Earth
Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II
Southern Lord

Having been locked up for about a year (since it was recorded at the same time as Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I), Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II finally meets its emancipation, and while you’ve no doubt got its dark, drawn out revelry already figured out, there are some differences to be noted between the two sisters. For one, II is only three quarters of an hour long, a good fifteen minutes shorter than I, despite the same number of songs, and in Earth terms, that’s a good spell. That doesn’t mean it feels any less shorter, though, and that’s largely due to II‘s more optimistic tone. If I was the descent, II is the ascent, punctuated by more prominent contributions from Adrienne Davies’ percussion and Lori Goldston’s cello, both of which seem to pull songs like “Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)” and “The Corascene Dog” toward the glowing embers of some distant fire. Much like I — and Earth’s last few albums before it — II is a dust n’ bones affair, albeit a somewhat more redemptive one, meaning it’s got plenty of that hypnotic Americana gothic sound worked into the band’s signature drone doom, but the way Dylan Carlson’s guitar reaches for something akin to a riff on “The Rakehell” is a subtle but dynamic move that reveals beauty and hope in the blackness.

Listen to “The Corascene Dog” from Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II!

Bezoar
Wyt Deth
No World Order Records

That’s it. You’ve convinced me, Brooklyn. You are now thee number one spot in the world for heavy, weird, fuzzy, psychedelic music. Okay? Hull, Elks, Bad Dream, Weird Owl, Children…and now Bezoar. I’m sure there’s plenty more rats crawling around in the sewers there that I’m not even aware of, but as far as I’m concerned right now, none of ‘em are bigger — or carry more diseases — than Bezoar. I mean, even their name invokes images of a mythical beast from children’s fables, and this three-headed varmint more than lives up to the hairy, red eye scares it promises. Expounding doom-infused wyt noize, Bezoar’s debut full-length, Wyt Deth, is a lumbering mess of feedback and mildewy riffs, a witchy, warbling deth-psych album that’s definitely hard to listen to, but surely impossible to turn off. Whether it’s the short and sweet allure of songs like “Burn Everything” and “Nikola” or the long and devastating hold of songs like “We Are Not Alone” and “Knight,” the whole damn thing is nauseously enchanting, and you might think it sounds like a dungeon full of hungry, dying prisoners moaning for sunlight, water, and mercy, but that’s just Sara Palmquist (bass/vocals), Tyler Villard (guitar), and Justin Sherrell (drums) laying down the most mystical stoner metal you’re likely to hear all year. Awesome stuff.

Listen to Wyt Deth in it’s entirety right here!

Corrosion of Conformity
Corrosion of Conformity
Candlelight Records

Corrosion of Conformity’s 1985 Animosity line-up of Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, and Reed Mullin made big news when they reunited in 2010 for a two-song EP, Your Tomorrow (Parts 1 and 2), mainly because Animosity‘s punk/thrash crossover made such a monumental contribution to heavy music and because it brought an end to C.O.C.’s five year hiatus after the release of In the Arms of God in 2005.* Of course, it’s the former point that garnered the most excitement, the belief that with Pepper Keenan still toiling away in Down, C.O.C. would lay aside its Southern metal sound and return to its influential, raucous, politico-skate metal roots. Well, gray hairs and lost years be damned because the new full-length, Corrosion of Conformity, finds the Raleigh, North Carolina trio in a fresh, aggressive, and loud way, chucking around thrashy riffs like empty beer cans. I’m sure it was never the band’s intent to recreate Animosity, which they don’t do by a long shot, but what they do do is spread their innate abrasiveness over several well-executed styles of metal to create a rush of dynamic anarchy. From the traditional blast of “Psychic Vampire,” “River of Stone,” and “Your Tomorrow,” to the motor-punk of “Leeches,” “The Moneychangers,” and “Rat City,” to the sludgy doom of “The Doom” and “Newness,” Corrosion of Conformity is utter mosh pit fodder, and Dean’s vocals are perfectly vile for such destructive enthusiasm. You know, it would have been totally reasonable to expect these bastard pioneers to be a bit out of step, but this is so on point that it’s worth your biggest broken-toothed grin…and a hell of a lot of spins.

*Even though it was the last recorded C.O.C. album, Mullin actually wasn’t part of the In the Arms of God line-up. In fact, that last time this trio appeared on an album together was 2000′s America’s Volume Dealer. However, Mullin and Dean do have another band called Righteous Fool.

Listen to “The Doom” from Corrosion of Conformity!