It's been a killer week in the heavy music world with a great new Asphyx album and singles from Panopticon, Liquid Tension Experiment, Tomahawk, Forhist, Black Sheep Wall, Harakiri For The Sky, Sepulcros, and more. Read on for those and other metal/hardcore/etc songs we posted this week, and head to Invisible Oranges' Upcoming Metal Releases for more on new albums from Wardruna, Nervosa, and more.
Also, head to the new BrooklynVegan online shop to pick up the new Frozen Soul album (on limited baby blue vinyl) and pre-order the upcoming Eyehategod album (on limited brown swirl vinyl).
ASPHYX - NECROCEROS
Dutch death metal legends Asphyx have been at it for over 30 years (with a few short hiatuses in between), and they still sound like a hungry band with more to say on their fired-up 10th album Necroceros, their first in over four years. "It came out spontaneously, sounded powerful and since we used the word ‘Death’ in every release-title, so did ‘Necro,'" said frontman Martin van Drunen. "The idea was a sci-fi fantasy entity on an eternal course, existing only to devour planets, turning universes into meaningless voids." Asphyx are also doing a livestreamed album release show on Saturday (1/23) at 3 PM ET.
Also, pick up the album on LIMITED EDITION WHITE VINYL from the new BrooklynVegan store.
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LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT - "THE PASSAGE OF TIME"
Prog supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment -- Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Sons of Apollo), John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), and Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) -- will release their first album in 22 years, LTE3, on March 26 via InsideOutMusic. Lead single "The Passage of Time" is here, and it's seven and a half minutes of dizzying proggy goodness.
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PANOPTICON - "KNOW HOPE"
Panopticon will release a new album called …and again into the light this spring via Bindrune Recordings, and it features members of Aerial Ruin, Waldgeflüster, Dämmerfarben, and Lactating Yak, as well as string arrangements and pedal steel. You can get a taste from the epic 12-minute lead single "Panopticon," which fuses tornadic black metal, towering sludge metal, and genuinely beautiful post-rock.
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TOMAHAWK - "BUSINESS CASUAL"
Tomahawk -- the band of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, etc.), Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard), John Stanier (Helmet, Battles), and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, etc) -- have announced their first album in eight years. Listen to the first single and read more here.
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FORHIST - "II"
Forhist (Vindsval of French black metal vets Blut Aus Nord) follows recent single "I" with the second taste of their upcoming self-titled album, "II." Like the first single, it's dark, furious black metal at its finest.
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BLACK SHEEP WALL - "NEW MEASURES OF FAILURE"
Black Sheep Wall have shared the second single off their upcoming album Songs for the Enamel Queen, and it's 13 minutes of psychedelic sludge metal, post-hardcore, post-rock, and more.
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HARAKIRI FOR THE SKY - "I'M ALL ABOUT THE DUSK"
Austrian post-black metallers Harakiri For The Sky continue to roll out songs off their upcoming album Mӕre, and here's another great one. It's 11 minutes of black metal that's as furious as it is melodic.
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SEPULCROS - "MAGNO CAOS"
Portuguese blackened death-doomers Sepulcros have shared another track off their anticipated new album Vazio (due 3/12 via Transcending Obscurity), and it's yet another promising, bone-crushingly heavy taste of this LP.
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BEYOND GRACE - "FEARMONGER"
UK death metallers Beyond Grace have signed to Prosthetic and released a political new song/video, "Fearmonger. The band says, "Musically it's very representative of the direction of the next record - bigger riffs, heavier hooks, tighter, punchier writing - there's no filler, and everything is just more focussed and fluid. And then, obviously, the speech from Edward R. Murrow serves to reinforce how everything the song is talking about - the cultivation of discord and division, the weaponisation of ignorance and paranoia - isn't new, and reminds us that we can't allow ourselves to give in and be driven by fear."
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JARHEAD FERTILIZER - "SILENCE THE NARC"
Jarhead Fertilizer have shared another dose of brutal deathgrind off their upcoming debut LP Product of My Environment (due 2/26 via Closed Casket Activities).
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TØRSÖ - "HOME WRECKED"
Bay Area hardcore band TØRSÖ are releasing a new 7" on Revelation next week, and you can read more about the killer title track here.
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URBAN SPRAWL - "SLAUGHTERED"
The same day the TØRSÖ 7" drops, Rev is releasing a new 7" from fellow Bay Area band Urban Sprawl (and also selling a bundle with both of them packaged together). Here's an ear-piercing ripper from that.
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YAWNING SONS - "SHADOWS AND ECHOES"
Yawning Sons, the transatlantic collaborative project from desert rock pioneers Yawning Man and UK band Sons of Alpha Centauri, will follow their 2009 debut LP with their first album in 12 years, and this lead single features guest lead vocals by Wendy Rae Fowler (who's also done guest singing for Queens of the Stone Age, Mark Lanegan, and more). Read more about it here.
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BAD RELIGION - "EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND"
Bad Religion have released a new song for Inauguration Day, and you can read more about it here.
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IONOPHORE (VASTUM, ETC) - "PARDIS"
Ionophore is the dark ambient project of Leila Abdul-Rauf (Vastum, Fyrhtu, Terebellum, Hammers of Misfortune, Cardinal Wyrm, etc), Janek Hendrich (Qepe, Not Quite So, Betterthief), and Ryan Honaker (Souls And Cities, Betterthief), and they'll self-release their fourth album Knells in February. You can read more about lead single "Pardis" here.
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RIVULETS - "CUTTER" FT JARBOE
Denver's Rivulets just released Happy New Year, a five-song EP that kicks off with this dark folk number featuring former Swans member Jarboe.
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THESAMEDEEPWATERASYOU - INTOGREEN
Athens, Georgia's thesamedeepwaterasyou make heavy screamo/emoviolence with hints of black and sludge metal, and their new intogreen EP (mixed and mastered by Orchid/Ampere's Will Killingsworth) is raw, impassioned, intense stuff.
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YON - ORDER OF VIOLENCE
The incredibly reliable screamo label Zegema Beach Records does it again with this LP from YON, which nails a balance between aggression and beauty.
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Best Metal Albums of 2020
See the full list of 30 here.