Rolling 2022 Metal Thread

Welcome to a new year of metal, friends!

Here are some releases that are on my radar to listen to and maybe like.

14-Jan Fit For An Autopsy, Wiegedood
21-Jan Battle Beast, Boris, Midnite Hellion
28-Jan Earthless, Sunn O)))
4-Feb Blood Incantation, Korn, Saxon, Venom Prison
11-Feb Author & Punisher, Cult of Luna, Hangman's Chair, Napalm Death, Voivod, Zeal & Ardor
18-Feb Immolation, The Neptune Power Federation, Matt Pike
25-Feb Allegaeon
4-Mar Crowbar, Midnight, Sacred Reich, Sylvaine
18-Mar Dark Funeral
22-Mar Eric Wagner
1-Apr The Hellacopters
8-Apr Destruction
15-Apr Fozzy

(Note that some of these I do not expect to like but I listen to everything.)

Is that Sunn O))) the vinyl release date for the live thing that came out last month?

Already heard the Earthless, and pre-ordered the CD; it rules. Several of their back catalog titles are being reissued by Nuclear Blast in January. I bought those, too.
Definitely looking forward to Immolation and Destruction. Mildly curious about the Matt Pike thing, as I'm unclear why it needs to exist unless High On Fire broke up and I missed it.

Yeah the Sunn O))) is just the vinyl for the live thing.

Of course I have sky-high expectations for the new LPs by Priest and Meshuggah.

One 2022 release I've really been into is the new one by Night Cobra over on High Roller. Excellent early-80s style stuff.

https://nightcobra.bandcamp.com/

oooh Wiegedood, nice

Apparently one needs special headphones to hear metal properly.

https://get.heavys.com/

The new Wilderun. Wow.

is that good or bad

i listened to the first couple songs and got bored and kept moving ... admittedly, did not give it a fair chance

Yeah, curious to hear more Neanderthal. I know Angry Metal Guy gave it a perfect 5.0 which surprised me since usually even their albums of the year rarely even garner a grudging 4.0 or 4.5. Missed the last one completely, but some of the praise has me curious.

from someone who thought Veil Of Imagination was a 10/10 masterpiece...the new one is kind of a crushing letdown tbh

but if you like music that abandons a preceding album's majestic (and unusual) sense of melody and pacing in order to have loads of 'impressive' dynamic shifts, incoherent Opethisms, widdly solos and rAnDOm ChANGeS, and basically none of those awesome melodies at all, then yeah, go for it. Literally put me to sleep when I first tried to listen to it, finished it the next day and felt nothing more than a shrug. AMG easily impressed by showy instrumentation it seems

The debut album by Verbum, a doomy death metal band from Chile, is pretty good — it reminds me of very early Esoteric — but it has eight tracks including an intro, an outro, and two interludes. That's not an album, that's an EP.

http://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/verbum-exhortation-to-the-impure

xpost *shrug*, works just fine for me

lol I thought you meant All Music Guide for a moment, I guess Angry Metal Guy has the same initials

the abrasiveness of last year's newest Concrete Winds is doing it for me right now

We doing a 2021 best of this year?

id certainly participate. but its a lot of work so if it doesn't happen I understand.

vote metal in the main poll

That's never good.

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

^ sounds better than the first mix imho

Whoa, had no idea this was coming.

We doing a 2021 best of this year?

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Thursday, 13 January 2022 23:44 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

id certainly participate. but its a lot of work so if it doesn't happen I understand.

― gman59, Tuesday, 18 January 2022 16:06 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I hope so! Will contribute some 60-second charcoal interpretations of album covers as artwork if it goes ahead.

new Druid Lord hits about the same spots as their previous releases, I'm just glad to get new music from them.

https://druid-lord.bandcamp.com/album/relics-of-the-dead

The first album of the year that I am buying is the self-titled debut from Maule.

http://www.metal-archives.com/images/9/9/3/6/993688.jpg?5206

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYCRQGQmFVU
http://maule.bandcamp.com/album/maule
http://open.spotify.com/album/0qM8OXofi6vRqScKipZ0mF?si=riwSTFdRSoWoLRRd16j8fA

Still wishing that last Maiden album was more true to their roots? Looking for a band that sounds like the exact moment Thin Lizzy influenced the NWOBHM? These Canadian bangers got you covered. Hella fun.

