This is the debut album from UK sludge/post-metal band Urzah.
The Scorching Gaze contains 42 minutes of material delivered in a charismatic hybrid metallic style. Urzah combine elements of sludge, post-metal, progressive metal, doom, and hardcore/metalcore into an exemplar of heaviness that feels timeless. Continue reading “Urzah – The Scorching Gaze (Review)”
This is the third album from US doom/post-metal band Aequorea.
Spread out over five engaging tracks, Departure is a 41-minute amalgamation of doom, post-metal, sludge, and blackened elements. This is my first encounter with Aequorea, but they make a good impression. Continue reading “Aequorea – Departure (Review)”
This is the debut album from US post-metal band Guhts.
Guhts play post-metal that benefits from avant-garde, sludge, doom, and shoegaze elements that allow the band to build and sustain compelling musical vistas over time. It’s all about emotion and atmosphere with Guhts, and across 46 minutes Regeneration is soaked to the core with feeling. Continue reading “Guhts – Regeneration (Review)”
Distances are a post-metal band from the US and this is their fifth album, (assuming you count 2016’s covers album Rip Offs).
Eagerly awaited after 2018’s hugely impressive Diableries, which rightfully made it into the top 3 of my album of the year list for that year, its follow up is finally here. Abstruse contains 41 minutes of new material, and finds the band altered, but full of fire and creative passion. Continue reading “Distances – Abstruse (Review)”
This is the second album from Norwegian post-metal band Sâver.
Sâver made a good impression on me with their 2021 split with Psychonaut, so this new release was a great opportunity to see what they are capable of with a full album to play with. Continue reading “Sâver – From Ember and Rust (Review)”
This is the fifth album from US doom band Morne.
Engraved with Pain combines elements of doom, sludge, post-metal, and crust, to create a 41-minute album of bleak emotion and textured heaviness. Continue reading “Morne – Engraved with Pain (Review)”
This is the fourth album from Belgian post-metal band Briqueville.
IIII contains 39 minutes of dark, enigmatic music. Briqueville’s style is deeply atmospheric, and IIII is the sort of album that will drag you into the darkness as it hypnotises with its shifting walls of rich mood. Continue reading “Briqueville – IIII (Review)”
This is the third album from US progressive metallers The Gorge.
Mechanical Fiction contains 45 minutes of modern, heavy music. The Gorge are an interesting band, in that they are ostensibly a band you’d give the tags of progressive metal and technical metal too, but they also incorporate avant-garde and jazz elements into their style, as well as having an underpinning hardcore/sludge influence that’s formative. Continue reading “The Gorge – Mechanical Fiction (Review)”
This is the debut album from UK post-metal band Mairu.
Sol Cultus brings together post-metal, sludge, and doom into a 49-minute feast of atmospheric heavy music. Mairu’s vision is a mood-rich immersive one, and Sol Cultus achieves their lofty ambitions. Continue reading “Mairu – Sol Cultus (Review)”
This is the debut album from Quiet Man, a doom/sludge band from the US who were formerly known as God Root.
Across 50 minutes Quiet Man bring an apocalyptic vision of darkness and extinction to the listener, rubbing their face into the contemporary horrors of existence as they unleash their wide-ranging sonic nightmarescapes. Continue reading “Quiet Man – The Starving Lesson (Review)”
Wonderbox Metal 