This week's new heavy metal releases include some death metal, some more death metal, and more! To the metals…
Aborted – La Grande Mascarade EP 
Genre: Death metal
Origin: Beveren, Belgium
Label: Century Media
This EP isn't a lot, but with other bands starting to delay album releases, at least it's something. La Grande Mascarade is a trio of tracks includes two new songs and a holdover from 2018's TerrorVision. Fans of that album, or really the last few albums, will dig this.
Abysmal Dawn – Phylogenesis 
Genre: Death metal
Origin: Los Angeles, California
Label: Season Of Mist
How about some more death metal? On their first album in six years Abysmal Dawn come back swinging with what might be their most technical yet. This is their first record to include Vito Petroni on lead guitar and the guy knows his fretboard. This is a solid collection of sci-fi metal.
The Black Dahlia Murder – Verminous 
Genre: Melodic death metal
Origin: Detroit, Michigan
Label: Metal Blade
This week is a lovely showcase of all the different shapes and sizes that death metal can come in. Verminous is very much what you'd hope and expect from The Black Dahlia Murder, and yet it doesn't feel recycled or stale. It kind of blows my mind that this is their ninth album, but up until this point they've been consistent with the every other year album cycle. This time they slipped and took three years. Shame.
Etherius – Chaos. Order. Renewal. 
Genre: Progressive instrumental
Origin: New Jersey
Label: Etherius
Let's change gears a bit here. Etherius are a young band that brings the prog quite well. Chaos. Order. Revewal. is their debut and it's a hell of a debut. I feel like instrumental progressive metal can get lost in self-indulgent guitar work, but this is one of the more diverse instrumental offerings I've heard in a while. Every instrument shines as they weave though many metal sub-genres. This is how this sort of thing should be done.
Khemmis – Doomed Heavy Metal EP 
Genre: Doom
Origin: enver, Colorado
Label: Nuclear Blast
Doom metal's It band are giving their fans a little something between albums. This is three live songs (one from each of their three recent albums), a previously released song ("Empty Throne" from the Decibel 7" series), and a couple covers. Their cover of "Rainbow in the Dark" is an unexpected one, but it's so fucking good. It's work the price of the EP alone.
Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin Kynsi 
Genre: Psychedelic black metal
Origin: Tampere, Finland
Label: Nuclear Blast
You know how the world is unsettling and dark right now? Here's some metal that kinda feels like that. Oranssi Pazuzu always bring the weird with the grim, but Mestarin Kynsi feels extra weird. This album feels like their most cinematic one yet also. The theoretical movie this album could be the score to would fuck up your dreams for a while.
Also dropping today…
- The Acacia Strain – C 7" (Rise) – Metalcore/deathcore
- Asenblut – Die Wilde Jagd (AFM Records) – Thrash/black metal
- Bombs of Hades – Phantom Bell EP (Black Lodge) – Crust punk
- Czern – Zgliszcza (Selfmadegod Records) – Sludge/post-metal
- Dictator Ship – Your Favorites (The Sign Records) – Rock
- The Ditch And The Delta – The Ditch And The Delta (Prosthetic) – Sludge
- Enter Shikari – Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (So) – Post-hardcore/electronic rock
- Foes – American Violence (Glacier Recordings) – Hardcore
- Funeral Leech – Death Meditation (Carbonized) – Death metal/doom
- Graveir – King Of The Silent World (Impure Sounds) – Black metal
- Jarboe – Illusory (Consouling Sounds) – Avant-Garde/experimental
- The Projectionist – The Stench of Amalthia (Moribund Records) – "Black metal opera"
- Reptilium – Adrenochromacy (Slam World Wide) – Brutal death metal
- Ulveblod – Omnia Mors Aequat (Consouling Sounds) – Black metal
