The New Music Thread : The Horde Edition

November 08, 2020 01:56 AM

The new single from Swedish melodeath legends Dark Tranquillity.

November 23, 2020 09:56 PM

Brutal death metal from Seattle, USA.

November 30, 2020 12:39 AM

A track taken from the brand new "Saint Desecration" album from Polish death metallers Azarath.

December 23, 2020 01:42 AM

The title track from the brand new "No" E.P. from Italian symphonic death metallers Fleshgod Apocalypse.

October 28, 2021 01:13 PM

Foreverglade - Worm (US)

Big Florida Death Doom energy. Just the right amount of festering atmosphere while still having interesting, melodic riffs to back it up for me. Production may be a bit too clean for some but I think it works very well here.

November 24, 2021 02:13 AM

Archspire - Bleed the Future (2021)

A new absolute mauling from one of the most brutal sounding Tech Death acts out there. While this one kind of bounces off of me, I can't deny the energy and grit that this release has. It's incomprehensively fast, unbearably loud, and a ton of fun. I can't exactly give it great marks on my account, but there's some serious technical prowess being shown off here.

3/5

December 14, 2021 09:42 PM

New Immolation album due 18 Feb 2022.  I am a bit underwhelmed by the start of it although I acknowledge it does get better and becomes exactly what I would expect from the guys.

August 23, 2022 03:54 PM

New Autopsy album is due out 30th September. Released on Peaceville it is called Morbidity Triumphant.

A lyric video promo for the song Skin By Skin is available on YouTube:


February 04, 2023 12:14 AM

We got a date.


https://7htarget.bandcamp.com/album/yantra-creating





February 24.  I've been waiting over a year for news about their fourth album, and now I only have to wait three weeks for the release.

April 01, 2023 11:34 PM

Scar Symmetry? I haven't heard that name in years... Welcome back, you amazing Swedish sci-fi melodic death metallers! https://www.reddit.com/r/melodicdeathmetal/comments/127n2vi/release_date_for_scar_symmetry_the_singularity/

January 04, 2024 03:12 PM

Deconsekrated - Ascension in the Altar of Condemned (2024)

Released 1st January 2024

Another quality outfit from the Chilean metal scene, death metal four-piece, Deconsekrated, have now unleashed their debut album upon the world. They aren't reinventing the wheel here, or really doing anything that hasn't been done hundreds of time before, but it is skillfully executed and full of vitality and energy, with the occasional breakdown into a more considered death doom pacing providing tempo variation. Vocalist Gûl Evokator has a harsh barking growl that gives the vocals a convincing howling abyss-demon quality that sits very well within an old-school-influenced death metal context. Alongside that there are a couple of ritualistic-sounding ambient, chanted parts in the intro, "Invocation" and the first part of the album's longest track, "Litany of the Blasphemous". Mostly though, it must be said, this is pummelling, no frills, blasphemous death metal, a style of DM that I am very much at home with and can appreciate for it's lack of pretension and focus on providing neck-wrenching blasts to inspire even the most reticent of moshpits.

The production is spot-on with the riffs sounding beefy and precise, aided by the muscular rhythm section of bassist Fides Naash and drummer Rigor Mortis (something tells me these guys may be using pseudonyms) who sounds at times like he is pounding on the inside of the listener's own skull! Guitarist Agorh Skullptor unleashes the odd short, Slayeresque solo, but nothing indulgent or ill-fitting to distract from the impending battery. There are plenty of lines to be drawn to OSDM classics like Mental Funeral, or Diabolical Conquest, but with a more modern production which may not deliver the full cavernous experience, but does sharpen up the riffs and provide a sharpness to the sound that gives it a focus away from a deathly, foetid atmosphere and more onto musical precision. The strength of chilean metal is that it shows a reverence for metal's former glories whilst unafraid to adopt a modern approach and production that ensures that the material has relevance. And so 2024 kicks off in solid style with the chilean scene showing exactly why it is growing in reputation within the metal world.

4/5

January 19, 2024 08:26 PM

The brand new eleventh full-length "Nonagon" from Norwegian death metallers Blood Red Throne hits the shelves on 26th January. There last four albums haven't exactly set the world on fire so I'm hoping for a return to form shown on records like 2005's "Altered Genesis" & (to a lesser extent) 2011's "Brutalitarian Regime".



January 26, 2024 12:31 AM

Florida death metal legends Massacre have a brand new E.P. coming out on 1st February called "Tri-pocalypse".

