Spencer Wills

Punishing and heavy Dissodeath with groovy riffs for days. This shit rocks.

Really well produced, really well performed, just nothing super new happening here though.

What a fucking cool Death Metal record. Super unique in the implementation of its posty elements. Insanely heavy riffs coupled with dark and foreboding string arrangements to create a nasty and grimy atmosphere. Extremely well done.

A really solid Death Prog debut LP. Interesting riffs, super good bass performance. Super solid all-around.

Good news everyone, War Metal is good again! ASM is a two-piece War Metal set with the intent of murdering you with the fastest riffs. Vocalist is also the drummer! Shit rules!

Knoll is a truly incredible band. So good they've basically created a new subgenre of metal called Funeral Grind (it's just for fun okay). I loved their 2022 release and this is a super strong follow up. Punishing blast beats and super weird riffs with one of the best vocalists in all of metal, this is a truly wonderful record. They are also probably one of the best bands I've ever seen live.

This is an extremely rad one man progressive black metal project that draws massive influence from traditional heavy metal. More bands should do stuff like this, it fucking rules.

One man, anti-fascist, dissonant death metal from Greece. A really phenomenal record with an extremely dark and heavy atmosphere and an incredible drumming performance.

This record is super weird and I fucking love it. Furious blast beats fronted by extremely dissonant and angular riffing. One of those records where the album title makes a lot of sense sonically.

Caustic and pulverizing black metal with riffs that are out to kill you.

Love how up tempo this is compared to their earlier material. Absolutely sludgy bangers all around.

Ferocious Death / Thrash with old school influence and Sci-Fi themes. The production is really organic and hearkens back to the sound of the late 80's early 90's. Really well done, I also love the vocal performance.

Medieval Black Metal!! A really solid record offering 2nd wave BM worship with some really nice symphonic undertones. I think this would actually be a really great intro record for someone trying to get into Black Metal.

Melodeath is always a tough subgenre for me, but every year a release or two breaks through for me. This is one of them. The solos on this record are superb and I love the vocal delivery. The melodic aspects of it are very catchy and to the point. It's a super short record (which I love). I would give it a higher rating but there's something about the production that I'm not a huge fan of.

Powerful melodic black metal with huge soaring riffs and a shit ton of blast beats.

Very gross, very heavy, very dissonant, very good death metal from Portugal.

Gross and evil Lovecraftian death metal from Chile. Extremely dissonant riffs and insanely good solos.

Some really solid Black / Thrash about giant monsters. Hell yeah.

Not really feeling this! There's some good riffage and I dig the vocal performance, it's just nothing else particularly stands out for me or is doing anything different from other brutal death metal acts. Might just need to revisit in a few months.

This is how you Death / Doom!! I find it hilarious that most of the guys in Blood Incantation just decided to make one of the best Death / Doom records ever made. Gross vocals, punishing riffs, the slow parts are slooooooow. I can't think of many examples where this is done better.

Man this is just insanely good Death / Doom. The balance between the two subgenres is really great. I also really love the melodicism they incorporate in their riffs. Heavy and disgusting extremely good shit.

I think this is my favorite Mastodon record (at least at this moment in time). The flow of the album is great, the performances (especially the vocals) are great, the production is great. Honestly a pretty perfect record.

Extremely based of this band to have the bass so high in the mix, especially during the guitar solos

This record rewired my brain and expanded my horizons on what would constitute a very very good death metal record. The first time I heard this I passed it off as an okay record, but kept coming back to it and it eventually cemented itself as one of my favorite metal records ever. The technicality of the guitar riffs and how they seamlessly interweave themselves into each other is honestly a marvel of songwriting (for me). I listen to this record a lot while I'm working and my productivity dips down because I get lost in the atmosphere of structured chaos. I find new things about this record that I like every time I listen. It's truly, in my opinion,… More

A really exceptional death / doom record hailing from the Faroe Islands. I actually really dig the clean vocals on this record. Like a lot. That is not usually something that makes me like a death / doom record but they are what makes this record so good. The production is so crisp and clean but still helps shape the foreboding atmosphere of the record.

This was my 2023 AOTY. I don't think you can make a record as perfect as this one. The fact that they did a hard pivot into prog death and executed it this well is insane. I had the fortune of being able to see them twice in the last year and it fully cemented that this is a truly special record that I think will go down as one of the best ever in all death metal.

This has been a heavy hitter in my general rotation for the last few months (I guess it's technically a 2023 release but didn't hit streaming services until earlier this year). It's just really good dissonant death metal with riffs that bludgeon your face into a bloody pulp and then some. It has some pretty overt Gorguts influence (especially in the vocals) which makes me love the record even more.