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

Top 5 Metal Releases: October

Enslaved – RIITIIR

RIITIIR won’t hit you immediately. Like the letter “I” to its title, there’s simply too much music here to take it all in after one listen. The album condenses what feels like a decade’s worth of music into an already over-long 67-minute package, running the gamut from spiralling dissonance to expansive, hyper-melodic prog rock… and often in the same song. At just under 7-minutes, “Veilburner” is the album’s second shortest song and, with its punkish rhythms, soaring clean hooks and underlying heaviness, an obvious highlight. After the band’s dominant Axioma Ethica Odini it’s the kind of concise, masterful music we expected from Enslaved. There’s plenty more of it to be found on RIITTIIR, but wading through the excess is a bit more than we bargained for. (Nuclear Blast)

Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind

Axe To Fall was jarring, just not in the way Converge fans were used to—too many collaborations, too many ideas and, ultimately, too many riffs. It was good, not great; not like All We Love We Leave Behind. At this point calling a Converge album heavy is as obvious as it gets, but this might be their pinnacle. Not emotionally, not technically, but with its sheer weight. Here the band is left to their own devices: no concepts, no collaborations and no ulterior motives. The result is four friends who’ve been together a long time settling in (but not settling) and simply playing.  (Epitaph)

The Secret – Agnus Dei

Like Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind, The Secret’s Agnus Dei comes out of Kurt Ballou’s Godcity Studios like a train set on fire. The difference is that it replaces the raw emotion of Jacob Bannon’s never-ending aggression with a caked on layer of absolute evil. At their core, both bands walk the fine line between metal and hardcore, but The Secret thrive on the slimier side of things, dripping its heavier core in crust and sludge. If All We Love We Leave Behind is the break-up album, Agnus Dei’s the soundtrack to the impending murder. (Southern Lord)

Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay

Given to the Rising was the first Neurosis album that felt like little more than a collection of songs. By any of their pale imitator’s standards, it was a solid album, but not for Neurosis. And so Honor Found in Decay gets to be the band’s first chance at redemption. It succeeds, just maybe not like you’d expect. It’s cold and calculated, with each song going exactly where it wants to. It never kicks gas onto the fire, but by the end you’ll find yourself in flames and loving ever minute of it. (Neurot)

Pig Destroyer – Book Burner

It took five years for Pig Destroyer to follow up Phantom Limb with Book Burner, their fifth album, and it takes all but five minutes to let the listener know it was worth the wait. The catch? It’s over as soon as it starts. Not that it means its missing something: Book Burner is all things aggressive, precise and, as with the rest of their albums, abso-fucking-lutely terrifying. This isn’t for the feint of heart, and new drummer Adam Jarvis fully integrates himself immediately, fitting tight grooves into one of grindcore’s riffiest bands. That’s what’s always set them apart from their peers. As fast and (so) furious as they are, Pig Destroyer write solid songs underneath the ferocity, if only to remind your ears of how they died. (Relapse)