The track sounds very promising. Dying Victims does no wrong in picking up good releases. But I think Venator isn't releasing until February 2022. This thread is for fully released albums. Either way, definitely looking forward to this.

The new albums that caught my fancy so far:
1. Eliminator - Ancient Light
Heavy metal. NWOTHM. A bit Maidenesque. The guitarist also plays in Heavy Sentence.

2. Wiegedood - There's Always Blood at the End of the Road
Black metal. Very frenetic and it's a tad modern sounding if you aren't familiar with the band. I enjoyed the band's first two albums and it's been a while since I listened to them attentively. The songs sound a bit more psychedelic and sections repeat quite a bit. I'm more on the fence here and can't say it's great but I haven't given up on listening to this more.

I'm sorry, I just don't see the pop in there. Nothing sounds particularly poppy.

Mathan - Darkroot Tzantza



Really impressive debut from this group. I'd label it Technical Death Metal with a few blackened elements. Mathan does an incredible job of keeping the songs/tempos varied with ridiculous shredding and vocals that match the speed/brutality. If you like any form of Technical Death Metal, this album may interest you. I was curious about some of the compositional elements and I found that the band recorded a ton of traditional drumming of their Amazonian culture to sample in and match the atmosphere they're going for. They've only released the album on streaming services so I haven't been able to purchase it yet and they are still in the archives band queue.

Very cool!

More descriptions like this, lots of people just list albums or write something very basic, which does no favours to the album being mentioned.

you left out all the massive djentcore stuff from the description - i'm sure meshuggah fans will like this

Another one for power metal, the Twilight Theater debut Drifting into Insanity was also a very impressive LP. For you fans of Power Quest and Insania out there.

Tyhjä - Valtakunta
https://tyhj.bandcamp.com/album/valtakunta

Some nice finnish BM. For those who like it raw and kicking.

For those into speed/thrash/heavy metal, the debut EP of Exhaustion may be up your alley.

Checked out this new Abyssus album and it's a solid slab of deathrash with some very hooky moments:



The new Druid Lord album is pretty damn good too:

New Ashes of Ares release Emperors and Fools is really good USPM. Barlow sounds as great as ever, and the final track with Ripper is easily the highlight. I wasn't crazy about the guitar tone at first, but by the end it didn't bug me as much. This sort of ultra-chunky stuff is what I didn't find as much of last year as in '20, so this is already starting out promising.

Oar - The Blood You Crave (post atmo black metal with some doom thrown in too)
Druid Lord - Relics Of The Dead (rotten death doom for fans of Hooded Menace and Asphyx)
Fit For An Autopsy - Oh What The Future Holds (i'm not a deathcore fan, but tis rocks, maybe the best deathcore album i've ever heard)
In Loving Memory - The Withering (melodic doom death with memorable riffs)

Oh man this is some legitimate Leprousy worship!

Gave it one spin this afternoon and I like what I had heard. The songs quickly come to the point and the riffs hit a little harder than those of the previous albums. Might as well be their best album so far.

Pretty damn solid black/death metal from Chile:

Some things I've been enjoying not mentioned yet

Ancesthor - Prog Thrash from Mexico. Really interesting stuff, not your typical take on thrash, lyrically or sonically. Lyrics appear to deal with folktales.

https://ancesthor.bandcamp.com/album/white-terror

Maule - Heavy Metal from Canada. Sometimes Maiden-esque, sometimes punky. Great debut album

https://maule.bandcamp.com/album/maule

Furis Ignis - One-man Black Metal from Germany. Iron Bonehead Records.

https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/furis-ignis-decapitate-the-aging-world

Elegy by Shadow of Intent is amazing, really defied my expectations.

Man, I'm already halfway through the album - where's the hooks?

Barlow sounds good, but it feels as if he's just wailing over random stuff to me most of the time...feels totally detached from the actual music to my ears.

I'll keep listening. I haven't cared for anything Ripper has done since Jugulator, maybe he can surprise me here.

