Upcoming Metal Releases: 9/18/2022-9/24/2022

Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of September 18th, 2022 to September 24th, 2022. 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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New Releases

Razor — Cycle of Contempt | Relapse Records | Speed/Thrash Metal | Canada (Guelph, Ontario)

The new Razor may have been decades in the making, but it’s certainly worth the wait. The thrash legends often known as the “Canadian Slayer” are slaying once again, and despite their age now and having been legends in the 80s, they don’t miss a beat when it comes to hard, punishing, straight-forward thrash. You don’t want to sleep on this release if you’re a fan of the old-school.

–Addison Herron-Wheeler

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Gaerea — Mirage | Season of Mist | Black Metal | Portugal (Porto)

A little over a year ago, I looked at Porto’s dynamic metal scene and the bands like Gaerea who keep that energy high. Proving my point, the hooded black metal act is back with new LP Mirage, a furious record that brings the same density of detail and anguished vocal performance as Limbo, this time with a coat of gloss and gold leaf. On songs like the title track, Gaerea keeps the pace high while threading in keening guitar melodies and maximalist rhythmic flourishes that reward repeat listens. Gaerea is not a black metal act inclined to stray too far into atmospheric textures. Rather, this gang of hooded figures push past black metal orthodoxy by saturating their work with bombastic ideas and packaging it in crystalline production. That the vocal performance is as rage-filled and forceful as it is only adds to Mirage‘s overall heft.

–Colin Williams

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Frayle — Skin & Sorrow | Aqualamb Records | Atmospheric Doom + Post-Metal | United States (Cleveland, OH)

Frayle have variously described themselves as ‘female-fronted doom’, ‘witch-rock’ and ‘music for the night sky’. This should give you a good idea of the vibe of Skin & Sorrow. Though only the young band’s second full-length, it’s a confident and full-bodied collection, teeming with seductive grooves and bewitching textures. The viscous riffs, ethereal vocals and crystalline production cast a heady spell, and add up to a thrillingly-fresh take on a subgenre whose every trick has become extremely familiar.

–Tom Morgan

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Venom Inc. — There’s Only Black | Nuclear Blast | Heavy Metal | United Kingdom

Now joined by a full-time drummer, ex-Venom members Mantas and Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan continue their, heh, venomous career of thoroughly evil, blackened heavy metal.

–Ted Nubel

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Gutvoid — Durance of Lightless Horizons | Blood Harvest | Death Metal | Canada

If you were super cool in 2021, you might bremember a four way split by Rotted Life called 4 Dimensions of Auditory Terror where bands like Blood Spore, Coagulate, Soul Devourment, and Gutvoid brought four tales of death-drenched terror like an old shudder pulp magazine. This is at least how I remember 2021.

Gutvoid is ready to take on the world in their debut Durance of Lightless Horizons. Now with a full 52(!) minutes, and with songs like “Wandering Dungeons” and “The One Who Dwells Beyond Time,” this act is ready to play Dungeons and Dragons where all players are undead and the goal is to terrorize the living.

–Jonathan Carbon

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Graal — Ocularchy | Independent | Raw Black Metal + Punk | Canada

Graal is here to remind me how far one can fall into music and be absolutely in love with a sound that you probably can recommend to the majority of people you know. The tags of bestial black, punk black, and raw black perhaps does not do the absolute bonkers off the wall sound that Ocularchy offers. If one wants a flowery description, imagine ingesting drugs and trying to see the future through ritual magic but also in the back of a moving truck. The release comes on 50 tapes complete with mystic ephemera written all over it that is sure to scare the shit out of the people you talk to at parties. This is not for them. This is for you and your psychic quest through the Saturnian Current.

–Jonathan Carbon

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OTUS — Torch | Time to Kill Records | Sludge + Doom Metal | Italy

From Ted Nubel’s full album premiere:

Immense heaviness may sit at the center of the record, but Otus meld that with explorative textures that have more in common with progressive rock and ambient music than they do sludge or post-metal. On Torch, this musing introspection is what gives the album its stunning depth.

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Blodskam — Ave Eva | Suicide Records | Black Metal | Sweden

Swedish black metal full of vitriol, classic black metal aggression, and really evil riffs.

–Ted Nubel

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Freedom Hawk — Take All You Can | Ripple Music | Stoner + Doom Metal | United States

Freedom Hawk has built their rock-solid stoner assault on the bones of touring vans and lit it on fire with with spent beer tickets for kindling: while they’re one of those bands you really should try and see live, Take All You Can pulls from their road-honed cohesion to deliver some mood-boosting riffwork.

