Arghoslent - Incorrigible Bigotry

Country: USA | Genre: Death metal | Label: Drakkar Productions

Galloping through the Riffs? Incorrigible Riffagry? Hornets of the Riff? If the pattern is forming in your mind, you will be aware of Arghoslent's absolute riff supremacy – despite the unique ‘Arghoslent' nature of all their material, Incorrigible Bigotry sees the band moving on from the lo-fi residue of early releases and embracing a more colourful and vivid expression of hate mongering. Finding influence in bands like Iron Maiden more so than any death metal group, Arghoslent play a fluid and innovative form of traditional heavy metal, already twisted in unusual ways but even more so by the inclusion of guttural vocals and controversial revisionist lyrics. Their music is epic in scope, melodic in nature and poignant in delivery, making them one of the truly great death metal acts of the last twenty years. (Berkay)

Bathory - Nordland I

Country: Sweden | Genre: Pagan Metal | Label: Black Mark

After a number of decent but ultimately disappointing albums, Quorthon finally came back with two genuine pagan metal albums, the very style he once pioneered. While I was hopeful of something at least good, I never expected the Nordlands to be quite this fantastic, especially the first one. While most fans will probably have fonder recollections of Hammerheart and Twilight of the Gods, I daresay that Nordland I is a substantial improvement of that particular style. More refined song writing, more adept instrumentality and above all a far more confident singing voice make for a tremendous comeback. It's a tragedy that these albums were also Quorthon's last, but at least his musical legacy ended on a high note. May your stay in Valhalla be an awesome one Quorthon. (Alex)

Isis - Oceanic

Country: USA | Genre: Atmospheric Sludge | Label: Ipecac Recordings

Until hearing Oceanic, Isis' second full length, I would have thought it near impossible for a single album to be evocative of so many seemingly disparate traits. Sometimes lush and beautiful, sometimes crushingly heavy, sometimes haunting and spare, sometimes dense and overwhelming, it was still somehow a stunningly coherent musical statement driven by massive washes of guitar and battering percussion. Not quite doom, not quite sludge, not quite shoegaze, not quite post rock it forced metal reviewers to expand their vocabularies to the describe the (then) unique sound. The host of copycats and knock offs trying and failing to capture its sound and feeling over the last few years only serves to reinforce Oceanic's brilliance. Call it atmospheric sluge, call it post metal, call it Neur-Isis core, call it whatever, Oceanic will always remain one of heavy metal's most perfect albums. (Tim)

Leviathan - Far Beyond the Light

Country: Sweden | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Selbstmord Services

A side-project of Sir A. from Armagedda which ends up being a hundred times darker and more atmospheric than his former main band, Far Beyond the Light drags you bodily through the deepest layers of the Abyss. This is certainly not the only album which uses a layered production, but somehow this particular production job manages to give the interplay between the two guitars a transcendental quality, as if you are suspended between the more earthy and stygian rhythm guitar and the abstractly weaving meanderings of the lead guitar on a level below that, giving the distinct impression of descent into suffocating ultra-mundane realms of being. (Alex)

Mortal Decay - Forensic

Country: USA | Genre: Brutal Death Metal | Label: Unique Leader Records

Back when the brutal death metal bands were content ripping off Suffocation, Mortal Decay released an album so brilliantly unique and twisted in its design that most people didn't get it and considered it as an aberration on the typical Unique Leader catalogue. Reminiscent of Demilich at a time when they weren't very well known, Forensic's music is highly intricate, decidedly technical and yet remarkably fluid and catchy. From start to finish the music has an amazing rhythmic quality to it. The riffs are like snakes of varying sizes squirming in a dark pit which you will realise later to be connected to each other to form an unearthly creature of monstrous proportions. Adding to the uniqueness of the album are eerie melodic solos and one of the best and most versatile vocal performances in this genre by one-time vocalist Johnny Paoline, who continuously switches from deep Antti Boman-esque grunts to throaty screams to even whispers, not to mention his haunting burp-laugh. In short, Forensic is an overlooked and criminally underappreciated brutal death metal masterpiece. (Kunal)

