Rolling 2023 Metal thread

he Horrendous album is sounding like a masterpiece on first listen

dB just gave it a 10, though not the lead review

okay, yeah, this Sarmat record is amazing. makes sense, once I realized it featured members of Imperial Triumphant and Artificial Brain.

but somehow very distinct from them too

totally!

New Spirit Adrift and new Ringworm both out today. They both rule, but in very different ways (fist-pumping vs. floor-punching).

I don't know this dude at all, but this tweet made me laugh out loud.

The burned out older lady working the gas station register saw my Flotsam and Jetsam shirt and her face immediately lit up and she was like, “Oh man that band rules!” and I could witness her spirit transcend her body and return to 1986

— Dr. Death Metal (@TheUnshored) August 18, 2023

A great day for new metal releases, most excited for Horrendous, Godthrymm and Spirit Adrift.

That Horrendous is a veritable riffapalooza. Tight record too, I love proggy stuff that limits itself to 35 minutes or so. I'm wowed.

man, you weren't kidding. this is great. I've liked Horrendous from the jump but they really have leapt forward with their sound over the last few albums. the one before this sounded like it was going into late-era Chuck Schuldiner and this one is equally proggy but in a more accessible way.

surprised at the clean vox

I really appreciate the effort to improve the vocals, which honestly was my main gripe with their previous records. Vocals in metal are treated too much like an afterthought. But yeah, the new Horrendous is first-rate. That and KEN Mode are my two big faves going into the last quarter of 2023.

Me: "It's always great to hit play on a new Incantation album".
5 seconds after I hit play: "It's always great to hit play on a new Incantation album".

October Tide (Frederik Norman from Katatonia along with Matias his brother who also played on Katatonia records, though not on the good ones) has a new one that's really a pleasant surprise to me -- pop-goth melodic death kinda? really nice https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-cancer-pledge

Incantation are gods, of course, but my big pleasant surprise of the day is the Celestial Sanctuary album Insatiable Thirst For Torment. Super heavy chugging death-doom, with some really nice atmospheric guitar and some great song titles ("Glutted with Chunder," "Swivel Eyed and Gurning in the Shadows"). Highly recommended.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/25/whitesnake-guitarist-bernie-marsden-dead

Marsden is really underappreciated. He co-wrote so many great Whitesnake tunes. Those "Here I Go Again" residuals alone, I can't even imagine.

celestial sanctuary sounds up my alley. think I'll throw it on this afternoon to add some spice to cleaning my apartment, paying bills, vacation planning, and similarly brutal tasks.

unsure if this is the right thread but I've really been enjoying this new radiation blackbody record:
https://nervealtar.bandcamp.com/album/dead-seed-planted-in-dead-earth

if you've heard their other records, this one isn't a radical departure. but it rules.

if you haven't heard their other records, it's a drum + bass duo with members of anodyne + defeatist, who I loved. kinda like a very tight set of new instrumental man is the bastard songs.

My label, Burning Ambulance Music, is putting out a record in October that I think many folks here would like. It's by guitarist/composer Diego Caicedo, it's called Seis Amorfismos, and it's extreme metal guitar & vocals paired with a string quartet. Here's the first track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1DC0Ih1YPE

Street date is October 13, but pre-orders will launch on Bandcamp on Friday.

Really digging Vultures Like You, the full-length debut from Portland's Viral Tyrant:

https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/vultures-like-you

Don't let the Ripple label fool you (for those of you who are stoner averse), this is actually pretty grimy sludge and much darker than Ripple's usual fare.

finally listened to the new horrendous today while making a big batch of chili. they've always been good but i think they might've finally made a classic

STOP THE PRESSES

NEW AUTOPSY ALBUM ANNOUNCED

another one? hell yes

It’s not metal, but it’s on a metal-ish label: the new Sprain is out tomorrow and it’s immense.

New Dying Fetus is solid, if a bit generic and underwhelming on first blush. Hope it hits me better on revisiting.

