There was a lot of good music in 2018. That is to be expected for any year; there are just so many artists and musicians out there that are creating, constantly… The absolute number of musical releases is utterly daunting and insignificant by its sheer size—it would be impossible to listen to everything released in a given year—but I’ve truly given it my best, listening to a total of 2,257 albums, EPs, and splits from this year alone (an average of over six releases every day). That is without mentioning older albums, or albums from 2019 that I had the … Read more

If you want a more detailed review of jazz from 2018, please go to Heavy Blog Is Heavy’s Jazz Club post, of which I’m part, where I’ve listed different categories and their winners and honourable mentions. In total, I’ve devised eleven categories, each with up to five nominees, adding up to a total of over sixty albums! On top of that, the other editors inside our Jazz Club also contributed their own picks and selections. If you want more jazz, please hop there and bask in the beautiful glory of this year-end post! Since I’ve already exposed myself at length … Read more

Progressive jazz-rock band Alex’s Hand already made the news on here—I reviewed their latest album, Katatak—so you already know what to expect from them. Today, I’m glad to present the band’s newest single, “This Is Sumthing You Can Never Clean”, off of their upcoming album, Hungarian Spa.

Quite short, at under three minutes, the song is nonetheless very interesting. If not for the vocal harmonies and bombastic introduction, stay for the complex drums and pop-jazz interlude. Midway between big band jazz and prog rock, this song undeniably sets the stage for the band’s next album.

Be sure … Read more

Data Pagan – Data Pagan

The stylized version of Data Pagan‘s self-titled debut album will probably break this page in many wonderful ways: D̷̖͇͇͔͒̑̌̄A̶͍̗̝͎̮̼̩̰̻̙͓̦̟͋̒̎̂̔͆̄̽̽͒́̌͂̑̔͜Ṭ̴̑̊̒̅̎̔̕͝A̶͕̹̮̫̻̲̯͓̿̏́͐̈́ ̸̟̌́̓̕P̶̢̪̫̬̦̺̪͎͇͕̳̠̳̿̓͛̒̌͒̃̒̑͐̾͌̈̕͘͜ͅA̸̢̡̨̛̛̯̫͔͍̺̮͙͓͂͗͆̋͛̓͘̕ͅĢ̷̢̛̜͇̗̻̼͍͕͇̟̯͒́͆̃́̾͊̑͝ͅA̴̧͖̝̬̻̬͍̣̲̐͗̓̋́̓͊̏̃̅́͗̓͌Ņ̷̢̨̪͕͈̹͍̬͑̃͋͘. Coming from the same master brain as Zombieshark!, Data Pagan takes the glitch aesthetics and artificial aspects of cybergrind to impressive heights. I once said that the album sounds like a less gorey, but still as fantastically contorted, as Mulk, which is high praise. This is quite a fun album!

Far Corner – Risk

The newest of Far Corner is finally here! Risk came out via Cuneiform Records, and it’s one … Read more

Big Lad – Pro Rock

The London duo plays hard-hitting drum and bass with the uncommon quality of featuring live drums. The drummer’s work in here is brilliant and quite impressive. You don’t get the same inhuman chops as some breakcore artists, but there’s definitely a focus on musicianship on drums. On top of that, the different synths throughout the songs are often massive and totally face-melting! That’s a seriously amazing album!

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Birushanah – 灰ニナルマデ (Hai ni narumade)

灰ニナルマデ is very atmospheric and quite lightweight, for a sludge metal album, but this changes in the latter half of