5 Best Metal Albums Of July 2018
2. Extremity – Coffin Birth
We’ve had a lot of cool, new-sounding s—t this month, haven’t we? DevilDriver have taken on country music with a constantly unpredictable, powerful and brutal bite, and Pagan have seamlessly blended extreme metal with vintage punk rock, all while Deafheaven continued their individual brilliance with another indie-tinged, blackened epic.
Coffin Birth, the first album from Californian death metal traditionalists Extremity, totally bucks that trend. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, it would rather spend its time punching you in the face with a fist that has the words “The ‘80s were pretty cool, right?” tattooed on it.
Extremity are a time capsule of the most victorious kind: the anarchic, raw, grunting sound of “Where Evil Dwells” and “Umbilicus” instantly transport the listener back thirty years, to the heyday of Death, Obituary and Morbid Angel. This visceral trio prove that music that is both heavy and excellent can never really go out of style, with their first offering providing unstoppable, primal excitement for both modern and classic metalheads.
Obviously, Coffin Birth won’t go on to have the same game-changing legacy as those that it wishes to emulate, but as a skull-rattling throwback to coincide with all of this month’s newness, it is second to none.