Upcoming Metal Releases: 1/23/2022-1/29/2022

Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of January 23rd, 2022 to January 29th, 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.

Upcoming Releases

Dawn of Solace — Flames of Perdition | Noble Demon Records | Gothic Metal + Doom Metal | Finland

Dawn of Solace liberally employ a gurgling bass to distinguish their melodic doom metal. Obviously, there’s the sorrow and regret and turmoil that European folk and doom bands love, but that bassline taints that melancholy with danger.

–Colin Dempsey

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Night Hag — Phantasmal Scourge | Rotted Life Records | Death Metal + Doom Metal | United States (Virginia)

Death/doom that cleanses the soul. Night Hag sound like a ghoul clamoring on a funeral bell. Actually, they provided an accurate summary of themselves when they titled Phantasmal Scourge‘s opener “Slowly Festering in Rigor Mortis.”

–Colin Dempsey

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Celeste — Assassine​(​s) | Nuclear Blast | Black Metal + Sludge Metal | France

There’s a strain of modern black metal that prioritizes punchiness, drab tones, and heft that knocks out the pleasure receptors in my brain. Celeste fit squarely within this model. Thank God for Celeste.

–Colin Dempsey

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Thumos — The Republic | Snow Wolf Records | Post-Metal + Doom Metal | United States

Feel Plato’s intellectual weight crush your cerebrum. Thumos transmute the philosophical Republic into a digestible post-metal offering.

–Colin Dempsey

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Ectoplasma — Inferna Kabbalah | Memento Mori | Death Metal | Greece

Ectoplasma’s newest album is proof that you can make damn good death metal using only the basics. It’s not OSDM-worship as much as it is reverence for classic death metal’s key components. There isn’t anything too shiny yet nothing is too grimy either, a marriage of fundamental excellence and simplicity.

–Colin Dempsey

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Oculi Melancholiarum — Noche azul | BMC Productions | Depressive Black Metal | Mexico

Here’s some depressive black metal that’s so pretty it nearly eludes being black metal. That, along with the gothic incantations and post-rock glistening, make this a potent release for low winter moods.

–Colin Dempsey

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Spectral Dance — Crusaders of the Void | Helldprod Records | Black Metal | Canada

This is Spectral Dance’s fourth full-length since 2020. It’s black metal for the black metal puritans. That being said, it’s worth checking out the bounciness and daring guitar leads even if you’re not a corpse-paint fanatic.

–Colin Dempsey

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Dead Nexus — Becoming the Ancients | Independent | Thrash Metal + Death Metal | United States (Oregon)

This is cool technical thrash metal that buys into its sci-fi interests. The vocals here may not be to everyone’s liking as they’re too thin for death metal but too gravely for thrash, but they suit the album’s pragmatic themes. Dead Nexus use their technicality to represent the gap between our current knowledge and where humanity is headed.

–Colin Dempsey

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Aegrus — The Carnal Temples | Osmose Productions | Black Metal | Finland

Unyielding momentum and vicious old-school sentiment carry this ripping, melody-rich black metal through the devilish night.

–Ted Nubel

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Benthik Zone — εἴδωλον | Onism Productions | Atmospheric Black Metal | Portugal

Engrossing and hypnotic black metal that notably features a didgeridoo. It feels like a cosmic odyssey, but one where the participant has no idea where they are or where they’re going. This is an album one just experiences in the moment.

–Ted Nubel

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AngelBlast — Throne of Ashes | Edged Circle Productions | Death + Black | Sweden + Canada

While it’s a short EP, this new release from AngelBlast (featuring members of In Aphelion, Darkened, and more) highlights the band’s brilliant fusion of hellish atmosphere and ripping death/black metal. On single “Throne of Ashes,” every part of the production, along with the chilling intro and outro, builds an obscene altar to forgotten deities and drags the listener towards it.

–Ted Nubel

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Dark Meditation — Polluted Temples | Satanik Royalty Records | Heavy Metal | United States (Seattle, WA)

Fusing heavy metal with gothic atmospheres is a delicate business, but Dark Meditation has a winning combination here: their powerful traditional heavy metal includes unusually buried-in-the-mix vocals that give it an occult, cloistered feeling, and the somber melodies in use feel right at home in these gravely digs.

–Ted Nubel

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Possessor — The Speed of Death | APF Records | Sludge + Stoner + Thrash Metal | United Kingdom

Possessor’s sludged-up thrash—or thrashed-up sludge, I’m uncertain—is remarkably energizing, and the way that lead single “Twisted Nerve Endings” juxtaposes samples with furious choruses shows a knack for writing catchy, noisy anthems.

–Ted Nubel

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Lva — In Lvmine Ignis Vestri | Ascension Records | Black Metal | Italy

As the ominous Latin title kind of suggests, Lva’s approach to black metal is a darkly complex one, hurling multiple interweaving layers of discordant melodies at the listener as a backdrop to inflamed shrieks.

–Ted Nubel

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Mur — Cut the Rivers Vein | Independent | Black + Folk + Doom Metal | United States

Though it also bears significant folk influences, Cut the Rivers Vein‘s black metal element is tempermental, sometimes soaring but often burrowing into extremely doomy territory, shifting its atmosphere like changing seasons.

–Ted Nubel

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Tension — Decay | Dying Victims Productions | Heavy Metal | Germany

From Brandon Corsair’s track premiere of “Black Knights”:

To the deep heavy metal fan, it’s a comfort food feast, but Decay is by no means obtuse in its pursuit of forgotten paths, giving plenty to hold onto for all fans of heavy music and hard rock.

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Tine — Mergae Maris Profundi | Independent | Melodic Death + Black Metal | United States

Intensely melodic death/black metal that’s at its best when intricately entwining lead lines around its riffs: the more aggressive sections are neat, but the sense for sinister harmonies that really sells this.

–Ted Nubel

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Tormentor Tyrant — Tormentor Tyrant | Everlasting Spew | Death Metal | Finland

Tormentor Tyrant aims to bring back the nastiest, most aggressive discipline of old-school death metal, and this self-titled debut release is thus a chaotic orgy of riff-driven violence in the best possible way.

–Ted Nubel

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Burned in Effigy — Rex Mortem | Independent | Melodic Death Metal | United States (Chicago, IL)

Burned In Effigy gild their aggressive, though catchy, melodic death metal with ornate neoclassical melodies that give their violent proceedings a distinctly regal tint.

–Ted Nubel

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Buzzard Canyon — Drunken Tales Of An Underachiever…The Saga Continues | Argonauta Records | Stoner Rock + Doom Metal | United States

Buzzard Canyon’s cross-faded stoner rock is noticeably less sober than a lot of their peers: murky guitar riffs burble forth from the swamp while vocalists Amber Leigh and Aaron Lewis trade off belting out sardonic, disillusioned lyrics from within the haze, and the mix seems to slosh around delightfully (at least on headphones). Inebriation aside, the band has no qualms shaking up the pace and shifting into raucous d-beat paces, demonstrating groovy tightness beneath the smoke-clouded production. Unlike, again, a lot of their peers, the record never runs out of steam or plays it safe—there’s plenty of fun riffs to nod along to, and the Misfits cover feels appropriately sleazy.

–Ted Nubel

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