Butcher ABC: "North of Hell"

The heaviest gore groove known to man

Though North of Hell technically speaking is Japanese gore meistros Butcher ABC's first real album since their humble noisecore beginnings in 1994, it's not that their career has had a shortage of releases. If bands like General Surgery, Haemorrhage and early Carcass gets you hard, you're surely going to like this one!

Nekrodeus: "Moloch"

Hardened death metal with a black core

I hate to start out a review with classic review tropes, but have you ever wondered what Nasum would sound like if Mieszko had had a hidden infatuation with black metal? Though Austrian quintet Nekrodeus have their roots in burly death metal, their debut full length - Moloch - is essentially a blackened version of Inhale/Exhale.

Fu Manchu: "Clone of the Universe"

SoCal ramblings galore

Break out your skateboard, grow out your oddly specific beard style, and bring your best sunglasses: It's time for a new Fu Manchu record! If you expect a bunch of sun-baked, tarmac-scented stoner rock tunes, you never really can go wrong with Scott Hill and company.

Death Keepers: "Rock This World"

Corner-cutting heavy/power mixture

As far as Judas Priest and general late 70s/early 80s heavy metal worship goes, this Spanish leather-clad outfit are pretty good. If you aim to stay true to the roots, there's only so much you can do, and with the limited possibilities of the style, Death Keepers make just a little more than the most of it.

Bolido: "Heavy Bombers"

Stone cold heavy metal bombardment

Chile's heavy rock meteorites Bolido pretty much sound exactly like you'd expect from an album with a harsh, angular band logo adorning a picture of war planes carpet bombing the Earth with guitar munitions from orbit. Bolido's brand of heavy and moderately fast classic metal is a strictly no-frills experience, but does it have thrills then? The band's noticably thunderous rhythm section surely brings some personality to their compositions, but with this sort of retro-styled metal it's always a matter of whether or not the band is capable of matching the massive hooks that made the bands that inspired them huge to begin with.

Triple Dungeon Synth Feature: Thangorodrim, Deorc Weg, Old Tower

Triple Grindcore Feature: Antigama, Marginal, Wojczech/Krupskaya

Nebulosa: "Crepuscular Battle in a Distant Woodland Town"

Naturalistic synths and unusual folk

Nebulosa welcomes you to an abstract fantasy universe with his latest offering. In this universe he calls upon a simple and bare-bone set of instruments to conjure up an image of this world with an instrumentation that feels desolate, windy and lonesome, yet strangely ominous, brooding and imposing

Com Truise: "Iteration"

The king of dream synth lets his latest album fall to a slow-burning state

When I first heard Galactic Melt, I was sold. It was unlike anything I'd heard, taking the aesthetic of 80s nerd culture and forging it into something more modern and accessible. Daft Punk and likeminded artists seem like obvious contemporaries to draw comparisons to, but Com Truise did something completely different with the same source material by making it decisively less danceable and poppy, in a way staying a little more true to the retro style.

Mindkult: "Lucifer's Dream"

Timeless opium tunes at the edge of the cosmos

Looking for something that takes the edge off every day life? Then let Mindkult's cyclopean riffs crush you with sludgey heaviness instead of your day job and money troubles!

Sasquatch: "Maneuvers"

Retrospective stoner metal just the way we like it

As far as stoner metal goes, Sasquatch steer straight for the same pitfalls as many others; Their focus isn't on being original - They're clearly followers of classics like Fu Manchu and Kyuss. Rather, the focus lies with the simple enjoyability of their primal flow, the heavy-handed groove of a well-crafted rhythm section, and the craftsmanship of the riff.

Compulsory: "Gnosis"

An obscure gem from the cassette-age

When Gnosis came out in 1994 as Danish death practitioners debut demo, their style of specialised weirdening death metal was perhaps a bit late to the ball. After all, off-kilter death metal classics like Considered Dead and Piece of Time had already been out for a few years at this point. However, Compulsory's demo isn't without its own flair.

Redrum: "Power Corrupts"

Unpolished gem of old school thrash from when the genre was on its way out of style

Redrum from Sacramento, CA, should by connoisseurs be considered a classic underground American thrash band. They only ever released a handful of demos of varying quality, but the main attraction here is their one full length album Power Corrupts, which was re-released in 2007 by Evil Legends with new artwork (and thank god for that, 'cause the old artwork was terrible and speaks of a limited budget).

The Handsome Family: "Unseen"

In the absence of excellence, Unseen becomes almost ordinary

By 2016 the songwriting duo The Handsome Family have built quite a following on the merit of several albums. Their latest album, Unseen, doesn't seem to be about elaborating on their sound, and this shouldn't come as a surprise or even a prerequisite for a new Handsome Family album. Few do the style that the duo have hunkered down in better than they do, and so they keep it simple by staying within their comfort zone.

Non Opus Dei & Morowe: "Dziwki Dwie"

Impressive and different black metal from Poland, taking jabs at the inadequacies of the established scene

In the case of this split EP by Polish country-mates Non Opus Dei and Morowe there's a little more going on than the old "two bands getting together to release something" schtick. Non Opus Dei have been gracing Europe with several old school black metal albums since the late 90s, their sound representative for the time, if at times venturing further. Morowe, in the same manner, are a product of their times, only they are a much younger band. These guys are definitely not afraid of pushing the boundaries of black metal, and together these two groups represent old and new.

Black Rock: "Black Rock"

Down to basics take on thrashy, blackened speed metal

Black Rock might be one of the most fitting band names in recent times; The Finnish crust punk and Hellhammer aficionados from the township of Hyvinkää take the term 'rock n roll' and extrapolates it to fit a blackened speed metal aesthetic coupled with a raw, shouting vocal style in a simple setting.

Morfin: "Consumed by Evil"

The perfect example why sound matters almost as much as songwriting

Never judge an album by its cover, because this one looks unmistakingly like a terrible tech-death album, but what is found within contrasts that notion with a lethal dose of death metal in the vein of early Death and Asphyx. Everybody's talking about Gruesome when the subject falls on a new take on Death's classic style, but where is Morfin in this discussion?

Theory: "The Art of Evil"

Far away from the usual dime-a-dozen prog bands of today

On a personal note, the only progressive metal band that ever truly spoke to me is Symphony X, and even so it is probably their power metal side that speaks the loudest. Oddly enough, I'm a huge fan of 70s and 80s prog rock, but the vast majority of progressive metal just hasn't appealed that much to me.

Uncoffined: "Ritual Death and Funeral Rites"

Murky horror worship of close-to international class

The perfect mix between the heaviness of doom metal and the rotten aggression of death metal can be hard to point out, and different ratios may work for different bands. Bands like Asphyx and Autopsy hit the nail straight on the head with their first try, and have been churning out kick-ass records every since. British death-doom practitioners Uncoffined subscribe to a slightly different style, more reliant on horror and down-trodden moods.

Friendship: "I&II"

Hateful mires of liquid metal

Sentient Ruin Laboratories from Oakland, California, have never been a label to skimp on music's outcast misfits. Be it grindcore, extreme metal or noise, this indie label are true purveyors of extremity. SRL have just now compiled two EPs of absurdly crushing Japanese powerviolence into one single nuclear crucicle of raw disregard and abrasiveness with Friendship's I&II.