 Welcome back, weary traveler! Firstly, if ye missed Part 1 of this mid-year extravaganza, we highly recommend checking that out first. If you're already familiar with what this is all about, however: thanks so much for reading and returning for more! As always, we appreciate your patronage and your support, particularly now that our humble halls are filled with an exciting array of guest writers who deserve to have their words read. Again, this collaborative list is far from exhaustive, and represents but a fraction of our collective favorites. As such, please feel free to leave a comment with a recommendation or two! List season is a great time to show the musicians that we love a little well-deserved support, and if you wanna shout someone out, this is as good a time as any. In that spirit, I'd like to once again offer thanks to everyone who helped make this list a reality and a success. Without further ado, let's dive in! Today's list is a tad longer than the first, so pull up a chair, put up yer feet, and stay a while.  CAMBION - Conflagrate the Celestial Refugium (March 26, Lavadome Productions) Find it here! Review by: Kep Do you like furious, breakneck blackened death metal ferocity? Of course you do, and so you should check out Cambion’s Conflagrate the Celestial Refugium. Every second of this record is pure blistering flames. Chason Westmoreland (Equipoise, ex-Hate Eternal, ex-The Faceless) is a relentlessly intense, insanely technical presence on the kit, while the riffs from T.R. (guitar) and R.O. (bass, vocals) spiral and twist and whirl in seemingly every direction all at once. It’s like being inside a tornado—utter chaos, and there’s nary a chance to breathe. Conflagrate is a nicely paced 38 minutes of scorching violence, and despite a seething vocal performance from R.O., the finest track on the album might be lengthy instrumental closer “Obscuratio." Author's Bio: Kep is a professional pianist and a lover of all things metal. Catch him on twitter and read his weekly reviews at Noob Heavy.  KRALLICE - Demonic Wealth (March 5th, Independently Released) Find it here! Review by: postcards from new zealand Demonic Wealth presents some of the best metal you can hear today. It fights logistical adversities with creativity and a sonic purpose, it builds from black, sludge, doom and industrial metal and grows into a magnificent beast preying on souls in a swamp, oozing mud and paranoia. The sheer depth of the overall sound is amazing, using recordings made from smartphones and other unusual means, and the contrast with the synthetic layers is just breathtaking. It's music that defies categorization and just delivers an astounding series of magical moments, probably Krallice's best album so far. Author's Bio: postcards from new zealand's new album, city islands, will be released July 2nd via Mandrone Records. Find them here!  VOKONIS - Odyssey (May 7th, The Sign Records) Find it here! Review by: Fuzz Worshiper Hailing from Sweden, Vokonis is a group with a great sound melding different genres into a trippy, stoner/doom, progressive band, I’ve really appreciated their sonic evolution. Their latest album Odyssey is a fantastic body of work, with catchy hooks, crushing riffs, and a mixture of vocals from barking out lyrics to black metal fry screams. Vokonis once again raises the bar in the metal community with solid production and songwriting. This is why “Odyssey” is my favored album to date of 2021. If you are looking for a new band to get into or if you’ve been following their career, Vokonis comes highly recommended from Fuzz Worshiper. Preach the Riff, Worship the Riff. Author's Bio: Fuzz Worshipper can be found worshipping the fuzz at a variety of locations.  MARTORN - Martorn (July 2, Entelodon Records) Pre-save it here! Review by: Cheryl Lynn Martorn is a Swedish/American melodic death metal duo, signed to Entelodon Records. Their self-titled debut EP drops on July 2, 2021. This release will include three of their singles--"Overcome," "Martorn Rising," and "Hell of Fire"--along with two new tracks, "Vattenfallets Brus" and "Awaken." With 5 songs in total, this EP clocks in around half an hour, but it still packs a punch. Each track is layered with bittersweet lyrics, brutal instrumentation, and heavy cacophony that resolves into harmonic resonance. Vocalist Emma Michaelsen can sing like a sonorous siren, or growl like a hellish demon. Similarly, guitarist Art Bertik shreds on solos, but his style is also emotive and melodic. The musical complexity is ethereal and otherworldly. Martorn embodies extreme rage and sorrow, but also extreme beauty and resilience. Like a flower growing through the cracks in the pavement, Martorn is a symbol of hope in a broken world. Author's Bio: Cheryl Lynn runs the Santa Fe based metal blog, Undead Goathead, and also writes band biographies for Entelodon Records.  DREAD SOVEREIGN - Alchemical Warfare (January 15th, Metal Blade Records) Find it here! Review by: Blackie Skulless Doom metal is pretty hit or miss with me, but Dread Sovereign really grabbed my attention early on this year. They’re definitely leaning towards the epic side with Alchemical Warfare, but nothing is too over the top. Longer song structures allow for plenty of time to break the surface using thick riff attacks, as well as leaving room for hookier moments and vocal clarity. Definitely one that takes a few listens to fully grasp. Read a full review of Alchemical Warfare here! Author's Bio: From the American city of Lancaster Pennsylvania rises Blackie Skulless and his brigade of glam and gore. Check out his many reviews here at the Village.  