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Few bands can boast the genre-bending savviness of Norway’s Enslaved. Spanning black, death and Viking metal with healthy sprinklings of prog and post-rock, the band’s style is anything but predictable. But what largely sets Enslaved apart from others who dabble in different sounds is the band’s authenticity. Few can go from Nordic sing-a-longs to black-metal shrieks and avoid sounding like jackals of all trades. And the thought of melding of dissonant riffs with swaggering beats may strike many as being all over the map. But with Vertebrae, Enslaved has managed to do just that with an album that is complex, abrasive and subtle all at once.

“Clouds” begins with a textural intro recalling vintage Rush, before moving into Viking territory with a set of melodic verses. But it’s not long before the eeriness sets in with a flurry of demonic hurls courtesy of vocalist Grutle Kjellson. “To The Coast” is crushing enough with its initial growls but quickly dissolves into a haze of multi-layered voices and enveloping guitars, all before launching into a staccato vocal affront. “Ground” has a jangly, psychedelic feel that recalls Pink Floyd, as does “Center,” once it moves past the Sabbath-esque intro. The title track is one of the more progressive numbers with an erratic structure that thrives on busy guitars, melodic choruses and some tasty keyboard work—none of which overpowers the other.

With Vertebrae, Enslaved further cements its legacy as an outfit hell-bent on musical exploration and genre manipulation. But besides the sonic barrage of power and volume, it’s largely a melodic album with a meticulous attention to detail.

Twenty-six years in, and Crowbar sounds more like being killed by a gorilla than ever. On their 11th full-length album, the NOLA sludge-metal quartet returns to form with a pessimistic beatdown that recalls the glory days of classics like 1998’s Odd Fellows Rest. Riff master Kirk Windstein shrieks and groans with snarling vigor, while his chugging guitar parts sport renewed heft due to the return of founding bassist Todd “Sexy T” Strange. Certain metal bands, like cast-iron pans, only get better with age and elbow grease.

The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me is the third studio album by the alternative rock band, Brand New.

The name of the album came from a conversation frontman Jesse Lacey was having with a friend about musician Daniel Johnston who suffers from schizophrenia.

The record was released in 2006.

The Last Dawn is the first of these two companion albums, and is the “lighter” of the two, thematically and melodically. It contains undoubtedly some of MONO’s strongest songs ever, drawing on an array of influences from minimalist film score to vintage shoegaze. It is MONO at their absolute purest, executing an uncanny, unspoken dialogue with each other without the dozens of stringed instruments that have been so prominent throughout their catalog. The songs are also noticeably more efficient – there hasn’t been a MONO full-length record to fit on a single slab of vinyl since 2003’s One Step More And You Die – and the album benefits immeasurably from this streamlined approach. MONO have always been masters of telling compelling stories without words. But now they’ve proven they can do it without frills, too.

Rays of Darkness is the first MONO album in 15 years to feature no orchestral instruments whatsoever. That fact alone is remarkable given the band’s reputation for sweeping, dramatic instrumentals that recall Oscar-worthy film scores. Instead, Rays of Darkness more closely resembles a jet engine taking off inside a small, crowded auditorium. It is MONO’s blackest album ever, a collection of scorched riffs, doom rhythms, and an unexpected contribution from post-hardcore pioneer Tetsu Fukagawa of Envy. The album ends with the smoldering wreckage of distorted guitars and ominous drones playing out a eulogy to the days when MONO shot blinding rays of light through seemingly endless darkness.

Ghold return with the next chapter in their ever-expanding direction, emerging with the new album PYR, which also marks the band’s first recording as a trio with multi-instrumentalist/guitarist Oliver Martin.

PYR is towering with a sonic thickness, frantic dizzying energy and shattering immediacy, penetrated by despondent howls and an uncompromising slice of remorselessness. Yet even the seasoned Ghold fans will find something new here, as collaborative noises and instruments creep into their sound. On their third album, they have elevated their tectonic tonality to a level of innate expertise, with an evident sincerity that cannot be learned. Encased in a heavy exoskeleton, these compositions are at their heart achieving the special form of beauty that can only be conveyed by some special artists working in the medium of loud music, and their wide palette and strong instrumental bonds are the result of a fearless approach, drawing inspiration directly from themselves and their surroundings. Influencing the four track album was the band’s previous dwellings, Pyrford House, Brixton (London). At the time of recording it was undergoing vast changes, multiple evictions and imminent demolition. The site no longer exists but the music that was created there shall bellow forward and beyond.
The lyrics harken to the abstract – where the disjointed dystopic present intertwines destructive futures; the successive decline of consciousness and the forced negation between nomadity and nonentity. The artwork is a collection of overlaid images found and arranged to form prismatic and shifting landscapes; uneasy and disorientating – just like the sonic, just like the present.

Closing this raw, honest and unrelenting four-track is ‘Despert Thrang’ – a long-form progressive piece of music that fills the entirety of Side B on the LP, featuring guest vocalist Rose Dagul adding to the disorienting cavalcade that is PYR.

Heavy 12″ black vinyl housed in spined sleeve with double sided insert.

The two components of bass and drums are bound together so tight on Of Ruin that they resemble a singular gnarled entity, kneading together groove and melody like putty in the palm of their hands, with explosive results. Intrinsically heavy and elastically supercharged, Ghold create a strain of viscous rock that is as plainly devastating as it is capricious, pushing down the scales in a myriad of manners to achieve an ever heavier outcome. The wealth of ideas presented by Paul Antony and Aleks Wilson on Of Ruin surpass the imaginations of the majority, and it’s easy to see why Terrorizer tipped them as one to watch for 2015.

The alchemic duo fuse elements of power violence, doom, gloom and heavy rock with enchanting vocal incantations. Since their inception in 2012, Ghold have been steadily amassing fans of their filth jams from countless shows performing alongside the likes of Yob, Pallbearer, Stephen O’Malley and Årabrot.

Of Ruin was mastered by James Plotkin, and the CD and LP artwork features different paintings by Alex Virji.

Moontower is a solo studio album by the Swedish musician Dan Swanö.

Dan Swanö described the album as sounding like “If Rush played death metal in the 1970s”.

Being very strongly influenced by 70’s hard rock and stoner metal, Wo Fat’s fifth full-length is about as promising as it gets. The whole album is handled within a short number of five songs and over 47 minutes long throughout those tracks. Of course, while many would say it’s best to listen to an album like this while stoned, hence the name of the genre, I would argue that this album is just as amazing an experience when sober.

The style the band plays of doom is basically them experimenting around a central riff for as long as possible before it starts to get too unexciting or boring. The album on the whole is generally a little fuzzy, but not too much. It features grooves that are especially catchy in the opening title track, though it may be a little too long for it’s own good. This is mostly due to the fact that the guitar solo is put into the outro section of the song, put behind the two verses and choruses which can make it feel long. This is also the case with Dreamwalker, the closer, the is over 17 minutes of the same few riffs. The rest of the tracks rest between the threshold of 6 and 7 and a half minutes which in the context of the record, leaves them not overstaying their welcome.

The majority of the album is excellent, while using a small amount of riffs when compared to the length of the project, it doesn’t take away from the album. If you are into the genre of stoner doom, heavy metal — particularly Sabbath — or doom as a whole, this album is definitely something you should be checking out.

Down IV – Part I (informally known as the The Purple EP) is the first EP by sludge/southern metal band Down. It was released on September 18, 2012. It is the first album featuring bassist Pat Bruders due to the departure of former bassist Rex Brown in 2011, and the last to feature guitarist Kirk Windstein, who left in 2013.