20 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2018 (So Far)

Godzilla is brutal as f*ck. He is literally a fifty-metre-tall, irradiated embodiment of fire-breathing destruction that leaves nothing but rubble and death in his very wake.

So how the hell has it taken this long for Godzilla-themed extreme metal to become a thing? It’s something that heavy music fans have been clamouring for for decades without even knowing it!

Thankfully, however, Oxygen Destroyer (if you get the reference, congratulations on becoming my new best friend) have finally arrived, and are bringing with them a slew of titanic riffs and frantic growls befitting of the epic image of a city-levelling kaiju. The Seattle quartet’s grinding, hardcore-tinged approach to pummelling thrash/death metal is essential in its on-the-nose straightforwardness, and is perhaps best described as a perfect mix of Carcass and Power Trip.

Bestial Manifestations of Malevolence and Death, Oxygen Destroyer’s debut no less, is a metalhead’s dream fully realised, commencing with the iconic roar of the King of the Monsters, which fittingly gives way to the manic drums and fiery guitars of “Cleansing the Earth of Humanity’s Existence”. Once Jordan Farrow’s Jeff Walker-esque screams enter the fray, the album has hooked any thrash addict in the nearby vicinity, boasting the pure power of a 500,000-degree blast of atomic breath.