Release Day roundup: 3/1/24 | Heavy Blog is Heavy

Top Pick

Hammok – Look How Long Lasting Everything Is Moving Forward For Once (noise rock, mathcore)

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and into the world of noise and math rock with this week’s top pick, which is probably both reflected and facilitated by the fact that I seem to have gone for a more sanded-down, and hipster-approved take on the genre—if the coverage Hammok have received from other outlets is anything to go by. Still, there’s something to be said for taking more abrasive and obtuse genres and distilling their core appeal and streamlining them for greater accessibility, and to that end the Oslo trio have certainly succeeded.

If last year’s Akersborg album represented what The Armed might have sounded like if they’d remained unhinged, then Look How Long Lasting Everything Is Moving Forward For Once feels like a halfway house between Ultrapop (2021) and the complete indie-rock departure of Perfect Saviors (2023). “Long Lasting” bursts out of the traps in a mathcore blitz, reminiscent of recent Converge openers, before settling into the more subdued yet no less menacing “Seance”, which (literally) sounds like The Chariot‘s Josh Scogin shredding his throat over the top of Mogwai‘s “Mexican Grand Prix”. “Nothing’s Never Better” blends janggly, shoegaze-tinged post hardcore with equal parts Converge and the drumbeat from “This Could Be Anywhere In The World” by Alexisonfire, while “H.F.D” is a full-blown exercise aping the heavier parts of One of Us is the Killer-era Dillinger Escape Plan. It’s the bombast that initially grips and excites, but it’s the smoother, more melodic aspects, such as the posty and rather pointedly titled “Wannabe (Billboard No.1)” and the hypnotic Kylessa-meets–Wade-Macneil-era-Gallows-by-way-of-Refused shenanigans of “Opportunity” that have perhaps the longest legs.

And the best part? They do all of that in under forty-minutes! Which means that, even if the record’s softer second half isn’t quite as memorable or exciting as its first, it still holds your attention and leaves you wanting more. And if it doesn’t, you can always go ahead and put on that Crippling Alcoholism album instead and fuck up your whole life.

Release Roundup

A Somber Funeral – Summertime Sorrow (blackened doom)

Absit Omen – Era of Uncertainty (black thrash)

Alienist – Love/Hate (metalcore)

Altered Perception – The Orbit Between Space And Death (black/death metal)

Amyr Abadawn – Apocalyptic Triumph (instrumental prog metal)

Anatomia/Eternal Rot – Split (blackened death doom)

Angmodnes – Rot Of The Soul (gothic funeral doom)

Anthares – After the War (thrash)

Azell – Death Control (blackened sludge)

Beenkerver – De Rode Weduwe (black metal)

Beyrevra – Echoes: Vanished Lore Of Fire (blackened melodeath)

Big Big Train – The Likes Of Us (prog rock)

Blackest – I midnattens skuggor (black metal)

Blazar – Fatal Cosmic Wound (funeral doom)

Blind Channel – Exit Emotions (butt metal, emo)

BloodRitual – Do You Believe (black thrash)

Bruce Dickinson – The Mandrake Project (Edguy did it better)

Cabinet – Hydrolysated Ordination (blackened death doom)

Calgacus – Nothing Should Exist (black doom)

Celestial Sword – Nocturnal Divinity (black metal)

Clarion Void – Failure In Repetition (sludge, stoner doom)

Clouds Taste Satanic – 79 A.E. (progressive stoner doom)

Convulsing – Perdurance (prog/disso-death)

Cranial Bifurcation – Junkie of Necrosadism (Brutal Death / Slam)

Crippling Alcoholism – With Love From A Padded Room (post goth rock)

Crypt Rot/Radiologist – A Lethal Dose (Brutal Death / Slam)

Cryptic Confinement – Tempestuous demise (instrumental black metal)

Culak – Underneath The Veil Of God (instrumental djent)

Dan Terminus – Gothic Engine (synthwave)

David Reece – Baptized by Fire (heavy metal)

Death Monk – Cosmic Reef Temple (jazz doom)

Defocus – There Is A Place For Me On Earth (deathcore, metalcore)

Devastator – Conjurers Of Cruelty (black thrash)

Deviation – Lair of Suffering (brutal death metal)

Dez Dare – A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin. (stoner prog)

Drain Down – Toxic Society (thrash)

Dysthymia/Saeva – Split (black metal, epic dsbm)

Etoile Filante – Mare Tranquilliatatis (post black, doom)

Fall Of Leviathan – In Waves (that’s already a Trivium album, tho)

Fathomless Ritual – Hymns For The Lesser Gods (brutal death metal)

Firewind – Stand United (heavy/power metal)

Gab De La Vega – Life Burns (alt rock)

Halphas – Sermons of the Black Flame (blackened death metal)

Hamble – Den Teufel an die Wand malen (symphonic black metal)

Hands of Goro – Hands of Goro (heavy metal)

Haunt – Dreamers (another one?)

InnerSphere – In the Shadows of the Sun (heavy melodeath)

Konad – The Last Day (crusty grind)

Kontravoid – Detachment (goth rave)

Leprous Vortex Sun – Шум небытия (blackened disso-death)

Lilla Veneda – Primordial Movements (progressive blackened death metal)

Magoria – Hollingsworth Mansion (goth metal)

Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven (alt rock)

Marble Ghosts – Marble Ghosts (hard rock)

Mean Messiah – In Infinite Illusion (blackened/industrial thrash)

Messiah – Christus Hypercubus (instrumental? prog metal)

Metro Society – The London Conspiracy Chapter I: 1898 (prog metal)

Ministry – Hopiumforthemasses (please stop)

Negative Prayer – Self // Wound (crusty death metal)

New Years Day – Half Black Heart (emocore)

Northern Genocide – The Point Of No Return (melodeath)

Opera Magna – Heroica (symphonic power metal)

Oxygen – A New Dawn (grove metalcore)

Pagan – Acolytes (black metal)

Parabellum – Si Vis Pacem (groove metal)

Paraline – Sound Weapon (goth metal)

Pissed Jeans – Half Divorced (punk)

Profane Burial – My Plateau (black metal)

Rotten Terror/Verminate – The Repression Split (brutal death metal)

Saturnalia Temple – Paradigm Call (doom)

Semi-Rotted – Barrage of Brutality (nu death metal)

Shallow Waters – All Colours Blur to One (progressive mellowdeadth)

Sheer Mag – Playing Favorites (rock)

Skeletal Augury – Eureka (black thrash/core)

Steel Mammoth – Shadow Diamond (synthwave)

Suicidal Angels – Profane Prayer (thrash)

Suldusk – Anthesis (folky post metal)

Sunspear – Sunspear (metalcore)

Surgical Strike – 24/7 Hate (thrash)

Svart Lotus – Som Et Vondt Ar (black sudle)

T.S.O.L. – A-Side Graffiti (punk, rock)

Tapias de Pilatos/The Witch – Blasphemy and the Beast (black metal)

The Black Hounds – All Kingdoms Fall (heavy/prog metal)

Theatrum – Tableau vivant (prog metal)

Tigers On Opium – Psychodrama (stoner rock)

Traum – Traum (psychedelic dub rock)

Uzlaga – Depthdweller (black metal)

Volcandra – The Way Of Ancients (blackened melodeath)

Vorus – Desolate Eternities (death metal)

Vulgar Devils – Witches Wheel (butts metal)

Waste A Saint – Ravenous (alt rock)

We Follow The Earth – Extinct (sludge doom)

Worst Doubt – Immortal Pain (hardcore)