The best new metal albums you can buy this week

A press shot of dying fetus
Dying Fetus

Dying Fetus - Wrong One To Fuck With

“Baltimore’s death metal veterans Dying Fetus have decided not to tinker with their formula too much for their first album in five years. Performed with an almost machine-like precision, there are plenty of blastbeats, brutal breakdowns and shredding solos on offer to appease the faithful and in the pummelling Panic Amongst The Herd, the technical metal tour de force that is Seething With Disdain and the thrilling Die With Integrity – which boasts a stunning, squealing guitar solo that the late, great Jeff Hanneman would have been proud of – they have a fistful of future pit anthems.”

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Goatwhore - Vengeful Ascension

“There’s a sense of something ominous that kickstarts the seventh album by this New Orleans blackened thrash quartet. It’s generated in simple fashion: drummer Zack Simmons playing a machine-gunning tribal pattern on his toms as producer Jarrett Pritchard fades it in to (un)intentionally create the feel of something – or things – rumbling towards and rapidly encroaching upon you with extreme menace.”

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River Black - River Black

“Metallic hardcore outfit Burnt By The Sun fizzled out in style with 2009’s Heart Of Darkness, a swansong that melded the styles with more soulful might than most. Having spent the last few years having good, thrashing fun in Municipal Waste, guitarist John Adubato and drummer David Witte pick up where they left off with new outfit River Black, bringing vocalist Mike Olender back for the ride. The formula is largely unchanged.”

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BardSpec - Hydrogen

“Superficially, this is a wistful paean to the atmospheric achievements of electronic pioneers like Tangerine Dream and Cluster, replete with shimmering walls of old-school synths and a persistent motorik pulse that’s equal parts Kraftwerk and Neu! Unlike a lot of similarly inclined projects, however, the extended pieces on Hydrogen sound neither retro nor tethered to someone else’s blueprint.”

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The Interbeing - Among Amorphous

“The dark undercurrent that rippled through their earlier material has seeped cinematically into Among Amorphous’s every pore, including the Matrix-meets-Covenant artwork. Spiral Into Existence is a bold opener, flexing polyrhythmic muscles with a hulk of a chorus, and the band start as they mean to go on.”

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Circle - Terminal

“Opener Rakkautta Al Dente is a 13-minute excursion through fuzzy, cyclical krautrock riffs, blissful, improvised meanders and wailing heavy rock – like eight of your favourite records being played one after the other, with no discernible gaps. It’s a technique the Finns apply liberally throughout, using ultra-repetition as a meditative hum to stitch all ends of their heavy cosmic blanket together.”

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Wildspeaker - Spreading Adder

“Blackened crust is the order of the day on Wildspeaker’s second full-length, the Texan quintet bringing a raucous energy to an album extols the virtues of the natural world while condemning humanity. Vocalist Natalie Kahan slices her way through the rubble with razor-sharp precision while the guitars pulse with spite.”

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Conveyer - No Future

“This Minneapolis melodic hardcore band have championed a DIY ethic and strong devotion to God ever since their formation in 2011. No Future serves as a mature and worthy third full-length follow-up to their debut, Worn Out, and sophomore release, When Given Time To Grow.”

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The best new metal albums you can buy this week

The best new metal albums you can buy this week

The best new metal albums you can buy this week

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