heart in the riffing and song structure, but somehow it all coagulates into a functional song of its own. Penultimate cut “Return of the Axe” deserves special praise as the most frenzied and unstable track, thrashing and bashing for all its worth. It’s a silly but captivating piece of caveman metal, and I can’t help but want to adopt and raise it as my offspring. At a tight, no-blubber-allowed 30 minutes, Come Creeping Fiends rip rides over you like a nitro-fueled earthmover. You will be flattened, and you will enjoy it.

Aggressive Perfector make a lunatic racket, and the best parts come from the guitarwork by Dan Chainsaw and drummer/guitarist/keyboardist, Intimidator. These goons are like a living codex of 80s metal riffs and harmonies, and they regurgitate the olden sounds in strange new patterns to craft wildly entertaining tunes. The thrash leads are nice, but it’s the classic metal lines that really shake my lizard brain. Every track has at least one riff that activates my inner teenage idiot, and I appreciate that. Vocally, Dan Chainsaw goes all in, getting himself committed to the nervous hospital with his insane screams, rasps, roars, and unusual attempts at “singing.” Medically speaking, the dude has some screws loose in his tonsils, but wow, is it fun to hear him come unglued.

Come Creeping Fiends takes the chassis of the debut and welds spikes, spears, and buzzsaw blades all over it. It will harm all who listen, but in productive, character-building ways. If you have non-metal-loving friends, trap them in an enclosed space and force this on them loudly as you watch their panic and terror. This is what is best in life! Let these creeping fiends in and see how it goes.



Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dying Victims
Websites: aggressiveperfector.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/aggressiveperfectorband | instagram.com/aggressiveperfector
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026

Independent U.K. undergrounder’s, Unmother, have been holding a mirror up to urban dystopian dehumanization since forming in 2019. Their 2021 debut, Lay Down the Sun, garnered significant underground acclaim that, according to the promo kit, established Unmother “as a restless and forward-thinking presence within the scene.” Foregoing the nature-scapes and mythological motifs of other post-black metal outfits, Unmother draws inspiration from the streets and, with their sophomore effort, State Dependent Memory,1 examines “urban isolation, inner dislocation, and moral decline, reflecting a world formed by concrete environments and social erosion.”2 After swapping their first “V” vocalist, Venla,3 for their second, V. (VOAK), Unmother prepares to take the next step on their evolving musical journey. Does State Dependent Memory offer a solution that might save our base, dehumanized society, from itself, or will it amount to so much piss in the wind?

State Dependent Memory crackles with gritty, asphaltic energy, casting Unmother as conscientious agitators, decrying societal urban decay in veins similar to acts like Chat Pile or Ashenspire, even if avoiding any direct auricular comparison. Departing from the rawer, denser claustrophobia of Lay Down the Sun, Unmother sought slightly warmer sonic climes on State Dependent Memory, weaving undulating post-metal textures into its mostly traditional black-metal framework. Sure, plenty of blast beats and tremolos (“My Armor,” “Bear Hug”) remain, courtesy of drummer B. and guitarists Azoso and Declwa (who also handles bass). Still, it’s what Unmother does with the spaces between that adds the most character, which begins with the varied vocal approach of V., who, like Attila Csihar, possesses a wider range of barks, croaks, shouts, and screams than his more one-dimensional predecessor, whose hissier, raw-blackened rasp overpowered much of Lay Down the Sun for me. Without dulling any of the sharp edges that, well, make them edgy, Unmother benefits from their take on “post” as a counterpoint to tradition.

My Armor by Unmother

State Dependent Memory tips the scales of orthodoxy with atmospheres that are as hypnotizing as they are abrasive. Pensive and creepy, the leads that skulk through the shadowed alleys of “Modern Dystopia” are effective and shroud the track with an almost Marilyn Manson-like pall, while Declwa’s bass notes thrum and throb like slow-strobing traffic lights on a dark, misty night. Venla makes a guest appearance here as well; his croaking rasp at this dose ups the fear factor and complements V.’s tortured delivery. Satisfying, too, is the eerie, haunted-jewelry-box melody and desperate howling of V., which make up the slower-paced interlude within the trad-black assault of “Bear Hug,” offering a sprinkling of Shining-like glitter. Ironically, the most black metal track on State Dependent Memory is Unmother’s cover of “Αττική – Βικτώρια” (“Attiki Victoria”) by Greek synthwave outfit ΟΔΟΣ 55, which distills the eight-minute-long original’s main melody down to a viscerally efficient, tremolo-forward beast. It’s poppy, new-wave-esque movements, filled with an almost hopeful melodicism, are set effectively against V.’s pleading screams and shouts.

Angeliki Mourgela’s mix and Roland Rodas’ master capture the essence of Unmother’s talents. With a foggy production that reminded me of Mayhem’s Ordo ad Chao, I enjoyed Lay Down the Sun but had to strain to pick out much of its instrumental intricacy. State Dependent Memory doesn’t suffer the same issue, as each instrument glows brightly in its own space, with B.’s varied drum performance and Declwa’s excellent bass work being the biggest beneficiaries. And while I can’t say Unmother wasted any of State Dependent Memory’s thirty-eight-minute runtime, closing the album with the no-burn instrumental “Magda” was a miss. The track fades in with some reflective, organ-like synths, foreign-spoke voice samples,4 and gently plucked guitar lines bolstered with tension-building but delicately strummed chords, which all continue to build slightly over the next four minutes and twenty seconds only to fade out again. No satisfying payoff, just a segue to silence. Whether this move was intentional or not, the addition of another well-executed track proper could have avoided such a deflating ending.

Acerbically moody, Unmother possesses a maturity that belies their short existence. This quartet of relative unknowns continues to carve their mark into the U.K.’s underground metal scene, and if State Dependent Memory is any indication, they may not be toiling down there for long.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Independent
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026

In case you’re unfamiliar, The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian poetic narrative, whose first complete form is dated to approximately 1800 BCE. It follows a story of King Gilgamesh and his dealings with gods and other mythic monsters, culminating in a journey for the secret of immortality.1 What better way could there be to consume this rich, literary epic than have it interpreted by the collection of artists behind From the Waters of Death? Obscure black/doom duo Swords of Dis; death metal veteran and experimenter Serpent Ascending; Neptunian Maximalism’s darker, heavier incarnation Ôros Kaù; and ambient-black dreamer Midnight Odyssey. All are infamous—if you know who they are—for their strange, unconventional styles and love for long-form expression that borders on the self-indulgent, which may make them ideally suited to a Gilgamesh retelling. You may already be experiencing a sinking feeling of dread at those name-drops. But together these artists achieve something that exceeded my expectations even as it met them squarely.