Currently listening to the new Nithing record that was mentioned a little bit up thread and its brand of brootal chaos is fucking hitting the spot for me today.

Gonna queue up the new Blut Aus Nord after this . . .

The Horrendous album has pretty much taken over my AOTY spot. I just love it, it's everything I look for in metal.

I feel the same way about the new molested divinity lol. I can’t stop listening to it. it’s everything I look for in (brootal) metal.

Horrendous sounds like straight from the melodeath era (In Flames, Dark T, Soilwork), I was not expecting this but I'm intrigued.

I had some thoughts on seven new metal albums (Celestial Sanctuary, Cryptopsy, Dead And Dripping, Exmortus, Incantation, Sarmat, and Spirit Adrift)...

lol at having Cryptopsy and a band named after one of their songs in the same article.

very cool!

still need to hear the Exmortus, the Celestial Sanctuary is dope.

Imperial Triumphant just put out a really cool cover of Rush's "Jacob's Ladder". Great choice of song, it suits them very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8geD0Ok_20

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw-mOLOrb-A/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

okay the Fleshvessel album is indeed really good and bonkers in the best way, but would be even better with a real drummer. the programmed drums lack the oomph this needs.

also the last track has more false endings than The Fellowship of the Ring

but I do really love how crazy this is

Doesn't The Fellowship of the Ring have no endings, false or otherwise?

yeah, I guess "false endings" is not correct, it's more like a long, drawn out ending

I don't make a habit of watching interviews with Corey Taylor, but this one, starting at about the 33-minute mark (in case clicking the link doesn't take you right to it), was fascinating for me personally, because I was there during the era he talks about (I worked for Roadrunner Records from 2010-2014):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvtPKBAo9ng

It was all over the minute the label moved from its own offices in lower Manhattan to the Warner Brothers offices in midtown, but I stuck around for another year before I was let go, and it really did seem to get more dismal every day. Nobody around was excited about the records we were putting out — they all wanted to push Panic! at the Disco and Fun.

for those who care Behold... The Arctopus is unveiling a new album at 6pm est that evidently has no drums/synths/amps or distortion involved. I'm guessing it's going to be pretty far out there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y9gP1FMapA

Really wild stuff. Sounds a bit like King Crimson and Autechre on first listen.

Haha that is bonkers, but I kind of love it.

yeah that is cool, have enjoyed it

The Tomb Mold album sounds like two albums playing simultaneously, and frankly I wish someone would turn down the caveman death metal record so I can listen to the jazzy prog fusion record. (There are some serious hooks, though.)

This thing with Harley from the Cro-Mags is kinda nuts:

https://www.wearethepit.com/2023/09/cro-mags-involved-in-brawl-at-show-singer-harley-flanagan-stabbed-and-maced/

Mainly the two stories are so completely different from each other. I don't know what to believe. Harley has not always been a super nice guy but they make him out to be a violent predator lunatic.

Harley has been a violent predator lunatic since the age of 12. He himself would tell you so, assuming you don't work in law enforcement.

for whatever reason i struggled with the last one but this new tomb mold record is perfect

if you can’t handle me at my caveman death metal you don’t deserve me at my jazzy prog fusion

Tomb Mold are a bunch of nerdy sci-fi hippie kids and I love em. I'm so happy to have new music from them.

finally popping it on right now after waiting all day.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

^^^ true

tbh I'm still digesting the new tomb mold and gridlink records. which makes sense, since they both came out yesterday

the production sounds a little off on the gridlink, maybe. I'll play it nice and loud later today and see if that helps.

new cognizant too, with the same drummer:
https://nervealtar.bandcamp.com/album/inexorable-nature-of-adversity

New Tomb Mold sounding fucking killer so far.

Also gonna chip in a recommendation for the Fabricant album that finally came out over a decade after their memorably great (to me at least) demo. It's a fun nest of dense skronky Demilich style tech death.

The GridLink album is a melodeath record played at grindcore speed. It's incredible.

Tomb Mold's "Will of Whispers" is one of the best metal tracks I've heard all year. What a band, they just keep getting better.