January is the dogs days of new releases, metal or otherwise; presuming everyone is still hungover from the holiday spending frenzy – one doesn't typically gift something as taste-specific as an album – the labels tend to withhold their better product until closer to touring season, which usually kicks into high gear around February/March.
Well, bitches, it's February, so all that time you spent zoning out and not keeping up with shit is over and done with. If you've been taking a breather from new music over the past month or two you are officially missing out at this point. See for instance…
Alpha Tiger – Beneath the Surface
Genre: Power Metal
Origin: Germany
Label: Century Media
Alpha Tiger have a fairly unique spin on traditional power metal, primarily due to Stephan "Heiko" Dietrich's distinctive vocals, sort of a mix of John Arch-era Fates Warning and the prog-via-metalcore stylings of Coheed & Cambria's Claudio Sanchez… which sounds fucking horrible on paper, but in practice is a pretty functional tempering of the over the top vocal histrionics that make Coheed a tough sell for me.
Ancient VVisdom – Deathlike
Genre: Occult Rock
Origin: Texas, USA
Label: Prosthetic
Hey, just because they were an early pioneer of this Occult Rock shit via 2011's A Godlike Wisdom doesn't mean every album's gotta be about innovation innovation innovation. Deathlike picks up exactly where the debut left off, ie. as if Days of the New developed some talent and started worshipping Satan.
Audrey Horne – Youngblood
Genre: Hard Rock/Blues Rock
Origin: Norway
Label: Napalm
Ah, now, I'm admittedly pretty piss ignorant about this band, but I'm being told that Youngblood is a pretty radical shift for these Norwegians. Beginning life as a pretty standard alt-metal/post-grunge hybrid (already a stale concept by the time of their 2005 debut, No hay banda) here they've morphed into a blues-inspired, NWOBHM-era trad metal group… a sound that will no doubt get them lumped in with other 70's worshipping acts like Witchcraft and Graveyard even though they sound nothing like them. This is pretty much straight ahead, radio accessible hard rock like a cross between UFO and early Def Leppard. Sometimes reinvention pays off (and I don't mean Slang).
Funeral for a Friend – Conduit
Genre: Post-Hardcore/Melodic Hardcore
Origin: Wales
Label: The End
Frankly, a lot of the songs on Conduit sound unfinished: it's not so much that the structure or pacing dictates that every song should be in the 2-3 minute range, it feels more like the band didn't properly flesh out their material before heading into the studio. It's not a fatal flaw necessarily, but it does leave one wanting a bit more than the barebones 29 minutes we get here.
Primitive Man – Scorn
Genre: Doom/Sludge
Origin: Colorado, USA
Label: Throatruiner/Mordgrimm
Easily the best doom debut so far in 2013, Denver's Primitive Man ply that sludge hybrid… because there's just not enough visceral hate in the standard doom metal template. Distributed by Throatruiner in Europe and Mordgrimm in the UK, customers from the US and elsewhere currently only have the option of ordering through Bandcamp or Big Cartel, which regretfully may hurt the band's chances of achieving the claim they deserve, but if you consider yourself a doom fan you really can't afford to sleep on this one.
Vex – Memorious
Genre: Progressive Death Metal/Blackened Death
Origin: Texas, USA
Label: Horror Pain Gore Death Productions
Talk about another album that's kind of a pain to track down, as near as I can tell you can only get Vex's challenging new record, Memorious, directly via the record label's mail order site… that's right, no digital downloads, just old school snail mail pre-orders. That's gonna annoy a lot of people, particularly those who downloaded the band's 2010 debut, Thanatopsis, directly from iTunes… where this highly rated sophomore album decidedly isn't. Check out Atanamar's review here. UPDATE: The band has informed us the album can be downloaded at Bandcamp.
Also out today:
8th Sin – Cosmogenesis (Soulseller)
Acrimonius – Sunyata (Agonia)
Anger As Art – Hubris Inc. (Old School Metal)
Archon – Auroboros Collapsing (The Path Less Traveled)
Attacker – Giants Of Canaan (Metal On Metal)
Bloody Hammers – Bloody Hammers (Soulseller)
The Bronx – The Bronx (IV) (N/A)
Coheed And Cambria – The Afterman: Descension (Hundred Handed Inc)
Cortez – Phoebus (Throatruiner)
Defeated Sanity – Passages Into Deformity (Willowtip)
Endezzma – Erotik Nekrosis (Agonia)
Frankenbok – Cheers, Beers & Beards! (Fair Dinkum)
Gloria Morti – Lateral Constraint (Metal Blade)
Hammerfall – Gates Of Dalhalla DVD (Nuclear Blast)
Hanging Garden – At Every Door (Lifeforce)
Hate – Solarflesh (Napalm)
Heart In Hand – Almost There (Siege Of Amida)
Helen Money – Arriving Angels (Profound Lore)
Misfits – Dea.d. Alive! (Misfits Records)
Necrowretch – Putrid Death Sorcery (Century Media)
The Prophecy – Salvation (Code 666)
Quadrivium – Methocha (Soulseller)
Red – Release The Panic (Essential Records/provident Label Group)
Rings Of Saturn – Dingir (Unique Leader)
Riverside – Shrine Of New Generation Slaves (Inside Out)
Slough Feg – Down Among The Deadmen Re-Release (Metal Blade)
Slough Feg – Traveller Re-Release (Metal Blade)
Slough Feg – Twilight Of The Idols Re-Release (Metal Blade)
Sonic Reign – Monument In Black (Apostasy)
Those Who Fear – Unholy Anger (Facedown)
Zombified – Carnage, Slaughter and Death (Metal Blade)