While appearing to be a split, Waters is more of a collaboration as each individual contributes vocal or instrumental talents across multiple songs, including on those they wrote and take the lead in themselves. Spearheading the whole thing are Richard and Alice Corvinus of Swords of Dis, who have a hand in all lyrics and appear on every track. These lyrics, inspired by the words of the epic itself, consist of narration interspersed with dialogue between the various characters, and the five musicians rotate and share roles depending on who is involved in the corresponding part of the story. 2 This improves the album’s internal coherence—which might otherwise be hindered in a split format—whilst also allowing each movement to take on the personality of its lead artist. As a form of adaptation, the five tracks of reverb-filled, noisy, strange, melodramatically or demoniacally vocally-led, black-adjacent fringe metal lean into the grand, frightening side to the tale whose gravity us modern-age folk probably can’t appreciate properly. And it’s that excessive, almost absurd commitment to being different, which—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—actually works.

From The Waters Of Death by SWORDS OF DIS

Drama is at the heart of oral poetic tradition, and it’s Waters’ drama that similarly grounds its best aspects. Utmost credit goes to Alice Corvinus and her fierce (“From Egalmah They Rode…”3, operatic (“Araru Births the Lord of the Wilderness,” “From Egalmah…,” “Blood Stains The Altar…”4), sometimes eerie (“Into the Wailing Darkness”5) vocal performance. Her presence dominates as she provides some narration in addition to voicing every female character (and there are a lot of goddesses involved). Dark, minor tremolo refrains and Middle-Eastern-inspired melodies support her delivery, and the theatrical, flowing style Swords of Dis employ lends itself to this expression perfectly. In a different vein, the inhumanly gurgling snarls of Guillaume Cazalet (Ôros Kaù) make for a barbed contrast to otherwise vague, even beautiful, passages (“Blood…”), and can be genuinely frightening (“Into The Wailing Darkness”). All vocals—clean or harsh—are odd to a degree, sometimes even off-putting (“Araru…”). Yet most breaches of the cringe line are brief, and ameliorated by interesting instrumentation (“Blood…,” “From the Setting…”6). Those totally averse to what we anaemically refer to as ‘avant-garde’ in extreme metal can beg to differ, but the back and forth between dissonance and harmony (“Araru…,” “Blood…”), and between uncomfortable slowness and sudden speed (“From the Setting…”), is not only well-performed, it makes sense for the record’s narrative concept. A journey represented through a monotonous pattern (“From Egalmah…,” “From the Setting…”), the fury of a deity by means of an operatic surge (“From Egalmah…”).

Waters embodies the manner of epic poetry so well, however, that its digestibility is harmed as well as helped. Whether appropriate or not, its near-90-minute runtime makes engaging with its entirety a daunting prospect, and this is a record that fares best when you do give it the time and space to immerse you.7 The very aptness of the compositional style—long repetitive sections on the one hand, and frequent switches between tempo, melody, and vocalist on the other—which mimics recitation amongst orators, can prove taxing. It creates a dynamic of brilliant moments and stand-out performances, scattered unevenly inside overextended filling. It’s perhaps not a coincidence that the album’s midsection—the two tracks led by masterminds Swords of Dis—is by far the best and most even in quality, whereas its final act—Midnight Odyssey’s—is the least engaging and unable to support its length.8

Though Waters cannot escape the idiosyncrasies of the artists behind it—and so inherently restricts its audience—as an expression of this epic poem, these approaches to black metal are surprisingly apt. If you have the time to go on this adventure with Serpent Ascending, Ôros Kaù, Swords of Dis, and Midnight Odyssey, there’s plenty to enjoy. But if nothing else, let it be an excuse to learn about the original myth that inspires such weird, sometimes wonderful music.

Rating: Good(!)
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger
Websites: Album BC | Serpent Ascending BC | Serpent Ascending FB | Ôros Kaù BC | Ôros Kaù FB | Swords of Dis BC | Swords of Dis FB | Midnight Odyssey BC | Midnight Odyssey FB
Releases Worldwide: February 13th, 2026

There’s something tantalizing about the brand of metal-adjacent noise rock that’s experienced a renaissance in recent years. It’s ugly, it’s loud, and it doesn’t give a damn if you’re comfortable. You’ve got breakout stars Chat Pile dragging nü-metal’s bloated corpse through the mud, Couch Slut dishing out dissonant, riff-heavy nightmare fuel, and Intercourse sounding like a feral animal tearing flesh for fun. This isn’t “revival” music; it’s bands weaponizing noise, smashing metal’s brute force into punk’s emotional hemorrhaging, and then deliberately breaking whatever’s left just to see it scream. Enter the UK’s Under, stepping into this mess with zero interest in playing nice. They fuse sludge metal’s suffocating weight, noise rock’s hostility, and art rock’s weird, confrontational instincts into something genuinely unhinged. Their third record, What Happened In Roundwood, doesn’t aim to be palatable. It aims to crush, mesmerize, and leave a dent. The question isn’t what they’re doing—it’s whether Under hit hard enough to leave permanent damage.

In the first half of What Happened In Roundwood, Under establishes their own distinct style that sits nicely in conversation with their American contemporaries. The foundations of these songs are built on angular sludge riffs over looping odd time signatures and off-kilter rhythmic patterns, like if a more avant-garde Melvins crashed into a version of Swans that was capable of editing. Bassist and vocalist Matt Franklin anchors the music with simple but weighty low-end riffs, locking tightly with drummer Andy Preece’s commanding, hypnotic grooves. Guitarist Simon Mayo fills in the gaps with jagged riffs and layers of dissonant, skronk-heavy leads. Franklin lends a sneering, British rasp to the endeavor, guiding the songs with an impassioned vocal performance that successfully conveys the aural depravity on display. This formula is deepened with the addition of menacing choral vocals and harmonies (“Ma,” “The Alchemist”), swirling guitar cacophonies (“Tantrum), and even Primitive Man-tinged, slow noise bursts (“Isaac”). It’s an effective and thoroughly unsettling display with just enough variety in its execution to keep things exciting until the B-side obliterates any sense of normalcy.

What Happened In Roundwood by Under

In the second half of What Happens In Roundwood, Under undergo a dramatic sonic shift, and the results are thrilling. The final stretch of the album leans heavily into exploratory, avant-garde jazz-influenced territory, with the tracks flowing seamlessly into one another like a three-part suite. These songs stand out as the album’s clear highlights. The sequence begins with “Rings,” which unfolds in a state of subdued horror, slowly building tension through sparse instrumentation before reaching a blissful climax. This transitions smoothly into “Roots and Limbs,” a jazzy, post-hardcore-like track that increases the tempo and intensity, providing a sense of release after several slower songs. All of this builds toward the closer, “Felling.” The final track plays out like a fever dream, reprising key moments from earlier in the album and reshaping them into a chaotic haze of noise. When the music finally collapses into rich choral vocals, it feels like the calm at the center of a storm. A perfect ending to a bold and striking second half.

