Upcoming Metal Releases: 9/29/19 -- 10/5/19
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Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of September 29th to October 5th, 2019. Release 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.
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Upcoming Releases
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Gatecreeper — Deserted | Relapse | Death Metal | United States (Arizona)
Deserted, the sophomore album by Arizona death metal tour-de-force Gatecreeper, offers yet another offering of slimy, punked-out OSDM in their pioneering style. Though this release will be their first studio record in three years, the prolific outfit has been hard at work on the road and in the studio with an EP, a split with Iron Reagan, and two live albums released since 2016. With hallucinatory artwork by Brad Moore, Deserted stands as yet another ode to Arizona’s brutalizing heat and aridity with its punishing onslaught of sweltering arcane death metal.
— Thomas Hinds
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Boris — LφVE & EVΦL | Third Man Records | Doom Metal + Rock + Drone | Japan
Boris is a stylistic enigma, mostly in the sense that they just sort of do what they want whenever they want to. Hazy stoner rock? Sure. Ethereal post-rock and shoegaze? Absolutely. Hardcore? Why not? Spine-compressing sludge/doom metal? Yes! What makes Boris all the more special is their complete mastery at everything they feel like grasping. LφVE & EVΦL (technically a reissue of two tour-only albums made available just a few months ago) is a proper example of Boris’s survey and mastery of music overall. Covering post-rock, dense guitar drone, raucous drone-rock, and crushing doom, Boris’s full canonical gamut makes an appearance here. As a longtime Boris fan, it is without a doubt that this new, two-part album is a proper jumping off point into what is seemingly an endless discography.
— Jon Rosenthal
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Insomnium — Heart Like a Grave | Century Media | Death Metal | Finland
The seminal downtrodden melodic death metal troupe returns with yet another triumph of the style. Heart like a Grave is the band’s eighth full-length in over two decades of existence, and first since 2016’s already well-received concept album Winter’s Gate.
— Jon Rosenthal
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Exhumed — Horror | Relapse | Death Metal | United States (California)
First formed in 1990, disbanded in 2005, and reborn into their current incarnation in 2010, San Jose gore metal stalwarts Exhumed boast a prolific catalog spanning death metal’s full history. Yet even on their ninth studio album Horror, the follow-up to 2017’s stellar Death Revenge, their classic grind-influenced sound has lost none of its edge. Featuring the familiar visage of the maddened, bloodstained doctor (a staple of Exhumed’s live show) on its cover, Horror delves directly into the essence of the group’s neck-breaking riff style as they plow through 15 of their fastest, most face-melting tracks to date with a wickedly sharp and well-refined production quality never before achieved in their discography.
— Thomas Hinds
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Vukari — Aevum | Vendetta Records | Black Metal | United States (Illinois)
From Andrew Rothmund’s premiere of “Abrasive Hallucinations (Reality Hemorrhaging)”:
I’ve been a Vukari fan for a while now, having seen a number of their shows around Chicago, and let me tell you: this band gets better and better with every performance and every release. The band had teased a few demos earlier this year (tracks which eventually made it onto the album, but remastered of course) that piqued my interest, but upon hearing “Abrasive Hallucinations (Reality Hemorrhaging),” I knew immediately Vukari had found their wavelength. Black metal is already a saturated genre, especially the super-atmospheric corner that Vukari occupies, but the band steps out of that (and their own) mold with Aevum. The riffs are tighter, the blasts are more concrete, and the songwriting has become extremely emotive — any “flatness” predicated by Vukari’s postmodern tilt gets destroyed just by just the sheer weight of the thing. Aevum is emotionally heavy, the most important kind of heavy, and that ethos has been woven throughout all eight of these medium-format tracks (with the album closer being a longer, more involved behemoth unto itself).
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Toxic Holocaust — Primal Future 2019 | Entertainment One | Heavy Metal | United States (Oregon)
Referred to by founding member and sole composer Joel Grind as an album that “bridges the gaps between every era of Toxic Holocaust,” the group’s upcoming sixth full-length Primal Future 2019 explores an unfiltered expression of the feverish old-school speed metal core of their sound while also expanding into unexplored territory. Thematically based on the concept of a dystopian technological takeover, the album sees Grind revisiting the vintage Toxic Holocaust sound established in the early 2000s, all vocals, instrumentals, and percussion by himself as he had on his first two records. Infused with the undying spirit of thrash and savage speed metal, Primal Future 2019 is yet another valiant ode to its founder’s nostalgic 1980s influences.
