You have to be a total maniac to go to a festival focused on uncommercial, loud, raucous, confusing music in the summer in Austin, Tx. Hopefully, like me, you are a total maniac. Oblivion Access, formerly Austin Terror Fest until 2019, the festival unites Austin’s downtown Red River clubs to showcase metal and experimental music, not unlike its punkier ancestor Chaos in Tejas. The States is still lacking in eclectic, heavy-minded destination festivals like this. This year’s programming leaned more toward the experimental side, yet there was still a lot of metallic rage to mine that weekend, none of it at odds with the festival’s mission to burn any laurels to rest on.

Oblivion’s headliners this year included slowcore band Duster and German experimental titans Faust, but the most relevant headliner for this column’s readers was industrial metal pioneers Godflesh. They closed out Empire Garage Sunday night and still sounded as crushing as ever. Vocalist and guitarist Justin Broadrick hasn’t lost an ounce of venom on “Like Rats” and “Crush My Soul,” able to channel youthful napalm without holding onto it too tight. Focusing on newer material like “Nero” and “Landlord” in the beginning highlighted how Godflesh wields underground dance music to sharpen its metallic attack. Broadrick is most known for his screams and strums – his programming is at the heart of the band, and with machines thumping, we were in rapture. Godflesh still presents headbangers a way forward.

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Real Broadrick heads, though, were still nursing bangovers from his solo set as JK Flesh Saturday night at Club Eternal. You haven’t seen an industrial legend till you’ve seen him at three in the morning playing the hardest of hard techno, with his computer on a shitty white folding table, on the same level as the audience, barely visible save for a few camera flashes. To slightly paraphrase Sunn O))), maximum volume yielded maximum results. Just a few hours before Godflesh’s show, he performed as Final, his ambient project that predates Godflesh, at Central Presbyterian Church. Set in a dim atmosphere save for a liquid light show representing a primeval cosmos, it was an utterly beautiful respite from heat, from anger, from turmoil. Is there a prize for those who hit the Broadrick trifecta during the weekend?

Given his wide reach in metal and electronic music, specifically the convergence of the two, Broadrick’s spirit loomed large over Oblivion. As an early member of Napalm Death, his noisy, textual guitar playing had a hand in shaping grindcore. If any band now embodies grindcore as boundary-pushing music, as highly pressurized rage, as just fucking heavy shit, it’s Michigan’s Cloud Rat (featured in Blast Rites last October), which tore up Austin goth hub Elysium Saturday night. Rorik Brooks doesn’t just grind: he thrashes, he calls upon death metal greats, he contorts notes to scream like humans, and he’ll splatter with purpose. Like any avant band worth a shit, they’ll go out there, yet keep a foot on earth, giving something to hold onto. Their banner proclaimed “Free your mind and the rest will follow” – Goddamn right. Metal’s no place to be complacent, musically or otherwise.

The first two of four nights featured showcases from avant-metal label The Flenser, with Thursday’s edition, held at Elysium, headlined by Oklahoma City noise-rock sensation Chat Pile (who we conducted an Exit Interview with last year). Their songs document the misery plays of people in decaying America, and kids love moshing to that shit! “The Mask” turned a goth club into a killing floor, and “Why” turned from a precise slashing on record to a barrage of fists live. The latter hits different when the center of Austin’s homelessness crisis is just a couple blocks away, an “American horror story, a fucking tragedy” as they so bluntly put it. As all their members toiled in bands for years, they play like they still have something to prove.

When not bludgeoning the audience, Chat Pile, particularly singer Raygun Busch, fancy themselves cinephiles. He loves to talk up Austin-area cinema in particular, showering praise upon Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, noting that the Friday the 13th remake was shot in Austin before launching into the Friday-inspired anti-ballad “Pamela,” and imploring listeners to visit the gas station featured in Chainsaw in nearby Bastrop. Busch also reminisced about seeing Slacker with his father, especially poignant that former Butthole Surfers drummer Teresa Taylor, who played the movie’s iconic “Pap Smear Pusher,” died over the weekend.

The rest of Thursday’s lineup was a thrilling mishmash, with the only commonality being no band sounded the same. Succumb was worth showing up early for – their maze-like, grinding death metal is the perfect balm to rub away anxiety from being immersed in a capitalistic shitgrind day in, day out. Not only were Elizabeth Colour Wheel were only the lone keytar rockers of the fest, but they also proved to be one of the most ferocious bands that night, taking post-metal to its most frenzied ends. Midwife’s somber “heaven metal” (featured in this column before) was quite the change from the rest of the heavier bill, yet few cut deep the way she can. She even debuted a couple vehicular-minded new songs, one dedicated to a deceased van, the other to Marvin Heemeyer and his infamous “Killdozer.” Gotta mine what you can from a highway-obsessed country.

With some minor cloud cover, the second Flenser showcase at Mohawk was a touch more bearable heat-wise compared to Elysium’s goth sweatbox – a touch. Chat Pile’s second set, held on the outdoor stage, was delayed due to lightning minutes before they were about to start. Once the storm cleared, they ripped into another rendition of “Why,” followed by “Pamela” once again, before going into an abridged version of “grimace_smoking_weed.jpg,” the song everyone was wanting to hear the previous night. They cut out the psychotic second half, but the industrial jackhammer of the first half felt especially pounding after the initial delay. “Tropical Beaches, Inc.” also made an appearance, the song’s comical misery only accentuated by heat and the crowd’s collective sweat.

Flenser knows how to pick the next cult bands, and Friday’s lineup was full of them. Planning For Burial’s Thom Wasluck is a beloved character in the Flenser universe, a loveable grump noted for his massive amp stacks. Though he’s cut his teeth at house shows, his “gloom” – what he calls his mix of doom, post-punk, shoegaze, and a whole lot of sadness – translated well to a bigger stage, and he even cracked a smile a couple of times. Succumb drummer Harry Cantwell pulled double duty hitting skins for post-black metallers Bosse De Nage, and a group that changes dynamics on a dime demands primo dexterity. Mamaleek, long one of Flenser’s most mysterious acts, pulled off jazzy black metal that wasn’t afraid to insert itself in the crowd. Being masked in a Texas summer is enough to show your dedication to your craft is real. Not only that, they were throwing Mamaleek-branded candy at the end of their set. If someone can confirm what the Mamaleek candy was, please send us a piece.

Though largely a celebration of musical innovation, cross-pollination, and refusal to compromise, Oblivion held one goodbye ceremony: one of San Francisco black metal quintet Ludicra’s final shows. It’s hard to imagine contemporary black metal without Ludicra, whose urbane themes, punk roots, and sneaky nods to metal greats opened up so many more modes for grim expression. They led the charge in freeing black metal from its cold shackles without neutering it. For a band that hasn’t put out an album in over a decade and is about to end, they sounded ecstatic to be on stage, especially vocalist Laurie Shanaman, who seemed in perpetual awe that people still give a shit about Ludicra. John Cobbett and Christy Cather’s love for traditional heavy metal really shined through, propelling the set into a joyful orbit. It wasn’t a nostalgia trip, it was a victory lap, a victory for broadening metal. Even as the American tragedy of…modern America keeps unfolding, Oblivion Access fuels a wellspring of hope that there are and will be more Ludicras. Not bands that sound like them, but bands who carry on the way they did with their own sounds.

Too hot to get to the gig? Here are some killer records from this month…

Godflesh – Purge (Avalanche)

In addition to blistering Austin apart at Oblivion Access, Godflesh also released a new record recently. Purge continues with the more melodic elements of Post Self, while throttling even harder beats than before. They’re still Godflesh without having to make Streetcleaner 2.

Boris/Uniform – Bright New Disease (Sacred Bones)

Japan’s heaviest rockers Boris and Brooklyn industrial metal mad hatters Uniform team up on Bright New Disease. Boris encounters a darkness not seen since their earliest works – fans of Flood and Amplifier Worship, get stoked. Uniform gets rockier, like if d-beat bands were way more into the Stooges.

Memorrhage – Memorrhage (Big Money Cybergrind)

Garry Brents, whose barrage of projects includes Blast Rites veterans Cara Neir and Homeskin, goes nü-metal with Memorrhage. While there’s plenty of bounce riffs and pop-industrial textures and Adidas track pants and shitty box hair dye, they’re still filtered through a chaotic lens, using memory as a weapon. If you like vein.fm, you’ll LOVE this. Those Slipknot-esque DJ scratches really do something for an itch, don’t they?

Graf Orlock – End Credits (Vitriol)

L.A.’s cinema-obsessed grinders take a bow with End Credits. The shortest fuck-yous really are the best endings. “In the Court of the Crimson King” is not a King Crimson cover, though maybe Robert Fripp will eventually cover it for his YouTube channel.

Church of Misery – Born Under a Mad Sign (Rise Above)

Boris isn’t the only Japanese bruisers with heat this month. Church of Misery returns with Born Under a Mad Sign, still obsessed with serial killers and mass murderers but getting some of their boogie back and relishing in heavy grooves. True pulp doom.

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Forget indie sleaze – there was something much, much darker and more captivating growing in New York’s underground in the early 2000s.

Khanate were stretching doom metal far beyond conventional musicality, as guitarist Stephen O’Malley’s [also of Sunn O))), drone-metal pioneers] strums hung in arrested shock, bleeding out more than reverberating. Drummer Tim Wyskida bashed those riffs down from the sky while bassist James Plotkin accented with more subterranean emanations. Vocalist Alan Dubin, who previously sang with Plotkin in experimental grindcore band O.L.D., screeches in disgust at what he’s witnessing, penetrating any perverse comfort one might find. [The way he yells “CHOOOOOOOKE” in “Under Rotting Sky” is the stuff of nightmares for the most far-gone.] There was no sense of time, no exit strategy, only everlasting torture. Yet they were also at the forefront of metal bands embracing outre music, putting modern classical and Sabbath on equal footing.

With members having many outside commitments, Khanate couldn’t sustain their slow-dearth campaign all that long. By the time Clean Hands Go Foul was released in 2009, they had been broken up for three years. “Every God Damn Thing,” the album’s nearly 33-minute closer, was an apt coda for them, with Dubin bearing the weight of the world while the band creeps deserted and defeated. O’Malley continued with Sunn O))) and numerous other projects, Plotkin kept busy with mastering work, Dubin formed the noisier experimental unit Gnaw, and Wyskida continued to play with NYC avant-rockers Blind Idiot God.

That was it.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when Khanate surprise released To Be Cruel through Sacred Bones. In the works since 2017, when the band quietly reunited and worked on the record in between their main projects, it sounds like Khanate never disbanded, which means it sounds totally fucked up. O’Malley and Dubin dominate, naturally, but Plotkin’s subtle synth work and Wyskida’s sheet metal “percussion” warp Khante’s sound into something richer and yet even more miserable. Who in the right mind would enjoy a song called “Like a Poisoned Dog,” much less make it? Why is Dubin likening humanity to a spider getting its legs plucked off in the title track so soul-stirring? The cruelty is the point.

We chatted with Plotkin about Khanate return, how they’re more relevant than ever, and the surprising humor found in their uncompromising music, all of which you can peruse below.

SPIN: Khanate’s music has always been really, really bleak, so it resonates now more than ever. Do you find that even a little disturbing?
James Plotkin (bass, synths): There’s always room for angry music out there. Everything in society at this point, especially in this country, is so tense and there’s so much pent-up anger everywhere. Maybe the fact the music is aggressive and there’s a lot of vitriol in the sound that I guess will make it relevant.

How do you think this record explores the theme of cruelty?
I know [Alan] explores those themes quite a bit in his own head. There’s something poetic about the way he expresses it through words, it doesn’t seem to me it’s directed in a way where he’s promoting, it’s just an exploration of the human condition and the things humans are capable of. Alan, in general, is a very likable guy. He’s got a pretty good mindset and he’s not an angry person in general. It’s more an exploration of the human condition and the atrocities that normal, everyday people can experience in their own heads and how they act on them.

It’s almost like he’s just venting or it’s a cry of agony because of all of these things, not necessarily promoting them or excusing them in any way, it’s more an exclamation of the horror of life in general.

I’ve heard that Alan actually has a great sense of humor. Is there any humor to what he does in Khanate?
There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek in Alan’s lyrics. There are moments on this new record where the lyrics are acknowledged among the band to be absolutely ridiculous and during the recording some of the delivery just punctuated that. He’s reciting the most horrific lyrics and we’re basically sitting there watching him do it and laughing about it because it’s so absurd.

It kind of goes hand in hand with how metal embraces its more ridiculous aspects. It embraces the absurd in ways other genres don’t.
I agree. It’s a little more difficult to take a band seriously who themselves are incredibly serious about such an absurd image. I guess Manowar would be a good example. Part of what draws me to stuff like that is when the artist themselves can acknowledge that it’s just so embrace and they fully embrace that. Black metal, for example – if you take the image seriously and there’s no room for laughter in there, I mean, what? I guess you wind up stabbing your band members and stuff like that.

Of all the songs on the new record, “It Wants to Fly” stands out the most. What did you get from that song in particular?
I think it’s easily the darkest song on the record. Alan visits a theme every now and then of post-death that I find really interesting, he did it before on “Fields” from Things Viral. Some of the lyrics sent a chill down my spine – every human wonders about post-death and there are vast amount of ideas about what the reality is and of course nobody’s gonna know for sure. Musically, that track, I think, is the darkest and lyrically I think it’s the darkest as well. My favorite part about Khanate is when it gets into the areas and ideas of the bleakness of existence, the unanswerable questions that some of Alan’s lyrics provoke.

“Every God Damn Thing” from Clean Hands Go Foul felt like a coda for the band, yet this record proves that there’s more. How does that track and this new record relate to each other?
It actually makes a lot of sense. That track in particular was easily the most sparse and minimal that we had done. Then at the end of the track, it starts to pick up into something that we probably explored a lot more had the tape not run out. We basically stopped because that reel of tape ran out right at the precipice of something new about to happen, something a bit more explosive. That was it for the band. It’s kind of the perfect segue into the new record, I’m glad that you bring that up because that’s something I’ve thought about but didn’t anybody else would catch on.

How else did you feel that Khanate had more to say?
There was always something going on in Khanate that sort of presented new directions we could have taken. Improvisation, while it was not such a huge part of the songs, it was always a theme that would come up in the band. All members of the band are actively engaged in improvising in other projects and it’s a big part of what we love about music in general. There was always a “what comes next” ideology in Khanate.

I guess when we ended, it was cut short to the point where we never really thought we had explored everything we wanted to explore, and we still haven’t. I think the new album is a pretty good indication of where we would have been headed had we not called it back in the day. I can’t really say now if there will be any new material in the future. When we start to put this together in a live situation, our songs always seem to morph into something a little bit different. That was a really good testing ground what might be plausible for the next step in Khanate. Maybe there is still more that needs to be done, it’s hard to say.

Khanate came up in the early 2000s, when metal, particularly doom metal, and experimental music were engaging with each other in interesting ways. What did you make of the crossover between the two?
It’s odd, we didn’t really discuss anything when we got together. Steve played us what he was working on by himself [and] the wheels started turning. We started patching things together and it was a short time after that more unorthodox metal elements were being introduced into the music. It wasn’t ever a conscious decision to push it in an experimental way. We were pushing ourselves to make the most honest, forthcoming music we could possibly do. There wasn’t any restraint other than trying not to play too fast, and that doesn’t even really make sense to me because now I listen to the early material, it’s much faster than what it became after years of performing it.

Fuck – how did Khanate get even slower?
It just happened naturally. I recently had to put together digital masters for the first Khanate album and listening to the first track compared to a live version of the track from three-to-four years later and it’s twice as long. Once we started getting together and playing regularly, the flow of everything became more natural. I’m happy about that transferring to a slower flow of everything – usually when people just let their instincts take over, they tend to speed things up. That speaks to a lot of the general sound of the band and how it’s not a deliberate attempt to be as slow as possible. It’s just giving the sound its own space to live its own life out without being rushed. I personally like music that I can become fully immersed in and I think having a real natural approach to either tempo or lack of tempo and just feeling it out, so to speak, makes becoming immersed in the music much easier for me.

Life is indeed quite cruel, here’s more new metal to help you cope…

Yakuza – Sutra (Svart)

Chicago’s Yazkuza, led by metal’s saxophone colossus Bruce Lamont, return with another album that plays with the edges of genres. Sometimes they’re proggy, sometimes they’re sludgy, sometimes you wonder if this is where Mastodon would go were they less commercial. It always hits. Anyway, why are they still not on Metal Archives?

