Record(s) o’ the Month – November 2013

Since you’ve already been gifted with end of 2013 lists from the AMG staff and know exactly where we stand on the year in music, hopefully you’ll all be too pacified and complacent to notice how late this post is. Though the back end of 2013 was awash with quality releases, November saw that flow reduced to a trickle as the record industry began to wind things down for the year. That said, there were some bright spots that deserved attention and recognition, and in the interest of being complete and meeting the expectations of our ever demanding readers, we present the Records o’ the Month for November.

Eye of Solitude_Canto

Eye of Solitude // Canto III — In the big, crushing doom/death game, Eye of Solitude are a young band to watch carefully, and Canto III cements their place as worthy successors to such titans as My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost. Our man Grymm was rather bowled over by the dark atmosphere of Canto III and even dubbed them the doom/death equivalent of Bolt Thrower while promising the listener will “feel like you’ve just got your soul sucked out of you.” If you love doom/death, what else do you need to hear? And look at that cover art!

Runners Up / Other Reasonable Choices for Which You Wouldn’t Be Laughed at:

Blood Mortized CD CoverBlood Mortized // The Demon, the Angel, the Disease – No-nonsense, throwback Swedish death is now commonplace, but Blood Mortized do it better than anyone and their vicious new platter is everything you could want from this kind of metal. Blistering, distorted riffs, deep, unholy death roars and a real ability to craft memorable songs set these guys apart from much of their ilk, and as Steel Druhm the fanboy says, “if you love death metal and haven’t yet heard Blood Mortized, you’re an awful person and need to remedy that shortcoming immediately.”

Falkenbach_AsaFalkenbach // Asa – The Lord of Germanic Viking/folk metal bounces back from a lackluster outing to show all the youngsters how it’s supposed to be done. Rich atmospheres, diverse tempos and great vocals all combine to make Asa one of the best folk metal releases of the year. Steel Druhm describes it as “catchy and full of stoic ambience, this is the stuff that put Falkenbach on the map in the first place.”

EudaimonyEudaimony // Futile – Floating somewhere between tradition black metal and suicide-inducing, depressive darkness is where you find Eudaimony (and Madam X too). Our resident dark child really took to these glum frowners and their odes to unhappiness and all things bleak hit Madam X right where it hurts – in her black little heart.

Exivious-LiminalExivious // Liminal – Featuring former members of seminal prog-metal act Cynic, you can expect tons of interestingly offbeat, progressive music here and though it’s short on brutality, Grymm found Liminal “thoroughly enjoyable, utterly breath-taking, and jaw-droppingly addictive.”

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