Would not have predicted that sound based on that cover art. I would have expected Entombed worship and D-beats. I like this a lot. Thanks for the tip!

new moonlight haze track is fantastic if you go in for dramatic power metal -- this band has been showing great growth and I'm excited for the album

two singles out so far from the new mastercastle who are basically my favorite band and just ~barely~ metal -- more hard rock in the 1981 festival undercard vibe. I can't really be objective about mastercastle, I think they whip so much ass and their bassist looks like he's 65 years old if he's a day, just unfadeable I-fix-cars-by-day vibes, but at the same time "this is just a rock band" feels like a fair read on them so idk? I love their melodies & I think her voice is tremendous -- literally every song just vibes me out to exactly where I wanna be, their choruses are peerless imo, like Puccini arias, the second the melody locks in I'm dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2MqTnhu-XA

YouTube user jimischild13 with the most brutal comment

still got it , but the clock is ticking for us all never forget that , Best Wishes . BTW i missed you all

That was really nice. I agree about the chorus, and the way the guitar solo kicked in after the little keyboard interlude was great.

yes! the solos on mastercastle records are fantastic. very excited for the new one

loving maule and mastercastle!!

I feel essentially the same way about Magnum as you do about Mastercastle. The new Magnum album is their, I dunno, 180th?

https://open.spotify.com/album/286a0luh0FDCtNoPdQh57A

I really love this Magnum

I mean I love being a lurker on this thread and it's interesting to check out LJ type cool death metal bands who want to be Return to Forever and listen to late period Scott Walker or whatever but I truly only love jean jacket and Camaro shit

Sunday deathcore recommendation: Golgothan's Leech, out 2/4 on Lacerated Enemy.

http://laceratedenemyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/golgothan-leech

They cite Aborted, Cattle Decapitation and Bloodbath as influences, but that's bullshit; they're modern deathcore, bass drops and all. They're from Louisiana and they kinda dress like swamp creatures, half alligator, half GWAR. The track title "Teeth to Eat You" pulled me in, but the new single/video is "Bottomless Pit":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJCu12pvGkw

I'll keep up with tradition (had to read about this on a metal site too even though it could hardly be any further from metal) and post it in the metal thread then: https://40wattsunmusic.bandcamp.com/album/perfect-light

Excitement at seeing Coroner is touring America and playing Philly in May somewhat tempered by the fact that they're playing with overrated boneheaded derps Vio-Lence.

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) January 26, 2022

New Mizmor "LP" coming out, but it seems to be a single 20 minute track on side A and an ambient rework or something on side B? Already released digitally, vinyl coming in I believe March.

Most of my metal recommendations I've been getting from metal and DIY Twitter, so I miss a lot of stuff but probably get some weird recommendations by the personal friends of complete strangers. I'll let you know if I come across anything really cool.

Also I think between the relative lack of interest year to year in the metal poll and the time commitment, our usual pollrunners have all elected to take a year off. If anyone else wants to run or co-run, it can still happen, just probably won't be Oor Neechy or Pomenitul doing it.

New Krallice out today:

https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/crystalline-exhaustion

The new Meshuggah song is...a Meshuggah song. They were genuinely pathbreaking 25 years ago, but they're so firmly entrenched in their own thing at this point they might as well be AC/DC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZH9w-U4WJU

u say that like it's a bad thing

It's neither good nor bad; Meshuggah sounds like Meshuggah. (The only time they pissed me off was on ObZen, when I thought they were trying to sound like Tool.) I'm just not sure how much more of it I need, you know? I could just keep listening to Nothing and Catch Thirtythree for the rest of my life. I guess maybe I should try a little harder to be invested in their last two albums, because they were good when I listened to them, they just felt...unmemorable.

the Mizmor is a heavy-ass 20-minute track and then an ambient rework of a Christian worship song the Mizmor guy wrote many years ago before he ... left the faith or whatever they say.

it sounds nice. it sounds like a lot of that kind of stuff. he could make an album of it and rake in that sweet, sweet ambient cash if he wanted.

