Upcoming Metal Releases: 4/4/2021 - 4/10/2021
Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of April 4th, 2021 to April 10th, 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.
Send us your promos (streaming links preferred) to: [email protected]. Do not send us promo material via social media.
Upcoming Releases
Goya — The Universe Wails | Opoponax Records | Doom Metal | United States (Phoenix)
Traditionally, Goya is a band that’s been all about being loud—well, that and getting high, given that their Bandcamp page’s URL is literally marijuana.bandcamp.com, but the point is that amplified druggery is generally their appeal. This new release is an acoustic one, reshaping the tempos and dynamics of some of their past fuzzy monstrosities into much mellower, but still interesting clean renditions. Stripped of tone and trimmed down, they prove to be tight jams—and Jeff Owens sounds pretty solid on vocals, more of a focus here than in the past. Goya thrives on beer-soaked stages when everything is dialed up to 11, but apparently they could wreck the shit out of a coffee shop too.
–Ted Nubel
…
Throne — Pestilent Dawn | Redefining Darkness Records | Death Metal + Black Metal | United States
From Ted Nubel’s track premiere of “Beyond Malice”:
Throne has no shortage of tools in their arsenal on this album and the expertise of skilled torturers in where to apply them. Black and death metal, on their own, hold enormous potential and similarly enormous room for error (and boredom), but Pestilent Dawn is a vile and captivating monolith that combines the two.
…
Blaze Bayley — War Within Me | Blaze Bayley Recordings | Heavy/Power Metal | United Kingdom
The once-vocalist of Iron Maiden has been going pretty hard on his solo career, with this following up his three-album “Infinite Entanglement” concept run. This one’s much more to-the-point and rock-focused. Blaze’s well-aged voice is probably the highlight, so maybe it’s worth a listen if you didn’t totally hate his run with Maiden.
–Ted Nubel
…
Phlebotomized — Pain, Resistance, Suffering | Petrichor Records | Death + Doom Metal | Netherlands
Death metal with massive synths and doomy leads to add some nuance to its technicality. Don’t let the weird song titles turn you off: it stays away from gothic sensibilities in favor of its own… eccentric… aesthetic, but fans of complex melodic death metal should check this out.
–Ted Nubel
…
Zao — The Crimson Corridor | Observed/Observer | Metalcore | United States
After seven years of silence following their 2009 album Awake?, Zao has been on an absolute tear. The band has released a handful of EPs and 7″ singles, and is releasing their second full length since their return, The Crimson Corridor, this Friday. Zao continues their spacey blend of progressive, at-times psychedelic brand of furious metal that spans the gamut of tempos and leaves us only wanting more, as usual.
–Greg Kennelty
…
Wheel — Preserved in Time | Cruz del Sur Music | Doom Metal | Germany
Most bands lean on a pretty specific set of influences when they’re writing epic doom, and there’s not a whole lot of variation in the scene past who’s on vocals and if the band is leaning more on Nightfall or Beyond the Crimson Horizon. Though still firmly an epic doom band, Wheel’s inspirations are refreshingly outside of the normal mold, and remind me on Preserved in Time of nothing so much as Adagio-era Solitude Aeturnus instead. Gorgeous, classy, and powerful, Wheel established themselves years ago as a band to watch and with the new album they cement that.
–Brandon Corsair
…
Repulsive God of Moab — To the Absolute Mayhem | Deathrash Armageddon | Black + Thrash Metal | Peru
The original Repulsive God of Moab demo made a huge impression on me when it came out, and it’s with immense anticipation that I wait for the upcoming album. Though I haven’t been able to hit the full thing yet the two preview tracks have everything I liked about the demo- unrelenting ferocity and thrash tempos taken to an extreme to form catchy and exciting black/thrash that is extraordinarily fun if not particularly original.
–Brandon Corsair
…
Gangrened — Deadly Algorithm | Quebranta Records | Doom + Sludge Metal | Finland
A fearsome construction of slooooow sludge with some stoner riffs played out at that same glacial pace to give it a little groove too.
–Ted Nubel
…
Horndal — Lake Drinker | Prosthetic Records | Sludge Metal + Hardcore | Sweden
Influenced by the plight of dying industrial towns worldwide, Horndal’s sludgy hardcore is a guttural roar into an uncaring void. Although the aesthetics have been embellished with supernatural imagery, the metal within drips with genuine anguish.
–Ted Nubel
…
Kauan — Ice Fleet | Artoffact Records | Post-Rock/Metal | Estonia
Vast, windswept post-rock that tells a story of frostbitten perseverance. Subtle folk influence and eclectic instrumentation help sell the epic journey, which, oddly, the band has also packaged as an RPG adventure.
–Ted Nubel
…
Sahara — The Curse | Regain Records | Doom/Heavy Metal | Argentina
So, the recording quality is about on par with the hand-scribbled J-Card artwork here, but it all fits with the music: punky, proto-metal-y stoner rock that feels like it came out of a basement in 1981 and then got stuck in a time capsule for 40 years. If you worship at the altar of lo-fi doom like Bedemon’s Child of Darkness, this has the same sort of raw charm.
–Ted Nubel
…
Things We Missed
Stake Driver — Lycanthropy 666 | Cemetery Horror | Black Metal | United States
This just got a cassette release on Friday, hence the inclusion here, but it’s already sold out — whoops! Keep an eye on the label for a repress, but in the meantime check out this super retro slab of crypt-obsessed, cassette-worthy black metal.
–Ted Nubel
…
