Upcoming Metal Releases: 12/20/2020 - 12/26/2020
Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of December 20th to December 26th, 2020. 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.
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Things We Missed / Surprise Releases
Briton Rites — Occulte Fantastique | Echoes of Crom Records | Doom Metal | United States
Ten years after For Mircalla, the underground doom legends (featuring Phil Swanson, ex-vocalist Sumerlands) return — and the riffs are red-hot. Lots of cool Cathedral/Witchfinder General-ish bits here, but mainly it’s their own special magic.
–Ted Nubel
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Surrogate Prey — Aberration | Independent | Doom Metal | Phillipines
Ah, aggro doom — tension-packed riffs grab you impossibly tight, contorting in time with the staccato tempo until you’re flung out into a noisy sea of rage. Wash ashore, and the cycle begins again.
–Ted Nubel
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Upcoming Releases
Medenera — Argento | GS Productions | Atmospheric Black Metal | Italy
Epic-scoped atmospheric black metal tapping into melodic folk elements — not unlike Summoning. To be clear, though, this is the big, shimmering atmo-black stuff and not early Summoning’s 1990s-CRPG-soundtrack vibe. You can sink right into this and float off to distant, windswept lands.
–Ted Nubel
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LaColpa — Post Tenebras Lux | Brucia Records | Doom Metal + Noise | Italy
This is straight up haunted. No joke — I had to take off my headphones a few times to make sure the unnerving sounds coming out of them weren’t actually coming from my closet or the floorboards instead. Heavily immersive and harrowing doom/noise that skews towards jarring extremes and pure creepiness.
Also, Post Tenebris Lux comes to the closest to Burning Witch’s riffy abyss-gazing than anything I’ve heard in a long time, and I’m damn ready for more of that.
–Ted Nubel
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Dark Meditation — Nocturne Demos | Doctrina Carnis | Dark Heavy Metal | United States
Reverb-packed, glam-laced heavy metal that oozes the rough ‘n’ ready blackened sleaze of Venom, but also packing a gloomy atmosphere that draws from metal’s later iterations. If that sounds like a lot of different elements hybridized together, it is, but it works great as a whole. Especially given that it’s a demo being released on cassette, it’s also frankly indistinguishable sonically from something released thirty years ago — no small feat!
–Ted Nubel
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