Upcoming Metal Releases

Upcoming Metal Releases: 9/25/2022-10/1/2022


Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of September 25th, 2022 to October 1st, 2022. Releases reflect proposed North American scheduling, if available. Expect to see most of these albums on shelves or distros on Fridays.

See something we missed or have any thoughts? Let us know in the comments. Plus, as always, feel free to post your own shopping lists. Happy digging.

Send us your promos (streaming links preferred) to: [email protected]. Do not send us promo material via social media.


New Releases

AutopsyMorbidity Triumphant | Peaceville Records | Death Metal | United States (Oakland, CA)

We’ve got a killer interview with Autopsy coming later this week – in the meantime, listen to the preview tracks for this record until your brain is fully annihilated. To briefly summarize: Autopsy’s sick, exhilarating death metal remains … sigh … triumphantly morbid.

–Ted Nubel

ColdWorldIsolation | Eisenwald | Ambient + Depressive Black Metal | Germany

You wait eight years for a ColdWorld album and then two come along within six years — Georg Börner is really spoiling us here. Isolation was written and recorded during the pandemic induced lockdowns of 2020-2021 and it is clear that this affected Börner’s music greatly. We’ve had the sadness of Melancholie² and the change brought by Autumn and with Isolation we now have true, utter loneliness on display.

If you enjoy being sad in the dark, then this one is for you.

–Cheryl Carter

MamaleekDiner Coffee | The Flenser | Experimental + Metal + Rock + Jazz | United States (San Francisco, CA)

From Luke Jackson’s track premiere of “Boiler Room” (plus an excellent interview):

On Diner Coffee, the band harness their chemistry as players, as well as the expanded range afforded by the additional personnel they first worked with on 2020’s Come & See to create a sense of foreboding, space, and place; as ever leaving the listener plenty of room to make their own way through the chatter and smoke.

GonemageHandheld Demise | Fiadh Prod | Experimental + Post-Black Metal + Chiptune | United States (Dallas, TX)

Gonemage, who’s been heavily covered on IO, is the side project of Cara Neir’s Garry Brents, taking his chiptune-inspired metal into strange, highly conceptual realms. On Handheld Demise, Brents condenses incredibly disparate influences and sounds under a unifying banner of digitized madness. Part of the fun of this record is trying to figure out just what the hell is going on (sonically, conceptually, etc.) –but there’s also a melodic adventure that underpins it all, waiting to be undertaken.

–Ted Nubel

ErzfeyndMuspilli | Ván Records | Black Metal | Germany

Another German entry this week is from Erzfeynd who are releasing their first full-length in league with Ván Records. After a number of splits and demos, the one man black metal band is opening themselves up to a wider audience with Muspilli, an album which takes in devil worship, historical customs and death, all wrapped in furious tones and dark shadows. Plus, you can practice your German while you listen.

–Cheryl Carter

AcephalixTheothanatology | 20 Buck Spin | Death Metal | United States (San Francisco, CA)

Acephalix certainly has had quite the journey. Being around for over 10 years, this San Francisco based act has gone from crust-ridden death metal to…well death metal with less crust. I don’t think there is much one can point to when it comes to dramatic transformation; rather the continual carving of death metal mantle until one incinerates from heat. Theothanatology comes with a mindfuck of a cover which is fitting for music that also feels like a drill to the center of the earth.

–Jonathan Carbon

CruzConfindes de la Cordura | Nuclear Winter Records | Death + Thrash Metal | Spain

Extra-dimensional madness boiled down into marauding death/thrash – with just a tinge of eldritch melody to go along with the flesh-eroding riffs.

–Ted Nubel

Amaurot..to Tread the Ancient Waters | Obelisk Polaris Productions | Doom + Gothic Metal | International

When it comes to metal, doom is the bedrock of the genre, something that Amaurot thoroughly explores throughout …To Tread the Ancient Waters. Their performance is something of a subdued take on the style, nearing balladry on almost every track and imbuing their crawling riffs with a sense of gothic majesty. The result is an album that’s sad and mournful, but also achingly beautiful.

