Enjoying Krahnholm - Granting Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtm7p2TWh28&t=124s

didn't knew the band and decided to click on it when it popped on my BM Promotion Youtube feed. What a pleasant surprise. Sounds a bit like a mix between Drudkh and Kroda.

Loved the cover artwork too.

So far I've especially enjoyed:

Blodigel - Folly of Abram
Very good war metal demo with a bit of Inquisition-style flair to the riffing.

Oksennus - Kolme toista
Fucked up, weird, hypnotic Finnish death metal. Favorite track: Toinen.

Spite - Antimoshiach
Occult black metal with some trad riffs along the lines of Negative Plane.

Runners up: Urfaust, Autokrator, Torture Rack, Varathron and Sect Pig. Most of these I just haven't listened to enough to really form an opinion but they're all good releases.

Ironflame just released a song from their upcoming second album and it reminds me of Accident of Birth-era Bruce in spots. It's especially astonishing considering the main guy behind it is also releasing albums with Brimstone Coven and Icarus Witch this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6HsZDsXBe4

EDIT: And I just realized I didn't post this in the upcoming releases thread. My apologies.

I like this album Apricity from Atra Vetosus a lot. It's melodic BM from Australia that recalls the heyday of Swedish melodic BM.
https://atravetosus.bandcamp.com/

From the Depths of Flesh by Wombripper might be my favorite death metal album so far this year. It's pure HM2 but done very well, even surpassing IMO many recent efforts from older bands.
https://wombripper.bandcamp.com/

Another one I like, albeit a bit on the short side, is Quantum Hierarchy - Neutron Breed. Their Bandcamp says "For fans of Morbid Angel, Excommunion, Incantation, Myrkskog and Arkhon Infaustus." I guess that is pretty accurate but I would say it has some Immolation leanings in there as well. It's a solid effort overall.
https://everlastingspewrecords.bandcamp ... tron-breed



I like this one a bit as well. I gave their first album a few spins too. It's actually not that far removed from what they are doing now but I would say it's closer to the Suffocation side of things. It's nothing groundbreaking but what it does it does well. The production isn't quite as good but I guess that is to be expected.

https://katabasisargonavis.bandcamp.com ... gneous-maw

positively ineffable stuff here. Blackened doom that brings in whacky time signatures and otherworldly psychedelia.

Shylmagoghnar's new album was released today and it's brilliant. Every song has memorable riffs and melodies, but the title track and first song is just an absolute monster.

Agreed! It's awesome.. one of the best this year by far. But the rest of it didn't quite match the title track, as I feared! Still, brilliant stuff.

Burn the Priest - Legion: XX

Had the metal music channel on on the television and I enjoyed the song by these guys. Checked this album out and discovered its an entire album of covers. I had never even heard of these guys until I heard that one song, but this album is great.

Zardens - Heretic Death Cult
https://zardens.bandcamp.com/album/heretic-death-cult

Svartknost - Devil's blood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCz5GvHvmPk

Lately been enjoying both this albums at the same time, I wouldn't call them masterpieces but it was a really nice surprise and a pleasant listening, specially considering that usually this wouldn't be something I would like.

I know...song 6 has the same epic vibe though....the 7:16 mark is amazing.

Brilliant? 'Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk' is brilliant. This is mediocre.

Agree to disagree. On both counts.

ritual necromancy was my top pick since it came out but the new siege column album is kicking my ass so hard

https://www.cvltnation.com/siege-column ... thpassion/

Vermilia - Kätkyt



Will inevitably draw some unfortunate comparisons but this album is actually really, really good. Melodic/pagan metal, reminds me a lot of Arkona who are one of my all time favourite bands, just with a little more black metal influence.

https://vermiliaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/k-tkyt

Tholomat - Tha Age of Dajjal

https://tholomat.bandcamp.com/album/the-age-of-dajjal

great debut for this guys, found a lot of similarities with the early 90's Norwegian BM scene, specially the likes of Immortal, Satyricon, etc (a bit of Burzum too) but still fresh and with self identity.

Anthems is indeed brilliant in a totally different way. There are more awesome riffs in this one song I embedded than most bands have in entire albums.

New Phlegein is some good, straightforward black metal. Kuilu - Monumentti is a dang good black metal album. The new Autarcie is another good one. The Iceaxe side of the Deafest/Iceaxe split is also well worth listening to (other side is decent enough).

Falling in the "pretty good" range, we have Now Everything Fades (dsbm), Serpents Lair (black), Supreme Carnage (death), Progenie Terrestre Pura (black/death/electronic), and From Ashes Reborn (melodeath).

Blutvial - Mysteries of Earth
This is pretty damn good, feels like it has a lot of classic metal elements mixed in as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkLfEdMA7vY

New Shadowkiller album is absolutely killer. Up there with the best of Ancient Empire.

The new album is just okay. IMO it's more riding on the success of their prior release 'Oathbreaker', a catchy AF meloblack masterpiece. Seems like they pushed too hard on this one to be heavier rather than sticking to the slightly cheesy, but amazing hook-tastic style they had perfected before.

Best demo of the year: Superstition. Kinda makes me think of blackened Blood Incantation, especially with the wild divebomb guitar solos all the time. Lots of great thrashy riffs as well.


Best album of the year: Twitching Tongues. Hateful crossover goth, deathy beatdoom. New lineup has fucking crushed it. End breakdown is the greatest riff of the year EASY.

