Live Report: Psycho Las Vegas Day 1

Though I am a longtime El-Ahrairah fan, it took me a little longer to check out T.N.'s solo project for reasons still unknown to me. Featuring a beautiful fusion of Soviet Bloc-inspired black metal and krautrock-infused psychedelia, T.N.'s vision is at its clearest here. It might be a little difficult to find a copy of this album this late in the game, but it is imperative that you hear this thing on vinyl. A tape would be nice, too!

Listen here.

Oh, do I love Austere. I love them so much that I wrote a literal book on them. I missed this band a great deal, their last album (2009's To Lay Like Old Ashes) remaining a steadfast inclusion in my listening habits in the years that followed their initial demise. Now back and, dare I say, more mature this time around, Austere's desperate depression is more palatable and less unbridled. As Desolate and Sorrow have grown over the past fourteen years, so has their once-more-unified musical vision. Austere is "depressive black metal," but in a more realistic and dismal sense rather than the self-destructive extremeness of the past. Corrosion of Hearts is still a stirring listen, however, and Austere pick up right where they left off.

Listen here.

I had high hopes for the Romantik I EP's followup, and musician and songwriter Erech Leleth's continuation of the Bergfried story is just as exciting, if not more, than what came before it. Bergfried are "traditional" in the sense that there are rocking riffs and sung vocals, and yet there is a lot more going on here. Dokken-esque sleaze, folk metal, black metal, and other influences collide in Romantik II's peculiar and infectious metal/rock hybrid traverses the musical landscape with a unique playfulness. Erech Leleth has proven through other projects like Ancient Mastery, Carathis, and Narzissus that he is a master of black metal, but Bergfried reveals that he was an '80s metal nerd the entire time. Go ahead and revisit Carathis–tell me it isn't '80s guitar hero metal!

Listen here.

Lamp of Murmuur's departure from the raw black metal world was an unexpected and unannounced one, and it left a lot of babies whining about "sounding like Immortal" or "not being the same." The most exciting artists, my friends, try new things, and Lamp of Murmuur's heavy/black metal approach on Saturnian Bloodstorm is by far the most exciting material M. has released to date. In an interview I conducted with him for Decibel Magazine, M. expressed a sense of accomplishment and ego concerning this release, having overcome many obstacles to get to this point, and the pride felt here is palpable.

Listen here.

Midlake's The Courage of Others was an earlier foray of mine into the world of the "indie" offshoot world of folk rock rather than my more metal-oriented neofolk and neoclassical "folk" taste. That was, sadly, Midlake's last album with singer Tim Smith, who chose to leave Midlake and start this band, Harp, in 2011. The most upsetting part of Harp's birth was the loss of two years of Smith-fronted Midlake material–the band decided to simply abandon the work they'd done together and start again from scratch. Though Harp's long-long awaited debut album Albion, having first been announced in 2015, has the occasional metaphysical nod to the material Smith left on the cutting room floor, this material is a definite departure from Midlake's more American approach. With stylistic nods to the English folk revival movement, Albion is a subtle, warm album. Smith's voice, a welcome return, is as smooth and soft as ever, and his ear for harmony is even stronger than the Midlake days. If it takes another twelve years for Smith to make another album like this, the time will have been worth it.

Listen here.

So, first off, RIP Urfaust! I remember listening to this band in high school, and it's amazing how they'd followed me into my 30s. Nothing lasts forever, unfortunately! At least, and it is really to our benefit, Urfaust went out on an incredibly high note. Featuring some of their strongest material in a very long time, Untergang shows this Dutch duo at their most powerful and harrowing. Urfaust was always about that–power (well, that and getting very, very drunk)–and this final album, their very last statement as Urfaust, is a reminder that they will always be the best at their craft, even when they have left it.

Listen here.

Katatonia is probably my favorite active metal band. Yes, even the nu-rock stuff, and Sky Void of Stars is probably their strongest Jonas Renkse-written material–their frontman having taken over songwriting around the City Burials era. Renkse's melodic pop sensibilities meld with the band's overall heavy, proggy rock and metal stylings, making an album which is both immensely heavy and very, very catchy. "Opaline'"s hook has only two notes. Two notes!

Listen here.

I waited a long time for the followup to Miserere Luminis' self-titled album, originally released in 2009. Initially conceived as a live concert project and collaboration between Quebecois black metal bands Gris and Sombres Forêts, I didn't really expect anything to come from this band beyond this effort, but a semi-recent reformation as a live band gave me a little hope. Well, that and Neptune telling me about the album a year before Ordalie was released, but I digress. Though Ordalie is a black metal collaboration through and through, I hesitate to actually call Miserere Luminis a black metal band this time around. Leaning heavily into post-rock and post-metal, the lush and heavily orchestrated Ordalie is a sort of rebirth for these two sorely missed bands, who are generally known more for their presence in the black metal underground. By the way, when are either Sombres Forêts or Gris going to give us proper albums on their own? It's only been a decade since we've heard new recorded material from either band (the Gris album topped my best of the 2010s list, so you must know how dead serious I am about this).

Listen here.

Another album for which I waited a long, long time. Finnish progressive folk band Tenhi's last album, Saivo, was released in 2011, then… nothing! At least, until I interviewed member Tyko Saarikko in 2020, where he first made mention of the album that would become Valkama in his first public chat in years. The anticipation killed me. It really did. With such a drastic amount of time dedicated to one album made by a consistently incredible band, Valkama had to approach perfection. It just had to… and it does. Saarikko and bandmate Ilmari Issakainen's approach to folk music (not quite neofolk like so many declare them to be) is tender and quiet, but heady and complex. Featuring Issakainen's most complex drumming in years, Tenhi's once-again mobile selves (when compared to Saivo's stillness) capitalizes on their newfound activity and makes what could be their finest album. Somewhere between Kauan's raw songwriting talent, Maa​ä​et's verdant orchestration, and Airut:Aamujen's delicate touch, Tenhi's Valkama is not only a survey of their most memorable moments, but an expansion upon them, as well. Tenhi spent a lengthy amount of time on this album, and it shows in this album's more subtle moments. With quiet counter-melodies, interesting syncopations, and a general appreciation for the art of the groove, Valkama quickly entered my listening rotation and never left it.

Listen here.

Listen to our lengthy podcast interview with Saarikko and Issakainen here.

What's that? Another eagerly awaited album? That's right, "DHG" spent an eight year span crafting this album. Frontman Vicotnik's songwriting acumen–taking songs from breakneck black metal to prog epics and electronic soundscapes with grace and thought–is at its strongest here. Songs can wander through disparate ends of the musical universe and guitarist/songwriter Yusaf "Vicotnik" Parvez twists them carefully so that they make sense together. Opener "Et Smelter" finds its way from guitar ambiance, through a sea of black metal, and finds itself closing as a progressive rock masterpiece. It really is compelling, full of "blink and you've missed it" transitions and the tiniest of details placed in exact spots for the most effective response. An avant-garde black metal album in the most classical sense of the genre, Black Medium Current is also an apex of it, as well. Featuring Vicotnik on vocals this time, replacing previous (and original) vocalist Aldrahn, we find a more varied and emotive performance, ranging from softly sung vocals to the harshest of shrieks, and a cornucopia of other sounds that pair with Black Medium Current's wacky, colorful void. Having been around for thirty years now, Dødheimsgard have rendered themselves inimitable in a sea of pretenders, crafting the perfect version of what was at one point referred to as "post-black metal." Also, yes, this means this album is better than the one with Fenriz on it.

Listen here.

