Hailing from the Bay Area, today we have Mountaineer and their very unique and emotional mixture of Doom/Sludge influences with dreamy Post-Rock/Shoegaze passages. Featuring members and ex-members of bands like Lament Cityscape, Lycus, and Secrets of the Sky, this outfit delivers a very solid two song EP as their debut release.

Opening with the crushing Doom riffs of “Come Fever”, you instantly get My Dying Bride-esque flashbacks. However, once the clean vocals appear, you know you are in for a completely different experience. Perfectly contrasting emotive vocals with punishing guitars, this track slowly moves into more ethereal atmospheres with Post-Rockish vibes and soaring weeping guitars.

Hailing from the dark depths of South America, today we have Colombian trio Nox and their demoralizingly crushing Black Metal 7-inch “Ancestral Arte Negro”. Featuring four raw and punishing tracks, this release brings forth a very organic BM sound that reminds us of the early days of the genre.

The release kicks off with the brutal onslaught brought forth by “Espectro”. The music is quite straightforward, but to the point delivering catchy riffs and powerful shrieks. The grainy sound behind the band’s sound gives it that certain vibe that 90’s releases used to have. Preparing for all-out war, “Atravesando El Umbral” is yet another powerful piece filled with pummeling drumming and a very chaotic and devastating tempo.

Hitting the listener like a bag of bricks to the face, today we have the latest exercise in brutality from Cancerous Womb and their EP “It Came to This”. Featuring three songs and a cover track, this release showcases the sheer brutality behind the band’s pummeling Brutal Death Metal/Grindcore style. Definitely not recommended for the weak of mind, this release does a great job in keeping the listener headbanging and entertained from start to finish.

Opening with the crushing riffing of “The Shrieking of Idiots”, the band sets a very tight precedent with catchy riffs and tight drumming. The vocals switch between deep growls and raspy shrieks, allowing for nice tempo transitions between the songs. Things move into the extreme with the totally chaotic and grindcore-ish “Formless” for about 60 seconds, showcasing a very drastic transition between songs.

Featuring a very complex and yet imposing sound, today we have Italy’s Summit and their debut full-length release ”The Winds that Forestall Thy Return”. Divided in 5 songs that last around 32 minutes total, the band does a pretty interesting job in combining Progressive Metal influences into a thick wall of Post-Metal elements. With a certain improvisational vibe, this release will surely grab your attention and will always keep you guessing what is coming up next.

The album commences with the sinister riffs of “Hymn Of The Forlon Wayfarer”, this 10-minute track slowly builds up as the intensity grows. This song reminded us of early Dysrhythmia stuff, but a bit less convoluted and more approachable. With the intensity in full swing, tracks like “Pale Moonlight Shadow” do a great job in keeping the momentum going and deliver very intricate passages with cool tempo changes, contrasted by whispers and screams in the background.

Coming out of a few very hard years with the death of founding member and drummer Tobias Graf and the departure of Sabine Scherer, the bands charismatic vocalist, Deadlock delivers their 7th full-length release titled “Hybris”. Featuring a more melancholic edge to their music than their previous two releases, this album brings us back to the catchiness of “Bizarro World” combined with the melodic side of “Wolves”.

Opening with the Groovy “Epitaph”, we are very quickly given the first glance of Margi Gerlitz’s vocals, which are actually somewhat similar to Sabine’s, but as the album progresses we notice they also have a wider range, allowing the band’s music to go to different places. This catchy opener is nicely framed with intricate drumming, direct riffs and subtle atmospheric elements. “Carbonman” and “Berserk” nicely step up the intensity level with two very engaging and heavy songs filled with cool guitar leads that ooze melody and provide a nice contrast when paired with Margi’s vocals.

Hailing from Texas, today we have Goatcraft and its very unique and dark ‘Necro-classical’ brand of Neoclassical music. Focusing on having a very sinister atmosphere, this release delivers 10 tracks of Instrumental keyboard/piano music that will haunt your dreams. A bit more somber than Charmand Grimloch’s work, this release offers a nice change of pace from our traditional Metal musical exploits.

Opening with the lush “Beyond Nothingness”, this one-man outfit creates a very dark and mysterious mood. With compositions like “The Rape of Europa II” and “Plague” we are feel like we are in the middle of the score of a horror movie and we can’t get out (in a good way). Perfectly blending lush atmospheric synths with the dramatic pianos, “The Great Morality” is one of our favorite pieces.

Creating a very interesting mix of Thrash, Punk, Hardcore influences, today we have La Horde and their crushing release “Dystopia”. Featuring 14 tracks of intense music, this release will keep the listener engaged from start to end and quite amused for the durations of the album. If you are looking for a mixture of Municipal Waste with Hatebreed and Unearth, this band should be of interest.

The album quickly makes an impression with the intense “Soleil Noir” and the Thrashy “Nous Saviouns”. By this point, the listener should still be trying to digest the unique style of the band, but at the same time being strangely attracted to it. The album continues to intoxicate the listener with the Punk-ier edge of tracks like “Ravage” and “Le Monde Inverti”, while still retaining that crushing Thrash Metal riffing which borrows from bands like Exodus and Dark Angel.

Just went you think a band can’t get any better, Harakiri for the Sky unleashes their third full-length release “III: Trauma”. Featuring an even more depressing and more refined sound, this Austrian duo delivers nearly 75 minutes of majestic music. Further expanding and perfecting their melancholic Post-Black Metal sound, the band keeps blowing our minds with their excellent musicianship and brilliant song writing abilities.

Opening with “Calling the Rain”, we instantly get an opus that sounds like a combination of Alcest and Katatonia, without being a rip-off of them. The band’s pace allows their music to grow and deliver waves of melancholic onslaughts as only a handful of bands can do these days. Not settling for one particular musical influence, “Funeral Dreams” moves into more melodic Death Metal territories with some similarities to October Tide… if they played with Black Metal inclinations.

Continuing their re-colonization of the Death Metal scene, today we have Sweden’s Centinex and their latest full-length release “Doomsday Rituals”. Having returned to the scene back in 2014, the band is not wasting any time in unleashing another crushing Swedish DM onslaught upon the unsuspecting listeners. Featuring a timeless sound, this album delivers over 30 minutes of relentless Death Metal that cannot be missed.

The first master lesion comes under the name of “Flash Passion”, as the atmospheric intro dies down; the riffing power of Sverker Widgren is instantly felt. This track has that timeless grittiness of bands like Grave and Entombed. Continuing the onslaught, “From Intact to Broken” and “Dismemberment Supreme” keep the heads banging and the tempo of the release at a very high point. The band’s command of the genre is quite clear in this intense opening.

With many Black Metal bands experimenting with all kinds of new elements and some others just focused on releasing kvlt stuff that sounds like it was recorded on a toilet, it is quite refreshing to hear bands like Valgaldr which keep the Norwegian BM torch alive. In “Østenfor sol” the band delivers around 42 minutes of raw and savage BM with the grace and melody of bands like Taake, old Satyricon, old Dark Throne, etc.

Opening with the raw onslaughts of “Tusen Steiner”, the band instantly delivers waves of riffs that are nicely paired with intense drumming and the traditional shrieks. The first standout track in this release is the killer “Et Slott I Skogen”, which features some awesome melodic riffs that will have you headbanging in seconds. This is exactly what we expect from a Norwegian BM band, killer melodic riffs paired with crushing intensity and rawness.