SONIC SELECTIONS O))): 10 Essential heavy albums released in July, 2025

10).

⚔️ Artist: Recorrupter
🩸  Album: “Sorrow Will Drown Us All”
⚔️ Release date: July 18th, 2025

🩸  genre: death metal, black metal

9).

⚔️ Artist: Entrails
🩸  Album: “Grip of Ancient Evil”
⚔️ Release date: July 11, 2025

🩸  genre: hm2, old school death metal

8). 

⚔️ Artist: Malformed
🩸  Album: “Confinement of Flesh”
⚔️ Release date: July 26th, 2025

🩸 genre: death metal

7). 

⚔️ Artist: Watson Conspiracy
🩸  Album: “Lower”
⚔️ Release date: July 25, 2025

🩸genre: progressive death metal, blackened death metal

6). 

⚔️ Artist: Imperial Crystalline Entombment
🩸  Album: “Abominable Astral Summoning”
⚔️ Release date: July 11, 2025

🩸genre: black metal

5). 

⚔️ Artist: Hell
🩸  Album: “Submersus”
⚔️ Release date: July 11, 2025

🩸genre: doom, sludge, black metal

4).

⚔️ Artist: Stomach
🩸  Album: “Low Demon”
⚔️ Release date: July 18th, 2025

🩸genre: sludge, doom, powerviolence

3).

⚔️ Artist: Latter
🩸  Album: “What Lies Inside of Me”
⚔️ Release date: July 25, 2025

🩸genre: noise rock, screamo, hardcore

2). 🥈

⚔️ Artist: Acephalic Void
🩸  Album: “We Chose Death”
⚔️ Release date: July 18, 2025

🩸 genre: black metal, dissonant death metal, industrial

1). 🏆

⚔️ Artist: Scalp
🩸  Album: “Not Worthy of Human Compassion”
⚔️ Release date: July 25, 2025

🩸genre: grindcore, blackened hardcore, death metal, hardcore

SONIC SELECTIONS O))): 10 Essential Albums released in June, 2025

10).

⚔️ Artist: Destroyer Destroyer
🩸  Album: “Void”
⚔️ Release date: June 20, 2025

🩸genre: death metal, grindcore, tech metal, mathcore

9).

🩸  Album: “Harbingers”
⚔️ Release date: June 13, 2025

⚔️ Artist: Byzantine

🩸genre: progressive metal, groove metal

8).

⚔️ Artist: Orthodox
🩸  Album: “A Door Left Open”
⚔️ Release date: June 6,- 2025

🩸genre: hardcore, mathcore, metalcore

7).

⚔️ Artist: Noise Trail Immersion
🩸  Album: “Tutta la morte in un solo pinto”
⚔️ Release date: June 27, 2025

🩸genre: blackened hardcore, chaotic hardcore, dissonant death metal

6).

⚔️ Artist: Malevolence
🩸  Album: “Where Only The Truth is Spoken”
⚔️ Release date: June 20, 2025

🩸 genre: metalcore

5).

⚔️ Artist: Fallujah
🩸  Album: “Xenotaph”
⚔️ Release date: June 12, 2025

🩸genre: progressive melodic death metal

4).

⚔️ Artist: Deadguy
🩸  Album: “Near-Death Travel Services”
⚔️ Release date: June 27, 2025
 

🩸genre: hardcore, noise rock, mathcore

3).

⚔️ Artist: Our Earth is A Tomb
🩸  Album: “Flowers of Faith // Dregs of Black”
⚔️ Release date: June 13, 2025

🩸genre: black metal, sludge, doom, noise

2). 🥈

⚔️ Artist: Gruesome
🩸  Album: “Silent Echoes”
⚔️ Release date: June 6, 2024

 

