J. Andrew

This week’s edition comes loaded with lots of black metal, a thrash titan, and some deathy grind to push you into the weekend.

Welcome to our first installment of Five for Friday! In these posts, you’ll find five new releases help to navigate each week’s output of extreme music.

Naglfar remains consistent in the best possible way: they just keep on making great blackened death metal packed with riff after riff.

Touring veteran Frank Fanelli has stepped up and started a fundraiser to help out the staff of all those tours affected by the coronavirus.

For fans of modern, muscular melodic death metal, the new video from California’s Voices of Ruin is a must-see bloody experience.

Natur‘s “Afternoon Nightmare is a a rip-roaring good time for fans of glorious no-nonsense heavy metal: riffs, solos, the whole 666 yards.

“Bloem” is a gorgeous bouquet of riffs, howls and experimental treats, and yet still fits comfortably within the framework of black metal.

If Anaal Nathrakh was more into D-beat and less into using electronic noises in their material, and you’d be pretty close to what SKAM has to offer.

According to the Mayhem guitarist, “Even though it’s a hassle and insanely costly, this is the tour we always look forward to!”

“That harsh, cold, and uncaring nature of the cosmos contrasts well with its immense beauty, grandeur, and mystery atop a musical canvas like black metal.”

“My only ambition is that the music has the capability to help other people release some of the negativity dominating them.”

Jump back into the steaming coffin of black, death, thrash and crust-fueled glory on “Haunted Graves,” from the upcoming EP from Hot Graves.

For those of you devoted to the power of the unholy riff, Sweden’s Kvaen strikes just the right balance of melody, glory and aggression.

Gaze into the terrifying indifference of the universe with the latest emanation of Switzerland’s Helvetic Underground Committee.

On the new song, “Loss,” Azure Emote is quite simply experimental tech-death at its best: the ol’ razzle dazzle with a brain-scrambling twist!

Check out the new video from Poland’s Banisher, who use riffs to summon the demons birthed from isolation, insanity and violence.

Finn Mckenty breaks down what The Punk Rock MBA is all about, and dishes on death metal, “selling out” and why the DIY ethic is a path to success.

The high priests of beautiful gloom and sorrow have returned to offer their latest sermon. Check out My Dying Bride‘s “Your Broken Shore” here.

For fans of classic, 80s-style “cassette death metal” in the vein of old Death and Autopsy, San Jose’s Aseptic is your new capital ship.

New York’s Ordeals specializes in a certain kind of darkness. The band’s sound is an entrancing and at times terrifying blend of black metal and death metal.

The cold, grim, dark months are upon us. Prepare for your hibernation with 10 excellent albums filled with riffs, sythns and screams.

Genfærd‘s new song is a melodic and melancholy work of danish black metal mastery from their upcoming new album due out in 2020.

Unreqvited are uniquely talented at keeping their influences intact while still merging them into a cohesive force of blackened melancholy.

Winter Light, a new force in melodic death metal, unleashes their new EP, From Sea to Starless Skies, packed with riffs and growls for days.

What does the author of the new Black Candle book have to bring to the world? Silence. Lies. Lust. Blood. Worship. Ritual. Intoxication.

Castle-metal fanatics, rejoice! The latest excellent offering from Obsequiae is here and streaming in its full glory here at Decibel.

More than any other band, Despised Icon stands above the remnants of deathcore. Check out our Q&A with guitarist Eric Jarrin to see where they stand now.

For anyone wondering what’s going on in the world of punk, Portland’s Frecuencia De Muerte is one of the best bands to watch.

For fans of classic, straightforward darkness ala Amorphis and Bolt Thrower, Vadiat delivers on everything you could want in a death metal band.

If you enjoy the brutality of tech death, but wish you could add some Fear Factory, Godflesh and Nocturnus into the mix: you need to listen to this band.