What else does anyone who enjoys Meshuggah want than new Meshuggah music that sounds like Meshuggah?!

I get it, their days of innovation are over, but that doesn't mean the new stuff isn't worth hearing. The new track is great. Streamlined and groovy but still with those rotating time signatures that always rope me in. Super catchy. I love that band.

Initially the brainchild of AMENRA guitarist Mathieu J. Vandekerckhove, and NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly, ABSENT IN BODY formed in 2017. Immediately recognizing their kinship, and with AMENRA frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout brought in on vocals and bass, what emerged is a reflection of the intervening years of turbulence, extending it's scope as it navigates across five stretches of unstable terrain. From the opening “Rise From Ruins” with ex-Sepultura drummer, Iggor Cavalera’s tribal beat emerging from foreboding, near-subsonic oscillations to explode in a tide of corrosive riffs and feral howls, through “Sarin’s” steadfast, procession-through-purgatory groove, to “The Half Rising Man’s” matrix of organic/mechanic evolution, it’s an album in constant dialogue between the animalistic, the human and the industrial, and a hunger to distill a truth, something unpolluted from the fray.

This is certainly an interesting collaboration.

^ https://www.instagram.com/p/CZcO6rgqzd4/

Ha, thanks, probably more helpful than regurgitating the press release but I was in a hurry.

dammit - Draconian euro tour cancelled :(

New Cloakroom, don't know if it fits here, but it's such a good album. Reminds me of the recent Hum album a bit. Also the Deafheaven from last year. Stonergaze ftw

I dig Cloakroom a lot and my copy of the new one is supposed to arrive later this week, definitely excited for it and comparisons to the recent Hum album only makes me more so.

track from the Amenra/Sepultura/Neurosis side project from a couple of posts ago: Absent In Body

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDhbP2KROJc

digging from last week:

the new Anal Stabwound,Ripped to Shreds, and Imprecation

DIAMOND HEAD is of seminal importance to heavy metal music, and their debut album Lightning To The Nations is a key influence on the genre.

“We wrote instinctively,” explains cofounding member and riff lord Brian Tatler. “We had an undeniably unique sound. Four young lads, each with an element that, when combined, produced an alloy that was our own heavy metal sound.”

Lightning To The Nations (The White Album) [Remastered 2021] is the ultimate version of this ultimate album, set for release via Silver Lining Music on September 30th. The offering will feature not only the original album from 1/4-inch master tapes which Lars Ulrich helped Brian Tatler retrieve back in 1990, but also alternative mixes of classic cuts “Lightning To The Nations,” “The Prince,” “Sucking My Love,” “Am I Evil?,” and “Sweet And Innocent” never publicly released (or heard) before. There is also brand-new cover artwork based on an idea Brian Tatler had, to show a character referred to as “The Lightning God.”

“In 1990, as a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the NWOBHM, Lars Ulrich and Geoff Barton compiled the double album New Wave Of British Heavy Metal ‘79 Revisited which came out on Phonogram Records. It was Lars who made it his business to track down wherever possible the original master tapes because all he had were the old, often scratched singles,” recalls Tatler. “He told me that he would often call up members of the bands they wanted to feature on the album and the confused guy on the other end of the phone would assume it was wind-up. ‘Who? Lars Ulrich? From Metallica? Fuck off!’ When Lars called me, I explained that the original 1/4-inch masters for Lightning To The Nations hadn’t been seen since they were sent by our old manager to a guy called Horgi at Woolfe Records years back. Apparently, Horgi didn’t return the tapes, so Lars dispatched someone from Metallica’s German label to pay the guy a visit… The tapes were duly returned and after Phonogram had finished with them, Lars made sure they came home to me. I still have them stored safely.”