— Thomas Hinds
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In Mourning — Garden of Storms | Agonia Records | Progressive Death Metal | Sweden
It’s pretty well-known that In Mourning specialize in a very Opethian type of progressive death metal, which is slightly ironic considering that Opeth has largely abandoned death metal with their latest album, not to mention the several prior. To say that In Mourning will give you an “Opeth death metal” fix is unfair to In Mourning as a bespoke band, but Garden of Storms clearly retains the flavor that made the great Opeth death metal albums what they are today. Still, Garden of Storms sings its own tune, so to speak, and takes In Mourning’s approach to the genre another step further.
— Andrew Rothmund
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Ehlder — Nordabetraktelse | Nordvis | Black Metal + Folk Metal | United Staets (Rhode Island)
From Jon Rosenthal’s premiere of “Tagen”:
Graavehlder’s own magic is unmistakable. Taken from a page written in his own blood, “Tagen”‘s momentum grew long before Ehlder was birthed. Still, this monastic, solemn music is set apart from its lineage. It carries its sinister, folkish nature with a comportment all its own — Graavehlder setting his new pet project apart from what led up to it. “Tagen”‘s own woodland fury is spirited, but also channels a much more ancient deity through its own interpretation of ancient folk songs and tales. Ehlder is a magnificent continuation of the spirit which once channeled Lönndom and Armagedda, but separates itself through its own pure essence.
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Algebra — Pulse? | Unspeakable Axe Records | Death Metal + Thrash Metal | Switzerland
Algebra? No thank you to the math, but yes please to the band. Their latest release Pulse? contains that slightly comical question mark, but speaks well to the anxious uncertainty the band weaves into their ever-shifting death metal and thrash formula. This album rips for both high-speed highway cruises w/ the windows down and holding your lighter in the air like it was… last century?
— Andrew Rothmund
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Myronath — Into the Qliphoth | Non Serviam Records | Black Metal | Sweden
A new signee to Dutch label Non Serviam Records, Swedish esoteric black metal outfit Myronath are now set to unleash their debut album Into the Qliphoth. With vile black magick riffs, frantic guitar leads, and snarling demonic vocals all graced by slick, crisp production, the record stands as an impressive first outing into maddening atonal black metal that effortlessly balances the kvlt frigidity of classic Swedish black metal and the more atmospheric patterns of the modern paradigm.
— Thomas Hinds
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Dysrhythmia — Terminal Threshold | Translation Loss Records | Instrumental Metal | United States (New York)
This trio of Jeff Eber, Kevin Hufnagel, and Colin Marston asks for the total range of your mental bandwidth as Dysrhythmia, purveyors of super-complex and heady instrumental metal. With one foot in technical death metal and another in the avant-garde/proggy side of what we’ll just call “technical metal,” the band’s latest album Terminal Threshold aims to take their mind-bending approach another step. With plenty of esoteric riffage, odd time signatures, and basically irrepetible musicianship, this album will be an immediate sell to existing fans.
— Andrew Rothmund
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Ripper — Sensory Stagnation EP | Unspeakable Axe Records | Death Metal | Chile
With their characteristically voracious death-thrash assault, Chilean quartet Ripper present five tracks of grotesque underground death metal with their upcoming Sensory Stagnation EP. The follow-up to the group’s 2016 sophomore album Experiment of Existence, the EP hones in on the savage and jagged oblique song structures that give Ripper their unique edge, surging forth with a relentless, fearlessly old-school sense of grit throughout its concise runtime.
— Thomas Hinds
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From the Grave: Reissues
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Boris — 悪魔の歌 (Akuma no Uta) | Third Man Records | Doom Metal + Rock + Drone | Japan
Following in the stoner rock style of Heavy Rocks, Akuma no Uta (“The Devil’s Song”) marks the first time Boris repeated a style in their varied discography. The syrupy haze found within this album shows Boris, now over a decade into their career, becoming more comfortable and confident with their style. Though the droning introduction might speak to a different style, it is difficult to keep from moving and shaking to the rest of this album. Also, I’ve always, always loved the Nick Drake reference found in the cover art.
— Jon Rosenthal
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Boris — Feedbacker | Third Man Records | Doom Metal + Rock + Drone | Japan
Boris’s sixth album, which is actually titled Boris at Last – Feedbacker (what a mouthful), was yet another departure for this chameleonic Japanese hydra. Venturing into the ambient, psychedelic side of drone (rather than the heavy destruction displayed on Absolutego and Amplifier Worship), the meditative and unsettling Feedbacker is exactly what its title states. The harmonic chain is difficult to master, especially when the instruments themselves are so massively distorted, but Boris’s own droning mastery speaks volumes as melodies emerge from the piercing murk.
— Jon Rosenthal
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