XERATH
III
(Candlelight)
A proggy symphonic type of black metal thing that really just sounds more or less like something Devin Townsend would do. They have the wall of sound of production, the dymanics that Devin Townsend would have, and yeah, a bit like Strapping Young Lad meets just Devin Townesend solo stuff… maybe throw in some Opeth and Dimmu Borgir too.

IN THIS MOMENT
“Sick Like Me” (single)
(Atlantic)
As “Commercial” as these guys always have seem to been (probably because of the vocals) the music is typically pretty heavy… and this is the case with this single.  PRetty cool catchy guitar works, but there’s the vocals which are good and melodic and fit well. The music could easily back up some melodic death vocals too…

Cannibal Corpse
A Skeletal Domain
Metal Blade Records
Is it possible that these guys can get better?  Yeah, there’s a reason these guys have been around as long as they have… they know what they are doing.  Heavy brutal classic death metal and yeah, even technical too.  Great new stuff!

The Scintilla Project (Fet. Biff Buford Of Saxon)
The Hybrid
UDR Music GmbH
A side project with Biff of Saxon and Andy Sneap (producing and playing guitar) mixes some classic metal with a pinch of power metal and some good band work and the familiar voice of Biff.  Great epic feeling guitar work, melodic stuff.  It’s a concept album based on a movie of the same name

Hellspeak
The Slaughter Rule Of Agony
Winterfall Music
Cool heavier thrash stuff, almost a technical melodic death

Lonely Kamel
Shit City
Napalm Records,
A bit of a throwback hard rock type thing with a stoner metal sound with catchy cool riffs

Obey The Brave
Salvation
Epitaph Records
Classic hardcore stuff going on here, then getting a little bit into some post-hardcore with some more melodic vocals in the chorus, with a pinch of a twostep type of beat type thing going on, but otherwise, at its “core” haha, or it’s base, it’s classic old school hardcore.

Sepultura
Lles Tambuors Du Bronx Metal Veins Alive At Rock In Rio
Eagle Rock Entertainment
Live album from Rock in Rio with French industrial percussion group LES TAMBOURS DU BRONX. Pretty decent slab of tracks from their career with even more percussion and in front of a hometown crowd… Production isn’t quite as crisp as I’d like to hear, but it’s a bit more raw and live, so I guess that’s cool too.

The Contortionist
Language
eOne Entertainment
Crazy out there proggy hard rock metal.  Ambient hard rock type stuff, which will then just get all crazy and death metal vocals on you with crazy proggy music.  Proggy like maybe a Porcupine Tree

Antropomorphia
Rites ov Perversion
Metal Blade
Some classic death metal with a little bit of a black metal

Albez Duz
The Coming of Mictlan LP
Iron Bonehead
Doomy throwback goth metal, more on the doomy side than throwback with a little bit of Goth in there.

Matyrvore
Malevolent Desolation 12″ MLP
Iron Bonehead
Old school raw black metal. There actually seems to be some bass on this record though, so there’s a bit of a more fullness to it, as it’s not just some shrieking over cold sounding guitars…. it’s got some cold guitars, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a low end and some evil shit going on too.

Stryvigor
Forgotten by Ages
Svarga Music
Classic black metal with good production.  Cold, dark evil, nothing really ground breaking, but it’s cool to hear this black metal stuff with a bit of a groove and where the production is good to where you can actually hear what’s going on.

Obscure Burial
Ephiphany
Invictus Productions
Crazy fast punky blackened thrashy stuff that sounds like it was recorded two doors away on a micro-cassette recorder.  Ugh.  You can tell that it COULD have been recorded well if they wanted it to be, but it wasn’t.  Meh.

OTHERWISE
Peace At All Costs
Century Media
Catchy more commercial hard rock type stuff.  Cathy riffs and vocals and stuff, but probably a bit too much on the “solid rock” side of things for us to really get into it too much.

Krullur
Grounds For Termination
Horror Pain Gore Death
A raw basic pretty cool thrash thing with a bit of grind thrown in for good measure.

RED ELEVEN
Round II
Lifeforce
A wall of sound melodic hard rock type thing with some proggy/fusion elements

The Body Politic
Egressor
Self-Release (Asher Media)
A proggy melodic metalcore thing, a bit like Periphery or Protest the Hero… but with a bit of djent, more singy melodic parts. Extreme vocals are pretty cool, so is the music… I wish they’d just skip some of the real emo singy parts.

Mortuus (Sweden)
Grape of the Vine
The Ajna Offensive
Funeral doomy post metal black metal type stuff.  Songs seem to take a long time to go nowhere.

ORDINANCE
Relinquishment
AHDISTUKSEN AIHIO PRODUCTIONS
Decent melodic death a bit like classic Opeth… but the digital download is just in three tracks, one for each “side”  C’mon people, make it a digital download and split up the tracks properly!  ugh.