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This is 'Liberation through Amplification.'
A curated descent into
the tracks that defined January 9th – January 15th: the most vital,
corrosive, forward‑leaning new metal of the week, stitched together with a few
choice relics from the vault. This rotation drags through the sounds that
actually left a mark — the ones that scraped bone, rewired pulse, or refused to
let go once they sank in.
This week’s choice cuts
open with the hardcore‑driven ferocity of Lionheart – "Valley of Death II", a
record built on concrete‑thick groove and street‑level venom. Bite Down – "Violent
Playground" detonates with a hybrid of nu‑metal, deathcore, and
metalcore, swinging between swaggering bounce, serrated breakdowns, and full‑throttle
aggression. Voidhammer – "Noxious Emissions" drags things into a suffocating strain of death‑doom,
thick with decay and pressure, while Inborn Tendency – "Let There Be Sin" pushes into progressive
death metal, all sharp turns, technical muscle, and shifting structures.
What remains is a leaner,
more volatile rotation — one built on impact rather than excess, each cut
chosen for the way it bruised, rattled, or refused to loosen its grip
throughout the week.
A clean incision to open
2026 — and the flesh only gets stranger from here.
If you want this to lean
even more venomous, more atmospheric, or more stripped‑back, I can tune it
further.
⚔️ Total streams: 467 ↑
34% vs. last week 🩸 Total
Artists streamed: 25 ↑ 109% ⚔️ Total Albums
streamed: 29 ↑ 45% 🩸 New Tracks
streamed: 152 ↑ 64% ⚔️ Total Listening Time: 1 day, 8 hours
↑ 28% 🩸 Average Streams: 67 per day ↑ 34% ⚔️ Most Active Streaming Day: 100 on January
11th, 2026 ↓ 3%
Top Artist: Lionheart (66 streams)
🩸 Top Album: Lionheart– “Valley of
Death II”(66 streams)
Week 2 of THE SLUDGELORD’sEssential Albums brings
six uncompromising releases from across the underground, each one demanding
attention in its own distinct and punishing way.
The Album of the Week goes to Redividerwith “Sounds of Malice”,
a debut full‑length that channels the ferocity of 90s Florida death metal while
delivering it with modern precision and a striking sense of narrative weight.
The promo accompanying the release states that “from the first note to the
last, Redividerseeks to overwhelm the
listener with stories of death, decay, addiction, ritual, and myth,” and that
intent bleeds through every suffocating moment. The result is an album rooted
in death metal tradition yet sharpened for the present—tightly constructed,
immersive, and impossible to ignore.
Force
Carrierfollow with
“Intranuclear”, a dense, irradiated surge of technical and progressive
death metal. The band navigate spiralling structures and high‑pressure riffing
with precision, creating a record that feels both cerebral and crushing. It’s a
release built for deep immersion, revealing new layers each time you return to
it.
B e s o tdeliver “Beneath Creation”, an
uncompromising slab of dissonant sludge that moves with the force of something
ancient and unyielding. The album unfolds with tectonic heaviness—gnarled
riffs, oppressive atmosphere, and a sense of looming dread that never loosens
its grip. It’s a record built on tension and abrasion, ritualistic in pacing
and utterly consuming in tone, the kind of release that drags you under rather
than inviting you in.
With “The Nomad”, Pictoffer a bleak and
wandering vision of extremity. The band describe their sound as blending Black,
Death, Doom, and Sludge into a uniquely miserable strain, and that ethos
saturates every moment of the record. Raw aggression collides with bleak
atmosphere and a sense of restless movement, pulling the listener through
desolate, wind‑scoured terrain. It’s harsh, mythic, and steeped in a gloom that
feels both ancient and immediate.
Voidhammerunleash “Noxious Emissions”, a filthy
collision of OSDM grit and suffocating doom. The record lurches between
cavernous, old‑school death metal weight and slower, crushing passages that
feel designed to smother the listener. It’s raw, hostile, and steeped in
decay—an album that revels in heaviness without sacrificing momentum,
delivering a sound that’s both primitive and punishing. Closing out the week, Lionheartreturn with “Valley of
Death II”, a bruising sequel steeped in metallic hardcore swagger. The band
double down on their signature blend of anthemic aggression and thick, street‑level
crunch, delivering a record built for impact and immediacy. Confident,
punishing, and unmistakably Lionheart.