Nocturnal Effigy – Unveiled Dark Majesty (Self-released)

This enigmatic black metal entity, known for their quite unkvlt light pink covers, returns with another mix of classic lo-fi buzz and dungeon synth. Leadoff track “The Bloodied Chantry” incorporates piano much like the long-deceased, greatly missed Lifelover, punctuating bittersweet melodies. Perfect for modeling chain mail around the house.

Krallice – Porous Resonance Abyss (Hathenter)

I really wish I could have seen members of Krallice perform with Eartheater at Jesus Piece’s release show in Philly. Guess I’ll have to sink into their new album, which imagines symphonic black metal with keyboards as the front-entity, as a compromise. Life could be worse.

Spinebreaker – Cavern of Inoculated Cognition (Creator-Destructor)

San Jose’s death metal crushers lose the HM-2 sounds and broaden their old-school tastes with their latest EP. There’s a hardcore no-nonsense attitude at work here, even with the addition of a third guitarist, Dead Heat’s Justin Ton. If you’re gonna pummel, go all the way.

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Ah, Metallica… Is there any metal band that’s more polarizing? Or any other that commands a fan base remotely as large while attracting a seemingly equal amount of haters?

Metallica were my first favorite metal band, which makes me one of a legion of similar converts. I was just entering adolescence when the Black Album came out, and though I’d previously loved Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, Poison and the rest of the class of ’87-’88, this record completely took over my life. I had one of those little padded cases for my Sony Discman, which held both the player and five CDs, and every day, I’d show up to middle school with the whole thing packed full of Metallica’s full album discography to date, Kill ’Em All through Metallica, and blast the albums on rotation in between classes. I even remember giving a speech on them once as part of some English class assignment, complete with homemade visual aid.

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From there, my musical tastes exploded in various directions: grunge, punk, death metal and eventually indie rock, jazz, classic rock, blues and beyond. Amid these other excursions, I kind of lost track of Metallica, just at the point where they really started to piss people off, by slowing down, cutting their hair and committing all the other sacrileges they were crucified for during the Load/ReLoad years. (I realize that for some, the “First Four Albums” die-hards, the “betrayal” began with the Black Album, the album where they dared to rock in a slightly more accessible way than before, but for myself and my headbanger friends, who weren’t old enough to be on the journey since the beginning, Metallica was just another killer Metallica record.)

Then, as we all know, things got really weird. I’ll spare you the plot summary of Some Kind of Monster, but suffice to say, you probably know what went down during the St. Anger years. By this point, 20 years ago now, in the minds of pretty much every self-respecting metalhead I know, or at least the ones I would regularly see at shows, Metallica fully transitioned from respected icons to insufferable laughing stocks. And, sure, I get it! I’ve seen the documentary too — in fact, I pretty much have it memorized. But! And this is a major “but”: My fandom doesn’t really work like that. I didn’t inherit the cynical gene that allows me to turn against a band the second they start showing signs of wear and tear, or even releasing music that can’t compete with their classics on a level playing field. Honestly, no matter what happens, except in a select few cases, I’m usually just happy that the band in question is still around at all, playing shows and putting out records.

And that’s been my feeling about Metallica all along. They’re a fucking awesome band that changed my life irrevocably. In my opinion, when it comes to heavy metal, there’s them and there’s Black Sabbath and then, wayyyyyyy below that elite tier, there’s everyone else. Do I love the second half of the Metallica discography, from Load on, as much as the first? Probably not! Nothing can really compete with the likes of Ride, Master and Justice. But there’s not a single studio Metallica album, the much-reviled St. Anger included, that I don’t love at least some of. This is all to say, I feign no objectivity here; I’m a fan for life. And I couldn’t be happier that they have a new album out this month. I’m still taking in 72 Seasons, but I love it so far. Is it probably at least a couple of songs too long? Sure! Does it have its occasional uninspired moments? Yeah! But it’s new Metallica music, so just as with the sturdy, surprisingly catchy Hardwired… to Self-Destruct seven years ago, I’m fully on board.

As I celebrate my first favorite metal band, I also share the news that this is my last Blast Rites column. I’m moving on to a new full-time gig and don’t have the bandwidth to continue as your humble metal concierge. To anyone who’s tuned in during the past six months or so, I can’t thank you enough for reading. And I’m equally grateful to SPIN for having me — it’s been, ahem, a blast sharing my inexhaustible passion for this art form month after month. I couldn’t be happier to be leaving the column in the exceedingly capable hands of its founder, Andy O’Connor, a man of impeccable tastes whose metal recommendations I’ve read and trusted for around a decade now. So you, dear Blast Rites reader, are in the best possible hands going forward.

I’ll go ahead and roll the 72 Seasons title track, an early favorite from the record, as my opening credits music, before moving on to the best of the rest for this month.

/////

Jesus Piece, “Tunnel Vision”

For anyone, myself included, who takes comfort in ultra-aggressive music, the new Jesus Piece album, …So Unknown, will feel like a weighted blanket. The latest from the Philly extreme-hardcore quintet does have a few tasteful, catch-your-breath moments, but this is the kind of record that shines the brightest when it’s simply mauling you with vicious intensity. “Tunnel Vision” reveals the band at peak snarl, with vertigo-inducing breakdowns — featuring the arresting, almost subsonic growl of frontman Aaron Heard — giving way to a romping midtempo riff tricked out with what sound like lacerating pick scrapes.

Dødheimsgard, “Interstellar Nexus”

I haven’t delved too deeply into Dødheimsgard before this writing. That’s a clear oversight, as the band’s founder, a Norwegian chap who goes by the name Vicotnik, is also a key part of one of my favorite black-metal-adjacent bands, Ved Buens Ende, a fantastically strange outfit that perfected a kind of proggy, gloom-laden art rock on their sole full-length, 1995’s Written in Waters. While his VBE bandmate Aggressor went on to form the excellent, similarly styled Virus, Vicotnik pushed ahead with the band known as DHG, which progressed during the ‘90s from fairly orthodox black metal to the deep weirdness of 1999’s 666 International, which brought in elements of oddball industrial and stately classical piano. The new Black Medium Current is only their third full-length since then, and it was very much worth the wait. “Interstellar Nexus,” a darkly psychedelic, if-Bowie-made-black-metal opus that finds Vicotnik wailing lines like “I wish I was a butterfly/Seeking to remember/Its beginning and its end” and ends up in a thrilling genre-splicing pileup, exemplifies how confident the band sounds in its hallucinogenic avant-garde creations.

Runemagick, “Archaic Magick (After the Red Sun)”

Sweden’s Runemagick have been around since the dawn of the ‘90s. But their profile is strangely low considering the high caliber of doomy, epic death metal that guitarist-vocalist Nicklas “Terror” Rudolfsson & Co. (including his wife, bassist Emma Rudolfsson, a member off and on since 2000) have been spewing forth for decades. By my count, the upcoming Beyond the Cenotaph of Mankind is their 13th full-length, and judging by this nearly 12-minute advance track, the band isn’t interested in prettying up its sound in the slightest — this is grimly atmospheric stuff that suggests a moonlight trudge across a freezing wasteland, with Rudolfsson’s beastly growl reverberating in your ears. The track builds to a hard-rocking stomp and, later, a punky gallop, but throughout, the sense of desolation remains. This is a terrific showing from a band that deserves to be way better known.

Anthropophagous, “Abuse of a Corpse”

If you needed further evidence that we’re living in a death-metal golden age, I direct you to Abuse of a Corpse, the splendidly titled second outing from Massachusetts’ Anthropophagous (that name means “eating human flesh,” FYI). It’s hard to enumerate each instance of awesomeness found within the title track, from the wiry 5/4 bass-drums groove that erupts out of the gate to the thresher-like, tempo-juggling chorus, the nasty, almost stoner-rock-ish breakdown and the swaggering climax. This thing is swarming with great riffs, craftily assembled, and I can’t wait to spend some good time with the rest of the record.

Overkill, “Twist of the Wick”

One cool thing about metal is that there’s no one path to success and longevity. For some acts, your Opeths, Mastodons and Deaths, say, a dramatic evolutionary arc is key; for others, it’s the ironclad guarantee that they won’t change that keeps fans coming back. Overkill are firmly in the latter category. Sure, they flirted a bit with grunge in the ‘90s (I mean, who didn’t?), but this New Jersey outfit has never attempted to pass as anything other than what it is: a die-hard thrash-metal machine. Play this uptempo burner from the band’s new Scorched alongside one of the speedier selections from an Overkill classic like 1989’s The Years of Decay, and it’s clear that banshee-voiced frontman Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth and co-founding bassist D.D. Verni are still fully committed to their original mission.

Enforced, “Hanged by My Hand”

It’s a pretty safe bet that you’d find an Overkill record or two in the collections of some of the members of Enforced, a Richmond, Va, band that beefs up ’80s thrash with elements of ass-whooping hardcore and caustic, primitive death metal à la Asphyx. You won’t hear anything fancy going on here, just a band rabidly intent on wrecking your neck in a no-frills manner reminiscent of the late, lamented Power Trip. I can attest that these guys tear it up live, and their upcoming War Remains LP ably captures the relentless bludgeon of their gigs.

Ὁπλίτης, “Τρῆσις”

One thing I’ll miss about putting together this column every month is stumbling on unusual Bandcamp finds like Ὁπλίτης: a one-man black/death-metal band from China, with lyrics and titles penned entirely in Greek. The project’s name translates to “Soldier,” while the title of its latest album, Τρωθησομένη, means “Eaten up.” I’m honestly not quite sure what’s going on here thematically, but what I can confidently say is that, as you can hear on this track — the title of which translates to “Thirty,” this is music of overwhelming power — filled with cyclone-like riffs, shrieked vocals and bursts of alien technicality. The drums are almost certainly sampled, giving the music an eerie precision reminiscent of the similarly maximal Deathspell Omega, but that fact only heightens the sense of meticulous craftsmanship that’s on constant display here. Easily the most head-spinning thing I’ve heard this month.

VoidCeremony, “Abyssic Knowledge Bequeathed”

Lunar Chamber, “Spirit Body and the Seeing Self”

Death-metal fans who like a little knotty prog mixed in with their caveman brutality are in for a treat this month, as Pittsburgh label 20 Buck Spin is unveiling two new releases that happen to check that highly specific box. First we have Threads of Unknowing, the second LP from Ramona, Ca, outfit VoidCeremony — as you can hear on “Abyssic Knowledge Bequeathed,” their songs embrace brainy virtuosity (check out those beautifully intricate bass lines) while still coming off as grimy and sepulchral. Also out soon is Shamballic Vibrations, the debut EP from Lunar Chamber, a simultaneously furious and ethereal outfit inspired by Buddhist thought. As you can hear on “Spirit Body and the Seeing Self,” their fusion of New Age–y moodcraft and sheer blasting insanity makes for an odd yet compelling listen.

40 Watt Sun, “Restless”

Macabre, “Sniper in the Sky”

Two April reissue campaigns showcase the opposite ends of the metal spectrum. First we have the height of elegance, in the form of two newly re-pressed albums by 40 Watt Sun, available directly from the band. It’s hard to know where to begin with this band — one of the greatest and most emotionally shattering on the planet, in my opinion — but it’s important to note that chief singer-songwriter-guitarist Patrick Walker formerly played in Warning, a band that harnessed a sublime mixture of beauty and gloomy despondency. This project is subtler, and on recent releases, can’t really be comfortably described as metal at all, but at least on their debut, 2011’s The Inside Room — soon to be reissued along with the titanically lovely follow-up, 2016’s Wider Than the Sky — their sound was both crushingly heavy and almost unbearably gorgeous. Put on “Restless” and buckle up for the ultimate in bleak beauty.

As willfully tasteless as 40 Watt Sun are artful, Macabre are a long-running Chicago band that specializes in so-called Murder Metal — i.e., bloodthirsty death metal with lyrics about the shocking deeds of serial killers, sung in almost nursery-rhyme-like cadences. Their defining album, 1993’s Sinister Slaughter, has been re-released on vinyl and cassette courtesy of Nuclear Blast, and it still sounds as loopy and grotesque as it did when I first spun it 30 years back, as you can hear on “Sniper in the Sky,” about Charles Whitman, the perpetrator of a horrific 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas. Complete with its Sgt. Pepper’s–parodying cover, this is death metal as outsider art, and its gleeful depravity still scratches a certain very specific itch.

Smoulder, “The Talisman and the Blade”

Sometimes in metal you have to choose between an epic feel and an appealing grit, but not in the case of Smoulder’s Violent Creed of Vengeance. As you can hear here, this is chain-mail-and-sword metal, packed with Arthurian imagery, but presented with the hungry immediacy of the best of heavy music’s more extreme wings. Guitarists Collin Wolf and Shon Vincent provide just the right shreddy majesty, drummer Kevin Hester supplies the perfect frenzied gallop, and vocalist Sarah Ann adds the drama-filled belt this sort of music demands. This is heavy-metal escapism done right.

And with that, dear Blast Rites readers, I bid you a fond farewell. Thanks again for tuning in, check back next month for Andy’s return to the fold, and most importantly, stay heavy!

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

Metal remains an insular and sometimes elitist genre, so it’s always welcome when a well-known figure from outside the scene tips their hat to the heavy stuff. Last week, R&B hit-maker T-Pain blessed us with a cover of one of the genre’s all-time-great anthems. If you haven’t yet heard his version of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the concluding number on a new covers album that also includes takes on classics by Sam Cooke and Journey, you really should. It’s a pretty faithful rendition, with ultra-punchy drums and gleaming organ that give the track a distinct gospel aura, but the obvious highlight is hearing the lusty voice behind “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” tear into fearsome Geezer Butler–penned, originally Ozzy-sung lines like “Death and hatred to mankind/Poisoning their brainwashed minds.” T-Pain’s wordless ad-libs as the song kicks in remind the listener just how much R&B there was in the DNA of the original Sabbath, and how a great voice can make genre boundaries seem like petty micro-distinctions. (Butler later gave his stamp of approval.) Now, if we could only get him to duet with Ozzy on this at some point, our lives would be complete.

And onward to the best new metal of the month!

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Liturgy, “Ananon”

A little after the three-and-a-half-minute mark, “Ananon” — a track from Liturgy’s 93696, March’s most riveting, not to mention overwhelming, new metal album — reaches what seems like peak intensity, as bursts of feverish drumming meet waves of choral vocals, trilling guitar and shrieks that sound actually throat-damaging. But somehow, the piece has another gear in store, as the band tears into an oceanic half-time riff, disrupted by post-production glitches and dissolving into weird ambient static. This passage is a good indicator of the relentless avant-garde maximalism that’s on display throughout this record, always upping not just in intensity but in sheer genre-busting invention. The band has totally reconfigured since their early phase that culminated in 2011’s monumental Aesthethica, but bandleader Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix remains committed to a musical vision that combines the fury of black metal with the rigor and imagination of cutting-edge classical composition. This kind of thing isn’t for everyone, but if you’re looking for something uncategorizable and truly extreme on every possible front, 93696 is essential listening.

Zulu, “Our Day Is Now”

Just as rich and complex, though in a very different way, is A New Tomorrow, the debut full-length from L.A.’s Zulu. Fittingly, one of the album’s harshest moments is also one of its most uplifting. On “Our Day Is Now,” over a furious grindcore riff, dual vocalists Anaiah Lei (also the band’s leader/mastermind, handling multiple instruments on the album) and drummer Christine Cadette trade lines as they scream, “Step out/Into the sea/Of pure love/Where we’re meant to be.” Like the album as a whole, the song portrays Black joy as an irrepressible force, flourishing despite centuries of trauma. The band’s insistence on highlighting positivity in their volcanically heavy protest songs, and in connecting seemingly disparate strands of Black music through savvy sampling — you’ll hear a snippet of Freddie McGregor’s 1986 reggae single “Push Come to Shove” at the end of “Our Day Is Now” — align them spiritually with trailblazing acts like Bad Brains.

Entheos, “The Sinking Sun”

Another March release that chronicles both despair and the will to rise above it is Time Will Take Us All, the new third album from Entheos — the proggy yet ferocious Santa Cruz, Ca., duo of vocalist Chaney Crabb and multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis — which was recorded in the wake of a harrowing motorized-scooter accident that Crabb endured in 2021. “And slowly I/Drift away into the darkness/The depths of my own mind/Where sorrow and hope collide,” Crabb growls on “The Sinking Sun,” a seven-minute stunner near the end of the album. The track touches on the band’s many strengths, from crushing groove to sci-fi hypertechnicality, sometimes combining both at once in a way that can suggest a more emotionally urgent Meshuggah.

