This week’s new heavy metal releases include oodles of darkness, extravagance, grooves, and more! To the metals…
Asphyx – Necroceros
Genre: Doom/death metal Origin: Oldenzaal, Netherlands Label: Century Media
Starting this week with some straight up heaviness. This long-running collective are dropping their first record in five years and they're leaning into the death part of their death/doom metal sound here. Martin van Drunen sounds real mad on the mic and this time he's mad at things like the botox industry.
Comatose – A Way Back
Genre: Sludge/post-rock Origin: Rochester, Minnesota Label: Transcending Records
Now for a band that's new to me. Comatose play heavy, atmospheric, moody rock. It kind of sounds like if Fu Manchu were tasked to make a Nothing record with some occasional screams. You're getting solid riffs with your emotions on this one.
Here Lies Man – Ritual Divination
Genre: Afrobeat/stoner metal Origin: Los Angeles, California Label: RidingEasy Records
Here Lies Man's tagline has famously been "What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?" for a while now. This seems like something that could become a curse this far into their career, and that idea is still the foundation on Ritual Divination. However, this record has them dabbling in other directions and they're cementing their own thing as a band that isn't JUST their tagline.
Nervosa – Perpetual Chaos
Genre: Death metal/thrash Origin: International Label: Napalm
Guitarist Prika Amaral has three new friends joining her on Nervosa's Perpetual Chaos. The band now includes Mia Wallace (ex-Abbath), Eleni Nota (Lightfold), and Diva Satanica (Bloodhunter). They are a mighty force together. The new blood has shaken up sound with some slower, chunkier tracks this time.
Phantom Elite – Titanium
Genre: Symphonic metal Origin: International Label: Frontiers
Now for something epic. Like Nervosa, vocalist Marina La Torraca has an entirely new crew of people with her on this record. Unlike Nervosa, Phantom Elite play Gojira-esque grooves coupled with with soaring vocals and grand choruses. They're put a much needed twist of the symphonic metal sound, and I'm digging it.
Therion – Leviathan
Genre: Symphonic metal Origin: Stockholm, Sweden Label: Nuclear Blast
More epic shit because why not? Sweden's favorite once death metal turned symphonic metal band Therion are back with their seventeenth album. Their last effort was a sprawling conceptual triple album, and the band has a more traditional and refined offering with Leviathan. All the bombast you'd want, but now it's the soundtrack for an aquatic seabeast.
Wrapping this week with the latest from Norway's finest folk band that gets metal's seal of approval. Kvitravn has Lindy-Fay and Einar singing about "Northern sorcery, spirit-animals, shadows, nature and animism…" and more. It's a haunting and beautiful experience that I'd recommend to fans of the most recent Steve von Till or Myrkur records.
