I think it comes down to how much of a rec it is. If it's just "hey this was ok" and genre tag is fine, if it's something you're really excited about you should go full salesman I reckon.

Yes I know my last post was a no notes list, I'll do my detailed wrap up at the mid point of the year.

it works perfectly fine as is. some people wanna explain things a bit, some don’t. i’ve found things i liked in these threads from both types of posters. usually more from the former, but im not gonna get pressed about a forum thread i literally am not required to look at

I enjoy your monthly wrap-ups partially due to somewhat similar tastes but mostly because I tend to find your writing hilarious. Picked up gems from your posts.

I've also discovered bands here that became absolute staples in my diet with descriptions as elaborate as "disso black"...

Ultimately, I think the thread works just fine and there's no need to force people to communicate in a way that is not natural to them.

Even if folks can't be bothered to write more then three words about an album, there's no excuse for not even providing the genre or a link.

I have the opposite impression. It feels more black metal than the previous one, the first part was a bit more progressive. It reminded me of Opeth a lot. This one is a return to a more black-metalish sound. Both parts are excellent but I prefer this second one.

Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition



New album of the death metal/metalcore band, this album delves more into melodic death metal territory, with the likes of the Swedish death metal school from both Gothenburg and Stockholm scenes, fans of early Entombed, In Flames, Dark Tranquility and Dismember will enjoy this. The hardcore breakdowns and shouty vocals are still here if you dig that part of the band, nice combination between Swedish DM and hardcore.

i'm pretty sure it was Deconsekrated - Ascension in the Altar of Condemned

Yeah, it was the new Deconsekrated. The album premiere was hosted on the Death Metal Promotion Youtube channel which temporarily privated all of its videos (they'll all be available again in June). If you want to listen to the album you can check it out here or on Bandcamp:

Another great melodic black metal release by the über-prolific Belarus duo Downcross.
If you've heard any of their previous work you know what you're getting, although this one does sound more like the first couple of albums as opposed to the somewhat harsher style of more recent work:

https://downcross.bandcamp.com/album/white-tower

Cool stuff thanks for sharing.

Cutterred Flesh just dropped their new album Love at First Bite. It's way more technical than the last one and a bit progressive and deathcore-y at times but still some good brutal death.
https://cutterredfleshband.bandcamp.com ... first-bite

If anyone is interested, I have a Spotify playlist with most of the albums in this thread. It's not complete, but it's at 69 hours, 14 min currently so you have plenty of time for me to catch up.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NYPl ... 5139bb4c18

I just use this as a starting point to make sure I listen to everything at least once this year, so I can have an informed opinion on what's the best. It's not in any particular order.

Saidan - Visual Kill: The Blossoming of Psychotic Depravity


Bandcamp link to the album.

New Saidan dropped today. "Onryô II" was one of my favourite albums of 2022 (and my favourite black metal album period), so I had high expectations for this one to say the least. So far, after a few spins, I am super fucking impressed.

Basically, it's vicious, fast, blast-heavy black metal, but with a ton of melodic edge and different subtle influences going on to it. Got a ton of great riffage, leads and ripping solos packed in here. Goes between your usual tremolo BM-trappings, some thrashier moments as well as some trad metal-esque leads and solos, among other things. There's also a ton of other influences at play here and there, but it melds great. Just super listenable, catchy, but also aggressive and intense.

Seconding Downcross and Saidan; top quality BM, both very melodic yet very different from each other, neither band is your typical cookie cutter black metal outfit.

Nice, thanks.

about "telling more than a link" there's borders because of language, I see how much difficult to speak clear of something without proper language! I can write stuff in english or almost english, but I can not find my accuracy in that language. For this reason I can not write review here. And this "me" means a lot of people!

this english site is active, french one are dead, same for social media such as Reddit, you have choice with limited interaction in your own language or being speechless in english. You can see this english dominant on Discogs with the problem of fonts and capitalization, all but english are shocked but we got no choice.

same as a reader, I'll keep Decibel mag because it's more metal than any other "metal" magazine in europe (except Metallian in France) but practically I can't use it because records are not out at the same moment or simply not available etc. SO conclusion is that it's a bit difficult to exprim something when you're not US/UK citizen, and that's a lot of people ^^

sorry for disgression

This.