This places What Happens in Roundwood in a peculiar position. The second half of the record explores markedly different sonic territory than the first, and is stronger for it. Under’s more standard sound, showcased on the first five tracks, is engaging, but compared to the highs of the final three, it falls a little short. Repeated listens leave me wanting just a bit more grit or memorability in the more straightforward sludge riffcraft before it gives way to the more exploratory material. I appreciate the band’s efforts to vary their noise-rock/sludge approach through vocal layers/embellishments or a Southern tinge (“Escape Roundwood”), but I find myself largely whelmed by the opening salvo. This isn’t a major mark against the record; the album is solid throughout. Still, it keeps the work from standing quite as tall alongside some of my favorites in the style.

With What Happens In Roundwood, Under have delivered a solid sludgy noise rock record with plenty of autre appeal. I wish the impressive oddity were distributed a bit more evenly throughout the album’s runtime, but it’s still an enjoyable listen that carves out its own unique niche within the broader style. The next time the UK group revisits their brand of sinister sludge, I’ll be excited to listen.

Rating: Good!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: APF Records
Websites: understockport.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/understockport
Releases Worldwide: January 23rd, 2026

The evolution of a band is a fickle thing. Change too much, and you alienate those who started the journey with you; change too little and bore listeners over time, leaving only ardent fans of the sound. URNE, a London three-piece with close ties to Gojira and Mastodon, has already shown a surprising amount of reformation by their third release, Setting Fire to the Sky. The band’s debut, SERPENT & SPIRIT, was a hard-edged mix of post-hardcore, sweeping grooves, and raw vocals, with a little bit of sludge thrown into their clean-singing. Their sophomore album refined the sound and felt like a logical evolution, even with a few missteps (especially on the production side). Setting Fire to the Sky fixes some of these issues and sees the band streamline their songs, but not all change is good. Instead of crawling into a chrysalis and emerging as a flying beauty, they slither out as something more akin to a leech, spilling out of their cocoon and siphoning other bands’ sounds to a fault.

URNE serves up nearly fifty minutes of Mastodon-infused metalcore on Setting Fire to the Sky. Yes, you read that correctly. Nothing on their third album feels reminiscent of the classic-rock-infused, post-hardcore sludge on their debut, or the post-metal epics on A Feast on Sorrow. Instead, their latest is stuffed with songs that, while expertly played and produced, feel soulless. Joe Nally sounds like a different singer at this point. While his clean singing is infinitely more competent, it sounds too similar to Mastodon’s Troy Sanders. Nally’s basswork fares better, and he manhandles the frets along Angus Neyra’s thrashy riffs and James Cook’s punchy drumming. The trio sounds great, and their work has been honed like a razor, likely due to their time alongside massive acts like Gojira and Mastodon, but they lack the creative bend of either. Setting Fire to the Sky feels meant to cast a wide net, playing arenas and the radio, but leaving much of the spirit (heh) that was present on SPIRIT & SERPENT to wither.

Expectations hurt URNE on Setting Fire to the Sky. After A Feast on Sorrow, I saw a band poised for their best work yet. URNE’s latest shows a tighter band playing well, and the production is much better than their last outing, but nearly every other facet feels weaker. Songs quickly grow formulaic and repetitive, with “Be Not Dismayed,” “The Spirit, Alive,” and “Setting Fire to the Sky” starting with a chuggy opening riff (usually the best part) and slowly morphing into a generic metalcore song. Each features the typical swing back and forth between core-style screaming and harmonized clean choruses that feel hamfisted, with generically uplifting lyrics like “Be not dismayed and carry this torch forward.” The album lacks the flourishes of URNE’s past two releases, and rarely do songs deviate from their repetitive structures.

Setting Fire to the Sky isn’t all disappointing. As previously mentioned, the production is great, and James Cook’s snare sounds wonderful throughout. While formulaic, the album is full of riffs that will at least get you headbanging, even if they are without pathos. “The Ancient Horizon” is an album highlight, featuring a massive lead and a sound worthy of its title while avoiding the pitfalls of the metalcore hole URNE has crawled into. Album closer “Nocturnal Forms” falls on the good side of Mastodon worship, with a chorus that feels like something off Emperor of Sand. A few features appear on the album, like the aforementioned “Harken the Waves” with Troy Sanders. A song that feels somewhat comical given Joe Nally’s clear worship of Sander’s iconic style, making for a feature that feels obligatory but not complementary. The second, “Breathe” with Jo Quail, goes nowhere. An overly sappy tune with bland cleans and cringe lyrics like “I saw the world, before the world saw me.” Neither feature feels necessary, and with the latter, you have a track that could be cut altogether.

I had high expectations, but Setting Fire to the Sky failed to meet them at every turn. The band’s sound changed in a way that many metal fans are familiar with. More generic music, more radio-friendly songs, more clean singing, all the things that make longtime metal fans cringe and flip on a group. While I foresee this album ending up all over year-end lists on the normie sites, this record is a shadow of the band’s clear inspirations and shows a group that should return to what made them stand out in the first place. At least the album artwork is gorgeous.

Rating: Mixed
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream :(
Label: Spinefarm
Websites: urneofficial.com | instagram.com/urneband
Releases Worldwide: January 30th, 2026

Been too long since I've listened to Cryptworm's masterpiece from 2023. Fixing that now.

https://cryptworm.bandcamp.com/album/oozing-radioactive-vomition

#metal #DeathMetal #NowPlaying #UKBands #UKMetal #Bristol #BristolBands #BristolMetal

The UK's MASTIFF just put out a new EP today, 'For All the Dead Dreams', so I have that #NowPlaying, and it's a great one, of course. I've seen Mastiff described as sludge, doom, or hardcore, but they're a cool mix of.. something crossover-y and I dig it a lot. There's breakdowns. Now THIS is how you do some heavy, brutal (but still melodic, riffy) shit. Behold:

https://mastiffhchc.bandcamp.com/album/for-all-the-dead-dreams

#sludge #UKBands #UKMetal #metal #UKGrind #Mastiff #crossover #hardcore

Paradise Lost – Ascension Review

By Steel Druhm

As a huge fan of the salad days of the “Peaceville Three,” I felt obliged to follow Paradise Lost’s career throughout the 90s as they shifted from their raw death-doom birth through the refined melancholic doom heard on Icon, the Metallica-adjacent, stadium doom of Draconian Times, and into their Depeche Mode fancier period with Host and Believe in Nothing. That last era was a bridge too far for me, and by the time they made their way back to doom on 2005s eponymous release, I had moved on. I only paid casual attention to their output thereafter until 2020s Obsidian. That one was solid enough to get me tentatively back on board, but I didn’t come into Ascension expecting big things, just a solid late-career outing by a group of seasoned gloom-mongers. Ascension functions as a guided tour through the various eras of the band’s 35 year career, and while that could make for a very disjointed listen given the amount of ground Paradise Lost covered over the decades, it feels like a well-catered reunion of dear olde friends. More importantly, it features some of the most consistently impressive songcraft the band’s mustered in years. Age brings a certain wisdom, but sometimes you just catch lightning in a bottle. I’m not looking to overanalyze which got us here, I’m just enjoying the hearse ride.

