Upcoming Metal Releases

Upcoming Metal Releases: 8/22/2021 - 8/28/2021


Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of August 22nd, 2021 to August 28th, 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

Hooded MenaceThe Tritonus Bell | Season of Mist | Death + Doom Metal | Finland

From Brandon Corsair’s interview with Lasse Pyykkö:

Keeping the streak going of each album having some sort of change, the band’s upcoming album The Tritonus Bell simultaneously goes back to the band’s roots by dialing up the tempo and aggression while also throwing in a fair amount of traditional heavy metal influence. The combination is as deadly as it is unique; Hooded Menace has long had a very distinctive sound, and the addition of ‘80s heavy metal rhythm and lead parts complements their Candlemass-gone-death-metal sound perfectly.

LeprousAphelion | InsideOut Music | Progressive Rock + Metal | Norway

Artfully crafted progressive rock from a stellar roster of metal musicians — as evidenced by the below video, huge prog grooves await.

–Ted Nubel

FluisteraarsGegrepen door de Geest der Zielsontluiking | Eisenwald | Black Metal | Netherlands

Fluisteraars released a hell of an album just last year with Bloem, but Gegrepen door de Geest der Zielsontluiking doesn’t rest on those laurels, offering up another mighty declaration of stirring black metal. We’re premiering it today in full, so check back shortly.

–Ted Nubel

Oxygen DestroyerSinister Monstrosities Spawned by the Unfathomable Ignorance of Humankind | Redefining Darkness Records | Death + Thrash Metal | United States (Seattle, WA)

From Brandon Corsair’s track premiere of “Slaughtering the Guardian Monsters”:

Everything about [“Slaughtering the Guardian Monsters”] comes across as a band that’s figured out what was weaker about previous material and crushed it out of existence. The vocals are particularly caustic, the guitars are sharp and murderous, and the flow of the song bites deeper than anything they’ve done before.

Kal-ElDark Majesty | Majestic Mountain Records | Stoner + Doom Metal | Norway

What makes this record really sizzle is that, on top of creating some truly heavy stoner/doom sounds, Kal-El is acutely aware of how to rock, anchoring each titanic riff to a song structure dynamic and motivating enough to actually sell it as part of a connected whole.

–Ted Nubel

SculpturedThe Liminal Phase | BMG | Progressive + Melodic Death Metal | United States (Portland, OR)

After thirteen years, this notably peculiar progressive metal outfit (featuring members of Agalloch) returns.

–Ted Nubel

Our Place of Worship is SilenceDisavowed, and Left Hopeless | Translation Loss Records | Death + Black Metal | United States (Los Angeles, CA)

From Vince Bellino’s track premiere of “Covenant of the Fallen”:

Los Angeles-based death metal duo Our Place of Worship is Silence have never been shy about their misanthropy and negative outlook on humankind, an attitude that reinforces the darkness on their new album, Disavowed, and Left Hopeless. […] Engineered, mixed and mastered by TEETH guitarist and Translation Loss labelmate Erol Ulug, Disavowed, and Left Hopeless is the band’s most immediate and in-your-face sounding album to date.

Unjustified ExistenceLonesome Roads | Independent | Thrash + Death Metal | United States (Aurora, CO)

As modern life slowly re-opens we come to remember that free time is a scarce treasure. We don’t all have the time to indulge in 90-minute forlorn passages through Hell. Who needs them anyways, when Unjustified Existence’s untainted, brief thrash-cum-death delivers more hellish bang-for-its-buck than Doom’s E1M1.

–Colin Dempsey

MaysaloonA Lip to Earth, A Lip to Heaven and A Tongue to the Stars | Independent| Death Metal | Syria + Lebanon

Modern death metal’s appeal is how satisfying it is on a textural level. Maysaloon prioritizes that approach. The Syrian outfit punishes with tightly woven riffs and blast beats that function as a collective weight rather than individual, disparate elements.

–Colin Dempsey

Crimson FireAnother Dimension | No Remorse Records | Heavy + Power Metal | Greece

A cozy heaping of classic 1980’s heavy/power metal: blanket yourself in reverb and follow the soaring melodies within to inner peace.

–Ted Nubel

Kal-ElDark Majesty | Majestic Mountain Records | Stoner + Doom Metal | Norway

What makes this record really sizzle is that, on top of creating some truly heavy stoner/doom sounds, Kal-El is acutely aware of how to rock, anchoring each titanic riff to a song structure dynamic and motivating enough to actually sell it as part of a connected whole.

–Ted Nubel

Low Flying HawksFuyu | Magnetic Eye Records | Doom + Post-Metal | United States

Doom metal can largely be considered an earthbound, weighty genre, but when lifted up into the stratosphere, things get interesting. That’s basically the idea behind the nebulous genre of “doom-gaze,” and while I think Low Flying Hawks is perhaps too riff-focused to fit that label, there’s a floaty cloud layer that reverberates enticingly on top of their steely underpinnings.

–Ted Nubel

Maze of TerrorOffer to the Fucking Beasts | Xtreem Music | Thrash Metal | Peru

Thrashy excellence so raw you’d swear these slabs of beef were cut from a still-breathing cattle. Maze of Terror play thrash metal in its purest form, the style that’s as violent as it is belligerent, with snare drums like skulls slapping together and a bass tone that refuses to be ignored.

–Colin Dempsey

RuinSpread Plague Death | Nameless Grave | Death Metal | United States

From Ted Nubel’s track premiere of “At One with the Earth and Worms”:

Focused on serial killers, occult worship, and other such unpleasantries, [the] new album Spread Plague Death continues the band’s reign of terror since reforming in 2015 after issuing a demo back in the 1990s. Here, the band dishes out guts-on-the-floor death metal with horrid streaks of doom, black metal and grind discernable among the carnage.

The Slow DeathSiege | Transcending Obscurity Records | Doom + Death Metal | Australia

There’s never been a better fitting name for a funeral doom/death band than The Slow Death. Thankfully there’s just as much funeral as there is doom on Siege. The Australian act implements gothic passages and piano interludes, along with a flair for the operatic, like they’re penning their own eulogies.

–Colin Dempsey

Sallow Moth / VmthanaachtchSplit | ndependent | Death Metal + Experimental | United States

Sallow Moth’s concept-driven, annihilating death metal is in peak form on this EP, and it’s somehow out-weirded by Vmthanaachth’s half: a completely chaotic grind experimental nightmare.

–Ted Nubel