A little less bleak, but still as ugly as ever

Doom metal is a cathartic outlet for depression and loneliness and, yeah, it sounds pretty great under the influence of recreational pharmaceuticals, since the rhythms are generally slow and repetitive enough to separate the individual instruments and sink into the full, echoing effect of their sound. Howl’s 2010 full-length debut Full of Hell was an angry stoner’s paradise, a feast of trudging riffs, plodding beats, serpentine guitars and tumbling drums that appealed equally to fans of Black Sabbath and Mastodon.

Who knows if frontman Vincent Hausman stopped smoking weed or if he’s merely evolved as a songwriter and musician, but Howl’s second album Bloodlines is far more intricate and diverse. Some of that might be because the band hired a second guitarist, Josh Durocher-Jones, who adds counter-melodies and extra heft to Hausman’s leaden chugs (Since recording the album, Hausman has actually focused strictly on vocals and handed his guitar over to new member Jonathan Hall).

Clearly, vocals have become a priority to Hausman. On Bloodlines he expands his parameters, spewing various flavors of venom, including Lamb of God-style roars (“Attrition,” “Demonic”), shouty growls (“Your Hell Begins, “Of War”) and even moody melodic baritone crooning (“One Last Nail,” “Down So Long”).

The abundant musical flourishes are even more impressive. Howl can still stomp and drone, but they’ve added new tricks to their arsenal, including southern power-groove riffs, twin-guitar harmonies and unexpected shifts in rhythm; the tempos range from mid-paced (“Embrace Your Nerve”) to double-time (“Your Hell Begins”). Clearly, Howl worked exhaustively to overhaul their sound (captured expertly by producer Zeuss and they’ve done so without sounding like a completely different band than the one that recorded Full of Hell.

Maybe that has something to do with their overall aesthetic. No matter how much they’ve strayed from their roots, Howl are still filled with animosity and contempt. Just check out the album art, which depicts a naked woman bleeding from her eyes, a spurting heart, a skeleton with a spear, a wolf and ravens, all of them swimming in an ocean of blood. “I will tear limb from limb/this is where your hell begins,” sings Hausman on “Your Hell Begins.” “Drink up the blood you maggot/spit on the open wound,” he rails in “The Mouth of Madness.” Howl’s music may sound a little less bleak and a bit more multifaceted than they did two year ago, but at the core they remain as ugly as ever.

Direct and tuneful, replacing raw, loose rhythms with more economical song structures

Over the past two years, Louisville, Kentucky’s Coliseum have completed their evolution from a storming, metallic hardcore powerhouse to a more musically refined post-punk band. The group’s fourth full-length, Sister Faith is direct and tuneful, replacing raw, loose rhythms with more economical song structures. The album was produced by J Robbins, which explains the Jawbox influence, but there are also strains of Fugazi and Quicksand present in the barbed hooks.

As much as the music seems driven by the members’ collective record collections, Ryan Patterson’s lyrics seem to stem from an inability and unwillingness to fit into the mainstream and the toll it has taken. “All my life, failure, All I see, failure/ All my dreams, failure,” he barks in “Last/Lost” before concluding, “See clearly from failure, live freely from failure.” And on “Fuzzbang,” he rails, “Gotta get away, wish we could close our eyes and dream it all away.” Patterson’s resigned discontent shines through Coliseum’s tunes, which steamroll without obliterating and cut without leaving scars regardless of tempo or intensity.

Well-honed songwriting, offbeat experimentation and freewheeling abandon

After breaking up their black metal band Ludicra in 2011, guitarist John Cobett and drummer Aesop Dekkar decided to make one more album together, so they recruited YOB vocalist Mike Scheidt and Hammers of Misfortune’s multi-instrumentalist Sigrid Sheie (on bass) and formed Vhöl, a band that combines well-honed songwriting with offbeat experimentation and freewheeling abandon. The band’s self-titled debut is rooted in black metal and hardcore, but it’s the injections of classic and prog-metal between bludgeoning rhythms and blastbeats that make the album exceptional. Picture old-school Darkthrone and Motorhead tangled in a burning mosh pit with Mastodon, Voivod and Rob Halford.

More than anything, it’s those Halford touches that make Vhöl stand out. Unlike the countless bands that interrupt extreme metal passages with melodic riffs and clean vocals, Vhöl layer soaring vibrato atop sepulchral growls and wherever the fuck they feel like it, and never to create sing-along choruses. The same holds true for Cobbett’s tuneful leads and fills, which provide euphony to even the most dissonant parts of a song. Throwing caution to the wind is Vhöl’s M.O., and it’s what they’re best at. On “Plastic Shaman” they weave an epic NWOBHM guitar melody, sustained chords and marching drums through a black crust rhythm and halfway through “Illuminate” the song takes a chiming, psychedelic left turn before transforming into a transition that can only be described as power metal to unlock the gates of Valhalla. Even stranger is whatever lurks in the middle of “Arising,” which resembles a nightmarish ho-down replete with shuffling drums and slide guitar. Although Vhöl was originally intended as a one-off, the members reportedly are already making plans for a follow-up. As long as they don’t lose their bold spontaneity and hunger to reinvent, it should mark yet another step in the continued growth of extreme metal.

