15 must-hear metal albums of 2020 (so far)
We’re more than halfway through 2020 and this year is moving at a strange pace, but sometimes you need to take a minute, look back on the good parts of the year, and/or lose yourself in some great music. We recently posted some of our favorite hardcore, punk, emo/sceamo/post-hardcore, and folk albums of 2020 (so far), and here’s a list of 15 metal albums released so far this year that we love. If you’re looking for something new in this realm — or just looking for something to dive back into — these albums may be a good place to start. Read on for our picks (in no particular order) and let us know what other new metal albums you’ve been digging in the comments.
Also, there are a few very metal-friendly albums on our hardcore list, including Xibalba, Gulch, Drain, and more.
Boris – NO
Ulthar – Providence
Terminal Nation – Holocene Extinction
Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin kyns
Ulcerate – Stare Into Death and Be Still
Code Orange – Underneath
Huntsmen – Mandala of Fear
Umbra Vitae – Shadow of Life
In the time since Converge last released an album (2017's great The Dusk In Us), frontman J Bannon explored his softer side with Wear Your Wounds' excellent sophomore album Rust on the Gates of Heaven, and now he's taking the exact opposite approach with the debut album by his new band Umbra Vitae, the most punishingly heavy album he's released in years. "While working on the previous Wear Your Wounds album, my love for Death Metal was rekindled," J said, "likely [as] a reaction to working on non-aggressive music for such a concentrated period."
Umbra Vitae shares a couple other members with Wear Your Wounds -- Mike McKenzie (also of The Red Chord) and Sean Martin (also ex-Hatebreed) -- and it also features Greg Weeks (The Red Chord, Labor Hex, etc) and Jon Rice (ex-Job for a Cowboy, Uncle Acid, etc). So it may be a new band, but it's familiar faces all around, many of whom are already frequent collaborators. And J may have said that death metal inspired this album, but he isn't just hopping on the new death metal bandwagon. If anything, Umbra Vitae reminds you that death metal has been in J's musical DNA since the early Converge days, and the way he interprets the genre in Umbra Vitae isn't a million miles away from the more chaotic moments of Converge. If you like "Concubine," you'll like this.
Old Man Gloom – Seminar VIII: Light Of Meaning & Seminar IX: Darkness Of Being
Black Curse – Endless Wound
Sweven – The Eternal Resonance
Death metal has been all the rage lately thanks to a crop of new bands who are taking cues from the genre's earliest days in the late '80s and finding ways to bring it into the now (like Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, and Horrendous). But a few years before those bands released the critically acclaimed albums that brought this new wave of death metal to prominence, Sweden’s Morbus Chron were paving the way for just about all of them. Their second and final album, 2014's Sweven, is a landmark of modern death metal, and it's mix of prog, psych, black, and death metal is a clear predecessor to the current scene (and to the recent material by fellow Swedes Tribulation). Morbus Chron sadly aren't around anymore to benefit from all the hype the genre is getting, but fortunately frontman/founder/songwriter/guitarist Robert Andersson now has a new band named after that 2014 album, Sweven, and their own debut album The Eternal Resonance is very, very good.
Morbus Chron fans will probably be very excited about how this album sounds, but it does more than just pick up where Morbus Chron left off. Sweven the band goes even further down the genre-blurring rabbit hole than Sweven the album did. It's almost a disservice to talk about this album in terms of "death metal" or any other subgenre for that matter. It's still a harsh album, vocally, but instrumentally it's even more prog/psych than Morbus Chron was. For the uninitiated, Tribulation remains a good reference point because that band also continues to be more of a prog/psych band than a metal band, save for the black/death-inspired vocals, but Sweven are also a very different band than Tribulation. Tribulation ultimately write really evil versions of pop songs, and The Eternal Resonance can be closer in spirit to Pink Floyd or post-rock, with long, sprawling, dreamlike passages that are about sucking you in to the overall experience. It requires a bit of patience, but it doesn't take very long to realize it's very worth it.
MSW – Obliviosus
Vile Creature – Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
Paradise Lost – Obsidian
Paysage d’Hiver – Im Wald
The two hours which comprise Im Wald are a cumulation of everything visionary musician Wintherr has learned over his many releases -- the clean vocals which herald "Stimmen im Wald" reflect the ambiance found within Das Tor, the violins on "Le rêve lucide" recall the self-titled demo, the coldness: Kristall & Isa. It's all there, everything on which Wintherr has meditated since 1997, and it truly is perfect.
This is the best black metal album you will ever hear if you have the patience for it, and it can only be listened to in its entirety. Do not skip through this adventure through the Alps from whence this project was born. Read more about Wintherr's philosophy and the greater meaning of Paysage d'Hiver in the interview I conducted with him throughout 2017. [Jon Rosenthal]
SEE ALSO:
* 12 must-hear hardcore albums and EPs from 2020 (so far)
* 12 must-hear punk albums of 2020 (so far)
* 14 must-hear emo/sceamo/post-hardcore albums of 2020 (so far)
* 18 must-hear folk albums of 2020 (so far)