This Toilet Tuesday (11/7/23)
O shining seat of ease, sanctifier of stools, bless our bottoms with your benevolence. This week we’ve got dragon tech, grim and frost(y)bitten operatics, and a general disdain for apostrophes. Pick up your plungers, friends, we’ve got work to do!
Rascal – Lost Beyond Reason (Ossuary Records) [Speed / Heavy Metal]
Rascal reminds me of Visigoth, but with a raised PBR instead of tempered steel. The breakneck pace and dual guitar leads channel early speed metal, but there’s a technical flair to the riffing (and song structure) that’s decidedly modern. While the available track is shred-heavy, the band avoids the pitfall of using riffs as mere bridges between outbursts of virtuosity. From thrashy, palm-muted triplets to the heavy metal stomp of the song’s second half, the rhythm section anchors “Trapped Within the Lightning” in memory—no simple task with those arpeggios flying around and turning minds to mush. -Roldy
Acid Throne – Kingdom’s Death (Trepanation Recordings) [Death/Doom / Black Metal]
Aeons Abyss – Insidious Truth (Independent) [Deathrash]
Aglo – Build Fear (Brilliant Emperor Records) [Death/Doom]
Burial/Night Hag – Utterances from Below (Rotted Life Records) [Death]
Burn Ritual – Grave Watcher (Independent) [Stoner Doom]
Crescendium – Within (Independent) [Prog Death]
Dethrone the Corrupted – Deadlands (Independent) [Melodeath / Metalcore]
Dissona – Dreadfully Distinct (Independent) [Prog Metal / Electronic]
Diviner – Avaton (Rock of Angels Records) [Heavy Metal]
Drowning in Formaldehyde – Nightmares And Seroquel (Coyote Records) [Brutal Death / Slam]
Empire of Disease – Shadows in the Abyss (Xtreem Music) [Melodeath / Metalcore]
Extinkt – Trinity Redux (Ossuary Records) [Thrash]
Fallen Utopia – Ruin (Independent) [Melodeath]
Gama Bomb – Bats (Independent) [Thrash]
Halvar – State Of The Nation (MMD Records) [Deathrash]
Hard Excess – The Nations Dust (Independent) [Heavy Metal / Hard Rock]
Helmet – Left (earMUSIC) [Groove Metal / Alt Rock]
Highborne – Spectral Séances (Independent) [Blackened Doom]
Hinayana – Shatter And Fall (Napalm Records) [Melodeath / Doom Metal]
Hísemtuks Hími•n – The Healing (Masters of Kaos Productions) [Symphonic Black]
Left Cross – Upon Desecrated Altars (Profound Lore Records) [Death]
Left Eye Perspective – Conundrum (Argonauta Records) [Sludge / Groove Metal]
Lodestar – Polaris (Independent) [Doom / Post-Metal]
Lower 13 – Deception (Pure Steel Records) [Metalcore]
Luminous Path – The Dark Path to Enlightenment (Independent) [Raw/Lo-Fi Black / Dungeon Synth]
Malicious – Merciless Storm (Invictus Productions) [Blackened Death]
Marsh of Swans – Heartwood (Independent) [Atmoblack]
Metal Life Crisis – Theatre Of Fire (Sliptrick Records) [Heavy Metal / Prog Rock]
Night Crowned – Tales (Noble Demon) [Melodic Blackened Death]
Odd Crew – Dark Matters Part II (Drakkar Entertainment) [Post-Metal]
Okrütnik – Krwawy Pontyfikat (Ossuary Records) [Blackthrash / Speed Metal]
Phantom Winter – Her Cold Materials (This Charming Man Records) [Blackened Post-Metal / Doom]
Plague Rider – Intensities (Transcending Obscurity Records) [Dissodeath / Tech Death]
Pyrolatrous – Inveterate (Gilead Media) [Blackened Death]
Rigorious – Night of Retribution (Metalapolis Records) [Symphonic Power / Heavy Metal]
Secret Sphere – Blackened Heartbeat (Frontiers Records) [Symphonic Power]
Shylmagoghnar – Convergence (Napalm Records) [Melodic Blackened Death]
Sons of Sounds – Seven (El Puerto Records) [Proggy Heavy Metal]
Stargate – Escaping the Illusion (Steel Gallery Records) [Symphonic Power / Heavy Metal]
Tarja – Dark Christmas (earMUSIC) [Chrimbuscore]
Temple Balls – Avalanche (Frontiers Records) [Heavy Metal]
The Fall of Mother Earth – Shattered Memories (Independent) [Death/Doom]
The Neologist – Between the Darkness and the Fade (Independent) [Melodeath]
The Ritual Aura – Heresiarch (The Artisan Era) [Tech Death]
Vastum – Inward to Gethsemane (20 Buck Spin) [Death]
WarBand – OverAmped (Independent) [Thrash]
Welcome To Pleshiwar – Apostasy (Independent) [Symphonic Death/Doom]
