This week's new heavy metal releases include the final chapter in an ambient trilogy, Kenny G, stony riffs, and more! To the metals…
Imperial Triumphant – Spirit Of Ecstasy
Genre: Avant-garde black metal
Origin: New York, New York
Label: Century Media
Imperial Triumphant always have a lot going on. This record is evil jazzy black metal as always, but this one is just a wild deck of guests. The list includes Snake (Voivod), Alex Skolnick (Testament), Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle), Kenny fucking G, and more. The album is rad beyond it's guests, but I can't get over the roster.
Nebula – Transmissions From Mothership Earth
Genre: Stoner
Origin: Whittier, California
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Buy now on Bandcamp
If you're looking for wall to wall druggy riffs, then this is the one for you. This is a desert trip in sonic form for fans of Bigelf, Kyuss, and the likes.
Nicolas Cage Fighter – The Bones That Grew From Pain
Genre: Hardcore
Origin: Ballarat, Australia
Label: Blacklight
If Nebula was your idea of a chill fun time, then this is the exact antithesis of that. Nicolas Cage Fighter have a cheeky name, but they mean business with hardcore fury that's laced with just a pinch of melody. Just enough to make the tracks catchy.
Oceans Of Slumber – Starlight and Ash
Genre: Progressive metal/doom
Origin: Houston, Texas
Label: Century Media
Oceans of Slumber have slowly and quietly becoming one of modern metal's finest bands. Their latest album features shorter songs than they usually have and more of a spotlight on vocalist Cammie Gilbert. The proggy darkness remains though. Another successful entry in their catalog. Chad has a full review here.
Karl Sanders – Saurian Apocalypse
Genre: Ambient/folk
Origin: Greenville, South Carolina
Label: Napalm
I recently learned that outside of Nile's Egyptian-inspired death metal Karl Sanders also does Egyptian-inspired ambient/folk music. It's been thirteen years since he has done one of the latter albums and this seems to be the final entry in the catalog. It's rather epic, but may not scratch the itch of those looking for death metal pummeling.
Wake – Thought Form Descent
Genre: Black/death metal
Origin: Calgary, Alberta
Label: Metal Blade
Concluding this week with something that may scratch the aforementioned itch of a death metal pummeling. Wake continue down the blackened death metal path on Thought Form Descent. This album is eight tracks that hit with wall of sound waves of atmospheric heaviness.
Also dropping today…
- Artnat – The Mirror Effect (Wormholedeath) – Symphonic/progressive metal
- Balls Gone Wild – Stay Wild (Metalville Records) – "turbo rock"
- Castrator – Defiled In Oblivion (Dark Descent) – Death metal
- Eciton – The Autocatalytic Process (Wormholedeath) – Death metal
- Ernia – How To Deal With Life And Fail (Transcending Obscurity Records) – Grindcore
- Fame On Fire – Welcome To The Chaos (Hopeless) – Hard rock
- Fight The Fade – Apophysitis (FiXT) – Alternative metal
- GLDN – First Blood (self-released) – Industrial/crust
- Hatriot – The Vale Of Shadows (Massacre) – Thrash
- Mosara – Only The Dead Know Our Secrets (self-released) – Doom/progressive
- Northless – A Path Beyond Grief (Translation Loss Records) – Sludge/post-metal
- Palisades – Reaching Hypercritical (Rise) – Post-hardcore/electronic
- Reakton – micro:macro:nano (Out of Line Music) – Darkwave
- Source Of Rage – Witness The Mess (Metalville Records) – Groove metal
- Suicide Commando – Goddestruktor (Out Of Line Music) – Hard rock/electronic
- Teethgrinder – Dystopia (Lifeforce) – Death metal/hardcore
- Trog – Of Vomit Reborn (self-released) – Death metal
- Villain of the Story – Divided (Out of Line Music) – Pop/metalcore
- Void Rot – Telluric Dismemberment (Everlasting Spew Records) – Death metal/doom
- Voluntary Mortification – Suffer To Rise (Rottweiler Records) – Deathcore
- Lessmann Voss – Rock Is Our Religion (Atomic Fire) – Rock
- Wailin Storms – The Silver Snake Unfolds (Gilead Media) – Atmospheric/noise rock
- Witchery – Nightside (Century Media) – Black metal/thrash – Full review
- ZZ Top – Raw (Shelter/BMG) – Rock
