Ran through a couple 2017 albums I've had laying around:
Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
I slept on this. There was a lot of hype, SC2112 wouldn't stop gushing about it, I liked Manifest Decimation well enough, but for whatever reason I just didn't feel motivated to check this out until now. Big mistake, because it's obviously fantastic. Big, angry, sweaty, meaty thrash from a bunch of dudes with goofy faces who look like they all need to take a bath. Thrash as a genre seems to have died out again with only a few genre stalwarts doing anything to try keeping the scene relevant, and as such Power Trip stands pretty much alone with Vektor when it comes to new thrash bands people readily admit to liking nowadays. I'm alright with it, they rock.
Prospekt - The Illuminated Sky
I only listened to this yesterday and I've already forgotten most of it. What I remember was alright though, some brainy power/prog stuff. Not exactly my usual style but it was alright I guess. I'll have to revisit it, though if I've already forgotten this much it's probably not going to wow me too much on a second listen.
Army of Dagon - Night of the Mystics
This is another one that I only listened to the other day yet somehow already forgot most of. Solid enough doom that at least makes a conscious attempt to step outside of the "tune low, play slow" trap but apart from having the thirty millionth nasally vocalist with 1/10th the charm of Ozzy, not much stood out.
Broken Hope - Mutilated and Assimilated
I mean, it's Broken Hope. It's BDM, what more can you really do with it? It's solid enough I guess, but even with the hometown bias in their favor I just couldn't bring myself to care about what I was listening to. Maybe my bias against brutal death metal bands that try to inject ill fitting toilet humor into their brutality is stronger.
Craven Idol - The Shackles of Mammon
Okay, this one blew me the fuck away, and that's 100% my fault. Y'see, I have a bit of an old prejudice with Dark Descent Records that I'm really working on overcoming. Back when they debuted I swear all I ever heard out of that camp was a few dozen OSDM revivalist bands that just aped Incantation and didn't bother challenging themselves further. So when this band's debut came out, with that band name and an album title like "Towards Eschaton", with yet a-fucking-nother Paolo Girardi cover, my eyes just glazed over and I gave it a pass without listening. Over the years though, I'm learning that whenever they break away from that established "DDRcore" sound with bands like Emptiness, Horrendous, Crypt Sermon, House of Atreus, etc. they really put out some fucking excellent stuff. Enter Craven Idol's second album, where I learned they were actually much more of a D666 styled black/thrash band and decided to see if the rule of thumb remained true. It did. This is some fucking brutally vicious stuff, with a surprising amount of hooks and memorable moments for something that is more or less just intensity and evil from start to finish. I definitely need to double back and check out their debut now, because this just rocketed up the standings for me. It's no AOTY contender yet but if it breaks the top 5 I wouldn't be surprised, I love the shit out of this.
Ogarya - Ubiquity
This also fucking rules. Excellent hyperspeed death metal that never really fully veers into tech death but toes the line rather frequently (there are a fuckload of leads going on at all times). Think of Augury with a little more balls or Leading Vision era Gorod for the kind of nutbanging janky melodies and intensity you'll find here. Two sentences later I think tech death really is a better term for these guys, but it's more grounded than your Decrepit Births of the world. Either way, this kills, and tech death fans need to perk up and pay attention. There are two women in the band as well (one of the vocalists and the drummer) if diversity adds bonus points for you. Either way this is non stop aggression and I love it.
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