Music

Top 5 Metal Releases: August Edition

by Tyler Munro

Each month, tons of new music from many taste-spanning genres is released into a fast-consuming, unforgiving audience; it can be tough to get a handle on what’s new before it’s on to the next. In an attempt to highlight the standout releases, at the end of each month, AUX staff re-cap the month in Punk, Metal, Indie/Pop/Rock, Hip Hop, Pop, and Dance with the top five releases in each. Consider it your cheat sheet for year-end lists.

Top 5 Metal Releases: August Edition

All Pigs Must Die – God Is War

God Is War spits in the face of the last half-decade of American death metal. No chug-a-lug beats, no bounce  and no pig squeals, this is metallic hardcore’s response to a stagnating sound. All Pigs Must Die consists of a bunch of dudes in bands you’ve probably heard of (Converge, Give Up the Ghost, The Red Chord), but their sound strikes closer to vintage Nuclear Blast than modern Deathwish. God Is War is unrelentingly heavy and that can’t be overstated. It mixes that classic Swedish rumble, the bass-rattling low-end pioneered by bands like Dismember, and mixes it in with hardcore’s fervency, urgency and razor-sharp edge. Deathcore by definition, which means it’s anything but.

Manilla Road – Playground of the Damned

Think about this for a second: Manilla Road has been around since 1977, and they’ve ruled for more or less all of their 30+ years as a band. Playground of the Damned is just the latest in their ever-growing, ever-impressive discography of epic majestic progtastic nasal-blastic heavy metal. Not only is Playground of the Damned one of the their heaviest, but it’s probably their most to-the-point. If you’re not a fan of their playing-in-a-tin-can production values or Mark Shelton’s plugged-nosed operatics, this won’t win you over, but if you like your heavy metal classic and your drums full of fills (and the riffs full of thrills!), here’s an album that not only lends itself to silly, rhythmic wordplay but  hands as horns and all kinds of praise. It’s the album Iron Maiden wishes they could put out this far into their career. Suck it, Dickinson. (Just kidding. You’re awesome, Bruce).

Brainoil – Death Of This Dry Season

Brainoil’s long-awaited follow up to their self-titled debut is finally here, and it relishes the eight year wait with a groove-filled, anger spewing 24 minutes of filth-filled sludge metal. Like their debut, Death of this Dry Season almost seems too energetic for sludge, but in a genre that’s increasingly desperate for distinction, we’ll take it. Here’s an album that pulls no punches: instead, it lights said punches on fire. And fists of flame, in this case, come with throat-shredding vocals and an almost d-beat backing. There’s perhaps no better example of this album’s uniqueness than its second song, “Gravity Is A Relic,” which is what it might sound like if Dystopia wrote Black Sabbath songs.

Leprous – Bilateral
	Bilateral works so well in spite of itself: in spite of the obvious Opeth comparisons, in spite its	Agony is great as long as you don’t take it half as seriously as the band obviously does. Like their first album, Agony is scary-fast. Like, to the point where you just want to be, like, “slow down, dudes.” They don’t slow down. Not only that, but they’ve added a thick, sometimes overbearing symphonic element to their already overwhelming sound. Now in place of the piano that popped in and out of Oracles they’ve got strings (or synths that sound kind of like strings) winding in and out of their spider-fingered shred-fest. It’s all a little much, and for some it borders on the silly side of ridiculous, but even with the occasionally bizarre clean vocals and the over-the-top Beethoven meets blast beats Agony is an album that, if stripped of its intricacies and fanciness, would still beat the shit out of the average ear drum. That means it passes the test.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: Here’s something I never thought I’d say: Today is the Day wrote an album that’s borderline cock rock and…it’s good? Okay, so Pain Is A Warning never over-commits to sounding like Three Days Grace, but this is one of the most acerbic, creative metal bands around we’re talking about, so it’s obvious that songs like “Expectations Exceed Reality” would be jarring on the first listen.  “Wheelin'” bites Nine Inch Nails’ “Wish” pretty liberally, but the shriek-y vocals and razor-wire guitars make the song uniquely their own.  At the end of the day Today is the Day might have written their most polarizing album yet, and even after repeated listens it’s hard to say just how good it is. But the fact that its good at all speaks to their talent and perseverance.

Disappointments: See what I wrote above about Today is the Day? It applies here too. Seriously, Steve Austin, you’re pushing your luck. 

Out in September: Einherjer’s Norrøn, Wolves in the Throne Room’s Celestial Lineage, Opeth’s Heritage and Mastodon’s The Hunter. So yeah, September’s kind of a big deal (even if there is a new Staind album coming out).