2026 Albums

I have listened to this album a few times now and I like it a lot. The music is mostly black metal-ish, but the vocals lean more toward metalcore, but with some clean singing mixed in. It's pretty epic stuff, but overall, I found the mood rather somber (which is not a complaint).

Tékmés is a Lithuanian band, and their lyrics are all in Lithuanian. That's cool—I'm glad that the international music scene is becoming less US-focused—but TBH I'm always made a little nervous when I find a new metal band I like but whose lyrics I can't read. You never know what you're going to get, and I find myself always crossing my fingers that it's not something problematic.

Conveniently, though, they provide English translations on their website and I am happy to report that it all seems to be just normal metal stuff.

The main thing I have to say about this album is that it is a very clear cut case of "It does what it says on the tin."

If you look at the cover art and album title, you may find yourself thinking, "I bet this is some gross death metal that doesn't last very long." And you would be 100% correct.

Honestly, though, I like to have an album like this every week. It may be juvenile and a bit predictable, but it is entertaining and it never hits a point of diminishing returns.

I will admit, knowing absolutely nothing about it, I listened to this album based entirely on the band name. Unfortunately, the band name is probably the best thing about it.

I mean, it's not terrible. These guys are from Sweden, and they do stoner music that is on the border between rock and metal, in the same general realm as The Sword and Fu Manchu. Ziggurat is about 45 minutes of that sort of thing, and if that's your bag, I suppose you could do a lot worse.

But man, there's a lot of music out there, and I just found myself repeatedly zoning out while this album was playing. Again, it's fine—I didn't hate it, but I just didn't care about it, either.

Looking for some straight-up doom with some light sprinklings of death? This band out of Adelaide, Australia has you covered.

I thought this album was fine. Nothing particularly jumped out at me while listening to it, other than a fair number of Hex-era Earth influences on a bunch of the tracks.

The closing title track is probably my favorite of the bunch. Otherwise, I think I probably won't remember much about this album or band a few days from now.

Ever since I first listened to Demilich, I am pretty much always there for metal bands from Finland. Thus, this album is my first listen of this week's new metal releases.

And you know what? It's fantastic! It's a great mix of fast and slow tempos, and as with so many Finnish metal bands—and I'm not really sure I can quite put my finger on why—it doesn't really sound like anything else.

The whole album is great, but the stand-out tracks for me are the opening title track, kind of mid-tempo rocker that is super-heavy, "Eruption", which is pummeling to the point of being nearly industrial, and the closing bonus track "Seraphic Glutton", an 8-minute mountain of heavy doom.

This album is on my short-list for favorite releases of the week. If I were to drop it from that list, it would be because of the subject matter, which is fucking bleak.

Blade and Bath is a one-man band from Ukraine, and if you're feeling depressive or bad about yourself and your life, I would not recommend this album or band for you. If you hadn't guessed it from the band name, most of these songs are about depression, suicide, and death, so consider yourself warned.

What really strikes me about this album is how it is simultaneously melancholy and ecstatic. Track after track, it is just orders of magnitude more emotional than most black metal out there, and it all works really well. So if you are up for some psychologically harrowing metal, this album is well worth your time, but I do get that it's likely not for everyone (even as black metal goes).

The first car I ever owned was a 1981 VW Rabbit, and the first new car I ever bought myself was a 2007 VW Rabbit. They were both super solid, extremely dependable, and while maybe not super-thrilling, fun to drive.

I have always thought of Kreator as the heavy metal equivalent of those cars. German-engineered and very predictable, but also dependable and kind of fun. You always know what you're getting.

Having bought tickets to see Kreator when they come through this part of the US with Carcass in May, there was no way I wasn't listening to this album, and while it is exactly what I expected, it is also exactly what I wanted. They are like the KMFDM of heavy metal—found their path and they're sticking to it and friends, I am right there with them.

Funeral Home is a Finnish death metal band that has been around since the late 2000s. I haven't listened to any of their previous albums, but this one is pretty straight-ahead melodic death metal.

Your Funeral a fun listen and I like it. A bunch of the songs have a pretty good groove to them, and it never feels like the band is taking themselves overly seriously.

On the down-side, on a second listen, I wasn't finding much to distinguish one track from the next on this album, and there's not a lot that sets this album—can't speak to the band more broadly than that—apart from a lot of other stuff out there.

However, I think you could certainly do a lot worse than to give this one a listen.

Brutal death metal from Houston, TX, this album is wall-to-wall burped death-grunt vocals over nearly constant blast beats and squealing guitar. The subject matter is what you might expect: serial killers and gross-out violence.

It's fine for what it is, but nothing stands out about it. While I find complaints that "all death metal sounds the same" to be shallow and tiresome, there are, in fact, about a million records that sound like this one, and I repeatedly caught myself kind of tuning it out while I focused on other tasks.

The album is only 23 minutes long, though, so…

Symphonic death metal out of Italy, this is a concept album about a man becoming the first vampire. If that sounds ridiculous, it kind of is, but it's not terrible.

This sort of metal is not really my bag, but this album is well-made, well-played, and doesn't overstay its welcome. It is atmospheric and while I found myself occasionally rolling my eyes, I was also entertained for most of the run-time.

Weirdly, some of it gives Operation Mindcrime-era Queensryche; not in the subject matter or music, really, but more in the mood and feel. "Awakening" is the standout track for me.

I have never been a particularly big fan of Lattimore's stuff but I enjoyed this album well enough.

It's not that I think her music is bad; it has generally felt a bit overly precious to me, but I can understand what is good about it. Here, though, I found that those aspects of her work are tempered by having Julianna Barwick along for the ride, as well as by the additional instrumentation. "Stardust" is standout for me, with its opening synth washes that are almost reminiscent of "1984".