Spirit Possession, “Second Possession”

Spirit Possession are also a West Coast duo, hailing from Portland, Or., though that’s where any similarity with Entheos ends. This outfit plays a particularly wild-eyed sort of black metal, driven by mind-warping riffs — courtesy of Steve Peacock, also of a slew of other feral yet progressive-minded bands, including Ulthar — and a seething, chaotic energy, enhanced by the fierce precision bashing of drummer Ashley Spungin, formerly of Insect Ark. You can practically smell the brimstone emanating from “Second Possession,” an advance track from the band’s second LP, Of the Sign…, out at the end of the month.

Enslaved, “Behind the Mirror”

Of the Norwegian black-metal grandaddies who are still around, some (Immortal, for example) have taken an “ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, while others (Mayhem, e.g.) have opted for a staunchly evolutionary path. Enslaved are in the latter camp, but their brand of progress is closer to, say, Pink Floyd’s than King Crimson’s, with psychedelic and art-rock elements softening the edges of their still-epic sound. Heimdal, their 16th, and latest album, is another strong effort from core duo Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson & Co. Check out opening track “Behind the Mirror,” where growled and sung vocals blend elegantly with shimmering, synth-haloed grooves and massive, chugging riffs. There’s a refreshing sense with this band that they’re not remotely hung up on checking the boxes of black metal, or any sort of metal, for that matter; they’re simply writing adventurous, smartly constructed songs that go wherever their formidable imaginations take them.

Netherlands, “Severance”

I get a similar sense of freedom from Netherlands. The long-running New York outfit’s sound revolves around huge, fuzz-caked riffs and the eccentric sing-song of guitar-vocalist-bandleader Timo Ellis, a former member of Cibo Matto. It’s an odd blend on the surface, but as you can hear on “Severance,” the title track their new album — and first for the consistently compelling Finnish label Svart, who also put out a cool comeback album this month by arty death-metalists turned rock & roll weirdos Xysma — it’s both heavy as hell and charmingly bizarre, sometimes evoking a more whimsical Torche or even Queens of the Stone Age at their most unhinged.

Astriferous, “Blinding the Seven Eyes of God”

Seemingly a month doesn’t go by these days without the release of a great new album from a newish death-metal band evoking the shadowy brilliance of the early ‘90s. In February, we had Sacramento’s Tentacult occupying this lane and in March, it’s Costa Rica’s Astriferous, whose name, somewhat awesomely, means “star-bearing.” If you’ve been keeping up with the so-called OSDM (old-school death metal) movement in recent years, their new debut, Pulsations From the Black Orb, will feel mighty familiar, but as evidenced by “Blinding the Seven Eyes of God” — with its gnarled riffs, heaving grooves, clever tempo changes and cosmic-maw vocal emanations — there’s just something so satisfying about this style when done right, like a warm blanket decorated with little Cthulhus. Fingers crossed for some U.S. gigs from these guys very soon.

Rotten Sound, “Suburban Bliss”

Bands from the Descendents to Rush were railing against the cookie-cutter constrictions of the suburbs more than 40 years ago. But Rotten Sound show that there’s still plenty more to gripe about on “Suburban Bliss,” an advance track from Apocalypse, the new album from the Finnish grindcore stalwarts. Vocalist Keijo Niinimaa convincingly portrays what for many is the long, tedious march to home ownership as he howls, “Mortgage of tomorrow/Reason to wake up/Must work to pay/Too many square meters,” as the band alternately gallops and blasts beneath him. State-of-the-art production aside, this stuff is proudly atavistic in its approach, but brutally satisfying all the same.

Kruelty, “Manufactured Insanity”

The same goes for Untopia, the new full-length from Kruelty, whose Bandcamp description reads, brilliantly and simply, “Disgusting music from Tokyo, Japan.” Their sound reflects a recent mutual nod of respect between the hardcore and death-metal scenes, and it’s easy to imagine a track like “Manufactured Insanity,” with its whiplash tempo changes, lurching breakdowns and overall aura of cold-eyed menace appealing equally to fans of Bolt Thrower and Merauder.

Majesties, “The World Unseen”

Majesties’ sonic palette is as vibrant as Kruelty’s is monochromatic. The Minneapolis band plays the kind of extreme metal that might remind you more of Iron Maiden or a John Williams score than the gruesome likes of Autopsy or Obituary, with triumphant, eminently hummable riffs taking up almost every inch of the musical canvas. “The World Unseen” — from the band’s new debut, Vast Reaches Unclaimed — finds vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Tanner Anderson, also of ethereal black-metal outfit Obsequiae, shrieking about a trippy dream in which he becomes “bodily displaced” and witnesses the universe’s “infinite clockwork design,” and the song’s soaring, expertly paced musical motifs provide a suitably wondrous backdrop.

Babymetal, “Divine Attack”

And then there’s Babymetal. Brand them as a novelty and you’d sort of be right, except for the fact that it’s been close to a decade since their original viral breakthrough, and they’re still going
strong, averaging a respectable 1.6 million Spotify streams per month, vastly more than any other band you’ll read about in this Blast Rites. More importantly, their songs are really good: Take “Divine Attack,” a track from the group’s upcoming fourth album, The Other One, which convincingly weds pulse-pounding uptempo pop with bombastic shred. Sure, I’d rather be watching the Babymetal squad perform an expertly choreographed, pyro-enhanced version in a packed arena, but this still works as good escapist fun when listening at home.

Verminous Serpent, “The Malign Covenant”

I’ve previously known Alan Averill, a.k.a. A.A. Nemtheanga, as one of the more distinctive vocalists in extreme metal: His dire, expressive belt, heard most prominently in the long-running Irish band Primordial, has made him something like the Ronnie James Dio of black metal. But his considerable melodic gifts are nowhere to be found on The Malign Covenant, the debut from new project Verminous Serpent. Instead, here, where he doubles on bass, he adopts a raspy growl that perfectly suits the band’s pitch-black rumble. As you can hear on the title track, this is trudging and, by design, fairly dismal stuff, driven by majestically gloomy riffs. If you’ve enjoyed the grinding slo-mo groove of recent Darkthrone but found the proceedings too upbeat, this just might be the band for you.

Primitive Man and Full of Hell, “Trepanation for Future Joys”

In last month’s column, I covered a collaborative single by Kreator and Lamb of God, released in advance of a joint tour. It was a cool, novel idea, and I mentioned then that I’d love to hear more of that sort of thing. Well, here’s another example, from a bit further underground: a new joint album from Primitive Man and Full of Hell, who are currently on the road together on a package topped by Fit for an Autopsy and the Acacia Strain. It’s a compelling pairing, as Full of Hell are a band known for their blinding speed while Primitive have typically favored apocalyptic downtempo sludge. “Trepanation for Future Joys,” the opening track from their new team-up, Suffocating Hallucination, sort of sounds like the two bands just set up opposite one another in the studio and started jamming, not a bad thing when the acts in question are as seasoned as these two. The nearly 10-minute track starts out in Primitive Man territory but starts to pick up as the groups’ respective drummers power a slight tempo jump, accompanied by a wall of noxious guitar noise and screeching distorted vocals. Things only get bleaker from there. We sure wouldn’t mind witnessing this dark, almost ritualistic nastiness unfold onstage on one of the upcoming dates.

Gorod, “We Are the Sun Gods”

Compared to the prior two entries, France’s Gorod sound downright sprightly, offering a brand of speed-driven technicality that recalls the head-spinning inventions of eternally on-pause German death-metalists Necrophagist. On “We Are the Sun Gods,” from the band’s latest, The Orb, the drums and guitar rush forward in an immaculately choreographed mutant-thrash ballet, accompanied by the expressive growl-and-screech of vocalist Julien Deyres. Halfway through, the band breaks into a flashy fusion-esque breakdown complete with a mini drum solo, rounding out a portrait of an extreme metal band that’s not shy about flaunting its considerable chops.

Nanowar of Steel, “Pasadena 1994”

Gorod’s athletic displays are a good lead-in for our final pick of the month, from an Italian band that sends up metal’s more over-the-top tropes through the use of groan-worthy comedy. We can’t really imagine sitting through a whole album of this stuff, but we also can’t deny the goofy charms of a song like “Pasadena 1994.” Featuring Sabaton vocalist Joakim Brodén, the track channels the might of European power metal into a undeniably catchy anthem about, yes, the 1994 World Cup final, which the band dubs “the Italian waterloo” in light of the fact that their country’s team lost to Brazil that day. Scoff if you will, but just try and get that “Pasadena 1994/The last fight of the heroes sent to war” chant out of your head. Till next time!

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

It’s shaping up to be a huge year for live metal. The amount of stacked festivals and unmissable tours is growing by the week. Baltimore’s venerable Maryland Deathfest may be taking a year off — a breather before the event comes roaring back in 2024 — but in its place, the battle-vest-clad faithful can choose between new Baltimore blowout Hell in the Harbor as well as the reactivated Milwaukee Metal Fest, both taking place during Memorial Day weekend, with Decibel’s Metal & Beer Fest taking over Philly a month earlier. And big names such as Carcass, Emperor, Ghost, Dying Fetus, Mastodon and Gojira (on the same bill), Morbid Angel, the quasi-reunited Pantera, all-star Death tribute Death to All, and some band called Metallica will all be criss-crossing the States throughout the spring and summer. In the meantime, the release calendar is starting to heat up, so let’s run down the best of February’s brand-new heaviness.

Memoriam, “Total War”

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In 1989, in the opening minutes of Bolt Thrower’s classic Realm of Chaos LP, Karl Willetts lamented “the ongoing battle of the eternal war.” Some 34 years later, the vocalist has still got the battlefield on the brain on Rise to Power, the fifth album in six years from his current project, Memoriam. “War! Total war!” he growls on, yes, “Total War,” an eventful, tempo-hopping track that shows off the potent chemistry between Willetts — whose convincingly dire delivery helped make his old band one of the most beloved in all of underground metal — and guitarist-songwriter Scott Fairfax. Willetts has said that the song was specifically inspired by the war in Ukraine, and you can hear the disgust in his voice as he shouts, “And now history repeats itself once more/In 2022, a new global war.”

Siege of Power, “The Devil’s Grasp”

Another death-metal veteran — Chris Reifert, best known as drummer-vocalist of the legendary Autopsy — is in peak form on This Is Tomorrow, the new second album from Siege of Power. The band shares a considerable amount of DNA with Dutch death-metal institution Asphyx, including that outfit’s former drummer, Bob Bagchus, and current guitarist, Paul Baayens. If you’re familiar with the Asphyx and Autopsy back catalogs, you won’t be remotely surprised by “The Devil’s Grasp,” but there’s something extremely satisfying about the way Reifert’s patented gruff bark — accented with all manner of wordless punctuations: “ugh,” “arghhhhhh!” “oooooo…” — complements the song’s barreling, hardcore-style drive.

FesterDecay, “Exposing the Skin Tissue”

More inspired primitivism arrives this month from FesterDecay, a Japanese outfit that acts as a historical preservation society for a very specific early chapter in the discography of U.K. extreme-metal legends Carcass. That band has long since moved on from the so-called goregrind of its debut album, 1988’s Reek of Putrefaction, but an entire subgenre still orbits its gloriously gross audiovisual aesthetic. FesterDecay check all the boxes on their debut album, Reality Rotten to the Core, pairing stomach-turning cover art that looks like an anatomy textbook illustrated by Dalí with grotesque blasts of aural vomit. “Exposing the Skin Tissue” finds the band capturing the unhinged energy of its heroes while weaving in a few insistently catchy riffs.

Heaven’s Gate, “Cinder Woman”

Also keeping things nasty, brutish and short are Heaven’s Gate, a new quasi-supergroup from Tampa, Fla. that unites Municipal Waste and Iron Reagan frontman Tony Foresta with guitarist Mike Goo (of a bunch of bands, including New York metallic-punk faves Warthog), bassist Jeff Howe (whose C.V. includes stints with influential screamo-adjacent acts Reversal of Man and Combatwoundedveteran) and drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz of a scrappy, up-and-coming outfit called Cannibal Corpse. The band’s self-titled debut EP is a hell of a lot of fun, and the minute-long “Cinder Woman” perfectly captures the quartet’s punky, stripped-down attack, seasoned with some choice Mazurkiewicz blasts. (We feel compelled to add that we’re exceedingly charmed by the idea of a band featuring the drummer of the biggest death-metal act in the world gigging at a St. Petersburg VFW hall, as Heaven’s Gate did earlier this month.)

Venomous Concept, “Fractured”

Let’s continue with that underground-all-stars theme and shout out Venomous Concept. Does Shane Embury — the longest-tenured current member of Napalm Death, and also the bassist for Brujeria, Lock Up and a bunch of others — really need another musical outlet? On the basis of “Fractured” — a track from the band’s new fifth full-length, The Good Ship Lollipop — we’d answer in the affirmative. Embury takes over lead-vocal duties here, and while we’re big fans of the group’s primary frontman, Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp, we’re pretty blown away by what the bassist comes up with here: a readymade post-punk anthem that pairs the bassist’s moody Jaz Coleman–style melodicism with the raging riffs of current Napalm Death live member John Cooke and sturdy groove of former Cancer drummer Carl Stokes.

Curta’n Wall, “Siege Ubsessed!”

Following in Embury’s ultra-prolific footsteps is Abysmal Specter, the musician behind Northern California’s Grime Stone Records. He’s involved in a bunch of projects, many of which deftly walk the line between righteously raw and unabashedly ridiculous. Siege Ubsessed! — the latest from his solo endeavor Curta’n Wall — fully embraces the latter zone, right down to its “1987 Ren Faire program”–caliber cover art. You really have to hear this stuff to get the full effect, but strap in for a bewildering amalgam of rickety bedroom black metal; jaunty, accordion-accented melody that brings to mind dances in a medieval town square; theatrical female vocals that you might expect to hear in an onstage adaptation of The Legend of Zelda; and a little saxophone thrown in for good measure. We don’t pretend to have a clue as to what’s driving Mr. Specter to create such madness, but we nevertheless raise a goblet to his lovably batshit vision.

Clouds Taste Satanic, “Sun Death Ritual”

Though Curta’n Wall and Clouds Taste Satanic sound nothing alike, there’s a similar kind of insular charm to the latter outfit, a New York band that’s steadfastly devoted to playing groovy, riff-forward doom metal at an epic scale. The group’s lack of vocals might stands out on paper, but as you can hear on “Sun Death Ritual” — one of four tracks on their new album, Tales of Demonic Possession, all of which hover around the 20-minute mark — guitarists Steven Scavuzzo and Brian Bauhs, bassist Sean Bay and drummer Greg Acampora are so focused on their core mission of trudging endlessly onward through a psychedelic expanse that words could only spoil the mood. This album is what we imagine the desert nomads seen on the cover of Sleep’s Dopesmoker reissue might be blasting in their headphones.

Sanguisugabogg, “Mortal Admonishment”

Another band with a lot invested in the art of groove is Sanguisugabogg. The Columbus, Oh., outfit caused an underground stir with their 2019 EP Pornographic Seizures and their jokey, meme-savvy online presence, only to be quickly snapped up by Sony Music’s Century Media in 2021. The band hasn’t modified its core sound much since ascending to the metal big leagues: As you can hear on “Mortal Admonishment,” a standout track from their new second LP, Homicidal Ecstasy, they remain committed to beefy, head-nodding riffs, reveling in the Neanderthal grooves of the “slam” death-metal subgenre while spicing up the songwriting just enough to keep things interesting. Devin Swank is a powerful, resolutely guttural presence on the mic, but the VIP here is unquestionably Cody Davidson, the band’s drummer and in-house producer, who invests every grody breakdown with a funky, hardcore-style bounce.

Vampire Squid, “Cosmic Seapage”

Vampire Squid, a death-metal outfit from Corona, Ca., with a penchant for aquatic-themed grotesqueries, harness a similar neck-wrecking potential on their excellent new EP, Plasmic. “Cosmic Seapage” — see what they did there? — features one of the catchiest choruses we’ve heard in a metal track this month, a double-kick-driven strut featuring charmingly graphic lyrics about being devoured by a swarm of tenatacled beasts: “Sucked up like an anemone/Open wounds that can never heal,” blurts vocalist-guitarist Andrew Virrueta. “Squeeze out into a jelly/Degraded to a lesser meal.” That’s gotta hurt!

