It’s Friday, which means two things: giving the week the finger and new music! Tune in every Friday for The Pit’s round-up of new metal releases, from singalong hard rock to pus-drenched underground death metal. Keep those ears bleeding!
Darkthrone, Eternal Hails (Peaceville)
For fans of: Aura Noir, Nachtmystium, Gehenna
Standout track: “Hate Cloak”
Weirdly enough, Eternal Hails suggests that all of Darkthrone’s left turns over the years have brought them full circle. The album isn’t exactly the ragged, lo-fi black metal of Transilvanian Hunger, but its reverb-drenched production and lumbering, misanthropic riffs definitely harken back to a simpler time in black metal. Maybe that’s why it rules so much — it sounds like how one imagines a good black metal record should sound, but that came out of the band not giving a fuck about what black metal should sound. Long story short, one of the best albums of 2021 so far.
Cerebral Rot, Excretion of Mortality (20 Buck Spin)
For fans of: Witch Vomit, Spectral Voice, Morbid Angel
Standout track: “Spewing Purulence”
Seattle’s Cerebral Rot have become the latest band to take the slimy cavernous death metal world by storm, and damn do they do so quite well. Excretion of Mortality has just enough weird, seasick guitar antics to keep its grodiness in check. At the same time, it is most certainly grody; the record has a real melt-your-flesh-off-your-skeleton tone to it that’ll have modern death metal fans drunkenly pretending they’re a swamp monster. You know, like you do.
Stöner, Stoners Rule (Heavy Psych Sounds)
For fans of: Kyuss, Pentagram, Clutch
Standout track: “Evil Never Dies”
We wish we could tell you that the debut album by Stöner, the new project featuring Kyuss’ Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri, was some groundbreaking stuff. But read that title, man. You know what you’re here for. Hell, the chorus of the opening track includes the repeated line, “Shit don’t change.” It’s some real desert-oriented stoner rock. It’s indica-dominant. You either love it or you don’t.
Light the Torch, You Will Be The Death of Me (Nuclear Blast)
For fans of: Kill The Lights, Wovenwar, Five Finger Death Punch
Standout track: “End of the World”
When you’ve got Howard Jones in your arsenal, it’s hard to do wrong. You Will Be The Death of Me definitely sees Light the Torch playing their cinematic qualities to the utmost. In that respect, it does a good job of showing off the band as its own entity — these aren’t songs that Killswitch or All Shall Perish could’ve written on their own. If you like your metal to sound like a futuristic cityscape, boy howdy, you’re in luck.
Siderean, Lost of Void’s Horizon (Edged Circle Productions)
For fans of: Wolves In The Throne Room, Obscura, Akercocke
Standout track: “Lost on Void’s Horizon”
Damn, where the fuck have Siderean been all our lives? The answer is apparently Slovenia, but that’s not what we’re really saying. The quintet’s debut full-length, Lost on Void’s Horizon, is a heap of far-out, technically-adept black metal that’ll have fans stopping in their work and checking their Spotify to remind themselves who they’re listening to. While cosmic extreme metal can often be ponderous, these dudes get more delicious with every riff. Definitely check this album out.
Other crushers:
- The Absence, Coffinized (M-Theory Audio)
- Amenra, De Doom (Relapse)
- Buckcherry,. Hellbound (Earache)
- Thy Catafalque, Vadak (Season of Mist)
Want to check out other great new metal releases we’ve spotlighted recently? Good. Here you go.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