Alongside these new releases, I’ve also been
revisiting the back catalogue of Will Haven—a reminder of just how enduring, atmospheric,
and emotionally volatile their body of work remains. This is THE SLUDGELORD’sEssential Albums of the Week #2. Plug in and
black out. The ‘Lord has spoken.
⚔️🩸 Album of the week:
#15 ⚔️ Artist: Redivider 🩸 Title: “Sounds
of Malice” ⚔️ Release date: January
9th, 2026
🩸 Genre/tags: atmosphericdeath metal
🩸Essential Release (s)
#9
⚔️ Artist: Force Carrier 🩸 Title: ““Intranuclear” ⚔️ Release
date: January 2nd, 2026
January 2nd → January
8th, 2026 A curated descent into
the tracks that shaped my week: the most vital, corrosive, forward‑leaning new
metal, stitched together with a few choice relics from the vault. This rotation
drags through the sounds that actually left a mark — the ones that scraped
bone, rewired pulse, or refused to loosen their grip once they sank in. This week’s choice cuts
move from the bleak, melodic crush of PICT—
blending Black, Death, Doom and Sludge into a uniquely miserable strain — into
the old‑school brutality of Redivider,
whose debut full‑length channels 90s Florida death metal with modern precision
and narrative weight. b e
s o t drag the rotation into industrialised dissonant sludge, while Force Carrierlaunch it outward with
instrumental, sci‑fi‑infused progressive death metal. Semper Acerbusbring the serrated urgency
of 00s metalcore, Denominatespiral into progressive
death metal shaped by Opeth,
Ne Obliviscaris,
In Mourning and Black
Crown Initiate, and Abysmscorch
the edges with a blast of blackened thrash. Rounding out the descent
is the unmistakable heft of Will
Haven — a band whose sound remains a singular force in post‑hardcore
and noise‑laden heaviness. Their trademark blend of suffocating atmosphere,
bruised‑knuckle groove, and emotional abrasion adds a different kind of gravity
to the rotation: less cosmic, less technical, but raw, human, and punishing in
a way only Will Haven can deliver. A clean incision to open
2026 — and the flesh only gets stranger from here.
⚔️ Total streams: 350 ↑ 48% vs. last
week
🩸 Total
Artists streamed: 12 ↓ 8%
⚔️ Total Albums
streamed: 20 ↑ 18% 🩸 New Tracks
streamed: 93 ↓ 12% ⚔️ Total Listening Time: 1 day, 1 hour ↑
63% 🩸 Average Streams: 50 per day ↑ 48% ⚔️ Most Active Streaming Day: 103 on January
2nd, 2026 ↑ 19%
⚔️ Top Artist: Will Haven (158 streams)
🩸 Top Album: Will Haven– “Open the
Mind to Discomfort”(48 streams)
⚔️ Top
Track: Pict– “III.
Searching” (9 streams)
🩸 The New Flesh Index Playlist
#1 (January 2nd to January 8th, 2026)
⚔️🩸THE NEW FLESH INDEX — WEEKLY ROTATION.A curated list of choice cuts that shaped my week: the most vital, corrosive, forward‑leaning
new metal, stitched together with a few choice relics from the vault. This
week’s featured artists are Deadwood,
Chairmaker, Noriega, Rowsdower, Will Haven, and Ghostride. Remember
— we crawl through the underground so you don’t have to.
⚔️ Total streams: 238 ↓ 42% vs. last
week 🩸 Total
Artists streamed: 13 ↓ 70% ⚔️ Total Albums
streamed: 17 ↓ 65% 🩸 New Tracks
streamed:105 ↓ 47% ⚔️ Total Listening Time: 16hrs ↓ 44% 🩸 Average Streams: 34 per day ↓
42% ⚔️ Most Active Streaming Day:84 on December
26th ↓ 20%
⚔️🩸 My biggest
tracks from December 12th, 2025, to December 18th, 2025
⚔️ Total
streams: 345 ↑ 14% vs. last week 🩸
Total Artists streamed: 55 ↑ 49% ⚔️ Total
Albums streamed: 59 ↑ 60% 🩸
New Tracks streamed: 175 ↑ 28% ⚔️ Total Listening Time: 24hrs
↓ 11% 🩸 Average Streams: 49
per day ↑ 14% ⚔️ Most Active Streaming Day:
97 on December 16th ↑ 23%
⚔️ Top Artist: Rotten Sound(73 streams)
🩸 Top Album: Rotten Sound– “Mass
Extinction”(73 streams)
Another couple of months
are behind us, and as we close the book on October and November, it’s time for
my latest recap of the incredible music that landed during this stretch — my
Top 10 Records from the past two months, otherwise known as our essential Sonic Selections (((o))). In October, I clocked up
7360 minutes of listening — over 122 hours — spanning 69 artists and 487
individual tracks. November was a much
quieter month, but still full of quality: I listened to 3487 minutes of music,
explored 36 artists, and played through 212 tracks. Across the two months
combined, I dug into 126 albums — 87 in October and 39 in November — before
narrowing the field down to the 10 new releases that made the final cut for
this feature. The standard was so consistently high that choosing just ten felt
almost cruel. From a personal
standpoint, October and November delivered a phenomenal run of new music. I
hope you’ll dive into my favourite albums below and discover something that
hits you just as hard. When the releases are this good, who even needs words to
review them? See you next month — and
don’t forget to check out my weekly playlists and essential records of the
week, which I share regularly.
