• MASSIVE REVIEWING CAPACITY • is our latest short review column focusing on stray quality releases a few times a month, or, roughly every two weeks depending on the current month’s release schedule. In an attempt to be more conversational these are easygoing and casual thoughts for the most part, so relax and think for yourself as I attempt to find something, anything to say about multitudes of new releases relevant to my interests. — If you find a record you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase. If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Returning for a fourth LP on their tenth year as a band Gothenburg, Sweden-based sludge/doom metal trio FIREBREATHER transform beyond their High on Fire inspired evolution toward inventive grooves and stronger melodic focus. ‘Blood That I Spill Turns to Fire‘ appears emboldened to not only try a few new things but produce something more emotionally driven in effect, it isn’t a total sea-change but a more singular effort than the three (solid) LPs that’d come before. Shades of classic heavy/doom metal, psychedelic/stoner dementia and sludge thickened grooves create a sensation of catharsis, introspective purgation with a dreary tone hanging in the air. You might get some vague Mastodon-esque vibes from the vocals and a few of the riffs cut on the opener and esp. follow up “El Cuervo” but when the HM-2 assisted buzz of the title track (“Blood That I Spill Turns to Fire”) begins to reveal in step you’ll get a better sense for the glut of ideas they’ve packed into this ~40 minute record. The balance of bluesy ruggedness and nuclear guitar tones is best exemplified here via my favorite track “Protector of Realm”. Consider it a fresh watermark for the band, a new high, especially if (like me) you’ve followed them since their first LP back in 2017.

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Bytów, Poland-based quartet THE BLACK THUNDER offer strange fruiting bodies on this third full-length album, a major step in their evolution from heavy rock/stoner metal sounds unto extreme metal inspired style. Though you’ll hear some sludge and doom in their greater tendency via the trucking grooves which drive most pieces here post-metal and especially modern black metal likewise inform structure and atmospheric haze. They’ve set a few key pieces up front to ensure you’ve gotten the point but the sludge/alt-metal side of the band isn’t far off within “Nothing Remains” bringing their groove metal rub to the forefront. It’ll probably sound odd as a comparison but there is a sort of 2000’s Primordial-esque effect achieved between rock grooves and black metal inspired movement (see: “Turn Into Absence”) though I don’t think the band’ve nailed down exactly what glues their work together with sense overall. In aiming for grittier presence the live-in-studio recording of ‘Time Obliteration‘ is not without glossier precision, no doubt per its Haldor Grunberg-graced mix/master, but it serves the band’s portal between worlds well as they flit between slower dramatic atmospheric trod and more immediate groove metallic crunching. The stylistic mid-transition feeling of this record was probably its most interesting trait, less a total fusion and moreso a dance between different points of expression.

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This sixteenth full-length album from Chicago-borne and Czechia-based death metal trio MASTER doesn’t change up the greater formula of their post-millennium momentum, recreating the successes of 2024’s ‘Saints Dispelled‘ where speed metal, hardcore punk and heavy rock ideas inform their 80’s death metal defining modus. As a fan I think it is fair to give Speckmann and crew credit where due both in terms of history-making and undying persistence while also generally not finding the bulk of their discography standout. With that said their most recent efforts feel like they’ve the right stuff in terms of recalling ‘Collection of Souls‘ and earlier Abomination (re: “Dust’s Arrival”) with that same loud personality. Of the nine songs here none are a total wash though the straight-forward thrashing punk trampling carrying ’em through ~4-5 minute stretches occasionally belabors the riff for the sake of signature. Otherwise the lyrics are sharper, production values are appropriately straight forward and most of the album blazes past. ‘Among the Seeds of Death‘ again hits like classic Master, no issues there on my part, and you’d be a fool heading into any of their records expecting anything more, or less.

