5 Best Metal Albums Of August 2018
You Took the Sun When You Left. So put it back, you lunatic!
Let’s be honest with ourselves here: August was abysmally terrible for heavy metal music.
In the last month alone, we lost figureheads like We Came as Romans frontman Kyle Pavone, Jonathan Davis’s wife Deven, Huntress singer Jill Janus, Annihilator’s Randy Rampage and Weedeater drummer Carlos Denogean. Furthermore, ex-Of Mice & Men icon Austin Carlile was admitted in and out of hospital. And then, just to ice the cake of awfulness, the worst album of the year thus far – Sulaco’s The Prize – came out.
So, yeah, things suck pretty hard right now. However, at the same time, that only makes it all the more important to examine the positives of the past four weeks. And, while it may seem hard to believe, there have been many good things in the world of metal in August. What follows are just five of them.
This time around, we have a duology of unbridled hardcore heavy-hitters that provide nothing but the most blackened of experiences and, then, a long-awaited masterpiece from one of grunge’s greatest all-time names, before capping off with a head-first dive into Australia’s burgeoning progressive rock/metal scene with the final two trailblazers that top this stacked list.
5. Mantar – The Modern Art Of Setting Ablaze
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s 2018 and if anything’s cool in the metal underground right now, it’s hardcore. Between Loathe, Code Orange, The Fever 333, Leeched (we’ll get to them…), Rolo Tomassi, Svalbard, Broken Teeth, Knocked Loose and Holding Absence, if you want some critical acclaim from the heavy undergrowth this year, you better be making some deliciously metallic hardcore jams.
Mantar do just that. And then they add in melodic black metal and sludge metal on top because that’s just how good they are. The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze is their third album since the duo’s 2012 formation and beneath the golden veneer that is its cover artwork lie 48 minutes of acerbic growls and dissonant riffing destined to send all but the most battle-hardened of metalheads crying home to mummy.
Modern Art… is the dictionary definition of “abrasive”, slyly hiding maniacal yet captivating melodies like those found on “Age of the Absurd” and “Dynasty of Nails” beneath six feet of blood, dirt and broken glass, as provided by an unyielding quickness, earth-shaking drums and vitriolic wails of anguish.
Mantar are dark, discordant and vicious. But they are also sinfully enveloping, using the grittiest of hooks to lure in the brave and the curious.