Griever
Inferior
Vitriol

Four-song EP from San Diego’s Griever (once Lewd Acts), who double down on the two-song single they released earlier this year. There’s actually more than one Griever out there, but this is the only one that deserves your attention, believe me, and even if you don’t think so, they’ll go ahead and take it from you anyway. Griever comes to the race with a hardcore gait but their strength actually lay in their ability to pace themselves with a sludgy, down-tuned melody, which means they’ll remind you more of Torche than they will Trap Them, but they could flank either of ‘em on the podium at the end of the day. “The Forgetter” and “Black Vinyl Clouds” are the two aggressively incessant songs here, loaded with groovy, volatile riffs, while “Stag Hymn” and “Home Again, Alone Again” showcase a gloomier Griever with a post-rock vibe. While heavy and loud, Griever keep you guessing, and that makes Inferior somewhat superior.

Listen to Inferior at Griever’s bandcamp page!

Seven Sisters of Sleep
Seven Sisters of Sleep
A389 Records/Southern Lord

Belly-squelching full-length debut from California’s Seven Sisters of Sleep, who have one of those amazing band names that offer a dark promise, and in this case that dark promise is a hellish renaissance of doom and gloom. Sure enough, these Sisters deliver, conjuring up a hardcore sludge that contains all the Gothic madness of an Albrecht Dürer woodcutting come to life through walls of black fuzz. Now, the eight songs here only run for about 20 minutes, which ain’t really your conventional method for dispensing doom metal, but then again, this doom metal just happens to be wrapped in a cloak of aggression, so it makes sense. In as much, Seven Sisters of Sleep strikes a chaotic balance; the majority of the riffs toe the brutal line, rolling slow and deadly, while the beat and vocals run rabidly ahead and sniff out the corpses. In some cases (“Tide is Rising,” CCEC,” and “Swamp”) it’s all grind and gnash, the hunting party descending upon you without hesitation, ruining your life.

Listen to “Monasteries” from Seven Sisters of Sleep!

The Sword
Warp Riders
Kemado

First ever concept album from Texan metal monsters The Sword, which, as you might guess from the cover, draws its cosmic inspiration from old bargain bin sci-fi novels and creased issues of Heavy Metal magazine. Warp Riders, then, is a conscious thematic shift for the band, which has set its lyrical sights this time on the great beyond, tackling planetary forces of good and evil instead of the more earthly doom and gloom of battle axes and black magic. The narrative, in brief, is about Ereth, an archer who has been banished from his tribe on the planet Acheron, which is stuck in a tidal lock, meaning that half of it is shrouded in darkness while the other half is burnt by the heat of three different suns. Got it? Good. Warp Riders is also a bit of a musical departure for The Sword as well, who have surround their space-world narrative with some freak-fried, 70s-infused boogie doom, and the whole thing kind of sounds like Witchcraft and Year Long Disaster gigging biker bars on Mars. Dig the thick, red rock n’ roll on “Tres Brujas,” “Lawless Lands,” “Night City,” and “(The Night the Sky Cried) Tears of Fire” for the best examples. But listen, the faithful needn’t worry because The Sword haven’t completely abandoned their head-banging aesthetics; they’ve just fused some asteroid-splitting riffs with their old pro stoner thrashing for a massively dope ride through the outermost limits. And it really is some awesome stuff.

Listen to “Night City” from Warp Riders!