Top Pick
Pijn – From Low Beams of Hope (post rock/metal)
After a few ridiculously stacked release days in a row, we’ve been hit with what is easily the weakest, non-holiday-period release day since the abominable 10/6/23. There’s nothing out today that’s truly abhorrent, but there isn’t a whole lot that’s really justifying its existence either. Hopefully it’s just a brief refractory period before 2024 throws another glut of outstanding releases our way. This week though, if it’s not one of the highlighted releases (with the actual player embedded), then you can assume it’s probably not worth listening to. And even then…
It might be slim pickings, but Pijn‘s From Low Beams of Hope is clearly the best new album that’s out this week. Most of that has to do with its first track. “Our Endless Hours” kicks off the proceedings with rather more energy and urgency than you might expect from a post rock record, being built around an urgent, repeating vibration that builds in frantic, reflective intensity, until it explodes into a period angular elation, that sounds rather reminiscent of King Crimson‘s “Red” before trailing off into a gentle, albeit unwavering melancholic comedown. The whole thing is punctuated by pensive poetic recitals and some rather more subtle and embedded chordophone inflections than those that seem to have weaselled their way into the progressive metal scene of late. It’s a truly astounding composition that demands the attention and appreciation of even the hardest-hearted heavy metal fans.
…Then they do it three more times, and while the compositions themselves remain impressive, they are also undercut by just how successful and complete the first track felt, leaving the album seeming somewhat one-dimensional, despite its initial dynamism. It’s a hell of a song, but I don’t know if it quite makes for a hell of an album. A bit more variation might make for a more well-rounded effort, but there’s no denying the compositional prowess at play here.
Release Roundup
Aberrance – Son of Dirt (brutal death metal)
Ainu – Ainu (post metal)
Altar Of Oblivion – In The Cesspit Of Divine Decay (heavy/doom metal)
Amarok – Resilience (funeral doom)
Amniostasis – Amniostasis (brutal death metal)
Angel Death – From Deepest... (sludge death)
Anvil – One And Only (I guess)
Aran – Maahan laskettu (post-black metal)
Atrocious – Almost Insan Halloween (black metal)
AvenueLie – Eva (hard rock/metal)
Banks Arcade – A Muse (pop punk/core)
Big Sun – Rite Of Passage (disco rock, AOR)
Black on High – Echoes Through Time (stonery sludge doom)
Black Rainbows/Nebula – In Search of the Cosmic Tale: Crossing the Galactic Portal (Instrumental Stoner Metal)
Bridear – Born Again (nuish metal)
Canticle – Canticle / Meduusa (trad doom)
Chuck Norris Experiment – 20 (stoner metal)
Codename Demolition – Power over Demons (blackened death metal)
Cold Wives – Cold Wives (noisy psyche rock)
Commander – Angstridden (death-doom)
Crocell – Of Frost, Of Flame, Of Flesh (death metal, melodeath)
Crossfaith – AЯK (electro-metalcore)
Crystal Viper – The Silver Key (heavy/power metal)
Devolution – Deceiver, Believer (mellowdic metal)
Dog’N’Style – Take It Or Leave It
Drift Into Black – Voices Beneath The Rubble (symphonic prog)
Ende – L’aube des anathèmes (black metal)
The Eternal – Skinwalker (doom n’ gloom)
The Exies – Closure (butt rock)
Gjendod – Livskramper (doomy black metal)
The God Awful Truth – All That Dark & All That Cold (mathcore)
Hail Spirit Noir – Fossil Gardens (progressive black metal)
Harpazo – The Crucible (prog/power rock/metal)
Hipoxia – Fragmented Revelations (death metal)
Holy Shire – Invincible (bad metal)
Hourglass – Voids and Visions (prog metal)
Ill Nino – Ill-Mortals Vol. 1 (y tho?)
Illdisposed – In Chambers of Sonic Disgust (death metal, melodeath)
Imposter – Oblivion Opens (crusty black thrash)
Kirkebrann – Mot Trellenes Forfall… (black metal)
KK Null & Joel Gilardini – Psychic Drones 3 (who listens to this?)
Kybalion – A Crippled Power (black metal)
Limbonic Art – Opus Daemonical (black metal)
Love Letter – Everyone Wants Something Beautiful (post-hardcore, emo)
Meltem – Mare Nostrum (Psychedllic Doom)
Meslamtaea/The Color Of Rain – Nihil Vincit Omnia (progressive black metal)
The Mourning – Hush (prog metal)
Naera – All is Dust (melodeath, metalcore)
Nebula/Black Rainbows – In Search Of The Cosmic Tale: Crossing The Galactic Portal (stoner metal)
Necronomicon Ex Mortis – You And Your Friends Are Dead: Game Over (death metal)
Nighthammer – Land Of Fear (black metal)
Niro Knox – Save Me (rock)
Nothing More – Carnal (nu/melodic metalcore)
Noxis – Violence Inherent in the System (bassy tech-death)
Nymphrenia – Love That Kills (DSBM)
Oh Hiroshima – All Things Shining (post rock/metal)
Orgone – Pleroma (jazzy/progressive folk metal)
Outlander – Acts of Harm (depressive post-rock/metal)
Pia Isa – Dissolve (fuzzy doom)
Sabire – Jatt (hair metal)
Sear Bliss – Heavenly Down (weird prog metal)
Sebastien – Quo Vadis (electro/ish metal)
Shade Of Sorrow – Upon The Fields Of Grief (melodeath-doom, meloblack)
Shallow Existence – Be Happy, Life Is Worth Living... (DSBM)
The Shiva Hypothesis – Faustian Restlessness (deathish black metal)
200 Stab Wounds – Manual Manic Procedures (crossoverish death metal)
Shumaun – Opposing Mirrors (prog metal)
Sphinx – 900 Days of Ленинград (black/death thrash)
Stillborn – Netherworlds (industrial doom)
Sunbomb – Light Up The Sky (heavy/doom metal)
Sunfall – Les Morts Sont Nés Ici (nuish deathcore)
Texas Toast Chainsaw Massacre – Super Turbo (Crossover Thrash)
Torvus – Words Within (goth doom, random bird noises)
Trog – Horrors Beyond (death metal)
Upright Forms – Blurred Wires (gazey alt rock)
Urthum – Aeon (mellowblack)
Warhog – The Dystopian Chronicles Vol. 1 (progish metal)
White Stones – Memoria Viva (prog black)
World On Alert – World On Alert (groove doom)
Wraith – Fueled By Fear (blackish thrash)
Ymberophilia – A világom (black metal)