Happy New Year, Decibel readers!
I’m not sure if you’re into resolutions or anything, but I sure as hell have one: to continue to provide you with the inside track on the best in brutality every week! See? All you need to keep to your resolution is to pick something you’re already obligated to do in the first place!
Here’s to 2022, let’s make it better than 2021!
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Aethereus – Leiden
Strap in and suit up for the technical death metal assault from this unit out of Tacoma, Washington. The band’s sound plays a lot like if The Black Dahlia Murder went in a technical/progressive direction and had the brightest production possible. Energizing, strong songwriting make this essential listening for acolytes of the style.
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Apes – Lullabies for Eternal Sleep
Sticking with the energizing theme, here’s some positively furious noise from Quebec’s Apes. Fans of Full of Hell and other earsplitting grind nihilists will hear a lot of things they like on this EP.
Stream: Apple Music
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Darkened – Mourn the Dying Light
Darkened have a full-length on the way for us later this year, but want to make sure we hear the two songs on this EP first. This death metal collective, spanning Sweden, Britain and Canada with its veteran membership march on with a clear purpose: straightforward old-school death metal. To be precise, the new EP has visible roots stretching back to the classic work of Asphyx, Grave and Bolt Thrower. You Decibel readers are really into that stuff, so I’m told.
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Necrophagous – In Chaos Ascend
Oh, so you want more of that kind of stuff? Check out this album from Sweden’s Necrophagous. The Grave worship here is off the charts (not complaining!), along with flavors of Morbid Angel (listen for the harmonizing riff work), Deicide and other American greats.
Stream: Apple Music
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Nocturnal Graves – An Outlaw’s Stand
And now for this week’s main course, we have the latest from Australia’s Nocturnal Graves (lol, come on, where else would they be from when they sound like this?). The blackened-death-thrash masters’ latest comes served extra crispy: with boiling hot riffs, searing drums, and scorching vocals. It’s just the fury we all could use at the beginning of this, the year of our dark lord, 2022.
Stream: Apple Music