Tentacult, “Litany of Relict Caverns”

In the mood for more tentacle action? Tentacult have you covered on their full-length debut, Lacerating Pattern. Like many of their young death-metal contemporaries, the Sacramento band harks back to the genre’s early-’90s glory days with inspired results. “Litany of Relict Caverns,” from their debut LP, Lacerating Pattern (surely the year’s coolest title so far), capably combines the dismal doominess of classic Finnish bands like Abhorrence with a twisted dark-sci-fi atmosphere that might put you in mind of Florida visionaries Nocturnus. If you’re a fan of the early work of heavy hitters like Tomb Mold and Blood Incantation — and, really, who isn’t? — we strongly urge you to spend 10-plus minutes immersing yourself in the occult-prog vibes on offer here. Definitely a band to watch.

Lamb of God and Kreator, “State of Unrest”

Having spent a lot of this month’s column in the shadowy realms of the underground, let’s take a moment to check out what some of metal’s marquee names are up to. Off the top of our heads, we can’t think of another collaboration quite like “State of Unrest,” a stand-alone team-up between Lamb of God and Kreator, unveiled in advance of their in-progress European tour. It’s a solid, anthemic track featuring those bands’ beloved respective vocalists, Randy Blythe and Mille Petrozza, trading off lines about humanity’s technology-induced malaise. The inevitable sight of the two bands joining forces to perform it on the tour is enticing, and another compelling aspect of “State of Unrest” comes via its backstory: The track was originally supposed to feature lead vocals from Riley Gale, the late frontman of Power Trip, billmates on the original version of this tour, slated for spring 2020 and postponed due to COVID-19. All proceeds from the song will go to Dallas Hope Charities, a charity assisting homeless LGBTQ youth that Gale worked with. We’ve gotta say: This idea of a tour-themed collaborative single is super cool, and we’d love to see more co-billed bands trying something like this.

In Flames, “The Great Deceiver”

Maybe the month’s most high-profile metal release is Foregone, the latest from Swedish melodic-death-metal heavyweights In Flames. Their Gothenburg peers At the Gates tend to get more underground props, but In Flames still commands a pretty massive audience, and it’s easy to hear why on “The Great Deceiver.” The band’s mixture of triumphant, hooky riffs and caustic vocals is huge-sounding and fist-pumping fun, clearly benefiting from the pop-minded savvy of co-writer and producer Howard Benson, who has worked with big names like Kelly Clarkson and Bon Jovi and here helms his third straight In Flames LP.

Big Brave, “Carvers, Farriers and Knaves”

“Carvers, Farriers and Knaves,” taken from nature morte, the new album by Montreal’s Big Brave, is as exploratory as “The Great Deceiver” is straightforward. Unfolding across seven gripping minutes, the track combines pummeling art doom with the alternately wailing and shrieking delivery of vocalist Robin Wattie. The trio’s sound is crushing yet admirably outside the box, and we’d highly recommend this one to fans of similarly uncategorizable outfits from Swans to Sumac.

Menstrual Vampires, “Bestial Encounter”

If you’re looking for something a little more crude — OK, a lot more crude! — have a listen to “Bestial Encounter,” a track from the new self-titled debut EP by the absurdly named duo Menstrual Vampires. This one is a mighty-strange blend of the primitive blurt of way-underground death metal (burping-frog vocals, percussion that sounds like it’s emanating from an 8-bit drum machine, though honestly we’re not sure what’s going on there…) with riffs that are way more coherent and memorable than the ones you usually hear associated with this style. The involvement of one Scott Conner — better known as the man behind renowned one-man black-metal project turned depressive folk act Xasthur — only makes the whole thing seem that much more out of left field. We’re curious to see where this project goes!

Nucleus, “Inculcate”
Azath, “In Reptilian Pathways”

And rounding things out this month, we have a good-old split seven-inch: a partnership between Chicago’s Nucleus and the apparently Seattle-based Azath (though we’re honestly not sure where the latter band is from, as Encyclopedia Metallum says they’re split between California and Canada), featuring charmingly campy cover art adorned by a murderous lizard man, and, more importantly, two savage death-metal tracks. Nucleus keep you guessing by juxtaposing head-down midtempo churn with chaotic speed bursts and sneaky technicality, while Azath dive straight into blastbeat-driven aggression that never lets up. Both tracks bode well for whatever’s next from each of these groups.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

It’s a slow month for noteworthy new metal, so we’re going to try something different this month. First up: a quick rundown of tracks from January’s handful of standout heavy releases. Then, we’ll take a trip back 30 years to 1993, an unusually fertile year for metal, and list our picks for the 30 best riffs unleashed in those 12 months.

Obituary, “My Will to Live”

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There really isn’t another band like Obituary. You’ll often see them pegged as pioneers of death metal, and while the group and its fans probably wouldn’t bristle at that categorization, they share almost nothing in common with most of their peers in that realm. For one thing, they’ve taken a career-long pass on the space-race mindset that drives many of subgenre’s practitioners: the idea that faster, more guttural or generally more extreme is always the goal. Obituary, rather, are a band on perpetual cruise control: They play at tempos that work for them — typically either an upbeat but not breakneck cadence that can feel like a mixture of thrash metal and hardcore punk, or their most tried-and-true gear, a head-nodding stomp that feels as comfy as AC/DC laying into “Back in Black.”

A great example of the latter mode is “My Will to Live,” a highlight of the band’s new 11th album, Dying of Everything. Even if you’ve never heard Obituary before, throw this one on and you’ll quickly perceive how the band wrings maximum badassery out of a handful of crunchy power-chord riffs — and how Trevor Peres’ ever-chunky guitarwork aligns with drummer Donald Tardy’s consummately laid-back groove and his brother John’s signature ghastly howl like a cheeseburger, fries and an ice-cold fountain soda. There are a few textural shifts here and there, but mostly this is just Obituary being Obituary, and that’s more than enough.

Ahab, “The Sea as a Desert”

Another band that’s exceedingly comfortable in its chosen mode is Ahab. You might think that the world doesn’t need more than one Moby Dick–inspired metal outfit, but this German quartet takes a very different tack than Mastodon did on their landmark Leviathan LP from 2004. While that album was proggy and action-packed, Ahab are all about atmosphere. “The Sea as a Desert,” one of four 10-minute-plus tracks on their new album, The Coral Tombs, lives up to its title: Its rumbling doom-metal expanse feels like a slow descent into inky blackness. What really sets this band apart, beyond its knack for elegiac mood-setting, is the crafty way guitarist-keyboardist Daniel Droste contrasts gruff death-metal-style bellows with mournful melodic crooning. This is some seriously despondent yet majestically lovely stuff — highly recommended for fans of early Pallbearer and the heavier work of Patrick Walker (Warning, 40 Watt Sun).

Leper Colony, “The Surgical Undeadvors”

Back in September, we spotlighted a cameo by Marc Grewe, former frontman of the underrated German death-metal outfit Morgoth, on Bloodbath’s latest album. Now he’s back for an album-length statement in the form of Leper Colony, the self-titled debut by a new band of the same name — a collaboration with Rogga Johansson, an insanely prolific Swedish guitarist and songwriter whose Metal Archives page lists upwards of 40 active projects. The band’s style celebrates the late-‘80s pivot point between thrash and death metal, perfected on early albums by Death. The brilliantly titled “The Surgical Undeadvors” showcases the potent combination of Johansson’s alternately eerie and furious riffage, and Grewe’s unhinged delivery — in contrast to the more guttural vocal styles in vogue today, he favors a wilder, more expressive approach, closer to peers like Asphyx’s Martin Van Drunen and Obituary’s aforementioned John Tardy. He still sounds as bloodthirsty as he did on Morgoth classics like Cursed and Odium, making this record a must-hear for fans of his back catalog.

Oozing Wound, “Hypnic Jerk”

Chicago’s Oozing Wound fall somewhere between metal and noise-rock, but they’re heavy as hell, and they have a new record out this month, so they merit a mention here. “Hypnic Jerk” lurches from punishing accents to in-the-red grindcore and stomping art-punk, all tied together by the shredded yowl of guitarist Zack Well. We’d liken the track’s sound to a more hyperactive Unsane, a more wild-eyed Big Business or a more anthemic Lightning Bolt, skillfully marrying weighty riffs to herky-jerky rhythms. Some heavily effects-treated trumpet from Windy City indie-prog luminary Thymme Jones — if you’ve never heard his long-running band Cheer-Accident, you must remedy that immediately — sweetens the gleefully chaotic mix.

Disfiguring the Goddess, “Below the Water”

Speaking of chaotic, there’s a new Disfiguring the Goddess EP out this month, titled Karnival and boasting some seriously unsettling creepy-clown artwork. The solo project of Nevada-based extreme-metal auteur Cameron Argon, who works under the memorable sobriquet Big Chocolate, DtG approach what’s known as “slam” death metal from a surrealistic angle, adding heady production flourishes that make an often monochrome subgenre feel unusually vibrant. “Below the Water” blends grotesque growls and bruising downtempo groove with ominous electronic textures, yielding a warped and unsettlingly tactile sound.

*****

And now for our 1993 countdown. That year was an absolutely glorious one for all kinds of heavy sounds. At the macro level, those 12 months produced a sizable number of classic records; at the micro level, they yielded an even greater number of all-time-great riffs. Here are 30 of our favorites, unranked and sequenced into an all-killer mixtape.

Helmet and House of Pain, “Just Another Victim”

Helmet’s 1992 masterpiece, Meantime, set a new riff benchmark with its minimalist noise-metal motifs. The masters returned the following year with this gem from the rap-rock-filled Judgement Night soundtrack, driven by a brutally simple yet impossible-to-shake verse riff.

Disincarnate, “Monarch of the Sleeping Marches”

Dreams of the Carrion Kind — the sole album by Florida’s Disincarnate, the band led by former Obituary, Death and Cancer guitarist James Murphy — is an unsung death-metal classic, jam-packed with expertly crafted songs and choice riffs. A standout moment comes around 1:35 into “Monarch of the Sleeping Marches,” when a fierce uptempo passage suddenly gives way to a full-band dropout, followed by a grimly groovy half-time breakdown.

Entombed, “Demon”

We all know the story of grunge’s ascension by heart, but shortly after Seattle broke, another fertile indie scene infiltrated the mainstream when U.K. extreme-metal bastion Earache partnered up with Columbia Records. The series of releases that followed alienated some die-hard fans, but time has proven most of them to be among the gems of these respective bands’ catalogs. Wolverine Blues saw Swedish death-metal pioneers Entombed slowing down and adding a rock and roll swagger to their grisly, sepulchral sound, and in the process realizing some of their most memorable material. The grinding stop-start riff that leads off choice deep cut “Demon” — punctuated by the vomitous bellow of the late, great LG Petrov — shows that the band was just as effective at slower tempos.

Carcass, “Heartwork”

The crown jewel of the Earache/Columbia union is undoubtedly Heartwork, the album that saw Liverpool gore-grind pioneers Carcass perfecting their mature sound: razor-sharp melodic death metal driven by the world-class two-guitar team of co-founder Bill Steer and future Arch Enemy leader Michael Amott. The title track kicks off with a tornado of high-speed shred that plays like the headbanger’s version of a classical overture.

Eyehategod, “Take as Needed for Pain”

New Orleans miscreants Eyehategod did their best to portray themselves as dead-eyed nihilists, but their second LP, Take as Needed for Pain, featured some of the sweetest doom-blues riffs since the early days of Sabbath. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but cue up the title track to 2:50 (or 2:58 in the above clip, which has an intro tacked on) and behold feel-bad rock and roll at its finest.

Sepultura, “Refuse/Resist”

Sepultura were another extreme-metal powerhouse that made the major-label jump in ’93, partnering with Epic while remaining affiliated with Roadrunner, and the resulting album, Chaos A.D., remains a career highlight. The record is packed with ferocious motifs, but the massive groove that breaks out around the 30-second mark here, punctuated by whiplash fills from drummer Igor Cavalera, represents the band at its most anthemic.

Death, “The Philosopher”

The late Chuck Schuldiner wasn’t just one of death metal’s founding fathers; he was also one of its true avant-garde leaders, always pushing the genre somewhere new. After realizing a progressive masterpiece with 1991’s Human, he delivered his catchiest songs to date on 1993’s Individual Thought Patterns, including MTV-featured single “The Philosopher.” The song’s 9/8 verse riff, first breaking out around the 15-second mark, is one of Schuldiner’s most awe-inspiring creations.

Morbid Angel, “World of Shit (The Promised Land)”

Schuldiner’s contemporary Trey Azagthoth, the sole consistent member of Morbid Angel throughout the band’s ongoing 40-year history, is another figure who belongs on the Mount Rushmore of death-metal riff writing. The band’s major-label debut, Covenant, featured some of his gnarliest-ever creations, including the deliciously dismal intro to “World of Shit (The Promised Land).”

Demilich, “Inherited Bowel Levitation — Reduced Without Any Effort”

Far away from sunny Tampa, home to Morbid Angel and many other U.S. death-metal titans, Finland’s Demilich were creating their own brand of twisted death metal, realized on their sole full-length, Nespithe. The album is a cornucopia of oddball earworms, but look alive at 1:35 into this track, when the quartet unveils a devilishly righteous stop-time killer that turns into a punishing groove once the full band kicks in.

Tool, “Bottom”

Tool grew more and more esoteric, and less overtly metallic, over the years, but on their full-length debut, Undertow, they were tossing out crunchy gems left and right, including the lurching Adam Jones rager that kicks off the abject anthem “Bottom.”

Clutch, “Walking in the Great Shining Path of Monster Trucks”

On their debut, Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes and Undeniable Truths, Clutch were still perched between Helmet-y post-hardcore and the groove-centric hard rock that would define their later career. But the riff acumen of guitarist Tim Sult was already fully dialed-in: The badass central motif of this tune perfectly complements the surreal Americana kitsch spewed by visionary frontman Neil Fallon.

Crowbar, “High Rate Extinction”

Not to be outdone by their NOLA comrades Eyehategod, Crowbar leveled up their riff game on their self-titled second LP, which starts off with the steel-plated hardcore-meets-groove-metal intro to “High Rate Extinction.”

Immortal, “The Sun No Longer Rises”

Norwegian black metal was booming in ’93, with many of the heavy hitters in the subgenre nearing their early creative peaks, and no band better exemplified the skin-crawlingly creepy riffing style at the genre’s core than Immortal. This track from the band’s second LP is a master class in atmosphere. You’ll feel a distinct chill in your bones as guitarist Demonaz Doom Occulta kicks into the core theme at the :53 mark.

Cynic, “Sentiment”

This was the year that extreme metal went prog, yielding a series of bizarre hybrid classics, including Atheist’s Elements, Pestilence’s Spheres and Believer’s Dimensions. While we strongly recommend all of those, Cynic’s Focus is the record that takes the ’93 prog-death crown, and no riff better exemplifies their sci-fi extremity than the head-scrambling yet strangely moving one heard at :40 seconds into this track.

Melvins, “Hag Me”

Melvins’ major-label debut, Houdini, is packed with downer opuses, but the ur-grunge band has rarely sounded meaner than on the gradually ascending “chorus” of this molasses-paced epic — starting around 2:50 — where guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover’s unison accents align like a jackhammer on slo-mo.

Living Colour, “Leave It Alone”

Though not their most well-known album (that would be 1988’s stunning, double-platinum Vivid), Stain is undoubtedly Living Colour’s heaviest — for proof, check out the nasty funk-metal breakdown that kicks in around the 19-second mark here.

Danzig, “It’s Coming Down”

The same year that a revamped version of Danzig’s iconic “Mother” became an unlikely MTV hit, the band unveiled this relentless rocker, driven by a numbingly simple but fantastically effective riff.

Nirvana, “Scentless Apprentice”

It’s a stretch to call Kurt Cobain underrated in any category, but we’d argue that he’s not given quite enough credit as one of the greatest riff writers of his generation (“School,” anyone?). A shining example from In Utero is the thudding two-note noise-metal figure at the center of “Scentless Apprentice.”

Monster Magnet, “Twin Earth”

Retro-metal kingpin Dave Wyndorf realized one of his finest bellbottom-boogie anthems with this track off Superjudge, which features a verse riff that Cactus or Mountain would have killed for.

