This week's new heavy metal releases include metal from dudes with bags on their heads, grooves, Vikings, and more! To the metals…
Amon Amarth – The Great Heathen Army
Genre: Melodic death metal
Origin: Stockholm, Sweden
Label: Metal Blade
Album number twelve from Hegg and the boys sees Amon Amarth bringing the melodic heaviness like they always do. You know what you're in for and you're stoked about it. Go steal a ship because your summer sailing soundtrack has arrived. Peep Chad's review here.
Ether Coven – The Relationship Between The Hammer And The Nail
Genre: Sludge/hardcore
Origin: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Label: Good Fight Music
Bringing oodles of feedback and oodles or rage are Ether Coven. They hit with the hammer of a slow sludge act but have bursts of energy like a Converge. Darkness throughout on this one.
Grave Bathers – Rock ‘N’ Roll Fetish
Genre: Heavy metal/doom
Origin: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Label: Seeing Red Records
Buy now on Bandcamp
Rock and metal are silly and Grave Bathers are an act that turns all the cliches of the genre up to 11 (oh hey, there's one of the cliche's right there!) to great success. With Rock 'N' Roll Fetish they drop the most fun record of the week. Heads will bang as you get old school inspired riffs and rhythms.
Psycroptic – Divine Council
Genre: Technical death metal
Origin: West Hobart, Australia
Label: Prosthetic
One of tech death's longer running bands is back to show you that the scene ain't just a young person's game. While it's been four years since As the Kingdom Drowns, the winning streak they kicked off there continues with this album. You're also getting some guest vox from Origin's Jason Keyser throughout. Stream the whole thing here as part of Tech-Death Tuesday
Savage Master – Those Who Hunt At Night
Genre: Heavy metal
Origin: Louisville, Kentucky
Label: Shadow Kingdom Records
Buy now on Bandcamp
Pairing nicely with Grave Bathers – in aesthetic at least – we have the latest from heavy metalers Savage Master. Fans of Judas Priest and Huntress will have a good time with this one. Fans of musicians with bags on their heads will also dig this. I'm sure that's a scene of it's own.
Soulfly – Totem
Genre: Groove metal/thrash
Origin: Phoenix, Arizona
Label: Nuclear Blast
Concluding this week with the busiest man in groove metal Max Cavalera. Totum comes four years after the killer Ritual and feels like a sequel to that one with some additional experimenting. Some pretty cool guests here too like John Tardy from Obituary, a couple dudes from Eternal Champion, Power Trip's Chris Ulsh, and Richie Cavalera from Incite. Our Max has a full review here.
Also dropping today…
- Abaddon Incarnate – The Wretched Sermon (Transcending Obscurity Records) – Deathgrind
- Bong-Ra – Meditations (Tartarus Records) – Experimental/doom
- Carrion Vael – Abhorrent Obsessions (Unique Leader Records) – Technical/melodic death metal
- Disconnected Souls – Kintsukuroi (Self-released) – Cinematic metal
- Dub War – Westgate Under Fire (Earache) – Reggae/metal
- Early Moods – Early Moods (RidingEasy Records) – Hard rock/doom
- Einherjer – Norse And Dangerous (Live… From The Land Of Legends) (Napalm) – Folk metal
- Fearsore – Bloedwyrx (Dead Sage Records) – Industrial/experimental
- Grigorien – Magtens Evangelium (Signal Rex) – Black metal
- H.E.A.T. – Force Majeure (earMusic) – Heavy metal
- In Hearts Wake – Green Is The New Black Soundtrack (UNFD) – Metalcore
- The Interrupters – In The Wild (Hellcat) – Ska/punk
- Liminal Shroud – All Virtues Ablaze (Willowtip Records) – Black metal
- Andy McCoy – Jukebox Junkie (Cleopatra) – Rock
- Shuriken Cadaveric Entwinement – Constructing The Cataclysm (Comatose Music) – Death metal
- Too Die For – In The Dark (Out of Line Music) – Electronic metal
- Toxik – Dis Morta (Massacre Records) – Thrash
- Turian – No Longer Human (Wise Blood Records) – Noise metal