🩸genre: osdm, progressive death metal

1). 🏆

⚔️ Artist: Patristic
🩸  Album: “Catechesis”
⚔️ Release date: June 20, 2025

🩸genre: dissonant death metal, atmospheric black metal

SONIC SELECTIONS O))): 10 Essential albums released in May, 2025

Artist: low before the breeze
Album: “A whole beneath the home we shared”
Release date: May, 30th 2025

genre: blackened hardcore, chaotic hardcore, sludge, post hardcore

Artist: Rivers of Nihil
Album: “Rivers of Nihil”
Release date: May, 30th 2025

genre: progressive death metal

Artist: Obstruktion
Album: "The End Takes Form"
Release date: May, 30th 2025

genre: death metal, hardcore

Artist: Vildhjarta
Album: “där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar”

Release date: May, 30th 2025

genre: thall, djent

Artist: Coldsblood
Album: "Obscured into Nebulous Dusk"
Release date: May, 30th 2025

genre: black metal, funeral doom, death doom

Artist: Unmerciful
Album: “Devouring Darkness”
Release date: May, 22nd 2025

genre: brutal death metal

Artist: …And Oceans
Album: The Regeneration Itinerary
Release date: May, 23rd

U

genre: symphonic black metal, death metal

Artist: Graverealm
Album: "Betrayer"
Release date: May, 23rd 2025

genre: brutal death metal, technical death metal

Artist: Lastima
Album: “A Pain Bloomed from my Lungs”
Release date: May, 16th 2025

genre: black metal, screamo, post hardcore

Artist: Telos
Album: “what they built”
Release date: May, 9th 2025

genre: blackened hardcore, mathcore, chaotic hardcore, screamo

ALBUM REVIEW: Nile, “The Underworld Awaits Us All”

By: Richard Maw
 
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released:23^rd August, 2024
Label: Napalm Records
 

 
“The Underworld Awaits Us All” CD//DD//LP track listing:
 
1    Stelae of Vultures
2    Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes
3    To Strike with Secret Fang
4    Naqada II Enter the Golden Age
5    The Pentagrammathion of Nephren-Ka
6    Overlords of the Black Earth
7    Under the Curse of the One God
8    Doctrine of Last Things
9    True Gods of the Desert
10    The Underworld Awaits us All
11    Lament for the Destruction of Time
 
The Review:  

Five years after “Vile Nilotic Rites”, Karl Sanders (and George Kollias et. al.) blast back with this capable and muscled offering. “Stelae of Vultures” may start slowly, but it soon blasts off- or down- into the underworld which apparently awaits all who listen to this album. The vocals are impossibly low, the drums impossibly fast, the solos impossibly fluid the album overall is… improbably good. It’s over twenty years since “In Their Darkened Shrines” and thirty since Nile started out, but their mix of brutal death metal, Egyptian themes and middle eastern musical motifs is still as irresistible as ever.
 
“Vile Nilotic Rites” was a fairly immediate listen- and so is “The Underworld Awaits Us All”. It’s both familiar territory and wide enough in scope so as to bring the listener in. Truthfully, I loved this one as soon as I heard it. It’s sonic carnage in its most precise form and I still marvel at the musicianship on EVERY Nile album. It’s simply astonishing how far the boundaries of death metal have been pushed since the likes of “Seven Churches” or “Scream Bloody Gore” first dropped jaws in the metal world.
 
“Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down On A Stake In The Underworld and Made To Eat Faeces  By The Four Apes” not only pads out this review’s length, but is also both a ridiculous song title and an excellent track- lightning fast and with some hooks in the riffage. Elsewhere, there is not much let up-“The Pentagrammathion of Nephran Ka” may be a lovely instrumental interlude (echoing some of Sanders’ solo work) but as soon as “Overlords of the Black Earth” kicks in, the band simply lays waste to the listener. It’s fast, brutal and effective, with a creeping slowness introduced after the frenetic first act.
 
The dissonance of “Under The Curse of the One God” is different again, with excellent time changes between very slow and hyper fast, plus a female backing vocal on the chorus and a kind of middle eastern acoustic outro. I like the fact that Nile broaden their sound out on each album, it brings unexpected moments and provides an aural break to the metallic brutality. At 53 minutes in length, it’s not like this is an easy listen, exactly, but it’s so uniformly good, that the playing time flies by. “Doctrine of Last Things” may be buried in the track list running order, but it’s strong- with experimental vocals and percussion- and as such represents another worthwhile entry into the band’s catalogue.
 