Coroner, “Internal Conflicts”

One of the coolest under-the-radar statements of 1993 came from Coroner, a progressive-minded Swiss thrash band that, like so many others across the rock and metal spectrum, sharpened and streamlined their sound during this era. The songs on Grin unfold gradually, but the payoffs are huge: for example, the sinister, laid-back groove that erupts around the 2:28 mark here.

Voivod, “Fix My Heart”

Quebec art-thrash visionaries Voivod still sounded like a genre of one during their most accessible era, which peaked on 1993’s outstanding The Outer Limits. Opener “Fix My Heart” features a marvelously intricate riff from late guitar visionary Denis “Piggy” D’Amour — kicking in around :33 — where he effectively plays crunchy rhythm and precision lead at the same time.

Rush, “Stick It Out”

After a decade or so of synth-centric releases, Rush re-dedicated themselves to guitar-driven hard rock on 1993’s Counterparts, a point driven home by the lead riff of “Stick It Out,” one of Alex Lifeson’s toughest-sounding creations.

Sacred Reich, “Crawling”

Arizona thrashers Sacred Reich crafted some seriously groovy anthems on their first major-label co-release, Independent. The opening of “Crawling” is a smartly stripped-down blues-metal swinger that won’t leave your head once you hear it.

Bad Brains, “Rise”

“Rise” is an oddity in the Bad Brains catalog due to the absence of iconic vocalist H.R. — replaced here by Israel Joseph I. But the signature groove-metal riff style that the hardcore masters spotlighted on The Quickness is very much in evidence here, especially on the stunning multi-part opening to the leadoff title track.

Life of Agony, “This Time”

There’s really no other record like River Runs Red, in this or any other year. This melodic, progressive-minded hardcore concept album still stands as the crown jewel in the catalog of New York’s Life of Agony 30 years later, and riffs like the irresistible mosh starter first heard at the 20-second mark in “This Time” encapsulate the LP’s streetwise appeal.

Quicksand, “Baphomet”

Another hardcore-spawned masterpiece from ’93 is Quicksand’s Slip, and while Walter Schreifels’ edgy vocals shine throughout the album, one of the album’s most memorable riffs comes on the lone instrumental, “Baphomet,” driven by a suitably infernal-sounding melody.

Mercyful Fate, “Legend of the Headless Rider”

Speaking of infernal-sounding, pay close attention around the 4:30 mark here, and witness the occult-metal mastery of Mercyful Fate riffsmith Hank Shermann, abetted by his trusty partner Michael Denner. These two, along with ghoulish frontman King Diamond, were responsible for some of the most bone-chilling metal of the ‘80s on the albums Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath, but a section like this shows that they still had plenty of frightful delights left in them when they reunited in ’92.

Cathedral, “Enter the Worms”

Cathedral, the doom-metal band fronted by early-era Napalm Death barker Lee Dorrian, got their turn at the Columbia-Earache bat with The Ethereal Mirror. The album is packed with Iommian blues-metal delights, including the slithering breakdown at :53 into this track.

Fudge Tunnel, “Grey”

Maybe the most unlikely members of the Columbia/Earache class of ’93 were disaffected Nottingham, England, noise-rockers Fudge Tunnel, who put forth a scrappy yet highly effective sound on Creep Diets. Opener “Grey” boasts a classic early-‘90s sludge riff — both boneheaded and brilliant — that’s tweaked only slightly in the fist-pumping chorus.

Type O Negative, “Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)”

Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses is a lush, nuanced goth-metal masterwork, but the album’s flagship is the unshakable four-chord riff (played first by Peter Steele’s bass alone) at the center of this unlikely hit.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

I could pretend that there’s some overarching theme that unites the best metal albums of 2022, but I’d just be kidding myself — and you. The only thing many of these records have in common is how different they are. They feature bursts of blinding speed and riffs that sprawl out like chasms, lyrics about zombies and demons and ones that tackle the horrors of harsh reality, moments of grotesque ugliness and passages of breathtaking beauty. And they come from bands formed in the past few years and veterans with decades-long discographies. But they do share one key trait: Like all the best metal of any year, they seize your full attention — with volume, density, technicality, theatrics and/or sheer ass-kicking power — and reward it handsomely.

Before I count down my choices, a quick note on what’s not included here. I heard a ton of great heavy releases in 2022 that even though I may have mentioned them in a prior Blast Rites rundown, just didn’t feel enough like metal to me to merit inclusion here. Chances are, if you’re a fan of the genre, you welcome in the best of its stylistic cousins — all manner of intense, riff-centric rock and punk. If that’s the case, then I strongly urge you to get your ears on Gospel’s The Loser (sci-fi screamo), Fleshwater’s We’re Not Here to Be Loved (hardcore heft meets alt-rock hooks), Drug Church’s Hygiene (more expertly crafted grunge-punk), Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems (gloriously hyperactive protest-core) and Bleed’s Somebody’s Closer (a self-released 2021 EP, reissued this year through 20 Buck Spin, that plays like a fan-fic collab between Helmet circa Aftertaste and White Pony–era Deftones). Another high recommendation goes to Perfect Light, the latest from 40 Watt Sun, a band that started off playing a form of melodic doom metal but is now a vehicle for bandleader Patrick Walker’s chamber-style singer-songwriter fare.

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• Paramount+’s Ozzy Osbourne Doc Arriving Oct. 7

And now, Blast Rites’ top 10 metal albums of 2022 (plus one extra: more on that later!), counted down from 10 to 1, followed by a quick survey of runner-up titles that very nearly made the cut.

10. Escuela Grind, Memory Theater

A few power chords, a ripple of feedback and then, bam, you’re in the thick of “Cliffhanger,” a maelstrom-like standout from one of the year’s most witheringly intense yet righteously life-affirming albums. “Taking advantage of my need to build a bridge,” vocalist Katerina Economou seethes, before repurposing Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5’s immortal proclamation of “Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge” as a battle cry against, in her words, “people that try to play both sides of the fence, play devil’s advocate and drag you down with them.” The New England grindcore band’s materials are familiar ones — blast beats, bellows and breakdowns — but the conviction shared by Economou, guitarist-bassist Kris Morash and drummer Jesse Fuentes explodes out of the speakers on their second LP, captured in marvelously gritty fidelity by elite metal/punk producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou. For sheer galvanizing rage, no other heavy album this year matched Memory Theater.

Buy Memory Theater on Amazon.

9. Anal Stabwound, Reality Drips Into the Mouth of Indifference

The subgenre inelegantly known as technical brutal death metal is an especially forbidding zone, inhabited by some of the most virtuosic and inventive bands on earth. So the idea that one 17-year-old kid, operating out of his parents’ house in Connecticut, could single-handedly write and record an album that ranks with recent efforts by established giants in the field like Germany’s Defeated Sanity and Spain’s Wormed, seems just a tad far-fetched. But that’s just what young Nikhil Talwalkar has done with Reality Drips Into the Mouth of Indifference, the second release from his cheerfully named solo project Anal Stabwound. Those outrageously fast blast beats? All him. Those brain-scrambling riffs? All him. That gross inhuman gurgling topping it all off? Yep, him too. It’s not just the extremity and maximalism on display here that impress; it’s the way every tiny detail is so perfectly plotted: the whiplash freeze-frame rests early in “Fracture Into Infinite Geneses,” each punctuated by a tiny cymbal plink; the proggy bass interlude in “A Twitching in the Clouds” that sounds like Jaco Pastorius reincarnated as a multi-brained alien; the breathless and writhingly outlandish yet somehow wildly catchy entirety of 90-second instrumental “Premonition II.” It would take years to properly savor the inspired madness on display here; I suspect by that time, Talwalkar will have made five or six more albums at least this impressive.

8. Goatwhore, Angels Hung From the Arches of Heaven

Scores of metal bands have scribbled down some satanic lyrics, slapped some pentagrams and demons on their album covers, and called it a day, but precious few acts have ever been able to back up their blasphemous trappings with a sound that feels truly infernal. It’s time to welcome Goatwhore to those ranks. These New Orleans heathens have been honing their particular brand of evil for a quarter century now, but it’s with this eighth LP that they finally seemed to live up to the brazen nastiness of their moniker. Angels Hung From the Arches of Heaven cherry-picks the best bits from various subgenres — the guttural intensity of death metal, the trilling majesty of black metal — and assembles them into songs that feel almost regal in their hateful conviction. A lot of the credit here goes to guitarist Sammy Duet, whose riffs snarl and gnash but also glint like light off a sacrificial dagger. Vocalist Louis Benjamin Falgoust II moves skillfully from screech to bellow, turning songs like the title track and “The Bestowal of Abomination” into hellish anthems, bringing damned souls to life.

Buy Angels Hung from the Arches of Heaven on Amazon.

7. Ozzy Osbourne, Patient Number 9

Let’s be real: No one in Ozzy Osbourne’s position needs to be putting out new music. We doubt that fans showing up to his upcoming No More Tours 2 dates would leave disappointed if the Prince of Darkness treated them to a set of greatest hits drawn from his solo and Sabbath catalogs. But something (or, ahem, someone?) keeps sending him back to the studio, and whatever the cause, the recent results are impressive. A lot of the credit here goes to pop super-producer Andrew Watt, who clearly has a deep understanding of Ozzy’s many strengths, and who best to cast alongside the singer in order to bring them out. So on Patient Number 9, an even stronger album than 2020’s solid, Watt-helmed Ordinary Man, we hear the iconic frontman digging into Sabbathian doom à la “The Wizard” alongside Tony Iommi himself on “Degradation Rules,” darkly psychedelic power balladry on the title track and the genuinely affecting “God Only Knows,” Ultimate Sin–style brooding on “Dead and Gone” and upbeat, hook-packed riff rock with an assist from former solo bandmate Zakk Wylde on “Parasite.” The album suffers a bit from overly processed production, but the songwriting — a collaborative effort among Watt, Ozzy, Kelly Clarkson and Camila Cabello collaborator Ali Tamposi, and the various guests, including Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Foo Fighters’ late, great Taylor Hawkins — is almost shockingly strong, making this record an unexpected treat for any Ozzy fan past or present.

Buy Patient Number 9 on Amazon.

6. Undeath, Live…From the Grave

You’ll find Undeath’s second LP, It’s Time…to Rise From the Grave on a lot of year-end metal lists, and with good reason: It’s a record that lives up to the immense promise the young Rochester outfit showed on its early demos and 2020’s excellent Lesions of a Different Kind. As detailed in November’s column, though, the Undeath release I can’t stop spinning is a companion live album that showed up without warning last month. Not only does Live…From the Grave feature extraordinarily good sound, perfectly preserving the band’s choice blend of steamrolling heaviness and crafty technicality, it also captures a key element of the Undeath experience: Their commitment to keeping the music dead serious while cultivating an aura of good, dumb fun. “I wanna see you throwin’ some fuckin’ ass out there,” frontman Alexander Jones orders the crowd before the band kicks into a flattening version of new-album standout “Necrobionics.” (“Dance, baby, dance!” he adds in the song’s opening seconds.) There’s something about the combination of his goofy exhortations and the air-tight performances here of fresh selections like “Rise From the Grave” and “Human Chandelier” (Jones: “Every fuckin’ head bangin’!”), as well as the already-classic Lesions title track, that makes you want to test out your living room’s makeshift mosh-pit capabilities in advance of the next Undeath live gig in your town.

Buy Live…From the Grave on Amazon.

5. Voivod, Synchro Anarchy

It’s one thing for a band to successfully replace a beloved frontman (see: AC/DC and Black Sabbath, both of whom pulled it off at the dawn of the ‘80s). But it’s arguably an even trickier task to replace an integral composer, the member whose sonic sensibility defined the group from the beginning. Voivod seemed to be operating on borrowed time circa 2006, when the Québécois metal institution released the first of two albums featuring guitar recorded by chief songwriter Denis “Piggy” D’Amour before his death in ’05. But thanks to an incredible feat of sustained channeling from replacement guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain, the band is currently putting out its strongest material in three decades. The Wake, from 2018, felt like a continuation of the proggy late-‘80s era that made Voivod a household name in the international metal underground; Synchro Anarchy, though, is something even more impressive, a seamless synthesis of the wonky cyborg thrash heard on albums like Dimension Hatröss with the more streamlined material heard later on efforts such as The Outer Limits. Songs like “Paranormalium,” “Planet Eaters” and “Quest for Nothing” both celebrate the totality of Voivod’s past and make a strong case that they’re in the midst of a new golden age.

Buy Synchro Anarchy on Amazon.

4. Sigh, Shiki

At this point, Mirai Kawashima deserves some kind of lifetime-achievement award. For 30-plus years, the vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist and sole consistent member of Tokyo’s Sigh has been funneling his classical training and twisted imagination into some of the most bizarre yet gripping heavy metal of our time. The band’s catalog is dotted with underground classics, from 1993’s gothic-black-metal opus Scorn Defeat (the only non-European album ever released on Deathlike Silence, the label owned by late Mayhem co-founder Euronymous) to 2001’s genre-hopping oddity Imaginary Sonicscape, but Shiki rivals them all, and maybe even surpasses them. Inspired, according to the 52-year-old Kawashima, about a gnawing fear of death that kicked in once some of his close friends started dying, the album marries Sigh’s usual surrealistic swirl of genres with lyrics reflecting on life’s fragility. Like most Sigh releases, Shiki is deeply esoteric — folding in everything from organ-driven hard-rock à la Uriah Heep to arty pastoral prog accented with saxophones, flutes, hand drums and ghostly melodic vocals — but Kawashima never loses sight of the bloodthirsty black metal that’s been at the core of the band’s sound since the beginning. The ferocious blastbeats, sinister riffs and Kawashima’s signature shrieking vocals hit even harder thanks to the weirdness that surrounds them.

Buy Shiki on Amazon.

3. Meshuggah, Immutable

It would be possible to put a cynical spin on the title of the ninth album by Meshuggah, a band whose sound is so consistent and unmistakable that even a longtime fan might be tempted to take the stone-faced Swedes for granted. But the contents of Immutable serve as a wake-up call: Meshuggah might not be overhauling their sound in any kind of drastic way as they approach their fourth decade, but with each record, they’re putting more and more distance between themselves and any would-be competitors for the title of modern metal’s most innovative and influential band. Plenty of tracks here (“Light the Shortening Fuse,” “God He Sees in Mirrors,” “I Am That Thirst”) spotlight the group’s patented robotic-ballet grooves, which make you feel like you’re being ground up in planet-size gears, but others add new twists to the Meshuggah saga, from “Phantoms,” which boasts a constantly shifting riff that’s as funky as it is destabilizing to “They Move Below,” a nine-and-a-half-minute instrumental that balances crystalline beauty with lumbering steel-girder riffs. Immutable they may be but Meshuggah still sound like the future.

Buy Immutable on Amazon.

2. Chat Pile, God’s Country

Remember what I wrote above about the year’s many great heavy albums that for whatever reason didn’t feel “metal” enough for this list? Sure, I technically could have disqualified God’s Country, the debut LP from Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile, on the same grounds. If you want to split hairs, it’s probably better described as walloping, thoroughly demented noise-rock — like some unholy combination of Scratch Acid and Psalm 69–era Ministry — than metal proper. But the album’s blunt-force riffs, maniacal intensity and convincing portrayals of stark, raving terror (“Purple man, stop coming into my room / Stop looking at things that aren’t meant for you!”) make it a must-hear for any connoisseur of extreme music, full stop. The fact that many of these horror stories are based on real-life scenarios only makes them feel that much more chilling — and that much harder to shake.

Buy God’s Country on Amazon.

1. (Tie)
Faetooth, Remnants of the Vessel
Messa, Close

I know, I know… ties are cheap. But this is a case where two albums are so exceptional, and in such similar ways, that including them in separate spots in the top 10 didn’t seem to make sense. And hey, even if you disagree with my logic, you still win, because both of these LPs are absolutely stunning.

Faetooth, “Echolalia”

There’s one musical tactic that young L.A. quartet Faetooth employ over and over on their outstanding debut: patiently building up a hushed, almost ritualistic mood through spare clean-toned riffs and dreamlike melodic vocals only to shatter it suddenly with the stygian crunch of a massive distorted riff. It’s a device at least as old as heavy metal itself, but in the right hands, it still works wonders, and the songcraft on Remnants of the Vessel is so uncannily strong — from the almost R&B-ish hook of “Echolalia” to the mournful refrain (“First the head and then the bod’/And half his blood spills down the jaw”) of “Saturn Devouring His Son” — that each dynamic shift feels like a revelation. Bands toil away across entire careers and never capture the enveloping occult atmosphere conjured by guitarists Ashla Chavez-Razzano and Ari May, bassist Jenna Garcia — who split singing and screaming duties among them — and drummer Rah Kanan; hear them now before the rest of the world catches on.

