“Gorod’s assignment with The Orb is to figure out how to follow up 2018’s magnificent Æthra. This album’s predecessor, which followed on a string of excellent releases, is among the best albums that I have ever underrated. But Æthra brought change and continuing on this trajectory, The Orb is the band’s first fully independent release. And that raises the hackneyed, obvious question: is all this change good, actually?” Won’t somebody think of the riffs!?
October has been a busy month here at the AMG offices. With the n00bcrew in full swing and a harried management team enforcing the new dresscode—yes, you have to wear trousers at work!—October has been busy. And it has been weird. While there were lots of records that people liked, there wasn’t a ton that the staff agreed on. Fortunately, there’s only one Opinion that’s Very Important™ around here: mine! And so, with all the narcissistic excess of a guy who started and runs an eponymous blog, I present to you three albums from October of 2018—a month where a single release date (the 26th) had 126 metal albums released—that I have declared the month’s very best.
“Æthra, which is being released from the band’s new home at the French label Overpowered Records, is Gorod’s sixth slab of techy goodness. Through all of it, Gorod has yet to release a bad album. Therefore, the question I wanted the answer to when I finally got a chance to pop the album on was ‘will Æthra be good or, like, really good?'” Fanboy ahoy?
