This week's new heavy metal releases include Avant-garde re-recordings, plenty of dynamic records, some summer bummer jams, and more! To the metals…
Avkrvst – Waving At The Sky
Genre: Progressive rock/metal
Origin: Norway
Label: InsideOut
Buy now on Bandcamp
Starting this week proggy as I am usually wont to do. This record sounds like Pale Communion-era Opeth while packing a little more of a wallop. Something fun for prog dorks is that this record is the second part of the story of "the bleak soul in the cabin," started on their last record. Finally, there's a cameo from Ross from Haken on a track. A lot to enjoy here.
Byzantine – Harbingers
Genre: Groove metal/thrash
Origin: Charleston, West Virginia
Label: Metal Blade
Buy now on Bandcamp
Though they had an EP in 2022, it's been eight years since Byzantine brought the groove on a full record. Since the EP original guitarist Tony Rohrbough rejoined the band and Chris Ojeda is all vocals now. The record is dynamic, melodic, and will get your head moving.
Fallujah – Xenotaph
Genre: Technical/progressive death metal
Origin: San Francisco, California
Label: Nuclear Blast
Buy now on Bandcamp
In 2022 Fallujah came back swinging with Empyrean, and on Xenotaph they are keeping the vibes of that record going. You're getting more of the ever-shifting vocal performance of Kyle Schaefer, who is proving to be an underrated gem of the tech scene (check out Archaeologist). Then of course, all the guitar wizardry of Scott Carstairs.
Hexvessel – Nocturne
Genre: Atmospheric black metal
Origin: Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
Label: Prophecy
Buy now on Bandcamp
You're right, you're right. It's been too lively and light this week. Hexvessel will change that. Nocturne isn't all blast beats and high-speed guitar work (though it's there sometimes), but rather still a bleak, blackened bummer of a record. It sounds like a soundtrack to your final hour wasting away in the show. But it's dropping in June, so no worry about a snow death, I guess.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island
Genre: Orchestral/hard rock
Origin: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Label: (p)doom records
Buy now on Bandcamp
What I love about King Gizzard is that every record is a swing, and a wildly different swing. Their last record Flight b741, was a blues-forward affair and while this one was recorded at the same time it has a 70's bombastic rock flavor to it. There are horns, strings, and all sorts of shit. It's not their heaviest, but fits right in with your throwback rock bands. Also, if you're not feeling it, give them three months and they'll probably drop a micro-tonal polka album or something that'll be more to your liking.
Malvada – Malvada
Genre: Hard rock/groove metal
Origin: Brazil
Label: Frontiers
Buy now on Amazon
Next up a rocking one from Brazil. I frankly wasn't familiar with Maldava before skimming these songs this week, and what a delight they are. Sometimes they're straight forward rock, sometimes groove metal heaviness, sometimes epic sometimes in English, sometimes in Portuguese.
Sigh – I Saw The World's End (Hangman's Hymn MMXXV)
Genre: Avant-garde metal
Origin: Tokyo, Japan
Label: Peaceville
Buy now on Bandcamp
Wrapping this week with some new-old from one of Japan's finest weirdos. Eighteen years ago Sigh released the mighty Hangman's Hymm record and this is the re-recording of that record. Mirai Kawashima and his gang were never happy with the original one so, why not do it again with modern recording technology and the current lineup? Sounds rad.
Also dropping this week…
- Altesia – The Somnambulist (Self-released) – Progressive metal
- Ashen – Chimera (Out Of Line) – Modern metal/metalcore
- Autoscopy – The Third Man Factor (Autoscopy) – Industrial
- Blank – The Descent (Upstate Records) – Hardcore/beatdown
- BOCC – Obrint El Taut (Horror Pain Gore Death Productions) – Death metal/doom
- Buckcherry – Roar Like Thunder (Round Hill) – Rock
- Byonoisegenerator – Subnormal Dives (Transcending Obscurity) – Mathmetal/grindcore
- Crosson – Guilty Of Rock (Wormholedeath Records) – Heavy metal
- Dolven – In My Grave…Silence (Winding Stair Records) – Acoustic doom
- Deathgoat – Dragged Into Realms Below (Xtreem Music) – Death metal
- Fairyland – The Story Remains (Frontiers) – Symphonic metal
- Genus Ordinis Dei – Eternal Live (Eclipse Records) – Symphonic death metal
- Goya – In the Dawn of November (Blues Funeral Recordings) – Sludge/stoner
- Grog – Sphere Of Atrocities (Hellprod Records) – Brutal death metal
- Hollow Leg – Dust and Echoes (Self-released) – Sludge
- Insania – The Great Apocalpyse (Frontiers) – Power metal
- Iron Mind – Test Of The Iron Mind (Flatspot) – Hardcore
- King 810 – Rustbelt Nu Metal (Self-released) – Nu metal
- King's Hammer – To Speak In Tongues (Rottweiler Records/Broken Curfew Records) – Death metal
- Leafblower – Burn Cruise (Max Tracks Records) – Sludge/doom
- Masseti – Odds And Ends (Self-released) – Progressive metal
- Nightbearer – Defiance (Testimony Records) – Death metal
- Outergods – Dethroned & Devoured (Apocalyptic Witchcraft) – Black metal/grindcore
- Paleskin – Euphoric End (Out Of Line Music) – Alternative
- Phantomy – From The Wild (Inverse Records) – Hard rock
- Row Of Ashes – Tide Into Ruin (Road To Masochist) – Post-hardcore/noise rock
- Standover – …When A Clenched Fist Is No Longer An Option (Gutter Prince Cabal) – Hardcore
- Still Dusk – Chronicles Of Dystopia (Self-released) – Alternative/hard rock