The original tapes were first quite literally baked — a process which allows degraded tape to be returned to playable quality — then restored and digitized before DIAMOND HEAD frontman Rasmus “Ras” Bom Andersen remastered the tracks, ending up with a pristine edition of the original recordings and the recently discovered alternative mixes. Pure treasure for all fans of both DIAMOND HEAD and the NWOBHM, the restored masters are supplemented by a set of bonus tracks originally recorded in the 1980s. Rounding-out this ultimate edition are a set of deep and detailed notes on both the era and each song by Brian Tatler.

“I don’t really know what inspired ‘Lightning To The Nations,’” says Tatler in his notes. “I can’t think of any other song by any other band that sounds like it and that’s a hell of a claim. Sean got the title from a painting he had seen in an art book somewhere and thought it would make a good title for a song. Once we had the song and it became track one, side one, it seemed like a good album title too. It’s still in the live set after forty-years.”

Lightning To The Nations (The White Album) [Remastered 2021], will be released as a double CD, a deluxe 180-gram gatefold triple-vinyl edition containing the original album remastered, the lost mixes, and the bonus tracks. There will also be a single vinyl edition of just the remastered album, also on 180-gram vinyl. The complete recordings will also be available to stream and download.

Preorders are available now at THIS LOCATION.

DIAMOND HEAD will embark on a string of shows where they will be joining Saxon as special guests for the European and UK dates on their Seize The Day world tour. See all confirmed dates below.

DIAMOND HEAD w/ Saxon:
10/02/2022 Trianon – Paris, FR
10/03/2022 013 – Tilburg, NL
10/04/2022 Capitol – Hannover, DE
10/06/2022 Admiralspalast – Berlin, DE
10/07/2022 Muffathalle – Munich, DE
10/08/2022 Capitol -Offenbach, DE
10/10/2022 Alcatraz – Milan, IT
10/11/2022 Z7 – Pratteln Z7
10/12/2022 Trix – Antwerp, BE
10/13/2022 Patronaat – Haarlem, NL
10/15/2022 Train – Aarhus, DK
10/17/2022 Pustervik – Gothenburg, SE
10/18/2022 Rockefeller – Oslo, NO
10/19/2022 Amager Bio – Copenhagen, DK
10/21/2022 Hedon – Zwolle, NL
10/22/2022 La Bam – Metz, FR
10/23/2022 Les Docks – Lausanne, CH
11/11/2022 Regent Theatre – Ipswich, UK
11/12/2022 O2 Guildhall – Southampton, UK
11/13/2022 De La Warr Pavilion – Bexhill, UK
11/14/2022 St. David’s Hall – Cardiff, UK
11/15/2022 Forum – Bath, UK
11/16/2022 Corn Exchange – Cambridge, UK
11/18/2022 O2 City Hall – Newcastle, UK
11/19/2022 King George’s Hall – Blackburn, UK
11/20/2022 Music Hall – Aberdeen, UK
11/21/2022 Barrowland – Glasgow, UK
11/22/2022 City Hall – Hull, UK
11/23/2022 Barbican – York, UK
11/25/2022 De Montfort Hall – Leicester, UK
11/26/2022 Roundhouse – London, UK

For EU tickets visit: https://www.saxon747.com/tour
For UK tickets visit: https://myticket.co.uk/artists/saxon

DIAMOND HEAD 2022 Lineup:
Rasmus Bom Andersen – vocals
Brian Tatler – lead, rhythm guitars
Karl Wilcox – drums
Andrew “Abbz” Abberley – rhythm, lead guitars

DIAMOND HEAD 1980 Lineup:
Sean Harris – vocals
Brian Tatler – guitar
Duncan Scott – drums
Colin Kimberley – bass