I second this suggestion

I've listened to at least a quarter of all releases so far this year, and I am considering making many posts here.

Currently, my Top 10 is:

10. Edge of Forever - Seminole
It feels like it was produced by the same person behind Eclipse - Wired (3rd on my 2021 AOTY Ballot), and it is similar to Badlands and Europe.

9. In Loving Memory - The Withering
I'm considering this one because I like the particular soundscape, similar to Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, Draconian, etc

8. Sonata Arctica - Acoustic Adventures (Volume One)

7. Tony Martin - Thorns
It's fascinating to see a former Black Sabbath frontman still doing music

6. Hellhate - Жри​,​Господи!
Solid Ukrainian underground Black Metal

5. Nether Nova - Deliverance
Solid Power Metal with unique vocal performances from Alberto de Stefano, akin to Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian

4. Dark Matter - Dystopian
Solid Blackened Death from Mexico.
Their opening track for whatever reason reminded me a little of Devildriver

3. Spitfire - Denial To Fall
Greek Traditional Heavy Metal

2. Riverwood - Shadow and Flames
Epic soundscapes, especially in the first half, that remind me of acts such as Riverside, Poets of the Fall, and, to a certain degree, even Nightwish

1. Hanging Garden - Neither Moth Nor Rust
Finnish Gothic Doom that sounds like Swallow the Sun, and a band it seems not many people know of, Pure Reason Revolution

Abyssus and Sothoris on my temporary list so far.

woh.....I've never heard this band before. This thing is excellent!! Will definitely pick this up.

Really enjoyed those, thanks!

Schrat - Seelenfresser
https://schrat.bandcamp.com/album/seelenfresser

Says it's to be released on the 28th but it's already fully available on Spotify.

I discovered this band in 2018 after a post on that year's version of this thread (a big thanks to however did it back then, sorry but I can't remember who). Looks like these guys can only do excellent BM, and this one might very well be their best to date in my book.

Love Schrat, their 2018 album was among my favorites from that year. Seelenfresser is also really great. The main guy, Gråin, has a bunch of equally great side projects, including last years' Gràb - Zeitlang (which was in my top 15 for the year), and the solo project Gråinheim which has a few EPs and demos out. Definitely looking forward to more of his work.

Planeswalker - Tales of Magic (US, members of Helion Prime/Gloryhammer) Incredibly epic power metal based on the lore of the card game, Magic: The Gathering. The epic track "Oath of the Gatewatch" chronicles the events of the Zendikar storyline and features Brittney Slayes, as Nissa, Heather Michele Smith as Ob Nixilis and Chandra, R. A. Voltaire as Gideon, and Sozos Michael as Jace Beleren. Cannot stop listening to it. Most epic song of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNgna-Al18c



No problem!

My eyes are burning, I'm vomiting and my ears are melting. I wish I had never clicked on that shitty link.

Any association with Gloryhammer should be treated like a COVID exposure really.

I heard a record today by a project called Yrre, but was surprised that no one has added them to the archive yet.

From their bandcamp:
This album is an adaption of a ciné-concert composed to the movie ‘The VVitch’, (Robert Eggers, 2015).
This creation was commissioned by the festival 2300 Plan 9 les Etranges Nuits du Cinéma and played for the first time at Bikini Test in La Chaux-de-Fonds under the name Luhlae x The Witch. The Project will now continue under the name YRRE.

https://hummusrecords.bandcamp.com/albu ... -the-witch

^
Wow, crazy! Sounds pretty sick.

I don't want to seem harsh, you liked it and far for me to judge that, + I will always be thankful to everyone that posts here for the years of finding really good stuff.

But that was really bad, there's just no way around it.

Could make for a fun game: How long can you take it? I gave up around the 3 min mark.

As much as I like Fantasy literature and games i just couldn't stand it anymore, sorry.

I basically can't listen to 99% of power metal out there but found Planeswalker to be pretty cool in parts. Obviously the videos are silly and some parts of that track I find a little cringe, but there are a couple of really cool speed metal/thrashy riffs that very enjoyable, and the vocal performances are good if not exactly my taste.

