Job for a Cowboy
Sun of Nihilty – Single
Metal Blade Records
Starts off a bit melodic, but then just gets into more proggy technical death stuff.  Can’t wait to hear more!

ORANGE GOBLIN
Back from the Abyss
Candlelight
Big riffy power stoner metal. Cool n catchy with a pinch of doom and Black Sabbath.

DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT
Ziltoid 2
Century Media
Proggy catchy kinda poppy hard rockin’ metal like only Devin Townsend can do.   This is the double album follow up to Ziltoid.  Signature Hevy Devy wall of sound.  This will need a bit more time to digest, but fans of Dev will like this.

FLYING COLORS
Second Nature
(Mascot)
This supergroup (Portnoy, Neal and Steve Morse, Dave LaRue and Casey Macpherson) had one of my favorite albums of the year for their debut, and now the followup is pretty cool and catchy hard rock.  First track is a bit more proggy then anything they’ve done and some songs are more poppy… but overall, it’s pretty cool and catchy, however, it’s not really “metal”

AT THE GATES
“At War With Reality” (single)
At War With Reality
Century Media and
Well, here it is… a new song from At The Gates.  While it’s never going to be Slaughter of the Soul, it does have a similar vibe and lives up to being a great follow up to that album, even if it is 19 years later! Can’t wait for more.

White Empress
Rise Of The Empress
Peaceville Records
We already had the EP, well, now we have the full and it’s just as good, just more songs!  Featuring our friend Mary Zimmer formerly of Luna Mortis and Paul Allender formerly of Cradle of Filth.  Musically it’s similar to Cradle of Filth with the guitar tone and epic symphonic metal.  Vocals are a bit like Luna Mortis, however, the harsh vocals are even MORE harsh (in a good way) and the clean vox are great too.

Sick Of It All
Last Act Of Defiance
Century Media Records
Good, quality hardcore metal from one of the bands that helped start this subgenre. More metal and hardcore than some of their old punky beginnings.

Alunah
Awakening The Forest
Napalm Records
Female fronted doom/stoner band from the UK a bit more doom than stoner.

Black Crown Initiate
The Wreckage Of Stars
eOne Entertainment
Seemingly some proggy blackened death metal. Growls, clean vox, some stuff reminds of the good ol Opeth that we all knew and loved.   This is heavy, catchy, brutal and maybe a pinch of djent too.

Between the Buried and Me
Future Sequence: Live at the Fidelitorium
Metal Blade Records
Audio from their first Live Blu-ray/DVD package.  It’s amazing these guys can pull this off live, and this sounds great!

Decapitated
Blood Mantra
Nuclear Blast USA
These guys have never fucked around and why start now?  Thrashy brutal tech death.

Victims Of Contagion
Parasitic Unborn EP
Self Released (email submission)
Heavy brutal techy death metal.  Some classic death metal stuff but with some proggy tech death stuff going on too.

Judas Priest
Dragonaut (Single)
Epic Records

Zodiac
Sonic Child
Prosthetic Records
Catchy hard rock with a little bit of a blues thing going on.  Not metal, but still pretty cool stuff.

1349
Massive Cauldron of Chaos
Indie Recordings
True old school black metal, doing it like they’ve always done it.  Good melody, brutal attacks, a bit of a cold, evil feel too.  Frost has some crazy intense drumming going on too.

MR. BIG
…The Stories We Could Tell
Frontiers Music srl
The original members of Mr. Big with a follow up to their 2011 album.  Still catchy cool hard rock.  Eric Martin’s vocals are still spot on.

Necroholocaust (Canada)
Holocaustic Goat Metal LP
Iron Bonehead
Holocaustic Goat Metal? Really?  How could this not be cool?  Here’s how.  Once again, since this is a “vinyl release” this is two tracks. “Side 1” and “side 2” each about 22 minutes.  Yeah, it’s brutal frenetic black/death metal.  But really now.

Discord Curse
Burnt Offerings
Unsigned
Intense fast brutal mix of metal, almost reminding me a bit of Strapping Young Lad

Woodtemple
Forgotten Pride
Sacrilege Records
A melodic black metal… kind of neat with some more acoustic guitars going along with the screamy and cold black metal guitars going on. A bit doomy in that regard then too.

Laika
Somnia
Filth Regime Records (Asher Media)
Some cool melodic death from Manitoba. Neat catchy guitar riffage and maybe just a tiny tiny pinch of folk metal going on.  But basically some good melodic death that’s worth giving a shot.

Steve Rothery Band
Live In Rome
InsideOut
This is the Guitarist from Marillion’s solo stuff.  Live album, and not all that metal, just some cool rock/proggy rock guitar stuff.

Enchant
The Great Divide
Inside Out
Prog Hard rock band.  This is the original band of the newer singer from Spock’s Beard.  They’ve actually been around since 1993.  This is your basic proggy hard rock… longer songs, cool melodies, keyboards and harmonies and stuff.  I might have to dig to some back catalog here… but probably not really for the Mosh Pit! (I’ve said it before, i’d like to do a whole show of this kind of stuff though!)

TEMPLE OF VOID
OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL
RAIN WITHOUT RECORDS / SAW HER GHOST RECORDS
Sludgy doomy death metal

ISENBLAST
UNLEASHING THE DEMON SCOURGE
IN SATAN’S CUSTODY / DEMON BREATH PRODUCTIONS
Cold black metal with guitars mixed waaaay out in front.  Guitarist/sound engineer perhaps?  it’s a bit distracting, but still some decent raw black metal.