Listen to our lengthy podcast interview with Vicotnik here.

Though I am a longtime El-Ahrairah fan, it took me a little longer to check out T.N.'s solo project for reasons still unknown to me. Featuring a beautiful fusion of Soviet Bloc-inspired black metal and krautrock-infused psychedelia, T.N.'s vision is at its clearest here. It might be a little difficult to find a copy of this album this late in the game, but it is imperative that you hear this thing on vinyl. A tape would be nice, too!

Listen here.

Oh, do I love Austere. I love them so much that I wrote a literal book on them. I missed this band a great deal, their last album (2009's To Lay Like Old Ashes) remaining a steadfast inclusion in my listening habits in the years that followed their initial demise. Now back and, dare I say, more mature this time around, Austere's desperate depression is more palatable and less unbridled. As Desolate and Sorrow have grown over the past fourteen years, so has their once-more-unified musical vision. Austere is "depressive black metal," but in a more realistic and dismal sense rather than the self-destructive extremeness of the past. Corrosion of Hearts is still a stirring listen, however, and Austere pick up right where they left off.

Listen here.

I had high hopes for the Romantik I EP's followup, and musician and songwriter Erech Leleth's continuation of the Bergfried story is just as exciting, if not more, than what came before it. Bergfried are "traditional" in the sense that there are rocking riffs and sung vocals, and yet there is a lot more going on here. Dokken-esque sleaze, folk metal, black metal, and other influences collide in Romantik II's peculiar and infectious metal/rock hybrid traverses the musical landscape with a unique playfulness. Erech Leleth has proven through other projects like Ancient Mastery, Carathis, and Narzissus that he is a master of black metal, but Bergfried reveals that he was an '80s metal nerd the entire time. Go ahead and revisit Carathis–tell me it isn't '80s guitar hero metal!

Listen here.

Lamp of Murmuur's departure from the raw black metal world was an unexpected and unannounced one, and it left a lot of babies whining about "sounding like Immortal" or "not being the same." The most exciting artists, my friends, try new things, and Lamp of Murmuur's heavy/black metal approach on Saturnian Bloodstorm is by far the most exciting material M. has released to date. In an interview I conducted with him for Decibel Magazine, M. expressed a sense of accomplishment and ego concerning this release, having overcome many obstacles to get to this point, and the pride felt here is palpable.

Listen here.

Midlake's The Courage of Others was an earlier foray of mine into the world of the "indie" offshoot world of folk rock rather than my more metal-oriented neofolk and neoclassical "folk" taste. That was, sadly, Midlake's last album with singer Tim Smith, who chose to leave Midlake and start this band, Harp, in 2011. The most upsetting part of Harp's birth was the loss of two years of Smith-fronted Midlake material–the band decided to simply abandon the work they'd done together and start again from scratch. Though Harp's long-long awaited debut album Albion, having first been announced in 2015, has the occasional metaphysical nod to the material Smith left on the cutting room floor, this material is a definite departure from Midlake's more American approach. With stylistic nods to the English folk revival movement, Albion is a subtle, warm album. Smith's voice, a welcome return, is as smooth and soft as ever, and his ear for harmony is even stronger than the Midlake days. If it takes another twelve years for Smith to make another album like this, the time will have been worth it.

Listen here.

So, first off, RIP Urfaust! I remember listening to this band in high school, and it's amazing how they'd followed me into my 30s. Nothing lasts forever, unfortunately! At least, and it is really to our benefit, Urfaust went out on an incredibly high note. Featuring some of their strongest material in a very long time, Untergang shows this Dutch duo at their most powerful and harrowing. Urfaust was always about that–power (well, that and getting very, very drunk)–and this final album, their very last statement as Urfaust, is a reminder that they will always be the best at their craft, even when they have left it.

Listen here.

Katatonia is probably my favorite active metal band. Yes, even the nu-rock stuff, and Sky Void of Stars is probably their strongest Jonas Renkse-written material–their frontman having taken over songwriting around the City Burials era. Renkse's melodic pop sensibilities meld with the band's overall heavy, proggy rock and metal stylings, making an album which is both immensely heavy and very, very catchy. "Opaline'"s hook has only two notes. Two notes!

Listen here.

I waited a long time for the followup to Miserere Luminis' self-titled album, originally released in 2009. Initially conceived as a live concert project and collaboration between Quebecois black metal bands Gris and Sombres Forêts, I didn't really expect anything to come from this band beyond this effort, but a semi-recent reformation as a live band gave me a little hope. Well, that and Neptune telling me about the album a year before Ordalie was released, but I digress. Though Ordalie is a black metal collaboration through and through, I hesitate to actually call Miserere Luminis a black metal band this time around. Leaning heavily into post-rock and post-metal, the lush and heavily orchestrated Ordalie is a sort of rebirth for these two sorely missed bands, who are generally known more for their presence in the black metal underground. By the way, when are either Sombres Forêts or Gris going to give us proper albums on their own? It's only been a decade since we've heard new recorded material from either band (the Gris album topped my best of the 2010s list, so you must know how dead serious I am about this).

Listen here.

Another album for which I waited a long, long time. Finnish progressive folk band Tenhi's last album, Saivo, was released in 2011, then… nothing! At least, until I interviewed member Tyko Saarikko in 2020, where he first made mention of the album that would become Valkama in his first public chat in years. The anticipation killed me. It really did. With such a drastic amount of time dedicated to one album made by a consistently incredible band, Valkama had to approach perfection. It just had to… and it does. Saarikko and bandmate Ilmari Issakainen's approach to folk music (not quite neofolk like so many declare them to be) is tender and quiet, but heady and complex. Featuring Issakainen's most complex drumming in years, Tenhi's once-again mobile selves (when compared to Saivo's stillness) capitalizes on their newfound activity and makes what could be their finest album. Somewhere between Kauan's raw songwriting talent, Maa​ä​et's verdant orchestration, and Airut:Aamujen's delicate touch, Tenhi's Valkama is not only a survey of their most memorable moments, but an expansion upon them, as well. Tenhi spent a lengthy amount of time on this album, and it shows in this album's more subtle moments. With quiet counter-melodies, interesting syncopations, and a general appreciation for the art of the groove, Valkama quickly entered my listening rotation and never left it.

Listen here.

Listen to our lengthy podcast interview with Saarikko and Issakainen here.

What's that? Another eagerly awaited album? That's right, "DHG" spent an eight year span crafting this album. Frontman Vicotnik's songwriting acumen–taking songs from breakneck black metal to prog epics and electronic soundscapes with grace and thought–is at its strongest here. Songs can wander through disparate ends of the musical universe and guitarist/songwriter Yusaf "Vicotnik" Parvez twists them carefully so that they make sense together. Opener "Et Smelter" finds its way from guitar ambiance, through a sea of black metal, and finds itself closing as a progressive rock masterpiece. It really is compelling, full of "blink and you've missed it" transitions and the tiniest of details placed in exact spots for the most effective response. An avant-garde black metal album in the most classical sense of the genre, Black Medium Current is also an apex of it, as well. Featuring Vicotnik on vocals this time, replacing previous (and original) vocalist Aldrahn, we find a more varied and emotive performance, ranging from softly sung vocals to the harshest of shrieks, and a cornucopia of other sounds that pair with Black Medium Current's wacky, colorful void. Having been around for thirty years now, Dødheimsgard have rendered themselves inimitable in a sea of pretenders, crafting the perfect version of what was at one point referred to as "post-black metal." Also, yes, this means this album is better than the one with Fenriz on it.

