New Release Radar: La Crème du Jour
A few short reviews featuring Wasted Death, DVNE, High on Fire, Melvins, Horrifying, Offernat, Mòr, and Lhaäd
As I attempt, with much futility, to stay caught up with the unrelenting flow of newness, I found it necessary to take in a few of the LPs that I’d been anxiously awaiting for a while. So, here you will find three April 19 releases sandwiched by earlier stuff I’m still working through. This post highlights some of the very best music released to date in this calendar year. Check out the crème de la crème selected from what I’ve been listening to over the last several days. The power of the riff compels you!
Wasted Death – Season of Evil
Release Date: 15 March 2024
Location: London, England, UK
Label: APF Records
I’m a stickler for a good genre-busting band that is hard to classify. When you throw out such lofty influences as Converge, Sepultura, Motörhead, Melvins, Extreme Noise Terror, and High on Fire to describe your music, I have to take notice. That’s what London’s Wasted Death boldly does, and they waste no time getting hard at backing up their assertions on this record. It’s all brutal, all the time. Season of Evil is a theme album, so if you like the zombie trope applied to music, you’ll have extra incentive to lend it your ear. Driven by Tom Brewins’ fast, heavy drumming, the music is sludge on speed. Charlie Davis has double duty, holding down the low end on bass and belting out consistently visceral vocals throughout. The guitar, synth, and production duties are expertly managed by Wayne Adams, who, notably, has worked with the great Igor Cavalera (Sepultura, Nailbomb, et al.) in Petbrick. I’ve had this on repeat for several listens and it gets better each time through.
DVNE – Voidkind
Release Date: 19 April 2024
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Label: Metal Blade Records
DVNE’s Etemen Ænka finished #2 in my 2021 AOTY list. Three years later, they’re back with another top-tier LP with Voidkind. As I listen, I hear plenty of post-metal proclivities, but would describe it more accurately as follows. Imagine, if you will, Crack the Skye -era Mastodon had a baby from the womb of the best that Thrice ever had to offer, and that that baby grew up to be a sci-fi loving Intronaut fan. I hope I have your attention now. The band takes its name and lyrical themes from the Frank Herbert sci-fi book series Dune, proclaiming “Long live the Kwisatz Haderach” on their Bandcamp profile. This album is yet another triumph, an accomplishment of proportions equivalent, in music form, to that of the literary achievement of a book in Herbert’s classic saga. Vocals alternate seamlessly and effectively from clean to harsh. Delicate guitar leads adorn intricate bass lines and rolling percussion with an aural effect similar to that of the visual aesthetic of gold filigree. Riffs are the engine by which the whole beautiful machine is propelled. Nerds rejoice! This album is otherworldly and will, inevitably, warrant being revisited many times over.
High on Fire – Cometh the Storm
Release Date: 19 April 2024
Location: Oakland, California, USA
Label: MNRK Heavy
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned High on Fire here on this site more than any other band. Their influence on bands that I enjoy is immeasurable. Well, now the band is back with their ninth full-length album in their two-and-a-half decade existence. Newcomers will have their faces melted. Devotees, who will remain faceless, will not be disappointed. Under the ultimate riff lord, Tony Iommi, one would be hard-pressed to find a greater prince of the riff than Matt Pike. His presence is that of a giant, whether it’s with his raspy, groaning vocals, his shirtless 6-string wizardry, his expertly curated guitar tone, or his iconic status as a founding member of stoner/doom legends Sleep. Pike seems to find ways to keep honing his skills, and his riffs on this album are chunkier than ever. As much as I hated to see founding drummer Des Kensel go, the band couldn’t have tapped a more fun replacement than Coady Willis (Big Business, ex-Melvins). “Fun” is not a word I’ve ever associated with High on Fire, folks. But here we are; High on Fire is now, also, fun. The fun doesn’t stop there. As if Pike didn’t have enough riffs for you, bassist Jeff Matz (also of Mutoid Man fame) joins in on the riffage with a double-neck guitar/bass (see the official music video for the title track containing actual melting of faces). See, that’s fun, too! He’s also responsible for bağlama duties when the smoke gets so thick that the band flips the switch to enter Turkish mode. With riff after ever-loving riff, I am happy to have written the post with the highest count of the word “riff” and its derivatives, appropriately, about one of most riff heavy, heavy riffing bands of all time, High on Fire.
