Another month, another truckload of top tier metal releases. 2021 just keeps on giving when it comes to music. I struggled hard to limit the below list to the ones that I did, and could easily have included more albums from what was a very packed April.
We’ll start with the absolutely crushing Body Void. I expected to love Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth, and the band haven’t disappointed. Over the years Body Void have spewed forth some of the best grim doom imaginable, and their latest is a paragon of suffocating filth.
Less expected was Saille’s new album V. Although I’ve enjoyed the band’s work in the past, V is something else entirely. Ditching the symphonics and injecting some death metal muscle into their infectious black metal, this album was a revelation.
If heavy doom metal with captivating riffs and melodies that won’t leave your brain is the sort of music that does it for you, then look no further than Conclave’s Dawn of Days. The band have written a blinder here, and I can’t get enough of it.
Spectral Lore’s Ετερόφωτος is a twisting work of ever-changing blackened art. Its labyrinthine ways and atypical excursions may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely for me. Ετερόφωτος is an album to get lost and trapped in.
Severed Within by Intonate is an album that hit me hard. The band’s brand of progressive death metal grabbed hold of me firmly and wouldn’t let go. Even now it still has me in a chokehold, unwilling to release me for a moment.
I couldn’t end this roundup without mentioning the blackened doom sludge of Oryx’s Lamenting a Dead World. Here is another sterling release that drew me in and wouldn’t let go. Between the crushing riffs and the immersive melodies, Oryx stand out from the crowd.