It doesn’t hurt that Paradise Lost kick things off with one of the most aggressive and heavy songs they’ve churned out in a long time. “Serpent on the Cross” is a massive, murderous slab of doom that kicks all the crypts and tickles the mortician. It’s got mournful harmonies, weighty doom riffs, and the right amount of despair, yet it still comes hard with burly riffs and knocks you upside the head with a memorable refrain. Nick Holmes sounds born again hard, and Greg Macintosh and Aaron Aedy bring tons of heft and emotion to the string bending. This is my favorite Paradise Lost song since their heyday and I can’t stop spinning it. In fact, as my beloved and perpetually hapless N.Y. Jets got pounded into assdust Sunday, they did so to the haunting leads of this charnel beast. This victory is followed by another in the form of “Tyrants Serenade” which hits at the perfect middle ground between their Draconian Times and One Second eras. It even conjures a bit of Type O Negative magic courtesy of Olde Nick’s baritone crooning. This one is an earworm infection waiting to happen, and you should catch it. “Salvation” is the big, epic doom set piece, and it doesn’t disappoint, plodding and heaving for 7 minutes of morose glory while raising the ghosts of vintage Paradise Lost along the way. It even reminds me of Fvneral Fvkk here and there.

With a front half this massive, it was almost inevitable that things would tail off as Ascension moved along, but Paradise Lost holds the slippage to a minimum. “Silence Like the Grave” and and “Diluvium” bring that Metallica-friendly Draconian Times sound back in force for inspired doom stomp and clompers, and even when they revisit their Depeche Mode as on “Sirens,” they keep things just heavy enough to bull through painlessly. What’s so impressive is that even though the band revisits all the familiar hollowed ground, things feel fresh and new rather than recycled. Somehow Ascension manages to avoid filler and there isn’t a track here I’d call weak, though “Sirens” is merely good. At 51 minutes, the album never feels too long or bogged down, and most songs sit in the 4-5 minute window and move along briskly.

I’m high on Nick Holmes’ performance here. He sounds great and as versatile as ever, ranging from sadboi Goth croons to brutal death croaks and all stops in-between. He really gets nasty at times, even sounding downright funeral doomish at points. He’s also got a great sense of where to put the melodic clean breaks for maximum impact. Greg Macintosh and Aaron Aedy outdo themselves with a high-quality collection of riffs that cover a range of moods and styles. They bring the doom hammer down hard on the maximalist cuts like “Serpent on the Cross” and “Salvation,” but also amplify the moody cuts to keep things pulsing with vitality. The subtly morose harmonies win me over, even on the more hard-charging numbers, and the level of writing remains strong with moments of greatness dotting the runtime.

It’s rare a band as long in the tooth as Paradise Lost uncorks a late career album that can stand among the giants in their catalog, but Ascension is one such slippery aberration. It’s the kind of release your brain tells you shouldn’t be as good as it is, but after a week-plus marinating in it, the quality cannot be denied. I’m happy to see a long-running institution like Paradise Lost get another win and show they still have ichor in their cold veins. Ascension indeed!

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nuclear Blast
Websites: paradiselost.co.uk | facebook.com/paradiselostofficial | instagram.com/officialparadiselost
Releases Worldwide: September 19th, 2025

Grymm

So, question: say you’ve been a band for almost 40 years, and 80% of your line-up has remained completely unchanged, save for the near-Spinal Tapification that’s reserved for whoever happens to find themselves on the drum throne.1 You’ve gone from the slowest of death/doom, to near-Metallica heights of superstardom in your home country, to a severe Depeche Mode-influenced left turn, just to wrap yourselves back around through Gothic doom territory and back home to death-doom in the wildest “Peaceville Three” ouroboros ever. You’re also about to release your seventeenth album. With the exceptions of legendary acts, we’re usually lucky to see bands craft seven albums, let alone seventeen. So what do you do to keep yourselves fresh and motivated? What do you bring to the party that will not only excite your longtime fanbase, but also hopefully bring in some fresh faces to your music?

If you’re Paradise Lost, you simply condense all of your experiences into a singular vision, and write your best collection of songs to date. Ascension lives up to the promise of its name, given how much of this album soars above its peers in both heft and hook. From the opening riff of “Serpent of the Cross” to the fading of the closing guitar solo in “The Precipice,” 51 minutes of doom metal have never flown by so damn fast before, nor would it had the material been written by less experienced hands. Since a good portion of this album is DOOOOOOM (in all caps-locked letters, complete with at least 6 O’s), that’s no easy feat.

And how DOOOOOOM are we talking? Take third track (and album highlight) “Salvation.” Between the foreboding riffs of Gregor Mackintosh and Aaron Aedy, Mackintosh’s mournful melodies, and new/former drummer Guido Zima Montanarini guiding the back-end like a funeral march, “Salvation” could have easily fit in on Strigoi’s last album had it not been for Nick Holmes’ vocal performance, whether it’s in his cavernous growls, his anguished mid-range cleans during the chorus, or even the impressive higher-ranged singing towards the end. “Salvation” presents itself as a masterclass in epic doom/death musicianship and songwriting, and one that’s making a mad run for Song o’ the Year honors come December.

It’s not like there aren’t any other challengers for that spot on Ascension, either. Late album scorcher “Diluvium” starts off as a plodding, downtrodden number, before riffing up a storm towards the song’s latter half, with Mackintosh cutting loose with solo after solo. “Lay a Wreath Upon the World,” one of the few Paradise Lost numbers to feature an acoustic guitar, pulls you in with hypnotic female wailing and pensive atmosphere. “Silence Like the Grave” and “Tyrant’s Serenade” bring the speed up just enough, acting as energizing mood-setters for the album’s front half. And that’s the only qualm I really have with the album; the album feels front-loaded with the faster numbers, with the album’s second half being more moody and slower. There’s not a song on here I would consider to be “filler,” but it’s an observation that stuck around even after the album’s wrapped up.

Paradise Lost have every right to dial it in right now, having cemented themselves as legends of death/doom metal. Thank fuck they didn’t, though, as Ascension has comfortably nestled itself amongst my top five favorite Paradise Lost albums, acting as a strong thread between the unfuckwithable Draconian Times, their underrated dark horse Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us, and their return to the grave in The Plague Within. Who would have thought that, by reaching into their vault of classic albums, they would not only put together something fresh and timeless, but also make a strong case for one of their best ever? Easily a Top Ten contender, and one of the year’s best doom metal albums, bar none.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

#2025 #35 #40 #Ascension #DoomMetal #DraconianTimes #GothicDoom #Metallica #NuclearBlastRecords #Obsidian #ParadiseLost #Review #Reviews #Sep25 #Strigoi #TypeONegative #UKMetal

Stuck in the Filter: June 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Sweat pours out of our pores. Heat blisters metal and scorches dirt. Power bills rise relentlessly, without mercy. These are the signs of summer in the brutal ductwork that is our hallowed Filter. But we continue onward in search of those metallic scraps that provide such unbridled joy to our masses. The only variable: who of my trusted team will survive this season, and who will perish in the service of this sacred duty?