Listen here.

Listen to our lengthy podcast interview with Vicotnik here.

Obituary’s excellent eleventh album, and first since 2017’s self-titled, offers nothing new or inventive—in other words, the way it’s s’posed to be. Obituary have spent four decades playing a minimalist brand of boogie-esque death metal, and it works for them. Ain’t broke ’n all that. 

Tidy songwriting with economical riffing continues to be their North Star, proving that well-written and tightly-played material works every time. Indeed, a handful of these songs (“The Wrong Time,” the title track, and “Torn Apart”) can stand next to their best ever. Meanwhile, one of the best sounds in death metal—the Frankenstein’s monster-esque growl of John Tardy—hasn’t aged a day, and you’re forced to believe him when he snarls that “I’ll take you to war” and that “You’ll find your only choice is death.” Beyond that, Tardy’s delivery proves that the scariest shit on Earth can be time, hate, and insanity, confirming that the true horror of existence can sometimes be life itself.

Listen here.

Much like the New Zealand quintet’s previous album, 2021’s Nightmare Withdrawals, their marvelous fourth offering is a purposefully difficult listen. 

Patience is required to appreciate their brand of avant garde tech-death. You’ll need a handful of listens before it starts to make (any) sense, because there’s some seriously high-level thinking going on here. The tasteful songwriting and playing aren’t done in a pretentious or conspicuous way, however, so you’re not made to feel stupid for not understanding all of it. Crushing heaviness often slams into aching beauty—like finding a rose in the middle of a hurricane—as on the challenging yet gratifying journeys of “Cicada” and “The Waves.” Even the solos are fascinatingly strange—the one from “Hands of Contrition,” for example, sounds like a Slayer solo being strangled by a psychotic lover. 

Rejecting Obliteration is a record of contradiction: it’s beautiful and ugly; it’s inviting but distancing, it’s extreme music made with delicate care. After six-plus months, I’m not sure I get all of it. And that’s OK because albums like this always offer something new to discover on the next spin.

Listen here.

The decade between Man Must Die’s last record, Peace Was Never An Option, and this one didn’t dull or diminish the ferocity of the Scottish quintet’s grindy tech-death. For The Pain Behind It All, the band dials back the hyperspeed steamrolling and proggy songwriting of Peace for a streamlined and gnarlier mode. Here, they seamlessly weave groove metal (the title track, “In the Hour Before Your Death”), metalcore/NHOAHM (“Enabler”), and thrash (“War Is My Will”) into their sonic attack. This allows longtime vocalist Joe McGlynn to spleen-vent the anger, bitterness, and paranoia that’s built up for ten years: “Out of touch and left behind,” he seethes, “The skin I wear, it clings too tight.”

 And while McGylnn’s free swing at religion (“We spend our lives afraid / Confide in fairytale faith / We seek patterns in the chaos / You don’t want the truth”) may initially scan as stale, it’s an unfortunately succinct summation of our current politics. The Pain is probably the angriest album I heard this year, which is to say: this is the best workout music of 2023.

Listen here.

As I said in April, Raider are the “the middle ground between DevilDriver and The Black Dahlia Murder.” It’s a nasty combination of melodeath and groove metal—call it “melo-groove,” I guess. There’s no wheel-reinventing going on here. There is, however, tight songwriting with clever arrangements—e.g., the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” that mimic the crumbling of society—which elevates Trial by Chaos beyond just another galloping melodeath record. (Example: the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” mimic the crumbling of society.) 

If our destruction by technology, as the album discusses and catalogs, is imminent, and our future is enslavement by technology via misinformation that’s filled with “violent paranoia flooding through [our] dreams,” at least these dudes made it sound really fucking cool.

Listen here.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps spends Unearth’s eighth full-length breathing fire over the impending (self-)destruction of humanity via climate change, nuclear weapons, and famine, and he’s blisteringly honest about it: We’re “smashing past the tipping point;” we’re diving to our death; we’re dancing with atomic bombs, etc. Funny thing is, these are precise descriptions of both The Wretched; The Ruinous in specific and Unearth in general. 

Indeed, the band write and play with more focus and confidence than on anything they’ve done since 2008’s The March, so the record’s intensity burns with the “radiance of a thousand suns.” Hitting your peak a quarter century into your career takes dedication, perseverance, and conviction, and all of those are on impressive display. Or, as Phipps puts it: “I won’t turn my back on my own / Never give in, never retreat, never kneel.”

Listen here.

The third and best full-length from Hellripper finds James McBain, the multi-instrumentalist behind the cocaine-giddy solo project, opening at peak capacity. Since the project’s inception, McBain’s goal seems to be perfecting a blackened version of Kill ’Em All. Hellripper’s first two outings, 2017’s Coagulating Darkness and 2020’s The Affair of the Poisons, used “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” as songwriting guides. This time, a supremely confident McBain expands into progressive territory, using “No Remorse” and “Four Horsemen” as touchstones, instead. 

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags is chock-full of neat and satisfying riffs, flashy leads, and shit-hot soloing, making its 43-minute runtime sprint by. Lyrically, McBain’s still mining familiar evil—Satan, witches, cursed offspring—but his writing has sharpened, offering striking imagery like, “Prayers roam skyward, my cross held high / Claws swing violently like bloody scythes / Black blood courses through yellow veins / Unforgiving is the curse of fate.” If Coagulating was McBain calling upon Hell, and The Affair was him asking for its gates opened, then Warlocks is what happens when those “horned tormentors, frothing and foul” storm through.

Listen here.

Cattle Decapitation, 2019: “Bring back the plague.” Welp, they certainly got their wish. On the San Diego quintet’s eighth album, Terrasite, however, it seems they’re disappointed with the results. Having an entire record where vocalist and lyricist Travis Ryan channels Agent Smith—“We are infections / We are pathogens”—would be a real downer if not for his pithy, hyperliterate criticism (“The most insidious species that’s capable of sentience”) and pitch-black humor (“Welcome to a new world / This, the new mundane, our physical plane / That rewards the constant smoothing of the human brain”). 

In addition to being among the best writers in extreme music, he’s also among its best vocalists, continuing to find new ways to contort his phlegmy gremlin-growl into grotesque shapes and sounds, making clever sing-songy melodies beautifully ugly. Meanwhile, the musicianship is as dazzling as it’s ever been, and the band’s still capable of playing at lightspeed with clock-precise pivots at any moment. Is it selfish to hope humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes, just so Cattle Decap can continue making music this fucking good?

Listen here.

After three-plus decades, Ed Simons’ and Tom Rowlands’ ability to bend and mold their electronica weirdness into infinitely danceable pop music is still a goddamn magic trick. On For that Beautiful Feeling, the duo’s tenth album as The Chemical Brothers and first since the C-word, the songs are a bit more insular and tentative because...well, you know why. The album’s production has a nervous vibrancy to it, and they paint it in hazy pastels, mirroring the uncertain optimism of the post-pandemic era. 

There’s still jubilation to their music—there always will be, natch—but here it’s expressed as pent-up energy from being stuck inside and alone. The record pulses and buzzes and chirps, like a beacon in the abyss guiding you away from despair and towards hope. Perhaps the Caroline Ellis sample sums it up best: “Let your heart see the colors all around you / And the darkness that you fear will disappear.”

Listen here.