–Ted Nubel

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Harvest of Ash — Ache and Impulse | Horror Pain Gore Death Productions | Doom Metal | United States (SLC, Utah)

Ache and Impulse, Harvest of Ash’s debut album, sits in the middle of two doom metal extremes. There are traditional influences in the riffs and drums, erring closer to the style’s incubatory period, but on the other end of the spectrum are post-metal stretches of dynamics. As such, Harvest of Ash scratch plenty of itches without picking at any scabs.

–Colin Dempsey

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Mo’ynoq — A Place for Ash | Independent | Black Metal | United States (Raleigh, NC)

A Place for Ash floods the senses, pouring pummeling black metal into the ears so aggressively it seems to take physical form as well.

–Ted Nubel

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KEN Mode — Null | Artoffact Records | Noise Rock | Canada (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

From Tom Campagna’s interview:

KEN Mode has been a powerful force in the noise rock scene for a long time now. With recent albums like Success and Loved garnering the band more attention, they were poised to naturally evolve, but things came to a halt in 2020 like they did for most people, and they had to get creative. NULL is their latest creation, an album recorded in the isolation of the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic when the band was separated by the constraints of inter-provincial travels.

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Sonja — Loud Arriver | Cruz del Sur Music | Heavy Metal + Gothic Rock | United States (Philadelphia, PA)

I will admit to being wary of anything billed as heavy metal and gothic rock: it’s mostly bands finding new, low-effort ways to merge goth rock with heavy metal and drag both down at the same time. Not the case here, as Loud Arriver (featuring Melissa from Crossspitter on vox/guitars) cultivates a sleek, sexy gothic atmosphere that feels fully-formed and cryptically mystic in all the right ways, but fills this space with aggressive, rock-oriented heavy metal. Gothic rock isn’t just a texture duct-taped on top of lukewarm traditional metal here – this is the real deal in all respects.

–Ted Nubel

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SpellBook — Deadly Charms | Cruz del Sur Music | Heavy Metal + Hard Rock | United States

With a 70s stomp and high-pitched nasally vocals, SpellBook aren’t exactly hiding the influence of a certain Birmingham heavy metal band, but they lean into the mysticism with charming intensity and lay down the spooky stoner grooves that this blossoming fall season needs.

–Ted Nubel

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Stratovarius — Survive | earMusic | Melodic Power Metal | Finland

It’s actually been a while since Stratovarius’s last full-length – this new album comes from the same lineup as Eternal, though, and provides the same tier of shred-packed power metal.

–Ted Nubel

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Sundrowned — Glacious | Fysisk Format | Atmospheric Post + Black Metal | Norway

At times crystalline, bright, and airy, and others simply piercing, Glacious is a relatively short glimpse into Sundrowned’s world of elementally-charged atmospheric black metal.

–Ted Nubel

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Writhing — Of Earth & Flesh | Everlasting Spew Records | Death Metal | Australia

Melbourne’s Writhing release their debut full-length this week, and it’s as bilious and unrelenting as their 2020 demo Eternalised in Rot. This time, however, Writhing benefits from a clearer production that balances pulverizing drums, rumbling bass and from-the-bowels vocals in an enveloping death metal cocoon. Writhing knows the power of a riff—cascading guitar sections on tracks like “Uncreation” build tension and dread without pausing for breath. Though Writhing has credited the mid-’90s titans for inspiration, Of Earth & Flesh goes a step further than many golden-age opuses by refusing to slow down, giving this album an edge of madness and claustrophobia. This one’s out Friday via Everlasting Spew.

–Colin Williams

https://everlastingspewrecords.bandcamp.com/album/of-earth-flesh

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Adzes + Putrescine — Split | Independent | Sludge Metal + Death Metal | United States (Seattle + San Diego)

On Putrescine’s second split of the year (their EP with Kosmogyr also drops on the 23rd), the San Diego death metallers are blasting off to the cosmos. Featuring a track exceeding 13 minutes in length, Putrescine are taking this opportunity to flex their prog muscles, something hinted at on the more grandiose moments of their 2021 debut The Fading Flame. They share the EP with Adzes, the one-man, Seattle-based sludge act. Drawing on noise rock influences as well as the industrial churn of the Justin Broadrick-verse, Adzes’ side of this split offers a muscular counterpoint to Putrescine’s wild flights of fancy.

–Tom Morgan

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