Stretching their musical boundaries far beyond the metal underworld

As soon as Ghost swarmed out of the depths of Linköping, Sweden, in 2010 with their retro occult album Opus Eponymous, the metal community came running. Not only was the band’s underground blend of Mercyful Fate riffs and Blue Oyster Cult melodies instantly appealing, its evil shtick was too goofy to ignore. Fronted by Papa Emeritus II, a cryptic skull-faced vocalist in a pope costume, and backed by musicians who all went under the moniker “Nameless Ghoul,” Ghost were a Satanic Spinal Tap with crafty, infectious songs they clearly sold their souls for the ability to write unforgettable songs.

Vocal praise from Down’s Phil Anselmo, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl followed and Ghost, despite their blatantly Satanic lyrics, were soon in the center of a bidding war. By the end of Walpurgis Night, they were picked up by Universal, who recruited Nick Raskulinecz (Alice In Chains, Deftones, Rush) to produce the band’s second album.

Ghost (who by then had to add “B.C.” to the end of their name to avoid confusion with another Ghost), haven chosen the moment to stretch their musical boundaries far beyond the metal underworld. Despite its bleak atmosphere and epic structures, the album is ultimately more classic rock (think Blue Oyster Cult and Jethro Tull) and proggy pop (early Genesis and Marillion) than metal. There’s no question it’s far more accessible than Opus Eponymous, featuring only a few riffs that could really quality as headbanger-worthy. That said, there’s plenty here that’s thoughtful, provocative and heavy, and the way Ghost B.C. combine influences throughout Infestissumam is uncanny.

The album opens with the title track, which features a harmonized choral arrangement atop pounding drums, sustained organ chords and simple guitar lines that propel the song and suggest from the start that this is going to be an unusual offering. “Perverted are your wishes and dreams/ Tanning in Lucifer’s beams…Oh Satan devour us, hear our desperate call,” Papa Emeritus II sings in “Per Aspera Ad Inferi” in a voice equal parts Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. As sinister as Ghost B.C.’s lyrics are, the vocals never rise to the level or rage or even sound particularly evil.

Much of the album sounds both exotic and demented: Calliope keyboards yield to church organ runsm and classic rock riffs melt into pure pop confection. On “Jigolo Har Meggido” the band blends retro harpsichords, glam beats and proggy rhythms with euphoric, jaunty melodies that sound like The Sweet by way of Strawberry Alarm Clock.

But their most alarming and brilliant moment comes in “Ghuleh/Zombie Queen,” a seemingly sincere eight-minute-30-second long love song to the undead. Following a plangent piano intro, the song evolves with a pop melody reminiscent of Air Supply, then zig-zags into a quirky hook redolent of the B-52′s. Before it’s over, the song has ricocheted from Gabriel-era Genesis pomposity to Dick Dale surf guitar twang to Deep Purple euphoria. Wilder still are the lyrics: “Up From the Stinking Dirt/ She rises ghastly pale/ Shapeshifting soon, but now she’s rigid, stiff and stale.” As absurd as Ghost BC can get, their hooks are thoroughly hypnotic and by the end of the song we’ll be damned if you’re not chanting “Zombie Queen, Zombie Queen/ Black, white guides you, Guleh, Guleh!”

Ghost B.C.’s blatantly Satanic content is likely far too extreme for commercial radio and the crowd usually drawn to such content may be dismayed by the band’s departure from their metal roots. But for those who value strong, unique songs regardless of genre or lyrical content, Infestissumam is more illuminating that 100 burning Bibles.

Raw musical gristle, asymmetrical acrobatics and unexpected sonic flourishes

Over the past decade, Winnipeg, Canada’s KEN Mode — who took their name from Henry Rollins’s acronym for Kill Everyone Now (as detailed in his book Get in the Van) — have evolved from a bracing hardcore metal band into something more experimental and complex. The band’s fifth album, Entrench, is their most inventive yet, matching raw musical gristle and asymmetrical acrobatics with unexpected sonic flourishes, from the scribbling violins of the opening cut “Counter Culture Complex” to the undistorted arpeggios and pensive piano of the closer “Monomyth.”

Throughout, frontman and guitarist Jesse Matthewson alternates between propulsive power chord volleys, scribbly post-hardcore configurations and terse melodic licks and the band responds with correspondingly varied tempos, from the barreling “Your Heartwarming Story Makes Me Sick” to the militant, mid-paced “The Terror Pulse.”

Most of the vocals are harsh and abrasive, but Matthewson throws a striking change-up into album highlight “Romeo Must Never Know,” which builds and dips in intensity over seven-plus minutes of minor-key melodies that are equal parts Fugazi and Sonic Youth. For KEN Mode the heaviest music is only limited by imagination.

Proving they're capable of more than the next great doom band

The 2011 debut full-length from New York’s Batillus, Furnace was crushing, oppressive, bleak and morose, one of the top dark horse doom metal albums of the year. Not content to remain within those parameters, the band has undergone a facelift for its new album Concrete Sustain. In addition to an abundance of trudging, mid-paced riffs played on densely distorted guitar and bass, Batillus have built a framework of counterpoint rhythms that provide tension and contrast: Grinding, whirring industrial samples abound, as do textural washes of feedback that border on the post-rock nihilism of Neurosis.

The opening track, “Concrete,” with its monochromatic beat and spare, gut-shaking riffs resembles a more animated Godflesh, while the more complex “Thorns,” driven by ominous, reverberant guitars and melodic vocal chants, sounds like a heavily-sedated Mastodon. Concrete Sustain‘s knock-out punch is Batillus’s ability to retain a head-bobbing groove regardless of the tempo or the atmosphere of the songs. “Rust,” which moves from being down-tuned and menacing to a drifting mid-section full of heavy breathing and dissonant chords, is held together by a subtle but omnipresent pulse that keeps the listener glued. Credit percussionist Geoff Summers, who’s equally adept at maintaining minimal beats with glistening ride cymbal taps and syncopated bass drumming as he is at stuttering snare strikes and rolling drum fills.

