you might've missed this during the shitposting arms race, where bitchy hot takes, sassy memes, and weaponized snark have battered numb true creative expression, leaving it to twitch and convulse in cratered ruins, but actual music was released this year. here's some of the auditory balm that soothed the nerves your continued elitist posturing has crinkled and inflamed:
CITY HUNTER - Deep Blood
a tape-hiss of hazily mined stalker film memory.
ENTARTUN - s/t
scabrously fetishistic power electronics conjointly rendered by Scatmother and Yasuhito Fujinami.
HIMUKALT - Knife Through The Spine
a scrapyard universe beams its alarm.
KNIFE CULT - 10 Ways To Die
Watchmaker lowered into a swamp of Fistula.
MY MIND'S MINE - Passengers of the Void
their grind's fine durrrrrr
NOISEAR / FLAGITIOUS IDIOSYNCRASY IN THE DILAPIDATION - split
2 long time favorites link up to form this screaming chaos.
REPUSLIC - Flower of Carnage
gnarly deathgrind in the vein of Blood, Undergang, and other gut munching barbarioids who have no patience for your "profound lore".
SEPULCHER - Panoptic Horror
simultaneously familiar and alien, Sepulcher hail from an alternate timeline where Thrash Metal never went commercial in the 90s and instead decided to go full unhinged serial killer. Andreas Fosse Salbu delivers the best metal vocal performance of the year.
SU19B - Neutralize
glacially raking the bowels of a Leviathan across jagged burning cobblestones of a Hell no mythology could ever aptly capture.
TRANSIENT/BASTARD NOISE - Sources of Human Satisfaction
full disclosure; i have played with/toured with/been part of releases with both these acts, but even if i hadn't, this would be everything to me; the perfect blend of sharp grind and singular electronics. well done, friends.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
AKITSA - Credo, AUTHOR AND PUNISHER - Beastland, BUFIHIMAT - I, BURMESE - Privileged, ENDON - Boy Meets Girl, EVOKEN - Hypnagogia, FED ASH, Grief as a Prison, GOUGE AWAY - Burnt Sugar, HALLUCINATION REALIZED - Made Hostage To Your Psyche, MAYUKO HINO - Lunisolar, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT - Vile Luxury, JESUS PIECE - Only Self, MALTHUSIAN - Across Deaths, MULE SKINNER - Air Strike, NAGAINA - Dissenter, NOISE TRAIL IMMERSION - Symbology of Shelter, SELF DEFENSE FAMILY - Have You Considered Punk Music, SUMAC - Love In Shadow, UNIFORM - The Long Walk, VISCERA/// - City of Dope and Violence
