This week's new heavy metal releases include orchestral black metal (or rather black metal with an orchestra?), technical rhythms, shredding, and more! To the metals…
Binary Code – Memento Mori 
Genre: Progressive metal
Origin: New Jersey/Brooklyn, New York
Label: Self-released
Buy now on Bandcamp
Let's open this week with some proggy goodness. On their first album in four years Binary Code have upped their melody and rhythm game. I'd recommend this to fans of The Contortionist, but this has a bit of a sad Caligula's Horse vibe to it as well. I recommend this one not only because of the great music but because, the band states "100% of proceeds will be donated to Suicide Prevention in honor of a loved one whom inspired the new record." So it's good music for a good cause.
Firewind – Firewind 
Genre: power metal
Origin: Thessaloniki, Greece
Label: AFM
I have to admit that I don't follow Firewind too closely. I, like a lot of folks, just link Gus G to this band, because they're such a shred-forward band. However, today I learned that this is their first album with their SEVENTH vocalist Herbie Langhans. Langhans has a classic power metal vocal technique that meshes well with the band, but sorry for those that were just getting used to the last dude.
Horisont – Sudden Death 
Genre: Hard rock
Origin: Gothenburg, Sweden
Label: Century Media
Now for the sonic equivalent of trucker caps and mustaches. Horisont are shooting for that 70's look and feel, and they hit the bullseye. Expect fun harmonized guitars, Thin Lizzy meets Blue Oyster Cult song-stylings, and the occasional piano break.
Paradise Lost – Obsidian 
Genre: Gothic/doom
Origin: Halifax, England
Label: Peaceville
I appreciate how Paradise Lost are able to shake up their sound just enough each time to prevent their band from being stale. It seems like it would be difficult to pull off for thirty-two years of this band. While the realm of slow epic jams is a place that they've been before, but this album has a little something that separates it from 2017's Medusa.
Ravenscry – 100
Genre: Progressive/Gothic metal
Origin: Milan, Italy
Label: Self-released
Buy now from Ravenscry
If you're looking for some synth-infused, rhythmic, almost-operatic metal give Ravenscry's 100 a shot. It pairs quasi-djent with soaring epic metal in a way I've heard few do before. I don't get how this band is on their fifth album and a label hasn't scooped them up yet.
Triptykon – Requiem (Live At Roadburn 2019) 
Genre: Gothic/doom
Origin: Zürich, Switzerland
Label: Prowling Death/Century Media
This one is for fans of Celtic Frost. In 2019 Tom G. Warrior, his Triptykon pals, and The Dutch Metropole Orkest performed a set at Roadburn and this is that show. It includes a pair of Celtic Frost tracks ("Rex Irae" and "Winter") and then a new piece called "Grave Eternal." Sure, it's three tracks, but the middle chunk is a thirty-two minute epic.
Voices of Ruin – Path to Immortality
Genre: Melodic death metal
Origin: Orange County, California
Label: M-Theory Audi0
Buy now on Bandcamp
If you're a fan of melody, but not clean vocals or string sections, then Path to Immortality is the album for you. This album is part Amon Amarth, part Allegaeon, and part old In Flames. It would be the perfect soundtrack to battle the White Walker looking dudes on the cover.
Wastewalker – Lowborn 
Genre: Melodic/technical death metal
Origin: Sacramento, California
Label: Self-released
Buy now on Bandcamp
One of Sacramento's best kept secrets is back with another death metal flurry. This, their sophomore album, comes four long years after their first record and shows the band growing so much in that time. If their last record missed you, this should appeal to fans of the bands they come from which includes ex-Alterbeast, The Odious Construct, Journal, and more.
Also dropping today
- The Acacia Strain – A (Rise Records) – Deathcore
- AC×DC – Satan Is King (Prosthetic Records) – Powerviolence/grindcore
- Ara – Jurisprudence (Self-released) – Death metal
- Asking Alexandria – Like A House On Fire (Sumerian) – Rock/metalcore
- Blacklisted – Eye For An Eye (Deathwish Inc.) – Hardcore
- Devangelic – Ersetu (Willowtip Records) – Brutal death metal
- Grand Massive – 4 (Metalville) – Stoner
- The Hunna – I'd Rather Die Than Let You In (300) – Rock
- In The Company Of Serpents – Lux (Self-released) – Stoner/doom
- MalefistuM – Enemy (Fastball Music) – Melodic death metal
- Noosed – Butcher (Trepanation Recordings) – Death metal/sudge
- Obscene – The Inhabitable Dark (Blood Harvest) – Death metal
- Okkultokrati – La Ilden Lyse (Southern Lord) – D-beat
- Pattern-Seeking Animals – Prehensile Tales (InsideOut) – Progressive
- Shrapnel – Palace For The Insane (Candlelight/Spinefarm) – Thrash
- Tokyo Blade – Dark Revolution (Dissonance Productions) – Heavy metal
- Tyrant – Hereafter (Shadow Kingdom Records) – Heavy metal/doom
- Unanimated – In The Light Of Darkness (Century Media) – Black/melodic death metal
- Voodoo Gods – The Divinity Of Blood (Reaper) – Death metal/thrash
- Wailin Storms – Rattle (Gilead Media) – Psychedelic/doom
