A Certain Taste

The night draws in earlier each day. Its dark encroaches on my time bit by bit, trying to wear me down. Each morning it stays later, holding back the sun longer each day. "You will not win, darkness. YOU WILL NOT WIN." I yell into the twilight. The rain and sleet and snow may fall. The wind may gale. The night will cover it all in darkness, but I will prevail! Dramatic inspiration aside, November sucks. It's dark, cold and the day runs away from you faster than a dog that just rolled in its own shit. But November's releases have been straight fire. All of the things I enjoyed listening to from November can be found on this Spotify playlist . The top five, in no order, are below. Of Feather and Bone - Sulphuric Disintegration I had no idea what to expect from this record. The art and logo are suitably death metal but the band name didn't strike me as a death metal name. Silly me. Of Feather and Bone are  death metal, and a very angry one at that. There is no breath...

My whole thing is doing a single article covering my five favourite records released each month. It's easy for me to keep up with (he says, having never posted an article on time) and it's theoretically of greater value than picking and choosing individual albums to review every week. This is concentrated curation. That being said, most months there are albums I really feel bad missing out. October's releases were so strong I can probably pull out another 10 albums that are genuinely worthy of your time. I'm going to give it a go now anyway, and you can let me know if I'm wrong. As always, these are in no order, and can all be found on my October playlist . Amiensus - Abreaction The fourth release from this American black-metal adjacent metal band. Atmospheric in places, symphonic elements used tastefully, brutally heavy when required. Really enjoyed this one. Inferni - Of Sunless Realms Malcolm Pugh is tech death's Misha Mansoor. I'm sure you know who Infer...

This has been a really worthwhile project. As the months go on, I've developed a much deeper sense of how broad the spectrum of heavy music really is. Not that I wasn't aware of both the slowest of slows and the extremely fast and technical, but I hadn't fully explored my own tastes within the embarrassing riches of heavy music. I have the entire history of music from the birth of blues onwards to delve into, so of course, I'm only scratching the surface but I've enjoyed expanding my musical horizons over the past few months. Hopefully there have been releases I've covered this year that have been new to you too.  My five favourite releases from this month include at least three I wouldn't have predicted I'd have listened to back in January. What's the point in being alive if you don't grow though, eh. You can check out this month's Spotify playlist here . Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment Next year marks the 20th year Anaal Nathrakh have been wi...

Some months are hard. The sheer volume of music released in a month that gets me excited is overwhelming and I could pick five other albums and it would be an equally as strong list as the one I post. But on the other hand, I have a hard time getting to three. September 2020 was somewhere in the middle. Yes, I've got a couple honorable mentions in here, technically bringing the list up to 7, but that's half of the whole shortlist I put together in this month's  playlist . Is there a record in here that would make an AOTY list? I'm not sure yet, but read on for my five favourite releases of September and make up your own mind. The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic The Ocean have been on my periphery for a while. You could say I dipped my toe in but never really dived in head first. Ok, enough of that. I was really impressed with Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic but I never took the time to look back at previous releases before now. I should have. Now referring to thems...