Written by Kep Underneath – From the Gut of Gaia > Metallic hardcore > Pennsylvania, US > Releasing January 19 > Syrup Moose Records If you ask me, Pittsburgh crew Underneath are already one of the hottest young forces on the metallic hardcore scene. Their debut EP Nothing Here is Held Sacred, which came out in January of last year, completely blew me away (and ended up in my top ten EPs list on twitter), and the two-sided single they put out in June wasn’t anything to sneeze at either. Their visceral, ugly take on the style has already felt notably d ..read more

Written by Kep, Westin, Ellis, and Kirk Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. We slacked off a little in November. Life was busy, especially for your friendly editor. But you know who didn’t slack off? The bands on this list, each of whom delivered releases that knocked us on our collective asses. Read on to see what we dug the most, and stay tuned this month for our staff AOTY lists. As always, quick links to our (few) reviews for November releases: Gama Bomb – Bats Neurectomy – Overwrought Everson Poe – the tower And now on to the roundup! Convocation – No Dawn for the Caliginous Night Funeral de ..read more

Written by Westin, Kep, Ellis, Rae-Aila, and Kirk Hi folks, Kep here. Yeah, I tried a little too hard for that pun. No, I don’t feel bad about it. Another month down. Another load of bangers delivered and consumed. We reviewed a bunch of releases and loved even more, and we’re gonna damn well tell you about it. As usual, here are quick links to our reviews for July albums: Gutslit – Carnal Whettman Chelmets – Koppen Djinn-Ghül – Opulence A Dark Halo – Omnibus One Auralayer – Thousand Petals Agriculture – Agriculture Winterage – Nekyia Aeons of Ashes – DeterminationDead Heat – Endless Torment R ..read more

Written by Westin, Kep, Ellis, Rae-Aila, and Kirk Well folks, the year is halfway over. That means 50% of 2023’s release Fridays are in the past. And while much of the world seems to be going to the shithouse (especially in the US), at least our cup is overflowing with kickass music. Let’s run over the music from June that we, the Noob Heavy writing staff, loved. As usual, here are quick links to our reviews of June releases: Pupil Slicer – Blossom Thantifaxath – Hive Mind Narcosis Eremit – Wearer of Numerous Forms Project: Roenwolfe – Project: Roenwolfe Rană – Richtfeurer Memorrhage – Memorrh ..read more

Written by Westin, Ellis, Kirk, and Kep Well folks, here we are nearly halfway through 2023 and the killer releases just keep coming. It’s easy to lose some gems amongst the constant flood of quality metal, so we’re here to help bring some back into your view before June gets too far underway. As per usual, here are quick links to all of our full reviews for May releases: Nightmarer – Deformity Adrift Countless Skies – Resonance Finality – Technocracy Nadir – Extinction Rituals Blindfolded and Led to the Woods – Rejecting Obliteration L’Homme Absurde – Stranger Battle Born – Blood, Fire, Magic ..read more

Written by Valkyrjiaa Ghosts of Shadow Moses – Nemesis > Metalcore > Ontario, Canada > Released February 24 > Syrup Moose Records With four good boys from northern Canada coming through the threshold to command and conquer, the metalcore quartet known as Ghosts of Shadow Moses unveil one of their most vicious albums yet. Turning up the heat from the previously released Demons, Nemesis gets into the heavy and hard without even an offer to buy you dinner first. Our introduction comes on the blazing “Cathedral” track. It’s five-and-a-half minutes of absolute madness with ear-sh ..read more

Written by Westin, Kep, Kirk, and Ellis Here we are again, folks, another month of 2023 is in the books. We wrote about a ton of killer April music already, but there are some things we didn’t review that we really loved. Read on to see what you might have missed! In case you missed any of them, here are quick links to all of our reviews for April releases: Mammon’s Throne – Mammon’s Throne Anthropophagous – Abuse of a Corpse Harjo – The Magi Incandesca – Destronomer Blazon Rite – Wild Rites and Ancient Songs AthanaTheos – Cross. Deny. Glorify. Smoulder – Violent Creed of Vengeance Heathen For ..read more

Written by Kirk Incandesca – Destronomer > Progressive deathcore > Maine, US > Releasing April 21 > Alien Swarm Records It doesn’t take much to see that the world around us is burning. Economies collapsing across the globe, climate crisis after climate crisis, and don’t get me started on the billionaires. What are we to do about it all? What can we do? And if we could fix it all, would we? These are questions to which Incandesca seeks to answer. On their debut full-length, Destronomer, the follow-up to last year’s self-titled EP, the fate of ..read more

Written by Kirk, Westin, Kep, Espi Kvlt, and Ellis We’ve had some great music so far in 2023, but March really took the cake. Bangers abounded, and so we’ve rounded up some of our favorites for you to peruse. In case you missed one, here are quick links to each of our reviews for March releases: Majesties – Vast Reaches UnclaimedTransgressive – Extreme Transgression Zulu – A New TomorrowGorod – The Orb Bastard Grave – Vortex of DisgustChoir – Songs for a Tarnished World Úlfúð – Of Existential DistortionEphedra – Valley of the Shepherd Maze of Sothoth – Extirpated Light Spectral Lore – 11 ..read more

What up y’all, Jangel here with my AOTY list! If you don’t know me I write (not as much as I should) for Noob Heavy and run our Instagram account. I wrote this list and do other music things on occupied Ohlone Ramaytush land. If you wanna check out the music I make I’m in a couple bands, HARJO and Icepick to the Face, and I have a solo project, Fire at the Plantation House. These are the 15 records that I enjoyed most this year. I’m not into giving scores or rankings to music so there’s none of that here. If you find something here that you like, that’s new to you, and/or fills you with the ra ..read more