Y’all, it’s a bumper crop of banger crap this week. The ivory walls are stained with an expulsion of intriguing tunes—from drippy, moldering death to proto-metal/folk rock, it’s an embarrassment of riches that has grown my wishlist to an obscene 78 items. (*Laughs in Spear*) Just in time for BC Friday, I might add. Get to it, my dumplings.

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SHODAN – None Shall Prevail (Time to Kill Records) [Death]

Something about the riffing in the preview track calls decay to mind—it’s not quite the nauseous lurch of OSDM melodies, but a faint vibrating as the guitars buzz against each other, flies fighting over the best spot on a carcass. The sudden turn to bluesy Dark Side of the Moon worship in the second half is utterly deranged (and inspired), which I suppose is only fitting for a band named after a maniacal AI.

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Abyssal/Ellorsith – Sepulchorporeal / Amore (Dark Descent Records) [Blackened Death]

Adrian Benegas – Arcanvm – El mantra secreto de los espíritus (Reaper Entertainment) [Symphonic Power]

All We Leave Behind – Through The Styx And Beyond (Independent) [Death/Doom]

Ancient Settlers – Transition (Crusader Records) [Melodeath]

Aphonic Threnody – When Death Comes Again (Serpentine Music) [Funeral Doom]

Arae – The Mightless One (Independent) [Death / Groove]

Aridus – Serpent Moon (Eisenwald) [Black]

Balmog – Covenants of Salt (Eisenwald) [Black / Psychedelic]

Blodöx – Blod​ö​rn 2019 (Independent) [Death]

Blood Ceremony – The Old Ways Remain (Rise Above Records) [Psych Doom]

Burning Witches – The Dark Tower (Napalm Records) [Thrash / Power]

Clones of Sirius – S/T (Independent) [Blackened Death]

Concilium – Sky Bvrial (Independent) [Blackened Death]

Daeria – Morfeo (On Fire Records) [Groove / Heavy]

Dead Chasm – Sublimis Ignotum Omni (F.D.A. Records) [Death]

Deadline – Vitriol Inc (Independent) [Thrash / Heavy]

Deathvoid – Diurnal Cloak (Xenoglossy Productions) [Noise]

Desekryptor– Curse of the Execrated (Caligari Records) [Death]

Draconian Reign – Tragedy Eternal (Seek & Strike) [Symphonic Deathcore]

Drain – Living Proof (Epitaph) [Hardcore / Punk]

Drama Noir – Nightfall Upon the Asylum (Floga Records) [Symphonic Death]

Drzý Čert – Strach (Panda Music) [Groove / Thrash]

Dusk – Rethrenody (Independent) [Industrial Black]

Efil – Totale Lebenszerst​ö​rung (Independent) [Raw Black / Power Electronics]

Enforcer – Nostalgia (Nuclear Blast) [Speed]

Extermination Dismemberment – Dehumanization Protocol (Unique Leader Records) [Brutal Death / Slam]

Extort – Reset (Independent) [Groove]

Fauns – Surcease (Independent) [Doom / Sludge]

Fistula/Religious Observance/Gâinsayër – Split (Black Mold Records) [Sludge / Doom / Death]

Fyrgast – Echoes From the Past (War Productions) [Black]

Gangrened – Ambient Doom Dream (Independent) [Ambient / Doom / Drone]

Grief Collector – In Times of Woe (Petrichor) [Heavy / Doom]

Gutted Christ – Hail and Kill (CDN Records) [Death]

Gutterance – S/T (Independent) [Death]

Haunt – Golden Arm (Church Recordings) [Heavy]

Heimland – Forfedrenes Taarer (Edged Circle Productions) [Black]

Hexenschorf – Certain Rapture (Fiadh Productions) [Raw/L0-fi Black]

I Am Your God – SINister (Out of Line Music) [Groove / Melodeath]

Intöxicated – Sadistic Nightmares (Ironbound Records) [Speed / Thrash]

Iron Hearse – Super Heavy Incendiary Transmissions (Snake Mountain Records) [Sludge / Doom]

Ishjerte – Surt, Born ov Fire (Independent) [Raw/Lo-fi Black]

Kotok – II (Kotoxik Records) [Thrash]

Kritter – Special K (JBC Music) [Groove / Melodeath]

Krysaor – Foreward (Independent) [Groove / Melodeath]

Left to Starve – Vapaj za Mogu​ć​im (Rope or Guillotine) [Doom / Sludge]

Lumsk – Fremmede Toner (Dark Essence Records) [Folk / Rock]

Meet the Mailman – Never Walk Alone (Independent) [Thrash]

Mnajdra – S/T (Independent) [Blackened Death]

Muskeg Charnel – Decomposition Part 3: Rigor Mortis (HPGD Productions) [Blackened Death]

Nadir – Extinction Rituals (Independent) [Blackened Death]

Nightmarer – Deformity Adrift (Total Dissonance Worship) [Dissodeath / Tech]

Oculi Melancholiarum – Euphorbia (Fiadh Productions) [Blackgaze]

Okwaho – The Usurper Regime (Independent) [Sludge / Doom]

Oreyeon/Lord Elephant – Doom Sessions Vol. 8 (Heavy Psych Sounds Records) [Psychedelic Doom]

Pulsus Furor – Black Destiny (Independent) [Blackened Death]

RetroSatan – Juegos Diabólicos (Icarus Music) [Thrash]

Savage Grace – Sign of the Cross (Massacre Records) [NWoBHM / Speed]

Scuriu – Hymnal ov Deafening Silence (Independent) [Blackened Doom / Dark Ambient]

Seltsame Erden – Gedankentempeln (Canti Eretici) [Blackened Death]

Severed Angel – S/T (Sliptrick Records) [Symphonic Melodeath]

Sovereign Council – World On Fire (Independent) [Symphonic Power]

Spinebreaker – Cavern of Inoculated Cognition (Creator-Destructor Records) [Death]

StartTheMonkey – Urban Psyche (Electric Talon Records) [Sludge / Post-Metal]

Sunburster – Trudging to Extinction (Knife Hits Collective) [Sludge / Grunge]

Symbiontic – The Sun and the Darkness (Apostasy Records) [Melodeath]

Syn TZ – Dawn of the New Dark Ages (Independent) [Thrash / Heavy]

Terror Society – Passage to the End (Independent) [Deathrash]

The Lone Madman – Answer to Job (Saturnal Records) [Doom]

The Modern Age Slavery – 1901: The First Mother (Fireflash Records) [Death]

Thorax – Esclavo de tu ser (Independent) [Deathrash]

Turn Cold – Chew Glass (Independent) [Crossover Thrash]

Tygers of Pan Tang – Bloodlines (Target Group) [Heavy]

Tyrant’s Curse – At War With the World (Doc Gator Records) [Power / Melodeath]

Ugly – Autograph (Satanik Royalty Records) [Sludge / Doom]

Undead – Putrefactio (Redefining Darkness Records) [Death]

Unearth – The Wretched; The Ruinous (Century Media Records) [Metalcore / Melodeath]

Urkraft – Lyset skinner best i m​ø​rket (Polypus Records) [Symphonic Black]

Velaraas – Pantheon (Independent) [Prog Death]

Vile Iniquity – …Unto the Earth (Independent) [Blackened Death]

Vintersea – Woven Into Ashes (M-Theory Audio) [Prog Death]

Virulent Genesis – Introduction to Misrule (Independent) [Melodeath]

Vlad – Left To Die (Independent) [Death]