We won’t know the answer until this article gets published. And when it is, the statistics will be fabricated and obfuscated accordingly. So ignore the death toll and instead peep the haul!

Kenstrosity’s Meanest Meanies

Shadow of Intent // Imperium Delirium [June 12th, 2025 – Self-Release]

For over a decade, Connecticut/Rhode Island melodic deathcore independents Shadow of Intent challenged the standards of the genre by offering album after album of ripping tracks filled with drama, clever songwriting, and demolishing vocal talent. In their catalog, Elegy was the one record of theirs that didn’t stick with me. However, Imperium Delirium rapidly righted the ship with 55 minutes of opulent, evil, and crushing melodic destruction. Raging through its first half without a single misstep, Imperium Delirium is a focused effort chock full of devastating heft, buttery smooth songwriting, and a favorable riffs-to-breakdowns ratio. The back half focuses on drama and orchestration just a touch more, but songs like “Feeding the Meatgrinder,” “Vehement Draconian Vengeance,” and “No Matter the Cost” still bring the violence required to annihilate entire planets. Championing this unending assault of killer tunes, Ben Duerr’s vocal performance is intimidating to say the least, easily reinforcing his rightful place as one of the very best extreme vocalists in the scene today. Of course, the record is still too long by about 10 minutes, and a fair amount of that bloat comes from the slightly overblown self-titled closer. Additionally, while I appreciate the reverent nod to the instrumental talent on “Apocalypse Canvas,” I don’t believe it adds enough to the story of this record. Nonetheless, Imperium Delirium might be one of my favorite Shadows of Intent, and I look forward to where it leads me next.

ClarkKent’s Literary Listen

Nightbearer // Defiance [June 13, 2025 – Testimony Records]

Anyone looking for a mashup of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and Gothenburg melodeath, look no further than the latest album from Germany’s Nightbearer. Defiance marks album number three in the band’s repertoire, and a continuation of their worship of fantasy epics.1 Right off the bat, the catchy harmonic guitar lead of “His Dark Materials” summons Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates. The guitar work by Dominik Hellmuth and Tristan Schubert is fantastic throughout–their creative melodies bring to mind lively outfits like Brymir. Michael Torka’s beastly growls and Manuel Lüke’s thunderous drumming add some brutality and weight to the harmonious riffs. A few songs even go full brutal death metal (“One Church Over All”, “Dying Knows No Bounds”). Perhaps the standout track comes from the 9-minute epic, “Ascension.” It starts with an eerie synth intro before breaking out into some of the best riffs on Defiance. Then, just as things settle down, the song builds back up and explodes into something straight from Blackwater Park-era Opeth. Overall, this is an impressive collection of songs that’s sure to scratch that HM-2 itch.

Tyme’s Juxtaposed Jotting

Lipoma // No Cure for the Sick [June 13th, 2025 – Gurgling Gore]

Melodic gore-grind. Yeah, it’s a thing. And California-based Lipoma’s new album, No Cure for the Sick, proves it’s a pretty fucking cool thing at that—the brainchild of one Max Pierce (aka Dr. Lipoma).2 Since going live in 2021, Lipoma has been insanely active, releasing a slew of splits and EPs along with two full-length albums: 2022’s Horrors of Pathology and 2023’s Odes to Suffering. And while Lipoma has steadily worked to make comparisons with fellow purveyors like Carcass, Lymphatic Phlegm, and Pharmacist less relevant, No Cure for the Sick moves things to a different ballpark, one full of Gothenburgian melodicism (“Cult of the Firehealers,” “Glory to the Blade”), post-metallic pop-punk optimism (“Cardiac Scars Forever,” “Psalms of Psoriasis”), indecipherable gurgles, and organ, which is what sets Lipoma’s No Cure for the Sick apart not only from previous efforts, but the pack in general. From the circus-like atmosphere shrouding opener “The Sea Surgeon,” Pierce’s use of organ permeates much of No Cure for the Sick’s forty minutes, buoying the melodic heaviness and excellent solo work with jig-like danceability (“Remedies of Pagan Medicine,” “Last Anatomy of Johan Ziegler,” “No Cure for the Sick”). Pierce’s melodically charged instrumentation, when juxtaposed against his gore-ground gurglings—a combo that works in a way it has no right to—sees Lipoma doing something I find wholly unique, a rarity in today’s digital age. I have had a ton of fun with No Cure for the Sick, and if you’ve not checked it out yet, do so post haste.

Iceberg’s Frosty Forget-Me-Nots

Puppe Magnetik // Laudans Deum [June 6th, 2025 – The Circle Music]

Laudans Deum is not for the faint of heart, if that album cover didn’t quite convince you. The debut compilation of Puppe Magnetik, the record dives deep into the recesses of the human psyche. Aina Virtanen weaponizes industrial metal, ambient, and drone, wrapped up in the stylings of the Weimar Republic. An accomplished classically-trained musician, Virtanen uses her clean vocals sparingly (“Who Will Sing This Sorrow,” “Labyrinth”) but to great effect, reminiscent of Diablo Swing Orchestra. But the accessibility stops there; Laudans Deum’s thirteen tracks are comprised of ambient meditations (“Moritat”), ear-splitting electronic barrages (“Suspendium, Rosarium et Crucifixu”), and mood music fit for a throwback horror movie (“The Pregnant Nun,” “Patient AV”). But within the graveyard are scattered moments of respite; the gorgeously rendered classical guitar of “Timeless Serenade” and the haunting vocals of “Laments From The Desert.” While the album is unforgivingly through-composed, making for an exceptionally difficult first listen, there’s something darkly endearing about it. I’m reminded of Sergei Prokofiev, the Russian composer whose music was often described as both grotesque and starkly beautiful. Puppe Magnetik have produced a challenging record, but it’s worth a listen for those who enjoy avant-garde music and the stranger, more terrifying corners of the aural arts.

All Men Unto Me // Requiem [June 27th, 2025 – The Larvarium]

A little more metal, but a lot more challenging, All Men Unto Me’s Requiem brings to bear the full weight of spiritual suffering. Requiem is a direct interpretation of the Latin Mass for the Dead, it’s eight tracks playing all the hits. Fuzzed out, half-time doom takes a supporting role in a record that heavily features pipe organ, acoustic guitar, and string leads. Rylan Greaves takes a unique approach here, subverting the natural tension and release of the rite by injecting clanging noise into passages normally reverent. Their vocal performance is the unrepentant star of the show, at times crystalline (“Introit”) at others sobbing (“Kyrie”) straining (“Agnus Dei”) and howling (“Sequentia”). The album takes its time to sink its claws into you, with long track lengths and extended droning chords requiring patience. But pay close attention to Greaves’ lyrics and you can’t help but be pulled into the raw, emotional drama of Requiem. The rising, ethereal sunset of “In Paradisum,” the falsetto whisper speaking “God knows what I’d be without you” against an impossibly high, ever so slightly off-key bell-tone. One’s left wondering the true meaning of that line as the track ends, and the dead remain silent. A powerful statement indeed.

