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If you were looking for an automatic 'horns up' you got it. Worm - Foreverglade Frozen Soul - Crypt of Ice

Circle Of Ouroborus - Viimeinen Juosku ...hooked lately Kayo Dot - Moss Grew On My Fingers And Toes While I Typed This Album Title Out

AC/DC - "Powerage" (album)

Haha-yeah, got off the new daily release hamster wheel a while back. There's just an oversaturation of music for me to keep up. I still like metal, but I listen to a lot more non metal across different genres now and other competing interests and hobbies not to mention demands at work. I'm lazy and not willing to spend hours on YouTube channels. I'll usually check the blogs listed on Metal Bandcamp pretty randomly. I'll see what people are listening to here and check my feed. But I mostly start paying attention after Thanksgiving and let the dust settle on what the better releases are.... Plus I feel like there was some interesting genre developments in the aughts and lately it's mostly trying to find bands that take a fresh approach to old tropes because I don't see new innovations or trends....across the cultural divide really....we're in the age of looking backwards sadly....nostalgia....make metal great again-wink, wink.

I'm obsessed with this band. Not a day goes by that I don't spin something from them or one of their related projects.

I'm personally just much better off when I let myself be captivated by one or two releases at a time. That's how it was when I first fell in love with music as a teenager, I only bought a handful of albums every month or two and I'd hammer on them all the time. It still works if I do it right. I'm not well suited to the constant firehose of new releases. And it does seem like there's always another great band from 25-30 years ago that I have yet to hear of or appreciate.

I read No Clean Singing fairly regularly and would say they are the only site who's year end lists tend to be pretty good. I always find a few gems on Neal Jameson's lists he does for them. I check out Heavyblogisheavy and Last Rites occasionally they have some decent stuff. For interviews, I only read Bardo Methodology once in a while. That guy gets some decent interviews. The tabloid sites aren't even worth the time. I see enough of that shit on facebook and reddit when I'm suffering insomnia. My go to's for new music are this site, Youtube, Bandcamp feed, and friend recs. That said, I'm in the same spot as others. I made a conscious decision to jump off the new music carousel this year. It's just a bit overwhelming and not rewarding enough for the effort required. For every great new band/release I find, there are 20 more I wish I hadn't bought or never spin more than once or twice. I've even backed off buying vinyl at the moment save for a few bands because 1) the prices+shipping are just getting stupid at this point and 2) I've been burned a few too many times of late. I'm spending money on cd's and digital at the moment and eyeing an equipment upgrade for my newly remodeled play room/home office. Looking to upgrade my server, amp, and speakers in the coming year while juggling costs for the 4-5 fests I have planned for 2022. None of the above is cheap by any means, so adjusting the music budget is really the only way to get it done. Besides, I rarely spin any of the 3-400 vinyl I have at the moment these days for various reasons, so something really has to jump out at me to drop $30-50 or chase the cool kid limited release shit (Vothana is a joke. Shit's not even that good at regular prices much less +$200). I find that changing my attitude towards new releases to what I call the @markm approach has allowed me to enjoy music much more than I have over the previous 5-7 years when I got caught up in the new release cycle. Finding good shit from the past I missed out on or bands I never got into (like Enslaved for instance). And Jono is right, waiting a while to see what shit floats to the surface is much easier and less time consuming.

This. Every onslaught of limited edition splatter vinyl just smacks of desperation. I do keep an ear out for new releases and band names that get positive mentions a few times so might be worth checking out but there is just too much stuff out there to really get worried about missing something. Year end lists are a joke, so I just sit back and observe and see what shit floats to the top.

At this point I don't even bother to try and follow new releases - apart from a select few bands. The trend towards limited editions/buy-now-or-cry-later hype releases makes it easier to just ignore what is being released, rather than find something good that is impossible to find. That's why I never bother with Vothana, for instance.

Really enjoying this one lately, it's grown on me a lot. NP: Forhist - s/t

Immolation - Failures For Gods Immolation - Close To a World Below Dead Congregation - Graves of The Archangels

Good point. I pinned this year and 2022 to the top of "General Chat". I expect to see lots of great albums posted in there forthwith.

