Technical Death Metal

Aversions Crown - Hollow Planet (AUS-QLD, 2014)

This remains one of the catchiest hooks from deathcore's revival, and I appreciate vocalist Mark Poida more every year it seems

Absolutely love this album

• Benighted - Ekbom (France) (brutal tech)
• Griefgod - Deterioration (Lithuania) (first Lithuanian band I've run across!)
• The Night We Died - The Price of Playing God [EP] (USA-WA)
• Replicant - Infinite Mortality (USA-NJ)

I'm amused at how similar the name is to Carnosus, one of my pet-favorite bands and AOTY last year. Not too similar musically, but this slaps for sure

There's just something about Italian death metal…

“Secret killers” in this community are bands with weirdly small listenership (quantified by <4k monthly listeners on Spotify), which I believe deserve more attention. (Ok ok, it’s “hidden gems” really, but “secret killers” j sounds so much more metal.)

Man, Italy can BRING IT

See also: this week’s Hour of Penance album, super sick

Noisuf-X - Nervous Beatz (For Manic Freakz)

At one point in my metal journey, a buddy showed me the metal of electronica: aggrotech. Bands like Combichrist, Noisuf-X (sister project to X-Fusion iirc), Suicide Commando, and Grendel featured heavily, and this track is an outstanding example. Whole album is killer if you wanna get your techno on without sacrificing heaviness.

New 3-track EP is out, and either alone or with their two full-lengths, it's inexpensive right now to grab their whole catalog. Plus Bandcamp Friday, so more reaches the band. ICYMI, this band's vocalist Cam Rogers is the non-problematic one from Alterbeast.

Another one for my "THAT sound" playlist (see also: Gojira - Backfuckingbone, Hypermass - Null and Void)

• Brutalism - Solace in Absurdity (USA-ID)
• Burn Down Eden - Dismal [EP] (Germany)
• Gorgasm - Sadichist [EP] (USA-IL) (way on the brutal side for me, but cool to see these guys active again)
• Hour of Penance - Devotion (Italy) (!!!)
• Ingested - The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams (UK-ENG) (used to be slamming deathcore - idk what to call them now, but I like this release a lot better than the last couple)
• Jet Engine Dragons - Ronin (USA-GA) (kinda prog/groove, but solid)
• Kvadrat - The Horrible Dissonance of Oblivion (Greece) (blackened/dissonant)
• Laccolith - Death Incarnate (Netherlands) (pretty different sound than their debut EP)
• Monastery Dead - Ego Sum Dolor (Russia) (not that tech, but pretty good)
• Orecus - Dreadnought (Sweden) (melo/groove)
• Protosequence - Bestiary (CAN-AB)