I turned it off after a few minutes. That was absolutely horrible.

Also, I wonder which power metal bands you've actually heard.

If you really appreciated MTG, the only acceptable plot would be if Ragavan was the villain and the WOTC committee that decides format bans were the heroes.

Just listened to In Loving Memory, really solid album. Not quite on the level of those sorts of bands, at least on the first listen, but better than expected for a band I wasn't familiar with.

Hanging Garden had one of my top 10 albums last year. This EP isn't quite as good as those tracks, but I'm liking the dual vocal lineup of the band over the last few years, so having additional tracks to dig into will be great for the future. Pure Reason Revolution is not a comparison I would have thought of, but I can kind of see that in a way.

I see people saying this, that they can't stand "99% of PM"... not trying to bash anybody's taste, but really, that much of it? Black Majesty, Nocturnal Rites' "Shadowland," old Falconer, Tad Morose, Lost Horizon, Dungeon/Lord, all of that you absolutely can't stand at all? Each to their own but it confuses me.

Trying this Planeswalker thing finally and yeah not for me at all. Overstuffed and overblown, very corny, lame presentation, etc. This is exactly the kind of silly shit I think makes the whole genre seem bad. It seems almost like a joke to me.

Eugh. This song sucks.

Which is weird, because there's another song of theirs I heard and it's pretty rad, but that 12-minute song is just insufferably inconsistent and lame.

New Dawn of Solace is out and sounds pretty good if you're into that guy's voice.

German melodic black metal of very good quality, freshly premiered:



Honorable mention to the fantastic cover art. The sound is pretty spacy as well, without going too much into a Darkspace-y direction.

Honestly, it's probably true that more than half of my enjoyment of the song/band is the fact that it's MtG related and I understand the content (I've been playing Magic longer than I've been listening to metal). And I suppose that aspect of it would be lost on the majority of metal fans. So it's perhaps true that I'm overrating it, though I wasn't expecting this much of a negative response. Thanks for trying, lol. If you don't mind, could explain what you found "really bad" about it?



Thank you for actually good feedback. You said what you liked AND you said what you didn't like, rather than just saying some variation of "it's bad" without stating what they found bad about it.

I don't often listen to power metal, and I wouldn't have listened to this if it wasn't MtG related. Out of context I guess the video seems silly, but it's really no less silly than an actor putting on a costume to play a role in a TV show or movie. And, like it's no less silly than the getups of black metal bands. Also, silly = fun. (elementary school teacher, so sillyness isn't a criticism to me).



Sorry you didn't like. If you don't mind, could you explain what you found absolutely horrible about it?



Haha. I don't play formats where Ragavan is a problem, but you'll be happy to learn that he was just recently banned in Legacy.



Again, the subject matter is lost on a lot of people which takes away from it. It's neither generic fantasy nor widely known (like Tolkien), and there's even a portion of
the player base that doesn't follow the lore/story, but it's way more interesting than LotR. If you're not familiar with the game I guess it just looks like some people dressed up in weird outfits singing about something I don't understand. The "it's silly/corny/cheesy" argument always baffles me as it's not consistent across bands. 90% percent of the time it's based on lyrical content/theme, or some asinine criticism that has nothing to do with the music (like presentation). Sillyness isn't a criticism. When people complain about things being silly, what they're actually criticizing is people having fun. "Very corny, lame presentation, silly" these just tell me you don't like it when people have fun. "Overstuffed/overblown" yeah, there's a lot in the song, and I can see that as a turn off, but it's like that because it's telling a story, and the singers were representing the characters involved. Thanks for trying it out though.



I probably should have posted that song, but I didn't hear it before I posted. A 4-minute track would have definitely been more manageable, but I can't help but think that that song would have received the same negative feedback.

No, sillyness isn't just people having fun. That was just bad. Everything about it was atrocious. I take it you are in the band?