Fearless Editor™ Josh is recuperating from all the weariness and travel that wrapped him in a hundred different directions last week, so I’m taking the reins on Initial Descent this week, and you know what that means? Uh, basically the same as it always did: highlights and releases for the forthcoming week! And that means I get to spotlight the latest from progressive death metallers An Abstract Illusion, whose latest album digs even deeper into the thick haze of atmospheric death and black metal to tremendous effect. You want something a little slower, heavier? Evoken have finally returned after seven years and based on the singles it sounds like it was worth the wait. Oh, sorry…you want faster? Thrashy? Even more evil? If the 200mph punk thrust of Graveripper doesn’t tear your face off, you might have just enough blood left in you for Afsky to freeze it with their brand of gripping black metal.

As always, we’ve got a ton more after the jump, so let’s get to it.

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An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City (Willowtip Records) – progressive black/death metal

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Evoken – Mendacious (Profound Lore Records) – doom

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Graveripper – From Welkin To Tundra (Wise Blood Records) – black thrash

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Aksky – Fællesskab (Eisenwald) – black metal

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Also on tap:

Above Us The Waves – Counting Seasons (Self) – Deathcore

Æternia – Into The Golden Halls (Cruz Del Sur Music) – Power Metal

Age Of Ruin – Nothingman (Self) – Metal

Aleister Cowboy – Meolithic Blood Rites, EP (Iron Fortress Records) – Death Metal

Argesk – Moonlight Pyromancy (Matriarch Records) – Melodic Black Metal

Armoured Knight – The Quest for the Sacred Melody (Dying Victims Productions) – Speed Metal

Azell – Astralis (Rottweiler Records) – Sludge

Basaltic Plateau – Dead Dinosaurs Echoes (Electric Valley Records) – Stoner Rock

Battle Beast – Steelbound (Nuclear Blast) – Heavy Metal

Bentrees – Silver Veins (Argonauta Records) – Psych Rock

Biohazard – Divided We Fall (BLKIIBLK) – Metal

Carach Angren – The Cult of Kariba, EP (Season of Mist) – Black Metal

Celesterre – Horror and Hope (Self) – Heavy / Doom

Czart – Czarty Polskie (code666) – Metal

Daedric – As The Light Left (FiXT) – Rock

Defigurement – Endbryo (Nefarious Industries) – Death / Grind

DET – Destructive Elite Terror (Dying Victims Productions) – Metal

Dysylumn – Abstraction (Signal Rex) – Black Metal

Entrøpia – Down In The Swamp Of Human Bleakness (Fiadh Productions) – Death / Sludge

Ex Colorado – Ex Colorado 3 (Self) – Electronic

Evoken – Mendacium (Profound Lore Records) – Doom

Flitcraft – Transmission Echo (Pitch Black Records) – Metal / Rock

Giöba – X-æon (Heavy Psych Sounds) – Space Rock

Gorleben – Menetekel (Darkness Shall Rise) – Death / Doom / Black

Hellbearer – Darker Fates (Self) – Metal

High On Wheels – Monkey (Klonosphere Records) – Stoner

Human Fortress – Stronghold (Massacre Records) – Melodic Metal

Infinity Dream – Silver Lining (Nameless Grave Records) – Metal

Internal Bleeding – Settle All Scores (Maggot Stomp) – Death Metal

Irreparable – The Fate Of All Life (These Hands Melt) – Black Metal

Jason Blake – Infinite Fade (Self) – Progressive Metal

Kaupe – Destroyer Of Worlds (Morbid Subculture) – Progressive Instru-Metal

Kivisydän – Kuoleva Aurinko (Inverse Records) – Symphonic Metal

Ladon Heads – Steel For Fire (Lost Realm Records) – Heavy Metal

Lammoth / Gonemage – Aetherfrost Caverns (Fiadh Productions) – Black Metal

Mental Maze – Here Goes Nothing, EP (Self) – Deathcore

Meteora – Broken Mind (H-Music) – Symphonic Metal

Monkeys On Mars – S/T, EP (Mrs Red Sound) – Space Prog

Moundrag – Deux (Spinda / Stolen Body) – Psych Rock

Noir Noir – Black Curtain / Divine Swelling (Sentient Ruin Laboratories) – Black / Industrial

Now I’ve Done It – An Ill Guest (Self) – Avant-Garde Metal

Onrust – Van Woede tot Wanhoop (dunk! records) – Post-Metal / Sludge

Penthos – Erevos (Darkness Shall Rise) – Black Metal

Perishing – Malicious Acropolis Unveiled (Transcending Obscurity Records) – Death / Doom

Pest – Eternal Nightmares (Heidens Hart) – Black Metal

Revenge – Night Danger (Dying Victims Productions) – Metal

Sanity’s Rage – The Dead Don’t Run (Self) – Thrash Metal

Saüc – Catarsi (Self) – Rock / Metal

Silent Tombs – Mourning Hymns From Beyond (Personal Records) – Death / Doom

:Skull & dawn: – The Harvest (The Circle Music) – Southern Gothic

Soul Grinder – Frozen Halls (MDD Records) – Death Metal

Synthre – Heterodoxa (Self) – Black Metal

The Isosceles Project – Bear The Torch (Self) – Psych Prog / Metal

The Re-Stoned – Dreams From The Outside: Stories of the Astral Lizard Vol. 3 (Kozmik Artifactz) – Psych 

— Chris