Killjoy’s Fabulous Find

Fabula Rasa // Tome II: The Beyond [June 13th, 2025 – Self-Release]

The words “fabulous” and “fable” are interconnected, both derived from the Latin word “fabulosus.” And since folk music and power metal draw heavily from fables and myths, the portmanteau Fabula Rasa is a fitting name for a group that blends both genres. Following the lead of forebears Elvenking and early Mägo de Oz, this spirited crew from Düsseldorf, Germany, infuses what would otherwise be standard—but good!—heavy/power metal with lots of violin. The violin and guitar trade off playing the lead melodies, though the former tends to have greater emphasis. But fret not, shred-heads, for the guitar solos are also exemplary in the more power metal-leaning songs, like “Dragon Rising” and “Vengeance Is Mine.” The violin often carves its own folksy space, the cheery, zippy fiddling akin to Dalriada (“At Full Moon,” “Anthem of the North”). Most songs are energetic, but “Burning Innocence” is a pleasant surprise midway through the record, with hand drums and the other band members’ vocal contributions creating an intimate group setting. Don’t miss this charismatic performance from these fabulous musicians.

Maddog’s Sludgy Selection

Dimscûa // Dust Eater [June 3rd, 2025 – Self-Release]

While sludge is a dime a dozen, few bands scratch the same itch as Amenra’s best work. The UK’s Dimscûa aims to correct this oversight. Dust Eater opens with “Elder Bairn,” whose rhythmic riffs evoke the meditative power of LLNN. After this appetizer, the album’s interplay between brawn and heart rivals Amenra. While Dimscûa’s muscular riffs drive the album forward (“Existence/Futility”), Dust Eater stands out through its hypnotic melodies. The heartache in these melodies is palpable, magnified by tortured vocals that recall Julie Christmas. Because of this ebb and flow, the album never feels bloated despite its eight-minute average track length. For instance, “Existence/Futility” abandons and then suddenly resurrects its driving main riff, adding unexpected variety and lodging into my memory. Dust Eater’s climaxes sometimes fall short, like the fizzle-out ending of “The Dusteater.” But despite its imperfections, Dimscûa’s debut is a powerful outing in a neglected style.3

Dear Hollaback’s Ain’t No B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Various Artists // KPop Demon Hunters [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] [June 20th, 2025 – Republic Records]4

Okay, look. Look. K-Pop is not metal, I get that. But the gang over at Sony concocted what just recently earned the title of Netflix’s most watched movie of all time, and holy shit, what a soundtrack.. I’d like to use the classic “my daughter made me do it” schtick but she only likes “Takedown.”5 KPop Demon Hunters creates insanely catchy pop music that’s also focused and intentional, a commentary on the rigid and flagellant nature of K-Pop alongside feel-good messages of self-acceptance and healing (“Golden,” “What It Sounds Like”). The focal girl group HUNTR/X does most of the heavy lifting, also tossing in enough pop culture-inclined battle hymns to make the republic jealous (“How It’s Done,” “Takedown”). Their on-screen rivals Saja Boys offer entendre-layered sugary pop (the infamous “Soda Pop”) and sinister Gregorian-influenced choruses (“Your Idol”). Beyond the novelty is intentionality: clever chord progressions that feel continually transcendent rather than stagnantly by-the-numbers (“What It Sounds Like”), diminuendos of authenticity among bombasts of a glossy sheen (“Golden”), touches of dissonance paired with unsettling slant rhymes (“Your Idol”), and rhythmic complexity building to ethereal climaxes of soaring belts (“Free”). While yes, I’m telling you to give it a spin, I am also giving excuses for why my review count dropped to critical this summer. Fuck off, I’m gonna be, gonna be golden.

#2025 #AllMenUntoMe #Ambient #AmericanMetal #AtTheGates #AvantGarde #Brymir #Carcass #Dalriada #DarkTranquility #Deathcore #Defiance #DiabloSwingOrchestra #Dimscûa #Drone #DustEater #Elvenking #FabulaRasa #FinnishMetal #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #GurglingGore #HeavyMetal #HUNTRX #ImperiumDelirium #IndustrialMetal #Jun25 #KPop #KPopDemonHunters #LaudansDeum #Lipoma #LymphaticPhlegm #MägoDeOz #MelodicDeathMetal #MelodicDeathcore #Nightbearer #NoCureForTheSick #Opeth #Pharmacist #PowerMetal #PuppeMagnetik #RepublicRecords #Requiem #Review #Reviews #SajaBoys #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #ShadowOfIntent #StuckInTheFilter #TestimonyRecords #TheCircleMusic #TheLarvarium #TomeIITheBeyond #UKMetal #VariousArtists

This week's #ThursDeath is a twofer. Death-doom two piece GRAVE EATER from Wales, UK put out two filthy demos in 2020, one in January and one in September. Not sure which I like more, but they're both chock full of raw, cavernous, growly, sludgy, often slow, plodding riffs and grooves. Even some actual power tools in the last track of the first demo here, 'Powertool Lobotomy'. Hope we see more from Grave Eater soon.

Erotic Foul Odours (Jan 2020)
https://graveeater.bandcamp.com/album/erotic-foul-odours

Rotting Alive (Sept 2020)
https://graveeater.bandcamp.com/album/rotting-alive

#metal #DeathMetal #doom #DoomMetal #DeathDoom #Wales #UK #UKBands #UKMetal #GraveEater #WalesBands #WalesMetal @wendigo @HailsandAles @rtw @Kitty @lola

This week's #ThursDeath is Glasgow's ABYSMAL DECAY. These guys put out this 2 song demo earlier this year and it has a great cavernous grimy kind of sound to it. Some cool dynamics with the slow to the very fast tempos too, solid OSDM feel. And even a slimy, crusty solo or two from whatever crypt or cave they created this in.

https://abysmaldecay.bandcamp.com/album/abysmal-decay-demo-2025

#metal #DeathMetal #OSDM #Glasgow #UK #GlasgowBands #UKBands #GlasgowMetal #UKMetal @wendigo @HailsandAles @rtw @Kitty @umrk @lola

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

#GrindayFriday for this week is TRADING HANDS from the UK and their new EP 'I'm Going Out of My Mind, Does Anyone Want Anything?'

