New Release Radar Reboot
The late, third, and final (maybe) part highlighting the best of the metal onslaught of January 2024 with a couple of early February releases thrown in
Interference from work and personal life has kept me away for a bit. But I’m back.
Again, in no particular order, here’s another round of my top picks from the January releases I’ve heard so far (and a couple new February drops). You can peruse part one of the January 2024 survey here and part two here.
Cave Sermon – Divine Laughter
If your ears need a relentless barrage of percussive aggression, look no further. Australia’s Cave Sermon serves up one of the finest post-black metal albums I’ve ever heard. There are some heavy doses of death metal throughout, particularly in the vocals and drum programming. The guitar work integrates black metal strumming and post-metal atmosphere in its use of effects. All this gets drenched with elements of doom and progressive sludge, no more so than on the title track on which heavy riffs abound. Cave Sermon started as the one-man instrumental project of Charlie Park, and that is evident in the complexity of the compositions, dynamics, progressions, and thickness of the sound. The vocals are provided by Miguel Méndez of Colombian blackened grindcore duo, MICO.
Reign – Foul Territory
Old school thrash metal has a home in Chicago. This new band’s sound reminds me of fellow Chicagoans Diamond Plate (sadly now disbanded) and one of my favorite thrash bands going today, Havok. So that means I’m really digging their first EP, Foul Territory. If you enjoy thrash, you will, too. Track three, “Mindless Self Indulgence,” hits particularly hard. The final track, “Spiritek,” slows the tempo down and shows the real potential of Reign with a dynamic composition and a magnetic pull that bends the listener’s ear.
Les Moontunes – Elephant Wizard
I was caught off guard by this one. Seriously, is New Brunswick really this weird. If so, I may have to plan a voyage to Moncton. The band describes Elephant Wizard (which sounds like an AI-generated doom metal band name) as “a mystical concept album.” I’m just going to lay it all out in one sentence. It’s an Acadian fusion of Northern soul, heavy psych, progressive rock, and jazz. Copious amounts of groovy guitars, keys, synthesizers, horns, and woodwinds meet pummeling percussion, vocoder, and sometimes sludgy vocals. It’s must be how a hoarder looks upon her piles of mess and finds them beautiful and cathartic. I don’t know what it says about me, but I can’t stop listening.
HazeHound – Macrodose
If a mad musical scientist spliced Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and Black Sabbath with outlaw country attitude and the neo-retro blues rock sensibilities of a band like Mount Carmel, this is what would come out of the laboratory speakers at the end of the experiment. The riffs are filthy and the haze is blinding, so I needn’t say much more about this “high octane gasoline boogie” to get you to listen. This makes two Eastern Canadian bands I’ve had on repeat lately.
Stuporous – Asylum’s Lament
On Asylum’s Lament, the compositions of Dutch blackened doom pioneers, Stuporous, alternate between low, slow dronings and hurried, hammering raw black metal tropes. Brass is integrated subtly to compliment the atmospheric keyboard work. The vocals and percussion are no less dynamic. Consider then the heavy, penetrating riffs and it’s easy to comprehend that this is a thoroughgoing piece of art that makes for some surprisingly pleasurable listening.
Cosmic Void – Subterranean Rivers
This German trio crafts deep, dark, doomy, ethereal, atmospheric soundscapes to underlie psychedelic, blackened, and sometimes even jazz-infused post-metal epics. This is complex stuff. Prepare for an hour of entrancing, mood-altering audio that will transport your mind to some otherwise-unreachable, liminal, cosmic void (yes, this band is quite appropriately named).
Fearbirds – Aux Blood
Loud metallic hardcore from East Vancouver, British Columbia just skated up like a Canuck to mercilessly body check you through the glass. Fearbirds features members of Canadian bands Barn Burner, Dead Quiet, Heron and BRASS. This album has riffs galore. Without having dissected their lyrical themes on this album, I can only hope that the album title, Aux Blood, has reference to a friendly yet bloody donnybrook breaking out among friends over who’s going to maintain control of the aux cord in a compact sedan on a long road trip.
Spectral Voice – Sparagmos
This is some of the darkest and most intriguing death-doom you’ll ever encounter. In Colorado’s Spectral Voice, Morris Kolontyrsky (guitar), Paul Riedl (guitar), and Jeff Barrett (bass) of Blood Incantation fame join forces with drummer/vocalist Eli Wendler to create something truly engrossing. The label, Dark Descent Records, puts it well, stating that “[i]nfluences drawn from the esoteric realms of death, black, doom metal, dark ambient, and arcane literature converge to shape Spectral Voice’s most realized manifestation” and that they “weave a sonic tapestry with a level of excellence that surpasses even their own formidable standards.” I couldn’t have said it better.