Another week of releases on the smaller side, but some cool shit is still dropping. In this week's edition we have metal guys being folksy, your favorite French band, and more. To the metals…
John Baizley, Nate Hall & Mike Scheidt – Songs Of Townes Van Zandt Vol II
Genre: Country/Folk
Origin: Georgia/North Carolina/Oregon
Label: Neurot
Buy now on Amazon.com
Just in case you're not aware, Townes Van Zandt was a country/folk singer known for a song called "If I Needed You." As far as country goes, his music is quite listenable. John Baizly (Baroness), Nate Hall, and Mike Scheidt (YOB) are paying tribute to his music in this sequel to the first Songs of Townes Van Zandt by Wino (The Obsessed) , Steve Von Till (Neurosis), and Scott Kelly (Neurosis). The guys stay true to the originals for the most part. Not metal in the least bit frankly, but hearing metal dudes be non-metal is always fascinating to me.
Biblical – Monsoon Season
Genre: Stoner
Origin: Toronto, Canada
Label: New Damage
Buy now on Amazon.com
This band is fucking cool. They blend stoner metal, blues, psychedelic, progressive rock, and even rockabilly into a very unique blend on music. There is few bands, if any, like Biblical.
Sample it here
Conan – Blood Eagle
Genre: "Caveman Battle Doom"
Origin: Liverpool, England
Label: Napalm
Buy now on Amazon.com
These guys are popping up everywhere I look these days, and they're well worth the hype. This is one of the most crushing releases I've heard in a long time. The band is doom that isn't afraid to gallop from time to time and this gives them a rarely heard edge. These lads from Liverpool with bring their sonic hammer down on you harder than (insert reference to a heavy thing here)!
Gojira – Les Enfants Sauvages Live CD/DVD/Book 
Genre: Progressive Metal
Origin: Bayonne, France
Label: Roadrunner
Buy now on the band's website.
L'enfant Sauvage is the album that made me a Gojira fan. Seeing them live made me obsessed with them. They're the absolute heaviest band I've seen live. I can't imagine that this, or any live release, will capture the glory of the real thing, but this release is still pretty cool for super-fans of the band.
Monsterworks – Universe 
Genre: Heavt Metal
Origin: Palmerston North, New Zealand
Label: Eat Lead & Die
Buy now on the band's website.
It was just last year that I raved about the near impossible to label album Earth by Monsterworks. The band's latest is just as difficult to pinpoint and just as awesome. The band gets super deep here exploring philosophy and the end of time on this one too. So there's something there for your more heady metal head.
The Shrine – Bless Off 
Genre: Stoner
Origin: Venice, California
Label: Tee Pee
Buy now on Amazon.com
This band's URL for everything includes the word "Fuzz." No one word better describes this band's aesthetic. They are punk, heavy metal, and more all run through a fuzz pedal. Thier own fuzz pedal perhaps?
Sample it here
Also dropping today…
Architects UK – Lost Together, Lost Forever (Epitaph)
Armageddon Rev.16.16 – Sundown On Humanity (Pitch Black)
Barren Womb – The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken (Spartan)
The Casket Crew – Coercion (Cimmerian Shade)
Crypt Of Silence – Beyond Shades (Solitude)
Dark Forest – The Awakening (Cruz del Sur)
Dirge – Hyperion (Debemur Morti)
Entartung – Peccata Mortalia (WTC)
Insain – Enlightening The Unknown (Kaotoxin)
Kirk – Masquerade (Mausoleum)
KXM – KXM (Rat Pak)
Nervosa – Victim Of Yourself (Napalm)
Ogre – The Last Neanderthal (Minotauro)
Our Last Enemy – Pariah (Eclipse)
Psalm Zero – The Drain (Profound Lore)
Scibex – Path to Omors (Tridroid)
Seal Of Solomon – I The King (Wormholedeath)
Shroud of the Heretic – Revelations in Alchemy (Blood Harvest)
Tortorum – Katabasis (WTC)
Valknacht – Le Sacrifice d'Ymir (PRC)
Viza – Aria (Gravitron)
Volume IV – Long In The Tooth (Ripple)
