Upcoming Metal Releases: 6/13/2021 - 6/19/2021
Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of June 6th, 2021 to June 12th, 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.
Things We Missed
Thieves — EP III | Independent | Hardcore + Metal | United States (Chicago, IL)
Thieves is an absolutely massive band live—all the insane momentum you’d expect of a hardcore band, but with a complex sound drawing from the heaviest of what both metal and punk have to offer. Delivering this raw energy on tape is tough, but their new EP is their hardest-hitting to date and a textbook entry on how to do it: insanely crushing production, fat-trimmed songs, and one-word song titles.
Okay, I don’t know if that last part is really necessary, but I do recommend that you head over to the Bandcamp and read the excellent lyrics that accompany those brief titles.
–Ted Nubel
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Seum — Winterized | Independent | Doom Metal + Stoner Rock | Canada (Montreal)
Punky stoner doom with no guitars, just bass—and while some bands have bass play a higher register and mimic a guitar role to achieve this, Seum simply has bass… and then more bass, run through a hot, nasty stack that I have to imagine trips circuit breakers more often than not. Dirty and fun, simply put.
–Ted Nubel
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Upcoming Releases
Helloween — Helloween | Nuclear Blast | Power + Speed Metal | Germany
Well, Helloween still knows how to write riffs. I can’t tell if the music video for the single “Skyfall” is Helloween falling into self-parody, or just the ultimate fulfillment of what they were always meant to be.
–Ted Nubel
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Bossk — Migration | Deathwish Inc. | Atmospheric Sludge Metal | United Kingdom
Progressive sludge with impressive range: the heavy riffs are made that much heavier by deliberate pacing and introspective lulls, and give off a futuristic sheen due to carefully-delivered synths and electronics.
–Ted Nubel
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Fear Factory — Aggression Continuum | Nuclear Blast | Industrial Metal | United States (Los Angeles)
I really haven’t heard a Fear Factory album since Demanufacture, so I’m going to abstain from noting the many, many criticisms I have regarding this single and present it without further comment.
–Ted Nubel
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Pharaoh — The Powers That Be | Cruz del Sur Music | Power Metal | United States
From Brandon Corsair’s interview with the band:
Though the band’s core riff-centric power metal sound remains even decades after 2003’s After the Fire, their approach to that sound has changed a fair amount over the years and The Powers That Be is as much as a return to form as it is a shred-tastic and complicated album. Hugely catchy vocal lines, earworm riffs, and bursts of insane guitar playing all come together to give an album that’s both distinctly Pharaoh and fills its own little niche in their discography.
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Entierro — El Camazotz | Independent | Doom Metal + Heavy Metal | United States
Editor’s Note: This is a swaggering doom album with an admirable and unusual amount of heavy metal at its core, owing partly to the involvement of Victor Arduini, ex-Fates Warning. Highly recommended!
From Brandon Corsair’s interview with Arduini:
Sure enough, the El Camazotz EP hits just the way any fan of [Victor] Arduini would hope it to. Though it’s not quite in the vein of anything he’s done before, it’s pretty close. Groovy and chunky riffs intersect nicely with dual-lead heavy metal, and catchy arrangement helps pull together something that fits pretty squarely in a tradition of not-quite-doom that doesn’t get enough love in these modern days of genre stratification. All around, it recalls the earliest Fates Warning material (Night on Bröcken, particularly) slapped against Trouble’s stoner era, and does it with a certain skill and grace that speaks of the long experience of the members.
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Bloodbeat — Process of Extinction | Inverse Records | Death + Thrash Metal | Germany
Suffocatingly dense death/thrash with chunky riffs so thick they seem to get stuck in your eardrums on the way in. Ridiculously-cranked guitar tones like this feel tacky in some cases, but applied to the right type of music (this), they only add to the monstrosity of what’s been created.
