This electroacoustic drone pop band from Montréal, Lying Light in the Quiet, released in early May their album, Recovery. It is a very nice, ambient experience. Every track here originates from an improvisation session, and was expanded into a full song. A pretty chill album.

Binary Code‘s Moonsblod is a decent alternative progressive metal album that will most likely attract fans of Periphery, Tesseract and other bands in that sort of melodic, djent-ish metal.

A Matter of Perspective is Colliding Parallels‘ debut album. Even though it’s a bit rough around the edges, it’s definitely not bad. The singer, in particular, takes some getting used to due to his particular voice, but apart from this the rest is pretty good: the musicianship and song crafting are on display, and the production is clear enough.

Jason Rubenstein is a jazz piano player, and Four Named Narratives is his band’s latest album. Usually playing in the bass registre of his piano, Jason is usually accompanied by bassist and drummer. The compositions on their latest release all tell a story through their jazzy rock instrumentals. It’s pretty good stuff so you might want to take a listen or two!

Polyptych‘s Defying the Metastasis is a blackened death metal album that is pretty wicked. It’s got all the good characteristics of the genre: great riffs, tremolo picking and blast beats. It’s dark, heavy, and very good.

Deep as the Dark Blue Sea is a split release from Endless Melancholy and Desolate Horizons. Both sides are wonderful, thick and lush electronic soundscape music. It’s very ambient and sounds a bit like Kashiwa Daisuke’s Program Music I, although with less modern classical influences. I like it a lot.

Колчак is a Russian blackened hardcore band. It’s a bit punkish in nature, but also has that black metal darkness in its sound. It’s instrumental, too, but it’s pretty short.

Finally, First Fragment released Dasein, their latest crazy technical death metal album. It really is over the top in terms of musician display, and it also has many great guest spots. Surely something you’ll want to be listening to.