Oceans of Slumber — Where Gods Fear To Speak
85/100: the Texans' gothic, progressive metal, carried by Cammie Beverly's masterful voice.
8.5/10 August 4, 2026
Defeated Sanity — Chronicles of Lunacy
84/100: the Germans, masters of technical brutal death, push the genre's limits.
8.5/10 August 3, 2026
Crypt Sermon — The Stygian Rose
85/100: the Americans' epic doom summons the grandeur of metal's origins.
8.5/10 August 3, 2026
Escuela Grind — DDEEAATTHHMMEETTAALL
84/100: the Americans' turbocharged grindcore gives no respite.
8.5/10 August 2, 2026
Stab — Lost In Maine
Two reviews, zero real objections and a 8.5/10: Maine's bruised love letter to melodic hardcore.
8.5/10 July 26, 2026
Protest The Hero — Within
Rody Walker "better than ever", 87/100: Protest The Hero's return is a masterstroke.
8.5/10 July 20, 2026
Ne Obliviscaris — EXUL
The violin and the growl, beauty and fury: 86/100 for the Australians' masterful return.
8.5/10 July 14, 2026
TesseracT — War of Being
The British atmospheric-djent band deliver their most accomplished record: 86/100.
8.5/10 July 14, 2026
Enslaved — Heimdal
The Norwegians turn myth into music: 84/100 for a sixteenth album of undimmed ambition.
8.5/10 June 24, 2026
Katatonia — Sky Void of Stars
Melancholy made record: 84/100 for an album where the Swedes elevate their art of elegant despair.
8.5/10 June 24, 2026
Svalbard — The Weight of The Mask
Fury and light in the service of the intimate: 85/100 for a devastating record on mental health.
8.5/10 June 23, 2026
Green Lung — This Heathen Land
English folklore and the Hammond organ: 85/100 for an irresistible occult heavy-rock record.
8.5/10 June 23, 2026
Incantation — Unholy Deification
The patriarchs of cavernous death metal do not falter: 85/100 for a record of absolute darkness.
8.5/10 June 23, 2026
Blut aus Nord — Disharmonium – Nahab
The French band's sonic nightmare reaches an unprecedented intensity: 85/100 for a haunted record.
8.5/10 June 23, 2026
Dying Fetus — Make Them Beg for Death
The technical-death-metal war machine remains implacable: 84/100.
8.5/10 June 23, 2026
Tomb Mold — The Enduring Spirit
The Canadians shed their skin without disowning it: 87/100 for a death metal that opens to the cosmos while keeping its mire.
8.5/10 June 22, 2026
Wormrot — Hiss
Singaporean grindcore reaches peaks of expressiveness: 85/100 for a record as violent as it is heartrending.
8.5/10 June 22, 2026
Warning — Rituals of Shame
Twenty years away, 87/100 and a Kerrang! 5/5: the year's most devastating doom comeback.
8.5/10 June 22, 2026
Chat Pile — God’s Country
American despair set to sound: 86/100 for a debut album that hits like a punch.
8.5/10 June 22, 2026
Pyrrhon — Exhaust
The New Yorkers' organised chaos reaches its point of incandescence: 84/100 for a suffocating record.
8.5/10 June 21, 2026
White Ward — False Light
When the saxophone haunts black metal: 85/100 for a Ukrainian record of nocturnal beauty.
8.5/10 June 20, 2026
Panopticon — The Rime of Memory
A lone American's great winter work: 85/100 for a glacial, devastating meditation.
8.5/10 June 20, 2026
Ashenspire — Hostile Architecture
An avant-garde firebrand against social injustice: 87/100 for one of the most original records of the year.
8.5/10 June 20, 2026
Spectral Wound — Songs of Blood and Mire
Quebecois black metal in its sharpest form: 85/100 for a record of undiminished fury.
8.5/10 June 19, 2026
Wayfarer — American Gospel
Black metal turned crepuscular western: 84/100 for a fresco on the myth of the American West.
8.5/10 June 19, 2026
Alcest — Les Chants de l’Aurore
The father of blackgaze finds the light again: 84/100 for a record of luminous grace.
8.5/10 June 19, 2026
Amenra — De Doorn
The Belgians' sonic ritual reaches a new intensity: 84/100 for a record of liturgical gravity.
8.5/10 June 18, 2026
Bell Witch — The Clandestine Gate
A single eighty-three-minute piece, suspended outside time: 84/100 for a monument of slowness.
8.5/10 June 17, 2026
Elder — Innate Passage
The Americans' progressive metamorphosis reaches its fullness: 84/100 for a luminous psychedelic journey.
8.5/10 June 17, 2026
Caligula’s Horse — Charcoal Grace
The Australians deliver their gravest, most accomplished record: 85/100 for a haunted work.
8.5/10 June 15, 2026
Sleep Token — Take Me Back to Eden
The masked collective turn metal into a love liturgy: 84/100 for a third album impossible to file.
8.5/10 June 14, 2026
Loathe — I Let It in and It Took Everything
The fusion of din and dream finds its masterpiece: 86/100 for a second album that haunts long after.
8.5/10 June 14, 2026
Soul Glo — Diaspora Problems
Hardcore as political and vital cry: 87/100 for a record of burning urgency.
8.5/10 June 12, 2026
Drug Church — Hygiene
Post-hardcore meets 1990s grunge: 84/100 for a record as biting as it is catchy.
8.5/10 June 12, 2026
Model/Actriz — Dogsbody
Noise rock weds the sensuality of post-punk: 84/100 for a debut of troubling intensity.
8.5/10 June 11, 2026
Gilla Band — Most Normal
The Irish band make saturation a sonic material: 85/100 for a radically inventive record.
8.5/10 June 10, 2026