This edition includes accident prone goth legends, guitar wanking, sludgy goodness, and more! To the metals…
Angel Vivaldi – Synapse 
Genre: Progressive instrumental
Origin: New Jersey
Label: N/A
Buy now on Amazon.com
In the world of our modern guitar shredding heroes, Angel Vivaldi is certainly in the top tier. He absolutely is the star of his band, and wanks like a mother fucker, but his song writing, artistry, and guitar face are all top notch. This album also features guests like Nita Strauss (Iron Maidens), Oli Herbert (All That Remains), and more.
August Burns Red – Phantom Anthem 
Genre: Metalcore
Origin: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Label: Fearless Records
Buy now on Amazon.com
August Burns Red have been doing the vaguely Christian/Positive-thinking melodic metalcore thing with great success since Messengers made them a household name. This of course is assuming that we all live in houses that talk about metalcore a lot, I guess. Phantom Anthem continues what worked with Found In Far Away Places, which is better than most of what most of our readers expect this band to sound like (there's a compliment in there somewhere).
The Black Dahlia Murder – Nightbringers 
Genre: Melodic death metal
Origin: Detroit, Michigan
Label: Metal Blade
Buy now on Amazon.com
This band hasn't really has a misstep in their career yet. Their ability to consistently create memorable, heavy, and technical melodic death metal without feeling stale is truly impressive. Nightbringers is the shit. I kinda don't know how else to put it.
Dreadnought – A Wake In Sacred Waves 
Genre: Progressive/Doom
Origin: Denver/Colorado Springs, Colorado
Label: Sailor
Buy now on Bandcamp.com
This album is four incredible tracks that are sonic journeys through so many different corners of music. At its core this is a doom album, but Dreadnought dabbles in folk music, progressive rhythms, experimental, blackened metal, Pink Floyd-like atmosphere, baroque whimsy, and more. Tremendous album worth all your time.
Marilyn Manson – Heaven Upside Down 
Genre: Gothic rock
Origin: Canton, Ohio
Label: Loma Vista
Buy now on Amazon.com
While the world wait for Manson to heal from his recent injuries, you can enjoy his long talked about follow-up to The Pale Emperor. It really is the man's best album in over a decade. Greg goes deep on it here.
Primitive Man – Caustic 
Genre: Sludge/Noise
Origin: Denver, Colorado
Label: Relapse
Buy now on Amazon.com
The weight of this album is insane. This sounds like the biggest, angriest, scariest beast slowly wrecking an entire world. This record is 40% sludge, 10% doom, and 50% screeching feedback. So if that sounds like your jam, get on this.
Spirit Adrift – Curse Of Conception 
Genre: Doom
Origin: Phoenix, Arizona
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Buy now on Amazon.com
When he's not death metaling around in Gatecreeper, Nate Garrett loves himself some Black Sabbath, Pallbearer, and the likes as shown in Spirit Adrift. The guitarwork on this reminds me of the slower melodic harmonies of Metallica too. This is a successful, diverse, interesting sophomore release from an underrated project.
Spotlights – Seismic 
Genre: Sludge/Shoegaze
Origin: Brooklyn, New York
Label: Ipecac
Buy now on Amazon.com
The follow-up to last years Tidal continues this duo's tradition of hypnotic and dreamy heaviness. This is part first album Queens of the Stone Age, part Autolux, and part some entirely different creature. I can see this being a sleeper hit for many sludgy metal fans.
Also dropping today…
Autograph – Get Off Your Ass (EMP) – Glam metal
The Darkness – Pinewood Smile (Cooking Vinyl) – Hard rock
Fireball Ministry – Remember The Story (Cleopatra) – Stoner
Haemorrhage – We Are The Gore (Relapse) – Goregrind
House Of Broken Promises – Twisted EP (Heavy Psych Sounds) – Stoner
Lord Of The Lost – Swan Songs II (Napalm) – Dark rock
Nocturnal Rites – Phoenix (AFM) – Power metal
Panzer – Fatal Command (Nuclear Blast) – Heavy metal
Thousand Below – The Love You Let Too Close (Rise) – Post-hardcore
Zaius – Of Adoration (Prosthetic) – Instrumental
