Welcome to Seven Deadly Songs, Metal Lair’s weekly feature where we aim to provide the discerning metalhead with seven delectable morsels of music to ease the pain of our quotidian travails. This week, we’ll be looking at some of the best albums to be released in the world of metal between the 28th of April and the 4th of May, savouring the songs that make the working week that little bit easier to bear. We hope you enjoy them.
No Heroes – Whitewalls
Minnesota blackened death metal band No Heroes will release their new album Brood Eternal on May 2nd via Sound of the Northwoods. Whitewalls is the first single from the album, which has been in the works since 2015, apparently. (The title of the song might be a reference to Game of Thrones. I don’t know. I didn’t watch it.) It’s a disconcerting listening experience, with dissonant guitars that sound at times like warning sirens, which, combined with the anguished screams of Sklarr Gabel, can’t help but leave the listener feeling decidedly unsettled. It’s a challenging but compelling piece of music that has us expecting great things from the album to come.
Hangfire – Burn
Hangfire, the heavy metal/hard rock band from Olympia, Washington, release their debut album, Burn, on May 2nd via Rottweiler Records, and the title track suggests it’s going to be one to savour, characterised as it is by sharp, staccato riffs in perfect lockstep with the kick drum pattern and the glorious, almost operatic voice of Jenea Fiore. The album cover is a beautiful but distressing image of a woodland conflagration overseen by an enigmatic female figure from a high vantage point, which perhaps serves as an apposite metaphor for this and any band that deals in heavy music augmented by ethereal female vocals.
Crematory – Welt Aus Glas
Continuing the fine tradition of German industrial metal that includes such illustrious names as Die Krupps, KMFDM and, of course, Rammstein, we have veteran industrial/gothic metal band Crematory, who release, astonishingly, their 17th studio album Destination via Roar/Rock of Angels on May 2nd. Welt Aus Glas – the title means “world made out of glass” if Google Translate is not misinforming me – blends atmospheric synths with crunching riffs and deep, sonorous vocals. The video is worth watching for the impressive sideburns of frontman Gerhard “Felix” Stass alone. What a beautiful pair of mutton chops!
Believe in Nothing – Complete Desolation
British band Believe in Nothing released Complete Desolation, their latest single, on April 30th via Church Road Records, and it’s an unnerving blend of black metal and sludge with guitars tuned lower than the dire prospects for humanity articulated in the lyrics, a pain expressed perfectly by the agonised howls of vocalist Caine Hemmingway – not to be confused with Metal Lair’s own Caine Blackthorn! The video consists of harrowing, seemingly post-apocalyptic images that remind me of the 1980s British nuclear disaster movie Threads, which is one of those cinematic experiences from which you never fully recover, so harrowing is its imagery. It’s not a comfortable listen, but it is a rewarding one. If you believe in anything, believe in Believe in Nothing.
Demonic Death Judge – Goner
Goner is the second single from Absolutely Launched, the fifth full-length album from Finnish stoner/sludge metal band Demonic Death Judge, which was released on April 30th via Suicide Records. It’s a succulent taste of what is sure to be a great album, with its tight grooves, delightfully fuzzy bass and some ballsy, bluesy riffing that would grace any Down album. There’s an exquisitely languid solo and a welcome bit of cowbell in there as well – all too rare in metal these days. The aggressive, black metal vocal style employed by Jaakko Heinonen is juxtaposed starkly with the grooviness of the instrumental performance, and it probably shouldn’t work, but it works very well indeed!
Slung – Class A Cherry
British alternative metal band Slung release their debut album, In Ways, via Art as Catharsis/Fat Dracula on May 1st. The Brighton-based quartet’s music has a similar dreamy, atmospheric quality to that of Tool, but it’s warmer and less austere, sounding more akin to something from A Perfect Circles’s first album Mer de Noms. Katie Oldham’s voice has a fey, otherworldly quality, not unlike that of Maynard James Keenan, minus the lower register, obviously. The band are on tour throughout the UK in May, and are sure to be a compelling live act, judging by the quality of this song and others made available on YouTube prior to the album’s release.
Praetor – The Spiral of Addiction
We round off this week’s list with a first for me. I have never before covered a band from Luxembourg, but what I’m hearing from Praetor is too good not to include. The Spiral of Addiction is the title track and opener from their second album, due to be released on May 2nd via Metal East Productions. Their music is billed as thrash metal, but on this song at least, they verge on mid-1990s groove metal to my ears, bearing a striking resemblance to Burn my Eyes-era Machine Head, with occasional flourishes in the riffing that bring to mind Chuck Schuldiner’s extreme metal pioneers Death. They might hail from a tiny country, but they make a huge noise, and we strongly recommend that you check them out.
