THE TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE MONTH should be self-explanatory, an ordered ranking of ten albums that’d resonated most throughout this month. If you’re new to the site, the tendency is heavy and/or surreal music. Choices are selected based on temporal immersion, personal connection, impressive style, point of view, aesthetics and with consideration for the lasting value of each selection. All choices are ultimately personal and come without consideration for populism, nepotism, cronyism, or any outside factors including perceived “relevance”. Writing about music is a passion I afford as much time as is manageable and I am grateful to have so much to choose from. Thank you.

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I. March overflowed with inspired extreme metal releases, too many to praise. Here I’ve taken liberally from the grand chunk of death metal released but we’ve some speed metal and doom metal to warp the mind otherwise. If you’ve got interminable fear of missing out brewing in mind and ten selections just isn’t enough… check out recent releases from these upper-tier or up-and-coming bands: Bloody Vengeance EP, Eternal Champion EP, Sacreligious (Swe) demo, The Watcher EP, Funelore EP (vinyl), Decipher, Egregore, Cultist, Aerdryk, Midnatt, Foetorem, and Passéisme cassingle.

II. Consider following on YouTube where you’ll find supplemental videos.

III. As always I’d like to express my gratitude for the bands, labels and PR firms who choose to work with me. Thank you.

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Mirror of Deception have always been a unique act representative of 80’s informed doom metal traditions while also being directly tapped into the changing tides of the early 90’s. They’ve not been stuck there for the last several decades of course but with each release they’ve done well to provide a new variation which connects the enduring traits of their past with where they have arrived in the present. With ‘Transience‘ they’ve found a brilliant trade between smartly writ melodicism and depressive dirge which is resonant throughout.

“The dignity afforded those who persist long enough in their convictions to forge wisdom ultimately proves fragile as anything else. As one withers down the pipeline of existential thought the realization of dissolution naturally demands reflection upon purpose yet when it comes time for a great work, principled civic action, or what have you… where exactly are we left when all eyes are blinded and nobody is listening anymore? In the time-worn hands of Esslingen, Germany-based doom metal quartet MIRROR OF DECEPTION there is fortitude to be gleaned from the reality that all is finite, all is transient by nature. On the long-standing troupe’s sixth full-length album, ‘Transience‘, this thought isn’t in service to nihil but instead posits the acceptance of mortality as just one part of a life examined. In the long walk toward the endtyme we dirge on alongside their signature form of doom metal, a 90’s spawned character built through decades of adaptation and self-driven refinement.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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Leading with a well-characterized take on ‘old school’ brutal death metal this debut LP from Indiana-based crew Protrusion doesn’t necessarily go out on a limb with weird shit a la Infester but it does recall the sub-genre’s steady climb toward extremism beyond 1993. Wild-ass vocals and plenty of leads should stoke the brains of fans of everything from Corpus Offal to Corpus Rottus.

“Comprised of folks best known for brutal death metal acts they’ve suggested Morrisound-extruded fare as the jumping off point for their ‘old school’ sounds herein where I’d point to Funebrarum‘s register in reference but if they were more in line with Finndeath and stuff like early Atrocity (Germany) or Mercyless. A record which’ll likely prove a dark horse for anyone geared up by ‘old school’ death metal with shades of gore, brutality and gloom abounding.“

>> SHORT REVIEW <<

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Most of the time I’ll recommend a record because the riffs got bigger, the songcraft reached some kind of breakthrough, or it’ll be stylized enough to bear its own personage but in the case of Cryptworm they’d sorted out most of that on the previous LP. ‘Infectious Pathological Waste‘ stood out in my mind for hunkering down, focusing on over-the-top vocals and delivering pure tunnel vision for their ‘new old school’ gore-grind belching spew. There are just enough tangled-up Demilich level moments on this record to keep the momentum up for my taste but I’d like to see what they could do veering deeper in that direction.

