This week's new heavy metal releases include emotional journeys with a legendary sludge artist, everyone's second favorite rock n roll clown and more!
To the metals…
ALSO! Today, Bandcamp is doing their monthly day of giving 100% of what you pay directly to the labels and artists as Covid-19 Pandemic relief. So if you can get stuff from Bandcamp, please do.
Avatar – Hunter Gatherer 
Genre: Progressive metal
Origin: Gothenburg, Sweden
Label: eOne
Buy now on Bandcamp
Sweden's most erratic clown-fronted metal band is back with another album of diverse metal jams. You're getting prog, groove metal, death metal, guitar wanking, a Corey Taylor cameo and more here. I feel like a lot of people write this band off because of the gimmick (I admit, I did at first), but Hunter Gatherer is a great place to start with this band. If you dig it, there are seven other albums to enjoy.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlb8TTO0c8][/youtube]
Black Crown Initiate – Violent Portraits Of Doomed Escape 
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Origin: Reading, Pennsylvania
Label: Century Media
Man, with some bands a four year album gap seems like an eternity, and that's the case for Black Crown Initiate. Selves We Cannot Forgive was a delight that I played the hell out of, and now they're back with this record that is up there with Selves. This is their first with new guitarist Ethan McKenna, and features guest drums by The Kennedy Veil's Gabe Seeber, and those guys fit right in. This is another entry in the band's flawless catalog.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3goI9nJNpmw][/youtube]
Deep Purple – Whoosh! 
Genre: Hard rock
Origin: Hertford, England
Label: earMusic
On their twenty-first album in their fifty plus years as a band Deep Purple prove their still a iconic band worthy of your respect. They've always been a band that's pigeon-holded by "Smoke on the Water," but they've always been a dynamic band and Whoosh! shows off their spacey side. I saw these guys a couple years ago and it was great, if shows happen while they're promoting this album, I wouldn't be upset to hear some of these songs live.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojHRoKzQwfE][/youtube]
The Fall of Troy – Mukiltearth
Genre: Progressive
Origin: Mukilteo, Washington
Label: Self-released
Buy now from Bandcamp
On their sixth album (and second since their reunion), The Fall of Troy are showing that they're still pissed off weirdos. Mukiltearth is expression of both growth and classic FoT stylings.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHYF_DrRoIY][/youtube]
Good Tiger – Raised In A Doomsday Cult 
Genre: Progressive
Origin: London, England
Label: Self-released
Buy now from Bandcamp
2020 has seen a few bands getting creative with record releases. Acacia Strain did their surprise 7-inch series leading up to the new album. Similarly, Good Tiger have put out every song from Raised In A Doomsday Cult a song a week since May, each with their own music video. Fans of the rest of their material should dig this a lot, or at least be happy to have all the new songs in one place.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVyADFcI2PY][/youtube]
Two Minutes To Late Night – Covers Vol. II
Genre: All-star heavy metal covers
Origin: Various
Label: Self-released
Buy TODAY ONLY on Bandcamp
Two Minutes To Late Night pivoted their whole thing during this quarantine and have been putting out fun star-studded covers. Today (August 7th) and today only, they are putting out their second Bandcamp exclusive EP to help out the long list of artists that have contributed to these covers. It includes their covers of "Anthem" (Rush), “Reelin’ in the Years” (Steely Dan), “The Warrior” (Scandal w/ Patti Smyth), “4th of July” (Soundgarden), and “Running Up That Hill” (Kate Bush). Musicians include artists from War on Women, Unearth, Witch Taint, Primus, Tool, Mastodon, Coheed & Cambria, Emma Ruth Rundle, Yob, and an absurd amount of others. Get it quick!
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULwDbZ4iSU][/youtube]
Steve Von Till – No Wilderness Deep Enough
Genre: Folk/ambient
Origin: Oakland, California
Label: Neurot
Buy now on Bandcamp
Ending this entry in a rather ethereal place. Neurosis co-frontman Steve Von Till is no stranger to straying from the post-metal/sludge thing, but No Wilderness Deep Enough is easily his least traditionally "heavy" album. Instead, you're getting beautiful, emotional ambiance that's coupled with Steve's unmistakable gruff voice. It's an album that might hit harder in the current world, but man it hits hard.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0M0I-wZ2zI][/youtube]
Also dropping today…
- Batushka – Раскол (Witching Hour Productions) – Black metal
- Blue Oyster Cult – 45th Anniversary – Live In London (Frontiers) – Rock
- Bulb – Orchestral (3DOT Recordings) – Orchestral
- Curses – Chapter II: Bloom (SharpTone) – Metalcore
- Dukes Of The Orient – Freakshow (Frontiers) – Progressive rock
- Faceless Burial – Speciation (Dark Descent Records) – Death/black metal
- Gruppe Planet – Travel to Uncertain Grounds (Lifeforce Records) – Post-rock/electronic
- In Hearts Wake – Kaliyuga (UNFD) – Metalcore
- Jaye Jayle – Prisyn (Sarget House) – Experimental/alternative
- Krallice – Mass Cathexis (Self-released) – Avant-garde black metal
- Lord Of The Lost – Swan Songs III (Napalm) – Gothic metal
- Misery Signals – Ultraviolet (Self-released) – Metalcore
- Not A Toy – Not A Toy (Fearless) – Rock
- Onslaught – Generation Antichrist (AFM) – Thrash
- Orbit Culture – Nija (Seek and Strike) – Death/groove metal
- Ovacörd – The Arms Race of Sound (Self-released) – Instrumental
- Selbst – Relatos De Angustia (Debemur Morti Productions) – Black metal
- Slaves – To Better Days (SBG) – Metalcore/post-hardcore
- Stillbirth – Revive the Throne (Unique Leader Records) – Brutal death metal
- Terminal Nation – Holocene Extinction (20 Buck Spin) – Hardcore
- Vassafor – To The Death (Iron Bonehead) – Black metal
- Year Of The Knife – Internal Incarceration (Pure Noise Records)
