A Certain Taste

 Here's the only death metal I've ever recorded. There's a few things  I don't like about my playing. I wish I'd spend a little longer getting a few of the double kick parts down properly instead of going "meh that'll do!" - most noticeable in Manufactured Apocalypse, and also I should have insisted that the stick clicks be taken out of the song Face. But yeah there you go, pretty happy with it overall apart from that. Vulsellum - Face EP by Kieran McRobben

Doom had never really been on my radar. Sure I'd heard some Black Sabbath, and a few Candlemass tracks but I never sought out more. What a fool! My favourite release of January was Garganjua 's Toward the Sun. I thought of it more as post-rock than I did doom. Listening again, upon hitting the halfway point of the first song, The New Sun, I believe any doom fan will appreciate the absolutely massive riffage. I bought it instantly after my first play-through and it's up there with my most played vinyl. My collection is small but that doesn't diminish my point. Toward The Sun by Garganjua   Earlier this year Loviatar released their debut album, Lightless, after a string of EPs and singles. I don't know what convinced me to hit play on a doom record, but the purpose of this project is to listen to new music so why not also dip my toes in a new genre, right? While only six tracks long, this clocks in at close to 40 minutes. I didn't realise this pattern is common in

How can July be so poor yet August be so, so good? I've really struggled to keep this at five. But I also cheated and added a few noteworthy mentions. If you don't like it you can speak to the manager. I always put together everything I liked each month in a Spotify playlist. You can check August's here . Necrot - Mortal Sometimes metal Twitter goes wild for a release and I just don't get if. Everyone wanked furiously over the new Release the Archers album but it's not my thing at all so I gave it a wide berth. Necrot's Mortal on the other hand... It's fair to say I've listened to this a lot. The weird thing is that it's hard to pinpoint exactly what I enjoy about this over any other mid-tempo death metal release this year. There are no real surprises or wholly novel ideas on show. So why is this release surrounded by so much hype? I think the main box that Mortal ticks is "consistency". A mature-sounding death metal album that does not mis