Tomorrow in Manatee Appreciation Day! Today is exciting because of new releases from prog sadsacks, a bunch of quirky metal, brutal shenanigans and more, but really you should be more excited for manatees! To the metals…
Barren Earth – On Lonely Towers 
Genre: Progressive death metal
Origin: Helsinki, Finland
Label: Century Media)
Buy now on Amazon.com
Barren Earth is one of the only bands that I've been able to describe as a band that is Opeth-adjacent. Like the early years of their aforementioned Swedish prog brethren, Barren Earth's music is dark, heavy and constantly infused with beauty. On Lonely Towers might be their finest effort yet.
Burnt Books – Where There's Smoke There's Fire 
Genre: "Avantgardecore"
Origin: Columbia, South Carolina
Label: Retro Futurist
Buy now on Amazon.com
Often a band hits themselves with an esoteric label like "Avantgardecore" and I scoff and soon discover that the band needs to calm down. Burnt Books is a band that mixes weird noisy art punk with hardcore and sludge. This band sounds like a band that would tear down the roof of a highly respected art gallery just as easily as they would a hole in the wall dive bar. They're worth of their label.
City Of Ships – Ultraluminal 
Genre: Alternative/Post metal
Origin: Austin, Texas/Brooklyn, New York
Label: Translation Loss
Buy now on Amazon.com
This band is very interesting. They are an absolutely engulfing sonic presence in their atmosphere. However, Once the listener is swirling in the abyss they've created, they shift back and forth between post metal and something that I can only describe as 90's pop-punk catchiness/attitude, but that pop punk stuff that's still respected.
Fulgora – Stratagem 
Genre: Progressive death metal
Origin: St. Louis, Missouri
Label: Housecore
Buy now on Amazon.com
The musical equivalent of being bludgeoned to the beat of someone picking time-signatures by spinning a wheel. Hardcore, chaotic, borderline powerviolence.
Liturgy – The Ark Work 
Genre: Experimental black metal
Origin: Brooklyn, New York
Label: Thrill Jockey
Buy now on Amazon.com
More shoegaze, classical, chanting, and hypnotic than ever. Liturgy is the Sigh of Pitchfork praised black metal. Pretty sure there are some bagpipes, saxophone, and all sorts of other kitchen sink craziness on this album. It's kinda great, but I also kinda don't get it. Keeps me coming back though.
Oceano – Ascendants 
Genre: Deathcore
Origin: Chicago, Illinois
Label: Earache
Buy now on Amazon.com
I'm tempted to write a back handed blurb replacing all my O's with 0's, but I shan't. Oceano being Oceano. Rhythmic, brutal, tuned low as fuck.
Also dropping today…
Abominator – Evil Proclaimed (Hells Headbangers)
A.D.D. – Core (Pavement)
Bi-Cancer – Tormenting The Innocent (Candlelight)
Bureviy – Concealed Beneath The Space (Darker Than Black)
Corpo-Mente – Corpo-Mente (Blood)
Dead Summer Society – So Many Years Of Longing (Rain Without End)
Der Weg Einer Freiheit – Stellar (Season of Mist)
Dire Peril – Through Time and Space EP (Dead Inside)
Disgrace – True Enemy (Closed Casket)
Evoke Thy Lords – Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms In Your Cellar! (Solitude)
Fightcast – Siamesian (To Exist)
Forn – The Departure of Consciousness (Gilead)
Frosthelm – The Endless Winter (Black Work)
The Gentle Storm – The Diary (Century Media)
Gloson – Yearwalker (Art of Propaganda/Catatonic State)
Gouge – Beyond Death (Hells Headbangers)
Grenouer – Unwanted Today (Mausoleum)
Grindhouse – Chapter One (RMB)
Groan – Highrospliffics EP (Superhot)
Ilium – My Misanthropia (Nightmare)
Implode – A Syndicate: I Of Everything Chapter III (Cramada)
Implodes – Reverser EP (Gilead)
Karyn Crisis' Gospel Of The Witches – Salem's Wounds (Century Media)
King Hitter – King Hitter EP (Restricted Release / Plastic Head)
Lifeless – Dream (Fast Break)
Lightning Bolt – Fantasy Empire (Thrill Jockey)
Massenhinrichtung – Zakon Zbroi (The Order Of Force) (Darker Than Black)
Michael Schenker's Temple of Rock – Spirit on a Mission (Allegro)
The Monolith Deathcult – Bloodcvlts (Season Of Mist)
NevBorn – Five Horizons (Hummus)
NitroVolt – Dirty Wings (Mausoleum)
Nocturnalia – Above Below Within (Gaphals)
Oppressor – Scars 1988-1990 (Xtreem)
Perdition Temple – The Tempter's Victorious (Hells Headbangers)
The Sanity Days – Evil Beyond Belief (Candlelight)
Sonic Prophecy – Apocalyptic Promenade (Maple Metal)
Sorcerer – In The Shadow of The Inverted Cross (Metal Blade)
Strung Out – Transmission.Alpha.Delta (Fat Wreck Chords)
Svadilfare – Krig I Kunst (Naturmacht)
Theories – Regression (Metal Blade)
Unrest – Grindcore (Unspeakable Axe)
Vamps – Bloodsuckers (Spinefarm)
Von Hertzen Brothers – New Day Rising (Spinefarm)
