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Upcoming Metal Releases 2/4/2018-2/10/2018

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Not a heavy week, which is fine with me. Most of this is stuff I’m really grumpy about, anyway!

Here are the new metal releases for the weeks of February 4, 2017 – February 10, 2018. Release dates are formatted according to proposed North American scheduling, if available. Expect to see the bulk of these records on shelves or distros on the coming Fridays unless otherwise noted or if labels and artists get impatient. Blurbs and designations are based on whether or not I have a lot to say about it.

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

As a little bit of a challenge, include your own opinion about anything you want to add. Make me want to listen to it!

Please note: this is a review column and is not speculative. Any announced albums without preview material will not be covered. Additionally, any surprise releases which are uploaded or released after this column is published will be excluded.

send Jon your promos at [email protected]. Do not bother him on social media.

ANTICIPATED RELEASES

Gnaw Their Tongues – Genocidal Majesty | Consouling Sounds/Tartarus Tapes | Industrial Noise/Black/Doom Metal | Netherlands
At this point I could really just say “Dude, it’s Gnaw Their Tongues. You should know.” …and it would be true. The prolific Maurice “Mories” de Jong has more than left his mark on modern extreme music, after all, and his flagship project’s trademark sound is, at this point, a nostalgic constant. what makes Genocidal Majesty particularly exciting to me is in how gnarly and gross it is. Sure, yeah, those are words which could be used for any Gnaw Their Tongues release, but this album is just so heavy, so thick and horrific, that I find myself back at a time when “The Behemoth Crawls Ashore” was my MySpace profile song.

The Atlas Moth – Coma Noir | Prosthetic Records | Atmospheric Sludge/Doom Metal | United States
This is a side of The Atlas Moth I’ve never heard before. Sure, they will always be a supremely psychedelic sludge band, but the aid of a new drummer (Mike Miczek of Broken Hope) suddenly paints The Atlas Moth as a metal band. I ran into Stavros Giannopoulos and Alex Klein at a show last year, and both excitedly described Coma Noir as their “rock n roll album with lots of double bass.” Unexpected for these stoned skygazers, but it works. Oh man, does it work.

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OF NOTE

Grave Spirit – The Beast Unburdened By Flesh | Iron Bonehead | Black Metal | ???
There was a time somewhen in the ’90s when “black/death metal” meant something more than goats and Oakleys with hoodies. Grave Spirit is a throwback to the melodic leanings of that special era of brawny black metal which wasn’t afraid to “get heavy.”

Paara – Riitti | ViciSolum Productions | Folk/Black Metal | Finland
Havukruunu’s Kelle surut Soi garnered a lot of attention for resembling Moonsorrow’s more aggressive works, a more modern Voimasta ja kuunaista. This year, Paara’s sophomore album Riiti tackles the more epic, tragic style Moonsorrow championed starting with Verisakeet. Maybe not the most original take in the world, fine, but certainly a successful interpretation of a not-oft-attempted style.

FOR THE ADVENTUROUS

Old Tower – Stellary Wisdom | Profound Lore/Tour de Garde | Ambient (“Dungeon Synth”) | Netherlands
Part of me thinks it’s cool that this whole “dungeon synth” thing has taken off with such a great velocity — Mortiis’s early works were in heavy rotation when I was a young teenager — but I wonder when the bubble is going to burst. Sure, Old Tower is a great example of the “black metal dude’s ambient side project” at its most conservative and cryptic, but the publicly rebirthed style’s volume grew too much in too little of a period of time. Sell your land while you can, because it feels like owning a house 2008.

Legend of the Seagullmen – Legend of the Seagullmen | Dine Alone Records | Progressive Rock | United States
This supergroup seems cool in theory, featuring members of TOOL and Mastodon (and spearheaded by the Jonah Hex guy, no less), but it errs on the bad side of cartoonish rather than offering anything of substance.

Fu Manchu – Clone of the Universe | At the Dojo | Stoner Rock | United States
When I first heard Fu Manchu, I decided I hated stoner rock. Clone of the Universe doesn’t help much. I guess this means they haven’t changed much. Don’t take my word for it, though. You all know I’m not really into stoner-anything.

FROM THE GRAVE

Rotting Sky – Sedation | Sentient Ruin/Black Horizons | Noise/Black/Doom Metal | United States
Some of you might remember this impenetrable album’s initial release in 2014, caught at the tail end of the ill-fated Grimoire Cassette Cvlture‘s run as a label, and it’s nice to see this Nux Vomica/Wake Up On Fire-related album get more attention. Tim Messing’s caustic, mournful mix of funeral doom, black metal, and noise is in a league all its own.

OTHER RELEASES

Harms Way – Posthuman | Metal Blade Records | Nu Metal (but somehow still considered hardcore?) | United States
inb4 more “nu metal was never bad” thinkpieces.

Grafjammer – Schalm & Schabauw | Independent/Digital | Black Metal | Netherlands
Fairly standard second wave black metal of a more Det Som En Gang Var variety – not so heavy on the atmosphere-laden blast beats, favoring heavy, hypnotic rock rhythms to drive the point home.

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