Machine Head – Night Of Long Knives
It would be easy to infer that mainstream metal is dawdling in the creative doldrums at present, but Machine Head continue to be the exception to the post-millennial rule. As with both 2007’s the Blackening and its 2011 follow-up Unto The Locust, the band’s latest album Bloodstone & Diamonds refuses to conform to anyone else’s idea of what modern metal should sound like, instead pursuing frontman Robb Flynn’s ferociously idiosyncratic vision, wherein massive riffs, infectious melodies and a near-chewable sense of impassioned urgency collide with devastating results. In thrall to the notion of metal as an uplifting musical form, Machine Head have trounced the competition yet again in 2014 and Night Of Long Knives is just one of the new record’s meticulously crafted and thrillingly belligerent anthems.
Colours To Shame – Who Is The Fifth?
15 years have passed since The Dillinger Escape Plan released their genre-churning Calculating Infinity masterpiece, but the ripples it set in motion continue to drag new blood into leftfield metal’s bewildering melee. Colours To Shame are intuitively inventive young scamps from Glasgow with a penchant for bursts of prog-rock indulgence amid their otherwise vicious bombardment of riffs and gleeful angularity. Most importantly, there is a healthy dose of impish mischief lurking within songs such as new single Who Is The Fifth? All of which makes CTS sound less like generic, post-Dillinger chancers and more like cider-ravaged clowns kickboxing in a chip shop.
Mysticum – LSD
It is no exaggeration to say that Mysticum’s new album Planet Satan is one of the most anticipated black metal records of all time. Their previous full-length, In The Streams Of Inferno, came out in 1996 and swiftly turned the Norwegians into underground legends, their mechanistic reinvention of Mayhem’s feral blueprint single-handedly coining the phrase “industrial black metal” while somehow making the entire genre seem a little bit nastier in the process. 18 years on, they have lost none of their antagonistic, hellish zeal. Their new material crackles with a rapacious modernity, but still possesses plenty of the raw intensity that first endeared them to the corpsepainted hordes.
Full Of Hell & Merzbow – Blue Litmus
What happens when one of America’s most wickedly swivel-eyed grindcore bands join forces with Japanoise figurehead Masami Akita? The simple answer is “noise”, of course, but experiencing the full-pelt insanity of the two camps’ new collaborative effort feels far more substantial and affecting than some simple act of shrieking catharsis. Plainly not for the faint-hearted, the album presents a fast, furious and yet curiously artful barrage of warped aural subversion that roars, ravages and overwhelms in equal measure.
Caronte – Temple Of Eagles
Italy’s contribution to heavy music has been sporadic and a little questionable over the years, but every now and then something magical emerges from the country’s eclectic scene. Caronte belong firmly in the populous occult rock realm, and yet their sound on new album Church Of Shamanic Goetia exhibits both an almost ritualistic, slow motion drag and a faint but discernible hint of post-punk melodrama. Best experienced after a flurry of generous bong hits, Caronte’s sacrilegious mantras demand total immersion.