Origin - Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas

Country: USA | Genre: Death/Grind | Label: Relapse Records

Bolt Thrower's second album used Warhammer 40,000's Chaos Space Marines for inspiration, but it is Origin's second album that singularly emulates monstrous extra-terrestrial armageddon-driven perversion on the galactic scale. Mutating, merciless, malevolent majesty is delivered by a demonically possessed five-piece operating on a distorted timeline to unleash colossal planetoids at unnatural velocities - in your melting face. It is the sound of fury from multiple dimensions, the scream of perpetual agony and the overwhelming revelation that violent death is a universal and incontrovertible absolute. III is one of the most extreme albums in music history that, like the most feared narcotics, targets your senses with surgical precision and unravels them to leave you wanting another fix of masterminded carnage. (Mike)

Reverend Bizarre - In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend

Country: Finland | Genre: Doom Metal | Label: Sinister Figure

Before they became overbearingly ironic, retro and self-aware, Reverend Bizarre released a single great doom metal album. Dramatic baritone vocals reminiscent of later Saint Vitus, a huge fuzzy guitar tone, malevolent overtones of Christian mythology, pounding drums, looong tragic songs with just enough rock amidst the languishment, this is one of the purest expressions in modern traditional doom metal. (Travis)

Rotten Sound - Murderworks

Country: Finland | Genre: Grindcore | Label: Deathvomit Records

Especially coming after a tame, hardcore-influenced album like Drain, Rotten Sound literally blew their listeners away with Murderworks. It exploded out of the speakers and its impact was felt not just heard. Those who stood their ground and survived heard the album again because thought they missed it the first time. Electrifying grindcore music is delivered with the grittiness of death metal on a scale so immense that it is surreal. Enveloping the listener in fiery chaos, with screams emanating from within and frightening roars thundering from above, as colossal riffs rain unceasingly, crushing and maiming without discrimination, Murderworks is like the sound of pissed off Gods attacking mankind from the heavens. (Kunal)

Taake - Over Bjoergvin Graater Himmerik

Country: Norway | Genre: Black Metal | Label: Wounded Love

Picking up the slack of Norway's now largely redundant black metal scene, Taake's trilogy is one of the most solid set of black metal albums you are ever likely to hear. Taking snippets from pretty much every playing style in the Norse scene, Hoest forges these into epic compositions that are much more than the sum of their individual parts. Bjoergvin is in my estimation the strongest of his first three full lengths, providing complex yet instantly accessible songs, rooted firmly in the second wave of black metal, with subtle yet definitely noticeable folk, thrash and traditional metal sensibilities informing nearly every riff on this album. With stellar dynamic arrangements and riffs that are as hard-hitting as they are melodic, Bjoergvin stays rooted in tradition and also blazes a new path forward, thus dragging the entire tradition with them. Any prospective black metal musician should take a close, hard look at Taake and realize that it is this traditional yet evolving song writing style which makes them stand above most other adherents of the second wave. (Alex)

Wyrd - Huldrafolk

Country: Finland | Genre: Folk Black Metal | Label: Millenium Music

This is folk black metal done right. Coming hot on the heels of his cool concept album debut Heathen, which was an hour long song, Huldrafolk goes back to a more standard template, featuring six songs between five and thirteen minutes. All the atmosphere of the debut is however maintained to the fullest and if anything Huldrafolk's six distinct tracks manage to present both a more diverse and more focused musical picture, due to the much tighter song writing. What sets this apart from most other black metal of the folky persuasion are the much more robust riffs and solid sounding acoustics. None of that wispy meandering here (though that can be nice in its own right when done well), but awesome, infectious folk music and black metal melded to a natural whole. (Alex)