When the masters and rulers of thrash metal are discussed, everyone goes to the Big Four, understandably, or to bands such as Exodus or Testament. Kreator never seems to appear early enough in those conversations, at least domestically as they never got the same level of exposure here. But they should get even more love than they do.

Their 16^th record “Krushers of the World” is about to land, and while it might not be what really breaks them in the States, it’s another solid entry from a band without a goddamn thing to prove. Consisting of vocalist/guitarist Miland “Mille” Petrozza, guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö, bassist Frédéric Leclercq, and drummer Jürgen “Ventor” Reil, the band delivers what very much sounds like a Kreator record with a few surprises attached. It’s not their heaviest or most acidic work, but it’s still a pretty good piece of business ripe for replaying. Oh, one negative is the band used AI for two of the promo videos for this record, but apparently nothing involving the artwork and music on this album. But still, ugh.

“Seven Serpents” starts and is a classic Kreator opener, even if it isn’t necessarily a total barnstormer. The leads are warmer, and the band takes its time to settle in, Petrozza howling, “Snakes in human form!” Guitars jolt as gothy chorals add ash, feeling atmospheric and blazing as they race to the finish. “Satanic Anarchy” drives with energy, and a great chorus sticks in your head and likely would stand as great call-back fodder live. Verses blister as things even out, the soloing storming and mangling, the call of, “Start the fire!” sparking adrenaline. The title track trudges and burns, a catchy chorus washing over, the thrashiness infused with oxygen. “We are by your side,” Petrozza wails as the playing chugs, creaky speaking freezes your blood, and the final moments melt into the ground. “Tränenpalast” features Britta Görtz (Hiraes/Chaos Rising) howling along with Petrozza, her shrieks feeling deadlier and bloodier. The track itself is inspired by Dario Argento’s 1977 film “Suspiria,” and they pay homage in a mix of fire and ice, the vocals driving deep into your mind, keys trickling away as the fantastical finish enraptures. “Barbarian” opens with added speed and aggression, plastering as the chorus punishes, the speed adding to the attack. The band hits as close to a breakdown as you can expect from them, the screams belting, and the leads powering a heated finish.

“Blood of Our Blood” combusts, pushing with added intensity, the playing feeling punchy and catchy as the chorus jolts. The guitars catch fire as the playing pushes more violently, Petrozza howling, “The eyes are useless when the mind is blind,” as the final shots poke oozing wounds. “Combatants” starts clean before gusting with a blast, the track feeling increasingly anthemic, making energy zap through your brain. “Fight for you life!” Petrozza demands as drums march and the last seconds turn into a total rampage. “Psychotic Imperator” smears with speed and fire, the verses blasting with torment before the choruses further rouse. “Pure! Aggression!” Petrozza belts, the playing liquifying metal and letting a chrome river flow generously. “Deathscream” lets the guitars pace and the vocals energize, the chorus punishing and leaving singed flesh. The soloing engulfs and helps smooth out the brutality, storming to a quaking conclusion. Closer “Loyal to the Grave” is a gem at the end of the record, one that could be a live staple for years. The melodic charge bubbles over and coats with steel, breezier leads electrify, and the pace keeps challenging. “Your soul and mine, they are the same,” Petrozza declares, the classic thrash attack peaking one more time before ending in glory.

Kreator still are creating thrash fire on a consistent basis on “Krushers of the World,” yet another strong record from one of the German scene’s progenitors. While not quite as ferocious as 2022’s “Hate über alles,” this album still explodes with some really strong material that could find permanent slots in their live setlist. This band has been one of thrash’s biggest powers, and their resume more than speaks for itself. So every quality new record we get from them is icing on the heaping thrash cake.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.kreator-terrorzone.de/

To buy the album, go here: https://kreator.bandcamp.com/album/krushers-of-the-world

It’s weird living in America and watching the conversations about Russia change mysteriously. Oh, not about the people who live there. They can’t help it. No, the leadership. We can detest the politics but still want its people to succeed, and that’s the sloppy way I am starting to talk about Void Monuments and their debut record.

“Posthumous Incantation” is the Russian band’s debut album, and it has all the hallmarks of traditional death one might come to expect. It’s heavy, devious, dark, and hits all the right buttons. The band—vocalist/guitarist K. Svart, guitarist P. Doom, bassist Ivan, drummer Bestial Barlog (potentially not his given name)—makes a good case for themselves on these eight tracks and 36 minutes, keeping up the intensity and the bloodshed. There is potential for them to expand what they’re doing and inject more of themselves into the music, so there’s time to branch out as they grow.

“Intro” opens dramatically, winds whipping, synth pulsing as screams lash and organs fade into “Epitome of Fear.” There, guitars fire as the band thrashes away, throaty howls bursting as fires char. Drums rampage while the growls coat the pain, the leads taking off and fading into the night. “Devilish Prophecies” is doomy and barbaric, pummeling with evil intent, beastly howls sending listeners into a vortex of madness. Darkness and filth unite, menacing tones send jolts down your spine, and chilling organs exit with strangeness. “Decapitate the Saints” blasts open, the guitars adding to the heat, the brutality multiplying dangerously as the leads carve paths into flesh. The spatter accumulates as throaty wails peel flesh, and the guitars mount a final attack that ends in fire.

