Greetings, Decibel readers!
An interesting thing happened this week. Apparently Billie Eilish took to her social media and gave It Dies Today a big boost. That’s right, the metalcore band from the mid-2000s who were the prototypical band who put breakdowns into their songs where they totally didn’t fit and then suddenly cut to emo-style vocals. I think it’s fair to say I’m the only Decibel contributor who… thinks this is so awesome! I’m a huge, unapologetic fan of the 2000s metalcore sound, and It Dies Today totally slayed when I saw them for the first time in 2005 (again in 2006 when they tried to not be metalcore anymore lol, then again in 2007 when they fixed that mistake). Let’s hope this translates into big new things for the band.
Forever Scorned still holds up.
Shut up.
Here are some new releases.
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An Autumn for Crippled Children – Closure
The key to this kind of black metal is the emotions. If the chord progressions give you the feels, it’s a success. This is a big success. More than 10 years on, the fusion of black metal with experimental post-rock shows no sign of abating, as it’s become another load-bearing pillar for the modern scene.
Stream: Apple Music
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Crypta – Shades of Sorrow
I was sorry to just miss Crypta when they opened for Morbid Angel earlier this year. If you’re a fan of slick, modern death metal in the style of Revocation and similar bands, you don’t want to miss this release.
Stream: Apple Music
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Hallucinate – From the Bowels of the Earth
Raw, old-school death metal with some interesting twists. According to the band, ” “From the Bowels of the Earth sprung forth from a very tough psilocybin experience right before the onset of the pandemic. It almost broke me mentally; I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I started writing the songs in an attempt to put myself back together, trying to integrate that experience. It was a very dark and intimidating display of ancient powerful archetypes haunting me with synchronistic, apocryphal, and soul-crushing revelations – not the funky-shmunky colorful hippie shit most people associate with this stuff.”
Stream: Apple Music
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Humanity’s Last Breath – Ashen
Deathcore is not dead. But make no mistake, this is not 2008-Myspace-core. This is a atmospheric, disconcerting and technical take on the style that subsumes everything that’s come since those heady days and takes you to altogether darker realm. Also, it’s on Unique Leader, so you know it’s on the super-tight end of the spectrum.
Stream: Apple Music
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Sorrow – Death of Sorrow
Damn, this is some catchy stuff. Check out that chunky riff on “Doom of the World.” Think of Jungle Rot if they took things in a doom direction.