Messa, “Rubedo”

Messa are an avowed influence on Faetooth, and after hearing Close, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an entire subgenre spring up of bands emulating this Italian outfit’s lush and enchanting sound. “Rubedo” is the track here that first grabbed me: a six-and-a-half-minute epic that suggests a dark prog outfit fronted by Heart’s Ann Wilson — and that’s before the blast beat-abetted guitar solo arrives. Messa, whose name translates to “mass” (in the religious sense), have an enormous palette at their disposal, from ominous doom to sprawling art rock accented with oud and duduk (an Armenian double-reed woodwind), but unifying it all is the brilliant chemistry shared by guitarist Alberto, bassist Marco and drummer Rocco (all go by a single name), and the arresting melodic mastery of vocalist Sara. If you’ve ever longed for an album that could reconcile Stevie Nicks at her witchiest with the sublime gloom of How the Gods Kill–era Danzig and the elaborate inventions of classic Genesis, Jethro Tull or even Steeleye Span, this is the LP of your dreams.

*****

Each of the 10 albums excerpted below very nearly made it to the winner’s circle. Here’s a mixtape of standout tracks from the best of the rest.

Buy Close on Amazon.

Wormrot, “Voiceless Choir”

Arif Suhaimi, longtime frontman for Singaporean grindcore luminaries Wormrot, clearly wanted to save his best for last on Hiss, his fourth and final LP among their ranks. On “Voiceless Choir,” he screams, growls, whispers and shouts as the music careens from blasting to yearningly melodic to fist-in-the-air anthemic.

Buy Hiss on Amazon. 

Sumerlands, “Edge of the Knife”

An unearthed gem from the 1986 that never was, “Edge of the Knife,” my favorite track from Dreamkiller, perfectly captured the drama and conviction of a bygone metal age.

Buy Dreamkiller on Amazon.

Haunt, “Windows of Your Heart”

More retro gold: The title track to olde-metal auteur Trevor William Church’s latest LP under the Haunt banner demonstrated for the umpteenth time why he has few songwriting peers in the contemporary scene.

Buy Windows of Your Heart on Amazon.

Krisiun, “Swords Into Flesh”

You rarely hear Krisiun’s name mentioned in discussions of the best modern death-metal bands, and that’s a major oversight: These three Brazilian brothers never phone it in, and this track from their outstanding 12th LP, Mortem Solis, shows off their precision attack at its most relentless.

Buy Mortem Solis on Amazon. 

Immolation, “Let the Darkness In”

Bassist-vocalist Ross Dolan and guitarist-songwriter Bob Vigna are a death-metal dream team — since uniting in the late ‘80s they’ve built up Immolation into one of the underground’s most trusted names. “Let the Darkness In” exemplifies how well Dolan’s gruff delivery still pairs with Vigna’s evil-wizard riffage on the band’s often-thrilling 11th LP, Acts of God.

Buy Acts of God on Amazon. 

Clutch, “Slaughter Beach”

This quasi title track from the latest album by Maryland’s finest is quintessential Clutch: finely honed blues-metal riffage topped by one of mic master Neil Fallon’s catchiest choruses in years.

Buy Sunrise on Slaughter Beach on Amazon.

Cloud Rat, “The Color of a Dog”

Madison Marshall achieved some of the most caustic vocal textures of the year on this masterful eruption from Cloud Rat’s dire yet subtly dreamy Threshold.

Buy Threshold on Amazon. 

Slipknot, “H377”

A band that regularly packs arenas has no business sounding as ferocious as Slipknot do on this standout from the impressive The End, So Far, which finds Corey Taylor spitting breathless invective over industrial-tinged thrash-meets-hardcore.

Buy The End, So Far on Amazon.

Faceless Burial, “Redivivus Through Vaticination”

No band on earth right now is coming closer to recapturing the sound and vibe of one of my favorite metal albums ever, Death’s Symbolic, than this Melbourne trio, whose new third LP, At the Foothills of Deliration, capitalizes on the immense promise of their 2020 effort Speciation. Here they assemble a series of gnarled Schuldinerian riffs into an eight-minute progressive-death-metal masterpiece.

Buy At The Foothills of Deliration on Amazon.

Imperial Triumphant, “Merkurius Gilded”

It cannot go unmentioned in this space that New York’s Imperial Triumphant managed to fold a string quartet, choral vocals and intertwined solos from Kenny G and his guitar-playing son into a splendidly deranged avant-death-metal track that somehow still felt coherent. (And please, even if you follow no other lead in this entire column, make some time to watch the video above — I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it.)

Buy Spirit of Ecstasy on Amazon.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

When was the last time you watched an entire metal show? Not just a quick peek at the openers before posting up for the main event — I mean every note of every single set. It had been a while for me, admittedly, before I made my way to venerable Brooklyn club Saint Vitus earlier this month for a visit from the Slave to the Grave Tour, featuring co-headliners Undeath and 200 Stab Wounds, with Enforced and Phobophilic warming things up. Barring a couple between-band breaks, I spent the next three and a half hours happily planted near the stage, mostly safe from flying, careening bodies, and enjoying four helpings of top-notch heaviness that covered the spectrum from death metal (terse and mercilessly aggressive from 200 Stab Wounds; alternately suffocating and nimble from Phobophilic) to thrash with frequent hints of hardcore (Enforced, a must-see band for Power Trip fans).

More on Undeath in a bit, but for this writer, the show only affirmed what I’ve known for 30-plus years: To witness live metal of any kind, up close and at top volume, is a blessing. Slave to the Grave keeps rolling across the country through mid-December, so if the trek is headed your way, get out there — and be sure to get there early.

More from Spin:

• The 15 Best Swedish Metal Records
• The Best Albums of 2023 (So Far)
• THE 11 BEST HEAVY METAL SONGS FOR WEDDINGS

And now on to a sampler of the month’s most vital new metal — with some stragglers from late October and a couple previews of what’s to come early in 2023.

Side A

Undeath, “Enhancing the Dead (Live)”

Undeath’s second full-length, It’s Time…to Rise From the Grave, has garnered a lot of well-deserved praise since it came out back in April (including in this very column). As much as I’ve been digging that LP, I prefer the savage immediacy of their new live album, Live…From the Grave, which perfectly captures the onstage command this Rochester, New York, band has honed since forming three years ago. The version of It’s Time… track “Enhancing the Dead” finds the band skillfully juggling caveman heft and brainy rhythmic trickery (check out that ingenious shift between barreling 6/8 and bouncy 4/4 that gets going around the 1:15 mark), honoring the blueprint laid out by their heroes like Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel back in the early ‘90s. (Mash together, say, “Staring Through the Eyes of the Dead” and “Sworn to the Black” and you might get something like this Undeath offering.) Frontman Alexander Jones alternates his formidable roar with good-natured pit-stoking (“I know you can do fuckin’ better than that — let’s go!”) — and judging by the response at Saint Vitus, current Undeath crowds are determined not to let him down.

200 Stab Wounds, “Masters of Morbidity”

Let’s stick with the Slave to the Grave Roster for just a sec. Undeath tourmates 200 Stab Wounds recently announced that they’ve signed to iconic imprint Metal Blade — a major achievement for a band with only one album to its name. On the strength of “Masters of Morbidity” — with its muscular combo of Slayer-esque midtempo riffery, hardcore-leaning half-time grooves and punishing blastbeat bursts — and the two air-tight live sets I’ve witnessed by this hungry Ohio band, it seems safe to predict that their eventual debut for the label is going to be a mad-dog delight.

Obituary, “The Wrong Time”

Another upcoming release I can’t wait for is Dying of Everything — not a typo! — the latest from Obituary, due out in January. Here’s the thing about Obituary: They really only do one thing, but like AC/DC, or whatever your favorite musical example of ain’t-broke/don’t-fix-it–ism happens to be, that one thing is as satisfying and comforting as your favorite hometown burger joint. They’re a staunchly unpretentious bunch, who know their core strengths and have absolutely no ambition to evolve beyond them. The lead single from the new album, “The Wrong Time,” features an intro that’s about as atmospheric as Obituary get, but once that’s out of the way, the track is all business. Trevor Peres’ grinding power-chord riffs and Donald Tardy’s cruise-tempo double-bass groove blend perfectly with John Tardy’s patented anguished growl, one of the most instantly recognizable — and perennially effective — vocal deliveries in all of metal. I can’t wait to hear this one live when the band comes through New York City on tour with Amon Amarth in early December, part of a North American trek that continues through the middle of next month.

Candlemass, “Scandinavian Gods”

Speaking of legacy bands working in a well-defined lane, Candlemass have a new album out this month. Sweet Evil Sun is the Swedish doom-metal institution’s second LP since reuniting with Johan Längqvist, vocalist on their revered ’86 debut, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, after a break of more than 30 years. Epicus has a harsh grandiosity that would be tough for any band to replicate, even the one that originally created it, but “Scandinavian Gods,” one of the lead singles from the new record, should satisfy any Candlemass die-hard with its sinister, trudging riffs — the handiwork of bassist, co-founder and sole constant member Leif Edling — and Längqvist’s rough-throated belt.

Faetooth, “Echolalia”

I’d encourage any Candlemass fan — or any connoisseur of the entire post-Sabbath lineage that they represent — to check out Faetooth, a Los Angeles. quartet whose new first LP, Remnants of the Vessel (a late-October release that came out after I’d already compiled that month’s Blast Rites), is one of the most confident debuts I’ve heard this year. Standout track “Echolalia” alternates a massive, fuzzed-out doom riff with mystical downtempo art rock, with female vocals that range from a soulful croon to an infernal shriek (I’m not sure which of the band’s three singer-instrumentalists is handling which section, but the blend of textures is highly effective). The entire track has a spellbinding aura that some heavy bands go an entire career without ever capturing.

Dream Unending, “Ecstatic Reign”

Staying in the realm of the epic and atmospheric, let’s turn our attention to “Ecstatic Reign,” the 16-minute album closer from Song of Salvation, the new second LP from Dream Unending. The two principal players here, guitarist-bassist Derrick Vella and drummer-vocalist Justin DeTore, are prolific luminaries of the metal underground, hailing respectively from Tomb Mold (for my money, the standout band of the recent underground death-metal boom) and Innumerable Forms, whose penchant for marrying dismal riffs with mournful melody gives some sense of what’s in store on Song of Salvation. (DeTore also drums in the outstanding Sumerlands, spotlighted in our September edition.) But Dream Unending delve far further into that juxtaposition of the harsh and beautiful: On “Ecstatic Reign,” they create a strange, psychedelic expanse where unearthly growls (including some, according to the credits, from Tomb Mold drummer-vocalist Max Klebanoff) cohabitate with lush clean-guitar tapestries, enchanting singing from McKenna Rae (whose broad skill set encompasses dance-floor-ready electropop) and even narration from veteran actor and audiobook reader Richard Poe. The overall effect feels something like the “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” of esoteric doom metal. (And if you were curious what the rest of Tomb Mold was up to at the moment, give a listen to Daydream Plus’ Clues Recalled From Memory, in which Klebanoff and the band’s other guitarist, Payson Power, present a tastefully proggy, gorgeously tuneful set of instrumental rock that plays like post-hardcore Pat Metheny.)

16, “Scrape the Rocks”

Ready for more of the low and slow stuff? (It must be that time of year.) Since the early ‘90s, the Los Angeles band known as 16 has been honing a grimy, riff-centric sound that seems to exist in the Venn-diagram overlap between the primordial grunge of early Melvins and the feel-bad gothic sludge of New Orleans outfits like Acid Bath. On “Scrape the Rocks,” a track from the new “Into Dust,” guitarist-vocalist Bobby Ferry, the band’s sole remaining original member, sounds like he’s singing from bitter experience as he describes a scene of nautical, and possibly emotional, collapse: “I can feel the wind coming in / The water on the deck keeps rising / Capsized we accept our fate.” The song stumbles forward in a depressive haze, but a harmonized mid-track guitar solo and anthemic bridge hold out the possibility of rising above the murk.

Black Anvil, “Echoes & Tapestry”

“Echoes & Tapestry,” a track from the new Black Anvil album, Regenesis, also feels simultaneously mournful and triumphant. There’s a headlong black-metal charge here, harking back to the New York outfit’s grim early work, but the chorus, with its expressive blend of shrieked and sung vocals, capitalizes on the melodic strain that’s gradually been creeping in across their four prior full-lengths. Drop a needle on the song’s pulse-pounding, emotion-drenched guitar solo and you could almost mistake it for hair-metal shredder letting loose in front of a wind machine.

Side B

Anal Stabwound, “A Twitching in the Clouds”

OK, we’ve spent enough of this Blast Rites in our feelings — time for a blast of pure insanity. Anal Stabwound is entirely the work of one teenager, Connecticut’s Nikhil Talwalkar, and if you needed any reassurance that the future of the underground is secure, look no further than the project’s new second LP (another October release that slipped by me last month), the awesomely titled Reality Drips Into the Mouth of Indifference. Cue up “A Twitching in the Clouds,” and prepare to be amazed. This is visceral, action-packed death metal that, like one of Talwalkar’s acknowledged influences, Germany’s reliably head-spinning Defeated Sanity, works in plenty of gonzo technicality (check out that wild mid-song bass break) without losing sight of the crude bludgeon at the heart of the genre. The sheer amount of detail packed into this song is completely exhilarating. Mark my words: Within a few years, this kid is going to be one of the leading lights of extreme metal — honestly, he already is.

Effluence, “Blend”

If that one wasn’t wild enough for you, let’s try Liquified, the latest platter of splatter from Effluence. The brainchild of California’s Matt Stephens, the project combines chaotic, ultra-raw death metal with the rapid-fire pointillism of free improvisation and the hyper-complexity of modern composition. The latest Effluence release, Liquefied, centers on the very apt theme of a blender, with the cover art and song titles tying in nicely. “Blend,” in which jackhammer blurt suddenly gives way to a spacious piano, bass and marimba trio, sums up the spirit of the project in one brilliantly bewildering minute.

Incantum, “Il Cerchio e il Fuoco”

Neptunian Maximalism, ““Z R – Empowering The Phurba – Éon Phanérozoïque”

Fans of Effluence’s outré hybrid should also check out a pair of compelling new offerings on Italy’s I, Voidhanger Records, a bastion of avant-garde intensity. As exemplified on the 15-minute “Il Cerchio e il Fuoco” (“The Circle and the Fire”) Incantum’s Strigae is part frenzied black metal, with vocals that can sometimes sound like Sam Kinison at his most shrill, and part chamber folk, accented with the clarinet of multi-instrumentalist bandleader Vittorio Sabelli. You might even hear a hint of klezmer in the outro. On “Z R – Empowering The Phurba – Éon Phanérozoïque” — a track from the new Finis Gloriae Mundi — Belgium’s Neptunian Maximalism suggest a field recording of some infernal ritual, with wailing saxophone, bursts of noise guitar, orc-like grunts and a throbbing psychedelic rhythm section. This may not scan as metal in any conventional sense, but boy is it heavy.

Spider God, “The Hermit”

U.K. outfit Spider God made quite an impression earlier this year with its full-length debut, Black Renditions, an album that filtered around four decades’ worth of pop classics — including Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” — through the lens of raging black metal. The band turns to original material on the new Fly in the Trap, retaining the obsession with tremolo-picked melody that made the covers record so much fun. As you can hear on “The Hermit,” Spider God’s fierce cocktail of the dire and the fist-pumping conjures a sense of wild-eyed fun that harks back to early efforts by Norwegian pop-meets–black-metal alchemists Kvelertak. This is a young band that already seems ready for big festival stages.

SpiritWorld, “Relic of Damnation”

Deathwestern, the new second LP by Las Vegas’ SpiritWorld, may be the only metal album out this month that features a companion short-story collection. Set in what bandleader Stu Folsom once described as “a fictional world of outlaws in the Old West finding the gates to Hell,” the book’s themes play out in the group’s pulpy, paperback-Western album art and rockabilly-style stage attire (think sequin jackets and cowboy hats). Fortunately, the actual music holds up well without any of that thematic scaffolding: As you can hear on “Relic of Damnation,” the band specializes in brawny, anthemic hardcore infused with old-school rock & roll swagger, topped by Folsom’s caustic roar. It’s rousing stuff, and it definitely whets the appetite for the SpiritWorld live experience.

