On I Shall Die Here, The Body sonically serrates the remains of metal's already unidentifiable corpse and splays it amid tormented voices in shadow. Sharing their heathen vision with The Haxan Cloak, The Body's tried, true, and absorbingly tragic sound is mutilated by process and re-animated in a spectral state. This double LP set is expanded with the previously unreleased Earth Triumphant, a full-length companion album that would become I Shall Die Here, showcasing The Body’s brutality in its most primal form. Newly remastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios, this is the definitive edition of a shocking classic of unbridled bleakness and innovation.

This record is packed to the rafters with incredibly infectious riffs—sharp, inventive riffs that snare the listener like a stylish vocal hook. Furthermore, there’s a sort of furtively melodic touch to her fretplay, and it underscores the gothic atmosphere while avoiding soloing entirely.
Source: Yourlastrites.com

Sharp, honest, and fun, Crack a Light is the punky, noisy album that will kick your ass straight back into enjoying life. Source: Everythingisnoise.net

For years now, the Oxnard thrashers Dead Heat have been playing breakneck speed metal for hardcore crowds. They have a complete understanding of how to turn their chosen genre, the crossover thrash of the late ’80s, into music that’ll elicit the maximum physical response possible — when to speed up, when to slow down, when to blaze in with some triumphant guitar shredding, when to drop the absolutely reckless breakdown. On their new EP Endless Torment, you can hear Dead Heat doing all of that at their full capacity.
Source: Stereogum.com

It’s been nearly eight years since the last Mondo Drag album came out. In that time, the Bay Area psych-prog band toured the US and Europe, performed at major festivals and—once again—reformed their rhythm section. But in the context of the band’s nearly two-decade existence, this period may have been the most fraught. Vocalist and keyboardist John Gamiño lost friends and family members. Meanwhile, humanity suffered the throes of a global pandemic.

Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade – following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 – and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008. With every Grails album released since Doomsdayer’s Holiday being a sprawling double-album endeavor, Anches En Maat was conceived as a return to the comparatively efficient single LP runtime. With that, Grails set out to craft the same sonically dense world that their longer albums showcased, while trading singular indulgences for live collaborative interplay. The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record Anches En Maat together – a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then laboring in post-production for months or even years on end. An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, Anches En Maat is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career.