What a week last week was. It was a royal pain but as usual had a killer soundtrack since we’ve had so much good stuff drop lately. And this week here on Initial Descent is no different as we kick off this new batch of releases with rockers Abrams who are one of my favorites to do the whole rock/metal/rock thing, then we’ve got Semuta who offer up a unique take on progressive yet melodic sludge, Vredehammer peg the adrenaline meter as only they can, and Dopethrone does their brand of doom and sludge to damn near perfection. All that and a ton more so get to digging and we’ll see you here throughout the week.

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Abrams – Blue City (Blues Funeral Recordings) – heavy rock

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Semuta – Glacial Erratic (Self) – melodic sludge

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Vredehammer – God Slayer (Indie Recordings) – metal

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Dopethrone – Broke Sabbath (Totem Cat) – sludge

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Also on tap:

Aesthus / Sieluhaaska – Kaksi liekkiä Saatanalle (Purity Through Fire) – black metal

Ataraxia – Centaurea (The Circle Music) – neoclassical

Backward Blue – Eye of the Storm, EP (Self) – prog

Black Sorcery – Plummeting Into the Hour of the Wolf (Eternal Death) – black metal

Bleakheart – Silver Pulse (Seeing Red Records) – gloom rock

Bleed The Victim – Serenades of Agony (Self) – metal

Boneripper – World Ablaze (Self) – metallic hardcore

Capstan – The Mosaic (Fearless Records) – metallic hardcore

Cathari – It Will Hurt the Entire Time You Are Alive (Self) – noisecore

Catharia – Unimaginable Dreams Of Fate (Self) – black metal

Christ Denied – Christopsy (Xtreem Music) – brutal death metal

Critical Defiance – The Search Won’t Fall… (Dying Victims) – thrash

Cult of Erinyes – Metempsychosis (Amor Fati) – black metal

Cuttered Flesh – Love At First Bite (Transcending Obscurity Records) – death metal

Dark Affliction – Five Stages of Grief (Theogonia Records) – black metal

Dead Harrison – None for All (Self) – gothic doom

Die Entweihung – Kings & Pawns (Acid Vicious / Inverted Chalice Prods / Bajo Tierra Records) – blackened heavy metal

Eregion – Non Omnis Moriar (Rockshots Records) – power metal

Esodic – De Facto De Jure (Independent) – death / thrash

Evildead – Toxic Grace (Steamhammer / SPV) – thrash

FVRMN – Back To The Whip (Bifocal Media) – punk

Giant Spider – Exit Plan / 3 Moons (Self) – hardcore

Grand Massive – Houses of the Unholy (MDD) – doom

Halma – Driving By Numbers (Kapitän Platte) – instrumental rock

Häxanu / Greve – Naturmystik (Purity Through Fire / Amor Fati) – black metal

Hextar – Doomsayer (Dying Victims Productions) – heavy metal

I Cut Out Your Name – Testament der Dekadenz (Bastardized) – metalcore

Kati Rán – SÁLA (Svart Records) – nordic folk

Kaylethq – New Babylon (Argonauta) – stoner

La Luz – News of the Universe (Sub Pop) – psych rock

Liar Thief Bandit – Icon (The Sign Records) – melodic hard rock

Locusts and Honey – Teach Me To Live That I Dread The Grave As Little As My Bed (Hypaethral) – dark ambient / funeral doom

Lower Automation – Welcome To My Deathbed (Zegema Beach Records) – industrial goth

Lovelorn Dolls – Deadtime Stories (Alfa Matrix / SPLEEN+) – alt rock

Lucifuge – Hexensabbat (Dying Victims Productions) – blackened speedpunk

Maldito – Contact Light (Self) – rock

MoonKill – S/T (Self) – rock

Moral Putrefaction – S/T (Self) – death metal

Mortal Wound – Anus of the World (Dark Descent Records / Me Saco un Ojo Records) – death metal

Night Laser – Call Me What You Want (Steamhammer/SPV) – sleaze rock

Nightside – Death From the North (Purity Through Fire) – black metal

Red Handed Denial – A Journey Through Virtual Dystopia (Paid Vacation) – core

Regen Graves – Ashes (Bent Window Records) – dark ambient

Reverend Hound – Deal In Steel (Metalizer Records) – heavy metal

Reversed – Wildly Possessed (Invictus) – extreme

Rotten – Age of Chaos (Hells Headbangers) – thrash punk

Sailor Hunter – Evolution (Inverse Records) – melodic death metal

Scheitan – Songs for the Gothic People (The Circle Music) – gothic rock

Sentiment Dissolve – The Orwellian Dream (CDN Records) – death metal

Solus Grief / Altertum – I Skyggen mellom liv og død (Purity Through Fire) – black metal

Sound & Shape – Pillars of Creation (Self) – prog

Spiter – Enter the Gates of Fucking Hell (Hells Headbangers) – metal / punk

Spitgod – Through Life ’till Death (Gruesome Records) – death/thrash

Squelching Flesh – Psychic Incarceration (Lifeless Chasm Records) – death metal

Summoner’s Circle – Cult (Black Lion) – metal

Teramaze – Eli: A Wonderful Fall From Grace (Wells) – prog

The Biscuit Merchant – Visible Scars (Self) – tech death

The Lurking Corpses – Lurking After Midnight (Hells Headbangers) – punk / thrash

Trail of Tears – Winds of Disdain (The Circle Music) – gothic/symphonic

Ultio – Cor (Brucia) – black metal

Ulvik – Last Rites | Dire Omens (Avantgarde Music) – black metal

Untime – Fall (Gymnocal Industries) – groove metal

Vale of Pnath – Between The Worlds of Life and Death (Willowtip Records) – tech death

Valfreya – Dawn of Reckoning (Self) – black / symphonic / death

Vástígr – The Path Of Perdition (Avantgarde Music) – black metal

— Josh