This insanely enjoyable debut LP from this insanely stacked side project—Allegaeon guitarist Greg Burgess combined with Havok’s rhythm section of bassist Nick Schendzielos and drummer Pete Webber—is the balm for the apathy and anger and nihilism of the last few years, its absurdist humor a refreshing summer breeze. Burgess’ continues to write stellar riffs and leads that are somehow techy and catchy; Schendzielos’ basslines are the warm, gooey center; and Webber’s still among the most inventive drummers in metal—indeed, this is a career peak for him. While there’s superb and flashy musicianship throughout, room is always left for the songs to breathe and for melodies to shine through. The neon-drenched, coke-dusted synths were a smart addition, allowing another delivery system for gleaming hooks. Wet Ass Plutonium is the most entertaining record I heard this year, and it’s not even close.

Listen here.

This sludgy, burly monstrosity was love at first listen back in March. I was instantly addicted. At the end of each successive listen, I had the same reaction: “It’s over already?” The Flight After the Fall is (still) a stunning and stunningly cohesive work. Don’t let the song lengths intimidate you, though. Every song has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, both internally and relative to the record as a whole, demonstrating the band’s expertise at structure and arrangement. It’s an impressive feat to make a handful of seven- and eight-minute songs fly by, and it’s even more so with a sixteen-minute closer. (A sign of a truly great album: the longest song is its most rewarding.) 

And then there’s the ambitious, bonkers sci-fi story regarding wormholes and lost love that, like all good fiction, contains relatable images and feelings like “Grinding my teeth, scratching my sleeves / Sedatives coursing, can’t even sleep / Walls closing in.” In April, I said The Flight was “my gold standard for 2023 until proven otherwise.” That didn’t change over the course of the next eight months, and the explanation of why is simple: this is the pinnacle of metal in 2023.

Listen here.

Obituary’s excellent eleventh album, and first since 2017’s self-titled, offers nothing new or inventive—in other words, the way it’s s’posed to be. Obituary have spent four decades playing a minimalist brand of boogie-esque death metal, and it works for them. Ain’t broke ’n all that. 

Tidy songwriting with economical riffing continues to be their North Star, proving that well-written and tightly-played material works every time. Indeed, a handful of these songs (“The Wrong Time,” the title track, and “Torn Apart”) can stand next to their best ever. Meanwhile, one of the best sounds in death metal—the Frankenstein’s monster-esque growl of John Tardy—hasn’t aged a day, and you’re forced to believe him when he snarls that “I’ll take you to war” and that “You’ll find your only choice is death.” Beyond that, Tardy’s delivery proves that the scariest shit on Earth can be time, hate, and insanity, confirming that the true horror of existence can sometimes be life itself.

Listen here.

Much like the New Zealand quintet’s previous album, 2021’s Nightmare Withdrawals, their marvelous fourth offering is a purposefully difficult listen. 

Patience is required to appreciate their brand of avant garde tech-death. You’ll need a handful of listens before it starts to make (any) sense, because there’s some seriously high-level thinking going on here. The tasteful songwriting and playing aren’t done in a pretentious or conspicuous way, however, so you’re not made to feel stupid for not understanding all of it. Crushing heaviness often slams into aching beauty—like finding a rose in the middle of a hurricane—as on the challenging yet gratifying journeys of “Cicada” and “The Waves.” Even the solos are fascinatingly strange—the one from “Hands of Contrition,” for example, sounds like a Slayer solo being strangled by a psychotic lover. 

Rejecting Obliteration is a record of contradiction: it’s beautiful and ugly; it’s inviting but distancing, it’s extreme music made with delicate care. After six-plus months, I’m not sure I get all of it. And that’s OK because albums like this always offer something new to discover on the next spin.

Listen here.

The decade between Man Must Die’s last record, Peace Was Never An Option, and this one didn’t dull or diminish the ferocity of the Scottish quintet’s grindy tech-death. For The Pain Behind It All, the band dials back the hyperspeed steamrolling and proggy songwriting of Peace for a streamlined and gnarlier mode. Here, they seamlessly weave groove metal (the title track, “In the Hour Before Your Death”), metalcore/NHOAHM (“Enabler”), and thrash (“War Is My Will”) into their sonic attack. This allows longtime vocalist Joe McGlynn to spleen-vent the anger, bitterness, and paranoia that’s built up for ten years: “Out of touch and left behind,” he seethes, “The skin I wear, it clings too tight.”

 And while McGylnn’s free swing at religion (“We spend our lives afraid / Confide in fairytale faith / We seek patterns in the chaos / You don’t want the truth”) may initially scan as stale, it’s an unfortunately succinct summation of our current politics. The Pain is probably the angriest album I heard this year, which is to say: this is the best workout music of 2023.

Listen here.

As I said in April, Raider are the “the middle ground between DevilDriver and The Black Dahlia Murder.” It’s a nasty combination of melodeath and groove metal—call it “melo-groove,” I guess. There’s no wheel-reinventing going on here. There is, however, tight songwriting with clever arrangements—e.g., the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” that mimic the crumbling of society—which elevates Trial by Chaos beyond just another galloping melodeath record. (Example: the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” mimic the crumbling of society.) 

If our destruction by technology, as the album discusses and catalogs, is imminent, and our future is enslavement by technology via misinformation that’s filled with “violent paranoia flooding through [our] dreams,” at least these dudes made it sound really fucking cool.

Listen here.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps spends Unearth’s eighth full-length breathing fire over the impending (self-)destruction of humanity via climate change, nuclear weapons, and famine, and he’s blisteringly honest about it: We’re “smashing past the tipping point;” we’re diving to our death; we’re dancing with atomic bombs, etc. Funny thing is, these are precise descriptions of both The Wretched; The Ruinous in specific and Unearth in general. 

Indeed, the band write and play with more focus and confidence than on anything they’ve done since 2008’s The March, so the record’s intensity burns with the “radiance of a thousand suns.” Hitting your peak a quarter century into your career takes dedication, perseverance, and conviction, and all of those are on impressive display. Or, as Phipps puts it: “I won’t turn my back on my own / Never give in, never retreat, never kneel.”

Listen here.

The third and best full-length from Hellripper finds James McBain, the multi-instrumentalist behind the cocaine-giddy solo project, opening at peak capacity. Since the project’s inception, McBain’s goal seems to be perfecting a blackened version of Kill ’Em All. Hellripper’s first two outings, 2017’s Coagulating Darkness and 2020’s The Affair of the Poisons, used “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” as songwriting guides. This time, a supremely confident McBain expands into progressive territory, using “No Remorse” and “Four Horsemen” as touchstones, instead. 

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags is chock-full of neat and satisfying riffs, flashy leads, and shit-hot soloing, making its 43-minute runtime sprint by. Lyrically, McBain’s still mining familiar evil—Satan, witches, cursed offspring—but his writing has sharpened, offering striking imagery like, “Prayers roam skyward, my cross held high / Claws swing violently like bloody scythes / Black blood courses through yellow veins / Unforgiving is the curse of fate.” If Coagulating was McBain calling upon Hell, and The Affair was him asking for its gates opened, then Warlocks is what happens when those “horned tormentors, frothing and foul” storm through.

Listen here.

Cattle Decapitation, 2019: “Bring back the plague.” Welp, they certainly got their wish. On the San Diego quintet’s eighth album, Terrasite, however, it seems they’re disappointed with the results. Having an entire record where vocalist and lyricist Travis Ryan channels Agent Smith—“We are infections / We are pathogens”—would be a real downer if not for his pithy, hyperliterate criticism (“The most insidious species that’s capable of sentience”) and pitch-black humor (“Welcome to a new world / This, the new mundane, our physical plane / That rewards the constant smoothing of the human brain”). 