I'm a subscriber to the Thatguy and Navy newsfeeds Honestly I get most of my recommendations from friends, trade a lot of stuff back and forth with the band guys, etc. Metal news was a Facebook thing, and now that I'm off, I'm in the dark. I was "keeping up" for a while, trying to stay on top of new releases, but I got burned out. Always do when I try to take in too much. I'll check out No Clean Singing because I like their willingness to spotlight smaller bands, but like most other sites, it's a crapshoot. Best random recs I get are actually from my Youtube feed, I've probably found more stuff through clicking on the sidebar recommendations than I have through any other site. It's only in the past couple months that I've gotten past my latest period of severe burnout, though.

I guess it's EP day here Ossuaire - Triumvirat EP

This is the best thing I've heard out of Iceland in a while. Dauða - Dauða Eldfjall EP

Infernal Gates - Gates of Hell EP

Seems to be the playbook for conservatives everywhere. Delay, reduce, and make more difficult everything and anything that doesn't fit their worldview. In a time where they are rapidly becoming the minority (if they are not already) and their belief system is contrary to popularly held opinion (see abortion, same-sex marriage, healthcare, etc) in the west, I find it unbelievable the amount of power conservative movements still hold. I would like to believe that there will be a massive shift in the next decade or so, but then again I'm surprised that they are still relevant at this point. Apathy on the part of younger voters (45 and under) is to blame in part although not the only factor.

KOMMAND - Stubborn Arsenal HARD CHARGER - Collection 2013- 2018 CONVERGE & CHELSEA WOLFE - Bloodmoon:I

It's just so incredibly commercial and watered down. And yes bland. I find it very hard to believe sometimes that I was such a big Dark Tranquility fan in the 2000's up til 2007. Although this particular song was much blander and unmemorable than early/mid 2000's DT. This is why I rarely find much to like on major labels anymore. Not because only the most obscure kvlt bands will do but because commercially viable music is just so completely devoid of substance, like empty calories. The whole time I'm thinking I could be listening to something good right now.

I'd agree that it was better than expected. My 15 year old self would've been all over this. Really goes to show just how much In Flames lost the plot over the years lol.

Not gonna lie, I would get the first three Metallica albums on vinyl if I could find originals from the 80s. They're great albums from the infancy of metal and I'm not denying that. I just don't like the direction they went in post Cliff Burton, ...And Justice For All just didn't do much of anything for me & neither did the black album or any of the stuff since then. They were definitely three of my favorite albums in high school, but I sort of overplayed them (I listened to the three of them every day in the 9th grade) so now they're sort of albums that I'd like to have if I could find originals, but I wouldn't go out spending $30 a piece on the 180g reissues. I first got into Slayer through Show No Mercy when I was in the tenth grade, because I was listening to internet radio and heard the song "black magic" and I liked the first two albums, Live Undead, Haunting the Chapel but Reign in Blood did not do it for me because they went full thrash and dropped a lot of their proto-black metal image that they had going on those first two albums. I'm not saying that Reign in Blood was a bad album, again it's just one of those ones that I've listened to so many times that it's sort of stale for me now. I've never listened to any Slayer after Reign in Blood (no South of Heaven, no Seasons in the Abyss, none of it). It's not that I don't like Slayer, it's just that I liked their very early stuff a lot more because it was fundamental to the creation of what we now understand to be black metal. Same with Celtic Frost... I like the early stuff up to Into the Pandemonium but as soon as you hit the Cold Lake & Vanity/Nemesis period, I'm no longer interested in them. The first two Mercyful Fate albums were amazing as well. I never got into anything they did post Don't Break the Oath though (and am still looking for a copy of Melissa on vinyl)

My room isn't really done up in a metal style persay. I have a lot of byzantine icons because I collect them, but it's just a standard bedroom with a bed, turntable, speakers, and a bookcase. I don't have any of my metal posters up or anything, I keep them all in the records they come in because I am saving them for when we relocate to NY, then I'll put them up. The only poster I have on my wall is my Seinfeld "Chart About Nothing" that links all of the characters to ever appear on Seinfeld together with one another. I also have a signed copy of the script for the first episode of Seinfeld and a few spare LP jackets on display, along with a few of my surviving show ticket stubs and a calendar of the Appalachian trail. My walls are like a greyish-blue color and I have an IKEA kallax shelf to store all of my records on.