Review bits.
Toronto’s female-fronted progressive metalcore band Red Hand Denial just released their new EP, Wanderers. It has got more maturity than Stories of Old in its writing and overall sound, and singer Lauren improved her pipes as well! Be sure to check it out!

Interrupting Cow is a new name for me, but they’ve apparently been around since 2012 at least. Prime Creators is their newest effort and, judging by the name, you could already tell it would sound like Iwrestledabearonce, Slice the Cake, or Infant Annihilator. Basically, some silly yet serious progressive deathcore with slamming riffs and high-level technicality.

Laurestine Orchestral is So Hideous that it is unironically unbearable. I will write my thoughts on it in a full review pretty soon.

Manet‘s Dark Side of the Valley is a very smooth and dark jazz album. It’s ambient and some comparisons could be drawn with post-rock, maybe even calling it post-jazz at this point. The album takes its time with absolutely no hurry, and will use the tasty dissonances for which I tend to like jazz. It’s a very good, relaxing and contemplative album.

The Fall of Troy‘s reunion was something that sparked much discussions online, but I personally had never listened to the band. They released their newest album, OK, for free, but accept donations. It’s a good mix of mathcore and post-hardcore that is melodic and energetic. I’ve later listened to their older material, but OK is my favourite release from them.

The Brazilian drum-and-bass experimental jazz duo Giant Gutter from Outer Space released their latest EP, Stumm, earlier this month. From a compositional point of view, the addition of a guitar or keyboard, or any other melodic instrument, would be more than welcome, but I cannot deny that trying to fill the whole space yourself must be quite a challenge, and quite fun too. However, it ends up sounding a bit empty and disinteresting.

Does vaporwave for metal exist? I had never heard of it, but Mantispidae kinda did just that with An Ugly World. The description says that it uses sounds from other records to craft its own, and the metal vibe really is strongest on “Lotus Radio” and the bonus tracks. Otherwise, the glitch aesthetics are rather pleasing and add to the experience of the music.

After almost ten years, Kashiwa Daisuke releases the ever-awaited Program Music II. It’s a really interesting instrumental album that goes through many phases, but is ultimately a great soundtrack to anything, and is also very rewarding to listen to on its own.