Greetings, Decibel readers!
Can’t believe it’s November already. Pretty soon it’ll be time to pre-emptively reveal our Top 40 albums of the year. But before any of you finalize your own list, keep coming here every Friday to see who shuffles in at the last minute. There’s definitely a couple strong contenders for your list below — looking at Vastum in particular. Though if you’re keeping a separate list for EPs, don’t sleep on the new Fugitive Wizard either.
Enjoy!
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Dagtum – Revered Decadence
This album originally came out in 2021, but is seeing wider distribution now via Malevolent Sound. Definitely a must-listen for fans of death metal at its most dissonant and disturbing.
Stream: Apple Music
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Fugitive Wizard – Ultima Magus Chapter III
God I love this stuff so much. I know there’s so much of this style of black metal out nowadays and the market is totally over-saturated. But I don’t care. If it’s good, just keep that cruel rain falling into eternity. Fugitive Wizard does a fantastic job balancing rawness for clarity. It’s gritty as hell, but you can still everything perfectly — yes, even the bass! Excited for as many chapters as they can make.
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Plague Rider – Intensities
Not sure how one rides a plague, but I’m pretty sure this totally slays. Brain-scrambling death metal from the UK. The band combines a penchant for brutality with a skill for discordant, almost math-metal levels of angular assaults.
Stream: Apple Music
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Sodom – 1982
Early Sodom is the best Sodom. It seems the band recognizes this as well, releasing the honorary track, “1982” as well as re-recordings of classics like “Witching Metal.” Now, for the love of God, can they please re-issue Obsessed By Cruelty??? Or at least include some material from it on their next re-recording?
Stream: Apple Music
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Vastum – Inward to Gethsemane
This album certainly meets the metric of “will this clear a room of normies?” — which is why it totally rules. Vastum are now long-time purveyors of dark, mean and upsetting death metal.
Stream: Apple Music