$LAMUARY 2026 – Week 1

Every January, we gather here to ring in the new year with slam. We do so with a rejuvenated energy, only for crap like this to beat it out of us again in a matter of...let's say 7 tracks. It is obvious that this is a young band, likely a student band, and that these tracks were recorded live, in studio, with likely a room microphone only. This is the clankiest, messiest, sloppiest thing I've heard in a while. The room noise, reverberations and clipping sounds merge together with the bands performance, which could barely be less sloppy and less loose rhythmically if it tried. And what are these occasional ping pong like sounds? Was this recorded in the basement of a youth center and they just couldn't get their peers to stop playing table tennis?
Rating: 2/10

Like Womb Tomb, Gore Whore's name rhymes. Unlike Womb Tomb, I understand what Gore Whore are going for and their album is recorded and mixed like a normal piece of music. Well, not recorded and mixed well but that is a whole different story. Gore Whore make goregrind with the usual Simple Jack-styled vocal approach, even if more varied than most. This could be an enjoyable, if average, experience if the mix was not so unfitting of what this genre needs. The vocals are incredibly loud, easily the loudest aspect of the music, while guitars and bass are the quietest. I can imagine a groove, but I can't feel one. So while I can understand what Gore Whore are going for, Snuff Fetish sadly does very little to be an enjoyable piece of music.
Rating: 4/10

A challenge of $lamuary is the need to find words for a style that, when it comes down to it, never really aims to change much and where the attraction lies in the small differences. If you know how modern slam sounds, you know how Dehumanectomy sounds. The total focus on hardcore-ish brutishness, complete with an at times EDM level of clinical production and the occasional bass drop is exactly what you'd expect. That doesn't mean Extinción Axiomática Gravitacional is bad nor does it mean its good. But it means, if I wanted to sell you on the album, I'd need to find a selling point first, which can more often than not be somewhat of an ass-pull. If I had to I'd probably go with... the lyrics are in Spanish. Since Dehumanectomy is bog standard, I luckily don't have to.
Rating: 4/10

Ah, splendid, the first decent release of $lamuary. Hydroxy is the not-quite deathcore but full-on slamming chugfest that, by virtue of not doing all that much wrong, propels itself to the front of the pack almost immediately. Steel Is Truth is a good ol' time, with massive grooves caked in a bro-ish attitude that reminds of the oft-maligned Perverse Recollections of a Necromangler in how single-mindedly committed it is to slamming and being tough, gun pointed directly at the listener. While not good enough to earn any slam-accolades outside of this unholy chore we subject ourselves to, if you're interested in swinging hammers around at the beginning of the year, you probably won't do much better than this.
Rating: 6/10

Another important tradition of $lamuary is the highly conceptual album that outstays it's welcome by overcommitting to its humorous concept and stuffing the album full of useless vocal samples and/or skits. As these albums are in constant danger of watering down the slam to homeopathic doses, Whimsical Brain Rot are almost a breath of fresh air. While it is very light on bass drops, unlike what the promo blurb claims, the skits are just long enough to make me understand that there is a concept while still being possible to be considered an album. What the actual purpose, meaning or humor value of this concept is, I can't say — something with a club that, for some reason, is called Club Shoe and a gang that, for some reason, is called "The Fucks". Maybe I just don't have the cultural context for all that subtle, Alaskan humor. Musically, Whimsical Brain Rot actually has more variety than most, even sporting some guitar wankery and, in the last track, EDM influence. Is this me overselling a pretty bog standard meme slam release? Yes, it is.
Rating: 5/10

So far, I haven't sufficiently dwelled on the qualities of a good pong snare yet. As so often, like pornography, I know it when I see it. Its a fine line between a snare that fully ruins an album (albeit often with comedic value) and one that enhances the brutality of it all, pushing it over the edge. While Coagulating doesn't have the best oong snare of January so far — a title that has to go to the overall inferior Possessed to Kill — it has everything that makes a pong snare tick. The metallic ring is slightly too long, but not in a way where it takes away from the experience and the high pitch coupled with a tight attack pierces through the percussive sludge that the band otherwise focuses on. And, if you know $lamuary you know another thing: If I start talking about anything but the album at hand, there really isn't anything to talk about.
Rating: 5/10

As teased in the previous blurb, Posessed to Kill have the best slam snare of the first week of $lamuary. This snare pongs and rings so massively that I would be willing to forgive a lot of flaws just to bask in its metallic, simple beauty. Unfortunately, the main flaw of this album is the insistence to include so many samples that the runtime of the album almost gets doubled by them, severely limiting how much pongy bliss I even get by listening. This seems to be another conceptual album, and, if I am not mistaken, all the samples are taken from the classic horror film "The Exorcist". I assume that the band owns the VHS cassette (or potentially laserdisc) since the samples sound like they were recorded from a playing TV. Guys, get with the time — all of this can be done with rutube and a screen recorder!
Rating: 5/10

Many years ago, a trend where extreme metal vocalists got replaced by animal samples was a common novelty in indie metal circles. Seeing as this album is apparently dog themed, pitbull themed to be exact, gave me high hopes that the singer would be a very good boy (or girl!) themselves. But alas, it is just a lyrical gimmick. As usual. I can't really determine how well the lyrics are written or correlate to the theme, as the vocals are sufficiently bestial, noisy, and animalistic. In the world of Gnawing that much is obvious in the music which combines deathcore tropes, a beatdown-style tough guy attitude, and an occasional dip into the urban tropes of modern hip hop. It is not bad, but we've heard it all before. And if there was a pitbull at the helm... I still would have had heard it before.
Rating: 5/10

$lamuary does not usually give us much in the diversity of instrumental tone department. Bloating, in fact, serves a wider range of bass tones than all of the albums we'll encounter by virtue of having an audible bassist who can slap, pop, and generally play more than just the root of a chug-chug-chug. The guitarist even has solos too. These guys are basically playing death metal with a pre-determined breakdown. Now, I know you're ready to ask "Isn't that all that slam is?" And, well, yeah, you're right. But also, you're wrong, and Bloating has all the grimy brutal slamming death metal energy to be worth a couple braindead listens.
Rating: 6/10

Do you ever see a title and wonder what the album might be about? Ever seem so big and girthy that you just can't ignore it? You'd certainly be right to be wow'd or wary of something as phallocentric as The Gigantic Shafts, at least. However, Nine Inch Males, in this regard, disappoints. 50% cricket-chirpy gurgle croaks and 50% samples that aren't even funny, it's 10 minutes that won't even get you close to a minor release of stank-face abandon. It's not a grower. It's not a show-er. All flop, no thrust.
Rating: 2/10