Sarin - Burial Dream

It seems crazy to think about, but 2015 marks five years since Isis called it quits, leaving the metal world without one of its most important and influential bands.  Just as crazy to think about is that post-metal as a genre is doing at least as well now as it was when the world lost Isis.  Part of that is due to the members of the band pursuing other projects with the same insane level of talent they brought to Isis; another is a new wave of post-metal bands following in Isis' wake.  Pelican continues to defy expectations and improve on every album they release, and I've written before about my love for Cold Blue Mountain and their phenomenal 2014 album Old Blood.  Now another disciple has stepped forward to spread the good word, in the form of Brampton, Ontario's Sarin, and their new album Burial Dream.

Sylosis - Dormant Heart

2015 sure didn't waste anytime gearing up for a year of excellent releases.  Here to set the pace is Dormant Heart, the fourth full length album from England's Sylosis.  While the band's formula over the course of their discography hasn't changed too dramatically, their knack for molding pulse pounding rhythms and infectious thrash riffs into a darker atmosphere is something that's noticeably improved with each release.  Dormant Heart has taken this predestined groundwork and unearthed an album that could well be considered the band's magnum opus.

New Listening: Periphery, Lost In Pain, Luna, Desolate Shrine

The beauty of the dawning of a brand new year is the renewal of the never-ending challenge of sinking your teeth (ears?) in as much new music as possible.  Thus far, 2015 seems to have been very generous in satiating our needs towards this end.  In this roundup of new tunes I'm stumbled across, there are four entries that cover the spectrum of blackened death metal, djent, old school, and instrumental funeral doom.  These entries are formatted to be short and sweet; even calling them mini-reviews might be a stretch.

Check it out after the break!

Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars

Metal sub-genres are often problematic endeavors.  At their best and most worthwhile, they give some vague descriptor of sound to potential listeners; at their worst they pigeonhole a band's sound so specifically that every band out there turns into their own sub-genre.  I'm glad they exist, because it can be a nice, easy way to describe a band without exerting too much effort; "Oh, you like doom metal?  You gotta check out Bell Witch (seriously, check out Bell Witch if you haven't yet)!"  At the same time, I hate that they exist because it can be damn near impossible to categorize some bands or albums.  Genres are basically a series of shifting venn diagrams that exist with the complete circle that is "Metal," and quite often a band will exist inside multiple overlapping circles.  Such is the case with Lord Dying's sophomore effort Poisoned Altars; you wouldn't be wrong to call it sludge or stoner metal, but neither of those labels properly convey what awaits you on the album.

Things I Missed in 2014 (Part 1)

It happens every year, without fail, like clockwork, as inevitable as the tide and as destructive to my psyche as a tornado.  I get through my Top Albums of the Year List, settle on the order, become happy, make my peace with my favorite albums of the year, and sit back with a nice glass of scotch to wait for the next year's bounty of metal goodness.  And then, within seconds of that ball dropping and people screaming "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" I find something new.  Something highly enjoyable that I should have found earlier, something worth listening to, and occasionally, something that would have changed my year end list.  Every.  Fucking.  Year.

What follows is a list of 2014 releases I've discovered in the opening weeks of 2015, along with a mini-review of each of them and links to any music I could find.  Most of these fall somewhere into the category of "Man, I'm just really happy to know these exist!" but the last one probably would crack my Top Five from last year if I re-did my list.

Intestinal Crank: Crohn's Disease and Metal Fandom

I've written before about some of the influencing factors in my getting into metal; discovering new music through internet radio and a few key friends who turned me on to bands like Thrice, Mastodon, and Opeth which turned out to be the Gatekeepers to my metal fandom.  One thing I haven't really written about is my fifteen-plus years of dealing with Crohn's Disease, and the impact that's had on my perception of metal, discovery of new bands, and even tastes in metal sub-genres.  During the last few weeks of 2014, however, as I was working on my Top Albums list, I was simultaneously dealing with one of the worst Crohn's flares I've ever had; metal and my intestines had never been so blatantly linked, but the more I thought about that, the more I realized that there's a great possibility that being diagnosed with Crohn's is a much bigger part of why I'm a metalhead than I ever gave it credit for.