This week's new heavy metal releases include a crowd sourced album, sludgy covers, a future heavy star, and more!
To the metals…
Aseitas – False Peace 
Genre: Experimental death metal/hardcore
Origin: Portland, Oregon
Label: Translation Loss Records
Starting this week with a band that was new to me. Aseitas are a dissonant death metal band that engages in moments of post-rock, hardcore, and let's just call it "evil jazz." Sometimes they sound like Gojira, sometimes Gorguts, and sometimes other bands that start with G, but for the most part they're a unique metal experience and False Peace is a seventy-one minute introduction to an awesome band.
Ensiferum – Thalassic 
Genre: Folk metal
Origin: Helsinki, Finland
Label: Metal Blade
Don your warpaint and scale a mountain, it's time to battle some shit. Thalassic (Which almost sounds like a series of children's books about djent. I guess that would be "Thalastic", but I digress) features nine epic tracks that continue the traditions of Ensiferum's epic folk metal. This also includes new keyboard player and vocalist Pekka Montin, so there is some new energy there. This is a fun one.
Inter Arma – Garbers Days Revisited 
Genre: Sludge covers
Origin: Richmond, Virginia
Label: Relapse
Bands can't tour, so why not drop some covers? We're getting Inter Arma's takes on Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Prince and more. Overall it's cool the hear their sludgier, heavier, yet pretty straight-up covers of classics. I should point out that their version of "Purple Rain" was apparently not supposed to be put out because this take was a joke. I'm a massive Prince fan, and while everyone in the world has covered that song because it's a sad song that works well as a tribute, it's a song everyone knows, and it's super easy to play, I would have loved to hear them put an earnest spin on the song. Their "joke" showed that they could've done something cool.
Sharptooth – Transitional Forms 
Genre: Hardcore
Origin: Balitomore, Maryland
Label: Pure Noise Records
This band is rad. They have hardcore chops, they're political, and their videos have a sense of humor. I appreciate that they're a band that can hold their own at a Warped Tour and along side bands like Every Time I Die or Code Orange. Transitional Forms could be the album to launch them skyward, and it would be deserved.
Mike Shinoda – Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 
Genre: Rock/hip hop
Origin: Panorama City, California
Label: Kenji Kobayashi Productions
Linkin Park's emcee Mike Shinoda has been collaborating with folks over Twitch and this is the album that came of that. I'm not someone who watches his stream, but this is an interesting approach to work guided by fans that I'm into. What I've heard so far seems to be closer to Shinoda's hip hop solo work, so fans of those parts of Linkin Park should dig it.
Skeleton – Skeleton 
Genre: Black/death metal
Origin: Austin, Texas
Label: 20 Buck Spin
If you're looking for some old school death metal blended with old school black metal and some old school hardcore, then you have very specific taste. Luckily, you're desire will be met with Skeleton. This is twenty-seven minutes of classic metal blending that will keep you saying, "Oh hey, this reminds me of ____, but I'm not mad about it!"
Voivod – The End Of Dormancy EP 
Genre: Progressive metal
Origin: Jonquière, Quebec
Label: Century Media
I normally wouldn't take the time to highlight an EP that's essentially just a few tracks from Voivod's 2018 album The Wake. But this includes a version of "The End of Dormancy" by the Canadian weirdos performed with a brass section. That isn't something I thought I needed, but god dammit it works! It makes me want a whole album of Voivod ska or something. Also there are a couple live tracks.
Also dropping today…
- Alizarin – The Last Semblance (Self-released) – Progressive
- Bloody Heels – Ignite The Sky (Frontiers) – "80's style rock"
- Bulb – Archives: Volume 6 (3DOT Recordings) – Progressive/djent
- Disabled – The Final Exhumation (Xenokorp Kvlt Series) – Death metal
- Enuff Z'Nuff – Brainwashed Generation (Frontiers) – Rock
- Kiko Loureiro – Open Source (Kiko Loureiro) – Shred/progressive
- Lantern – Dimensions (Dark Descent Records) – Finnish Death metal
- Osyron – Foundations (SAOL/The Orchard) – Symphonic metal
- Rebel Wizard – Magickal Mystical Indifference (Prosthetic) – Heavy metal
- Saints of Death – Ascend To The Throne (Head Rattle Productions INC) – Groove/death metal
- SpiritWorld – Pagan Rhythms (Self-released) – Hardcore
- Static-X – Project Regeneration Vol. 1 (Ostego) – Industrial/numetal
- Tokyo Motor Fist – Lions (Frontiers) – Hard rock
- Tung – Bleak (Plain Disguise) – Stoner rock
