Well, though I feared that partying last night might make today a wasteland for me, an incipient cold kept me away from the party. The only silver lining from missing that birthday party is that I had a clear enough head to pull together this column, which includes reviews and streams of two new albums and two new songs from full-lengths that are on the way — the theme of which is that “Variety is the spice of life!”

HERESIARCH (New Zealand)

Heresiarch‘s new album puts me in mind of a stunning mountain that seizes attention from far away, looming by itself like a daunting edifice above mundane surroundings, like a Rainier or a Fuji or a Kilimanjaro. Only as you get closer do the details begin to stand out too.

Edifice is indeed the new album’s name, and we’re drawn to it initially from far away, the distance being the seven years that separate us in time from their first album, Death Ordinance, which still looms in the memory. Unlike the mountains named above, however, this one is erupting, and through its vulcanism is re-configuring as the explosions occur, the earth shakes, and the lava flows. In that way, new details take shape in the harsh crags, to leave new memories. Continue reading »