This week’s featured Massive Metal Monday track comes to us courtesy of Metal Blade recording artists Redemption whose new album, The Art of Loss, was released this past Friday February 26, 2016. The song is entitled “Damaged” and features guest guitar work by former Megadeth virtuoso Marty Friedman.
The Art of Loss is the sixth full-length entry in the band’s discography, which dates back to 2003. In addition to Friedman, the album features guest appearances by two other former guitarists for Megadeth, Chris Broderick and Chris Poland, as well as Armored Saint/Anthrax vocalist John Bush.
Sloths are mammals known for moving at a very slow pace. Therefore, it is only fitting that the new one-man stoner/doom/sludge metal project of English musician Blake Caverly should share the same moniker. Even more appropriate is the title of Sloth‘s debut record, Slow As Shit.
This crushingly heavy project could be compared to the likes of genre giants Pallbearer, Bongripper, and Boris; it shares the same sort of down tuned, down tempo aesthetics that mark those iconic band’s sounds. But, lest you think that Sloth is just knocking off that which has come before, you should know that there is also a heaping helping of prog rock leanings afoot here as well. The album is largely instrumental but does feature guest vocals from Mikey ‘Churchburner’ Gascoyne of Valravn on the excellent track “Nothing But Leaves.”
Savatage emerged from the Tampa, Florida scene in the early 1980s and helped usher in a new brand of progressive power metal. Led by virtuoso guitarist Criss Oliva and his brother, the powerhouse operatic vocalist Jon Oliva, Savatage would climb all the way to the top of the metal world with one classic album after another. The pinnacle of their success came with their 1987 album Hall of the Mountain King, which featured two hit singles that received heavy airplay on MTV: “Hall of the Mountain King” and “24 Hours Ago.”
Watch the video for the album’s title track here below.
Deathspell Omega is a French progressive black metal band. A great deal of secrecy surrounds the band. No one is sure exactly who the members are. They have no website, have never played live, and have never been photographed. The only thing that is clear is their ideology. The band has professed to be metaphysical Satanists and has declared that “all other interpretations of Satan are intellectually invalid.”
Listen to Deathspell Omega here below.
Over the course of five full-length albums and numerous splits, EPs, and compilations, the band has garnered widespread critical acclaim and respect in black metal circles. Their sound has evolved from straight black metal to a more progressive form incorporating chanting and ambient textures. Here from their 2000 debut album Infernal Battles, here is Deathspell Omega with “Extinction of the Weak.”
Riding high on their critically acclaimed new album Into the Maelstrom, L.A. psychedelic doom metal pioneers Bigelf have just released the official video for “Control Freak (Freak Mix)”.
Check out the video here below, along with a list of upcoming European tour dates.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press