Music

Top 5 Metal Releases: September

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: September

Revocation – Teratogenesis
	Free doesn’t mean disposable thanks to Scion AV, and Revocation’s Teratogenesis keeps the trend alive. Because Revocation can never settle on whether they’re a death or thrash metal band, these songs walk a tight rope that wiggles to the pulse of David Davidson’s stellar guitar work. It’s only 5 songs, but they’re all new and did you read the part about it being free? (Scion AV)

Propagandhi – Failed States

Failed States is throwback thrash filtered through 20-plus years on punk rock’s beaten path. As progressive as it is pissed off and as raw as it is calculated, Propagandhi’s sixth album is their sharpest yet, perfecting their pressuring political ideas without overpowering the music. With Supporting Caste Propagandhi pushed themselves to the top of their game. On Failed States, they might as well be laughing at the competition. (Epitaph)

Hooded Menace – Effigies of Evil

Hooded Menace have always been, well… menacing, but on Effigies of Evil they’ve somehow added a pretty successful sense of melody into their dank, dark and doom-swaddled death-metal sound. These songs plod more often than not, punishing the listener with a slow and suffocating sound that can still sometimes get the listener’s neck-snapping. As rare as they might be, the sparse, speedier sections of songs like “Vortex Macabre” and “Curses Scribed in Gore” are more than enough to keep Effigies of Evil from falling into the genre trap of being too little for too long. (Relapse)

Winterfylleth – The Threnody of Triumph

Far from revolutionary, The Threnody of Triumph succeeds because it knows what it wants and takes it with confidence. Winterfylleth’s sound doesn’t predicate itself on new ideas, instead focusing its sound on the folk-infused black metal of a time gone by to tell stories of centuries past. Stylistically, it blasts along at a pretty steady pace, with a soaring backbone and steamrolled song structures that strike a chord somewhere between early Primordial and a less synthesized Windir, and while it can’t live up to the lofty expectations set out by such a strong comparison, The Threnody of Triumph is one hell of a transition into the changing of seasons. If summer has left us, let this be the soundtrack—not quite so cold as black metal’s sharpest acts, but a glimmer perhaps of lingering frigidity. (Candlelight)

Cryptopsy – Cryptopsy

Cryptopsy albums are terrible more often than not, but the lingering sense that they’re capable of something great hasn’t gone away since None So Vile destroyed expectations in 1996. Every album since has been so marred by excuses and circumstances—a new singer, an old singer coming back, a guitarist leaving—that they’ve relied on gimmicks and experimentation to stay relevant. But Cryptopsy doesn’t pride itself on the “double blast beats” that tried to save Once Was Not or the shitty keyboard atmospherics that ruined the already terrible Unspoken King. Instead, it tries to recapture the nasty, and barring some of the glossy production flourishes, it mostly succeeds. These songs are as fast as they are technical, but Cryptopsy doesn’t feel like its putting on a show. With excuses erased and the focus put back on the music, Cryptopsy is the comeback the band needed. It’s far from perfect, but then neither was Blasphemy Made Flesh. (Independent)

Surprises, disappointments and albums to watch for next month

Surprise of the month: Rabbits don’t buy into the idea that sludge has to be slow with Bites Rites, an album that rumbles along with grooves like a boot to the face. Most impressively, they do it all without a bassist, gut punching the listener with an extra set of strings filtered through a second guitarist and an overall sense of nastiness that fits the cover animal’s slobbering snarls. (Good to Die)

Disappointments: Prototype’s Catalyst is plenty promising before Vince Levalois starts to sing. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.

Out in September: Neurosis’ Honor Found In Decay, Pig Destroyer’s Book Burner, Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind, Between the Buried and Me’s The Parallax II: Future Sequence, Anaal Nathrakh’s Vanitas and more, if you can believe it.