The album manages to keep my attention all the way through- “True Gods of the Desert” is just superb; a slithering viper of a track that mixes clean vocals with slow tempos to excellent effect. It’s only at the penultimate point of the record that the title track is deployed and it is worthy of the honour bestowed upon it. Epic in length, while musically, it displays most of what Nile can do- the insane speeds, the crazy time changes and the excellent riffs. The production and mix, I note, are excellent. Tight and punchy, crystal clear- exactly what music of this pedigree deserves.
 
By the time the album finishes with the morose and atmospheric “Lament For The Destruction of Time”, Nile have assuredly done what they set out to do- they’ve made another excellent technical and brutal death metal album; another classy entry into their discography. With Karl Sanders now 60 years of age, how much longer this can continue is anyone’s guess, but on this evidence, the band are not ready to be interred into the pyramids yet. Essential for all fans of the band and genre.
 
“The Underworld Awaits Us All” is available HERE

Band info: facebook 

ALBUM REVIEW: Orange Goblin, "Science, Not Fiction"

By: Richard Maw
 
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: July 17^th, 2024
Label: Peaceville Records

“Science, Not Fiction” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. The Fire At The Centre Of The Earth Is Mine
2. (not) Rocket Science
3. Ascend The Negative
4. False Hope Diet
5. Cemetary Rats
6. The Fury Of A Patient Man
7. Gemini (Twins Of Evil)
8. The Justice Knife
9. End Of Transmission
10. Eye Of The Minotaur (Bonus Track)
 
The Review:

Orange Goblin return, after a lengthy few years between albums and once again prove why they have become- effectively- the Motorhead of their chosen genre. Each album delivers what you want, but, unlike the mighty ‘Head the breaks between records make each Orange Goblin album an “EVENT” and not just ‘another’ album.
 
Founding bassist Martyn Millard has departed- some years ago- and has been replaced by Harry Armstrong (Blind River), elsewhere Joe Hoare, Chris Turner and Ben Ward are as solid, dependable and recognisable as ever. The band sounds so strong here and the enthusiasm and care put into this album really comes through in the songs.
 
From the opening bass riff of “The Fire at The Centre Of The Earth Is Mine” to the closing “End of Transmission”, the band is rocket propelled, jet fuelled, firing on all cylinders and burnin’ up the atmosphere. It’s an assured set of performances and songs.
 
In between the opener and closer, the band don’t put a foot wrong. This is a very strong record from front to back, advance track “(Not) Rocket Science” is brilliant, “Ascend The Negative” is superb, “Cemetery Rats” is speedy and shows the punk side of the band, The Justice Knife is dark and harrowing and the aforementioned “End of Transmission” is as good an epitaph for the band as any they have ever written.
 
Throughout, Joe Hoare puts in a man of the match performance (again) with tasteful and song-serving playing. Ben Ward, a man reborn, is on gruff and powerful form. Ben’s battles with alcohol, depression and his health have been documented by the big man himself on social media, but now he is lean and mean, counting his calories and training hard. Truly, he has become a man remade and his muscled appearance matches the strength of his vocals here.
 
The band’s recent performance at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds for the album launch was one of the best times I’ve seen the band; they were on top form and dealt out a set of new and old tracks which displayed their experience. It showed that the band are at the top of their game.
 
The mix of stoner, heavy rock, punk, Motorhead infused swagger and darker influences from more extreme genres on this album works beautifully. Hopefully, the band won’t wait so long until the next album- but if this is to be the last one, or even the last one for a few years, the band can and should be very proud of what they’ve achieved here. It’s a rare band that has no bad albums in their catalogue, but Orange Goblin join Motorhead, Overkill, Death, Bolt Thrower and a handful of others who can make that claim.  A must listen.
 
“Science, Not Fiction” is available HERE

Band info: facebook