In addition to being among the best writers in extreme music, he’s also among its best vocalists, continuing to find new ways to contort his phlegmy gremlin-growl into grotesque shapes and sounds, making clever sing-songy melodies beautifully ugly. Meanwhile, the musicianship is as dazzling as it’s ever been, and the band’s still capable of playing at lightspeed with clock-precise pivots at any moment. Is it selfish to hope humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes, just so Cattle Decap can continue making music this fucking good?

Listen here.

After three-plus decades, Ed Simons’ and Tom Rowlands’ ability to bend and mold their electronica weirdness into infinitely danceable pop music is still a goddamn magic trick. On For that Beautiful Feeling, the duo’s tenth album as The Chemical Brothers and first since the C-word, the songs are a bit more insular and tentative because...well, you know why. The album’s production has a nervous vibrancy to it, and they paint it in hazy pastels, mirroring the uncertain optimism of the post-pandemic era. 

There’s still jubilation to their music—there always will be, natch—but here it’s expressed as pent-up energy from being stuck inside and alone. The record pulses and buzzes and chirps, like a beacon in the abyss guiding you away from despair and towards hope. Perhaps the Caroline Ellis sample sums it up best: “Let your heart see the colors all around you / And the darkness that you fear will disappear.”

Listen here.

This insanely enjoyable debut LP from this insanely stacked side project—Allegaeon guitarist Greg Burgess combined with Havok’s rhythm section of bassist Nick Schendzielos and drummer Pete Webber—is the balm for the apathy and anger and nihilism of the last few years, its absurdist humor a refreshing summer breeze. Burgess’ continues to write stellar riffs and leads that are somehow techy and catchy; Schendzielos’ basslines are the warm, gooey center; and Webber’s still among the most inventive drummers in metal—indeed, this is a career peak for him. While there’s superb and flashy musicianship throughout, room is always left for the songs to breathe and for melodies to shine through. The neon-drenched, coke-dusted synths were a smart addition, allowing another delivery system for gleaming hooks. Wet Ass Plutonium is the most entertaining record I heard this year, and it’s not even close.

Listen here.

This sludgy, burly monstrosity was love at first listen back in March. I was instantly addicted. At the end of each successive listen, I had the same reaction: “It’s over already?” The Flight After the Fall is (still) a stunning and stunningly cohesive work. Don’t let the song lengths intimidate you, though. Every song has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, both internally and relative to the record as a whole, demonstrating the band’s expertise at structure and arrangement. It’s an impressive feat to make a handful of seven- and eight-minute songs fly by, and it’s even more so with a sixteen-minute closer. (A sign of a truly great album: the longest song is its most rewarding.) 

And then there’s the ambitious, bonkers sci-fi story regarding wormholes and lost love that, like all good fiction, contains relatable images and feelings like “Grinding my teeth, scratching my sleeves / Sedatives coursing, can’t even sleep / Walls closing in.” In April, I said The Flight was “my gold standard for 2023 until proven otherwise.” That didn’t change over the course of the next eight months, and the explanation of why is simple: this is the pinnacle of metal in 2023.

Listen here.

Obituary’s excellent eleventh album, and first since 2017’s self-titled, offers nothing new or inventive—in other words, the way it’s s’posed to be. Obituary have spent four decades playing a minimalist brand of boogie-esque death metal, and it works for them. Ain’t broke ’n all that. 

Tidy songwriting with economical riffing continues to be their North Star, proving that well-written and tightly-played material works every time. Indeed, a handful of these songs (“The Wrong Time,” the title track, and “Torn Apart”) can stand next to their best ever. Meanwhile, one of the best sounds in death metal—the Frankenstein’s monster-esque growl of John Tardy—hasn’t aged a day, and you’re forced to believe him when he snarls that “I’ll take you to war” and that “You’ll find your only choice is death.” Beyond that, Tardy’s delivery proves that the scariest shit on Earth can be time, hate, and insanity, confirming that the true horror of existence can sometimes be life itself.

Listen here.

Much like the New Zealand quintet’s previous album, 2021’s Nightmare Withdrawals, their marvelous fourth offering is a purposefully difficult listen. 

Patience is required to appreciate their brand of avant garde tech-death. You’ll need a handful of listens before it starts to make (any) sense, because there’s some seriously high-level thinking going on here. The tasteful songwriting and playing aren’t done in a pretentious or conspicuous way, however, so you’re not made to feel stupid for not understanding all of it. Crushing heaviness often slams into aching beauty—like finding a rose in the middle of a hurricane—as on the challenging yet gratifying journeys of “Cicada” and “The Waves.” Even the solos are fascinatingly strange—the one from “Hands of Contrition,” for example, sounds like a Slayer solo being strangled by a psychotic lover. 

Rejecting Obliteration is a record of contradiction: it’s beautiful and ugly; it’s inviting but distancing, it’s extreme music made with delicate care. After six-plus months, I’m not sure I get all of it. And that’s OK because albums like this always offer something new to discover on the next spin.

Listen here.

The decade between Man Must Die’s last record, Peace Was Never An Option, and this one didn’t dull or diminish the ferocity of the Scottish quintet’s grindy tech-death. For The Pain Behind It All, the band dials back the hyperspeed steamrolling and proggy songwriting of Peace for a streamlined and gnarlier mode. Here, they seamlessly weave groove metal (the title track, “In the Hour Before Your Death”), metalcore/NHOAHM (“Enabler”), and thrash (“War Is My Will”) into their sonic attack. This allows longtime vocalist Joe McGlynn to spleen-vent the anger, bitterness, and paranoia that’s built up for ten years: “Out of touch and left behind,” he seethes, “The skin I wear, it clings too tight.”

 And while McGylnn’s free swing at religion (“We spend our lives afraid / Confide in fairytale faith / We seek patterns in the chaos / You don’t want the truth”) may initially scan as stale, it’s an unfortunately succinct summation of our current politics. The Pain is probably the angriest album I heard this year, which is to say: this is the best workout music of 2023.

Listen here.

As I said in April, Raider are the “the middle ground between DevilDriver and The Black Dahlia Murder.” It’s a nasty combination of melodeath and groove metal—call it “melo-groove,” I guess. There’s no wheel-reinventing going on here. There is, however, tight songwriting with clever arrangements—e.g., the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” that mimic the crumbling of society—which elevates Trial by Chaos beyond just another galloping melodeath record. (Example: the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” mimic the crumbling of society.) 

If our destruction by technology, as the album discusses and catalogs, is imminent, and our future is enslavement by technology via misinformation that’s filled with “violent paranoia flooding through [our] dreams,” at least these dudes made it sound really fucking cool.

Listen here.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps spends Unearth’s eighth full-length breathing fire over the impending (self-)destruction of humanity via climate change, nuclear weapons, and famine, and he’s blisteringly honest about it: We’re “smashing past the tipping point;” we’re diving to our death; we’re dancing with atomic bombs, etc. Funny thing is, these are precise descriptions of both The Wretched; The Ruinous in specific and Unearth in general. 

Indeed, the band write and play with more focus and confidence than on anything they’ve done since 2008’s The March, so the record’s intensity burns with the “radiance of a thousand suns.” Hitting your peak a quarter century into your career takes dedication, perseverance, and conviction, and all of those are on impressive display. Or, as Phipps puts it: “I won’t turn my back on my own / Never give in, never retreat, never kneel.”

Listen here.

