More than a dozen albums and several sonic swerves later, the duo now operate completely outside of subgenre or scene.
Inspired by the foreboding mountains that loom over Wintherr’s native Bern, Die Berge offers a harsh, low-fi strain of atmospheric black metal that feels almost vintage in its orthodoxy.
Epic doom metal is a difficult (and highly specific) genre to nail without feeling derivative or cheesy, but Philadelphia’s Crypt Sermon have been making it look infuriatingly easy for nearly a decade.
The Stygian Rose is awash in muscular, deftly executed riffs that stomp between brooding doom and traditional heavy metal.
The first solo album from former Slayer guitarist Kerry King is basically the “Still D.R.E.” of thrash metal.
The eighth album by Body Count, which was produced by Will Putney (Fit for an Autopsy), includes cameos from metal greats like Corpsegrinder, Max Cavalera, and Howard Jones. However, the main draw is still rapper Ice-T, who at 66 is still spitting rhymes with the same unwavering attitude and gleefully twisted sense of humor that he has been bringing to the game for more than 40 years. Hard-crunching songs like “The Purge,” “Psychopath,” and “Drug Lords” tell cartoonishly gory stories, but Merciless’s most moving moment is the band’s stunning cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” in which Ice looks critically at the state of humanity today while guest guitarist David Gilmour cries as though every string bend will determine our very future. —Dan Epstein.
Tzompantli’s Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force instantly sets itself apart from the death-metal pack, starting with the shrieking Mexica death whistle on the opening war cry “Tetzahuitl.”. Brian “Bigg o)))” Ortiz is the leader of the ten-member indigenous death-doom band from California. Although Tzompantli is far more intimate, he also performs with Xibalba, a hardcore heavyweight. The album’s lyrics, which are largely delivered in roars of Nahuatl, are inspired by Ortiz’s indigenous heritage, and the use of traditional instruments heightens the otherwise gloomy atmosphere of the death-doom songs, such as “Chichimecatl.”. Otherwise, Ortiz and Co. adher closely to the gory blueprint established by bands such as Evoken or Coffins, utilizing percussion-heavy, slow, and lethal salvos that traverse the boundaries between funeral doom and death metal. Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force redefines American folk metal with maximum brutality in a dark, ominous, and brutal way. Kelly, Kim.
The Rise and Demise of the Motorsteeple, an eight-song album featuring brontosaurus-heavy drums, chainsaw guitars, and oversized vocals, is a short but powerful record by Australian headbangers Battlesnake that revives fantasy metal. In songs like “Alpha and Omega” and “I Speak Tongues,” singer Sam Frank alternates between Alice Cooper’s growls and Rob Halford’s shrieks, all the while delivering lyrics that would make Manowar’s Eric Adams seem realistic. The title track, an apocalyptic road song that emphasizes the album’s motorbike theme, features Frank yelling, “Hear the engine as it howls and roars/Feed the flame upon the cross!”. The new soundtrack for The Highway to Hell was just released. Hudak, Joseph.
The band Darkthrone will always be known for helping to guide Norwegian black metal toward a grim and unrelenting minimalism on early Nineties hits like Transilvanian Hunger and A Blaze in the Northern Sky. Following over a dozen albums and a number of sonic veerings, the duo now works entirely outside of any scene or subgenre. They once again put their full force behind masterfully composed riffs on It Beckons Us All, which render their methodical creations in gloriously thuddy retro sonics by fusing the primitive chug of doom and other primordial styles with the sharp edge of black metal. Songs like “Black Dawn Affiliation,” in which drummer Fenriz’s stagy croon replaces guitarist Nocturno Culto’s trademark croak, or the masterfully paced, seven-and-a-half-minute “The Bird People of Nordland,” feel evocative and timeless, like musty echoes from some long-sealed heavy-metal time capsule. Hank Shteamer.
“The Sharpening,” a caustic standout from the third LP by Gouge Away, a Florida band that combines copious amounts of pure, seething aggression with hooky, atmospheric rock, was one of the year’s most powerful moments of musical catharsis. Vocalist Christina Michelle asks in a quiet whisper, “What’s better than a brand-new pencil?”. She sings, “You’d expect me to clean up the mess,” her voice rising to a terrifying scream as the band bursts into a flurry of turbulent hardcore. She then describes the writing instrument being sharpened and used to repeatedly stab her in the chest. The band masterfully uses this heavy-light duality throughout Deep Sage, creating tension before erupting into their next captivating outburst, as befits their namesake, a song by an ensemble known for dynamic contrast. — H. S. .
where the trio from Atlanta hits the riffs, lashes out at the critics, and releases what is undoubtedly their most satisfying, tightest, and toughest album to date. Building on the less-sludge-more-rage momentum of 2016’s Gold, singer-guitarist Christian Lembach yowls on “Sicko” about his enemies, including the person who might be looking back at him in the mirror: “This/Is how it ends/Broke my life apart/Because I couldn’t bend.” Bassist Casey Maxwell and new drummer Douglas Barrett keep everything in check. There is enough headbanging in songs like “Malinches,” “Every Day Is Leg Day,” and the post-hardcore hit “Hieronymus Bosch Was Right” to keep a whole bunch of chiropractors in business. When this unholy trinity locks into a groove and then goes full-metal-jacked-up in “Quitter’s Fight Song,” good luck avoiding destroying your house. (That song’s music video, which shows how the band’s songs motivate Red Fang, Gaytheist, Naselrod, and Help to beat the snot out of each other, almost seems like it could be a nature documentary. — David Fear.
