We’re another week closer to slamming the book on 2017 and we do hope you’ve been enjoying list season thus far. For what it’s worth, we certainly have been and our staff lists will start rolling out in the coming days so stay tuned. But for now it’s another jam packed week of metal and the quantity here squashes any thoughts of new releases slowing just because it’s December. Leading us off this week is the metal / punk / let the good times roll Midnight on Sweet Death and Ecstasy. This band just continues to rule and have always reminded of the era when rock n’ roll was considered dangerous and an instrument of Satan himself — this album amps up that feeling and is one hell of great time. Next up is Ghastly Sound with their second EP of the year, The Bottom — think 90s hard rock mixed with death, sludge and stoner metal but with a killer singer. Moving on, the mechanized and industrious black metal attack of Iperyt‘s The Patchwork Gehinnom reminds us that industrial and black metal do indeed make the perfect pair. Rounding out the opening slots is Deathmarch‘s Dismember EP and in case the chainsaw on the cover doesn’t give it away, it’s full of gnarly death metal that will appease even the most hardened death metal fan. What’s next? You know the drill, get in there and explore.

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Midnight – Sweet Death and Ecstasy (Hells Headbangers) – metal / punk

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Ghastly Sound – The Bottom, EP (Magnetic Eye) – stoner / sludge [full review]

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Iperyt – The Patchwork Gehinnom (Pagan Records) – black metal

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Deathmarch – Dismember, EP (Black Lion Records) – death metal

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Also on tap:

-(16)- / Fistula – Split 7″ (PATAC Records) – sludge

A Night In Texas – Global Slaughter (Independent) – deathcore

Asking Alexandria – S/T (Sumerian Records) – rock

Beastiality – Worshippers of Unearthly Perversions (Invictus Productions) – black / thrash

Black Wail – Chromium Homes (Rhyme & Reason Records) – psych metal

Come To Grief / Fistula – Split 7″ (PATAC Records) – sludge

Deathcult – Cult of the Goat (Soulseller Records) – black metal

Dirge – Alma | Baltica (Division Records) – post-metal

Enhailer – Dumb Enough to Care, EP (Blackseed Records) – doom / stoner

Eye of Nix – Black Somnia (Scry Records) – avantgarde doom

Grafvitnir – Keys to the Mysterious Beyond (Carnal Records) – black metal

Halphas – Dawn of a Crimson Empire (Folter Records) – black metal

Hamka – Multiversal (Fighter Records) – symphonic power metal

Hawkmoth – Godless Summit (Black Bow) – post-metal / doom

House of Low Culture/Daniel Menche/EMS/Caustic Touch – Split (Accident Prone Records) – noise

Iamsin – Kings & Queens (Inverse Records) – metalcore

Lucifer’s Hammer – Victory Is Mine (Shadow Kingdom) – heavy metal

Marginal – Total Destruction (Transcending Obscurity) – grindcore

Melankolia – Vividarium Intervigilium Viator (Hypnotic Dirge) – ambient

Mist of Misery – Fields of Isolation, EP (Black Lion Records) – melodic black metal

Mz.412 / Trepaneringsritualen – X Post Industriale / Rituals 2015 e.v., Split (AnnapurnA / Old Europe Cafe) – black / experimental

Myrholt – Med Samme Naal, Under Samme Maane (Myrholt Design) – black metal

Nevicate – Shattered (Inverse Records) – symphonic metal

Nupraptor – The Heresiarch (Shadow Kingdom) – doom metal

Obscure Burial – S/T (Invictus Productions) – death metal

Oracle – Into the Unknown (Independent) – extreme metal

Rebaelliun – Bringer of War (The Last Stand), EP, Reissue (Hammerheart Records) – death metal

Óreida / Holocausto Em Chamas – Split (Harvest of Death / Signal Rex) – black metal

Sartegos / Balmog – Split (Caverna Abismal) – black metal

Sorrowful Land – Where The Sullen Waters Flow, EP (Solitude Productions) – doom metal

Traffic Death – Dead End (Sump Pump Records) – punk / black / grind

Viledriver – Primary (CDN) – tech death

As most of you know, we lost another great one this week. RIP Warrel Dane, Praises to the War Machine will forever and always be my jam that gets me through anything life throws my way.

– Josh