What a goddamn year it has been so far. To call what I’ve been doing for the past six months struggling doesn’t feel like justice at all, and I’m convinced I’ve listened to less music this year than I ever have. I know that’s probably not true, considering I have ten (actually, eleven, but you have to scroll all the way down to see why) offerings released this year to talk about with you and, for the most part, I have been keeping up with my personal review quota, but I feel like I have been having to go more out of my way to keep the music I’ve been listening to in my head. Therefore, it should be an extra set of kudos to these albums that I have managed to remember them at the turning point into the back half of this year (and hopefully a turning point towards better things). These are the albums that have carried me so far through this year, and you can expect more than a few of them to show up again when December rears its head. But because I need to save some surprises for proper list season, this’ll be a mix of favorites, current runners up, nonmetal and metal-adjacent. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
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Changeling – s/t
It’s true: Changeling turned me from a casual fan into a certified Fountainhead-head. I love an album that is unabashedly dedicated to pure and unadulterated wankery, and Changeling (the band and the album) is simply a vehicle for Tom Geldschläger, alias Tom Fountainhead, to cement himself as one this generation’s preeminent guitar virtuosi. Really what sets Fountainhead apart from his peers is his deft and quite honestly astonishing use of a fretless guitar across much of the self-titled debut of his solo/collaborative project. To be able to play in tune at all on one of those things takes years of dedicated practice, but to play blistering leads, tapped arpeggios and sweep picked lines that would make Yngwie Malmsteen rock-fucking-hard with perfect intonation takes a very special kind of guitarist. Fortunately, Fountainhead is just that kind of guitarist, and it’s a mystery why it’s taken this long for him to launch a dedicated platform for himself.
April already seems like a lifetime ago, so I almost forgot I had more to say about Changeling. You can read those things, if you’d like, right here.
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Mclusky – the world is still here and so are we
And boy are we better off for it. the world is still here picks up seemingly right where Mclusky left off more than 20 years since their last full-length. Granted, Falco is the only returning member from that period, but his downright wacky delivery and anxious ferocity are altogether intact, and Mclusky rock out just as hard as they always have. They’ve never been a band that has been known to play anything safe and they certainly don’t start to on the world is still here. Ever the masters of the song title, tracks like “way of the exploding dickhead” and “kafka-esque novelist franz kafka” draw you in with humor and then bludgeon you over the head with a raucous bout of noise rock and, well, humor. The way that Mclusky navigates the fine line between catchy relatability and off-putting, grungy heaviness is more than commendable, and it’s a testament to their legacy that they are still putting out music of this caliber this deep into their career and after several prolonged hiatuses.
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Planning for Burial – It’s Closeness, It’s Easy
One thing that I have always appreciated about Planning for Burial is their ability to craft an album that I can just…sink into. Below the House is an album that I have sunk into time and time again, and as soon as we got the firm date of release for It’s Closeness, I knew I had to make sure that I didn’t have any distractions around for my first listen. Good idea, past Ian, because this is rapidly becoming a go-to album to sink into even just in the month that it has been out. The fuzzy guitars, lumbering drums and delicate keys blur together into the kind of homogenous mass of post-rock that I find myself craving on the days when getting out of bed seems an unattainable goal, and Thom Wasluck’s barely contained, emo-tinged howl has been a companion with me in dark times. It’s Closeness is an album that begs to be listened to with the lights off and the sun just barely peeking through the curtains.
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Rivers of Nihil – s/t
It takes a looooooot of guts to get on the type of shit Rivers of Nihil have been on lately. The Work was the biggest chore of an album that I have heard in a long time, and I guess I must not have been the only one who thought so, because the major shakeups in Camp Rivers signified that the band was ready to move on to a new chapter, and this is quite a different one. Making bassist Adam Biggs the new frontperson of the band seems like a no-brainer in hindsight, but it had to have been a pretty scary move. He handles it without a drop of sweat though, and his monstrous roar gives an edge and urgency to this album that has been missing for quite a while now. Adding Andy Thomas into the mix on top of it feels less like a hat on a hat and more like reuniting long lost siblings, and his distinctive clean vocals break up the ferocity really nicely. It would have been very easy for Rivers of Nihil to drop Owls 2: Electric Boogaloo as a guaranteed crowd pleaser, but I’m incredibly glad they took a giant swing and gave us this instead.
Chris also gave this album praise when we featured it in our The Month That Was column for May. Check it out here!
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The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven
I, too, really wish I got to review I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven, but as I let on, life and the universe hasn’t been very kind to me this year. Thus, this one also ended up going on Chris’ “things we missed” post for May. I was very happy to see that Chris dug it, though, because I sure as hell did. As someone who has had their eye on the Daoboys since Die on Mars, I am so incredibly giddy at how far they have come, and I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven is certainly their best work yet. It is simultaneously the heaviest and the least heavy the band has ever sounded, but the blending of both extremes has never sounded better. “Lemon” is a straight ahead pop song for the ages, “The Demon of Unreality Limping Like a Dog” is a ridiculously infectious Dillinger Escape Plan love letter, and “Distracted by the Mona Lisa” is the kind of post-hardcore bop that, had I heard it when I was in high school, I would have based my entire personality around.