–Brandon Nurick

AutophagyBacteriophage | Pulverised Records | Death Metal | United States (Portland, OR)

I’ve been waiting for Autophagy to put out an album since they dropped their excellent first demo a few years ago and immediately announced that they’d signed to cult Singapore-based label Pulverised Records. After far too long that album is finally here and it absolutely crushes; the basis of their music seems to be devastating low end, and in the greatest of Pacific Northwest tradition Autophagy have given us something that’s equal parts heavy and catchy.

–Brandon Corsair

Dark ForestRidge & Furrow | Cruz del Sur Music | Heavy + Power Metal | United Kingdom

Dark Forest manages to make heavy metal feel cozy: their latest EP is absolutely brimming with joyous lead work to cap off their driving mix of heavy and power metal, telling tales of forested adventure.

–Ted Nubel

Dirty VicarDirty Vicar | Independent | Heavy Metal | Canada

An immensely sleazy and nasty rock’n’roll affair: like a sludge band double-dipping into NWOBHM and proto-metal.

–Ted Nubel

SacrilegiaSold Under Sin | Invictus Productions | Blackened Thrash Metal | Ireland

Murky, infuriated thrash metal that simply reeks of blasphemy.

–Ted Nubel

Sonata ArcticaAcoustic Adventures (Volume Two) | Atomic Fire Records | Power Metal (sort of) | Finland

Acoustic albums from major metal bands always remind of the ‘grandpa’s guitars’ bit from Dethklok, to be honest, rendering me unable to take them that seriously. This is definitely well-executed, but were Sonata Arctica fans really looking for acoustic power ballads?

–Ted Nubel

StormlandThe Human Cost | Independent | Death Metal | Canada

Stormland is here to provide for all your Mobile Suit Gundam death metal needs. You didn’t have any? Now you do.

–Ted Nubel

Spectrum MortisBit Meseri – The Incantation | Listenable Records | Death + Doom Metal | Spain

If you’re looking for the dark and the dismal, the blackened and the doomy, you’re in luck, because Spectrum Mortis are releasing their new album, Bit Miseri – The Incantation on September 30 via Listenable Records. It’s got it all: melody, atmosphere, brutality and groove, and riffs for days, despite the overall brooding moodiness of the record. Absolutely ideal to ring in the fall and transition from summer jams to winter dirges.

–Addison Herron-Wheeler

StrigoiViscera | Season of Mist | Death Metal + Crust | United Kingdom

Out September 30 via Season of Mist, the new Strigoi record Viscera is a crushing slab of heavy, punishing, yet still super melodic, death metal. Riffs crash and soar against dissonant vocals and drums. If you’re a death metal fan, this is not one to miss.

–Addison Herron-Wheeler

Thulsa DoomA Fate Worse than Death | Invictus Productions | Death Metal | Italy

The related bands for Thulsa Doom are hilarious:Necrovore, Possessed, Pentagram Chile and Sadistic Intent. I don’t think I have been so laser focused on what something is going to sound like until right now. If you are here then you are in the pit 5pm at a weekend fest and surrounded by fucking maniacs. A Fate Worse Than Death is the debut from this Italian act and goes to show that with kick ass art, songs that sound like D&D modules, and music that is nothing less than a razorblade hurricane, you can literally do anything.

–Jonathan Carbon

Cryptic BroodCaustic Fetid Vomit | Lycanthropic Chants | Death + Doom Metal | Germany

The Autopsy sound has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, with bands like Obliteration blazing a new trail of disgusting horror gore fundamentally based on the grossness that is Mental Funeral and Severed Survival. All of the best bands doing this sound have found their own path, and much as how Obliteration has found theirs in weird stretched out riffs and technical flourishes, Cryptic Brood’s crazy vocals, off-kilter songwriting, and heavy affinity for the most doom-laded sections of Autopsy’s original sound sets them apart from the crowd. If you want to recapture that ancient evil sound you can’t do better than checking out this sick new 7”.

–Brandon Corsair

Power from HellShadows Devouring Light | Debemur Morti Productions | Black Metal | Brazil

Power from Hell started their career very much entrenched in the blackened thrash common to their homeland Brazil but in the years since have transitioned into a more purely black metal entity. Shadows Devouring Light very much lives up its moniker, with Power from Hell evoking a dark, chasmal atmosphere that swallows everything around it in a maelstrom of triumphantly sinister blackened hymns.

–Brandon Nurick