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Can you believe that Halloween is tomorrow? This month has absolutely flown by for me, and it's been a lot of fun to add some horror content to the site this month. It's also been an incredibly busy month for reviews - this week was the first time I didn't get to all the albums I intended to cover due to lack of bandwidth. I'm giving those albums a shout-out below, along with re-hyping a few albums I did write about in greater depth, and adding some more new music to boot. Plus, my final horror movie recommendation of the year is below. Into the pit with you!
Computer Metal, the new heavy chiptune album by Master Boot Record is kind of the perfect response to the growth of AI. It's primarily digital, sure. But every note was composed by a real human being, not generated by an algorithm. It's digital music with a human heart. Read my review here.
Uncle Al's final album has all the subtly of The Simpson's "Hey you, join the Navy!" scene, as evidenced by "Grifter," the song embedded above. Still, Ministry is a legendary band, and Hate to Go: Takeout or Delivery is their final studio album, so it's worth a shout-out today.
Enslaved are back with their new album Mið. You already know it's good - Enslaved don't make bad albums. What you might not know is that Mið feels like a fresh new direction for the band, something that's truly impressive given both how long they've been around and how consistently excellent they are. Read my complete review here.
I reviewed Wallensteins Garage by SEK here (busy week!) and it caused me to dive into the origins and characteristics of Krautrock. This is far from the heaviest album on the list today, but its an engaging and enjoyable heavy prog excursion. I should have an interview with the SEK gang in the near future.
I fully intended to review the new Genital Shame album that's out today, Wellness Plan. Life got in the way, but that doesn't mean that I don't like this album quite a bit. Wellness Plan pushes the black metal formula in interesting directions thanks to mastermind Erin Dawson's background in music education. Side note: if someone wants to invent a device that pauses time so I can cover more albums, that would be swell. Kthxbye
The new Satanic Planet album promotion started with a genuine banger of a single, "Sam Alito's Mom," which is both politically pointed and genuinely harrowing. Dead Deities is available in full today and taken as a whole I find it a little corny, but its dark industrial goth vibe is perfect for Halloween, so it still makes the cut.
This one is an interesting surprise. Dream Unending is a death/doom band, and there are certainly touches of that on this album, but it's mostly a chill, jazzy ambient album. This is the most relaxing metal album of the week, easily.
And now for a complete 180. "Severing," the new single by Machukha, is absolutely blistering. It's noisy, chaotic, blackened madness that reminds me of Amenra at their most furious. One of my friends saw them at Roadburn and said they were absolutely stunning. I hope to be so lucky some day.
Time for some burly death metal. Nexus is the new EP from Oceans of Illusions. It is relatively straightforward compared to most of the other releases this week, and there are still some eclectic influences and styles at work here, but at its core this is some powerfully brutal and hooky death metal.
Let's close out with some angry female-fronted music. First up is Teardrinker, who debuted the first track from I Hope This Hurts a few weeks ago. "Hereditary" is a little more atmospheric than the previous single, "Blessed is the Flame," but there's still a strong undercurrent of rage. I'm super excited for this album.
After firing up the debut album from Piss, I immediately learned that they were just in town last weekend and I missed it. Of course. That is an absolute shame, because you made me / skin on linen is one of the most blistering albums I've heard in years. Noisy, furious, female-fronted punk/noise rock that's heavily centered on sexual violence, this is a challenging and important album. An absolutely stunning debut. I'm pretty much floored by this one.
Finally, let's close out the week with something a little more atmospheric. Djunah are back with a new album, Giallo, which is a noise rock opera about trauma inspired by Italian horror movies. Which still makes it lighter than the Piss album. An album inspired by horror movies is the perfect segue to my final movie pick of this year's Spooky Season!
For my final horror movie recommendation of the week, I've gotta go with an old favorite: Night of the Creeps has everything: scares, comedy, practical effects, and some great lines. Many devoted horror movie fans have probably seen this at some point, but it's never reached the same level of cult classic status as some other movies from the same era, and I've definitely run across some horror fans who have missed it. Time to fix that.
Happy Halloween, everyone!