Rolling 2021 Metal Thread

I recently bought three New Standard Elite releases, but somehow overlooked Meshum's Enigmatic Existential Essence (which honestly could just as easily have been a mid '70s Jean-Luc Ponty album title).

https://meshum.bandcamp.com/album/enigmatic-existential-essence

One-man slam from a Turkish dude who plays every instrument, including real drums. Good stuff.

That S.H.I album posted upthread is really good. It's like a Japanese cross between Ministry's "W Trilogy" and Motörhead's Orgasmatron, with some utterly unpredictable weirdness thrown in. Really needs to be heard as loud as possible.

The new Gojira album is very good. On first listen I might like it better than Magma, about as much as L'Enfant Sauvage.

Art hipster false metallers rejoice, Spectral Lore is here again!

https://spectrallore.bandcamp.com/album/-

Unsurprisingly I think it's amazing. The mixing on this one gives the guitars more bite than most of the guy's other stuff, if you enjoyed Mystras from last year do check it out.

anybody else like Evile here? their new one just dropped, and it's still their typically high quality thrash (that refreshingly isn't of the 'lol crossover revivalist circuit' variety that we have 70,000 of)

I have to admit I was surprised to see them covering Mortician's "Zombie Apocalypse". Not sure that song benefits from decipherable vocals, but go off, fellas.

lol yeah that was a weird choice

just gonna go ahead and plug this: some friends of mine make excellent drone-rock (strictly guitars, vocals, and fx, I believe) that gets heavy enough to qualify as of interest to at least some metal thread dwellers, and they have a new album out today recorded remotely in quarantine. it's great and I am proud of them. it should be hitting bandcamp with a cassette issue next week.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0Wx8GWLOy9RWrtfRpPdeRs?si=YsSWyP49QK2wp8TH4bTU3g

Answering my own question from way upthread, I actually listened to the new Chevelle and it's really not bad. A lot of Tool worship at times, but if Tool was told to wrap up all of their songs in less than 5 minutes.

Finally getting around to the Suffering Hour album. I often have a problem with the same-yness of melodic black metal, which often seems to cycle endlessly through the same three chords. This takes enough twists and turns to keep my interest up. Good stuff.

Axewitch's Out of the Ashes Into the Fire wins Album Cover of the Month IMO. (Power metal-ish hard rock from Sweden.)

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81kB4Bgzz7L.jpg

Infernal Power by Lucifuge

Everyone compares them to Venom & early Bathory, and that's not wrong, but to me this rips like Fearless Undead Machines-era Deceased, similarly upping the aggression from the originators. Killer G.I.S.M. cover too! https://t.co/GpL2e91Oxb #NowPlaying

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) May 3, 2021

FED era Deceased? Sold

Sorry FUM

Check it out, I think it's fucking excellent!

oh man, I used to listen to that deceased album all the damn time. pretty nostalgic thinking back to when a metal album about a zombie apocalypse was at least sorta novel. also remember some serious poser accusations leveled at slayer and for their then current undisputed attitude record in the liners <3

i saw Deceased a few years ago (wanna say 2018?) and the weird thing was they were the headliner, but local death/doom act Druid Lord got a much bigger turnout, and there couldn't have been more than 20 people left by the time Deceased took the stage.

they didn't care, Fowley and company tore it up with a fairly eclectic setlist.

new Amenra album De Doorn, June 25th on Relapse Records (first one not following their Mass I-VI naming scheme)

https://amenra.bandcamp.com/album/de-doorn

btw: Caro Tanghe, Oathbreaker's female singer, is listed as being part of the band

ooooh love Amenra

Agreed, always stoked for more Amenra.

there'a a video as well. Pretty weird to hear Flemish vocals to be honest (even though they've had South-West-Flemish dialect titles before, like "Némelèndèlle. Twuhste en Tljiste." (that was "heaven and earth, the highest and the lowest") )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEI5tJDD2fc

newish split with earth federation - a grind band with hevi from corrupted and the drummer from 324 - on one side is out there via a few distros. here's one track:
https://rsrhap.bandcamp.com/album/rsr-203-earth-federation-noizegoat-lp

got mine yesterday and it's definitely nice to hear that voice again.

noizegoat is not a band I'd heard of before but seem pretty cool. the corrupted influence noted in the promo copy doesn't seem like an exaggeration, their side is similar to their early splits. but maybe without that mysterious x factor that made their stuff so special...

also, I'm pretty certain that the "New album will be released in the autumn 2021" wasn't there a couple of days ago: http://www.skepticism.fi/

nice

I mean

nice

haha

wait a minute! what!

not terribly interesting but switched to this DN for a variety of reasons a while ago but am also stupid and sometimes post from the wrong one by mistake

oh ok - you're your own sock account then, I suppose

new Solstice (the Rob Barrett one!)

spinning now, let's see if it's any good

(to be clear, he isn't in the band anymore lol, just clarifying Solstii)

second song steals the Slayer "Dittohead" riff

There's absolutely nothing new or innovative about Inhuman Condition, but if you like early '90s Florida death metal as much as I do, you'll like them.

https://inhumancondition.bandcamp.com/album/rat-god

Out today...

#NowPlaying @ArtilleryMetal - X (@MetalBlade)

Old dogs have no use for new tricks when the old ones are still so potent and seared with the blueprint of classic-metal majesty.

"In Thrash We Trust," they say. Me too. https://t.co/S7fBI9rSgT

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) May 7, 2021

Oooh I love Artillery!

Pretty sure you will enjoy the new one then!

Oh the new Spectral Lore is sounding gooood

the Evile album, I thought sounded much diff than the Evile I'd previously heard, then I realized their vocalist left and they hadn't recorded anything in 8 years, and they kinda went more deathy with it.

I approve.

it's holding up after many listens.

Mortician cover, as mentioned upthread, out of place af.

Just finally getting around to the new Big|Brave but, holy crap, it is wonderful - especially the second half.

Yeah, it absolutely rules.

Big Brave is cool, almost like a metal Scrawl or something

Through most of the first half, I was thinking, "okay cool, another great album", but from the second half of "Of This Ilk" it really took off to a whole new level of greatness.

this doesn't really feel like metal to me? though i know being metal doesn't have much to do with being metal anymore

i hear a lot more, like, later period swans or something

i think part of it is the indie rock industrial complex made it hard for heavy underground bands so i guess saying it's metal is probably easier for marketing, getting ahead

Oh yeah, they aren’t very metal but they’ve always had a good reception in the ilx metal threads, which is why I mention it here. Swans isn’t a bad reference point and they have some ties to the GYBE post-rock scene in Montreal, which is a huge influence. But I’d imagine being on Southern Lord helped their reach and rep among metal fans. Fwiw, and it isn’t much, the metal archives black listed them as “not metal” long ago for, iirc, “no riffs”.

the vocals on this one are so so great, slightly-restrained-julie-christmas vibes

fucking great record!

yeah def heavy but not metal.

the metal archives black listed them as “not metal” long ago for, iirc, “no riffs”.

this is very hilarious that they do that and kind of interesting from a conceptual perspective, no riffs = no metal is an interesting idea i've never thought about

Main genres according to RYM: drone metal, post-metal. Seems right.

Like I said I think in the 90s this would have fit in with tons of underground U.S. post punk but we as a society have lost the ability to talk about heaviness in non-metal contexts, so voila drone metal, post metal, etc

this could have been on thrill jockey or something back in the day