Release Day Roundup: 26/4/24 | Heavy Blog is Heavy

Top Pick

The Idoru – Undertow (proggish melodic hardcore)

I’m sure one of the other writers will be along soon to tell you how good the new Inter Arma, Full of Hell and Glassing albums are (and they are all very good). I’m going to take this opportunity though to point out something a lot brighter and more uplifting, that might not have been on your radar already, as it certainly wasn’t on mine.

The Idoru are a Hungarian band who have apparently been around for the better part of two decades and were originally made up of members of previous Hungarian hardcore bands, although there was a hefty hiatus in the middle somewhere. They’ve also received more than a few accolades in their home country, mostly focused around their 2009 album Face The Light, which sounds a bit more like mid-period Placebo than the more complex and aggressive palette on offer here. As a result, Undertow is a much more refreshing and exhilarating listen than its predecessors, as well as the avalanche of more anticipated and extreme outings on offer today.

The contents of Undertow are in keeping with its luscious cover art, blending the melodic hardcore approach of golden-era Rise Against with a more technical and occasionally progressive-leaning backdrop reminiscent of Protest the Hero. “Sewn Shut” would sit comfortably on any post-Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) Rise Against record, and probably be the best song on it, while tracks like “The King is Naked” and “The Center of Everything” and “This Ship Will Sail” sound more vital than anything Protest the Hero have put out since Volition (2013). The way vocalist András Bödecs sings “I wander” during the chorus of “Lighthouse” is reminiscent of Danzig‘s “Mother” and the inflection on “Welcome” at the start of the one in “Until teh End” reminds me of the way Jason butler hits the word “father” in (the recently resurrected!) letlive.’s “I Learned to love Myself”. Neither of these parental touchstones are particularly significant, but they always jump out to me, and it’s weird that it happened twice. It mostly sounds like Rise Against though.

Release Roundup

Accept – Humanoid (heavy metal)

ACOD – Versets Noirs (symphonic meloblack/death)

ACxDC – G.O.A.T. (crusty grind)

Akroasis – Hubris (melodeath, groove thrash)

All Are To Return – III (blackened noise)

Amalgama – Mastermind (heavy/melodic metal)

Amiensus – Reclamation: Part 1 (meloblack)

Arð – Untouched By Fire (sword doom)

Averlanche – The Dark Side of Atlas (symphonic/power metal)

AWOL – Tear ‘Em To Bits (hardcore, crossover)

Baron – Beneath The Blazing Abyss (blackened death-doom)

Beholder – Dualisme (black metal)

Black Band Shirt – Proud Filth (dsbm)

Black Seed – Wings of Renaissance (instrumental black metal)

Black Tusk – The Way Forward (sludge metal)

Bronze – In Chains and Shadows (heavy/trad metal)

Boys of Fall – Boys of Fall (post-hardcore, pop punk)

Chaos Doctrine – Bellum (groovish death metal)

ClearxCut – Age Of Grief (metallic hardcore, death metal)

Coffin Curse – The Continuous Nothing (death metal)

Darkness – Blood On Canvas (thrash)

Darkthrone – It Beckons Us (progressive? black metal)

Datcha Mandala – Koda (hard rock/metal)

Deicide – Banished by Sin (surprisingly thrashy death metal)

Devotion – Astral Catacombs (death metal)

Diamond Construct – Angel Killer Zero (nu metalcore)

Disbelief – Killing Karma (blackened death metal)

Disrupting – Conceive to Obliteration (brutal death metal)

Dolmen Gate – Gateways Of Eternity (heavy/trad metal)

Draugnim – Verum Malum (black metal)

Utopia – De Verboden Diepte I: Veldslag op de Rand van de Wereld (progressive black metal)

Ethereal Flames – Myths And Legends Of Our Land (power metal)

Exhumation – Master’s Personae (blackened death metal)

Eye – Dark Light (alt rock, doomgaze)

Flaming Wreckage – Terra Inferna (groove thrash, melodeath)

Fluisteraars – Manifestaties van de ontworteling (relaxing wind sounds)

Freeways – Dark Sky Sanctuary (trad rock)

Full Of Hell – Coagulated Bliss (blackened grind, pop punk)

Glassing – From the Other Side of the Mirror (blackened post-metal/hardcore)

Glossa – Death is Not the End (post-blackened doom)

Godeth – The Path Of Destruction (blackened groove-death)

Gomad! & Monster – Sickness (industrial metal)

A Gram Trip – If We Leaf Tomorrow (not even released on 4/20)

Hacavitz – Muerte (black metal)

Harvestman – Triptych Part One (post folk)

The Incantus – The Incantus (melodeath)

Infamous Glory – Algor Mortis (death metal)

Inter Arma – New Heaven (progressive post metal, blackened sludge-doom)

King Of None – In The Realm (stoner metal)

Kintral – Kintral (weird melodeath)

Maruja – Connla’s Wall (sad noise)

Lethe – Alienation (electro goth)

The Lumberjack Feedback – The Stronghold (post rock/metal)

Lust Hag – Lust Hag (black metal)

Malevich – Trembling And Dowsed (disso-sludge)

Melodius Deite – Demonology (power metal)

Microwave – Let’s Start Degeneracy (alt rock, emo)

Miruthan – Cult Of The Dead (black doom)

Moonbladder – Dark Sky Equilibrium (blackened drone)

Morgul Blade – Heavy Metal Wraiths (power black)

Nauseating – Subjected to Rot (brutal death, slam)

Oberst – Toil (actual-post hardcore)

Obscurial – Heretic (death metal)

Ou – II: Frailty (progressive metal)

Party Cannon – Injuries Are Inevitable (slammish death metal)

Pentagram (Chile) – Eternal Life Of Madness (death metal)

Pestilence – Levels of Perception (why tho?)

Pet Shop Boys – Nonetheless (synth pop)

Selias – Headshot (groove death)

Six By Six – Beyond Shadowland (prog rock)

Sleave – How to get over (alt rock)

St. Vincent – All Born Screaming (actual alt-pop)

Stormborn – Zenith (heavy/power metal)

Thalia – The River Of Books (retro-prog rock)

This Ending – Crowned In Blood (blackened melodeath)

Thumos – Atlantis (post black, doom)

Tigguo Cobauc – A Fountain Of Anguish Is Gone (black metal)

Tombstoner – Rot Stink Rip (crossover death metal)

Udols – Songs For A Modern Transcendence (Idles at home?)

Vesperian Sorrow – Awaken The Greylight (meloblack)

Voidwomb – Spiritual Apotheosis (black metal)

Vrykolakas – Nocturnal Dominion Of Death (brutal death metal)

Walg – IV (meloblack)

War Grave – War Grave (heavy/trad metal)

Wingless – Ascension (blackened groove-death)

with sails ahead – infinite void (progressive post-hardcore)

World Of Joy – Life Is Pain (hardcore)

Wretched Blessing – Wretched Blessing (disso-death)