Floom – Multi-Voice of the Immensity
It is with a rather questionable portmanteau that guitarist, flautist, and singer Maxx Katz present to us a sludgey, droney doom album filled with flutes and female vocals. The band is an all-women trio, with Christina Fleming and Cathy Monnes supporting Maxx with vocals. The riffs are great, all drowned in fuzz and distorsion, and the flutes are just the icing on the cake.

Kodian Trio – II
The second album of the Belgian free jazz trio is even better than their first. The dynamics between the guitar, the saxophone, and the drums are wild and untamed, almost akin to completely expressionist music – that’s if it isn’t exactly this already! The sax surges are often impressive, if not downright surprising, while the drums seem to be able to keep the rhythmic section endlessly interesting, with the guitarist’s inventive patchwork filling the pieces with its own strange musical context. It’s great!

The Last of Lucy – Ashvattha

Ashvattha, which comes out on the 17th, is going to be an awesome progressive technical death metal/mathcore release. The band are able to craft wild riffs and interesting song structures, and their own style is crafted on the incorporation of a lot of outside influences. There are atmospheric keyboard pads, jazz-tinged sections driven by saxophone, and many a blast beat in there. Prepare for an amazing album!

Impureza – La caída de Tonatiuh
This French-Spanish progressive tech-death quintet dives into flamenco music to spice their game. While not as fused as the awfully-named-but-totally-great Flametal, their sound is much more rooted into tech-death: soaring fretless bass, fast-picked palm-muted riffs, blast beats and drum fills galore… Yeah, we know the song. However, some truly folk-jazz flamenco sections bring the songs in totally new directions, and all aspects touched on are masterfully developed and rendered. Be in awe!

High Aura’d – No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend
The post-folk soundscapes of High Aura’d make us bathe in rural America with their modern sound tapping into the traditional well of the country’s music. Most tracks on the album are acoustic, made with various instruments, but a few tracks let themselves be corrupted by electricity and distorsion. They paint a nice landscape of tranquil plains and somber woodlands, which is all we need from it. Beautiful.

Les chevals & Allonymous – Big Mess
Les chevals is a nine-piece jazz band from France, and they’re teaming up with vocalist and poetry slam artist Allonymous on their newest release, Big Mess. It has big band vibes, some R&B fragrances with a sound that’s close to Snarky Puppy at times, and the album is just generally good feels and grooves. While set for a 9 December release, it’s already available to stream in its entirety, which leads me to believe it might be a slight mishap with the unnatural month-day-year system of the States.

Gnarbot – Sun Sessions
This Philadelphia jazz fusion quartet just released their debut EP, and it’s pretty astounding! It’s very mathy and often unpredictable. The opened “D. Stroyer” is perhaps the most intense of their compositions, but the two others are not too sober either. The EP was recorded live using only solar energy, which is great! Consider supporting the band if you want more eventually!

苦しみ (Kurushimi) – 帰還鬼門 (Return 1: Kimon)
This is the first of hopefully many 帰還 (kikan) albums, where the controlled-improvised Australian band return to older compositions and reinterprets them. Here, they shine a new light on 鬼門 (kimon), from their self-titled debut. While the first embodiment of the track was literally the entrance to Hell, this new version is like a journey on ethereal winds over mystical, magical, and mostly barren lands. It’s great, and I love both versions! The album ends with two unnamed tracks birthed on stage, which add up to almost forty minutes of insufferable grind jazz noise. Love it!

Entheos – Dark Future

Ever since Primal came out, we knew Entheos would be a force to reckon with. On Dark Future, they add a new aspect to their stellar-as-always music: altered vocals. I don’t know if singer Chaney Crabb uses pedals to alter her voice live or if it was all done during production, but the result on CD is great, and it brings out a new sound for the band. The album is filled with groovy riffs and incredible chops from literally everyone in the band. Their release schedule is pretty prolific, and, if they keep scoring home runs like this, keep them coming!