Greetings, Decibel readers!
It’s another banner week for death metal, with releases spanning the spectrum from death-doom, cavernous death metal, brutal tech-death, Opeth doing growls again, you name it!
Check it out!
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Aversion – Futile Attempts to Reach The Light
The debut album from death-doom newcomers Aversion. The band, hailing from Costa Rica, captures the spirit of classic early-90s death doom in the style of Dance of December Souls while adding musical nuances of their own. This is definitely a band to watch, hopefully live. Someone should start spamming them: “Come to the US!”
Stream: Apple Music
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Defeated Sanity – Chronicles of Lunacy
LET’S GO!!! UUURRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!
Chronicles of Lunacy shows Defeated Sanity going back to basics, whatever that could possibly mean for a band like this. Still, even the band admits they went a little off the proggy deep end on the last album, which, while impressive, got some listeners lost in the mix. This album is a perfectly honed masterwork of brutal technical death metal. This will clear a room, guaranteed.
Stream: Apple Music
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Golgothan Remains – Bearer of Light, Matriarch of Death
A fitting name for an exceptionally dark and menacing death metal unit from Sydney. The band’s new EP, a followup to their 2022 album Adorned in Ruin, plays like emanations from the land of the dead, or the suffering of souls in purgatory. The band’s sound is particularly notable for its blend of cavernous death metal and dissonant death metal, taking the best of each style and making the combination wholly its own. This helps them avoid the occasional repetitiveness of the former and the sometimes droll boredom of the latter.
Stream: Apple Music
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Opeth – The Last Will and Testament
There’s a moment at the end of our cover story on Opeth in Decibel #242 that sums up the band’s attitude to the album in a perfect way:
“It’s about fun and only fun,” Åkerfeldt concludes. “If it’s not fun for me or the band, then we’re not doing it. The story about the song titles is quite hilarious. I got an immediate negative response from management when I presented the song titles. When somebody tells me I can’t do something with what I’ve created, I can’t take it. So I did the whole diva thing. Then I found out I couldn’t even search for the song titles on my phone. [Laugh] I gave in—okay, so let’s title them ‘Paragraph 1’ and so on. Down the line, somebody messed up and used the original song titles, so, in the end, I got what I wanted, even if it was by mistake. Kinda perfect.”
Bravo.
Stream: Apple Music
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Sign of the Jackal – Heavy Metal Survivors
Hell yea, this plays like a band that should have been on those classic Metal Blade compilations back in the 80s. I mean, it’s Dying Victims, so you know the score. I hope you like leather!
Stream: Apple Music