With Destroy Erase Improve, Meshuggah shattered any preconceived notions about what death, thrash, and prog metal could be with one astoundingly accurate, calculated blow. The Swedish outfit managed to surpass their startlingly original, if relatively immature debut, Contradictions Collapse, with a record so pure in concept and execution, it borders on genius. Lyrical themes visualize the integration of machines with organisms as humanity's next logical evolutionary step, while the music backing it up is mind-bogglingly technical, polyrhythmic math metal - the work of highly skilled men with powerful instruments. While the idea looks unwieldy on paper, Meshuggah handles it with a balance of raw guts and sheer brainpower, weaving hardcore-style shouts amongst deceptively (and deviously) simple staccato guitar riffs and insanely precise drumming - often with all three components acting in different time signatures…

On first listen, the sound on Obzen, Meshuggah's sixth full-length, is startling, not for its trademark rapid-fire key and tempo changes, or for the intricate, insanely knotty riffs that careened over 2002's Nothing or 2005's Catch Thirty-Three. Instead, it is the rampaging charge that leads off the set on "Combustion," a balls-out sprint that recalls the band's earlier catalog albums like Contradictions Collapse, Destroy Erase Improve, and even Chaosphere. Power, focus and attention to the bone-crushing power are at the center of Obzen. That said, it loses nothing in terms of the band's keen focus of musical or technical innovation or drummer Tomas Haake's songwriting. What it does leave behind is some of the mathy quick-change-for-the-sake-of-it annoyances that were more a show-off of athletic prowess than actual compositional tropes…

Imagine a metallic and mechanical journey through extremely complex and brutal metal stuffed with insane spacey guitar solos and neck breaking sharp riffs. Meshuggah's third studio release, "Chaosphere" from 1998, is just like that. An extremely technical prog-metal mayhem of an album, clocking in at 46-minutes; there are no silent parts here, only pure metal throughout, so If you are used to other prog metal bands like Dream Theater and Symphony X, well, then you'll be blowed away with this album's ability to nearly crack your brain. This is Meshuggah's most extreme release yet, guitars, bass, drums and vocals crashes into each other with amazing speed and NO emotion or melody, creating this extremely intense and brutal monster. The best thing is that the result is so original too! No bands before or after have ever created something like this before! That makes this album so interesting.

To coincide with the 30th anniversary of our seminal debut album, we have scoured the vaults to unearth some absolute gold for the legions of die-hard Head Cases out there. We have found the original unmastered demo cassette of the 1993 demo that got the band signed, and had it remastered Sterling Sound. But the jewel in the crown; a never-before-released 4-track cassette rehearsal demo with our original drummer Tony Costanza, painstakingly remixed from the original 4-track cassette bounces and also mastered at Sterling Sound. Only for the most hard-core Head Cases!

After the extremely well received re-recordings of the first two Sepultura releases ("Bestial Devastation" (1985), "Morbid Visions" (1986), 3m streams combined), founding brothers Max and Iggor Cavalera now also re-recorded their 1987 landmark album "Schizophrenia". An all time classic that was just lacking a proper production. Arthur Rizk (Soulfly, Kreator) gave these newly recorded songs the punch and atmosphere that they needed, making "Schizophrenia" an album to be revisited and not to be missed in 2024.

Formed in 1986, Exhorder's journey has proven exciting, yet tumultuous. After a twenty-seven-year absence following their final Roadrunner Records release in 1992, Exhorder enter the game with an album considered by many to be a contender for the "Best Comeback Album". The band released Mourn the Southern Skies in 2019 through Nuclear Blast Records. Fraught with euphoric peaks and crippling valleys throughout it's existence, lineup changes, and the 2020-2021 pandemic, Exhorder clawed back through the muck to prepare yet another album to add to the discography. In the spring of 2024, Exhorder presents their 4th full-length recording, Defectum Omnium. Produced by Exhorder & mixed by Jens Bogren, Defectum Omnium puts a foot back into the roots of the band's inception. The scales have tipped favorably towards the presence of punk & thrash. Tracks like 'Wrath of Prophecies', 'Forever and Beyond Despair', & 'Sedition' are what Exhorder comes by most honestly when referring to their beginning.

Gojira never seemed like a band built for the mainstream. A cult act, yes, but in this century at least perhaps only Mastodon before them have taken a strand of metal so obviously built for the underground and dragged it kicking and screaming into the sunlight. It’s a long while since Gojira could legitimately be called a death metal band, but they’ve retained an uncompromising sense of self that has not always been the most accessible. Dense, complex and oblique, they’ve nevertheless hammered their way to the forefront of modern metal relying on quality and sheer bloody-mindedness.
Fortitude sounds like the album that could propel them the rest of the way to the top. They’re no strangers to melodies and hooks, but they’ve never crafted anything quite like this before…

DevilDriver didn’t pause, releasing the highly-acclaimed first installment of their two-part Dealing With Demons saga, Dealing With Demons I. International media mainstays like Revolver, Metal Hammer, Kerrang and Consequence lauded the album, with Blabbermouth adding, "If the second half of this mammoth endeavor matches the first, this will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the DevilDriver story." And now, as society emerges more hardened and determined than before, so does DevilDriver’s 10th full-length, Dealing With Demons Vol. II.
Once again produced and engineered by Steve Evetts with additional engineering from guitarist Mike Spreitzer, Dealing With Demons Vol. II is inarguably heavier and relentlessly harsher than its predecessor…

What the Dead Men Say finds Trivium firing on all cylinders. Bent's double-kick drum attack and blastbeats have been fully integrated into the band's punishing amalgam of deathcore, prog metal, thrash, melodic death metal, and more. As evidenced by the pre-release tracks "IX" and "Scattering the Ashes," in a Spawn trailer for Mortal Kombat 11, Trivium revisited various sonic eras in their history while moving their music ever forward. The former cut is an instrumental that builds in grandiose intensity for two minutes then bleeds into the crushing title track. As furious as anything on TSATS, it also employs the mind-melting technical prowess Shogun boasted. "Catastrophist" commences as nearly radio-friendly with a hooky chorus before it shifts gears halfway through to become a meld of roaring vocals, twin guitar leads, and spiraling death metal riffs fueled by Bent's triple-time drumming…