Trading Hands play a wild mix of powerviolence, grind & fastcore. This stuff is FAST, heavy, raw, tons of breakdowns. You can listen to this in no time at all. Blink and you might miss it. Weird, dynamic, I can't get enough. Easily one of my favorite EPs of ANY genre so far this year.

https://tradinghands.bandcamp.com/album/im-going-out-of-my-mind-does-anyone-want-anything

#grind #powerviolence #fastcore #UK #UKBands #UKGrind #UKPowerviolence #UKFastcore #TradingHands #metal #UKMetal #hardcore #UKHardcore @vanessawynn @HailsandAles @wendigo

We enter January under the impression that our underpowered filtration system couldn’t possibly get any more clogged up. Those blistering winds that overwhelm the vents with an even greater portion of debris and detritus pose a great challenge and a grave danger to my minions. Crawling through the refuse as more flies in all william-nilliam, my faithful lackeys brave the perils of the job and return, as they always do, with solid chunks of semi-precious ore.

And so I stand before you, my greedy little gremlins, in a freshly pressed flesh suit that only the elite like myself adorn, and present January 2025’s Filter finds. REJOICE!

Kenstrosity’s Fresh(ish) Finds

Bloodcrusher // Voidseeker [January 9th, 2025 – Barf Bag Records]

The sun rises on a new year, and most are angrier than ever. What’s a better way to process that anger than jamming a phat slab of brutal slamming deathcore into your gob, right? Oregon one-man-slammajamma Bloodcrusher understand this, and so sophomore outburst Voidseeker provides the goods. These are tunes meant not for musicality or delicacy but for brute-force face-caving. Ignorant stomps and trunk-rattling slams trade blows with serrated tremolo slides and a dry pong snare with a level of ferocity uncommon even in this unforgiving field (“Agonal Cherubim ft. Jack Christensen”). Feel the blistering heat of choice cuts “Serpents Circle ft. Azerate Nakamura” or “Death Battalion: Blood Company ft. The Gore Corps” and you have no choice but to submit to their immense heft. Prime lifting material, Voidseeker’s most straightforward cuts guarantee shattered PRs and spontaneous combustion of your favorite gym shorts as your musculature explodes in volume (“Slave Cult,” “Sanguis Aeternus,” “Blood Frenzy”). If you ask me, that sounds like a wonderful problem to have. As they pummel your cranium into dust with deadly slam riffs (“Malus et Mortis ft. Ryan Sporer,” “Seeker of the Void,” “Earthcrusher”) or hack and slash your bones with serrated tremolos (“Razors of Anguish,” “Methmouth PSA”), remember that Bloodcrusher is only trying to help.

Skaldr // Saṃsṛ [January 31st, 2025 – Avantgarde Music]

Virginia’s black metal upstarts Skaldr don’t do anything new. If you’ve heard any of black metal’s second wave, or even more melodic fare by some of my favorite meloblack bands like Oubliette, Stormkeep, and Vorga, Skaldr’s material feels like a cozy blanket of fresh snow. Kicking off their second record, Saṃsṛ, in epic fashion, “The Sum of All Loss” evokes a swaying dance that lulls me into its otherwordly arms. As Saṃsṛ progresses through its seven movements, tracks like the gorgeous “Storms Collide” and the lively “The Crossing” strike true every synapse in my brain, flooding my system with a goosebump-inducing fervor quelled solely by the burden of knowing it must end. Indeed, these short 43 minutes leave me ravenous for more, as Skaldr’s lead-focused wiles charm me over and over again without excess repetition of motifs or homogenization of tones and textures (“From Depth to Dark,” “The Cinder, The Flame, The Sun”). Some of its best moments eclipse its weakest, but weak moments are thankfully few and far between. In reality, Skaldr‘s most serious flaw is that they align so closely with their influences, thereby limiting Saṃsṛ‘s potential to stand out. Nonetheless, it represents one of the more engaging and well-realized examples of the style. Hear it!

Subterranean Lava Dragon // The Great Architect [January 23rd, 2025 – Self Release]

Formed from members of Black Crown Initiate and Minarchist, Pennsylvania’s Subterranean Lava Dragon take the successful parts of their pedigree’s progressive death metal history and transplant them into epic, fantastical soundscapes on their debut LP The Great Architect. Despite the riff-focused, off-kilter nature of The Great Architect, there lies a mystical, mythical backbone behind everything Subterranean Lava Dragon do (“The Great Architect,” “Bleed the Throne”). Delicate strums of the guitar, multifaceted percussion, and noodly soloing provide a thoughtful thread behind the heaviest crush of prog-death riffs and rabid roars, a combination that favorably recalls Blind the Huntsmen (“The Silent Kin,” “A Dream of Drowning”). In a tight 42 minutes, Subterranean Lava Dragon approaches progressive metal with a beastly heft and a compelling set of teeth—largely driven by the expert swing and swagger of the bass guitar—that differentiates The Great Architect from the greater pool of current prog. Yet, its pursuit of creative song structure, reminiscent of Obsidious at times, allows textured gradations and nuanced layers to elevate the final product (“A Question of Eris,” “Ov Ritual Matricide”). It is for these reasons that I heartily recommend The Great Architect to anyone who appreciates smart, but still dangerous and deadly, metal.

Thus Spoke’s Likeable Leftovers

Besna // Krásno [January 16th, 2025 – Self Release]

It was the esteemed Doom et Al who first made me aware of Slovakia’s post-black group Besna. 2022’s Zverstvá was charming and moving in equal respects, with its folky vibe amplifying the punch of blackened atmosphere and epicness. With Krásno, the group take things in a sharper, more refined, and still more compelling direction, showing real evolution and improvement. The vague leanings towards the electronic play a larger role (“Zmráka sa,” “Hranice”), but songs also make use of snappier, and stronger emotional surges (“Krásno,” “Mesto spí”), the polished production to the atmospherics counterbalanced sleekly by the rough, ardent screams and pleasingly prominent percussion. Krásno literally translates as ‘beautiful,’ and Besna get away with titling their sophomore so bluntly because it is accurate. Melodies are more sweeping and stirring (“Krásno,” “Oceán prachu,” “Meso spí”), and the integration of the harsh amidst the mellow is executed more affectively (“Hranice,” “Bezhviezdna obloha”) than in the band’s previous work. Particularly potent are Krásno’s subtle nods and reprises of harmonic themes spanning the record (“Krásno,” “Oceán prachu,” “Mesto spí”), recurring like waves in an uplifting way that reminds me of Deadly Carnage’s Through the Void, Above the Suns. Barely scraping past half an hour, the beautiful Krásno can be experienced repeatedly in short succession; which is the very least this little gem deserves.