While Concrete Sustain might have benefited from a couple of uptempo songs (such as Furnace‘s pace-shifting “Uncreator”) Batillus have effectively proven that they’re capable of way more than the next great doom band.

Unified by the band's penchant for sinister, cinematic sounds

After 25 years together, many metal bands settle into a comfort zone and stick with a sound they’ve developed over the decades. Not Athens, Greece’s Rotting Christ, who continue to discover new approaches to sonic blasphemy. The band’s 11th full-length, Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy (which translates to the Aleister Crowley motto “Do what thou wilt”), takes its title seriously, not just from a lyrical perspective but also from a creative standpoint. Rotting Christ have come a long way since their formation as a traditional black metal band. Grinding guitars and blast beats are no longer the cornerstones of their sound, they’re just some of the elements used to convey Rotting Christ’s messages of individuality. “In Yumen Xibalba” features chanted vocals and a twin guitar lead reminiscent of Iron Maiden, while “Grandis Spiritus Diavolos” dabbles in the gothic and theatrical. “Kata Ton Demona Eaftou” blends black metal ferocity with elements of folk, Pagan and power metal and “Cine Lubeste Si Lasa” opens with frenetic classical piano runs and spiritual female operatic vocals before bursting into a trudging tribal paen.

A natural evolution from the band’s last two releases, 2007′s Theogonia and 2010′s Aealo, Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy should be a welcome addition to the collections of those that have enjoyed listening to the band develop over the past half-decade. Even casual fans should rejoice to the range of sounds on the album, from the thunderous blast beats, bestial vocals and rapid-fire guitar licks of “Gligames,” to the Arabic crooning in “Ahura Mazda-Anra Mainuu.” Whether Rotting Christ are exploring world music, gothic, black metal or (gasp!) melodic metal, Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy is unified by the band’s penchant for sinister, cinematic sounds, leaving no question which path Rotting Christ are invariably driven towards. As the mighty Slayer once proclaimed, evil has no boundaries.

Both totally familiar and unlike anything Trent Reznor has ever done

Welcome oblivion, the first full-length album with Trent Reznor’s new band How to Destroy Angels, is both totally familiar and unlike anything Reznor has ever done. It’s dark, brooding and filled with angst, but the anger that drives Nine Inch Nails is mostly absent, replaced with a sense of urgent desperation, as if Reznor knows time is passing and he wants to explore new, challenging sonic avenues, much like his idol David Bowie.

At the end of “And the Sky Begins to Scream,” Reznor whispers, “I wanna tear it down to the ground and build another one.” The song follows this aspiration; it starts with a shower of fuzzy keyboard notes that flicker in and out as if emanating from a short-circuiting soundboard, before evolving into an alien soundscape of layered noises, and mid-paced beats and ethereal pop vocals by Reznor’s wife Mariqueen Maandig.

In part, How to Destroy Angels is the natural hybrid of Nine Inch Nails and the spacious, inventive film scores Reznor wrote with Atticus Ross for David Fincher. Ross is also a member of How to Destroy Angels, and he and Reznor continue to work with unsettling noises, ambient tones and dynamic arrangements. Yes, Reznor’s industrial arsenal is ever-present, but most of the songs are built around a haunting, almost meditative combination of syncopated electronic beats and deep keyboard bass lines. Comparisons can be made to Tricky’s 1996 album Pre-Millennium Tension and many of the ambient structures resemble Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV. But writing off Welcome oblivion as an amalgam of Reznor’s past work sells the project short.

The track with the most commercial potential, “How Long,” weaves a Peter Gabriel-esque chorus through a mélange of clattering beats and skewed melodic keyboard lines, while “Ice Age” balances picked, muted and transmuted acoustic guitar with Maandig’s soft, soothing vocals. While there are undercurrents of feedback throughout, the song maintains its twisted folk roots until five minutes in, when waves of digital noise — some of which sounds like an underground bagpipe — starts to infect the beauty of the melody. In “Too Late, All Gone” Maandig and Reznor sing together, “The more we change, everything stays the same.” Maybe it’s a personal revelation that regardless of how far he strays sonically, he remains the same brooding artist that wrote 1989′s groundbreaking Pretty Hate Machine. If he’s not happy with that for some reason, at least it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Pushing the boundaries of what they're capable of

For the follow-up to 2011′s quirky but compelling Conditions of my Parole, Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle) and his revolving door of band mates have assembled a seven-song EP featuring two new tunes and two covers, with remixes of all but Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which opens the release in grand style. The song is faithful to the original and brilliantly executed, from the multi-part vocal harmony to the melancholy piano. Those expecting Keenan to burst into parody mode will be sorely disappointed; even the “Skaramoosh, Skaramoosh, will you do the fandango” section is rendered with the utmost reverence, and the solos channel both the tone and talent of Brian May.

