Music

Top 5 Metal Releases: January

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 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: January

Lamb of God – Resolution

You always know what to expect from Lamb of God. Conversely, you always know what to expect from Lamb of God. If I sound like I’m repeating myself, good, because as you’ve no doubt figured out, that’s something to expect from Lamb of God. What you can also expect from Lamb of God is an album that’s far better than it should be, one filled with the usual dose of half-timed chugging, flurried double kicks and vocals that often sound like they were recorded inside of a giant hose. Where Resolution differs from Wrath is a return to non-chalance. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they’re simply doing instead of trying. In spite of the fact that they’re still essentially re-writing the same songs ad nauseum, Resolution is a natural sounding album with intensely likeable grooves and remarkable dynamics. There are a few shockers on the disc, too, namely the surprisingly post-hardcore inspired “The Number Six” and the punk influenced “Cheated”. Resolution isn’t ground breaking, but not everything has to be.

Desecravity – Implicit Obedience

If you’re going to go technical, you’d better hope you’ve got the hooks to work it. Desecravity certainly sound well on their way, rushing through a sound that’s immediately reminiscent of Quebec’s Beneath the Massacre but with more of a penchant for actual songwriting. Implicit Obedience is partly marred by the typically sterile Willowtip production, but the drums are surprisingly organic sounding given the tempo these guys consistently play at and their label’s penchant for triggering the shit out of everything. There’s a definite feel that this is a debut album, but songs like “Demonize the Old Enemy” display a unique sense of dynamics that extend beyond weedly time changes. Those are there, but the extended grooves and slowed down passages really let things build, a welcomed change from the delirious flurry created by most of their peers. The neurotic sounding “Hades” is another stand-out, blasting through at light speed while circling around layered guitar work and mind lobotomising counterpoints. “The Collapse of Religion” on the other hand sounds spastic Suffocation. This won’t be for everyone, but the potential is plain to see.

Kayo Dot – Gamma Knife

Here’s an album that works in spite of itself. Kayo Dot makes everything such a chore. Gamma Knife is by all accounts their best album in years, which isn’t to say it distances itself from their nauseating pretentiousness. Nobody loves their own ideas as much as Kayo Dot, making them increasingly hard to tolerate, but while  a track like  “Rite of Goetic Evocation” inexplicably hides its black metal inspired furore behind a cloak of saxophones, the tension still seeps through. Call that a fitting representation of the album as a whole. Kayo Dot make no allusions about fulfilling their own grandiose ideas of metal as high-art, but the decision to reintroduce mheavier elements into their increasingly modern classical inspired tunes was a wise choice. The production on Gamma Knife is often atrocious, but at just 30 minutes long this is Kayo Dot at their most concise, removing much of the meandering junk that dominated their last few albums and delivering their most coherent album since Choirs of the Eye. That being said, it’s still kind of a mess–a beautiful car crash, if you will.

The Devil’s Blood – The Thousandfold Epicentre

A case of late but worth the wait, The Thousandfold Epicentre is about 30 years too late to the party, mixing King Diamond’s theatrics into a package that’s tightly knit around the sounds of Deep Purple, Jefferson Airplane and Judas Priest. More hard rock than metal, there’s an attitude on The Thousandfold Epicentre that suggests the band isn’t just aware of the shtick, but that they’ve totally bought into it. Layers of guitars and organs saturate the album’s 11 tracks, often sounding somewhere between demonic and delightful. Peculiarly named vocalist “F. The Mouth of Satan” pushes The Thousandfold Epicentre into the upper-echelon, delivering a powerful yet unique performance that bridges the gap between Halford and Heart. Her vibrato over does it, but given the album’s cinematic qualities, it works more often than not.

Woods of Ypres – Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

The circumstances alone promise to propel Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light into cult status, but the sad end to one of Canada’s most morose bands only emphasizes the emotional punch they’ve packed on this, their fifth and presumably final album. When David Gold couldn’t have known he’d die in a fatal car crash when he wrote songs like “Finality,” “Death is Not an Exit,” and “Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye),” but the sadness in these songs is a level up from the already suffocating gloom and doom of Woods 4: The Green Album. As a whole every thing is much improved, further distancing the band from their Agalloch-biting beginnings and towards a folk-infused take on Type o’ Negative’s unmistakeable sound. The lyrics are better, too, delving into issues of death, dying and depression without the hokeyness of some of the band’s earlier work. Still, it’s hard not to feel awful when Gold sings lines like, “I can be thankful to be alive, but I despise this life. In all my years, at best I’ve only learned just to survive.” Even more depressing (and prophetic) is “Alternate Ending,” which has Gold singing “back on the highway, under the moon, my final moments still wondering about you…” A tip: do not listen to this if already suffering from the winter blues.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: There were two pretty solid splits released this month, but the ten minute self-released split from Nails/Skin Like Iron might be the best. Again, it’s short, but shows a pretty impressive blend of crust, metal and punk. Nails impress as usual, showing a slower-side (by their standards) on the three minute “Annihilation,” and if you’re wondering why I keep pointing out song lengths, it’s because Nails’ other contribution clocks in at just 24 seconds.

Disappointments: Loincloth rose from the much hyped ashes of Breadwinner and Confessor, quickly catapulting my expectations towards a band as poorly named as this. Aside from the band name, Iron Balls Of Steel immediately alludes to some sort of pseudo-ironic Manowar parody, but the music in question exemplifies neither. Instead, Iron Balls of Steel is an incredibly monotonous exercise in trying to be anything but. It’s the longest 38 minutes you’ll hear this month, with a non-stop and indistinguishable blur of off-kilter chugging shapelessly going through the motions, like a sterilized Meshuggah copycat but without vocals to break things up. For a band whose past is as lauded as Loincloth, it’s hard to call this anything but a disappointment.

Out in February: Asphyx’s Deathhammer, Psycroptic’s The Inherited Repression, Corrosion of Conformity,  Terrorizer’s Hordes Of Zombies, Pharaoh’s Bury The Light and surprisingly quite a bit more. Metal’s poised for a big showing next month.