The best metal albums you can buy this week: Savage Messiah and more

a press shot of Savage Messiah
(Image credit: Savage Messiah)

Savage Messiah - Hands Of Fate

“This quartet’s fourth album is crammed with stampeding, often groove-laden riffs and as writers they sink lasting, memorable hooks into the likes of Wing And A Prayer, Solar Corona and the Metallica-flavoured title track. Fittingly, Hand Of Fate is also Savage Messiah’s debut for Century Media, who were committed enough to sink funds into its crystal clear yet weighty production.”

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Hollywood Undead - Five

‘The masked Californians’ fifth full-length is being released independently through the band’s own label and the gang is in full control. With almost 10 years since the release of platinum-certified 2008 debut album Swan Songs, this industrial-fused rap-rock band have perfected the formula and Five boasts some of the most confident, crisp, heaviest and simultaneously catchiest songwriting to date.”

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Ne Obliviscaris - Urn

“The increased interest in extreme metal and acceptance of progressive, challenging music means there’s never been a better time for a new Ne Obliviscaris record… Often the diametrically opposed elements jar rather than meld, but when the pot is left to simmer for long enough, such as on album centrepiece Eyrie, you get a glimpse of how special Ne Obliviscaris could be.”

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Skarlett Riot - Regenerate

“Skarlett Riot set the bar high and bled it dry with razor-sharp EP Sentience in 2016, but these Scunthorpe-based upstarts are hellbent on proving they’re here to stay with this second full length effort. Like its predecessor, Regenerate harnesses the penetrative hooks and huge singalongs synonymous with modern metalcore, but there’s an inescapable smattering of darkness meandering through these 10 tracks.”

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Dawn Ray’d - The Unlawful Assembly

“Taking its place in the English Heritage Black Metal canon, with added nods to Wolves In The Throne Room, The Unlawful Assembly combines sorrow and pride, its barrelling riffs coursing over forlorn violin and battle-folk vocals surveying the ruins as though trying to retrieve moral victory from defeat.”

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The best new metal albums you can buy this week

The best new metal albums you can buy this week

The best new metal albums you can buy this week

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