New Music Report – August 20, 2021

This has been another absolutely stacked week, holy shit. New albums aside, new singles from ETID, Silent Planet, Phinehas, Spiritbox, Volumes, and Rolo Tomassi is HUGE, like, how does that all even happen in the same week? And all at the same time as new BTBAM and WITTR. I’m not gonna lie, most of the summer was pretty slow for new music but man, these past few weeks have been absolutely insane. Hopefully this keeps up through the end of the year, but with all these new announcements for fall releases starting to roll out, it seems like that’s going to be the case.

Between the Buried and Me – This album is fucking insane. Like, I know as a musician of over two decades I could literally never aspire to be good enough to play in BTBAM, that’s fine, I’ve made friends with that fact, but just the memory these guys must have to remember these huge, sprawling, complex songs is absolutely beyond me. I can’t remember the last time I felt dumber listening to an album. But man, was it worth it. For what it’s worth, I’ve kinda fallen off BTBAM in the past few years, they’re an incredible band, of course, but they got a little too proggy for me. I was hopefully that Colors 2 – billed as the spiritual successor to their absolute ripper of an album, Colors – would bring back some of their old metal flair, and boy, did it. I honestly can’t say enough good things about this album. It’s got just incredible musicianship, song writing, diversity, complexity… I could go on. This is a full-on masterclass not only in progressive metal, but in what it means to be a musician playing at the absolute top of your game. Listen to this album, please.

Wolves in the Throne Room – This is a completely different side of the coin. Not to say WITTR aren’t talented musicians, but this is all about the atmosphere and the feel of the song. And they manage to create some of the bleakest, darkest soundscapes I’ve heard in ages, and yet they do so beautifully. These guys have been setting the scene for post-black metal for years now. People have been crediting Deafheaven for setting the genre on fire, but WITTR have really helped propel it forward with wonderfully crafted and deeply thoughtful albums. This is one of those albums that really takes a while to digest, when you listen to it, it’s just so easy to get lost in it, only to surface about 45 minutes later with the album starting over again. You felt the whole thing, but it was hard to really catch all the details. As such, I’m still digesting this one. But on first impression, I’m not entirely sure it’s quite as good as their last album though very close. But that was a masterpiece, so it’s almost an unfair benchmark. I’m still incredibly fond of this album and look forward to spending a lot of time with it.

Singles/Albums – Every Time I Die (GOAT Metalcore), Silent Planet (Also GOAT Metalcore), Rolo Tomassi (Progressive Metalcore), Deafheaven (LP, Shoegaze), The Plot in You (Post-Hardcore), Volumes (Djent), Everyone Dies in Utah (Metalcore), Spiritbox (Metalcore), Turnstile (Hardcore), Vildhjarta (Progressive Metal), Phinehas (Metalcore), Senses Fail (feat. Spencer from Ice Nine Kills, Post-Hardcore), Obscura (Death Metal)