Post-Millennial's Guide To Metal (And Some Other Stuff)

As parts of our world begin to return to their prior state, refreshed and reinvigorated, there is still an unease lingering like a grey fog over the distant landscape. Spring has sprung in the northeastern United States, and in a country more divided than ever, young people like me are growing ever more hopeless about the world that is soon to be left in our hands. Post-Millenials are the next to jump into the shrinking job force, and housing markets grow ever more unstable. The COVID-19 pandemic that we are still very much fighting at this time has single-handedly shaped this time, and while the radiant sun is rising slowly on the horizon, I am scared. Normalcy may be returning to some aspects of life, but an unfortunately overlooked struggle of this hard time is not only the plight of the touring musician but also the venues that house them. Locally, as of now, the Great Scott in Allston, Massachusetts has permanently closed. A legendary club that harbored all sorts of artists, th...

Poland has a surprisingly impressive lineup of black metallers constantly churning out extremely impactful and groundbreaking releases. Home to significant players like Behemoth , Batushka,  and  Mgła   (all of whom's semi-recent releases, The Satanist  (2014), Litourgiya (2015) and Exercises in Futility  (2015) respectively, have been praised among the most essential metal albums of the 2010s), as well as underground darlings like Furia (who the members of this band work together with as  Massemord ), Kreigsmaschine , and Blaze of Perdition , the often-overlooked historical context of perpetual war and religious turmoil has managed to influence a generation of depressed, nihilistic, and misanthropic musicians. Another essential artist in this scene, while unknown to me until May 8th, 2020, Odraza  has been performing forward-thinking black metal since 2009. Their 2014 debut, Esperalem Tkane , or Esperal Woven, was met with well-deserved c...

Djent really gets a bad rap. While many of the genre's frontrunners do not particularly tickle my fancy, groups like  Periphery  and  SikTh  have always struck the perfect balance between heavy, melodic, and intricately written. However, these groups vary far from the bands whose rise in popularity in the 2000s made a large impact on the sound and general vibe of the 'djent' sound. While  Meshuggah 's influence has and will always exist as its own little pocket dimension where this sound can roam free, if not redundantly, its artists like  After the Burial ,  Veil of Maya , and  Within The Ruins  that have shaped modern deathcore, and subsequently djent, to a boilerplate formula: Extremely thumpy, with lots of breakdowns, and traditional melodic metalcore songwriting. the sound has been passed over a genre completely by elitist metal media and occupies a strange place in the ever interlocking hardcore and metal genre tags.  ...

Remember how PMMetalGuide's 'Best Albums of 2019'  still hasn't come out yet? Believe me, it will be here soon, but that is not why I bring this up. I feel it necessary to discuss that inevitable post when we are returning to our Swedish friends Together To The Stars, who made it on that list. I hope that garners some hope for you loyal readers alone, but I'm also mentioning it in prayer that I do not completely rip off what I wrote for that as I talk about An Oblivion Above. I reviewed this record last February and was blown away by what I heard. A fresh but uniquely familiar take on the occasionally stale genre of blackgaze, this LP placed higher than Alcest 's newest effort, Spiritual Instinct  (spoiler alert, I guess), which may be of a surprise to many an online music reviewer. But that album had such a profound effect on me, it was almost unexplainable, and rarely does a release from so early in the year stick around until the end. So without saying a...