US avantgarde black/death act IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT presents its 4th studio album, “Alphaville”, which continues the group’s saga of New York City inspired atmospheric yet technical metal that takes you from top floor. Featuring cover art by Zbigniew M. Bielak (Ghost, Deicide, Watain), who contributed one of his most stunning creations to date! Cover versions of “Experiment” (Voivod) & “Happy Home” (The Residents)
On "The Dead Light," Fen explore the beauty that comes from destruction. Representing the vanguard of contemporary UK post black metal, the band offers its heaviest, most direct album to date. It is the sixth full-length in a career of less than 15 years and marks another recalibration for the three-piece that, while always daring to use unconventional structures, found that the predecessor "Winter" (2017) was the apex in this respect. "This time, we took on the creative challenge to say more in less time," says co-founder The Watcher.
If you have recently been disturbed by the distant sound of whimpering, it was probably just a bunch of middle-aged prog metal fans becoming mildly hysterical about the prospect of a new PSYCHOTIC WALTZ album. And rightly so. Because while there were undoubtedly bigger and more widely celebrated bands to emerge from prog metal's first decade, connoisseurs of this stuff know that nothing much beats the first two albums these Californians made back in the early '90s: "A Social Grace" (1990) and "Into the Everflow" (1992). In fact, their third and fourth albums were killer, too. So yeah, the arrival of "The God-Shaped Void" is definitely cause for celebration, and the party will get even more raucous when patient fans realize that the first PSYCHOTIC WALTZ album in 24 years is every bit as good as its revered predecessors (and maybe even slightly better)…
After an exceptionally long year of personal change and near-manic creative activity, Canadian musician Devin Townsend releases the follow-up to his highly acclaimed album "Empath" in 2019. Compiled from a flood of material written during the pandemic, 'Lightwork' represents a new level and has become one of the most accessible, yet ambitious releases of his storied career. A project Devin has had in mind since his teenage years (and has flirted with throughout his career), it's a more melodic and direct album with a great producer backing him up. That's where Garth Richardson comes in: a Vancouver-based producer with a long CV and a long-time friend of Devin's. And the goal? To create something beautiful, cathartic, powerful and clear. A sense of optimism and strength in a time that can commonly be described as "depressing". It's about strength, love, acceptance, fear and overcoming together.
Norways masters of blackened sonic evil, 1349, are finally back with a deadly vengeance. Four long years after the release of the masterpiece Demonoir, the band returns with a new full-length album this fall. Massive Cauldron of Chaos is set to be released on September 29 through Indie Recordings worldwide, except for North America, where Season of Mist will be handling the album.