Type O Negative, “September Sun”

Botch, “One Twenty Two”

Two new reissues out this month shine a light on beloved bands from very different corners of the metal universe. First comes a deluxe, 15th-anniversary version of Dead Again, the overlooked final album from alternately sardonic and sensuous gloom-rock purveyors Type O Negative. The reissue features bonus live renditions of some of the band’s best-known songs, but the real appeal here is the chance to rediscover just what a compelling songwriter the late Peter Steele was right up until the end. “September Sun” is one of my very favorite tracks in the Steele catalog — a melancholy power ballad fueled by Josh Silver’s elegant keyboard work, Kenny Hickey’s fuzz-bathed power chords and pained screams, and drummer Johnny Kelly’s sturdy grooves. Think of this nearly 10-minute slab of gothic prog — shaved down to a lean four and a half minutes for the video above — as Type O’s answer to “November Rain.”

“One Twenty Two,” meanwhile, is the sole new track on a new remastered edition of 1999’s We Are the Romans, the final LP from Tacoma, Wash.’s Botch and an album that seemed to bring a certain strain of metallic hardcore — noise-bathed, perversely complex and ferociously aggressive — to a white-knuckle apex. Botch’s comeback tune is more laid-back than most of the original album, favoring a raucous midtempo stomp and an almost hip-shaking rhythm, but Dave Verellen’s seething shout and the haywire guitar spew on the slower sections capture that old unhinged magic. Here’s hoping the band follows up its recently announced Seattle reunion shows next February with a full U.S. tour.

Fleshwater, “Maria Claire”

Let’s close with one last new selection: a track from We’re Not Here to Be Loved, the debut from Massachusetts outfit Fleshwater — an album I’ve had in constant rotation in recent weeks. The group shares three members with mathy hardcore extremists Vein.fm, but as you can hear on “Linda Claire,” Fleshwater specialize in a much more spacious sound, souping up shoegaze and alt-rock with a burly metallic crunch (expertly captured by Converge guitarist and producer extraordinaire Kurt Ballou). The centerpiece of their sound is the yearning, understated vocal delivery of singer-guitarist Marisa Shirar, who gives the band a rare melodic intrigue — when her supple hooks align with fellow vocalist Anthony DiDio’s screams, like at the end of this song, the effect is stunning. This is a band to keep a close eye on.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

Welcome to the October installment of Blast Rites! While you’re getting yourselves comfortable, a quick PSA: There are metal Gods currently walking among us. I saw Judas Priest play a killer show in Long Island last week as part of their ongoing 50 Heavy Metal Years tour, the night before Iron Maiden rolled through the area on their Legacy of the Beast run. And by the time you read this, Danish occult-prog masters Mercyful Fate will also be on the road, playing their first North American headlining dates in more than 20 years. Let this be a reminder to catch these legendary bands while you can.

And in the meantime, the new metal releases just keep flowing. As with our September edition, I’ve tried to cover as much stylistic ground as possible with the picks below, from the high-profile (Lamb of God! Queensrÿche! Skid Row!?) to the deep-underground stuff (Faceless Burial! Prolong Anoxia!). Check out this month’s selections below, and listen along in our Spotify playlist.

More from Spin:

• AT HOME WITH SEBASTIAN BACH
• Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe Ponders Peace and Human Potential in New Book
• 5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Randy Blythe of Lamb of God

*****

Side A

Cloud Rat, “The Color of a Dog”

Cloud Rat understand that grindcore ought to feel like an ordeal: a barrage of detail and velocity that comes at you faster than you have time to process it. I’ve listened to “The Color of a Dog,” a track from the Michigan trio’s new fourth LP, Threshold, six or seven times in a row, and I still feel like I have only the faintest grasp of what’s going on during these 107 seconds. But each detail that emerges from the blur feels pivotal: the way that vocalist Madison Marshall starts off in a whisper (“Tell me, tell me, tell me…”) before unleashing her formidable shriek-meets-bellow as guitarist Rorik Brooks and drummer Brandon Hill come hurtling in with a choppy overture; the savagely elegant progression from blastbeat to breakdown that leads up to a brief moment of forlorn, seasick calm around the halfway mark, before the next bloodthirsty speed burst; and then the controlled detonation of a mightily swinging mosh riff. It takes a seriously skilled band to make disorientation feel this exhilarating.

Faceless Burial, “From the Bastion to the Pit”

It’s a good month for extreme trios conjuring a sublime racket: Melbourne, Australia’s Faceless Burial made a huge impression with their 2020 effort, Speciation, and they uphold that album’s high standard on the new At the Foothills of Deliration. Death metal can sometimes hobble itself through its own production values, with overly synthetic drum sounds and tidy ProTools edits robbing the listener of the visceral clobbering that characterizes the genre at its best. Faceless Burial — bassist-vocalist Alex, guitarist Fuj and drummer Max — are having none of that: Their records sound thrillingly unadorned, documents of a power trio just digging in and grinding it out. That presentation places the focus squarely on their staggering chops and wild-eyed pursuit of hyper-detailed but nevertheless massively grooving riffs that often bring to mind the compositional genius of late Death leader Chuck Schuldiner in his glorious middle period (say, 1991’s Human through 1995’s Symbolic). No need for the play-by-play here — let’s just say that “From the Bastion to the Pit” is a seven-minute feast for the connoisseur of technical yet resolutely grisly death metal.

Ripped to Shreds, “漢奸 (Race Traitor)”

Ripped to Shreds build a bridge to more traditional styles while keeping the fury dialed up to dangerous levels. This great strength of the San Jose, Calif., band’s new third album, 劇變 (Jubian), is the way it combines white-knuckle nastiness with the clenched-fist spirit of classic heavy metal, illustrated perfectly on “漢奸 (Race Traitor)” through guitarist/vocalist Andrew Lee’s grandstanding solo breaks, continuing in the spirit of his masterful 2021 ode to ‘80s shred guitar, Heavy Metal Shrapnel. According to Lee, who is Chinese-American, the song’s lyrics deal with the burden of “existing as a minority in a country where any action is seen as representative of their whole race.”

Dead Cross, “Christian Missile Crisis”

Another band that skillfully draws from different points along the metal spectrum is Dead Cross. At the end of the ‘80s, it might have seemed unlikely that Faith No More frontman Mike Patton and Slayer’s then-drummer, Dave Lombardo, would become a dynamic duo of avant-garde heaviness, but at this point, we’re nearly a quarter century into a highly productive partnership that kicked off with Fantômas and has continued with the more streamlined Dead Cross. You can hear more than a hint of South of Heaven–era Slayer in the riffing on “Christian Missile Crisis,” a track from the band’s new second LP, simply titled II, as well as Patton’s signature unhinged sing-song. But the band’s other two members, bassist Justin Pearson — who also contributes the ornery shout that will be familiar to fans of his trailblazing avant-grind band the Locust — and guitarist Michael Crain, who has worked with Pearson in Locust spin-off Retox, help nudge the tune into a noise-punk danger zone, complete with loopy psychedelic textures in the outro. Metal needs more bold subgenre-splicing collabs like this one.

For open-eared listeners tuned into the Patton/Lombardo-verse, those musicians’ longtime associate, bassist Trevor Dunn — of Fantômas, Mr. Bungle and a slew of other projects, including Titan to Tachyons, spotlighted in our September edition — appears on two noteworthy releases this month: Séances, the long-awaited second LP by his Trio-Convulsant, which features a kind of dark, free-jazz-accented chamber-prog that finds him sounding as adventurous as ever, and Expansion, the ninth album by shapeshifting Georgia outfit Ahleuchatistas, where new member Dunn meshes perfectly with guitarist-composer Shane Parish’s mind-expanding vistas of instrumental avant-rock.

Keiji Haino and Sumac, “A shredded coiled cable within this cable sincerity could not be contained”

Oxbow and Peter Brötzmann, “Cat and Mouse”

Shall we stick with the weird stuff for a while? If you’re the kind of metal fan who frequently detours into the Experimental bin at the record shop, you may already be aware of two more noteworthy team-ups bearing fruit this month: the respective meetings of Sumac — the exploratory power trio led by Isis and Old Man Gloom’s Aaron Turner — and Japanese noise/improv giant Keiji Haino, meeting for the third time on (deep breath) Into this juvenile apocalypse our golden blood to pour let us never, and art-punk visionaries Oxbow with German free-jazz trailblazer Peter Brötzmann on An Eternal Reminder of Not Today. Are either of these metal records? I really have no idea, but as a fan of the extreme, if you delve into the deafening netherzone of “A shredded coiled cable within this cable sincerity could not be contained” — a new Sumac/Haino track that suggests the torturous slow-motion implosion and/or apotheosis of sludge metal — and come away unmoved, then we have very different pleasure centers. And the same goes for Oxbow/Brötzmann’s “Cat and Mouse,” a version of an Oxbow chestnut first heard on 1991’s King of the Jews, where Brötzmann’s steely eruptions perfectly complement the band’s raunchy noise-blues convulsions and vocalist Eugene Robinson’s wild-eyed, part-muttered/part-crooned/part-screamed ravings. These are mighty team-ups, each with a potent hint of the maniacal energy that the wider world of metal could always use more of. (Full disclosure: Sleeping Giant Glossolalia, the label behind the U.S. version of the Oxbow/Brötzmann, once co-released an album by a band I played in.)

Liturgy, “36”

Speaking of the porous borders of metal, Liturgy are another outfit who have been testing those supposed dividers for a while. But as outlandish as the New York band continues to sound on its gloriously titled new EP, As the Blood of Gods Bursts the Guts of Time — which precedes a new LP out in March — my favorite track, “36,” positively revels in the fundamental glory of the riff. A writhing power-chord motif explodes again and again on the track, casting the spectral howl of bandleader Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix in a garish glow. Synthesized chimes and weird digital-glitch effects crop up too, but they only add to the weightiness of the track, which builds to a supernova of gothic oddity, complete with swirls of free-form piano.

Side B

Skid Row, “Time Bomb”

With this month’s most outré delights out of the way, let’s switch gears completely. Skid Row have a new album this month, the band’s first since welcoming singer Erik Grönwall earlier this year. (For those keeping track, he’s the fourth Skid Row frontman since they re-formed in 1999.) Like many acts of their era, Skid Row are in a strange position: Still touring the world largely on the strength of enduring late-‘80s/early-‘90s FM hits like “I Remember You” and “18 and Life,” and still estranged from Sebastian Bach, the former singer forever associated with those immortal tracks, the band is nonetheless committed to expanding its discography. As a fan of their classic material, I’m genuinely curious how many listeners out there are hungry for new Skid Row material in 2022, but taken on its own merits, their new LP, The Gang’s All Here, is a respectable slab of frozen-in-amber hard rock. Honestly, in a blindfold test, I would never in a million years be able to identify “Time Bomb” as a Skid Row song, but by God, the damn thing is catchy, skillfully paced, and packed with good-to-great riffs.

Queensrÿche, “Hold On”

Another band out there soldiering on years after the departure of a well-known singer is Queensrÿche, who have just released Digital Noise Alliance, their fourth album since parting ways with classic-era belter Geoff Tate a decade back. Unlike Grönwall, current ‘rÿche singer Todd La Torre, who also serves as the band’s studio drummer, sounds a hell of a lot like his predecessor, and thus, when I throw on a track like “Hold On,” I feel like I’m landing at least within striking distance of the brooding, prog-steeped hard rock that this band perfected on albums like 1990’s Empire. This is gripping stuff that both makes me want to break out the Queensrÿche classics and feels like a worthy addition to a beloved catalog. (I’d say much the same, as it were, of “Same Old Story,” the new single by Christian-metal flag wavers Stryper, which finds Michael Sweet still rock-selytizing as passionately as he did back on To Hell With the Devil — respect!)

Lamb of God, “Ditch”

The not-fixing-what-ain’t-broke theme continues with a track from Omens, the ninth LP by Richmond fan faves Lamb of God. What do you hope to hear when you throw on LoG? A thrashy overture leading into a pit-detonating groove that finds a glowering Randy Blythe summarily dressing down the weak-willed, perhaps? Friends, let me direct you toward “Ditch,” which makes a sturdy case for the uncomplicated appeal of a band that’s rightly become one of the sturdiest institutions in modern metal. The track isn’t in the band’s current set list, but it still fires us up for the imminent unveiling of a new Lamb live video by hardcore/metal documentarian extraordinaire Sunny “hate5six” Singh.

Goatwhore, “Weight of a Soulless Heart”

Sticking with that theme of institutions, let’s take some time to spotlight Goatwhore. They’re a band with deep roots in the celebrated New Orleans metal scene — vocalist L. Ben Falgoust II also fronts eclectic extremists Soilent Green, and guitarist Sammy Duet played in cult-favorite gothic-sludge outfit Acid Bath. Goatwhore themselves are in their 25 year, and they’re still a tough band to pin down stylistically, but as heard on their new eighth album, Angels Hung From the Arches of Heaven, that works to their advantage. “Weight of a Soulless Heart” earns its grimly poetic title, with Falgoust’s constricted scream meshing perfectly with the music’s almost symphonic grandeur. Duet’s riffs set deep, rumbling groove against glints of sickly, intricately chiseled melody that recall a band like Converge as much as black or death metal. This is pitch black but eerily affecting stuff.

Darkthrone, “Caravan of Broken Ghosts”

The advance word on the new Darkthrone record was, well, that there would be no advance word, i.e., zero preview tracks issued ahead of the full album. So I assumed we’d be waiting until next month to spotlight Astral Fortress, the latest from the legendary Norwegian duo. Thankfully, though, we have a teaser track to savor, and an eight-minute beauty at that. How is it? Glorious, honestly — a patient procession of weighty yet forlorn riffs, each of which feels as splendidly craggy as the woodland rocks and tree bark seen in the lyric video above. It’s a reminder that this band has achieved something unique in heavy music: After helping to draft the blueprint for the entire subgenre of second-wave black metal on a trilogy of early-’90s albums, they’ve gradually expanded outward into an unclassifiable zone, reaching a point in roughly the past decade where any flavor of metal is fair game as long as it feels, for lack of a better word, artisanal, free of any trace of sanitized modernity. As with recent Darkthrone albums Arctic Thunder, Old Star and Eternal Hails……, you can really get lost in this track, and I can’t wait to hear the full record.

Side C

Imprecation, “Agnus Dei (Spill the Blood)”

Imprecation have been kicking around since the early ‘90s, conjuring raw, suffocating sounds with not-so-subtle satanic overtones. I saw them play an excellent set at Maryland Deathfest earlier this year and their new album, In Nomine Diaboli, upholds the high standard set by their live show, retaining the underground grime that’s always been this Houston band’s hallmark. “Agnus Dei (Spill the Blood)” gives you a good idea of their strengths: Vocalist and sole original member Dave Herrera vomits out blasphemies over a procession of unrelentingly harsh riffs, some blasting and some oozing forth like magma.

Exhumed, “Carbonized”

Exhumed are another long-running band that’s exceedingly comfortable in its chosen niche, namely pairing grindcore-meets-death-metal filth with gross-out lyrical and visual imagery. “Carbonized” — from their new LP To the Dead, the San Jose outfit’s fifth since reuniting in 2010 — finds guitarist Matt Harvey and bassist Ross Sewage trading grunts and howls over breakneck riffs before downshifting into an almost triumphant midsection, followed by a grandstanding guitar solo, reminding you that these guys have always prized craftiness as much as cacophony.

Fucked Up, “Oberon”

Fucked Up are always cooking up something strange in their spare time, and their new EP, Oberon, finds the Toronto hardcore eccentrics embracing massive, trudging riffs and creeped-out psychedelia. Damian Abraham’s unmistakable roar is really all that seems to connect the eight-minute title track to the Fucked Up you know from punk operas like David Comes to Life, but it’s a blast to hear the group committing so fully to its latest lark, an evocation of the mythical king of the fairies that marries the tortured and trippy to the borderline cartoonish.