“With the chyme of suppurated flesh sputtering in gut and the taste of violent gorge hot on their breath Bristol, England-based death metal trio CRYPTWORM churn up a third and most putrid act of self-digestion on this latest full-length album. An act of gutturally expressed gore-obsession, ‘Infectious Pathological Waste‘ only tightens its hypnotic, circularly worming sphincter’s clench upon ‘old school’ gore-grind adjacent death metal as the band once again double down on both belligerent and intricate traits. Keeping their heads down and guts distended ensures this record is punishing in its focus, inciting head-spinning delirium per its strangely moshable and unflinchingly belched gore metal muse.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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The expansion of the greater unholy Blasart consciousness has been a brilliant development as their connection to the brutality of the late 90’s/early 2000’s infuses black-thrashing and even some dissonant ideas as it fleshes outward. As they go on goring and defiling the church they display an ouevre beyond the condensed and destructive fire of before and for better or worse depending on your tastes, I’d particularly enjoyed the range struck here and hope they iterate upon these ideas in full.

“Inverting the sacrament of rot-tainted Christendom once more Santiago, Chile-based black/death metal quartet BLASART return for a sophomore full-length nearly two decades beyond the last. Embracing extensive change while retaining the same blasphemic voice ‘Depravatus Christianis Sacris‘ reaches for a multitude of new sounds and entirely rethought dynamic apropos of chasm of time between major releases. Through both ‘old school’ and modern interest in black, death and extreme thrash metal these folks achieve a different album experience than anything they’d managed before, breaking from the rigidity of brutality in order to raise their ante-sermons to a new level of defiance.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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After about a month spent listening to ‘Come Creeping Fiends‘ I’ve had a few of these songs stuck in my head to this day. The same was generally true for Aggressive Perfector‘s previous album but these’re quicker to the point, snappier on the cut and make great use of the gravel the vocalist is hurling throughout. Fans of NWOBHM gear of the Neat variety will find this one most choice and maybe even a little bit less stoked on ‘Show No Mercy‘ this time around.

“Smeared across the hallway mirror and rounded off into a fist by the clench of the killer’s knife-hand this sophomore full-length album from Manchester, England-based speed/heavy metal trio AGGRESSIVE PERFECTOR bears the blood-fingered mark of supernatural horror, a fascination with mortal fear beyond the reaches of the imagination. Locked into tales of beasts, daemonic cult, and daimonian influence ‘Come Creeping Fiends‘ finds the band lacking none of their auld heavy metal compulsion here six years beyond their last. There may be countless ‘evil’ heavy metal bands carrying on with some pump in their action today but these folks have -songs- which consistently find their own demented hook beyond the norm throughout this brief but rock solid second LP.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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There was no question folks would embrace the return of Neurosis as an entity changed by time and circumstance, their legacy demands respect in general. What I’d personally not been sure of was exactly how much of their grimier traits, their organic collective muse, would be usurped by the skronking experimental wilderness of the new guy (who is also great, FWIW). There are a few parts I’d felt needed another pass, particularly some of the later songs, but as a fan of the band for the last ~30 years I am still stoked on this one. One of those “when the mood strikes” kind of records rather than a daily spin on my part.

“Left to wander in folks minds for the last decade but only technically interrupted for about half that time the now returned Oakland, California-borne atmospheric sludge/post-metal quintet NEUROSIS greet us with new alliance on this twelfth full-length album. A surprise-dropped exorcism given to both sentimental and bleak expression ‘An Undying Love for a Burning World‘ represents a broad alteration of the band’s trajectory which may very well feel uncanny beyond the backwards-looking, forward-thinking vision they’d left us stalling with years ago. Without the level of disturbance available to the band since 2016 I do not think anything as bold as this’d been possible otherwise, only through self-examination and necessary reconfiguration could their psychedelic post-metallic pulse be as transformed-yet-signature as it is now.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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The transformation of Cruel Force beyond their black-thrashing early 2010’s mindsnare ’til the eerily authentic take on mid-80’s speed metal panache had already been a psychic nuke back when they released ‘Dawn of the Axe‘ in 2023 but holy hell they only just kept going with it. ‘Haneda‘ should rev up the lacking skulls of old heads not only for its razor-sharpened render and period specific sensibilities applied but for the performance of it assuredly feeding live performances. Are there rose-colored glasses propping this one up? It’ll be nostalgia for some, revisionism for others, and a blood-dripping, possessed sabre in hand for the rest of us seeking real heavy metal.

