No Negative - The Last Offices (2020)

No Negative if a band from Montreal (Québec) and with their second album The Last Offices (and the rest of their discography) they deliver some excellent music on the psych/noise side of post-punk. Or is it on the noise-punk side of psych rock? Well, you get the idea! If not, maybe you can also imagine a mix of Ice Age, The black Angels, The Stooges, and Black Flag, or Brainbombs... Even better : just listen to their music! Worth your time, I tell you... The epic final track is something.

The Bandcamp page.

 

CHIENS - 1.8.7. Myself (2023)

Four years after the awesome Trendy Junky, CHIENS are back with 1.8.7. Myself. Another piece of pure grindcore, old-school in spirit but with a powerful production. One of the main recent grind releases along with Shitstorm and Warfuck. 

Totally recommended!

 

The BC page.

Blood Star - First Sighting (2023)

Solid and enjoyable first album from Blood Star, First Sighting is a nice piece of traditional heavy metal with female vocals. Not much more to say here... if that's your kind of stuff, you definitely should give it a try.

The Bandcamp page.

 

Godflesh - PURGE (2023)

PURGE is the new Godflesh album, six years after Post-Self. It's like a good condensed of the whole Godflesh discography, with the core elements laid since Streetcleaner, to the more ambient parts we had in Post-Self (and reminding Jesu), but with also the coming back of more jungle/hop-hop elements we had in Us and Them (and other JK Broadrick projects like Techno Animal). It will please all the Godflesh followers and is also a good one to discover the band, featuring all Godflesh has to offer. Another strong addition to the Godflesh work and no doubt the main industrial metal release at least for this spring/summer.

The Bandcamp page.

 

dEUS - How to Replace It (2023)

Now here's something quieter for a change. dEUS has a career of nearly thirty years of delivering the best quality indie rock, classy and sophisticated (in a vein not unlike Afghans Whigs or maybe Porcupine Tree). The Belgian band is back with a new album ten years after the previous one, and How to Replace It is as finely crafted and memorable as they use to be. This is not the kind of stuff I usually listen to, but dEUS is good enough to appeal to people into harder/ rawer stuff. Recommended!

Their website.

 

Shitstorm - Only in Dade (2023)

Miami grinders Shitstorm are back and sound hungry enough to eat a few dinosaurs on the spot. The heaviness and impact of their new album Only in Dade remind what you felt when listening to Nasum's Human 2.0. They also add a bit of noisegrind for good measure. Definitely a strong candidate for grind album of the year. Can't recommend it too much.

The BC page.

Seax - Speed Infermo (2022)

This fifth album from Seax, called Speed Inferno is, guess what, pure speed metal. Excellent speed metal. Fast riffing and soloing, relentless drumming and high-pitched screams. In a vein similar to the first Metallica album or more recently the excellent Belgian band Evil Invaders. If you're into that kind of stuff you sure will enjoy it. I definitely do!

The BC page.

 

8 Hour Animal - Kill Your Boss (2023)

On Kill Your Boss, second album from one-man project 8 Hour Animal, again released by Sentient Ruin Laboratories, the music gets more industrial metal and EBM, and less power electronics. In any case, it confirms that 8 Hour Animal is a nice addition to the harsher side of the industrial scene.

The BC page.