Bleed, “Killing Time”

Imagine that instead of disbanding Helmet in the late ‘90s, Page Hamilton had teamed up with members of the Deftones to form a new supergroup. That obviously never happened, but hey, at least we have Bleed, a Dallas band that nails the sound of alternative metal circa 1997 with uncanny accuracy, marrying dreamy hooks to massive riffs that caress as much as they crush. I’ve had their debut EP — Somebody’s Closer, self-released in 2021 and reissued earlier this year by 20 Buck Spin — on repeat for months, and their new single, “Killing Time,” is a worthy follow-up, and an enticing teaser for their first full-length, due next year.

Morbific, “Suicide Sanctum”

Another band that’s committed to turning back the clock is Morbific, a young Finnish trio that upholds its country’s legacy of rumbling, sepulchral death metal (see: Funebre, Purtenance, early Convulse). There’s also a strong kinship here with foundational American acts like Impetigo and Autopsy, and not just in the fact that, like those bands’ logos, Morbific’s is rendered in what looks like bloody and/or rotting body parts. “Suicide Sanctum,” from the band’s splendidly titled new second LP, Squirm Beyond the Mortal Realm, boasts the single most sinister riff I’ve heard this month, a slowly advancing monster (first heard around 30 seconds in) that sounds like walk-on music for a pack of flesh-hungry zombies. The whole track is great, as the band lets every devilish development breathe, just like their forefathers taught them.

Side D

Prolong Anoxia, “Path of Repugnance”

Indonesia’s Prolong Anoxia hail death-metal masters of a different region and slightly later era on their new debut, Perpetual Murder, which zeroes in on the relentless blast and gurgle — broken up by the occasional shimmy-friendly midtempo breakdown — that California’s Disgorge perfected in the late ‘90s. Opening track “Path of Repugnance” is great for those moments when you feel like losing yourself in the blur.

Morbikon, “Cursed to March on Shattered Limbs”

Epic black metal might not be what you’d expect to hear from a side project involving two members of Richmond party thrashers Municipal Waste, but Morbikon — the team-up of Waste-oids Phil “Landphil” Hall and Dave Witte with Finntroll vocalist Vreth — goes all in on that style and really delivers. “Cursed to March on Shattered Limbs,” an advance single from the band’s debut, Ov Mournful Twilight, earns its grandiose title and seven-minute-plus run time, building from a frosty acoustic intro to tremolo-riff attack mode and then into a midtempo gallop that sounds like music for a Viking raid.

Daeva, “Fragmenting in Ritual Splendor”

A great billmate for Morbikon would be Daeva, another band that’s zeroing in on the grimness and grandeur of early-’90s black metal. “Fragmenting in Ritual Splendor” is a scorching speed demon of a track from the band’s new debut, Through Sheer Will and Black Magic, that summons the fury of classic Immortal with a dash of righteous thrash-metal riffsmanship.

Lorna Shore, “Apotheosis”

Those who like their metal way (way!) over the top need to hear Pain Remains, the latest from New Jersey’s Lorna Shore. I admit that I’ve slept on this band in the past, but I’d surely have turned in sooner if I’d have known they sounded like this. “Apotheosis” plays like some kind of infernal death-metal opera, with soaring strings buoying a high-tech, hyperactive shredfest. The best parts are the whiplash-inducing breakdowns, which marry effects-bathed growls to church-choir chanting. Honestly I have no idea what to call this stuff, but I admire the commitment to excess.

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There’s a new Ozzy Osbourne album out this month. There’s also a new Striborg album out: two and a half hours of oppressively bleak — and, at its best, downright chilling — “blackwave” courtesy of the Tasmanian loner known as Sin Nanna. I state these facts to demonstrate a simple point: The universe of what we call metal is vast, and more or less impossible to keep tabs on in its entirety. Favor the festival headliners and arena fillers, and you miss the best of the club acts and fledgling bands sweating it out over that soon-to-be-legendary demo; scour the underground obsessively and you might overlook a late-career triumph from a household name.

So if this new incarnation of SPIN’s monthly metal roundup — in which I take over from Andy O’Connor, an astute and passionate lifer whose recommendations on all things heavy I’ve followed for years — has any guiding principle, it’s that there’s greatness to be found in all corners of the scene, from the indisputably iconic to the cultest of the cult. Each month, I’ll curate a mixtape of standout tracks from the latest crop of new releases, plus a handful of bonus selections. And though I can’t help but fail miserably in my attempt to encapsulate it all, my hope is that, whatever your tastes, from the grimiest sounds to the most grandiose, I can offer a highlight reel that’s compelling enough to make you want to do your own further digging. Thanks for reading, and let’s rage.

More from Spin:

• Megadeth Revisit Metallica Classic For Final LP
• YUNGBLUD Talks Aerosmith Collab On ‘Lipps Service’
• Paramount+’s Ozzy Osbourne Doc Arriving Oct. 7

*****

Sumerlands, “Edge of the Knife”

The best metal track I’ve heard this month comes from a 2022 album that could pass for one from around 35 years ago. In recent years, crafty revivalists like Haunt and Eternal Champion have zeroed in on the fantastical themes and invisible-orange-clutching drama of ‘80s metal, vaporizing any remaining aura of guilty pleasure that might still cling to the era in a righteous explosion of denim and spike-studded leather. Sumerlands, who share two members with Eternal Champion, may now be the band to beat in this retro arms race. Done poorly, this style can register as cheap cosplay; done well, it can take on an uncanny power that can make you feel like you’re inhabiting a Frank Frazetta masterpiece. Dreamkiller, Sumerlands’ second LP, falls squarely into that second category. Helmed by Arthur Rizk, whose magic touch behind the boards has elevated both new-school stars like Power Trip and established metal gods like Sepultura co-founder Max Cavalera, the band churns out tunes that would sound perfectly at home blaring out on the soundtrack of an ‘80s movie as a group of dead-end kids furiously pedal their BMX bikes toward either immortality or the 7-11 parking lot. Crank up “Edge of the Knife,” driven by the steel-sharpened riffs of Rizk and John Powers and the mighty melodic belt of Brendan Radigan, and promptly forget what decade it is.

Ozzy Osbourne feat. Tony Iommi, “No Escape From Now”

An obvious influence on Sumerlands — hell, an obvious influence on any one of us who’s ever found themselves banging their head uncontrollably while willfully blowing out their eardrums — is the aforementioned Ozzy Osbourne, specifically the Ozzy of 1986, when he was laying down brooding hard-rock gems with the help of guitarist Jake E. Lee. Ozzy has always needed a capable right-hand man, and these days it’s Andrew Watt, the Grammy-winning pop producer who’s worked with everyone from Post Malone to Camila Cabello, Miley Cyrus and other big names during the past decade. He’s helped to keep the Oz brand strong with two albums in two years that have teamed him with an impressive list of collaborators, including Posty himself, not to mention some guy named Elton John on 2020’s Ordinary Man. The guest list for the new Patient Number 9 is leaner but in some ways more enticing, as Watt has roped in a number of monster guitarists, including two key collaborators from Ozzy’s past: Zakk Wylde, who helped boost the singer’s career in the ‘90s on hit albums like No More Tears and rejoined his live band in 2017, and Tony Iommi, the man responsible for the minor achievement of inventing the entire genre of heavy metal along with Ozzy.

Iommi, who shared the stage with Osbourne at August’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, U.K., hasn’t recorded with the singer since Black Sabbath’s impressive 2013 sign-off LP, 13. He turns up on two songs on Patient Number 9 but makes a significant mark: The standout is “No Escape From Now,” a nearly seven-minute track that moves between dark psychedelia and grade-A doom rock, leading up to a stomping uptempo bridge. It’s classic Iommi, but interestingly, the overall feel is closer to the epic, suite-like pieces (“Falling Off the Edge of the World,” anyone?) found on the Sabbath albums — and one under the name Heaven and Hell — that the band made with Ronnie James Dio after Ozzy left the band. The results are awesome, and we’d gladly take another full album of collaborations between these two. (And hey, why not invite Geezer Butler and Bill Ward along, but we digress…)

Bloodbath feat. Marc Grewe, “To Die”

Inspired guest appearances are a running theme among this month’s metal releases, and another one of my favorites comes on the latest album from Bloodbath, a Stockholm band that specializes in what might be called fan-service death metal — that is, a take on the genre that panders unabashedly to disciples of the genre’s late-‘80s/early’90s heyday. For their sixth LP, “Survival of the Sickest” (note those old-school quotation marks), they’ve not only re-teamed with elite death-metal cover artist Wes Benscoter, who’s illustrated tons of nightmarish scenes for the genre going back decades, and accented his grotesque painting with a font that screams 1987; they’ve also roped in a few fellow lifers to help them drive the morbid message home, including Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway and Gorguts’ Luc Lemay. But the cameo that sticks with me the most is the one by Marc Grewe, frontman of Morgoth, a German band that put out a couple excellent, underrated LPs during death metal’s initial explosion. On “To Die,” he adds his unhinged yowl, akin to the delivery of Obituary’s John Tardy, to the grizzly-bear roar of “Old Nick” Holmes (also of Paradise Lost) and the effect is delicious. Meanwhile the rest of the band — including Katatonia co-founders Anders Nyström and Jonas Renske on guitar and bass, respectively, along with former Opeth drummer Martin “Axe” Axenrot — grinds out a series of towering riffs, laying out a blood-red carpet for these two seasoned pros to stroll down.

Megadeth feat. Ice-T, “Night Stalkers”

One more auspicious meeting comes on Megadeth’s The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!, an album that’s arrived with a load of headache-inducing media squabbles to match its somewhat ponderous title. But the music is good, hard-thrashing fun that finds tireless leader Dave Mustaine leaning into his over-the-top strengths. A particularly furious track is “Night Stalkers,” where Mustaine snarls out an account of a nighttime military raid, well-matched with diamond-cutter riffage and daredevil shredding. If the scene wasn’t already aptly set, none other than Ice-T shows up, returning the favor for Mustaine’s cameo on Body Count’s 2017 album Bloodlust to deliver a booming monologue about “Black Hawk helicopters” “and “Delta Force Special Ops shooters” that features a hilariously on-the-nose declaration of “Game’s over, bitches.” This team-up sounds exactly like you’d expect it to, and that’s just fine.

Clutch, “Slaughter Beach”

A few other releases from this month provide further high-order heavy-metal comfort food. A song I can’t get out of my head is “Slaughter Beach,” the sorta title track from Sunrise on Slaughter Beach, the new 13th album from Maryland rock survivors Clutch. The track is archetypal Clutch — swaggering hard-blues riffage paired with one of frontman Neil Fallon’s inimitable Philip K. Dick–meets–John Lee Hooker character sketches — and it’s absolutely killer. “I demand to shuck my clam the old-fashioned way / Under a Strawberry Moon, bare-handed, wearing no clothes,” he howls at the end of the second verse, before launching into the song’s righteously soulful chorus. Add this one to the pile of groovy, surrealistic anthems the band has been churning out for 30-plus years.

Autopsy, “Skin by Skin”

A similar ain’t-broke/no-need-to-fix spirit emanates from Morbidity Triumphant, the latest from Oakland, CA. “death… fucking… metal!” stalwarts Autopsy. One thing I love about this band is that they absolutely do not have to make new music — they could happily spend the rest of their days headlining various Deathfests and delighting crowds with tracks from foundational LPs like 1989’s Severed Survival and 1991’s Mental Funeral. But drummer/growler Chris Reifert (also an early member of the storied Death) and guitarists Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles can’t seem to resist the urge to keep creating new sonic horror shows to go along with old favorites like “Service for a Vacant Coffin” and “In the Grip of Winter.” “Skin by Skin” — marked by gut-churning downtempo verses, vomitous vocals, a breakneck midsection and tortured guitar solos — shows that these guys are still masters of their grisly craft.

Slipknot, “The Dying Song (Time to Sing)”

You know who else could probably stop putting out albums without lessening their ability to pack arenas for decades to come? A little mask-wearing combo out of Des Moines called Slipknot. But “The Dying Song (Time to Sing),” an advance single from their upcoming seventh LP, The End, So Far, already feels like a live chestnut, probably because of how efficiently it checks all the boxes of the band’s latter-day sound: a hooky Corey Taylor refrain that sounds almost Broadway-ready, a raging verse where he unleashes his syllable-chewing diatribes and, later, a pit-detonating, double-bass-choked breakdown. Even to the casual fan — say, a merely Maggot-curious metalhead such as myself — it’s all extremely familiar but no less satisfying for it.

City of Caterpillar, “Mystic Sisters”

In the mood for something a little more challenging? I encourage you to strap in for the seven-minute ride that is “Mystic Sisters,” the title track from City of Caterpillar’s first album in 20 years. Originally part of the arty, explosively cathartic wave of late ‘90s/early 2000s hardcore known as screamo, the band has joined its contemporaries Jeromes Dream and Gospel (who released outstanding reunion albums in 2019 and this past spring, respectively) in getting back together for shows and adding to their small, cult-favorite discographies. Much like the lengthier tracks on their self-titled 2002 debut, “Mystic Sisters” builds steadily from a forlorn hush to a frantic art-punk climax with the vocals of Brandon Evans and bassist Kevin Longendyke tumbling over one another like stage-divers at a basement show.

KEN mode, “Throw Your Phone in the River”

From there, with your appetite whet for the chaotic side of hardcore, why not move on to “Throw Your Phone in the River,” a seething two-minute noise-rock blast from Winnipeg’s KEN mode, from the new NULL? The band’s sound mashes together decades’ worth of sterling underground grime — from Scratch Acid and Big Black to Unsane and Today Is the Today — into a bilious noise-rock confection, all rumbling bass, spat-out vocals and rusty-wire guitar.

Revocation, “Nihilistic Violence”

We close this month with the most headbangable passage I’ve heard on any September metal release, the merciless chugger, winding down with a darkly elegant flourish, that opens “Nihilistic Violence,” a track from Netherheaven, the latest and, to my ears, most ripping release to date by Boston trio Revocation. You could call them a death-metal band, thanks to the raw-throated bark of vocalist-guitarist Dave Davidson and the double-kick fury of drummer Ash Pearson, but honestly, I don’t really see the point in micro-categorizing this one — I detect just as much hardcore and thrash in this song’s DNA, and what shines through even more is that quality that unites all great metal of whatever stripe: the quest for the most badass riff imaginable.

Bonus tracks:

Autophagy, “Sacrificial Spawn”

If the Bloodbath and Autopsy tracks above have you in a death-metal mood, an absurd amount of younger acts have new albums out this month that scratch a similar itch, including (deep breath…) Phobophilic, Tribal Gaze, Innumerable Forms, Acephalix, Mortuous, Sublation and Miscreance. But the one that’s got me the most fired up is Bacteriophage, the upcoming debut LP by Portland, Oregon’s Autophagy. “Sacrificial Spawn” moves through a relentless procession of riffs and tempos, each more dank and neck-wrecking than the last.

OFF!, “Kill to Be Heard”

Are OFF! a metal band? When the riffs are this ferocious, I’m not going to quibble, and neither should you. It’s inspiring that a punk legend like Keith Morris — Black Flag’s original mic man, who has also fronted the Circle Jerks intermittently since 1979 — is still involved in music that sounds so volatile. Riff wizard Dimitri Coats and the new rhythm section of bassist Autry Fulbright II and drummer Justin Brown (also an A-list jazz player) deserve equal props for steering this track, previewing the upcoming Free LSD album, from puree-speed blasts to old-school-sounding hardcore blitz.

Blind Guardian, “Blood of the Elves”

Sick to death of subtlety? Embrace the goofy majesty of this shamelessly dramatic German act, whose Tolkien-y tales, operatic vocals and relentless crescendos — fully intact on their 12th album The God Machine — make Iron Maiden sound restrained by comparison.

Titan to Tachyons, “Blue Thought Particles”

The past few years have seen an abundance of visionary heavy music coming out of New York City, a lot of it springing out of the intersection of jazz and extreme metal. A few artists that pop up and again and again in this sphere are guitarist Matt Hollenberg, drummer Kenny Grohowski and bassist Trevor Dunn, who have worked together and separately in projects including John Zorn’s Simulacrum, Cleric, Imperial Triumphant and Dan Weiss’s Starebaby. Here, on a track from new album Vonals, those three join the similarly eclectic guitarist Sally Gates on a journey from bruising heavy prog to eerily spacious fusion and on to a lurching abstract finale.

Motörhead, “Iron Fist (Jacksons Studio Demo – October 1981)”

A demo version of one of Lemmy & Co.’s toughest tracks that’s even rawer and scrappier than the iconic original? Yes, please. Hear more on a new deluxe reissue of 1982’s classic Iron Fist.

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