The third and best full-length from Hellripper finds James McBain, the multi-instrumentalist behind the cocaine-giddy solo project, opening at peak capacity. Since the project’s inception, McBain’s goal seems to be perfecting a blackened version of Kill ’Em All. Hellripper’s first two outings, 2017’s Coagulating Darkness and 2020’s The Affair of the Poisons, used “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” as songwriting guides. This time, a supremely confident McBain expands into progressive territory, using “No Remorse” and “Four Horsemen” as touchstones, instead. 

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags is chock-full of neat and satisfying riffs, flashy leads, and shit-hot soloing, making its 43-minute runtime sprint by. Lyrically, McBain’s still mining familiar evil—Satan, witches, cursed offspring—but his writing has sharpened, offering striking imagery like, “Prayers roam skyward, my cross held high / Claws swing violently like bloody scythes / Black blood courses through yellow veins / Unforgiving is the curse of fate.” If Coagulating was McBain calling upon Hell, and The Affair was him asking for its gates opened, then Warlocks is what happens when those “horned tormentors, frothing and foul” storm through.

Listen here.

Cattle Decapitation, 2019: “Bring back the plague.” Welp, they certainly got their wish. On the San Diego quintet’s eighth album, Terrasite, however, it seems they’re disappointed with the results. Having an entire record where vocalist and lyricist Travis Ryan channels Agent Smith—“We are infections / We are pathogens”—would be a real downer if not for his pithy, hyperliterate criticism (“The most insidious species that’s capable of sentience”) and pitch-black humor (“Welcome to a new world / This, the new mundane, our physical plane / That rewards the constant smoothing of the human brain”). 

In addition to being among the best writers in extreme music, he’s also among its best vocalists, continuing to find new ways to contort his phlegmy gremlin-growl into grotesque shapes and sounds, making clever sing-songy melodies beautifully ugly. Meanwhile, the musicianship is as dazzling as it’s ever been, and the band’s still capable of playing at lightspeed with clock-precise pivots at any moment. Is it selfish to hope humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes, just so Cattle Decap can continue making music this fucking good?

Listen here.

After three-plus decades, Ed Simons’ and Tom Rowlands’ ability to bend and mold their electronica weirdness into infinitely danceable pop music is still a goddamn magic trick. On For that Beautiful Feeling, the duo’s tenth album as The Chemical Brothers and first since the C-word, the songs are a bit more insular and tentative because...well, you know why. The album’s production has a nervous vibrancy to it, and they paint it in hazy pastels, mirroring the uncertain optimism of the post-pandemic era. 

There’s still jubilation to their music—there always will be, natch—but here it’s expressed as pent-up energy from being stuck inside and alone. The record pulses and buzzes and chirps, like a beacon in the abyss guiding you away from despair and towards hope. Perhaps the Caroline Ellis sample sums it up best: “Let your heart see the colors all around you / And the darkness that you fear will disappear.”

Listen here.

This insanely enjoyable debut LP from this insanely stacked side project—Allegaeon guitarist Greg Burgess combined with Havok’s rhythm section of bassist Nick Schendzielos and drummer Pete Webber—is the balm for the apathy and anger and nihilism of the last few years, its absurdist humor a refreshing summer breeze. Burgess’ continues to write stellar riffs and leads that are somehow techy and catchy; Schendzielos’ basslines are the warm, gooey center; and Webber’s still among the most inventive drummers in metal—indeed, this is a career peak for him. While there’s superb and flashy musicianship throughout, room is always left for the songs to breathe and for melodies to shine through. The neon-drenched, coke-dusted synths were a smart addition, allowing another delivery system for gleaming hooks. Wet Ass Plutonium is the most entertaining record I heard this year, and it’s not even close.

Listen here.

This sludgy, burly monstrosity was love at first listen back in March. I was instantly addicted. At the end of each successive listen, I had the same reaction: “It’s over already?” The Flight After the Fall is (still) a stunning and stunningly cohesive work. Don’t let the song lengths intimidate you, though. Every song has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, both internally and relative to the record as a whole, demonstrating the band’s expertise at structure and arrangement. It’s an impressive feat to make a handful of seven- and eight-minute songs fly by, and it’s even more so with a sixteen-minute closer. (A sign of a truly great album: the longest song is its most rewarding.) 

And then there’s the ambitious, bonkers sci-fi story regarding wormholes and lost love that, like all good fiction, contains relatable images and feelings like “Grinding my teeth, scratching my sleeves / Sedatives coursing, can’t even sleep / Walls closing in.” In April, I said The Flight was “my gold standard for 2023 until proven otherwise.” That didn’t change over the course of the next eight months, and the explanation of why is simple: this is the pinnacle of metal in 2023.

Listen here.

Obituary’s excellent eleventh album, and first since 2017’s self-titled, offers nothing new or inventive—in other words, the way it’s s’posed to be. Obituary have spent four decades playing a minimalist brand of boogie-esque death metal, and it works for them. Ain’t broke ’n all that. 

Tidy songwriting with economical riffing continues to be their North Star, proving that well-written and tightly-played material works every time. Indeed, a handful of these songs (“The Wrong Time,” the title track, and “Torn Apart”) can stand next to their best ever. Meanwhile, one of the best sounds in death metal—the Frankenstein’s monster-esque growl of John Tardy—hasn’t aged a day, and you’re forced to believe him when he snarls that “I’ll take you to war” and that “You’ll find your only choice is death.” Beyond that, Tardy’s delivery proves that the scariest shit on Earth can be time, hate, and insanity, confirming that the true horror of existence can sometimes be life itself.

Listen here.

Much like the New Zealand quintet’s previous album, 2021’s Nightmare Withdrawals, their marvelous fourth offering is a purposefully difficult listen. 

Patience is required to appreciate their brand of avant garde tech-death. You’ll need a handful of listens before it starts to make (any) sense, because there’s some seriously high-level thinking going on here. The tasteful songwriting and playing aren’t done in a pretentious or conspicuous way, however, so you’re not made to feel stupid for not understanding all of it. Crushing heaviness often slams into aching beauty—like finding a rose in the middle of a hurricane—as on the challenging yet gratifying journeys of “Cicada” and “The Waves.” Even the solos are fascinatingly strange—the one from “Hands of Contrition,” for example, sounds like a Slayer solo being strangled by a psychotic lover. 

Rejecting Obliteration is a record of contradiction: it’s beautiful and ugly; it’s inviting but distancing, it’s extreme music made with delicate care. After six-plus months, I’m not sure I get all of it. And that’s OK because albums like this always offer something new to discover on the next spin.

Listen here.

The decade between Man Must Die’s last record, Peace Was Never An Option, and this one didn’t dull or diminish the ferocity of the Scottish quintet’s grindy tech-death. For The Pain Behind It All, the band dials back the hyperspeed steamrolling and proggy songwriting of Peace for a streamlined and gnarlier mode. Here, they seamlessly weave groove metal (the title track, “In the Hour Before Your Death”), metalcore/NHOAHM (“Enabler”), and thrash (“War Is My Will”) into their sonic attack. This allows longtime vocalist Joe McGlynn to spleen-vent the anger, bitterness, and paranoia that’s built up for ten years: “Out of touch and left behind,” he seethes, “The skin I wear, it clings too tight.”

 And while McGylnn’s free swing at religion (“We spend our lives afraid / Confide in fairytale faith / We seek patterns in the chaos / You don’t want the truth”) may initially scan as stale, it’s an unfortunately succinct summation of our current politics. The Pain is probably the angriest album I heard this year, which is to say: this is the best workout music of 2023.

Listen here.