The rest of Donkey Punch is more experimental, but no less serious. “Breathe” begins like a Joy Division pop song, but quickly branches off into a haunted, sedated miasma of trip-hop and electronica urging us to “surrender to the hunger/ don’t forget to breathe.” The remix of the song, by Drumcell, removes some of the bounce from the tune, but keeps it spiraling forward until it climaxes in a supernova of harrowing screams. Unlike Puscifer’s sillier output, Donkey Punch seems like a concerted effort to demonstrate that the group is as gifted, sincere and intoxicating as Tool, A Perfect Circle or Keenan’s Caduceus brand wine. The only tongue-in-cheek moment on Donkey Punch is a cover of metal band Accept’s 1983 anthem “Balls to the Wall,” which converts the forceful, testosterone-pumped original into a vulnerable, ethereal number that replaces manly chants of “God bless you!” and “Hey!” into wispy tendrils of female vocals. The vocal-free “Silent Servant El Guapo” mix of “Balls” is satire in name only, sounding like Nine Inch Nails grappling with The Orb. With Donkey Punch the Night, Keenan continues to push boundaries of what Puscifer are capable of — which at this point includes just about anything.

Heavy, harrowing and fiercely metallic

Like Xasthur and Leviathan, The Botanist is a one-man outfit that relies heavily on atmosphere, blast beats and demonic vocals. But that’s where the adherence to black metal formula ends: The Botanist combines multifaceted beats with distorted hammer dulcimers that imbue his music with harrowing, unearthly intensity and shatters all preconceptions in the process. His fourth album, IV Mandragora, is his heaviest and most musically developed. Where past releases tended toward the kitschy and clangy, IV Mandragora finds a way to make his dulcimer strings sound otherworldly. The vocals still resemble those of whiskey-drinking frog, the closest comparison being Inquisition’s Dagon, but the music is more fiercely metallic than ever. “To Amass an Army (Mandragora III)” is ominous and nightmarish, relying on layered minor-key passages and tumbling drums to express existential despair. “Mandrake Legion (Mandragora IV)” is faster and more surreal, overlapping repetitive chimes with battering double-bass beats.

The lyrics of the anonymous Botanist are even stranger than his music. IV Mandragora is a concept album about a scientist (the Botanist) who cultivates an army of mandrakes to wage war against mankind. Throughout, The Botanist seems several seeds short of a full garden: A textbook misanthrope, he dwells in his private sanctuary, The Verdant Realm, in the land of Veltheimia and talks to his plants about the day when greenery will again conquer the earth. In keeping with the dark green theme, five of the songs are named after actual flowers, giving The Botanist extra credibility for those who thrall to the work of Carl Linnaeus and Norman Borlaugh. For open-minded black metal fans, IV Mandragora isn’t just different, it’s just about essentially, expressing old themes in an entirely new way.

Grindcore vets display the hunger and vitality of youngsters with energy and anger to burn

It’s amazing how much expression and emotion certain grindcore bands can pack in the timespan of a couple television commercials. Take Blockheads, a French quartet whose fifth full-length, The World is Dead, compresses 25 songs into a mere 40 minutes. Though they’re not as well known as many of their younger peers, Blockheads have been together since 1989 and have pursued a single-minded path to demolition that rivals the careers of peers such as Napalm Death, Nasum and Blood Duster.

On The World is Dead, Blockheads’ first album in six years, the band displays the hunger and vitality of youngsters with energy and anger to burn. From the commanding blastbeat salvos of the album opener “Already Slaves,” Blockheads attack with the volume of a jet fighter and the velocity of a NASCAR engine, yet extremism isn’t the ony way they make an impact. Each track makes it way through well-structured intros and outros and even mid-paced midsections that squeeze diversity between the ceaseless pummeling. The anomaly is the album closer “Trail of the Dead,” a trudging seven-minute doom metal song that reveal unseen dimensions beneath the otherwise relentless barrage.

A savage, bleak and beautiful collection of songs

For their third album, Swiss nihilists Zatokrev have assimilated the collective aggression and atmospherics of the past two decades of psychedelic doom and post-rock to create a savage, bleak and beautiful collection of songs that casts no light and revels in the resultant gloom.

The six years that have passed since Zatokrev’s Bury the Ashes have served them well, enabling them to focus on and analyze their songs in order to create a cinematic ebb and flow that captivates as it enervates. The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere is a study of slow-motion demolition that draws from the sprawling vistas of Melvins and Neurosis, the blunt, forceful riffage of Sleep and Electric Wizard and the throat shredding vocals of early Mastodon.

Only three of the nine songs are under six minutes in length, and unlike Pelican and Opeth, Zatokrev don’t rely on multiple rhythms shifts and prog metal progressions to keep their music moving. Instead, they gradually alter the volume and intensity of their songs, insert an abundance of meandering guitar leads and embellish their creations with ear-perking elements, including vocal chants (“Goddam Lights”) slide guitar (“9″), harrowing feedback drones (“Medium”) and even blast beats (“Feel the Fire pt 2″). Zatokrev’s third album may be a long, depressing road to nowhere but the ride is strangely satisfying.

It's only dance music for those who relish rolling in broken glass

One of the most forward-thinking, restless and prolific figures in metal, Justin K. Broadrick has been on the cusp of grindcore (Napalm Death), industrial noise (Final) and industrial metal (Godflesh) for 30 years. Not content to settle with metal, he has also explored ambient electronica (Techno Animal), post-rock (Jesu) and off-kilter beats and raps (Curse of the Golden Vampire, The Blood of Heroes). Judging by his career arc, he seems to have started out as a hardcore noise junkie before mellowing out and delving into hazier, less violent soundscapes.

Lately, however, Broadrick, seems to yearn for a return to his roots. He reformed Godflesh in 2010, and earlier this year he released the debut instrumental album by JK Flesh, Posthuman, which bludgeoned like Godflesh and burned like machine-shop sparks. Now, for the last ever release on Hydra Head Records, Broadrick has teamed with dissonant electronic artist Prurient for the 30-plus minute split EP Worship is the Cleansing of the Imagination.