I'm not googling a bunch of random unknown names from a list without even knowing what genre the music is.

A short description of why you like it, like your example here, is more then enough.



Even if your English isn't perfect, most regulars here are smart enough to respect the fact that you're doing an effort to speak in English, and it would still be nice to have people give a little bit of background as to why they like some album, especially in this thread.

Il y a beaucoup de francophones ici d'ailleurs. Très content de voir de plus en plus de Français et de Québécois ici

Yeah that Saidan is amazing, one of the best releases I've heard this year so far. So much to unpack with repeated listens.

This is very rad, my goodness.

My biggest complaint is that it's only 28 minutes long, I wanted more dammit!

I don't even know what this is, maybe just intense slightly blackened death, maybe war metal?

Regardless it rules:



Morgue - Close to Complete Darkness



between this and Antichrist Siege Machine might be the year I get into war metal, because that one rules too. Nice mix of war metal and deathgrind a la Insect Warfare:

If you want wargrind the new Primitive Warfare is like war metal using the sonic range of Deathtoll 80k. Has some fantastically ignorant hardcore breaks.

New Bythos is incredible, can't stop listening to it. Definitely in my top 10 for this year already. Loved the first album but this is a vast improvement I believe.

Bythos - Cthonic Gates Unveiled


This new Kawir album is a bit of a surprise, know the name but never heard them before this album. Tons of interesting things going on here, despite it seeming like a non-stop blast fest.

Kawir - Κυδοιμός


Another great album of death/black metal. If you like Grave Miasma, you'll like this. I do. A lot.

Necroracle - Arcane Impious Sorceries


More solid, disgusting filth. Nothing ground breaking here, but damn it's good.

Purulency - Transcending Unveiling of Dimensions


More death metal goodness from Apparition. Previous album Feel was incredible DM, and so is this one. Has some... strange passages within, but awesomely done.

Apparition - Disgraced Emanations From a Tranquil State


Engulfed from Turkey are back with a new record and it's fire. Top tier death.

Engulfed - Unearthly Litanies of Despair


Some Australian death metal madness. These guys fucking crush live, and are damn brutal. Good shit.

Contaminated - Celebratory Beheading



A bunch of others that have made my list this year so far have been mentioned, and this is them;

Civerous - Maze Envy
Borknagar - Fall
Spectral Voice - Sparagmos
Antichrist Siege Machine - Vengeance of Eternal Fire
Exhumation - Master's Personae
Necrot - Lifeless Birth
Heresiarch - Edifice

The new Daath is shockingly good and I never thought I'd be saying that. They historically sounded like Devildriver with synths and were passable at best and atrocious at worst, but this is an actual, proper tech album that ditches basically everything that I hated about them.

First full listen of the new Lucifuge, 'Hexensabbat', and I'm still picking up my jaw from the floor.
This is a band that, like Hellripper on last year's stellar album - albeit not to such a large extent - is refining their basic black/thrash template and introducing subtle alterations to the formula to keep it fresh and exciting.
There are no huge stylistic divergences on this one, but it manages to sound original and exciting within what could be seen as a very restrictive subgenre.
Fantastic stuff:

https://lucifuge666.bandcamp.com/album/hexensabbat

Another vote for the new Saidan. Strong AOTY contender so far and a great follow up to the previous release.

I might be a bit crazy but that Saidan album reminds me of early Children of Bodom. It's so catchy, furious and unapologetically FUN while also taking itself just seriously enough. I love it! Highly recommended.

Totally; the music sounds very different, but the "spirit" is similar, because, like you said, it's catchy, fun, and highly energetic.

Also, can we just agree that, ironically enough, BM is the most malleable of sub-genres? I mean, the it's the most obsessed with being trve and cvlt, but IMO black metal really works great with other styles and benefits greatly from experimentation.

Very decent folky/pagan/viking black metal from Iceland, been spinning this all day long today.

This is great. One of the best bands around.

Nice. That's what I've been doing for the last few years too, though this year I haven't been adding too much since I'm only now coming out of a mostly funeral doom phase and haven't been interested in much else (lasted about 5 months). My 2024 list is currently sitting at 41 hours, so I have some catching up to do.