–Ted Nubel
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Heavy Temple — Lupi Amoris | Magnetic Eye Records | Doom Metal | United States (Philadelphia, PA)
High Priestess Nighthawk, Rattlesnake, and Bearadactyl play to stoner metal’s psychedelic roots more than its doom lineage. There’s still riffs aplenty, the booming and screeching sort that propel the tracks forwards. Heavy Temple entrust more than just riffs, however: they’re more interested in stretching those riffs downwards and upwards through thunderstorms and grasslands. It’s a 1970s stoner attitude motivated by the excitement of exploring musical ground. Apparently, said musical ground is the story of a Red Riding Hood figure shattering the expectations that shackle her, but you’d be forgiven if you couldn’t see that part of the forest through the tree-stump heavy riffs.
–Colin Dempsey
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No Sun Rises — Dominium Terrae | Alerta Antifascista Records | Atmospheric Black Metal | Germany
Dominium Terrae is especially well-put-together atmospheric black metal focused on creating moods and subtly sculpting them. As waves of guitars crash across the sprawling fields of this two-song, 30+ minute release, drums retain savage control over tempo and anchor the crescendos. It’s been my long-held opinion that there can never be enough cellos in metal, so that additional texture on the title track is a welcome addition here as well.
On a side note, No Sun Rises is pretty staunchly anti-fascist, which I still appreciate bands noting, especially when basically every week that I do UMR, I come across at least one unabashedly NSBM release (yeah, including this week). Shit’s out there, and thus it bears repeating: fuck Nazis. But I digress—definitely check this one out.
–Ted Nubel
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The Day of The Beast — Indisputably Carnivorous | Prosthetic Records | Thrash + Black Metal | United States
More thrash than black, I’d say, drawing from the melodic sides of both genres and smartly combining them into a vicious mix. Screamed and furious vocals are a large part of the sound (and rightly so, being often overlooked or an afterthought), and they deliver some seriously killer lines to make it worth the while.
–Ted Nubel
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Eye of Purgatory — The Lighthouse | Transcending Obscurity Records | Death Metal | Sweden
Rogga Johansson, a consistent and extremely prolific purveyor of Swedish HM-2 death metal, offers up an album from one of his many projects. I dig this one, but I do wonder if we’re approaching “too much of a good thing” territory, you know?
–Ted Nubel
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Lucifer’s Hammer — The Trip | High Roller Records | Traditional Heavy Metal | Chile
I can just about feel the reverb dripping off of this album. Guitars, drums, and vocals all swim in it, evoking memories of a style of heavy metal long since gone away… until, y’know, the recent and well-deserved resurgence. Heavily lead-driven traditional metal reigns here, with commanding melodies that spend more time in the spotlight than the verse-chorus stuff.
By the way, the full album is longer than what you’ll find below — the band has opted for the “only show tracks you can stream” approach.
–Ted Nubel
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Thorn — Crawling Worship | Life After Death Records + Gurgling Gore Records | Death + Doom Metal | United States (Phoenix, AZ)
Gnashing death-doom that’s murky and immense, but delivered in short-format slices of viciousness for an interesting pivot on the genre, which too often features ten-plus minute songs that are dubiously worthwhile. All action here, even if it takes place in a slime-filled tomb. Stay tuned for our premiere of this one later this week!
–Ted Nubel
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Blazon Rite — Endless Halls of Golden Totem | Gates of Hell Records | Heavy Metal | United States (Philadelphia, PA)
From Brandon Corsair’s Entering the Underground entry on Blazon Rite:
Everything about Blazon Rite feels like a clever misdirect. Riffs don’t go where they feel like they should. The vocals are lower than most in the genre, and travel down melodic pathways that feel like they shouldn’t work (though they always do). Some riffs repeat longer than I would have put them, or synths come in unexpectedly, and song structures are twisty enough that it’s easy to forget which song is playing until a chorus or riff from earlier in the track comes back. Endless Halls of Golden Totem isn’t good for an idle listen because it’s not written to be casually absorbed; it’s the little details that make it, and it demands attention because the compositions were approached with attention in spades.
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