For DIAMOND HEAD coverage requests contact liz at earsplitcompound dot com.

http://www.diamondheadofficial.com
http://www.facebook.com/DiamondHeadOfficial/
http://www.twitter.com/DH_Diamond_Head
http://www.instagram.com/diamond_head_official/
http://sl-music.net
http://www.facebook.com/Silver.Lining.Music.Ltd
http://twitter.com/silverlmusicltd
http://www.instagram.com/silver.lining.music

1. Lightning To The Nations04:15
2. The Prince06:27
3. Sucking My Love09:31
4. Am I Evil07:43
5. Sweet And Innocent03:14
6. It's Electric03:38
7. Helpless06:54
8. Lightning To The Nations (Lost Original Mix)04:17
9. The Prince (Lost Original Mix)06:35
10. Sucking My Love (Lost Original Mix)09:35
11. Am I Evil (Lost Original Mix)07:41
12. Sweet And Innocent (Lost Original Mix)03:15
13. Shoot Out The Lights (Bonus Track)04:15
14. Streets Of Gold (Bonus Track)03:32
15. Play It Loud (Bonus Track)03:29
16. Waited Too long (Bonus Track)03:51
17. Diamond Lights (Bonus Track)03:28
18. We Wont Be Back (Bonus Track)04:18
19. I Don't Got (Bonus Track)04:23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMfa180uE9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBRI3YKwlEQ

The Diamond Head reissue is great save for the cover.

Also, The Sword has broken up.

http://www.instagram.com/p/Cj8J7DKLYOS/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=17be5d91-e3ac-4a0e-ae7f-4fd07436e749

:(

The Otolith's album is out today!

Hm, okay, so the one significant issue I have is that they play the entirety of Chaplin's The Great Dictator speech in "Bone Dust". Nothing against the speech per se, and it's effective in context, but I don't want to kill it by listening to it over and over.

Movie quotes in songs need to fade out over repeat plays.

Greg Anderson's new The Lord album, a collaboration with Petra Haden, is pretty fantastic. Mostly just Haden's layered vocals over Anderson's droning guitar, but hits some pretty hypnotic moments.

There's a new Sahg album out this week, their first since 2016. Fist-pumping trad/doom metal, RIYL Grand Magus, Beastmaker, etc.

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

new Exhumed. always welcome. album cover is ace too.

first two songs sound like they belong on Necroticism, which is humorous as the Carcass influences have been waning over the years, and they were mostly Reek and Symphonies rips back then. specifically due to the mid-tempo riffs they do that sound like the mid-section of "Corporal Jigsore Quandary"

Some 2022 homestretch releases:

28-Oct
Dead Cross
Darkthrone
Show Me The Body
Therion
Devin Townsend

4-Nov
Black Anvil
The Pretty Reckless
Voivod (EP)
Xentrix

11-Nov
Drudkh

18-Nov
-(16)-
Candlemass

25-Nov
High Command

1-Dec
Destroyer 666
Hammers Of Misfortune

16-Dec
Bloodclot

You know I was like "isn't Destroyer 666 Nazi adjacent" and, oh yeah, they are (KK played in a band called Raven's Wing with two blatantly NS skinheads), but I completely forgot about KK's 2016 tedious anti-SJW anti-women rants.

post-rock cinematic w/e metal with a terrible name but I love this new Nomadic Narwhal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QE-QI7AxOQ

You know I was like "isn't Destroyer 666 Nazi adjacent" and, oh yeah, they are (KK played in a band called Raven's Wing with two blatantly NS skinheads), but I completely forgot about KK's 2016 tedious anti-SJW anti-women rants.

Got the Japanese CD reissue of Thorr's Hammer's Dommedagsnatt in today's mail. It comes in a heavy cardboard non-gatefold mini-LP sleeve and has the Live By Command of Tom G. Warrior recording from Roadburn 2010 (originally released on LP only in 2019) as bonus tracks. New cover art, too.

xp did not mean to imply that!

