Greetings, heavy music fans! I hope the second week of 2018 hasn’t been a sophomore slump for you.

This week’s featured album is “Reanimation” by British metal act Bloodshot Dawn, who have a rather unique take on melodic death metal. This band is actually a new discovery for me, so I’ve yet to hear their earlier work, but I was very impressed by this new album and look forward to checking out the rest of their discography sometime soon. The  band borrows elements from quite a few different sub-genres of metal, and the members are all highly skilled musicians, the end result being something that’s distinct, engaging and should hopefully appeal to metal fans from all over the genre’s broad spectrum:

On the less melodic, more technical side of death metal, the other featured album this week is the debut release from Wisconsin band Decrescent, which actually came out last week but only just landed my on radar a few days ago. This album isn’t as inventive as the one above, but I’m a sucker for blackened technical death metal, so I personally found it to be a pretty enjoyable listen:

There were also new albums from Avatar, glam metal band Black Veil Brides, metalcore/nu metal hybrid Boss Menace, progressive post-hardcore band Capstan, metal giants Corrosion of Conformity, metalcore band Descend the Empyre, German-speaking punk band Donots, Faroese doom metal band Hamferð, Dutch folk metal band Heidevolk, thrash metal band The Holy Pariah, symphonic metal band Leaves’ Eyes, metalcore band Living Machines, deathcore band Mental Cruelty, sludge metal/hardcore punk hybrid Nerveshatter, power metal band Mystic Prophecy, heavy metal band Trespass, King’s X guitarist Ty Tabor, hard rock band Umphrey’s McGee, and heavy metal band White Wizzard.

There were also EPs from alternative metal band Bemore, melodic hardcore band Dependence, alternative metal band Frozen in Time, Kazakhstan-based metalcore/alternative rock hybrid Healer of Plague, metalcore band I Am Noah, electronic metalcore band In Dreams of Reality, and ambient black metal act Talgia.

So, what have you been rocking out to?

SIDE NOTE: Corn wrote another great little Artist Spotlight this week – this time on the little-known experimental metal act Jucifer.