This Week In Metal, 2024 Week 9

The Goat often waxes poetic about the challenges of wearing your influences on your sleeve a little too much. One potential offender, Fabricant, overcame this issue by adjusting for the time that had passed, imagining a Demilich that never stopped making music and took in new ideas without ever losing track of who they were. Fathomless Ritual is a Demilich worship band as well and similarly don’t feel like a total ripoff. Even still, do they do more than just play riffs like lesser gods?

Overall, the Goat was not really sold on their debut, but Funeral for a King sees Stygian Crown return with significantly improved writing and performances, as they seem to lean into their death doom influence stronger than before. The amalgamation of death and epic doom tropes leads to a uniquely feeling album. But will it reign supreme in our Goat’s estimation?

Sophomore Cyberaktif album eNdgame arrives with a toN of history resting on its shoulders, with some of its soNgs begiNNing life as a SkiNNy Puppy album that Never saw release. Yes, that's right, take time from your busy week to listeN to this iNIndustrial history lessoN from Metalligator!

Taking a decidedly anti-authoritarian and perhaps even antifascist perspective, each song on Griffon's De Republica is about a different time period in history, with the prime focus being French history. Every track takes on a melancholic tinge, and can be considered laments because nothing feels triumphant. Zut alors!

Golden Core have shoved a lot of black metal influence into their work here. At their very best they use it as a violent cathartic contrast to follow up passages of head-nodding, rumbling stoner fare. Wait what? Who put green in the corpse paint?