2017 Metal

[2017shreds]

Temple of Void

[2017shreds]

Albums to slate up: Ascended Dead, Ostots, Nexul

[2017shreds]

21) Wulkanaz - Paralys

Neat little bassy black metal album. Nothing too groundbreaking, but the approach to production and sound adds a bummed garage rock aspect. Folk interludes quite good as well.

[2017shreds]

20) Venenum - Trance of Death

This album’s a bit of a mixed bag, with a fantastic final 27 minutes (the three-track “Trance of Death”) that progs out. Great leads, repetition/variation of musical ideas, and some crunchy parts. Then there are other tracks like “The Nature of the Ground” that are up-tempo and harsher. But I’m a bit bored by the other stuff around it, which is a bit more meandering and a bit less on point.

[2017shreds]

19) Acrimonious - Eleven Dragons

When this one gets going, it gives you a vision of a heterogeneous style of black metal irreducible to labels.

But that’s amidst a lot of competent but unmemorable dissonant black metal bits, and the albums’ 100 minutes or whatever has way more of those than it does post-Mayhem melodicism in the opening track or the #@&^ing Metallica-style acoustic outro that comes up in the last track.

[2017shreds]

18) Fall of Rauros - Vigilance Perennial

It’s been interesting to me to see how bands have re-integrated their Opeth influences into new kinds of songwriting. Surely one of the better proggy metal albums I’ve heard this year and probably worth spending time with if you’re a Between the Buried and Me fan.

[2017shreds]

17) Bear Mace - Butchering the Colossus 

For band name and cover art alone, this may well by the death metal AOTY. It’s old school in tone and orientation and occasionally suffers from also-rans, but is rousing enough to justify a commute time death metal attack.

[2017shreds]

16) Emptiness - Not for Music

Been straight hooked on this for a few weeks. Every listen inevitable becomes a two-in-a-row-er. Only marginally metal, with some head-bang sessions in between the synth and ambient drone underneath. Super compelling throughout either way and maybe the best “post-metal” album of all-time.

[2017shreds]

15) Lantern - Below

Grimy, dirty little death metal release that has tinges of lots of other styles (including 90s-style mid-tempo nu-ish metal, just barely in the margins). But generally, it’s thick and proceeds between ideas and speeds to bludgeon.

[2017shreds]

14) Lock Up - Demonization

This sounds a lot like contemporary Napalm Death, with a tinge of Terrorizer. The parts where it blasts are good enough, but the main riffs have that same half-assed feeling that most of the newer Napalm albums have. What I’d give for some creativity qua latter day Brutal Truth here.

[2017shreds]

13) Violet Cold - Anomie

I really appreciate some of the things this project is trying to do, particularly in the way it mixes synth sounds into the black metal stuff. I just don’t find the black metal very compelling, and the overall tonal quality is just a bit shallow, a bit one-note.

[2017shreds]

12) Crurifragium - Beasts of the Temple of Satan

Bludgeoning, nasty, and unpleasant bestial metal. Just look at the cover.

[2017shreds]

11) Arkhtinn - IV

Badass black metal isn’t breaking new ground, but running the genre trappings well enough into a pounding, moody package. Bonus points for the dark ambient Side B.

[2017shreds]

10) Rude - Remnants...

OSDM worship here, with lots of Morbid-Angel-Bolt-Thrower-Cannibal-Corpse-Obituary service, along with some chilly melodic interludes. You could cut 1/2 of the record to sharpen it, but it’s not all that fatty and while you couldn’t live off of it, it makes a nice treat after the new atmoblack releases drive you up a wall.

[2017shreds]

9) Angel Morgue - self-titled (demo)

Excellent, varied death metal demo is short with only three songs, but they’re loaded from front to back with memorable riffs, blasts, mid-tempo stomp bits, and everything in between.

[2017shreds]

8) Abigor, Nightbringer, Thy Darkened Shade, Mortuus split

An important slice of dense af black metal. Seems like all four are thinking through the implications of the kind of density Emperor was using in their last couple albums. At times heavy, but best when the blasting knocks off and we get weird lead guitar lines to guide the tone.

[2017shreds]

7) Imperceptum - The Eternal Path to Nothingness

Excellent drone-y, funeral doom-y black metal-y sonic boom. The play with dynamics and pounding rhythms are more angular than blasts but are no less powerful. Good spacey sections too. I guess from what I’ve said this is probably atmoblack, but it sure doesn’t feel like it in the moment to moment.