Overall, this album probably remains in the "Not for me" bucket, but it's not bad. If you're looking for some early-morning listening at the far, ethereal end of dream pop, it is worth checking out.

According to the notes, this album was entirely composed by one guy during the COVID lockdowns, and the re-recorded last year with a full lineup.

I like it a lot. It's intense and epic, and feels a lot more in-the-moment and (for lack of better phrasing) up front than a lot of black metal.

All that said, I will point you to the second-to-last track—"Shores Of Extinction"—where they slow it down a bit. It is a heavy, grinding affair like the one last march that the lyrics describe, and it is exceptionally good.

This album was a late addition to my 2025 favorites list.

Lychgate is a UK band; while I find genre-definition a bit tedious, this album sits toward the black metal region of the diagram, with some death and progressive elements.

What I really appreciate about this album is that it is intense and heavy, but also quite atmospheric. Like a bunch of the other metal albums I have been enjoying lately, it has a little bit of a lot of different things in it, with just enough prog sprinkled through to make it interesting but not tedious.

"Hive Of Parasites" is probably my favorite track.

Weft is Texas-based musician Charlie Anderson, who has played violin on some Panopticon albums. This album came out back in mid-December and I totally missed at the time. Luckily it came back up in my recommendations, because it is great.

The Splintered Oar is a bit of a kitchen-sink affair. There are stretches that remind me of Red Album/Blue Record-era Baroness, but there are also strains of death metal and black metal (more of the latter than the former) woven in. There are power metal-style choral vocals, and some prog flourishes too.

It feels like the sort of thing that shouldn't work, and normally I would expect to be annoyed by the crazily eclectic approach here, but somehow it works here. The whole thing holds together even though it takes some pretty bold leaps, and I like it a lot.

This band has a new album coming out in Feb that seems to have some buzz around it, which is what sent me to listen to this one. They seem to get lumped in with post-punk, but given the cover art here that looks like it is straight from some YouTube liminal-space/Backrooms video, I was worried it was going to be some vaporwave nonsense.

While I can see where the post-punk label comes from, I think the music here owes more to the early-2000s art-rock stuff like Bloc Party and Art Brut, albeit with a lot more electronics. It's anxious and edgy and vaguely political, ranging from abrasive but danceable tracks to more ambient/noise stuff (especially in the back half of the album).

I like this album a lot and will definitely be checking out URGH when it comes out in February.

This is the most fun I've had listening to an album in a while, and this one for sure wins the Best Album Cover award this week.

With one guitarist from Saxon and the other from Old Forest (I quite enjoyed their 2024 album Graveside), this band has a great pedigree. While Times of Legend does not break any new ground, if you're looking for some spot-on NWOBHM-style metal, this is the album for you.

I've listened to this one twice already, and I'm still not tired of it.

This is some seriously intense death metal, and quite good. No black metal, no doom. Just all death, all the time.

These guys are from Lithuania, and I have spent zero time looking at the lyrics; they could be awful, but when it comes to death metal, I mostly don't care unless it's some Nazi or white supremacist bullshit—that bunch can get fucked.

There are some really good dynamics on this album and it never falls into the death metal trap of constant tedious blast beats and tremolo picking. The drums are actually really good throughout this album, and I especially love the copious snare.

I have encountered this band name before, but I think this is the first time I have listened to one of their albums. I say "band" and "their", but The Ruins Of Beverast is another one of these one-man-shops.

It puts me in mind of Lamp Of Murmur--whose recent album I really enjoyed--both in style/mood and because that outfit is also one guy.

Tempelschlaf is pretty epic, equal parts heavy and mournful. And honestly, who can resist a song title like "Babel, You Scarlet Queen!"? Even setting aside the awesome title, it's a really good song! I am enjoying this album quite a bit on the first listen, and I think it may be another grower.

On the one hand, this album is a pretty basic offering of black/death metal, filled with gore and blasphemy (although by far not the worst one can find in that regard). Unlike a lot of stuff in this subgenre, though, the vocals are relatively legible.

On the other hand, it's only about twenty minutes long and all the songs are pretty short. About the time this album is starting to wear out its welcome, it is done.

It is hard to imagine I will remember anything about this album or band by the time tomorrow rolls around.

This one is not pure doom, but tends to lean fairly hard in that direction… not generally my cup of tea, but I don't think it's bad as this sort of stuff goes.

There's a mix of deathcore-style vocals and clean singing, and the tempos are relatively slow, with the occasional burst of double-kick.

This album looks to be the band's first full-length release, after a couple of EPs over the two prior years. That may explain why it feels a little disjointed—a collection of songs rather than a cohesive album. Even so, I found this album growing on me over the course of my first listen, so I may return to it at some point to see how it holds up.

Kinda doom-y, mostly death-y. I like the opening track ("A Monument To Fallen Virtues), with its relatively slow tempo and thunder crackling in the background. "Dolos" is a good one, too.

Overall, I prefer this album's slower moments over the parts where they speed things up. Unfortunately (at least for me), the latter constitutes the majority of the run-time. The whole affair does have a cavernous sound to it that I appreciate; I think it works well for their sound.

So yeah—not bad, but not great either. I didn't mind listening to it or feel like my time was wasted, but I doubt I will return to this album.

The 15yo and I were listening to this album in the car on the way into school this morning, and we both agreed that it is squarely in the bucket of "perfectly serviceable."

Ectovoid is a metal band out of Alabama in the US; they've been around for a good number of years now, but this is the first of their stuff I've listened to. It's pretty straightforward death metal, well-played and I enjoyed listening to it.

I will give them extra points for the album title (In Unreality's Coffin) and cover art, both of which seem uncomfortably appropriate for the current state of the world.