As I said in April, Raider are the “the middle ground between DevilDriver and The Black Dahlia Murder.” It’s a nasty combination of melodeath and groove metal—call it “melo-groove,” I guess. There’s no wheel-reinventing going on here. There is, however, tight songwriting with clever arrangements—e.g., the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” that mimic the crumbling of society—which elevates Trial by Chaos beyond just another galloping melodeath record. (Example: the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” mimic the crumbling of society.) 

If our destruction by technology, as the album discusses and catalogs, is imminent, and our future is enslavement by technology via misinformation that’s filled with “violent paranoia flooding through [our] dreams,” at least these dudes made it sound really fucking cool.

Listen here.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps spends Unearth’s eighth full-length breathing fire over the impending (self-)destruction of humanity via climate change, nuclear weapons, and famine, and he’s blisteringly honest about it: We’re “smashing past the tipping point;” we’re diving to our death; we’re dancing with atomic bombs, etc. Funny thing is, these are precise descriptions of both The Wretched; The Ruinous in specific and Unearth in general. 

Indeed, the band write and play with more focus and confidence than on anything they’ve done since 2008’s The March, so the record’s intensity burns with the “radiance of a thousand suns.” Hitting your peak a quarter century into your career takes dedication, perseverance, and conviction, and all of those are on impressive display. Or, as Phipps puts it: “I won’t turn my back on my own / Never give in, never retreat, never kneel.”

Listen here.

The third and best full-length from Hellripper finds James McBain, the multi-instrumentalist behind the cocaine-giddy solo project, opening at peak capacity. Since the project’s inception, McBain’s goal seems to be perfecting a blackened version of Kill ’Em All. Hellripper’s first two outings, 2017’s Coagulating Darkness and 2020’s The Affair of the Poisons, used “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” as songwriting guides. This time, a supremely confident McBain expands into progressive territory, using “No Remorse” and “Four Horsemen” as touchstones, instead. 

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags is chock-full of neat and satisfying riffs, flashy leads, and shit-hot soloing, making its 43-minute runtime sprint by. Lyrically, McBain’s still mining familiar evil—Satan, witches, cursed offspring—but his writing has sharpened, offering striking imagery like, “Prayers roam skyward, my cross held high / Claws swing violently like bloody scythes / Black blood courses through yellow veins / Unforgiving is the curse of fate.” If Coagulating was McBain calling upon Hell, and The Affair was him asking for its gates opened, then Warlocks is what happens when those “horned tormentors, frothing and foul” storm through.

Listen here.

Cattle Decapitation, 2019: “Bring back the plague.” Welp, they certainly got their wish. On the San Diego quintet’s eighth album, Terrasite, however, it seems they’re disappointed with the results. Having an entire record where vocalist and lyricist Travis Ryan channels Agent Smith—“We are infections / We are pathogens”—would be a real downer if not for his pithy, hyperliterate criticism (“The most insidious species that’s capable of sentience”) and pitch-black humor (“Welcome to a new world / This, the new mundane, our physical plane / That rewards the constant smoothing of the human brain”). 

In addition to being among the best writers in extreme music, he’s also among its best vocalists, continuing to find new ways to contort his phlegmy gremlin-growl into grotesque shapes and sounds, making clever sing-songy melodies beautifully ugly. Meanwhile, the musicianship is as dazzling as it’s ever been, and the band’s still capable of playing at lightspeed with clock-precise pivots at any moment. Is it selfish to hope humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes, just so Cattle Decap can continue making music this fucking good?

Listen here.

After three-plus decades, Ed Simons’ and Tom Rowlands’ ability to bend and mold their electronica weirdness into infinitely danceable pop music is still a goddamn magic trick. On For that Beautiful Feeling, the duo’s tenth album as The Chemical Brothers and first since the C-word, the songs are a bit more insular and tentative because...well, you know why. The album’s production has a nervous vibrancy to it, and they paint it in hazy pastels, mirroring the uncertain optimism of the post-pandemic era. 

There’s still jubilation to their music—there always will be, natch—but here it’s expressed as pent-up energy from being stuck inside and alone. The record pulses and buzzes and chirps, like a beacon in the abyss guiding you away from despair and towards hope. Perhaps the Caroline Ellis sample sums it up best: “Let your heart see the colors all around you / And the darkness that you fear will disappear.”

Listen here.

This insanely enjoyable debut LP from this insanely stacked side project—Allegaeon guitarist Greg Burgess combined with Havok’s rhythm section of bassist Nick Schendzielos and drummer Pete Webber—is the balm for the apathy and anger and nihilism of the last few years, its absurdist humor a refreshing summer breeze. Burgess’ continues to write stellar riffs and leads that are somehow techy and catchy; Schendzielos’ basslines are the warm, gooey center; and Webber’s still among the most inventive drummers in metal—indeed, this is a career peak for him. While there’s superb and flashy musicianship throughout, room is always left for the songs to breathe and for melodies to shine through. The neon-drenched, coke-dusted synths were a smart addition, allowing another delivery system for gleaming hooks. Wet Ass Plutonium is the most entertaining record I heard this year, and it’s not even close.

Listen here.

This sludgy, burly monstrosity was love at first listen back in March. I was instantly addicted. At the end of each successive listen, I had the same reaction: “It’s over already?” The Flight After the Fall is (still) a stunning and stunningly cohesive work. Don’t let the song lengths intimidate you, though. Every song has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, both internally and relative to the record as a whole, demonstrating the band’s expertise at structure and arrangement. It’s an impressive feat to make a handful of seven- and eight-minute songs fly by, and it’s even more so with a sixteen-minute closer. (A sign of a truly great album: the longest song is its most rewarding.) 

And then there’s the ambitious, bonkers sci-fi story regarding wormholes and lost love that, like all good fiction, contains relatable images and feelings like “Grinding my teeth, scratching my sleeves / Sedatives coursing, can’t even sleep / Walls closing in.” In April, I said The Flight was “my gold standard for 2023 until proven otherwise.” That didn’t change over the course of the next eight months, and the explanation of why is simple: this is the pinnacle of metal in 2023.

Listen here.

Obituary’s excellent eleventh album, and first since 2017’s self-titled, offers nothing new or inventive—in other words, the way it’s s’posed to be. Obituary have spent four decades playing a minimalist brand of boogie-esque death metal, and it works for them. Ain’t broke ’n all that. 

Tidy songwriting with economical riffing continues to be their North Star, proving that well-written and tightly-played material works every time. Indeed, a handful of these songs (“The Wrong Time,” the title track, and “Torn Apart”) can stand next to their best ever. Meanwhile, one of the best sounds in death metal—the Frankenstein’s monster-esque growl of John Tardy—hasn’t aged a day, and you’re forced to believe him when he snarls that “I’ll take you to war” and that “You’ll find your only choice is death.” Beyond that, Tardy’s delivery proves that the scariest shit on Earth can be time, hate, and insanity, confirming that the true horror of existence can sometimes be life itself.

Listen here.

Much like the New Zealand quintet’s previous album, 2021’s Nightmare Withdrawals, their marvelous fourth offering is a purposefully difficult listen. 

Patience is required to appreciate their brand of avant garde tech-death. You’ll need a handful of listens before it starts to make (any) sense, because there’s some seriously high-level thinking going on here. The tasteful songwriting and playing aren’t done in a pretentious or conspicuous way, however, so you’re not made to feel stupid for not understanding all of it. Crushing heaviness often slams into aching beauty—like finding a rose in the middle of a hurricane—as on the challenging yet gratifying journeys of “Cicada” and “The Waves.” Even the solos are fascinatingly strange—the one from “Hands of Contrition,” for example, sounds like a Slayer solo being strangled by a psychotic lover. 

