This week’s new heavy metal releases include power metal legends, shredding, lots of love for the future of our ever-expanding genre, and more! To the metals…
Asymmetric Universe – A Memory And What Came After
Genre: Progressive metal
Origin: Turin, Italy
Label: InsideOut
Buy now on Bandcamp
Starting your week off with oodles of guitar noodles. This is a wonderful blend of borderline-djent heaviness mixed with fusion. These tracks are melodic, technical, and experimental. Richard Henshall (Haken) and saxophonist Jared Yee both make some rad cameos on this.
Helloween – Giants And Monsters
Genre: Power/heavy metal
Origin: Hamburg, West Germany
Label: Reigning Phoenix
Buy now from Helloween
And with this release, we officially are in season of the pumpkin. On their seventeenth record Helloween are soaring high. This is their second record with duel vocals, and hopefully they stick with this quirk. It sort of felt like a novelty last time, but they’ve really dialed it in this time.
Ihlo – Legacy
Genre: Progressive metal
Origin: United Kingdom
Label: Kscope
Buy now on Bandcamp
Ihlo are still pretty new on the prog metal scene, but they’ve already got something special. If you blended TesseracT, Caligula’s Horse, and Periphery you’d get pretty close to this record. Their sophomore record here is pretty rad.
In Mourning – The Immortal
Genre: Progressive/melodic death metal
Origin: Falun, Dalarna, Sweden
Label: Supreme Chaos records
Buy now on Bandcamp
Next we have In Mourning casting a large, sad metal cloud over the Weekly Injection. This is epic, dark, and crushing. It’s their first with Ahab‘s Cornelius Althammer on drums and he add some extra heft.
Nova Twins – Parasites & Butterflies
Genre: Alternative/rap metal
Origin: London, England
Label: Marshall Records
Buy now on Amazon
Admittedly this release isn’t for the heavy metal purists, but in the world of modern rock’s genre dabbling this duo is a gem. Every track is an unexpected twist. One minute it sounds like Muse, then Rob Zombie, then Grimes, then Poppy, and so on.
Pinkshift – Earthkeeper
Genre: Grunge/alternative
Origin: Baltimore, Maryland
Label: Hopeless
Buy now on Bandcamp
I caught this band at Aftershock a couple years ago and found them to be an unexpected joy. Earthkeeper feels a bit more mature than what I heard them play but they have also expanded their sound a lot. Some notes of Deftones, Flyleaf, and lots more here.
Slow Crush – Thirst
Genre: Shoegaze/post-metal
Origin: Belgium
Label: Pure Noise Records
Buy now on Bandcamp
This is a record that will sweep you away. This reminds me of old Chelsea Wolfe mixed with Nothing. Heavy ebbs and flows all day in this one.
Wucan – Axioms
Genre: Krautrock/progressive
Origin: Dresden, Germany
Label: Long Branch
Buy now on Bandcamp
Taking us home with some hard rocking weirdness. On Axioms, you feel like you know know what’s coming next, but then they swing you into another plane entirely. Classic rock guitar harmonies, then suddenly scatting, then bass madness, then synths from outer space? Yes. And that’s just in the track below. Get on this one and thank me later.
Also dropping this week…
- Adur – We Fail To Love Ourselves (Self-released) – Post-metal
- Årabrot – Rite Of Dionysus (Pelagic) – Post-rock
- Burghâsh – La tríada dels idiotes (Wormholedeath) – Black metal
- The Casket Lottery – Feel The Teeth (Iodine Recordings) – Alternative rock
- Darker Half – Book Of Fate (Massacre Records) – Power metal
- Deathhammer – Crimson Dawn (Hells Headbangers) – Blackened thrash
- Death Goals – Survival Is An Act Of Defiance (Self-released) – Hardcore
- Dusk – Repoka (Self-released) – Atmospheric black metal/industrial
- End It – Wrong Side Of Heaven (Flatspot Records) – Hardcore/punk
- Evocatus – Inevitable Death (Wormholedeath) – Thrash
- Headless – Transitional Objects (M-Theory) – Progressive metal/rock
- Hebephrenique – Decathexis (Gutter Prince Cabal/Brilliant Emperor Records) – Extreme metal
- Imperishable – Revelation In Purity (Everlasting Spew Records) – Black/death metal
- Ivy Gardens – Death of Don Valley (Self-released) – Stoner/progressive metal
- Khnvm – Cosmocrato (Testimony Records) – Death metal
- Kingdom Of Giants – Burning Chrome (SharpTone) – Metalcore
- lowheaven – Ritual Decay (MNRK Heavy) – Post-metal
- Månegarm – Edsvuren (Napalm) – Folk/black metal
- Mélancolia – random.access.misery (Nuclear Blast/Greyscale Records) – Blackened nu metal
- No Apologies – Life (Last Ride Records) – Hardcore/alternative
- Prayer Group – Strawberry (Reptilian Records) – Noise rock
- Proscription – Desolate Divine (Dark Descent) – Blackened death metal
- Rising Steel – Legion Of The Grave (Frontiers) – Heavy metal
- Relicon – Ephemeral Triumphs (Wormholedeath) – Alternative metal
- Shadows – Miseria (Soul Dispatcher Music) – Blackened death metal
- Sowulo – Niht (Season Of Mist) – Folk
- Stereophobia – Choke On This (Eclipse Records) – Alternative metal
- Lucie Sue – Battle Station (Sphynx Music) – Hard rock
- Sweet Freedom – Blind Leading The Blind (Frontiers) – Hard rock
- ThxSoMch – The Sound Of You Laughing (Atlantic) – Alternative
- Torso – Annihilation Day (APF Records) – Stoner rock/metal
- Torvus – .44 Caliber Angel (Self-released) – Gothic metal
- Unén – Forever Winter (Frontiers) – Modern metal
- Ursawrath – Emergence (Self-released) – Progressive sludge
- Vicious Rumors – The Devil’s Asylum (Steamhammer) – Heavy/power metal
- Whitehorse/Uboa – The Dissolution of Eternity (Tartarus Records/Sweatlung) – Noise metal/drone
- Zatokrev – Bring Mirrors To The Surface (Pelagic Records) – Post/psychedelic metal
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