Three years after emerging from the Philadelphia underground, Unholy Altar’s full-length debut is already among the most delectably nefarious releases to emerge from Hostile City in recent memory. Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite is a blatant nod to the early days of black metal, when Satan was in charge, punk was clearly prevalent, and production was a last-minute addition. The corpse-painted quintet has successfully embraced the raw, bloody, chains-and-black-leather aesthetic and has worked hard to create a sound that is firmly traditional without any reactionary overtones. With their scathing atmosphere and melodic undertone, grandiose funeral songs like “Infernal Flesh” demonstrate a masterful understanding of what makes the genre wonderful. — K. The K.
Tight, brutal, and masterfully produced by Drew Fulk (Lil Wayne, Disturbed), You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To offers both a cathartic release during a difficult period and a call to retaliation. From the class-warfare swagger of “Slaughterhouse 2” to the revenge-soaked “Suffocate” (featuring Poppy), Knocked Loose’s most recent album is not only one of the best metal albums of the year, but of their career. If you need more persuasion, watch Kentucky hardcore band Knocked Loose’s November appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where the studio audience got down in the pit while lead singer Bryan Garris pig-squealed and guest vocalist Poppy shrieked in the rain. —Brenna Ehrlich.
In the vein of ardent avant-gardists like Khanate, some bands seem intent on tearing metal apart and seeing what they can reconstruct from its fragmented and strewn parts, while others are happy to just play metal. Few bands are better at this gory business than Sumac, who over the course of their ten-year history have embraced abstraction and improvisation more and more. Together with powerhouse drummer Nick Yacyshyn, the underground lifers, Aaron Turner of Isis and Old Man Gloom, and Brian Cook of Botch and Russian Circles, present their most intimidating soundscapes to date on their most recent album. These soundscapes feature waves of distended anti-rock and hovering feedback that are followed by riffing that is either jarringly jagged or concussively brutal. Exemplary art metal is The Healer, a monolith of eerie sound that doesn’t compromise on heaviness or genuine musical risk. —H. S. .
Die Berge is the third official full-length album by Swiss black-metal band Paysage d’Hiver, who have been exploring the frozen depths of their creator Tobias “Wintherr” Möckl’s soul since 1997. Additionally, it is the fourteenth (!) chapter in a continuous story about an enigmatic Wanderer that has inspired all of the band’s releases, including cult demos, EPs, and LPs; this time, the theme is death. Die Berge offers a harsh, low-fi style of atmospheric black metal that is almost vintage in its orthodoxy, drawing inspiration from the ominous mountains that tower over Wintherr’s hometown of Bern. Its lengthy, slowly churning compositions—”Urgrund” alone is eighteen shivering minutes—emphasize a grim, icy simplicity that harkens back to the second wave of the genre, while delicate, crystalline melodies emerge. The whole effect is mesmerizing, a tribute to the unadulterated emptiness of winter in a world that is warming quickly. K. K. .
While Thou’s recent EPs, compilations, and collaborations have tended to be more grandiose or gothic, Umbilical is reminiscent of the band’s earlier iterations. The sixth full-length album from the Louisianans is a scathing tribute to Eighties hardcore and Nineties grunge. It examines their personal connection to the do-it-yourself or die mindset that has propelled 20 years of intellectual anarcho-sludge experimentation. A bootleg In Utero played through a crackling amplifier in a dilapidated church evokes a raucous and eerie atmosphere. This time, Thou is more interested in cracking skulls than expanding minds, though there are still moments of unfathomable heaviness, such as on the sluggish “I Return as Chained and Bound to You” (and thankfully they’ll never get rid of their Louisiana swamp stench). K. The K.
Cool World has all of Chat Pile’s best features, but it’s been taken to the next level. The songs seamlessly transition between genres, and fans can hear post-punk rumbles, driving percussion, nu-metal chugging, and technical syncopation. While “Masc” begins with a loud guitar break before launching into a math-y section, moving toward riffs loaded with shoegaze-y delay, and concluding with a lot of yelling and massive bass, “The New World” moves quickly with odd, D-beat-style drumming. This album features more explicit lyrics by singer Raygun Busch. Cool World explores how the imperial core’s thanatotic violence is directed outward before reverberating back upon us when the chickens come home to roost, while Chat Pile previously examined the nihilistic malaise of American life with God’s Country. It is an attempt to wake us up from the nightmare that is America. —Rick Carp.
