MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of June 2024
In June’s best metal, Crypt Sermon offer hooks in doom form, Insect Ark stay on the experimental path, and Ulcerate offer despair with technical death metal.
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SUMAC’s ‘The Healer’ Is One of the Best Metal Albums of 2024
Experimental metal trio SUMAC return with four tracks, a gargantuan runtime, and an experience that feels both frightening and healing on The Healer.
The 20 Best Metal Albums of 2020
One of the main vehicles helping us during these crazy times is music. Heavy, experimental, interesting you name it. Experimentalism is thankfully on the rise, as boundaries are still pushed and new realms are explored.
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MetalMatters: The Best New Heavy Metal Albums of October 2020
Mr. Bungle re-record their thrash demo, Anaal Nathraak solidify their stature as one of the most extreme black metal acts, Sumac carry on their free rock infestations, and Armoured Saint with Spirit Adrift stand as torchbearers to heavy metal's past and future.
MetalMatters: June 2019 – A Month Full of Long-Awaited Returns
Slough Feg carry on their heavy metal journey while Darkthrone keep digging towards their proto-punk/heavy metal core. Baroness return with their most ambitious work to date, while Pinkish Black continue to explore the endless possibilities of synth driven extreme music.
The Best Metal of 2018
Amidst all the global socio-political unrest and the personal trials of 2018, metal has had a noticeably strong and positive year.
SUMAC Breaks New Ground With ‘Love in Shadow’
Following their fantastic collaboration with Keiji Haino, heavy post-metal act SUMAC introduces free rock, noise, and improvisational ideas to their sound on Love in Shadow.
Keiji Haino and SUMAC Join Forces for ‘American Dollar Bill’
The Japanese rock insurrectionary Keiji Haino and Northwest art metal trio SUMAC improvise über-heavy body music.
Sumac: What One Becomes
What One Becomes finds great musicians doing occasionally great passages during experimentally structured 10-minute songs with death growls that sound like belches; in other words, Sumac is a mixed bag.
Sumac – “Rigid Man” (Singles Going Steady)
Contrary to its title, "Rigid Man" is a flaccid letdown of a metal song, with a lot of wasted potential to boot.
Blood and Thunder: Metal Is for the Children
Both the underrated '80s drama River's Edge and the recently released Metalhead reflect on the importance of metal to the existential struggles of adolescence.