It was roughly two years ago that Saor became a landmark band in the underground scene. Blending atmospheric black metal with a heavy amount of orchestrated folk metal, Saor was the topic of discussion after releasing 2014’s Aura. The studio-only project briefly took a turn to playing live, but has since returned to its original status, allowing founder and composer Andy Marshall to focus heavily on songwriting. Thus, we are given Guardians, the project’s third album that builds off of everything that came before it, and delightfully so as it is shaping up to be a bigger album than its two predecessors.
Is it just me, or is death metal just stupidly great this year? The underground scene for death metal seems to be in full effect this year, and with it bands are bringing this extra degree of darkness to the mix, creating something really awesome atmospheres, pummeling riffs, and quality albums from start to finish. With plenty of music in the genre being released this year, let’s take note of some of the best the genre has offered in the past ten months.
It’s not very often, but some weeks there’s just too many albums to come out with and they’re so to-the-point that you need to give blunt, direct commentary on each one. Running with a snake theme, Testament, Crowbar, and the new super-group Serpentine Dominion all released albums, and depending on your flavor you might have something worth picking up! Ranging from ballistic death metal to crushing, doomified sludge metal, this past week had more than enough to appease your varied or particular taste.
I have something of a love-hate relationship with Avenged Sevenfold. Arguably one of the bands that was present in my transition into more extreme metal bands, (City of Evil and their self-titled circa 2008) I did not find myself a fan of Nightmare or Hail to the King upon their release. I still don’t hold a place in my heart for either albums, but at the very least, it was great to see the band grow bigger with each and every release. When people claim there’s never going to be another Metallica or Iron Maiden, look at Avenged Sevenfold and you’ll be proven wrong. That idea, though, is what makes this surprise-release album, The Stage, so interesting.
Sometimes a joke album or concept can have terrible consequences, such as Tommy Lee’s side projects or Vanilla Ice; but sometimes, and these are fairly rare, they can become something beautiful. Such is the project that is Hatebean: featuring members of the Jason Ellis Show off Faction, SiriusXM channel 41 in the mornings, the band has transcended being a joke on the CEO of Faction into a formidable industrial music powerhouse, sounding like a cross between Nine Inch Nails and Ministry.
Very few bands can get away with everything Darkthrone has done musically. Starting as death metal band and then becoming shortly after one of the many faces of the second wave of black metal bands in Norway, the band has (Excuse the pun) manifested a cult following in their career, with no shortage of albums and releases to keep their fans waiting. Twenty-five years after the release of Soulside Journey, Darkthrone are giving their fans Arctic Thunder, their 16th studio album and one that should resonate with fans of their older material more than their recent output.
Back in November of last year, we finally got our Luke Cage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which the titular of Jessica Jones crossed paths with the the would-be Hero for Hire. As the season for Jessica Jones closed, it was already known that Luke himself would be appearing in a series of his own soon enough, of which I was skeptical of. Make no mistake, I was aware of the legacy attached to Luke Cage, as well as his basic backstory and relations with Jessica, as well as his just-as-legendary friendship with Iron Fist and their Heroes for Hire business, but a show for Luke Cage seemed to be difficult for me to process.