HAUNT - Beautiful Distraction (April 2nd, Independently Released) Find it here! Review by: Blackie Skulless And it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mention Trevor and co. at Haunt, would it? These traditional metallers have been cranking out banger after banger since the end of the 2010s, and they show no signs of stopping on Beautiful Distraction. This one definitely takes the accessible / radio-friendly aesthetic from Flashback and refines it, but never loses that hard rhythmic bottom. They master this approach here, and though it isn’t as high as Mind Freeze in my ranking, this certainly has some of the best standout tracks they’ve ever had. If you need more discussion/praise of Haunt in yer life, check out this full review. Author's Bio: When not headbanging or raising hell at the local bars, you'll find Blackie Skulless buried in the depths of horror films and books, or exercising. Or perhaps, just building a Lego Star Wars set.  MIA ZABELKA & ICOSTECH - Aftershock (April 5th, Subcontinental Records) Find it here! Review by: Tiago Sousa In my opinion, music is worthier of appreciation when it is much more than just musicians playing instruments. As an amazing example, when we think of "violin," the idea we have on our minds is completely different from what we listen on Mia Zabelka's works, and this last one is no exception. In Aftershock, the collaboration with Icostech (Arun Natarajan) allowed the electronic production to reach the next level. Besides, with this collaboration, the hypnotizing atmospheric experimental sonority that mostly identifies Mia Zabelka's music is complemented with some actual and unexpected electronic "trance-like" tracks that embrace us even more on the organized journey that this album provides. Author's Bio: Tiago Sousa can be found on Instagram  CTHULHU DREAMT - Cthulhu Dreamt (January 15th, Independently Released) Find it here! Review by: Reed Reimer Cthulhu Dreamt began as a project to exorcise demons from the loss of a child, and has grown into a multi-genre journey through emotions. With contributors from around the world, the project combines riffs from death metal, djent, prog, cinematic orchestral, and synth music. The first (self-titled) album explores loss, and their sophomore effort (currently in production) will explore stages of grief and fear. With influences ranging from Opeth, to Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hans Zimmer, to The Weeknd, Cthulhu Dreamt’s sound pushes traditional metal boundaries. So, if you missed their release at the beginning of 2021, it’s not too late to get to know them and prepare to continue the journey! Author's Bio: Reed Reimer is the director of the Cthulhu Dreamt project Information about the project can be found here. Cthulhu Dreamt is available to stream everywhere.  LOS MALES DEL MUNDO - Descent Towards Death (February 26th, Northern Silence Productions) Find it here! Review by: Max Svalgard I kept hearing amongst black metal fans “it’s good, but it’s not as good as Descent Towards Death” and “this album might finally overthrow Descent Towards Death as AOTY,” and in March, I finally bought the debut album from Argentinian black metal masters, Los Males del Mundo. Descent Towards Death is beyond everything that I had been told; the lyrics are inspired by Nietzsche, Emil Cioran, and Schopenhauer, and they divulge a sublime narrative of hopelessness and nihilism. The musicianship is top tier. With one release they’ve solidified an atmosphere and tone that bands with decades of experience haven’t accomplished. If you love black metal, you owe it to yourself to own this album. Author's Bio: Max Svalgard is the guitarist and vocalist of American blackened technical-death metal band, Sublation.  VICTORY OVER THE SUN - Nowherer (April 23rd, Independently Released) Find it here! Review by: Izzy Victory Over the Sun's post-tonal blackened odyssey weaves an intricate technicality and vicious dissonance. More than just it's suffocating density and timbral delicacy, Nowherer fervently deconstructed extreme metal's formulaic tropes and traditions, putting forth its own unparalleled sonic statement against boredom and stagnation in the genre, helping to tear open a microtonal horizon for black and death metal, solidifying itself as one of 2021s most essential albums for any metal fan. Read the full review here! Author's Bio: Izzy is a reviewer of all things screamy, dreamy, and inbetweeny. Find her on Instagram and ye olde Sleeping Village.  BIG|BRAVE - Vital (April 23rd, Southern Lord Recordings) Find it here! Review by: The Administrator I'll cut right to the chase on this one: Vital is my favorite album o' the year thusfar, bar none. It's a designation that is fairly surprising to me, given a certain tendency to bestow that title upon more bombastic releases. However, on their latest, BIG|BRAVE have created one of the most harrowing and emotive experiences I've had the privilege of enjoying. There's a certain restlessness at play on this album--a tension that, even in the most delicate moments, remains coiled and ready to pounce. The dynamic at play between the lurching guitar's thunderous tone, the passages of droning ambience, and the warbling vocals feels entirely unique, and the general atmosphere painted across the breadth is simple perfection. Vital is gorgeous and utterly devastating at the same damn time. It's a brilliant album, and I anticipate carrying it with me far, far into the future. Author's Bio: The Administrator writes lots of reviews, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing about him. One last thank you to everyone who contributed!
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We provide thoughtful reviews of music that is heavy, gloomy...and loud enough to wake us from slumber. Written by a highfalutin peasantry!
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