Upcoming Metal Releases: 2/7/2021 - 2/13/2021
Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of February 7th, 2021 to February 13th, 2021. 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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Upcoming Releases
Rings of Saturn — Embryonic Anomaly (Remaster) | Nuclear Blast | Technical Deathcore | United States (California)
Well, well, what can we say here. Not much, because talking about Rings of Saturn in the year 2021 seems totally… just… faded. Like, who cares anymore? Nobody, that’s who, including me. Except that this is not new Rings of Saturn. This is their debut album from 2010 but made to sound better, which is to say, worse. The music itself is both bad and brilliant — a bullseye arrow right at the bloody nexus of Real Deathcore — and the same could be said for the OG recording and mastering quality. An album this bad/good doesn’t really deserve this sort of good/bad mastering… wait, strike that, reverse it.
–Andrew Rothmund
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Ad Nauseam — Imperative Imperceptible Impulse | Avantgarde Music | Avant-garde/Technical Death Metal | Italy
Death metal for the Modernist: Ad Nauseam’s take on technical death metal aims for the egghead in all of us, citing composers the likes of Penderecki and Ligeti to help bolster their already unusual style. Utilizing bizarre harmony and micropolyphony, this italian death metal collective deconstructs and completely rebuilds death metal from the ground up.
–Jon Rosenthal
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Demon King — The Final Tyranny EP | The Artisan Era | Blackened Technical Death Metal | United States (Nashville)
Giving tech-death the black metal treatment is nothing new, but Demon King blew my shorts clean the fuck off.
–Andrew Rothmund
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Emptiness — Vide | Season of Mist | Pop + Synthwave + Experimental | Belgium
Branded by the band as “Misery Pop,” Vide strips away even more of the band’s extreme metal origins, with the resulting abscess filled via dour and complicated soundscapes. Drum loops and pop song fixtures find themselves corrupted by uncomfortably present vocals and claustrophobic instrumentation… which was, I believe, the point, and it’s been done well here.
–Ted Nubel
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Ablaze My Sorrow — Among Ashes and Monoliths | Black Lion Records | Melodic Death Metal | Sweden
The old 1990s sound of Swedish melodic death metal is pretty much dead, and there’s not enough of a fanbase of the sound to even consistently reissue the best albums from that scene, let alone to lure in new bands playing in that vein. Fortunately for fans, Ablaze My Sorrow reformed in 2013 and are making new music again—and unlike most of those similar reunions, this one doesn’t suck. Great layered melodies, driving songwriting, and a sense of dynamics come together well in Among Ashes and Monoliths and if it’s not as good as the old Eucharist or Sacrilege stuff—well, what is?
–Brandon Corsair
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Significant Point — Into the Storm | Dying Victims Productions | Speed + Heavy Metal | Japan
Speed metal that feels like it’s about to come off the rails the entire time — also known as the best kind of speed metal. Into the Storm is rife with wild solos and drumming that’s always pushing things a little bit faster, giving the impression of growing, barely-controlled momentum.
–Ted Nubel
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Durbin — The Beast Awakens | Frontiers Records | Traditional Heavy Metal | United States
A recurring theme in criticisms leveled against today’s traditional heavy metal bands revolve around vocal quality — not that they might necessarily be bad, but the bands that made the style popular had tremendous vocalists and it can be hard to meet that mark. That’s not an issue here — James Durbin, known for his appearance on American Idol season 10, has excellent chops and his delivery ranges from stratosphere-piercing highs to more mid-toned stuff with a bit of harshness, all with his own style that doesn’t feel like a carbon-copy of the past.
But the instrumental and conceptual side of this album aren’t really pushing any boundaries — mostly generic fantasy topics, power-metal leaning choruses, and a lot of rock-driven verses that lack menace and don’t differentiate much from track to track. Still worth a listen, especially if you’re picky on the vocals, but I’m hoping we get some more risk-taking next time around.
–Ted Nubel
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Swampbeast — Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads | Translation Loss Records | Death + Black Metal + Grind | United States (California)
From Ted Nubel’s track premiere of “1000 Years of Pestilence”:
Death metal is vicious when it’s fast, but possibly even more so when slowed down — plummeting tempos only makes those bouts of whirling speed all the more forceful. Toss a bile-filled lungful of black metal and grind into the mess and you’ve got Swampbeast.
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Narakah — Blast Haven | Independent | Death Metal + Grindcore | United States (Pittsburgh)
Nasty, out-there grind that doesn’t let up. Well, except for a mid-album interlude, but that kind of makes it heavier overall anyway. Hit Ted Nubel’s full album premiere for a full stream.
Short songs demand that every second count—that every millisecond justify its brief and limited inclusion. Pittsburgh’s Narakah is well aware of this, and have crafted their next album as an extremely short, extremely punishing work: Blast Haven contains just twelve minutes of rhythm-hopping, body-wrecking death metal and grindcore.
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Toledo Steel — Heading for the Fire | Dissonance Productions | Heavy Metal | United Kingdom
No connection to the city in Ohio — Toledo steel is an unusually resilient material used historically in weaponcrafting. Fitting name — this is ironclad heavy metal with powerful riffs and soaring melodic leads to cut through defenses.
–Ted Nubel
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Noctambulist — Noctambulist I: Elegieën | Northern Silence Productions | Post-Black Metal | Netherlands
Impassioned grief meets indescribable rage — the debut from this Dutch post-black-metal group has drawn-out bleak parts that simply slam into you and wear you down. Those are interwoven with excellent black metal passages that are beautifully melodic… but not without a good amount of pummeling going on too.
–Ted Nubel
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Dayglo Mourning — Dead Star | Black Doomba Records | Stoner + Doom Metal | United States (Atlanta)
Gruff vocals soaked in cosmic reverb and dense guitar tones give DayGlo Mourning’s stoner rock a spacey appeal on top of the rock-solid grooves in place. The drums sound fairly live and raw in the mix, a nice touch that gives them extra vibrancy on top of already being real goddamn loud.
–Ted Nubel
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Pyre — Chained to Ossuaries | Caligari Records | Death Metal | Russia
When Pyre debuted in 2014 with Human Hecatomb, they absolutely blew my mind. It was the best HM2 death metal I’d heard since Bastard Priest went inactive, and it was a long, painful wait to last year’s Chained to Ossuaries. Though the band has slowed down a bit and the sheer ripping force of Human Hecatomb is gone, the songwriting quality and adherence to rotten death remains, and Chained to Ossuaries is easily one of last year’s greatest records. Originally, the album came out on Memento Mori on CD, and this re-release is the first non-CD version—a cassette via the always-excellent underground stalwarts at Caligari Records. If you’re into bands like Entombed and Dismember but don’t want a clone of them, Pyre is the band for you.
–Brandon Corsair
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