It's Friday the 13th and you know what that means - we're halfway through November, and just that little bit closer to the end of the year. As in previous years, we'll be wrapping up in the coming weeks and asking you to tell us what music ruled the roost for you this year, but there's still some great new tunes to enjoy in the meantime.
Speaking of which, the results of last week's vote! Third place went to the excellent State Of Mind by Future Static, but there was a real battle for top slot. In the end, Charlotte Wessels emerged as the queen of the week (again!), eking out a victory against Everdawn's Illusionist.
This week it's starting to look a lot like Christmas. Granted, depending on where you live you might've seen the decs going up as early as Halloween (blasphemy!) but even with Thanksgiving on the way and well over a month to go to the big day, clearly metal is getting into the seasonal spirit. Thankfully there's also offerings that aren't jumping the gun on advent, so feel free to pop a humbug and get something nasty in your ears.
Ice Nine Kills - Joy To The World
Of course Ice Nine Kills weren't just going to start dropping Christmas carols. Considering the shape of the Terrifier franchise it makes perfect sense to bring Art The Clown back into the fold, but even more surprising is how INK have dispensed with their trademark melodic choruses entirely for this brutish little beast, a minute flying by with some guttural snarls and deathcore like drops. Their new EP A Very Vicious Christmas is out now.
Avatar - Naughty List (feat. Zakk Wylde)
If you're a UK Avatar fan you might already feel like you're on the naughty list this week, with the Swedes announcing they've had to postpone the majority of their British dates. But to soften the blow, they've released a typically bombastic new single in Naughty List, a Christmas metal tune (yep, another one!) featuring Zakk Wylde and a gleefully daft chorus.
Bullet For My Valentine - I Don't Trust Tomorrow (ft. Will Ramos)
Let's hop off the seasonal sleigh. Bullet For My Valentine are eyeing up a March 19 for their new album Social Apocalypse, and new single I Don't Trust Tomorrow offers a rare guest feature with Lorna Shore's Will Ramos stepping up to the mic. BFMV haven't gone full deathcore though: there's a few moments of snarling heft, but otherwise this is their usual emotive anthemia with some added ferocity.
Kalandra - Animal
Norway's Kalandra often defy simple categorisation, but with Animal there's an air of the melodic prog metal of Leprous, albeit with their own unique spin. A skittering guitar flutters below Katrine Stenbekk's vocals, the powerful and soulful delivery bringing to mind Nordic folk without fully giving over to that style. It's a sleek and forward-minded track (just check out those thrumming synths), with new album The Other Side out today and well worth a listen.
Tesseract - Crucible
Heroes of the UK prog metal scene, Tesseract will release a new EP in March. Titled Arc_One : Obscura, they've given us a taste of the direction they're headed in with new single Crucible, a morphing, techy track that delivers some gorgeous melodies before getting nasty in its closing moments.
Fear Factory - Detonizer
Just listen to that filthy riff. Detonizer feels like a classic Fear Factory tune, switching between furious intensity and big melodic breakouts that show vocalist Milo Silvestro has the full range of predecessor Burton C. Bell and this track feels like the most fired up and electric the band have sounded in at least a decade. New album Robiticist is due April 9 so we'll see how it shapes up.
Dragonforce - Neverending Nightmare
Alissa White-Gluz showed off how her melodeath stylings would fit in with Dragonforce on Hunger Of The Beast, but here we get to taste a more traditional power metal vocal styling, showing just how impressively diverse her voice is. Even so, we'll admit our favourite bit of this epic track hits around the halfway mark, where Alissa once again takes up her snarls alongside typically mad guitars from Herman Li and Sam Totman with some decided Dire Straits tones (Sultans Of Swing, we see you). It's brilliantly experimental and we can't wait to hear the rest of Dragonforce's self-titled album on March 19.
Bodysnatcher - No Funeral
If you spotted Bodysnatcher's name on the freshly announced Download Festival poster and thought, 'Who?' Consider this your introduction. No Funeral is thuggish, simplistic deathcore with an eye to battering you over the head until you submit. Think Hatebreed but with added Suicide Silence. New album Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is due April 10, so keep your eyes out - or prepare to be blindsided.
Eternal Rin - 404notfound
What if Chelsea Wolfe were more heavygaze? That's the question that comes to mind hearing newcomer Eternal Rin and 404notfound, the British artist capturing the same split between atmospheric darkness and ascendant melody that also brings to mind Deftones (as do most heavygaze bands, let's face it). It's a brilliant introduction, and we can't wait to hear more.
Ater - Heart Of Glass
For a moment in Heart Of Glass, Ater drop a tone that sounds distinctly Sleep Token. It's a red herring however - and a bloody one at that, the Chilean band's extreme metal worlds away from the pop-bothering of baddiecore, albeit with its own sense of atmosphere and melody that makes it feel properly epic. The band's new album Everlasting is coming on January 29 and looks to be well worth a listen if you like your extreme metal cinematic.