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Bytom, Poland-based blackened death metal trio THRONEUM finally reappear a half decade beyond their last LP with album number ten in ‘Love is the Law But Death is the Frame‘ and from my point of view it is one of their best to date. Between the snaking black metallic riffcraft and cavernous swat of their action we find The Great Executor‘s authorship veering even more resolutely into the avant-garde, even manifesting their own take on crystalline early 90’s prog-death motioning (via opener “In the Garden”) on the trample within. Things only get more bizarre on the trip through where sludgier progressions, Voivod inspired bent and dissonant unrest contribute to the original voice of the band. The blurring of clandestine death and sub-genre void experimentation makes for a feral, subterranean summoned return for the band which’d been hard to predict at any given turn but somehow remained in the same category as Throneum‘s massive ~three decade wide discography. Again, some of the most compelling material from these guys to date.

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[In order of importance:] Noise rock, post-hardcore, atmospheric sludge, mathcore-grind and whatnot might fittingly describe Seattle, Washington-based trio GREAT FALLS at any given moment but the total effect of this sixth (?) full-length album conjures randomized fragments of deeply internalized existential terror. ‘The Bite That Grows Up‘ howls with pain throughout Side A on one of the most contiguously flowing feats from a group who’ve always been entirely restless in voice and trained on starkest contrast. The mood never lets up and the shouting only intensifies to the point of passing out via “Nicotine in the Spine” and to my extreme metal numbed ears the spastic, gear-grinding bassline swamped mechanism these folks’re running with becomes an experience of real torment amplified beyond even the depraved gunking of predecessor ‘Objects Without Pain‘ (2023). Otherwise I don’t know if I’ve heard an album that sends this level of palpable noise-rocking angst while mixing in a ‘Through Silver in Blood‘ level of mutant atmo-sludge at the same time. There’re far too few bands out there pushing past the point of return with their work in general and especially with the suggested sub-genres Great Falls carry in hand.

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Chicago, Illinois-based noise rock trio SALVATION lean into the grunge-era/Sub Pop rock swipes of their previous LP (‘Mock‘, 2022) on this bigger swinging follow up where Whores. severity meets peak Cows bopping bass-driven slug. ‘The Haunted‘ isn’t as anthemic in its shot as, say, Gaytheist but there is a similar sense of outsized big-stage soar to some of these pieces (re: “Blow on a Wednesday”) while punkish pushers (“Already Dead”) bring it back to Earth. While that first impression, and the three opening pieces in particular, give a heightened sense of energy the band’s ouevre quickly diversifies to sludge rock bustle, bluesy stripped back acoustic creeps, and crowd-pleasing weirdo grooves (see: “Soaked to the Bone”) on the pass through. I couldn’t really hang with songs like “Already Dead”, “Already Done”, “Descending Time & Space” and similar along the way but appreciated the variety of the full listen nonetheless. ‘Year of the Fly‘ (2019) was probably closer aligned with my taste but Salvation never fail to put together a compelling longplayer.

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Returning for their fourth full-length album with a brand new lead vocalist faceted into their mid-to-late 80’s styled power/speed metal action Gothenburg, Sweden-based quintet ARMORY immediately go for the throat as ‘Echoes of the Astrolith‘ kicks off. Shades of Agent Steel, Overkill, King Diamond and more bleed through their efforts here as the surprising range of Steel Inferno‘s Christ Rostoff transforms the band’s sound by way of sheer bravado and knowledge of the ancients. Few bands so capably escape the Priest-inflected realm of power-thrash with any residual substance beyond nostalgic kitsch but these folks’ve managed another thoroughly entertaining record. Not every piece works here, I don’t understand the placement of “Spaceworkz” at all, but overall a marked improvement over ‘Mercurion‘ (2022) for my taste.

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Osnabrück, Germany-based ‘old school’ death metal inspired quartet MINENFELD bring doom, gloom and a healthy dose of mid-paced Bolt Thrower trenched volatility to this long-awaited second full-length album. With ‘Instruments of Industrialized Warfare‘ the band’s fealty to the traditions of Asphyx, Obituary and 90’s death metal characteristic is no less strong but at this point they’re capable enough to dig into their own a bit around the edges, even stepping on the brink of death/doom here and there as they swat along. When they do pick up speed (re: first half of “Inflaming the Fields”) they never quite transcend their core influences but still manage to maintain some strong differentiation from song to song. If you’re looking for no frills pure ‘old school’ death metal in this specific classicist sector you could do much worse.

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