Broadrick’s three acoustic tracks are the most abrasive and corrosive songs he has issued in years – reminiscent, at times, of Godflesh minus the swarming guitars. “Fear of Fear” combines sluggish, crushing drum machine with booming, overdriven bass and vocals so severely manipulated they sound like that agonized roar of angry poltergeists. Around the midway point, the tempo quickens into a short-lived dubstep break, but Skrillex this is not. It’s only dance music for those who relish rolling in broken glass.

“Deceiver” is even more bass-heavy, backed by a skittering beat that swoops in and out and a bed of haunting electronics. Finally, there’s the “Obedient Automaton,” which integrates computerized helicopters, straightforward electronic drums, bowel-shaking samples and more screaming keys. If these songs are any indication, Godflesh will have a menacing digital makeover when it resurfaces with new material and/or JK Flesh will lead Broadrick into places most electronic metal artists fear to tread.

Prurient, also, isn’t frightened by the unknown, and while its music is less structured that that of JK Flesh, it’s even more masochistic. The brainchild of noise-music veteran Ian Dominick Fernow, Prurient creates apocalyptic walls of volume layered with squalling distortion, pulsing rhythms and punishing electronic embellishments. The highlight here is “I Understand You,” which contrasts the sound of a sadistic dentist drilling teeth with a subdued echoing keyboard melody that rings like elevator music for the damned.

One of the most heralded doom-metal albums of the year

The debut full-length by Rhode Island’s Pilgrim may be one of the most heralded doom-metal albums of the year (along with Pallbearer’s Sorrow and Extinction), but the members of Pilgrim are completely uninterested in the recent rise of hipster doom, which is probably why Misery Wizard sounds so authentically effective. Pilgrim’s apocalyptic tones are generated from piles of Lovecraft, some powerful weed and intensive study of the giants of the first two generations of sludge, Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Trouble Saint Vitus, Sleep and Electric Wizard. By never breaking above a bloody-kneed crawl (with the exception of the mid-paced “Adventurer”), Pilgrim’s lengthy, down-tuned songs maintain a genuine sense of despair and enough rhythmic variation to keep them captivating and transcend the artificial bleakness of many of their peers. When vocalist The Wizard emotes the melodic lines, “In solitude I lie alone/ In the void, a sweet release/ In darkness I can feel at peace” he sounds like he’s not play acting, he’s crying for catharsis, or at least some good SSRIs. But as the title implies, The Wizard’s misery is our gain. Just don’t let him near any sharp objects.

Illustrating where they've come from and where they're headed

Along with Georgia peers Mastodon and Baroness, Savannah’s Kylesa offers a flavorful take on psychedelic sludge and crust punk that’s simultaneously dense and expansive. From the Vaults, Vol. 1, which follows the band’s landmark 2010 album Spiral Shadow, is a collection of rare and previously unreleased material along with one newly written song.

That tune, “End Truth,” is a dynamic jawdropper that starts with a mutated bass line and atmospheric wah-wah guitars, builds with a series of melodic licks atop layered, otherworldly textures, and hits zero gravity with the sedate, intertwining vocals of Philip Cope and Laura Pleasants. The two repeat the approach with equally enjoyable results on the grungy “Paranoid Tempo.”

Whether the style is a sign of what’s to come from Kylesa or a caution-to-the-wind experiment, it works, offsetting some of the more hardcore-rooted – but not necessarily less compelling – songs on the album. “Inverse” is slow and raging, with shouted vocals that slice through murky, chugging guitars, and “Wavering” is faster and, peaking with ascending guitar harmonies that yield to a jarring off-time rhythm.

Elsewhere, the deep, reverberating stoner-jam “Bass Salts” would be mere filler if it didn’t lead to the bi-polar head trip “Between Silence and Sound II,” the heavier original of which was on 2000′s Time Will Fuse its Worth. And while “Drum Jam” might exude the kind of self-indulgence that motives beer breaks at concerts, a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” reveals the roots of Kylesa’s mindwarped approach to hardcore and metal. With From the Vaults, Vol. 1, Kylesa dust off and modify some of oldest material, and effectively illustrate where they’ve come from and hopefully where they’re headed.

Subtle and natural, and at times almost spiritual in its nihilism

Like the band’s last album, 2007′s Given to the Rising, Neurosis’s 10th studio album in 27 years, Honor Found in Decay, is a cinematic, multi-dimensional exploration of texture and emotion that weaves together doom-metal, atmospheric rock, dark psychedelia, tribal metal and proto-industrial. But the experimental post-metal pioneers also delve deep into the apocalyptic folk that frontmen Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till have explored on their recent solo albums. “At the Well” starts with slow, reverberant guitar strums and cryptic existential musings: “The blaze of a Helios sky/ Rage will blossom into iron/Blind as a worm in the earth.” And “Casting of the Ages” opens with dual acoustic guitars and deep, rattling vocals atop a lolling bass line and a lazy accordion before sparking into a thudding, trudging doom trek.

Honor Found in Decay is hardly uplifting; here’s the opening line from the propulsive opening track”We All Rage in Gold”: “I walk into the water to wash the blood from my feet.” Yet the bands presentation is so artful and symphonic it reveals sheer beauty in lyrical hopelessness and inspiration in rhythmic ugliness. Unlike many post-metal albums that seesaw between reflective calm and turbulent chaos, Neurosis’s dualism is more subtle and natural, and at times almost spiritual in its nihilism.

