Upcoming Metal Releases: 7/4/2021 - 7/10/2021
Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of July 4th, 2021 to July 10th, 2021, 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
Grief Nocturne — Theater of Exiled Eyes | Independent | Death + Doom Metal | United States (Portland, OR)
This album is luxuriously rough: when the crash cymbals hit and blow out the speakers, they do so in the most satisfying way possible, and each riff takes on an extra chunky menace from how it’s been rendered. But even with that, the strain of death-doom cultivated has a melodic underbelly that gains haunting power from the grainy production shaping it. In short: nasty riffs, unsettling melodies, and skin-sloughing production. Oogh.
–Ted Nubel
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Upcoming Releases
Mayhem — Atavistic Black Disorder / Kommando | Century Media Records | Black Metal | Norway
Mayhem’s new EP includes a set of punk covers for a B-side along with three new songs. It’s always interesting to see black metal bands own up to being inspired by something other than like, Satan, especially Mayhem, so this seems like a neat release.
–Ted Nubel
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Mountain Caller — Chronicle: Prologue | Independent | Instrumental Doom + Sludge + Post-Metal | United Kingdom
The sprawling instrumental doom-sludge oddysey of Mountain Caller continues… in reverse, I guess, as this is a prologue to the stellar full-length Chronicle I: The Truthseeker that released last year. As before, the band tells immense stories without a single word sung or spoken, instead varying their angle of attack to use metal’s full vocabulary to express their ideas. These songs were part of the same material that comprises the full-length, so don’t expect significant departures from their debut sound — just more of the same goodness.
–Ted Nubel
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Rat King — Omen | Independent | Stoner + Doom Metal | United States
Though there’s plenty of pentatonic doom grooves in Omen, there’s also an immersive, atmospheric side to this record that’s not quite as thrill-seeking, like a sense of impending doom seeping through the fuzzy jams.
–Ted Nubel
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Unendlich — Paradox of a Broken World | Horror Pain Gore Death Productions | Black Metal | United States (Baltimore, MD)
Sneering, mid-paced black metal with a heavy focus on powerful guitars: snappy chugs and beefy double-bass help drive this one home.
–Ted Nubel
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Winter Lantern — Festering Vampiricism | Cursed Oath Records | Black Metal | United States
Well, if you’re not into raw black metal, you’ll probably want to just skip the next three records — but if you are, we have a particularly decent crop of the stuff this week.
Winter Lantern is lo-fi black metal with a faintly romantic atmosphere—even rendered through obscuring guitar tones and overlaid with screams, the use of forlorn melodic chord progressions fosters a feeling of comfiness entirely at odds with the actual music.
–Ted Nubel
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Vuajtje — The Womb of the Earth | Independent | Black Metal | United States (Cleveland, OH)
Proceeding deeper into the chasms of black metal, The Womb of the Earth is just a few degrees away from being howling static, a roughness reinforced by the evident hostility. Still, the discernable fragments of melody that rise above the storm of chaotic beats create an engrossing mental picture of a world being reclaimed by nature with far more fidelity than any richer production could manage.
–Ted Nubel
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Hinsides — Under Betlehems brinnande stjärna | Shadow Records | Black Metal | Sweden
Half slow evil grooves, half reckless speed, all adorned with intriguing melody (especially notable in the basslines), this is a wickedly fun slice of black metal.
–Ted Nubel
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Night Crowned — Hädanfärd | Noble Demon Records | Melodic Black + Death Metal | Sweden
In stark contrast to the preceding black metal records, Hädanfärd is produced with an eye for overwhelming fidelity. Potent melodies arise within the darkness, theatrically executed with some mutations into death metal here and there.
–Ted Nubel
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Blood Sport — Hot Blood and Cold Steel | Independent | Heavy+Speed Metal | Finland
Possibly crafted out of pure, untamed energy, Hot Blood and Cold Steel is a ripper in the truest sense of the word. Super-sharp riffs wrapped in invigorating reverb slice through your speakers with battering drums and echoing vocals following in their wake. Enough of this record is streaming as of today for you to trash at least a few rooms in your house, so get to it.
–Ted Nubel
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Sepiroth — Condemned to Suffer | Petrichor Records | Death Metal | Netherlands
With a cyclic intensity verging on brutal death metal territory and quick, gutting riffs, Condemned to Suffer is a dead-simple death metal album set up to squash your head into a fairly unappealing compote. I mean it—each song’s hook seems liable to induce deadly headbanging.
–Ted Nubel
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Psychic Hit — Solutio | Seeing Red Records | Heavy Metal + Hard Rock | United States (Oakland, CA)
Proto-metal meets psychedelic rock—this kind of music often lives or dies on the quality of its vocals, and there’s a nice balance between grit and power shown off on this single (which also achieves the similarly critical balance needed between riffs and creative leads).
–Ted Nubel
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Ope — Mordoom | Flowerpot Records | Sludge + Doom Metal | United States (Columbus, OH)
So, from an album perspective, this appears to be a Midwest-United-States-meets-Lord-of-the-Rings crossover (for those outside of the USA, ‘ope’ is a common expression in our Midwest region that’s comparable to, say, ‘whoops’) which is pretty rad, but may trigger concerns of “oh no, not another stoner gimmick band.” Understandable, but note that this is no lackadaisical pentatonic jam session with puns for song titles. I mean, there are puns for song titles, but these bastards are angry. Roiling sludge licks swirl in a vat of discontent with uncomfortably clear screams of misery. There’s humor here, of course, but that plus genuine distress powers these corn-fed stomps.
–Ted Nubel
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