The Best New Metal Album Releases This Week

Opeth - Sorceress

“Written at their rehearsal space and then recorded in just 12 days at Rockfield Studios, Sorceress is neither for the faint-hearted nor those waiting for the band to remake Blackwater Park, even if this album shares some of its lyrical motifs. This is the band at their most expansive and inventive.” Read the full review here.

Alcest - Kodama

“Kodama isn’t an album to toss on casually; you need to commit both your time and your mind to fully explore the vast soundscape on offer. In typical shoegaze style, the album is a mishmash of frantic guitars and snare bashing, but intertwined with haunting, ghostly vocals.” Read the full review here.

Epica - The Holographic Principle

“Combining the visceral edge of melodic death metal with typical bombast, The Holographic Principle puts the guitar at the forefront instead of resting solely on the histrionic impact of choirs and orchestras. The result is full-pelt metal and maximum symphonic drama.” Read the full review here.

Winterfylleth - The Dark Hereafter

“Rather than exhibiting a desire to evolve for the sake of it, these windswept epics retain the elemental roar of Winterfylleth’s trademark guitar barrage, but the sonic space occupied has been broadened and enhanced.” Read the full review here.

Suicidal Tendencies - World Gone Mad

“WGM boasts a pleasingly traditional Suicidal style, with instantly recognisable vocals, heavy punk attitude, a flair for both the rhythmic and the weird, and a delightful wish to enjoy themselves as they play.” Read the full review here.

Okkultokrati - Raspberry Dawn

“From opener World Peace, a thumping punk charger that owes as much to Darkthrone as it does 80s coldwave, through to the atmospheric and totally synth-created, slowly pulsing Suspension, that owes as much to Ultravox as Black Flag, Okkultokrati have blown all notions of what Scando-punk is clear across the Barents Sea.” Read the full article here.

Asphyx - Incoming Death

“While a classic like The Rack had a vicious yet grotesque vibe to it, here The Great Denial and Death: The Only Immortal carry their big guns out in the open, ready to kill. But Baayens’ biggest contributions are the short, sharp, in-your-face nuggets like opener Candiru and the title-track, an immediate, sub-two- minute punk rock-style punch in the face.” Read the full review here.

The Agonist - Five

“The band have a weapon in the form of frontwoman Vicky Psarakis and she soon proves her worth, veering between soaring clean lines and visceral growls throughout The Chain and The Hunt with ease.” Read the full review here.

King 810 - La Petit Mort Or A Conversation With God

“Those schooled on bands like Swans or Neurosis, collectives inspired by shining a light on the very darkest corners of the human condition, will find David Gunn’s bullets and blood lyrical bluntness too simplistic, whilst the dude in the FFDP shirt who just wants to bang his head will struggle to comprehend an eight-minute title track that evokes an urban paranoia as conceived by David Lynch and performed by Tom Waits.” Read the full review here.

Negura Bunget - Zi

“Traces of their black metal past burst into the bawdy lurch of Gradina Stelelor, and if Brazda Da Foc is a brief step back into more cinematic territories, the dulcimers, wooden blocks and more offer an earthiness that exchanges atmosphere for something more tactile.” Read the full review here.

The A-Z of Opeth

Epica's track by track guide to The Holographic Principle

King 810: "You don’t flinch at gunfire. You get used to it..."

Artists

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