February 24, 2024 11:31 PM

Finnish melodic death metallers Before The Dawn have a brand new E.P. coming out in March called "Archaic Flame". I've always found these guys to be worth listening to but they dropped the ball with their last album "Stormbringers" so the jury is out on whether they can recover from that blip.


 

February 25, 2024 02:16 AM

I'm a big fan of 2021's "Feel" debut album from Los Angeles death metallers Apparition which we featured here at the Academy at some point so I'm planning to be all over the follow-up "Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State" which is due to be released on 22nd March.



February 25, 2024 02:20 AM

Belgian brutal death metal stalwarts Aborted have generally been pretty consistent since a couple of dodgy releases in the late 2000's with their last five albums all being worth a listen so I'll probably get onboard once their brand new twelfth full-length "Vault of Horrors" is released on 15th March.



February 25, 2024 02:58 PM


I'm a big fan of 2021's "Feel" debut album from Los Angeles death metallers Apparition which we featured here at the Academy at some point so I'm planning to be all over the follow-up "Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State" which is due to be released on 22nd March.

Quoted Daniel

I had "Feel" pegged at a creditable 4.5/5 and even bought a vinyl copy, so am looking forward to going another round with the Autopsy acolytes.

February 26, 2024 03:30 PM

Contaminated - Celebratory Beheading

Released 9th February on Blood Harvest

Contaminated are a death metal crew from Melbourne who have been around for more than a decade now, but who have only just got around to releasing their sophomore, following a full seven years after their debut, Final Man. The man behind the band is Lachlan McPherson who, amongst a number of other projects, is also behind grinders Rawhead, with Contaminated (like Rawhead) originally beginning life as one of his solo projects before being expanded into a full band after the release of his Pestilential Decay demo in 2014.

The band's debut was a cavernous-sounding, raw kind of affair and they have certainly taken huge strides production-wise with Celebratory Beheading. The sound is cleaner and clearer and although I would often see that as a downward step, I think it better fits what the band are trying to get across. The focus here is less on creating a foetid atmosphere than dealing out an object lesson in bruatality, less the lumbering menace of a threat unseen than the more immediate threat of a fist in the face. I guess that Lachy has brought across some of the inherent brutality from Rawhead's grinding, on which he had been concentrating in recent years, which has contributed to making Celebratory Beheading a much more aggressive and violent-sounding album than it's predecessor.

The individual tracks are quite dense, mainly due to a quite heavily distorted guitar sound and a powerful, pummelling drum performance from skinsman Christoph Winkler who is a member of several grindcore outfits such as Internal Rot and Incinerated, where he deals out blastbeats for fun. Vocals-wise, Lachy's bellowing is exceedingly aggressive and he often sounds like he could strip paint off your walls, if not actually tearing them down completely. It's not all hypercharged velocity, however and the band do like to shift down and hit a slower groove from time to time, to add some telling contrast to the more explicit violence of the hi-speed blasting, giving the listener time to gather themselves in preparation for the next blitzkrieg.

Ultimately, this is an album of no-nonsense, raucous death metal, with deathgrind leanings that makes no pretention to being anything other than that and successfully delivers on it's premise of out and out aural violence. Approach it as such and there is much to get your teeth into here.

4/5

March 09, 2024 09:34 AM


March 09, 2024 09:53 AM

After absolutely loving 2001's "Worst Enemy" & quite liking 2003's "Spreading the Rage", I'm very interested in the brand new twelfth full-length "Killing Karma" from German death metallers Disbelief which is due to hit the streets on 31st March.



March 09, 2024 09:59 AM

Italian tech deathsters Hour of Penance are due to release their ninth album "Devotion" on 5th April. I've been a big fan of them for around fifteen years now so I'll be all over it.



March 15, 2024 03:42 PM

New Ulcerate this year.  14th June - Cutting the Throat of God.

I have placed a pre-order already.  I trust these guys enough to buy anything they release cold.


March 15, 2024 04:11 PM

Ulcerate are one of those names I see around that are held in very high regards in certain circles, yet who I always run a bit scared of due to their reputation for technicality and dissonance. I see that I rated their "The Destroyers of All" album with a 3.5 about three years ago, but don't remember much about it if I'm being honest, so I may have to give them another go and a new album may be as good a reason as any.

March 15, 2024 07:49 PM

I've been a huge fan of Ulcerate since my return to metal in 2009 & religiously check out everything they put out with an expectation of high quality. It certainly helps that they have the best drummer in the world within their ranks (& I genuinely mean that - all genres too). I don't think technicality is as much of a thing for them as it used to be although the dissonance is still there. They've become one of the more creative extreme metal bands in the world these days & I think their last album "Stare Into Death & Be Still" was their finest work to date.