Rejecting Obliteration is a record of contradiction: it’s beautiful and ugly; it’s inviting but distancing, it’s extreme music made with delicate care. After six-plus months, I’m not sure I get all of it. And that’s OK because albums like this always offer something new to discover on the next spin.

Listen here.

The decade between Man Must Die’s last record, Peace Was Never An Option, and this one didn’t dull or diminish the ferocity of the Scottish quintet’s grindy tech-death. For The Pain Behind It All, the band dials back the hyperspeed steamrolling and proggy songwriting of Peace for a streamlined and gnarlier mode. Here, they seamlessly weave groove metal (the title track, “In the Hour Before Your Death”), metalcore/NHOAHM (“Enabler”), and thrash (“War Is My Will”) into their sonic attack. This allows longtime vocalist Joe McGlynn to spleen-vent the anger, bitterness, and paranoia that’s built up for ten years: “Out of touch and left behind,” he seethes, “The skin I wear, it clings too tight.”

 And while McGylnn’s free swing at religion (“We spend our lives afraid / Confide in fairytale faith / We seek patterns in the chaos / You don’t want the truth”) may initially scan as stale, it’s an unfortunately succinct summation of our current politics. The Pain is probably the angriest album I heard this year, which is to say: this is the best workout music of 2023.

Listen here.

As I said in April, Raider are the “the middle ground between DevilDriver and The Black Dahlia Murder.” It’s a nasty combination of melodeath and groove metal—call it “melo-groove,” I guess. There’s no wheel-reinventing going on here. There is, however, tight songwriting with clever arrangements—e.g., the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” that mimic the crumbling of society—which elevates Trial by Chaos beyond just another galloping melodeath record. (Example: the neat tumbling drum fills during the chorus of “New Dominion” mimic the crumbling of society.) 

If our destruction by technology, as the album discusses and catalogs, is imminent, and our future is enslavement by technology via misinformation that’s filled with “violent paranoia flooding through [our] dreams,” at least these dudes made it sound really fucking cool.

Listen here.

Vocalist Trevor Phipps spends Unearth’s eighth full-length breathing fire over the impending (self-)destruction of humanity via climate change, nuclear weapons, and famine, and he’s blisteringly honest about it: We’re “smashing past the tipping point;” we’re diving to our death; we’re dancing with atomic bombs, etc. Funny thing is, these are precise descriptions of both The Wretched; The Ruinous in specific and Unearth in general. 

Indeed, the band write and play with more focus and confidence than on anything they’ve done since 2008’s The March, so the record’s intensity burns with the “radiance of a thousand suns.” Hitting your peak a quarter century into your career takes dedication, perseverance, and conviction, and all of those are on impressive display. Or, as Phipps puts it: “I won’t turn my back on my own / Never give in, never retreat, never kneel.”

Listen here.

The third and best full-length from Hellripper finds James McBain, the multi-instrumentalist behind the cocaine-giddy solo project, opening at peak capacity. Since the project’s inception, McBain’s goal seems to be perfecting a blackened version of Kill ’Em All. Hellripper’s first two outings, 2017’s Coagulating Darkness and 2020’s The Affair of the Poisons, used “Motorbreath” and “Hit the Lights” as songwriting guides. This time, a supremely confident McBain expands into progressive territory, using “No Remorse” and “Four Horsemen” as touchstones, instead. 

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags is chock-full of neat and satisfying riffs, flashy leads, and shit-hot soloing, making its 43-minute runtime sprint by. Lyrically, McBain’s still mining familiar evil—Satan, witches, cursed offspring—but his writing has sharpened, offering striking imagery like, “Prayers roam skyward, my cross held high / Claws swing violently like bloody scythes / Black blood courses through yellow veins / Unforgiving is the curse of fate.” If Coagulating was McBain calling upon Hell, and The Affair was him asking for its gates opened, then Warlocks is what happens when those “horned tormentors, frothing and foul” storm through.

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Cattle Decapitation, 2019: “Bring back the plague.” Welp, they certainly got their wish. On the San Diego quintet’s eighth album, Terrasite, however, it seems they’re disappointed with the results. Having an entire record where vocalist and lyricist Travis Ryan channels Agent Smith—“We are infections / We are pathogens”—would be a real downer if not for his pithy, hyperliterate criticism (“The most insidious species that’s capable of sentience”) and pitch-black humor (“Welcome to a new world / This, the new mundane, our physical plane / That rewards the constant smoothing of the human brain”). 

In addition to being among the best writers in extreme music, he’s also among its best vocalists, continuing to find new ways to contort his phlegmy gremlin-growl into grotesque shapes and sounds, making clever sing-songy melodies beautifully ugly. Meanwhile, the musicianship is as dazzling as it’s ever been, and the band’s still capable of playing at lightspeed with clock-precise pivots at any moment. Is it selfish to hope humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes, just so Cattle Decap can continue making music this fucking good?

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After three-plus decades, Ed Simons’ and Tom Rowlands’ ability to bend and mold their electronica weirdness into infinitely danceable pop music is still a goddamn magic trick. On For that Beautiful Feeling, the duo’s tenth album as The Chemical Brothers and first since the C-word, the songs are a bit more insular and tentative because...well, you know why. The album’s production has a nervous vibrancy to it, and they paint it in hazy pastels, mirroring the uncertain optimism of the post-pandemic era. 

There’s still jubilation to their music—there always will be, natch—but here it’s expressed as pent-up energy from being stuck inside and alone. The record pulses and buzzes and chirps, like a beacon in the abyss guiding you away from despair and towards hope. Perhaps the Caroline Ellis sample sums it up best: “Let your heart see the colors all around you / And the darkness that you fear will disappear.”

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This insanely enjoyable debut LP from this insanely stacked side project—Allegaeon guitarist Greg Burgess combined with Havok’s rhythm section of bassist Nick Schendzielos and drummer Pete Webber—is the balm for the apathy and anger and nihilism of the last few years, its absurdist humor a refreshing summer breeze. Burgess’ continues to write stellar riffs and leads that are somehow techy and catchy; Schendzielos’ basslines are the warm, gooey center; and Webber’s still among the most inventive drummers in metal—indeed, this is a career peak for him. While there’s superb and flashy musicianship throughout, room is always left for the songs to breathe and for melodies to shine through. The neon-drenched, coke-dusted synths were a smart addition, allowing another delivery system for gleaming hooks. Wet Ass Plutonium is the most entertaining record I heard this year, and it’s not even close.

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This sludgy, burly monstrosity was love at first listen back in March. I was instantly addicted. At the end of each successive listen, I had the same reaction: “It’s over already?” The Flight After the Fall is (still) a stunning and stunningly cohesive work. Don’t let the song lengths intimidate you, though. Every song has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, both internally and relative to the record as a whole, demonstrating the band’s expertise at structure and arrangement. It’s an impressive feat to make a handful of seven- and eight-minute songs fly by, and it’s even more so with a sixteen-minute closer. (A sign of a truly great album: the longest song is its most rewarding.) 

And then there’s the ambitious, bonkers sci-fi story regarding wormholes and lost love that, like all good fiction, contains relatable images and feelings like “Grinding my teeth, scratching my sleeves / Sedatives coursing, can’t even sleep / Walls closing in.” In April, I said The Flight was “my gold standard for 2023 until proven otherwise.” That didn’t change over the course of the next eight months, and the explanation of why is simple: this is the pinnacle of metal in 2023.

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