File under: Apocalyptic folk colored with hollow acoustic strumming, low, echoing vocals and embellished at times with mildly distorted guitar, ominous beats and sound effects

For fans of: Death In June, Current 93, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave

From: Seattle

Personae: TJ Cowgill (vocals/guitar), Emily Denton (back-up vocals)

Once the frontman for hardcore and black metal bands Teen Cthulhu and Book of Black Earth, TJ Cowgill started writing raw, stripped-down folk songs under the name King Dude (borrowed from metal hero King Diamond) in 2005. The project started just for kicks one drunken night. Even his stage name came on a whim. “My roommate and I were bored, so I picked up an acoustic guitar and started writing these songs as a joke, and he recorded them on his computer,” Cowgill recalls. “At the end of the night he had to name it something just so he could find it later on his computer, and I said, ‘Call it King Dude.’”

The next day, Cowgill listened back to what they had recorded, expecting a good laugh from some awful music. Instead, he heard a batch of dark, brooding demos that cross-pollinated the earthiness of his favorite country artists with the spine-tingling acoustics of martial folk.

“I realized this has potential and I started taking it more seriously,” Cowgill says. In my metal bands I was used to growling, and when I listened back to one of my takes I went, ‘Holy shit, that’s my real voice.’”

Six years later, King Dude has released three full-length acoustic-based neo-folk albums, including 2011′s critically acclaimed Love, a record of slow, simple jangly acoustic songs. This year sees the release of King Dude’s most expansive release, Burning Daylight, which combines Cowgill’s love for Johnny Cash and Death in June with elements of rockabilly, goth, folk, and even doo-wop.

“It’s a lot darker than Love was, Cowgill says.” I wanted to write a record about murder and desperation at a time in early American history.”

On a rainy Seattle afternoon, Cowgill took some time away from designing shirts for his clothing company Actual Pain, and talked about his new album, his upbringing, Satanism and the current neo-folk scene.

On how Burning Daylight seeped into his life:

A lot of the characters in the songs have a death wish, and when I was getting in those head spaces I started taking some of that home with me. I was getting in trouble with cops and getting in random fistfights – stuff that’s not in my nature at all. But the weight of the songs sent me to a place that’s much darker.

On his ugliest confrontations with an audience:

The last time I played Portland, I said to a bunch of drunken assholes, “Hey, can you please be quiet.” They were like, “Fuck you.” So I put down my guitar and threatened to beat the shit out of them. They all took off before I could get to them, but it ruined the whole show. Then in New York, there was a noisy crowd again, so I waited until the show was over and then I hit one guy and choked his buddy. Clearly, there’s something about this music that was making me really angry, but I feel better now that I’m done with the record.

On his bizarre religious upbringing:

My dad was Christian, and my mom was a Pagan-style witch. They were divorced, and when I was at my dad’s house in a small town in Eastern Oregon I’d have to go to this born-again-Christian church three times a week where everybody spoke in tongues. That’s pretty freaky for a seven-year-old. My mom was really into power crystals and meditation and my dad and stepmom tried to convince me that my mother was practicing Satanism. The people at their church tried really hard to get me to say Jesus was my savior and his blood washed over me, but I just couldn’t do that. It just felt wrong. I felt more at home with my mom.

On Satanism:

I used to consider myself a philosophical Satanist. I believed in survival of the strong. I didn’t literally practice magic, but the law of nature was very intriguing. But it carries such a stigma. The thing is, Western religions believe you’re born with original sin and you’re attempting to cleanse yourself of it by abstaining from everything in the physical world. And Eastern philosophy requires you to meditate on all the darkness to understand it. Either way, it’s an understanding of sin and corruption and evil. I think you can understand it without abstaining or diving too deeply into it. There’s gotta be a middle road. That’s something I practice, and if it’s considered sinful to the church or not Satanic enough by Satanists, I don’t really care either way.

On confronting death in King Dude:

It’s important for people to think about death all the time, and come to terms with it like they do in Eastern cultures. We’re all going to die. You can choose to ignore that and wait for it to happen, but if you do that, when it does come, you’re not mentally or physically prepared for it. If you can condition yourself to get ready to die, that leads to living a more fulfilling life. It’s not like I walk around with a death wish, but if you’re not as afraid of dying, it makes you not afraid to live – to quit that job you hate, ask a girl out or tell your parents to fuck off – whatever it is you have to do. Fear of death and fear of authority are the two greatest threats to our wellbeing.

On his cult hit “Lucifer is the Light of the World”:

Lucifer has traditional been hailed as a villain by Catholics and Christians, but that wasn’t until Dante’s Inferno was written. The word Lucifer itself means “the light bringer” or “bearer of wisdom” and that’s been corrupted by Western religion. “Lucifer is the Light of the World” is a response to the Son House song “John The Revelator,” and it’s written in the same style. But “John the Revelator” comes from a very Christian point of view and “Lucifer is the Light of the World” is inspired by the French Cathars’ version of the story. They practiced a type of Christianity known as Medieval Dualism, in which they believed in a good God and an evil God. The evil God created man and woman and everything in the world. The good God created the evil God and gave us the Garden of Eden, but denied us wisdom and knowledge. So Lucifer, the true God of light took up the body of a serpent to sneak into our world to tell us to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. So it completely flips the Biblical story on its head. The good god is jealous and petty, and doesn’t want man to be knowledgeable. And the serpent isn’t evil. It’s a prettier way to look at the story, I think.

