Music

Top 5 Metal Releases: October

by Tyler Munro

Each month, tons of new music from many taste-spanning genres is released into a fast-consuming, unforgiving market; 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, and Pop with the top five releases in each. Consider it your cheat sheet for year-end lists.

Top 5 Metal Releases: October

Hammers of Misfortune – 17th Street

Meat Loaf meets Candlemass, this is progressive metal done right and one of the most unique albums, heavy or otherwise, you’ll hear this year. The tale of two sides, 17th Street is chocked full of ridiculous Bay-area riffs and mixes them into a Queen inspired infrastructure. Maybe a bit too theatrical at times for most, it’s nonetheless an incredibly melodic album crafted as such, with its two distinctive sides made to be spun on vinyl in a cloudy, smoke-filled room. Not that we’d endorse that or anything.

Craft – Void

Here’s a release that lends itself to generic black metal praises about nihilism and misanthropy and hatred and junk, but what matters is just how good it is. Bleeding the genre’s more modern structures into the crashing, mid-tempo thrashes of the genre’s first wave, Craft has put out their best album yet. What’s most impressive is how the album closes: the 8-minute Void is the longest song on the album, and with its moderate pace the most plodding, but effective dynamics help to make it the most demonic sounding cut on the album. At a time when black metal bands are striving for frillier sounds, Void brings what the genre’s been missing: unrepentant anger. For an example of that, look no further than there being a song called “I Want To Commit Murder”

Absu – Abzu

Absu has always been held back by their strengths. The acidic vocals, piercing guitars, frenetic tempo changes and unrelenting drums made for a unique sound that sometimes became too trebly and hollow for its own good, but on Abzu, their second self-titled release following 2009’s Absu, they went and did something unthinkable: they wrote riffs to fit their songs instead of the other way around. With a deeper low-end and an emphasis on songwriting as opposed to simply out-blasting their peers, here’s an album that survives on its laurels: fast, thrashy black metal that solidifies the band as a real contender for arguably the first time in their 20-plus year career.

Immolation – Providence

Okay, so this is just an EP, but you know what? New Immolation is new Immolation, and this is a fucking free release, meaning you’re not only getting new music from one of death metal’s most important bands, you’re getting it on the house. The thing is, don’t think free means forgettable because this is right in line with the rest of the band’s discography. As expected, it’s disorienting, punishing, angular and unique sounding, but with a surprising amount of groove and melody for a band that’s largely predicated on avoiding such conventions. Not so much a compromise as it is a slight turn to the left, Providence is the best free release you’ll hear this year.

Insomnium – One for Sorrow

One of the more melodic death metal albums you’ll hear this year, One for Sorrow continues the trend of Insomnium putting out some of the most sombre sounds around. Brooding without coming off as whisper-inspired, Twilight infused pish-posh, One for Sorrow takes a song or two to click, but by the tapped leads of “Through the Shadows” it takes hold and doesn’t let go. Like Amorphis, these guys have become increasingly more accessible as their profile increases. Unlike Amorphis, they’ve incorporated more cleans and hooks into the mix without becoming monotonous drivel.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: I’ve been waiting years for Fuck the Facts to click, so naturally it’d happen on their last supper: just as I’d written up a blurb about how I can’t remember what this album is called because, who cares, it fucking clicked. And sure, I still can’t remember the title (looking it up, it’s Die Miserable), but for the first time in the band’s surprisingly lengthy tenure that can be attributed to my own absent minded laziness (and hasty iPod syncing). Die Miserable is what Fuck the Facts have been building towards, managing to bring some memorability into the band’s usual mix of all things extreme metal. While it still sounds like two trains—one driven by Nasum, the other by Converge—smashing full force somewhere in the middle, leads like the ones in the tap-filled “Census Blank” keep things interesting. Oh, and their vocalist is a woman. Apparently that’s something that seems to be brought up ad nauseum, so hey, there it is.

Disappointments: I’m well aware of how good Ron Jarzombek is at guitar, but at this point I’m just not sure I care. The latest from Blotted Science, The Animation Of Entomology is a 7-track collection of “songs” written under some pretty ridiculous circumstances: Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster and super-drummer Charlie Zeleny join Jarzombek to write songs (using Jarzombek’s own 12-tone system) to scenes from movies. The concept isn’t far from the Bambi experiment Spastic Ink did years ago, and while it’s exponentially more listenable, it’s ultimately just a wash of weedly-weedly guitar shred and pulsing tempo changes. It may be the heaviest thing Jarzombek & co. have ever done, but that’s not quite enough to make it interesting. When it comes to tech-metal in October, it’s Electro Quarterstaff’s Aykroyd or bust.  

Out in September: Cynic’s Carbon Based Anatomy, Megadeth’s Th1rt3en, Blut Aus Nord’s 777 – The Desanctification, Esoteric’s Paragon Of Dissonance and  Nightwish’s Imaginaerum