“Ascent to the Crucifixion” dawns in deathly fog, guitars vibrating as doom flows through veins, sweeping into impenetrable gloom. Growls smear as the pace pounds harder, soloing goes off and spits fire, and the screams melt and jostle into carnage. “Invocation” rings out in the air before bringing down the hammer, the guitars knifing their way into your psyche, infernal pressure taking you apart. Drums rupture and blister as the stream builds and rolls, liquifying guts before allowing an ounce of mercy. “The Sign of Blasphemy” has riffs firing and blasting, the pace hulking along, making muscles ache. The guitars stun as the growls maul, spacious melodies adding air to the suffocating aura, exploring to an abrupt end. Closer “Father of Sin” starts in clean, eerie strangeness, and then brutality arrives, growls squeezing arteries. Sludgy elements make this even heavier, the speed pulverizing, howls engorging, the final moments scorched into eternity.

Void Monuments waste little time establishing their entry into hell with “Posthumous Incantation,” a strong first record that leaves the band with some room to develop. This is misery and punishment from front to back, a record that should leave you flattened. They could stand to add a little more of their own personality and musical DNA into future releases, but as a first shot, this is really solid stuff and should leave ample bruising.   

For more on the band, go here: https://www.instagram.com/voidmonuments/

To buy the album, go here: https://shop.bloodharvest.se/product-category/blood-harvest-records/preorders/

For more on the label, go here: https://www.bloodharvest.se/

Starting off the year in as sickening a manner possible, let’s welcome back Alabama-based death crushers Ectovoid, who return with “In Unreality’s Coffin,” their first full-length in nine years. It’s a weird mouthful of a title, isn’t it?

Anyway, “Coffin” is their third record, 2012’s “Fractured in the Tireless Abyss” coming first in 2012, followed by “Dark Abstraction” in 2015 (just reissued last year by Boris Records). The band—vocalist/guitarist C.B., guitarist/backing vocalist S.S. (C.S. played on the record), bassist R.S., drummer C.M.—digs into the deeper annals of horrifying, grotesque death metal, clawing as hard at the guts as they do the psyche. It’s brutal and done in a way that will make people who have been around since the beginning feel comfortable.

“Dissonance Corporeum” starts with guitars spilling and the pace charging, growls stirring as the punishment turns rubbery and brutal. Guitars mash as the leads go off and create smoke, the power chewing through bone, ramping up the speed. “Collapsing Spiritual Nebula” sprawls as the growls choke, the pace snarling as the heat increases. The carnage blasts open, leads fluttering, the guitars blazing with intensity, growls mangling before bashing out. “Intrusive Illusions (Echoes From a Distant Plane)” is a bruising storyteller that will warp your senses, fast, punchy strains pushing into your chest cavity, guitars swimming in pools of muck. Acid spirals as the howls bury bodies, guitars conducting trial by fire. “Formless Seeking Form” chugs, a howl/shriek combo suffocating, muddy terrain stomped as brain wiring burns. The gears head into slow-driving fury before speeding up again, trudging and choking on flesh.

“Irradiated Self” brings storming leads and cavernous wails, driving and menacing as the darkness strangles. The pace turns everything to dust, brawling through a blinding fury that threatens safety. The title track blisters as the growls gurgle, guitars thrust, and the devastation turns to decay. The leads erupt and twist necks, ripping as the soloing explores, hitting the gas pedal before disintegrating. “Erroneous Birth” is savage, the vocals smearing with ill intent, the pace gaining speed as the drums smother. Guitars spill over as the growls mangle morbidly, leading to the fire following the fuel path into total annihilation. “It Is Without Shape…” bleeds in darker guitars, airier melodies, and a melodic gust that sprawls. Gothy tones add to the ashen shadows as the instrumental piece bubbles to its end. Closer “In Anguished Levitation” splatters right away, the growls battering, mucky death metal clogging veins. Humidity rises as the guitars surge and growls pummel, ending everything harshly and cloaked in blood.

It may be nine years since Ectovoid delivered a full-length effort, but they haven’t lost an ounce of their violent tendencies and ability to sicken, which “In Unreality’s Coffin” proves. They open a new year with a smoldering, devastating effort that reminds us ugliness is all around, and that inherently lives in their music. This is pure death with a modern filter that still speaks to the foulest of realities imaginable.