Tyme’s Ticking Bomb

Trauma Bond // Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone [January 12, 2025 – Self-Released]

Conceptualized by multi-instrumentalist Tom Mitchell1 and vocalist Eloise Chong-Gargette, London, England’s Trauma Bond plays grindcore with a twist. Formed in 2020 and on the heels of two other EPs—’21’s The Violence of Spring and ’22’s Winter’s Light—January 2025 sees Trauma Bond release its first proper album, Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone, the third in a seasonally themed quadrilogy. Twisting and reshaping the boundaries of grindcore, not unlike Beaten to Death or Big Chef, Trauma Bond douses its grind with a gravy boat full of sludge. Past the moodily tribal and convincing intro “Brushed by the Storm” lies fourteen minutes of grindy goodness (“Regards,” “Repulsion”), sludgian skullduggery (“Chewing Fat”), and caustic cantankerousness (“Thumb Skin for Dinner”). You’ll feel violated and breathless even before staring down the barrel of nine-and-a-half minute closer “Dissonance,” a gargantuanly heavy ear-fuck that will liquefy what’s left of the organs inside your worthless skin with its slow, creeping sludgeastation. I was not expecting to hear what Trauma Bond served up, as the minimalist cover art drew me in initially, but I’m digging it muchly. Independently released, Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone is a hell of an experience and should garner Trauma Bond a label partner. I’ll be hoping for that, continuing to support them, and looking forward to whatever autumn brings.

Iceberg’s Bleak Bygones

Barshasketh // Antinomian Asceticsm [January 9th, 2025 – W.T.C Productions]

My taste for black metal runs a narrow, anti-secondwave path. I want oppressive, nightmarish atmosphere, sure, but I also crave rich, modern production and technically proficient instrumental performances. Blending the fury of early Behemoth, the cinematic scope of Deathspell Omega, and the backbeat-supported drones of Panzerfaust, Barshasketh’s latest fell square in my target area. The pealing bells of “Radiant Aperture” beckoned me into Antinomian Asceticsm’s sacred space, a dark world populated with rippling drum fills, surprisingly melodic guitar work, and a varied vocal attack that consistently keeps things fresh. With the average track length in the 6-minute territory, repeat listens are necessary to reveal layers of rhythm and synth atmosphere that give the album its complexity. A throwaway interlude (“Phaneron Engulf”) and a drop in energy in the second and third tracks stop this from being a TYMHM entry, but anyone with a passing interest in technical black metal with lots of atmosphere should check this out.

GardensTale’s Tab of Acid

I Don’t Do Drugs, I Am Drugs // I Don’t Do Drugs, I Am Drugs [January 27th, 2025 – Self-released]

When you name yourself after a famous Salvador Dalí quote, you better be prepared to back it up with an appropriate amount of weird shit. Thankfully, I Don’t Do Drugs, I Am Drugs strives to be worthy of the moniker. The band’s self-titled debut is a psychedelic prog-death nightmare of off-kilter riffs, structures that seem built upon dream logic, layers of ethereal synths and bizarre mixtures of vocal styles. The project was founded by Scott Hogg, guitarist for Cyclops Cataract, who is responsible for everything but the vocals. That includes all the songwriting. Hogg throws the listener off with an ever-shifting array of Gojira-esque plodding syncopation and thick, throbbing layers of harmonics that lean discordant without fully shifting into dissonance. But the songs float as easily into other-worldly soundscapes (“The Tree that Died in it’s[sic] Sleep”) or off-putting balladry (“Confierous”). BP of Madder Mortem handles vocals, and he displays an aptitude for the many facets required to buoy the intriguing but unintuitive music, his shouts and screams and cleans and hushes often layered together in strange strata either more or less than human. The combined result resembles a nightmare Devin may have had around 2005 after listening too much Ephel Duath. It’s not yet perfected; the ballad doesn’t quite work, and the compositions are sometimes a bit too dedicated to their lack of handholds. But it’s a hell of a trip, and a very convincing mission statement. A band to keep an eye on!

Dear Hollow’s Gunk Behooval

Bloodbark // Sacred Sound of Solitude [January 3rd, 2025 – Northern Silence Productions]

Bloodbark’s debut Bonebranches offered atmospheric black metal a minimalist spin, as cold and relentless as Paysage d’Hiver, as textured as Fen, and as barren as the mountains it depicts, exuding a natural crispness that recalls Falls of Rauros. Seven years later, we are graced with its follow-up, the majestic Sacred Sound of Solitude. Like its predecessor, the classic atmoblack template is cut with post-black to create an immensely rich and dynamic tapestry, lending all the hallmarks of frostbitten blackened sound (shrieks, blastbeats, tremolo) with the depth of a more modern approach. Twinkling leads, frosty synths, and forlorn piano survey the frigid vistas, while the more furious blackened portions scale snowbound peaks, utilized with the utmost restraint and bound by yearning chord progressions (“Glacial Respite,” “Griever’s Domain”). A new element in the act’s sound is clean vocals (“Time is Nothing,” “Augury of Snow”), which lend a far more melancholy vibe alongside trademark shrieking. Bloodbark offers top-tier atmospheric black metal, a reminder of the always-looming winter.

Great American Ghost // Tragedy of the Commons [January 31st, 2025 – SharpTone Records]

Boston’s Great American Ghost used to be extremely one-note, a coattail-rider of the likes of Kublai Khan and Knocked Loose. Deathcore muscles whose veins pulse to the beat of a hardcore heart, you’d be forgiven to see opener “Kerosene” as a sign of stagnation – chunky breakdowns and punk beats, feral barks and callouts, and a hardcore frowny face sported throughout. But Tragedy of the Commons is a far more layered affair, with echoes of metalcore past (“Ghost in Flesh,” “Hymns of Decay”), pronounced and tasteful nu-metal influence a la Deftones (“Genocide,” “Reality/Relapse”), and more variety in their rhythms and tempos, reflecting a Fit for an Autopsy-esque cutthroat intensity and ominous crescendos alongside a more pronounced influence of melody and manic dissonance (“Echoes of War,” “Forsaken”). Is it still meatheaded? Absolutely. Are its more “experimental” pieces in just well-trodden paths of metalcore bands past? Oh definitely. But gracing Great American Ghost a voice beyond the hardcore beatdowns does Tragedy of the Commons good and gives this one-trick pony another trail to wander.

Steel Druhm’s Detestible Digestibles

Guts // Nightmare Fuel [January 31st, 2025 – Self-Release]

Finland’s Guts play a weird “caveman on a Zamboni” variant of groove-heavy death metal that mixes OSDM with sludge and stoner elements for something uniquely sticky and pulversizing. On Nightmare Fuel, the material keeps grinding forward at a universal mid-tempo pace powered by phat, crushing grooves. “571” sounds like a Melvins song turned into a death metal assault, and it shouldn’t work, but it very much does. The blueprint for what Guts do is so basic, but they manage to keep cracking skulls on track after track as you remain locked in place helplessly. Nightmare Fuel is a case study into how less can be MOAR, as Guts staunchly adhere to their uncomplicated approach and make it work so well. Each track introduces a rudimentary riff and beats you savagely with it for 3-4 minutes with little variation. Things reset for the next track, and a new riff comes out to pound you into schnitzel all over again. This is the Guts experience, and you will be utterly mulched by massive prime movers like “Mortar” and “Ravenous Leech,” the latter of which sounds like an old Kyuss song refitted with death vocals and unleashed upon mankind. The relentlessly monochromatic riffs are things of minimalist elegance that you need to experience. Nightmare Fuel is a slow-motion ride straight into a brick wall, so brace for a concrete facial.