It’s already previously linked, but seriously, go read Chris’ Month that Was for May and find a few more goodies I wanted to talk about that just didn’t make the cut here.
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you, infinite – s/t
What a banner year for post-things. you, infinite is the brainchild of two of the founding members of another seminal post-rock band, This Will Destroy You, and you know what? It sounds an awful lot like a This Will Destroy You release, but hearkening back to their earliest days, the Young Mountain days (an album that I did actually build my personality around in high school). Is you, infinite an exercise in nostalgia? Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a really damn good album, grounded in friendship, emotion and the best works of a band that I enjoy the hell out of. Why wouldn’t I find myself lost in the hypnotic crescendos and climaxes of the works on display here? It’s everything that I wanted it to be, in a package that feels like it fits perfectly into my musical chest of drawers, like it was waiting to be placed in there this whole time.
I did manage to find time to sneak in a full review of you, infinite, if you want to see me get all philosophical and sentimental about it.
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Tómarúm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria
Expectations for me were set pretty high for the follow-up to 2022’s Ash in Realms of Stone Icons, but I have to say, Beyond Obsidian Euphoria surpassed those expectations with ease. Blistering and infectious leads as far as the eye can see, progressive tendencies that don’t meander and really work to make the songs flow in a coherent story, and hooks like barbs in your mind are exactly what I want from every band like Tómarúm, but there’s not a lot out there that is firing at the calibre they are. Beyond Obsidian Euphoria explores every facet and nuance of the “progressive” side of progressive death metal, and the fact that the project has more than doubled the amount of members included in its ranks has only strengthened the quality of music put out. There are so many little moments where new voices and new instrumental phrasings allow Tómarúm to spread themselves into new territory, and nail it at that.
I had a few more thoughts about Beyond Obsidian Euphoria that I wrote back in April, so if this looks intriguing to you, check out the full review here.
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Zeicrydeus – Le Grande Hérésie
It doesn’t matter what style of music you play, what part of the world you live in, or now apparently even what instrument you play: Phil Tougas is in your band now, and he’s coming for your fucking neck. This time, he’s fronting a new-ish project that plays a mix of black, death, thrash and trad metal with…bass as the lead instrument. Oh cool, Phil Tougas plays bass now; time for me to hang it up. And boy does he ever play the fuck out of that thing. Deft musicianship and brilliant lead work has always been right in his wheelhouse, and it translates to the bass guitar like a duck translates to water. The six tracks (plus one cover) that make up Le Grande Hérésie are a pretty refreshing take on the heavy metal formula. You don’t normally see bass as a lead instrument outside weird prog outfits, but the relatively straight-ahead metal here is given just the right amount of zhuzh to make it a standout of this year’s releases.
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Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power
What can be said about Deafheaven that hasn’t already been said? Their entire ethos is to zag when the whole world says they should zig, so of course they’re going to follow up Infinite Granite, an unrepentant shoegaze album with barely a hint of metal at all, with an album that is their most New Bermuda sounding since New Bermuda. And you know what? They keep taking enormous swings with each of their albums and they keep knocking it out of the park. Who else would dare to attempt the 5/4 blast beats on “Magnolia,” the chugging breakdown mid-”Doberman” or the post-punk tinged “Heathen” that forces you to remember that Infinite Granite wasn’t just a fun one-off experiment in the band’s repertoire. I would trust Deafheaven to be able to handle anything at this point, and clearly the world does too. If any band has earned the carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want, it’s Deafheaven.
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Amenra – De Toorn/With Fang and Claw
When Amenra chooses to release two brand new EPs on the same day, even though they are pretty different from each other, how am I supposed to choose just one to talk about? I’m down for just about anything those wacky Belgians throw my way, and it has been a hot second since we’ve gotten a proper release from them. Not that they haven’t been busy, but still. De Toorn is alphabetically first, so let’s start there: these are the longer of the four songs (grand total) released, and the long buildups and meditative nature have been useful to me for clearing headspace and vibing out. With Fang and Claw, on the other hand, is a much more immediate affair, with lumbering drums and droning guitars underpinning CHVE’s signature raspy howl. Amenra have always been a band defined by their mastery of musical dynamics and theatricality, and these two EPs both do an excellent job of showcasing why the Fighting Flems are so beloved, home and abroad.
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I’m trying not to make this piece too negative on the real life stuff. Music has been as good as it has ever been to me this year, and the blessing of feeling like a lot of releases have passed me by is that there are a lot of albums I have yet to listen to for the first time that I’m probably going to love. Plus, there are a LOT of releases to look forward to in the back half of the year, which include some of my most anticipated albums of this year. Things are looking up, and I’m going to ride that wave for as long as it takes me, and in the meantime I will keep myself present and focus on what matters: friends, family, fun and ridiculously good tunes.
— Ian