Within the world of heavy metal, the new year is in full swing. I’ve noted more than four-dozen new songs, EPs, and albums that have been released just this week alone and that, at least on a superficial level, seemed worth checking out. But for me it hasn’t been the best week to go exploring. With multiple premieres to write each day, and the time required to compile new installments of our evolving 2018 Most Infectious Song list (one more of which is coming later today), almost all my free time has been consumed.

By chance, however, I woke up at an even more ungodly early hour than usual this morning, and got far enough ahead on today’s planned posts that I spent a bit of time digging into that giant list of new things that appeared this week. I didn’t get far, but, serendipitously, everything I checked out proved to be appealing. All those new discoveries are collected here. Be forewarned: this list includes a healthy dose of clean singing, and one not-metal track.

SWALLOW THE SUN

Swallow the Sun threw more than a few people off-balance when they released the single “Lumina Aurea“ last month. But since then they’ve followed it with two tracks from their next album, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light, which will be released by Century Media on January 25th. The first was “Upon the Water“, and then more recently they debuted a video for the song “Firelights“. Continue reading »