Music

Top 5 Metal Releases: April

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, Electronic, and Pop with the top five releases in each. Consider it your cheat sheet for year-end lists.

Top 5 Metal Releases: April

Torche – Harmonicraft

On Harmonicraft, Torche have done the unthinkable, releasing an album that somehow successfully blends sludge metal’s intensity with modern rock sensibilities. Songs like “Kicking” are filled to the brim with hooks befitting a much poppier band, but then that’s the dynamic, meshing hooks with the added punch of songs like “Reverse Inverted.” Torche has always wavered, sometimes unsuccessfully, between two distinct sounds, never quite sure whether to go all out loud or emphasize their obvious melodic talents. The blend is still there on Harmonicraft, but they’ve finally settled into their comfort zone. The added bluesy, almost psychedelic punch of songs like the twitchy-if-anticlimactic title track add more dynamics than a droning, bland sludge song ever could, though it’s not to say the album can’t brood with the best of them. For that, look no further than the aptly named “Solitary Traveler”.

High on Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis

Fair or not, I’d always considered High on Fire to be a bit of a poor man’s Mastodon, which is odd since Mastodon wouldn’t exist had Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher not met at a High on Fire show. But whatever the case, the comparison diverged when Mastodon’s sound took a proggy left turn on Blood Mountain, and while High on Fire’s releases over the past few years have sputtered inconsistently between solid (Death Is This Communion) and shaky (Snakes for the Divine), De Vermis Mysteriis might be the band’s best yet. It’s massively groovy, massively rhythmic and ultimately just massive sounding, but not only that, it’s better for it. Each track snowballs off the last, building to the bang your fucking head clarion call of “Warhorn.” Oh, and De Vermis Mysteriis is a concept album which tells the story of Jesus Christ’s time travelling Chinese brother who, long in the future, discovers his brother’s destructive influence on society. So there’s that.

Saint Vitus – Lillie: F-65

Let’s put this in perspective: Saint Vitus have been a band longer than mostly everyone else on this list has been alive, and Lillie: F-65 proves that experience perseveres over all—industry frustrations, line-up changes and the personal turmoil that comes with the loss of founding member and longtime drummer Armando Acosta, all of which come together to make the band’s first album in 17 years a harrowing experience typical of their back catalogue. A concept album of sorts, Lillie: F-65 takes its name from an old barbiturate to use one woman’s story as the vessel to vent nearly 20 years of angst. The return of Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich shows the band hasn’t skipped a beat; it’s their first with him since 1990’s V and his powerful, unmistakeable voice meshes wonderfully as ever with Dave Chandler’s single guitar attack. Distortion waves across each song, sonically pounding the listener instead of battering them with senseless, modern heaviness. And while Lillie: F-65 sounds anything but dated, it could just has easily as come out after 1995’s Die Healing, which is about all you can ask for from one of doom metal’s most important pioneers.

Mares of Thrace – The Pilgrimage

As caustic as The Pilgrimage is, it’s never unrelenting. That’s the balance Mares of Thrace has found on their second full length. And while the obvious angle is to focus in on the Calgary two piece’s all-female line-up, that’s neither here nor there—and frankly it’s more than a little insulting. Deduce the album to its bare bones and you’re left with an album filled with sounds that aren’t so much male or female as they’re often inhuman. In its tempered, 42 minute runtime, The Pilgrimage pairs its percussive backbone with shredded vocals, tortured, piercing guitar work and an inclination to stab first and clean up the mess later. Oh, and its album cover is fucking fantastic.

In Mourning – The Weight of Oceans

In Mourning broke out with The Shrouded Divine, their debut album of Opeth-ian melodic death metal, but faltered on Monolith, its by-the-numbers sequel. Thankfully, The Weight of Oceans brings things back up a notch, expanding on their sound with added atmospherics and a refined approach to their sometimes dreary take on the genre. The Weight of the Ocean takes its time, sometimes to a fault, but its natural approach makes for a more cohesive album. Rather than plod along in the mid-tempo pace that’s burdened so many bands before them, In Mourning blends in bits of their gothic roots (like “Celestial Tear,” which could pass for a Type O Negative track) with heavier bursts; “Isle Of Solace” for example begins with a blistering, black metal-infused blasts. As you’d expect, The Weight of Oceans overstays its welcome at over an hour long, but there are enough highs and lows to make you struggle through the occasional lulls.

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: Surprise of the month? How about the reaction to Dragonforce’s The Power Within, which replaces the vitriol that followed their last two albums with an almost wistful indifference. Crazier still is the idea that they’ve somehow returned to form; that new vocalist Marc Hudson has brought the band back to that hopeful period between Valley of the Damned and Sonic Firestorm. Yes, The Power Within is a step back in the right direction, trading in much of the band’s excessive, standoffish guitar-work in for their old melodic spirit, but it’s still monumentally monotonous and desperately forgettable. 

Disappointments: You know how everybody knows one dude that just doesn’t know when to tone it down? Who fires on all cylinders at all times, and only knows how to fight off his hangovers by getting drunk? That’s Municipal Waste’s The Fatal Feast, only, y’know… in space.

Out in May: Architects’ Daybreaker, Marduk’s Serpent Sermon, Burzum’s Umskiptar, Shadows Fall – Fire From The Sky, Cattle Decapitation – Monolith Of Inhumanity, Ne Obliviscaris’s Portal Of I