Upcoming Metal Releases 6/24/2018-6/30/2018

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Why is this another “light” UMR? Welp, both Ian and Andrew found themselves out-of-country last week, so I felt extra hard pressed to get this one done a little faster than usual! Feel free to fill in the blanks I left with information in the comments!

Here are the new metal releases for the weeks of June 24, 2018 – June 30, 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.

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ANTICIPATED RELEASES

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Runemagick – Evoked From Abysmal Sleep | Aftermath Music/Flowing Downwards | Death/Doom Metal | Sweden
The return of the darkest, heaviest evil. Eleven years after his last album, death/doom metal luminaries Runemagick unleash what could be their heaviest slab of rotting viscera yet. Simplicity is the name of the game here, each song only having a handful of riffs and uncomplicated structure, but therein lies chief songwriter Nicklas Rudolfsson’s secret talent. Without the glut of complex structure, progressive approaches, or other add-ons, Runemagick more effectively bludgeons with the power of ancient death. If this is your first Runemagick album, Evoked From Abysmal Sleep couldn’t be a better starting point… but also listen to Darkness Death Doom if you know what’s good for you.

The Antichrist Imperium – Volume II — Every Tongue Shall Praise Satan | Apocalyptic Witchcraft | Progressive Black/Death Metal | England
From my premiere of “Golgothian Hieros Gamos”:

Toward the end of a new decade, The Antichrist Imperium’s second album Volume II – Every Tongue Shall Praise Satan (quite the mouthful) taps back into Wilcock’s (and drummer David “Blast Vader” Gray’s) strange sense of progressive, chaotic death metal. Jumping from style to style, section to section, and volume to volume, The Antichrist Imperium’s new work feels like both an extension of Wilcock’s former career, but also carries an unbridled personality all its own. Over time, especially taking frontman Samuel Loynes’s equally manic performance into consideration, The Antichrist Imperium’s presence is definitely one of growth, building from what could ostensibly considered as Wilcock’s “suspended animation” from 2007 to 2015.

As unfair as it would be to simply say that The Antichrist Imperium sounds like an extension of Akercocke, an argument could be made that this is simply how Wilcock writes music, especially with drummer David Gray. Unfortunately there is the element of relegation and comparison, and, yes, Akercocke will be namedropped in any coverage for the band in perpetuum, but also… so what?

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OF NOTE

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Shylmagoghnar – Transience | Napalm Records | Progressive Black/Death Metal | Netherlands
The genre above references death metal, but I really don’t hear much. If you can believe it, Napalm Records is releasing atmospheric black metal again. I’d ask if it was the early 1990s, but Shylmagoghnar (say that five times fast) has an inescapably modern bent. Fans of black metal post-2010 will find a lot of comfort here, but haggard “old men” like me (yeah, I know I’m not quite 30, but my soul is leather) find this to be… a little too “washy.”

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FOR THE ADVENTUROUS

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Hollow Sunshine – Lose Your World | Iron Pier | Slowcore/Dreampop | United States
The world’s heaviest dreampop band returns. As always, the duo of Reuben Sawyer and Morgan Enos find a way to express sunshiney sadness in ethereal depths. And remember, “Hollow Sunshine is not a shoegaze band.”

Kevin Hufnagel – Messages to the Past | Translation Loss | Ambient/Drone/Shred | United States
From Chris’s premiere of “Separations”:

Like a dream within a dream, Kevin Hufnagel’s latest solo effort Messages To The Past floats like clouds over the horizon. Though shredding at times, the totality is one of pure smoothness, directed by Hufnagel’s pension for emotion. An instrumental workout inspired by the guitarist’s musical roots, the record is an echo in the darkness: a light wavering in the wind.

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FROM THE GRAVE

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Obtained Enslavement – Soulblight | Soulseller Records | Symphonic Black Metal | Norway
You want to talk about underrated? Obtained Enslavement had a bit of a heyday in the 1990s, but the subsequent hatred of keyboards and all things “symphonic” relegated them to purely historic status. Living in the shadows of the more often-referenced Witchcraft, the haunting and desperate Soulblight reveals a darker, more desperate beast. Gain more historic black metal context. Listen to good music.

Nortt – Ligfaerd and Gudsforladt | Avantgarde Music | “Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal” | Denmark
If you didn’t take the time to dig further into Nortt’s impenetrably dark discography after the interview we published late last year, maybe now is the time to take the plunge into some of the bleakest music in existence.

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Become an Invisible Oranges patron .

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