Melvins – Tarantula Heart
Release Date: 19 April 2024
Location: Oakland, California, USA
Label: MNRK Heavy
So, speaking of Melvins, they just put out a new album. You know ’em, you love ’em. It’s that supremely prolific, influential band that, thankfully, doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.” But they do know the words “fun” and “weird” quite well. Honestly, I’ve lost count of the number of full-lengths they’ve released (it’s over 30 at this point). They just keep churning them out, and it’s not all filler. It’s solid stuff. How couldn’t it be? King Buzzo. Dale Crover. Need I say more? So, buckle up. The opening track, “Pain Equals Funny” is a 19-minute-long trip (taking up almost half the album’s run time); and it’s intriguingly cohesive; it’s melodic, yet disturbing; it’s dynamic, yet droning; it’s ethereal, yet telluric. It’s standard Melvins, which means it deserves to be heard.
Horrifying – Dreadful Parasomnia
Release Date: 18 March 2024
Location: Chile
Label: Veins Full of Wrath Productions
The deeper I got into this album, the more I realized that I was listening to something special. This is some fine OSDM, folks. Chile has a lot of up-and-coming bands in the metal space, but Horrifying has to be counted among the best. The production value of Dreadful Parasomnia is excellent. The vocals are spot on and formulaic (in a good way). The drumming is equally on point, perfectly executed. The bass meets the punishingly-fast challenge laid down by the drums. Yet, as good as these fundamental aspects of the music are, it’s the guitars and their accompanying effects that really raise the bar for this album. The strings set an ominous tone, and virtuosic leads introduce a blindingly illumined contrast to the dark low end and volatile rhythms. This will go down as one of the best death metal albums of 2024.
Offernat – Where Nothing Grows
Release Date: 29 March 2024
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Label: Indisciplinarian
This Danish duo doesn’t neatly fit any subgenre mold, making their music enticing to fans of doom, sludge, and black metal alike. Offernat offers lengthy, complex compositions, polyrhythmic drumming, atmospheric effects, carefully crafted riffs, and buoyant bass tones. The vocals consist of melancholic, briery screeches, scattered like dead seeds upon infecund ground. Where Nothing Grows is a tour de force. The valence of imaginative yet tenebrous interludes lulls unsuspecting listeners into thinking they can breathe safely, when in reality they’re just being lured into a predator’s trap. The weight of the fantasy falls hard, like an anvil out of the sky, when the monstrous fangs of an insidious aggressor break flesh. Listener beware! Offernat’s brand of heavy is a dense, crushing heavy.
Mòr – Hear the Hour Nearing!
Release Date: 12 April 2024
Location: Rouen, Normandy, France
Label: Les Acteurs de l'Ombre Productions
Shimmery, ariose basslines undergird frenzied guitar tremolo picking as the time is kept amidst the erratic fluttering of cymbals and drums. Mòr, on this, their debut full-length, walks the line between raw and atmospheric forms of black metal in an alluring way. It’s not exceedingly lo-fi and there are some catchy riffs peppered throughout to keep the listener hooked. The vocals have the impact of a ravaging lament, invoking a spirit of commiseration with this wailing soul in whatever dark fate has befallen him. Add all these elements in with good songwriting, and this stands out as one of the best black metal albums in the first half of the year.
Lhaäd – Beneath
Release Date: 20 March 2024
Location: Belgium
Label: Amor Fati Productions
In keeping with the theme of this post, as the cream rises to the top, some things must dwell in the deepest, darkest depths. Although the releases above were presented in no particular order of rank, there could be no more appropriate subject for the bottom of this post than Lhaäd’s Beneath. Because words often fail to do justice in describing music, I have to let this one-man band’s Spotify profile give you a proper introduction. “Lhaäd is an anagram of ‘hadal.’ The hadal zone, also known as the hadopelagic zone, is the deepest region of the ocean, lying within oceanic trenches. The name comes from Hades, the ancient Greek god of the underworld. Lhaäd brings the same darkness and tension as if they capture you to the ocean floor deep within the largest abysses… Lhaäd plays hadopelagic black metal exclusively.” Folks, I have been introduced to a new subgenre today, and I absolutely love it. This is “atmospheric” in a completely different sense of the word. If you put on headphones, and go deep into this album, feelings of submersion and drowning may overtake you. In this way, it’s an undeniably genius, creative force of an album. Now, I want (nay, need!) more hadopelagic black metal in my life. Experientially thalassic ambience, brilliant effects, crisply clanging cymbals, torpedoing drums, gruesome vocals, abyssal bass, and engulfing guitars—this album is unique, well produced, and worthy of many repeat listens.