“A primeval-toned adventure through unknown ancient realms of mystic savagery this fourth full-length album from Mannheim, Germany-based speed metal quartet CRUEL FORCE takes the listener back to the iron-aged mindset and methodology once more, adhering to the highest standard in the process. Unaffected by the nuclear haze of the new-what-now ‘Haneda‘ is pure mid-80’s speed/thrash metal in spirit, sound and vision a feat which serves to deeper forge and legitimize their reborn identity. You won’t find a more authentic and righteously incensed speed metal record in 2026 thus far.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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On this surprising debut Voidstar Nocturnal manifest as a jammed-out, psychedelic and even dissonant take on blackened death metal achieved with a broad-minded line of thought informing its greater trip. ‘Nexus Teleport Fracture‘ is a ride in this sense, the sort of record you put on and let it jet wherever it may as the band feels their way through foreboding cosmic horror/sci-fi themed extremes. This’d lent itself brilliantly to repeated listens as the details would only enliven with each fresh exposure to their unique radiation.

“Frenzied souls who’d deign devotion to the Old Ones in hopes of traversing the limitless dark sans corpus now possess Heredia, Costa Rica-based progressive blackened death metal trio VOIDSTAR NOCTURNAL as vessel and vehicle for their summon on this eclectic yet blistering debut full-length album. Their folly will leave them bleeding, severed from the hive never to reclaim their bodies as ‘Nexus Teleport Fracture‘ narrates disembodiment and eventual witness of the final silence within its experimental sojourn. Their work is surreal, nigh psychedelic in its reach but not without rooting in the practicum of the rehearsal room as thier live-in-studio approach bestows organic grounding to what is otherwise a mutiny beyond the increasingly normative traditions of progressive death metal.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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Although I’d already been a big fan of Peruvian death metal band Hell Trepanner per their most recent 7″ release it’d still blown my mind sitting with ‘The Consecration of Eternal Impurity‘ and seeing how far they’d taken their bombardment to a pure and all-encompassing new extreme therein. Originally a principled crew of thrashers making ‘old school’ death metal and now a monstrous entity expanding into legion these folks are still all about the riff and the damage they can cause with it. Elite stuff from my point of view.

“After transmuting infernal portal’d passage within the eternal realm of the dead Lima, Peru-based death metal trio HELL TREPANNER now incite nine ceremonies of barbaric death’s triumph, a debut full-length entrenched in a state of chaos-fed metamorphosis where all is tainted with darkness and impurity reigns supreme. A caverne-roared and coldly destructive feat, ‘The Consecration of Eternal Impurity‘ is a purely destructive vision of occult death’s uglier, whammy-cracking furor which bears its imposing treads down upon rotten and unreal old-souled atmosphere. As a debut it is entirely well-formed in parsing ‘old school’ South American traits as extensions of USDM’s most key signature(s), reeking of long considered work which bears no moderne misstep or noticeable gap of understanding within canonical resiliencies.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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The progression from doomed and tank-heavy barrel toward increasingly nuanced, outwardly surrealistic progressive death metal expanse found on ‘Liminal Shrines‘ echoes Gutvoid‘s greater journey these last few years. After exploring the expansion of their vision as a collective on a recent EP it tracks that this new album arrives all the more prepared, meeting a higher standard from every aspect while also reinforcing the voice that’d developed over time. Beyond appreciating the advancement of the quartet’s craft I’d found myself listening to this one far more than almost any other release I’d touched this month.

“Aswirl in its light-devouring shadowed rise the nebular spectre of Toronto, Ontario-based death metal quartet GUTVOID is yet illuminant as they transgress the abyss into transformation on this inspired sophomore full-length album. Buried within the swelling tides of its doomed, surrealistic rhythms ‘Liminal Shrines‘ both iterates and evolves the band’s blurring of lines between obscure ‘old school’ progressive and atmospheric death characteristics. Somewhere in the barreling, roaring and lead-cracking aplomb of their work they’ve honed the signature marked on their previous album into something even more resplendent in its darkness.“

>> FULL REVIEW <<

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