We all have our own recipes for dealing with the grimness of Mondays, even if those recipes simply involve falling into a state of clinical depression or foul surliness. My own recipe today was to go in search of fearsome new metal, the kind that would put a shot of adrenaline into the old brainstem or open a door into the pitiless void. The search proved to be highly successful, as you shall see. Here are four new songs from forthcoming releases that brightened up my Monday (and by “brightened” I mean “darkened”).

SOUL REMNANTS

Soul Remnants make their home in the Boston area, and their second album Black and Blood is slated for release on October 31 by a Philadelphia label named Horror Pain Gore Death Productions (by coincidence, this band is the first of two in this post whose new releases are being handled by that label). This morning I listened to two recently unveiled advance tracks from the album that are worth your time — “Incinerator” and “No Afterlife”.

The music is a hot shot of adrenaline straight into the bloodstream, a burst of ripping riffage and furious drumming, segmented by powerful pneumatic grooves and fleet-fingered soloing and flavored with seductive melodies. The caustic harsh vocals are aces too, and the production gives the music the sharp edge of scalpels at work. It’s a bracing brew of melodic death metal, tech-death, and even black metal stylings. Very nice. Continue reading »