Late to the party maybe, but the Cloud Rat is something else.

agreed

Can confirm the new Ripped to Shreds both rips and shreds.

The second-best metalcore band from Switzerland (Knut will always rule), Nostromo, have released their first full-length in almost 20 years this week, and it's pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp. It rules.

https://hummusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bucephale

I actually got to see Duma, the Kenyan-Ugandan harsh metallic industrial duo whose eponymous album was a big hit in

It's Duma @kungfunecktie pic.twitter.com/VQIR5pLbVx

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) October 28, 2022

It's Duma @kungfunecktie pic.twitter.com/VQIR5pLbVx

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) October 28, 2022

It was really a unique experience. The duo played in a completely darkened room (really, it made Wolves in the Throne Room's stage seem bathed in sunshine in comparison). It was primitive and brutal and oddly spiritual. Would love to see Justin Broadrick take them under his wings since there is more than obvious Godflesh comparisons to be made, though filtered through the tribalistic rhythms of their homeland.

Oops! I meant to link to Rolling 2020 Metal Thread not link my Tweet twice. :(

There's a new Black Math Horseman s/t EP. It's quite good.

Ooh is that the show Stabscotch played too? xp

Another year, another Lustre album. I disagree with the title, the season for this is now. Gentle autumnal music, at peace with itself and the world.

the Duma stuff I have from Bandcamp is super good, didn't know they were touring.

new Abyssic album is very, very good. much better use of strings than most "symphonic" bands, really engrossing songs.

I love how Lustre is classified as Metal

Funny thing is that as the Lustre dude gradually upgrades his gear and levels up the clarity of his production, it starts sounding more and more like Schiller with guiters - I mean how far is he now from something like this?

Really enjoying Woe, the new album from Swedish progressive deathers An Abstract Illusion. Lots packed into this one, some mid-period Opeth, big guitar solos, lots of synth, a little space rock. All pulled together pretty well, imo.

Some bonkers raw gothy black metal that sounds like Cultes des Ghoules in miniature, hints of ... Scooby Doo? Mad doctor vocals. I dunno. Came out on Halloween on Avantgarde so that's probably a better summation.

https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-haunting

I've seen comparisons to Old Nick but idk what Old Nick is. Maybe I should.

BTW returning to Lustre - after now hearing it on a proper system at high volume instead of crappy computer speakers, I've noticed that the guitars are now much, much heavier than on previous Lustre material, looks like he has dropped his tuning and bought a HM-2 pedal for that crushingly heavy buzzsaw sound. It's now bordering on full-on Doom Metal, although the melodies are way to wistful to call it "proper" Doom.

It's nice, yes. I like the extra crunch

If you like modernized versions of the melodic metal/hard-rock thing that I think of as beginning with Lita Ford, there are two new songs from what I assume is an upcoming album by the great Norwegian singer Issa.

https://open.spotify.com/track/10yUHaUegv4jPNNDVysW9e
https://open.spotify.com/track/1S99nbSU0hfsuriiVrHB6Y

Can confirm the new Ripped to Shreds both rips and shreds.

Thirded -this shit rocks.

New Darkthrone is great, these guys have settled into such a good groove of late. Really dig the slightly spacey outro on "The Sea Beneath the Seas of the Sea".

New Obituary album in January! It's called Dying Of Everything, which is awesome. So is the first single, "The Wrong Time":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoKRsHSPfw4

Decibel announced their Top 40 albums of the year:

