Avenged Sevenfold
Nightmare
Warner Bros Records
66:48 – 11 Tracks
The highly anticipated new release from A7X…  Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy on drums, and there’s really no band that sounds like these guys, and they keep their trademark sound… and the album is pretty much in honor of their fallen drummer.   Out front, clean vocals, catchy riffs, music, beats… for the most part, this isn’t the type of band we’d really care about on the Mosh Pit… but something about them… the fast, heavy over the top riffage and it’s just catchy as all hell…  http://www.avengedsevenfold.com/

Better Left Unsaid
Only The Dead To Witness
Static Age
43:27 – 13 Tracks
I’d have to classify this band/release as the new wave of american metal… sounding a bit like Chimaira… but with some brutal breakdown stuff too.  Some great catchy stuff, cool breakdowns (yes I know to some that’s an oxy-moron).  For the most part it stays brutal and thrashy… but they get some melodic guitar solo stuff… a metalcore band would take that cue to a emo whiney vocal chorus, but not here…. so it works well.   http://www.myspace.com/blumusic

Fleshwrought
Dementia/ Dyslexia
Metal Blade
32:52 – 10 Tracks
If you took Meshuggah and mixed them up with a death metal/brutal core band, I think you’d have Fleshwrought.  It’s a bit of a side-project sort of thing… the singer from Job for a Cowboy was recruited by the drummer from Animosity (along with other members from this band) to lay down the vocals for this brutal album.  Big chugga chugga heavy riffs, great technical drumming, and the vocal performance is dynamic and brutal as well… some experimental noisy stuff (but that’s a VERY minor part) and what’s that?  a saxophone too?  yes, brutal saxophones!! (again, a minor part in a song or two)  http://www.myspace.com/fleshwrought

Iron Maiden
“The Final Frontier” single
UMe
4:07
Another new single from the new album… this one is the title track, and it’s typical for Maiden… on the short side, but just a standard track, nothing really different or something to write home about.  However… when someone says “new Iron Maiden”  it’s still exciting!  http://www.ironmaiden.com/

KoRn
III: Remember Who You Are
Roadrunner
44:41 – 11 Tracks
When the Mosh Pit first started back in the early-mid 90’s… Korn was a highly requested band, it was heavy, new cutting edge stuff in the day… then it just got to be more and more commercial and flew off the Mosh Pit radar… but now with a new release, new drummer in tow and they’re still around… this new album is a bit of a throwback to the older says… I think it’s got a bit more of a raw feel… vocals seem a bit more like the old style… a bit more angry and stuff.   Korn has always had catchy stuff too.  http://modlife.com/korn

Nobody Lives Forever
Cradle Bay
FOF/EMI Records
53:00 – 13 Tracks
This is some pretty brutal stuff… like, yeah!!  BRUTTTALLL  Technical too… big riffs, heavy heavy stuff… then what!?  clean vocals? some keyboards too?    I’m all for stuff that can go back and forth so it’s not boring and stuff, but the vocals just get “too clean” for me on this.   Or maybe it gets too brutal?  I think the contrast is too great… otherwise, everything is way cool.  However, I don’t know of many bands that do this… so I give them points for that.  Hell, you’ll still hear it on the Mosh Pit!   http://www.myspace.com/nobodylivesforevermusic

Parity Boot
Into Nothing
SAOL
47:01 – 10 Tracks
A bit of a new hard rock commercial sound… almost a bit industrial, but not too much into the electronic part.  Just an industrial feel… vocally and musically… catchy, yet with the melodic metal base and really just sounds a bit like the “nu metal” that’s more popular in the mainstream hard rock channels these days.  http://www.myspace.com/parityboot

Proghma-C
Bar-do Travel
Mystic
73:59 – 10 Tracks
A little like Porcupine Tree and a little like Tool…  enough chugga heavy stuff to keep it interesting.   I like it a lil bit, as I have been digging more of the “prog hard rock” lately… such as 3, Porcupine Tree, Transatlantic, etc.   http://www.myspace.com/proghmac

Votum
Metafiction
Mystic
44:43 – 7 Tracks
This is… uh… um.   a smidge like Tool… or some of the lighter Opeth or Katatonia… or kind of like the stuff above… but not really as heavy… if heavy at all. http://www.myspace.com/votumband