Excellent description.

Despite a pretty stupid band name, I've really been enjoying Null'o'zero's latest release, Instructions to Dominate. Similar to other Greek bands doing the whole "power metal but its really thrashy and heavy" thing like Desert Near the End and it is a lot of fun from front to back.

New Skeletonwitch rules pretty much. Some atmoblack stuff in with the melodic black thrash we know and love. People who were a bit hesitant after Fen of Shadows should still enjoy it I think.

edit: hype for hoth = le starwars

^ I enjoyed that second song of the three they've released (also second on the album) the most, so if that's more representative of the album as a whole then I feel much more confident than I did a couple months ago. They need to keep that thrashiness going forward regardless of how much they want to separate this current incarnation as a new phase. Skeletonwitch has always been a great live band - going full on atmospheric black metal robs them and the fans of that strength.

"Through Wilderness" by Mortuous is a banger of a full-length debut and I encourage anyone looking for a newer death metal band that isn't simply another Swedeath worship act or hitching their wagons to the reverbed out black/death train to get you some of that. There's some interesting piano and flute instrumentation on a song or two, but it's done sparingly, subtly, and tastefully. Another Greg Wilkinson/Earhammer Studios gem.

The newest album by A Sound of Thunder is surprisingly excellent. Lots of no-bullshit stomping heavy/power metal with one of the best female vocalists alive today, and songs like the title track, "Charles II," "Tomyris," and "Fortress of the Future Race" are among the best released this year. Thaurorod's got some stiff competition for that #2 slot on the yearly Top 10.

Agreed, especially with the "no-bullshit" part. For me, this is the first album they have released that is straight up heavy metal from front to back. I've always been put off by their more theatrical/progressive elements in songs like Elijah whatever you want to call Punk Mambo. And fortunately It Was Metal doesn't contain any tracks that ruin its cohesion.

Killer sound, nice upload.

I haven't seen much mention of the new Spectral Wound album and I just got around to listening to it myself. Probably in my top 5 of the year so far.

https://spectralwound.bandcamp.com/album/infernal-decadence

Yeah, this album is badass.

There's also this album Unburial - The Dogs of War. I was just looking through the list of all albums that have come out this month on this website, as I sometimes do, and I stumbled upon it. I couldn't find any reviews really, but the album art was so cool I had to check it out, and I'm glad I did. I just listened to a couple of the preview tracks and it sounds good so far. Black/thrash that's on the melodic side and has a bit of trad metal influence. Comparisons can be made to Blood of the Wolf, Abbath-era Immortal, Abbath, House of Atreus, and Susperia.

Is anyone else not feeling the much hyped, new Obscura album? For some reason I just can't get in to this, but reviews are overwhelmingly positive and even go as far to say it's the band's best album. I'm like, what? It isn't even half as good as Cosmogenesis...seems so obvious to me. It's certainly not a bad album by any means and the playing is of course stellar, but yeah....meh.

It's not Cosmogenesis but I like it more than the two albums in between. I can see what you mean, though. I'm more keen to hear what Beyond Creation do instead.

Archemoron, the Greek melodic black metal act, has released a massive, double CD album called 'Year of the Harvester'. This album is pure gold of melodic songwriting craftsmanship, bearing many influences and musical aesthetics all done top notch and brilliantly interwoven. I have been immensely enjoying it for the last month. It does not bore me nor does it get old even after multiple listening sessions. Check it out.

https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/A ... ter/717897

Aurally observing now, and this is quite good! Nice find, zera_p. Nice mix of songwriting styles between tracks. Keeps it varied and interesting while never straying too far from black occult metal forms. It's refreshing for a band to remember that you can have more than one single idea happening in an album. Way too many bands come up with one aesthetic or musical idea that they then make the central focus of an entire hour+ album without variation. That's not what the classic bands of the metal pantheon of any subgenre did (at least not most of the time).

I would likely have never checked out this band due to the fact that their band name looks like "Archie Moron".

Well, thank you, glad you liked it. I am surprised to see so few acknowledging the greatness of this band.
They do explain about the origin of their name, on their website's bio section, I think. Check it out. But indeed, the MORON suffix indeed raises a smile.

Now, let's see if you pay attention to details: can you hear somewhere there a Bolt Thrower riff?

To me it seems more the other way around in extreme metal, at least for the higher-profile recent bands.

Yeah thanks zera_p, I had been wondering about that album and you've definitely convinced me to check it out. Will report back!

My pleasure. Enjoy.

I love the new The Antichrist Imperium CD - "Every Tongue Shall Praise Satan"! For the uninitiated, this is basically spin-off band of Akercocke, featuring past & current members of that band. Their 2015 debut was solid, but this album absolutely devastates it, just a monster from beginning to end - beautifully crafted songs, the way it weaves between death & black metal while incorporating mild flourishes of goth rock and prog, is absolutely masterful. The clean vocals, which were my biggest problem with the debut (due to the poor performance & implementation) are used much more sparingly, but to much greater effect (the "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" bit in Golgothian Heiros Gamos is fucking outstanding). It actually reminds me a lot of the other Akercocke offshoot Voices, who also came from a relatively mediocre debut into a mindblowing masterpiece with 2015's "London". I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who loves the "classic" (meaning pre-"Renaissance in Extremis") Akercocke sound.