40. Temple of Void, Summoning the Slayer, Relapse
39. Gaerea, Mirage, Season of Mist
38. Sigh, Shiki, Peaceville
37. Still/Form, From the Rot Is a Gift, Hex
36. Midnight, Let There Be Witchery, Metal Blade
35. Doldrum, The Knocking, or the Story of the Sound That Preceded Their Disappearance, Katafalque
34. Amorphis, Halo, Atomic Fire
33. Imperial Triumphant, Spirit of Ecstasy, Century Media
32. Black Anvil, Regenesis, Season of Mist
31. Municipal Waste, Electrified Brain, Nuclear Blast
30. Castrator, Defiled in Oblivion, Dark Descent
29. Daeva, Through Sheer Will and Black Magic…, 20 Buck Sin
28. Ripped to Shreds, 劇變 (Jubian), Relapse
27. Mother of Graves, Where the Shadows Adorn, Wise Blood
26. Eight Bells, Legacy of Ruin, Prophecy
25. Tzompantli, Tlazcaltiliztli, 20 Buck Spin
24. SpiritWorld, Deathwestern, Century Media
23. Escuela Grind, Memory Theater, MNRK
22. Vanum, Legend, Profound Lore
21. Satan, Earth Infernal, Metal Blade
20. Mizmor + Thou, Myopia, Gilead Media
19. Dream Unending, Song of Salvation, 20 Buck Spin
18. Phobophilic, Enveloping Absurdity, Prosthetic
17. Negative Plane, The Pact…, The Ajna Offensive
16. Sumerlands, Dreamkiller, Relapse
15. Terror, Pain Into Power, Pure Noise
14. Voivod, Syncro Anarchy, Century Media
13. Chat Pile, God’s Country, The Flenser
12. Wake, Thought Form Descent, Metal Blade
11. Oceans of Slumber, Starlight and Ash, Century Media
10. Mortuous, Upon Desolation, Carbonized
9. KEN mode, Null, Artoffact
8. Kreator, Hate Über Alles, Nuclear Blast
7. Nechochwen, Kanawha Black, Bindrune
6. Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems, Epitaph
5. Immolation, Acts of God, Nuclear Blast
4. Blackbraid, Blackbraid I, self-released
3. Sonja, Loud Arriver, Cruz Del Sur
2. Cave In, Heavy Pendulum, Relapse
1. Undeath, It’s Time… to Rise from the Grave, Prosthetic

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2022/11/10/spoiler-here-are-decibels-top-40-albums-of-2022

Sonja, man. Love that record to bits.

I've heard seven of those (Imperial Triumphant, Black Anvil, Sumerlands, Chat Pile, Oceans of Slumber, Kreator, Immolation) and would maybe put three (Imperial Triumphant, Sumerlands, Immolation) on my own year-end list. I'm honestly surprised the new Goatwhore didn't make the Decibel list; it's the first album of theirs I've ever liked.

Will never understand the love for the new Undeath

New Dream Unending out today. I loved their 2021 album. This sounds exactly the same, melancholy and diaphanous death-doom.

Can confirm the new Ripped to Shreds both rips and shreds.

speaking of which, I dug the first houkago grind time record more than the other RtS records but the new HGT just isn't doing it for me. frustrating but maybe I'm in less of an anime grind mood lately or something? (this would be weird if true tho stranger things have happened I suppose)

classical, jazz & gorenoise thrown in a blender, you say? but a literal blender?

https://effluence666.bandcamp.com/album/liquefied

owns

Beautiful review of Dream Unending today on Pitchfork. Sam Sodomsky is very good.

I loved their 2021 album. This sounds exactly the same

I want to amend that a bit. This is better than the last album. The production feels richer, the textures seem to mesh better. And the album structure makes a difference - this one flows extremely well. There are long moody stretches which are more like Pink Floyd's "Echoes" or something from ECM than anything death-metal.

(an album may be years away, you know with these guys, but) Darkspace still exists & have a new bass player - first their wikipedia page said they were looking for a replacement, but now this has been updated: https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Darkspace/13746

this, too: https://www.darkcyberspace.com/incmngtrnsmssn.html

new Candlemass is good as ever. I'm liking their material post Johan's return on vocals. just find it amusing how different his voice is now, and I don't mean "lol he older", like he does a more gravelly thing than he did on Epicus Doomicus

https://rottedlife.bandcamp.com/album/phantasmal-scourge

Digging this Night Hag album, filthy and rotten death doom.