For more on the band, go here: https://everlastingspew.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here: https://everlastingspew.com/21-everlasting-spew-releases

For more on the label, go here: https://everlastingspew.com/

40. CONAN, “Violence Dimension” (Heavy Psych Sounds

39. LIGHTLESS, “A foreseen loss” (Fading Light Studio)

38. LADY BEAST, “The Inner Alchemist” (Dying Victims)

37. ZEICRYDEUS, “Le grande hérésie” (Productions TSO)

36. RETURNING, “Numinous” (Bindrune Recordings)

35. GAAHLS WYRD, “Braiding the Stories” (Season of Mist)

34. RITUAL MASS, “Cascading Misery” (20 Buck Spin)

33. CHRISTIAN MISTRESS, “Children of the Earth” (Cruz del Sur)

32. KAYO DOT, “Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason” (Prophecy Productions)

31. CORONER, “Dissonance Theory” (Century Media)

30. STARER, “Ancient Monuments and Modern Sadness” (Fiadh/Snow Wolf)

29. MORKE, “To Carry On” (True Cult)

28. WRYMOON, “Wyrmoon II” (Fiadh)

27. GRAYCEON, “Then the Darkness” (Translation Loss)

26. PELICAN, “Flickering Resonance” (Run for Cover)

25. HOODED MENACE, “Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration” (Season of Mist):

24. WITHERER, “Shadow Without a Horizon” (Hypaethral)

23. CASTRATOR, “Coronation of the Grotesque” (Dark Descent)

22. CASTLE RAT, “The Bestiary” (King Volume/Blues Funeral)

21. HELL, “Submersus” (Sentient Ruin)

20. TOWER, Let There Be Dark” (Cruz del Sur)

19. OROMET, “The Sinking Isle” (Hypaethal)

18. WEALD + WOE, “Far From the Light of Heaven” (Fiadh)

17. PHOBOCOSM, “Gateway” (Dark Descent)

16. MESSA, “The Spin” (Metal Blade)

15. AGRICULTURE, “The Spiritual Sound” (The Flenser)

14. ANCIENT DEATH, “Ego Dissolution” (Profound Lore)

13. BLUT AUS NORD, “Ethereal Horizons” (Debemur Morti)

12. CLAIRVOYANCE, “Chasm of Immurement” (Carbonized)

11. RANAGA/DROWSE, “Ash Souvenir” (The Flenser)

10. LUST HAG, “Irrevocably Drubbed” (Fiadh)

9. MARES OF THRACE, “The Loss” (Artoffact)

8. RWAKE, “The Return of Magik” (Relapse)

7. TERZIJ DE HORDE, “Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone” (Church Road/Fiadh/Tartarus)

6. DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT, “Innern” (Season of Mist)

5. WEFT, “The Splintered Oar” (Bindrune Recordings)

4. TRIBUNAL, “In Penitence and Ruin” (20 Buck Spin)

3. FAETOOTH, “Labyrinthine” (The Flenser)

2. HEDONIST, “Scapulimancy” (Southern Lord)

1. YELLOW EYES, “Confusion Gate” (Gilead Media)

I’m starting to really hate surprises considering we wake up to so many bad ones each day. Yet, a few weeks before its Halloween release date, I found an unexpected one in my inbox, one that instantly made me pine for the day and get everything out of the way so I could absorb this album properly: in total seclusion. It was the new Yellow Eyes record, and from the moment I heard it, I knew it would be my record of the year.

“Confusion Gate” is a mesmerizing opus from black metal force Yellow Eyes. To say the album is moving, monstrous, breathtaking, and completely from this band’s artistic DNA would almost go without saying. But there’s more depth, different sounds, and a reinvigorated machine—vocalist/guitarist Will Skarstad, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Sam Skarstad, bassist Alex DeMaria, drummer Michael Rekevics. Inspired heavily by their 2023 release “Master’s Murmur,” this record takes that spirit and electrifies it, making it a full on beast of the woods, stalking and opening strange doorways to realms not before considered. It’s a stunning display, and I still stop listening to it. It put it on in my car and almost instantly think I should give something else some time. Nah, I adore this, the second-to-last in Gilead Media’s storied history, by the way.

“Brush the Frozen Horse” opens with familiar chimes and the gentle arms of nature before everything erupts, keys blaring and guitars bending you into corners. Howls snarl as the steam rises, the guitars taking on a higher tone that noticeably ramps up, the tempo spiraling and crushing, disorienting as the leads soar. Speed strikes as the pace combusts, blasting into a synth scape that melds with the fog. “The Thought of Death” starts with airy sax you would expect from an adult contemporary song, but it’s a misdirect as riffs explode out of that, and the vocals maul. Emotional waves crash down as guitars sparkle and melt, and a strong, violent push jolts every bone. “I Fear the Master’s Murmur” opens with acoustics ringing out and voices swirling, and then everything goes off, fierce growls pounding the way, beastly sentiments making the pressure even more intense. The playing splatters into strange melodies, the guitar lines tingling your spine, confusion overwhelming as you try to find your balance. “The Scent of Black Mud” starts in mesmerizing form. The drums punish as the vocals strengthen their grip, wrenching as the playing plasters and undoes some brain wiring. The leads turn to icy tributaries, and then the spirit rampages forward, wrecking as everything scatters, impulses continuing to fire until the notes fade. This is a record that will live with me in perpetuity along with a bunch of other non-stop classics that made me who I am. A timeless release. (Oct. 31)

For more on the band, go here: https://yelloweyes.bandcamp.com/

To buy the album, go here: https://gileadmedia.net/collections/gilead-media-releases

For more on the label, go here: https://gileadmedia.net/