Black Breath
Heavy Breathing
Southern Lord

Black Breath’s four-song debut EP, Razor to Oblivion, released sometime last year, was a blinding swipe of the reaper’s scythe – brutally sharp, swift, and precise. Well, the goddamn head hasn’t even hit the ground yet and the Washington band is back like a relentless plague with a brand new full-length, Heavy Breathing, to finish off the body where it stands before it folds under its own dead weight into a pile of rotting carrion. This reckless death metal slaughter carries with it all the charm of a toothless grin, and the decrepit fingers that seize your spine hold your last few merciless moments in place like rusty crucifixion nails. It’s a real smorgasbord of pain and suffering, from the brutal thrash of opener “Black Sin (Spit on the Cross)” to the doom stomp of “I Am Beyond” to the death n’ roll of “Virus” to the groove-oriented instrumental title-track to the slow crush of “Unholy Virgin,” and the nasty, evil metal on Heavy Breathing can sound like Entombed or The Crown or Death Breath or all three at once, if you prefer. Sick stuff, however you take it.

Listen to “I Am Beyond” from Heavy Breathing!

#31 Baby Woodrose – S/T

Not since Baby Woodrose’s debut, Blows Your Mind, in 2001, has Lorenzo Woodrose written all the songs and played all the instruments on an album. So this is a bit of an old school approach for the Danish wizard, whose psychedelic garage sound is so remarkably familiar it’s like the musical equivalent of the back of your hand. Hell, throw on some On Trial or Dragontears; there’s no mistaking Woodrose’s trademark acid trip. So, backing studio band or not, Woodrose delivers time and again, like the best drug dealer in town, peddling sweet lollipop fuzz and freak machine kicks. Far out.

Listen to “Emily” from Baby Woodrose!

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