I thought about taking today off and not posting anything. I’m more than usually worn out after three days on the east coast working, and then dragging my weary ass through the door of my home at midnight last night. I also have plans to resurrect my “THAT’S METAL!” column tomorrow after a year hiatus, and those take some time to put together.

But rather than just bail on the site altogether, I decided to try to spread the word about some good new discoveries and just not write quite as much about them as I usually do. For that, I apologize to the bands and to those of you who find something worthwhile about the words in addition to the music streams in these round-ups. For those who just routinely jump straight to the players, you’re missing nothing.

I made these particular picks in the way I often do, i.e., pretty randomly but with an eye toward creating musical diversity in the playlist; as you’ll discover, there’s ever greater-than-usual diversity today. I also wanted to focus mainly on relatively DIY bands who I suspect aren’t yet very well known even in underground circles.

DEFECRATOR

On another Saturday one month ago I included in one of these round-ups the 2015 debut demo by a Sacramento-area band named Defecrator, along with a review that made comparisons to such groups as Mitochondrion and Auroch. On October 31, Defecrator released a new 7″ EP (via Our Ancient Future) named Satanic Martyrdom, and it expands on the promise of that first demo. Continue reading »