On apocalyptic folk:

I don’t love a lot of new stuff. Owen are really good and I like Cult of Youth. But I still like the older stuff better, like Death in June, Current 93 and Of the Wand & the Moon. Some of those bands have used controversial imagery and lyrics, but the sketchiness of it is part of the appeal. It’s in my personality to be obsessed with gloomy and dark music. It doesn’t make me depressed at all, it cheers me up. But to me, King Dude is all about love and light so we have less in common [with other neo-folk artists] than it seems.

On his Actual Pain clothing Line:

I did T-shirt designs for bands and for myself in 2006. I was doing some freelance work for this other small streetwear company. I didn’t even know you could sell shirts that weren’t band shirts for money. Once I realized I could, and my designs started doing pretty well I started my own company. I’ve been doing it for a couple years now with my wife and it keeps us from having to have regular jobs and allows me to play music, which often isn’t very profitable.

As dramatic as Wishbone’s ode to the Prince of Darkness was, the first well documented devil music came from American blues singer Robert Johnson, who, according to legend, was an unskilled musician who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for talent and fame. In the years that followed, he became a sensation, but died of mysterious causes at age 27.

The dark (but not explicitly Satanic) songs of Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits inspired a wave of British ’80s martial folk bands, which incorporated elements of early industrial music with acoustic folk strumming, militant beats and lyrics about death, the apocalypse and the devil.

With black candles positioned in a pentagram around our speakers, eMusic delved into the history of evil, politically incorrect and murderous music to assemble the 13 best Satanic folk songs.

All flesh and no fat

Like other extreme acts, Pig Destroyer write songs about murder, insanity and mayhem, but there’s something grimier and more disconcerting about their tunes than your average Cannibal Corpse gorefest. With the release of 2004′s Terrifyer, the band was already rising above the constraints of traditional grindcore, incorporating industrial sound bites, death-groove riffs, doomy atmospherics and math-metal tempo changes into their schizophrenic songs. Brutally misanthropic, their songs grimly reflect the rage, intensity and social disconnect of minds on the edge. Book Burner is no different: “The Bug” begins with a dissonant audio collage, over which a demented voice declares, “I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse” and from there evolves through cacophonous blast beats, propulsive riffs, and pained moans. Equally nightmare-inducing is the opening track, “Sis,” where vocalist J.R. Hayes (ex-Agoraphobic Nosebleed) roars, “My sister’s dangerous/ She climbs the barbed wire fence/ Changes clothes in the back seat/ Medical gown to red jeans.” There is nothing “pretty” about their music, but visceral savagery has its own allure.

Book Burner delivers all flesh and no fat; Pig Destroyer attack with pinpoint precision, plowing through 19 cuts in just under 33 minutes and mapping out when to pummel, trudge and lacerate. The tag team of acrobatic drummer Adam Jarvis (who also plays in Misery Index) and guitarist and producer Scott Hull (ex-Anal Cunt) both boast the ability to turn sick, horrific and off-kilter clamor into coherent, memorable compositions.

Defying and destroying sonic conventions on their way to paths unknown

Yakuza’s sixth album, Beyul, is a hectic, hallucinogenic drag race through freeway traffic, filled with sudden lurches, rapid acceleration, dangerous spin outs, brake screeches and frustrated noisy idling. It’s a dizzying exercise in queasy chaos, consistent for about a minute at a time before peeling off in another direction. Like 2010′s Of Seismic Consequence, Beyul eschews Yakuza’s early death-metal vocals and rhythms, veering in ever-more unpredictable directions. Much of the album is rooted in prog, post-metal and psychedelic doom, bringing to mind bands like Neurosis, Mastodon and Dillinger Escape Plan. Roiling turmoil aside, there are some structured songs: “Mouth of the Lion” locks into an angular but consistent groove, and “Lotus Array” opens onto a vista of tribal beats, layered, melodic saxophones and sedated vocals before spiraling into spikier paths. As entrancing as their droning, mystical moments can be, Yakuza are at their best when they freefall, defying and destroying sonic conventions on their way to paths unknown.

Continuing to craft sincere, relentless and aggressive metallic hardcore

In an era of decreasing album sales, making a living as a long-running band requires extensive touring. And yet, the longer a band has been around, the harder it is for them to drop everything and hit the road. Converge’s eighth album, poignantly titled All We Love We Leave Behind, is a revealing glimpse into the kinds of personal frustrations that the band has typically kept behind closed doors. Songs like “Empty on the Inside,” “Sadness Comes Home” and the title track, in which frontman Jacob Bannon laments, “You deserve so much more than I could provide,” vent pain and self-contempt with every verse.

And yet it’s these very same frustrations that have ironically helped keep the band fresh. Not only do Converge rage as hard as they did in 1994, when they released their first album Halo in a Haystack, they have developed numerous approaches with which to pummel listeners. “Aimless Arrows” contrasts speedy salvos of melodic guitar with hyper-kinetic drumming. The ironically-titled “Tender Abuse” matches death-metal blast beats with feral vocals and guitars that ring like sirens before ending with a half-speed breakdown that would put most metalcore bands to shame. “Trespasses” contrasts double-bass drumming and short, sharp riffs with angular flurries of blues-inflected guitar that sound more like Jesus Lizard. And “Sadness Comes Home” is augmented with Van Halen-style fingertapping that pogos through a kinetic hardcore forest fire. With All We Love We Leave Behind, Converge have expanded their horizons both lyrically and musically without compromising an iota of intensity, proving in the process that speed isn’t the only path to sonic demolition. Twenty-two years into their career, Converge continue to craft sincere, relentless and aggressive metallic hardcore.