The quintet from Chicago’s Huntsmen is refining their distinct fusion of Americana, stoner doom, and prog-sludge on their third album. The six eerie tracks of The Dry Land gradually transport you to a distorted and dark aural landscape that is both alluring and intimidating. They rise and fall with an almost elemental confidence. The vocals of Chris Kang and Aimee Bueno-Knipe, however, are what truly distinguish Huntsmen from their peers despite their somber, irritable, and occasionally explosive music. When the two singers sing together or apart, they draw from a deep, soulful, and timeless source that makes songs like “Cruelly Dawns” and “Rain” sound as though they were picked from seeds that were sown a century or more ago. —A. E.
After a 2011 tour that was initially intended to be a farewell tour, a band in Judas Priest’s position could have easily spent the last ten or more years in victory lap mode, entertaining fans with back catalog favorites. Instead, the heavy-metal icons have written one new chapter after another with the assistance of new guitarist Richie Faulkner. Similar to its superb 2018 predecessor Firepower, Invincible Shield features pre-made anthems that evoke Priest in their heyday while embracing a gaudy, larger-than-life sheen. These anthems are based on the precise riffing of Faulkner and longtime member Glenn Tipton. On powerful, shout-along rock songs like “Panic Attack” and the title track, Rob Halford, the band’s British steel, sounds arena-primed and battle-ready thanks to his fierce conviction and amazing range, which ranges from belt to snarl to full-on shriek. —H. A.
Since their first EP, Interdimensional Extinction, released in 2015, this Denver death-metal quartet has been gazing into space, but they have never traveled as far as they do on Absolute Elsewhere. This daring album, which is a six-track (or, if you prefer, three “tablets” split between two tracks) voyage into the outer galaxies, skillfully blends spacey synth excursions (including a track featuring Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream) with bludgeoning blast beats and technically accurate metallic assaults with subtly intense moments of Pink Floyd-like introspection. Allow no one to tell you that no one can hear you scream in space, as this astounding masterpiece unequivocally demonstrates. D. E.
The Iron Maiden frontman’s first solo album in almost 20 years is usually — and gloriously — over the top, a 10-song concept album about an occult-obsessed scientist working on a covert project that’s harvesting and storing the souls of dying billionaires. This is a testament to the success of Dickinson’s ongoing partnership with guitarist, songwriter, and producer Roy Z. You don’t even need to read the Mandrake Project graphic novel to be enthralled by the dramatic (and occasionally very emotional) impact of songs like “Rain on the Graves,” “Afterglow of Ragnarok,” or the gothic finale, “Sonata (Immortal Beloved),” which lasts for ten minutes. “—D. D.
The Oakland trio led by Sleep guitarist Matt Pike underwent a significant change with their ninth full-length album: the first drummer swap in the band’s more than 25-year history. But it was more of a footnote when Coady Willis, who was well-known in the underground for his hard-hitting performances in Murder City Devils, Big Business, and Melvins, showed up. Fans have been expecting Cometh the Storm to deliver a relentlessly riff-y ass kicking that makes you feel as though you’re riding into battle with a horde of ruthless barbarians. Willis supplied the thrust and swagger required to propel this worn but still powerful monster, whether it was cutting into a craggy stoner-metal groove (“Sol’s Golden Curse,” epic closer “Darker Fleece”) or speeding along at hardcore-punk speed (“The Beating”). H. S. .
Crypt Sermon from Philadelphia has been making epic doom metal look incredibly simple for almost ten years, despite the fact that it’s a very specific and challenging genre to master without coming across as cheesy or derivative. The six members of the band are incredibly talented musicians, and Crypt Sermon’s greatest strength is their amazing songwriting (“Heavy Is the Crown of Bone” alone could support its own prestige fantasy series on HBO). The Stygian Rose is filled with powerful, expertly played riffs that mix classic heavy metal with brooding doom. The group effortlessly evokes speed-metal swagger, rippling solos, and fist-pumping hooks without sacrificing any of their esoteric edge. Brooks Wilson’s gritty, commanding wail on the microphone skillfully depicts the LP’s fantastical tales, urging the listener toward certain doom. The album sounds fantastic as well. Tomorrow, Crypt Sermon and Judas Priest would be touring in a fair world. K. The K.
Even though frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt delivers his first death growls since 2008’s Watershed on Opeth’s 14th full-length, the true story here is that, almost 35 years into their career, Sweden’s leading proponents of progressive death metal are still outperforming themselves. The Last Will and Testament, a concept album about sinister family secrets that surface after the death of a wealthy nobleman, is as moodily cinematic as it is musically skillful; you can almost see the dilapidated old ancestral mansion where the action is set. The album demands and rewards your undivided attention, and not just because you won’t want to miss Ian Anderson’s flawless narration by Jethro Tull. —A. E.
“Still D.R” is essentially Kerry King’s first solo album. Kerry King was formerly a guitarist for Slayer. D. Of thrash metal. However, King wants his fans to realize that even though Slayer is basically doomed to hell, he is still Satan’s top emissary, whereas Dr. Dre wanted to remind his fans that he was still puffing his leaves, still fucking with beats, and still not loving police after nearly ten years away. King is still rocking riffs, drinking tequila, and not falling in love with the priests on From Hell I Rise. It sounds like Slayer, or at least Slayer at their best, to put it another way. —Grow Kory.
