Metal Reviews
9 Metal records in the Certified Archive. Every one of them earned five rainbow thumbs-up, because we only publish reviews of records we think are great — so treat this page as a listening list rather than a ranking. Newest first.
Warning Return with 'Rituals of Shame' and Doom Has Rarely Sounded This Clear-Eyed
Pristine production in doom metal is a radical act — every sorrowful note on this record arrives in full focus, and the macro-scale songwriting turns patience into a heavy instrument.
August Burns Red Build a Cathedral of Breakdowns on Season of Surrender
Melodic, progressive metalcore with djent shading and an 84-caliber commitment to craft. Every breakdown here is engineered like architecture — load-bearing, deliberate, gorgeous. Heavy metal work ethic, rainbow presentation.
At The Gates Sharpen the Blade on The Ghost of a Future Dead
The Gothenburg pioneers return with razor riffs and zero rust. Melodic death metal from the band that helped write the blueprint. It slashes, it soars, it delivers.
Immolation Dig Deeper Than Ever on Descent
Dissonant death metal royalty returns with an album that churns like tectonic plates. Cavernous, crushing, and somehow still surprising after decades. This is the sound of veterans who never stopped sharpening the blade.
Hellripper Floor It Straight Through Coronach
Breakneck riffs, blackened rock 'n' roll swagger, and pure gleeful energy. Coronach is speed metal that grins the entire time it's trying to outrun itself.
Neurosis Rise From the Ashes With An Undying Love For A Burning World
The year's highest-rated album so far, and it earns every point. Slow, punishing, texture-obsessed sludge that plays like an artistic rebirth. Heavy music as landscape painting, rendered in rust and ember.
Cryptic Shift Bend the Cosmos on 'Overspace & Supertime'
Technical death-thrash spliced with avant-garde detours and jazz fusion flourishes, all pointed straight at deep space. One of the year's highest-rated metal records, and it earns it.
Converge Are Still the Standard on 'Love Is Not Enough'
Decades in, Converge still play precision chaos like nobody else. This is metalcore, mathcore, sludge, and hardcore fused by a band that helped write the blueprint.
URNE Light the Horizon on 'Setting Fire To The Sky'
Progressive sludge that knows when to crush and when to float. URNE stack atmospheric passages against melodic metalcore shades and make the contrast feel inevitable.