Drifting back and forth between heavy-lidded jams and wide-eyed metallic romps

That Swedish band Witchcraft formed 12 years ago just to record a tribute song for their heroes in Washington, D.C. – Black Sabbath worshippers Pentagram – is interesting enough. That they’ve since evolved into one of the most heralded bands on the psychedelic doom circuit is even more intriguing. But the fact that Witchcraft have survived the departures of three members and returned with their strongest and heaviest album to date is reason to believe in a higher (or lower) power.

Five years have passed since the band released its third record, The Alchemist, and while Witchcraft still summons the darkened atmospheres of Pentagram, the mystical rural feel of Jethro Tull and the bluesy swagger of Led Zeppelin, they’ve expanded their sonic horizons even further on Legend, and improved their songwriting in the process. New guitarists Simon Solomon and Tom Jondelius provide extra dimension by combining the band’s ’70s-sounding, semi-distorted riffs with crunchier, more contemporary playing, which allows the band to drift back and forth between heavy-lidded jams and wide-eyed metallic romps.

“Deconstruction” begins with spacious, lava-lamp-hued rocking before shifting into a chugging Sabbath workout. Then the tempo drops to snail’s pace while shimmering waves of guitar wash across the sonic landscape. “An Alternative to Freedom” is redolent of Zep’s “When The Levee Breaks” crossed with Deep Purple’s “Pictures of Home.” And the 12-minute album closer “Dead End” is dizzying progressive stoner rock driven by surging instrumentation, asymmetrical tempos and expansive, droning bass lines. Credit producer Jens Bogren (Opeth, Amon Amarth), for complimenting Witchcraft’s increased ebb and flow without allowing them to sound disjointed. Band founder and vocalist Magnus Pelander also gets major props for his delivery, which ranges from the soulful melodic style of Vanilla Fudge’s Mark Stein to the baritone howls of Glenn Danzig. While a growing legion of young doom bands are suddenly turning heads, Legend proves that Witchcraft are survivors and illustrates why they’ve long had the open ear of those in the know.

A welcome sonic ritual of demise

When New York doom trio Unearthly Trance pulled the plug in July 2012 after 12 years as a band, it wasn’t so much a death as a rebirth: The self-titled full-length debut by Serpentine Path features all three members of that group along with Ramsses guitarist Tim Bagshaw, who earned his stripes as the original bassist of British gloomlords Electric Wizard. The chemistry among the four is strong and Serpentine Path is packed with the requisite trudging tempos, stomping beats, down tuned riffs, repetitive rhythms and feral death metal howls that made Unearthly Trance an unsettling treat. Even so, there are a few sonic frills between Serpentine Path‘s unrelenting showers of sludge.

“Arrows” opens with a megaphone reading from “The Book of Revelations” that should be familiar to Iron Maiden fans and conspiracy theorists alike, “Beyond the Dawn of Time” starts with a quote from the trailer for the original “The Last House on the Left” and “Bats Amongst Heathens” ends with the echoing sounds of squealing beasts descending upon unwary prey. But most of Serpentine Path is stark and barren, delivering the most impact with the fewest number of notes. It’s not a quantum leap from Unearthly Trance and the tones are reminiscent of Rammses; other key reference points are Sleep, Winter (whose guitarist Stephen Flam recently joined the band) and early Earth.

Unlike many doom bands, Serpentine Path don’t want to depress or enervate. Their goals are even more sinister: Even when their droning guitars and sledgehammer beats border on psychedelic, it’s a bleak, agonizing type of transcendence that’s as unpleasant as it is compelling. There’s nothing “pretty” about the apocalyptic guitar harmonies of “Only a Monolith Remains,” the sparse tight-fisted punches and sepulchral growls of “Compendium of Suffering” or the decayed riffs of “Crotalus Horridus Horridus.” Then again underground metal has always thrived on self-abuse and futility.

For those who relish ugly, nightmarish and merciless doom, Serpentine Path is a welcome sonic ritual of demise – kind of like being buried neck-deep in the beach sand for 45 minutes and watching the tide come in.

An abundance of innovation and technique

Dead End Kings, the ninth full-length album by Katatonia, is a natural evolution from the stylistic variation and sonic nuances of 2009′s Night is the New Day. The songs remain anchored in heavy prog-rock and gothic gloom, but Katatonia also exhibits a strong grasp of pop melody, metal riffing and even jazz swing. In addition, the band augments its eclectic songs with swelling keys, heartsick strings, classical piano and thudding, clicking samples.

Without strong musicianship, Dead End Kings would unravel like a ball of black yarn, but Katatonia have the chops to keep their songs compelling without resorting to the kind of self-indulgence that bogs down many prog-metal bands. Regardless of how circuitous tracks like “The Parting and “Lethean” are, every move retains a sense of purpose. Obvious comparisons can be made to Opeth and Porcupine Tree, but Katatonia’s multi-tiered constructs also resemble Tool, and their emotional resonance impacts somewhere between The Cure and Marillion.

Those unfamiliar with Katatonia may find Dead End Kings too melancholy, too multifaceted or not heavy enough. But careful listening reveals an abundance of innovation and technique. “Buildings” revolves around a dense, crunching rhythm heavier than Helmet while “Undo You” is so light and diaphanous it would float away were it not for the offbeat drums and deep, meandering basslines. Twenty-one years a journey that has led them from depressive death metal to reflective prog rock, Katatonia are still finding new ways to captivate.