New Music Fridays: Owen, Justice, Full of Hell, and more
Albums typically release on Fridays. This is a thread to discuss week of April 26, 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week. I suppose let's try to keep the focus mostly on stuff that was released or announced this week, since we already have a "What have you been listening to?" thread.
Discussion Points
Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?
Links:
Pitchfork - Out This Week
AllMusic - All New Releases
Stereogum - New Music
Shreddit Release Tracker
New Metal and Hardcore Releases - Lambgoat
Heavy Metal Album Release Calendar - Heavy Music HQ
Upcoming albums - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives
My favorites of the week (plus a bonus)
Non-metal
Owen - The Falls of Sioux
Long-standing solo project of Mike Kinsella of American Football fame. He continues his solemn, poignant indie folk/rock. Acoustic guitar, piano, lush drums, steel guitar. S. Carey lends multiple instruments and production to the record and Cacie Dalager (KC Rae / Now Now) lends voice, with a number of other guests too.
Justice - Hyperdrama
Popular electronic music / electro-house group from France. Fun beats, minimal interludes, big bombastic house jams. Some synthwave/retrowave influence here and there. Some disco, some rock. Exactly what you'd expect from Justice, basically.
Metal (primarily clean-ish / non-scream vocals or instrumental)
none this week
Metal (primarily harsh vocals)
Exhumation - Master's Personae
Really loving the occult death/black feel here, though I'm not a huge fan of the production. Feels a bit thin (at least streamed from bandcamp) when it seems this type of music would benefit from more warmth.
Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
Cool mixed-media artwork by Brian Montuori. FoH's classic controlled-chaos noisecore. Dissonance, blasts, tempo changes, deep growls, high screams.
Morgul Blade - Heavy Metal Wraiths
Blackened heavy/trad metal from PA. Two genres that you rarely hear together (Malokapratan's latest is a great example too though) and it's becoming one of my favorite match-ups of sound. Black metal vocals but triumphant traditional heavy metal riffs.
Pentagram - Eternal Life of Madness
Chilean death/thrash. Love the more yell-style thrash vocals employed here. Gives it a very old-school thrash edge. Solos all over the place.
ACxDC - G.O.A.T.
Well-known LA power violence back with another killer release.
Tombstoner - Rot Stink Rip
Gory, stoned death metal from NY. No frills, just chuggy, meaty, gang-vocal chorus goodness.
Beholder - Dualisme
Québécois black metal. Melodic doom sections in an otherwise full-blast black metal assault. Highly recommend the vocalist's other projects too (Sulfure, Saccage).
Amiensus - Reclamation: Part 1
Atmospheric, melodic, progressive black metal from Minnesota. Beautiful melodies of despair and anger- you can genuinely hear both.
The Hope Conspiracy - Tools of Oppression / Rule by Deception
Well known Boston hardcore band. Aggressive, despairing lyrics at the current state of things. Lyric "Those who gave us yesterday created the horror of today" says it all.
Bonus Record (can be any genre)
New section, will feature music not released this week, but something you should know about, whether a release from two years ago or an obscure gem from 20 years ago. (This is mostly intended for my blog, but I'll try to feature things I've just recently found, heard about, been found/recommended by others, etc to fit the topic)
Baron Ungern / Барон Унгерн - Grandkhaan
This long-gone Mongolian black metal band's only release- an EP/Demo from 1999- re-issued in 2016 on this label. This is what the label has to say: "Sound quality of their EP is actually just shit, but considering the fact that it was recorded in the desolate steppe wastelands of Mongolia with poor equipment it is a highly respectable release nevertheless." Pretty incredible to hear black metal that came out of Mongolia in the 1990's. It's raw as all hell, like the label says- but the music is good. You could say some parts sound like a washing machine cycle and you wouldn't be wrong, but there's also a lot of charm to it!
Giving this a pass sketch-wise. The band name is that of a cruel tyrannical german warlord who ruled over Mongolia in the 1920's. There are no available lyrics, so we can't really ascertain the nature of the band other than the very little we have to go on. However- I'd prefer you be informed- whether you listen is your choice.
The label gives me weird vibes, but I don't know exactly how to interpret what they're going for, as I don't know enough about the label or its owners. If I end up finding anything too sketchy (I deep dive on this stuff all the time) , I'll update this post and say why.
Can't forget the new Darkthrone!
Thanks for linking it!
I was aware of the release, and have sampled some tracks, and for me my reaction to it is the same as a lot of modern Darkthrone, I respect it more for its influence / pioneering / history in metal than I do for actually listening to current day releases. Fenriz is cool / funny and an icon in the scene, but if I'm going to listen to Darkthrone, I'm more of a A Blaze In The Northern Sky kind of Darkthrone fan
More power to people that enjoy their current stuff though! No intention of this post to be condescending or like "duh I already knew that" (I'm anxious that I accidentally come off that way sometimes), just wanted to give my 2 cents!
I'll probably give the last few modern Darkthrone releases another few goes and see if something sticks better for me, I know a bunch of people have really enjoyed them.
I'm one of these Darkthrone fans that love all the different eras of the band.
Transilvanian Hunger is my favourite and always will be though.
The new Justice album is just fantastic. Very stacked on the front end, but chill on the back half. I think it will continue to grow on me over time