Our This Week in Metal post collects our thoughts on music released in or around this week in the music world. We cover mostly metal, but we consider other genres to allow our writers poseur flexibility. Follow us on Instagram too!
Metalligator's Chomping Commentaries
For newcomers, Servitude serves up the same kind of cutthroat melodic death metal that The Black Dahlia Murder has been putting out for shy over 20 years now, with a sound that bleeds in colors of Carcass and At the Gates, among others. Fans will find a good album that harkens back to the sound of albums like Nocturnal. Does The Black Dahlia Murder still live to serve sick riffs though?
Access All Worlds, Iotunn’s first full-length release, took the Gator’s top spot back in 2021. While in hindsight, he may choose different these days, Aldará’s vocals are in part the anchor that makes Access All Worlds remarkable to the Gator, as the music leaves a lot of room for him to insert melodrama and meaning to the often grand sounding riffs. But will Kinship remain in kissing favor with our favorite reptilian?
The deathly doom metal of Swallow the Sun used to find offset with moments of cold beauty and increasingly pop oriented vocal lines, that still managed to feel like a fresh breath visible in the chill air. This has been turned on its head on Shining, a move that, in hindsight, Swallow the Sun has well telegraphed over the last two albums. Shine bright like a sadboi stone.
Anti-Peat's Perplexing Position
Most of us started something new during the Covid pandemic. Polish scene veteran Quazarre (Devilish Impressions, Asgaard, Crionics) started another band and called it Ephialtes after the Ancient Greek word for nightmare. He then doubled down on it by calling the debut album Melas Oneiros, which means black dream, or nightmare. It’s not everyday someone is so considerate as to make their thematic inspirations so clear. But is Melas Oneiros really nightmare fuel? It is only melodeath after all...
Eminations ov Noobdom
The call of fresh blood persists, and a new voice from beyond the mortal veil has risen to cast judgement on that which whelms neither of the over or under variety. But can the untested figure out how one kills death? Or does Morticide have a hidden meaning? Let a noob tell ya.