In Aevum Agere - Darkness, Then Light

Very energetic doom/epic/trad. Makes me think of Solitude Aeturnus, Manilla Road, Psychotic Waltz and even Death. When the drums are emphasized they are devastating.

https://metalonmetalrecords.bandcamp.com/album/in-aevum-agere-darkness-then-light

Will LilTito resurface for a mid year top 10 thread?

Drunemton - Tir nan Og. New release from very consistent pagan black metal band. Sounds like an amalgamation of the best Eastern European black metal bands. Graveland, Nokturnal Mortum, Темнозорь, etc, with very unique and clever synth melodies. My favorite black metal album of the year, so far.

The past few years I've been making a playlist of all the metal releases from that year. This year's playlist is almost up to 3,000 songs! Check it out: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2MMCS ... 17f20249b9

Better not praise them too much or Disembodied will have a coronary.

What?

Well my listening for the day is done so I may as well get my summary posted rather than waiting til after the weekend for no reason other than to have the post take place in June. May was both a return to the year's trend of extremely high 7/10 ratios with quite a few things crossing that worth a mention threshold, while also offering a heavy hitter... at least by 2024 standards.

Tzompantli - Beating The Drums Of Ancestral Force: This is sick. We basically got two Coffins albums in two months with this slab of bulldozer death doom. I don't give the slightest fuck that it's quite light on the thematic tie ins outside of some more interludey parts. Big fat bastard of a record with a little atmospheric and melodic streak.

Diocletian - Inexorable Nexus: Some old fashioned and atypically musical war metal for the modern era. It's the least popular of the recent big 3 war metal records but it's my personal favoruite. This has a lot more of the black/thrash influence than a lot of the noisier, grindier and deathier takes on the style which have been popping off. This makes it actually really enjoyable on an actually listening to riffs level as opposed to a more tonal hate-vibes level like most new stuff. Demo quality production holds back a little punch though.

Antichrist Siege Machine - Vengeance of Eternal Fire: Speaking of the noiser and deathier takes on war metal, ASM go hard as always. I think Purifying Blade was a bit more interesting musically but it's still a fun violent trip.

Conifère - L'impôt du sang: Like a mix between french-style turbo meloblack ala Suhnopfer and pop-punkified BM ala Flaming Ouroboros with a little bit of Agalloch in the breathers. The combination is surprisingly effective, they're all sickly sweet but highly energized so bouncing back and forth between them keeps the momentum going while not causing diabetes from too much sugar of any one flavour. Could be a grower, very enjoyable and listenable.

Mütiilation - Black Metal Cult: Surprisingly violent for a Mutiilation return, bit of an odd choice, but the riffs are rock solid so it's all good.

Fluids - Reduced Capabilities: Damned if you do damned if you don't. This album eschews alll the traumatizing samples and goofball genre blending stuff and just hits us with a bunch of nasty goregrind, which despite being too muddy is probably their best musical effort, but ya know, something's missing without the goofball and nightmare shit.

Primitive Warfare - Extinction Protocol:And here's the grindy side of modern war metal. Someone on RYM says it's like if Deathtoll 80k was a war metal band, and while it's not as cool or as well riffed as that would imply the sound is there. The fast shit really runs together but it also does these pure hardcore pit fest breakdowns and they're stupidly fun. The title track is strongly recommended for one of the best mosh breaks you'll hear all year.

Philadelphia black metal punks Spiter released a great EP last week, Enter the Gates of Fucking Hell:

https://spiter-us.bandcamp.com/album/en ... cking-hell

I thought their debut from 2022 was amazing and such a fun listen, and this new release maintains the same quality. FFO: Venom, Midnight, Sabbat (JPN)

It’s a great year to be a war metal fan. Diocletian, Heresiarch, Antichrist Siege Machine, and Primitive Warfare have all released worthwhile albums recently.

In terms of other stuff from this year, I’m really digging this new Coffins album.

Last time I gave their EP prior to this praise he lost his shit because I enjoyed it more than he did and therefore in his eyes it was “not worthwhile” for everyone and fie upon me for misleading the world.