Horns up, metalheads, we’ve made it to 10 installments of Heavy Side Up!
This week’s featured album is Coma Noir by Chicago-based band The Atlas Moth. Over the past decade, these guys have been carving a name for themselves as one of the stand-out acts in the sludgy post-metal scene, and while their new album doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it is undoubtedly their strongest release to date:
Also featured this week is the sophomore album from Finnish black metal band Paara. This album’s a real rollercoaster – a sweeping, unpredictable journey full of twists and turns. This band can execute beautiful atmospheric passages equally as well as the more abrasive moments of pure black metal, and the the end result is captivating from start to finish:
The last featured album of the week is the debut release from a band called River Cult. They’re a rather experimental – and considerably heavy – psychedelic rock act from Brooklyn. This band creates truly some engrossing soundscapes, borrowing little pieces from a variety of genres; You can hear some fuzzy hints of shoegaze in their music, along with some crushing elements of doom metal, and it all adds up to an exceptionally unique listen:
This was also quite a week for supergroups, with the second album from progressive metal band Good Tiger (comprised of members from Tesseract, The Safety Fire and Conquering Dystopia), and the debut release from heavy psychedelic rock band Legend of the Seagullmen (featuring members from Tool and Mastodon).
Other albums released this week include Swedish heavy/thrash metal band Ænimus, stoner rock band Against the Grain, progressive metalcore band Age of Tomorrow, psychedelic/stoner rock band All Souls, metalcore band Bury the Evidence, Egyptian blackened death metal band Crescent, Swedish thrash-tinged death metal band Crucifyre, hard rock band Dog Day Sunrise, black/death metal band Empyrean Eclipse, Lithuanian experimental hardcore/sludge band Erdve, Norwegian metalcore/post-hardcore band Fight the Fight, one-man progressive metal project Forever in Transit, power metal band Frozen Crown, stoner rock band Fu Manchu, progressive metal artist Gavin Kennedy (whose debut album would’ve also been featured had I been able to find a stream – it’s very good), hardcore punk/metalcore band Harm’s Way, Hungarian heavy/speed metal band Invader, Canadian heavy metal band Ivory Knight, Scottish doom metal band King Witch, Belgian gothic metal band Lovelorn Dolls, Brazilian one-man experimental death metal act Lumnos, Scottish pirate metal band Rumahoy, Spanish heavy metal band Sakata, post-hardcore band Senses Fail, Swedish symphonic metal giants Therion (whose new album is apparently a three hour epic), German melodic death metal band Unrepentant, French extreme symphonic metal band Vanguard X Mortem, power metal band Visigoth, German hard rock/heavy metal band Voodoo Circle, metalcore band War of the Lions, psychedelic heavy metal band Wedge, and British alternative/post-hardcore band Winchester.
There were also EPs from French death/thrash metal band Dystopy, experimental sludge/noise rock band Netherlands, German progressive metalcore act Omnis Lacrima, instrumental progressive metal project One Decade (side project for The Ghost Inside’s drummer), Australian punk artist Spencer Vine, metallic hardcore band Vessels, and deathcore band Zeolite.
So, what have you been rocking out to?
BONUS QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Who’s your favourite heavy supergroup?