⚔️ Artist: Oromet 🩸 Title: “The Sinking Isle” ⚔️ Release date: November 7th, 2025
🩸 genre/tags: atmospheric doom, funeral doom
2). 🥈
⚔️ Artist: Blindfolded and Led to the Woods 🩸 Title:“The Hardest Thing About
Being a God is that No One Believes Me” ⚔️ Release date: October 10th, 2025
🩸 genre/tags: progressive death metal, technical
death metal
1). 🏆
⚔️ Artist: The Acacia Strain 🩸 Title: “You Are Safe From God
Here” ⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025
🩸 genre/tags: metalcore, deathcore, post metal, sludge, doom
After another fraught and very
busy few weeks in the lead up to Christman holidays, I find myself playing
catch up again, so apologies, but we’re back and today I present week 49 of THE SLUDGELORD’sweekly selection of
Essential Albums, bringing you a crushing lineup from the underground. Each
record is uniquely heavy in its own right, and together they will shake
foundations and melt speakers. The crown jewel this week
is 1914 – “Viribus
Unitus” (Blackened Death Metal / War Metal). Few bands capture the horror
and futility of war with such visceral force. This record is a battlefield of
blackened death metal, cinematic in scope and merciless in execution. It’s not
just heavy—it’s history weaponized into sound, and it stands as my album of the
week. From there, the sonic
punishment takes many forms. The
Grasshopper Lies Heavy– “Heavy” (Noise Rock / Sludge) is abrasive and
confrontational, yet strangely hypnotic in its repetition and raw energy. It
thrives on dissonance and volume, pushing noise into catharsis. Veilburner– “Longing For Triumph,
Reeking of Tragedy” (Avant‑Garde Black/Death Metal) is pure madness incarnate,
twisting experimental blackened death into shapes that defy logic yet remain
compelling. Demon King– “Death
Knell” (Technical Death Metal) brings razor‑sharp precision, a relentless
storm of riffs and blastbeats that never lets up. Decrepit Altar– “Egregious Defilement” (Cavernous
Death Metal) drags listeners into the abyss with grotesque, uncompromising
heaviness steeped in decay. Dead
and Dripping–
“Nefarious Scintillations” (Brutal / Technical Death Metal) is a
whirlwind of savagery, chaotic yet meticulously executed, proving that
brutality can be both calculated and overwhelming. Closing the ritual is Phobocosm – “Gateway”
(Death/Doom / Blackened Death Metal), a suffocating descent into abyssal
despair. This record feels like staring into a void that gazes back, a chilling
and atmospheric finale to a week defined by extremes. This is THE SLUDGELORD’sEssential Albums of the
Week, WK49. Plug in, drown out the noise of the world, and let the underground
consume you. The ‘Lord has spoken.
⚔️🩸 Album of the week:
#330 ⚔️ Artist: 1914 🩸 Title: “Viribus
Unitus” ⚔️ Release date: November
14th, 2025
🩸 Genre/tags: black metal, doom, death metal
🩸Essential Release (s)
#328 ⚔️ Artist: The Grasshopper Lies Heavy 🩸 Title: “Heavy” ⚔️ Release
date: November 14th, 2025
🩸 Genre/tags: noise rock, sludge, doom
#329 ⚔️ Artist: Veilburner 🩸 Title: “Longing
For Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy” ⚔️ Release
date: November 14th, 2025
🩸 Genre/tags: avant garde death metal, dissonant death
metal, experimental death metal, progressive death meta
#331 ⚔️ Artist: Demon King 🩸 Title: “Death
Knell” ⚔️ Release
date: November 14th, 2025
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