1. Sepultura - Machine Messiah
Hate 'em all you want, also hate me for starting with Thrash after talking so much about Death, but the moment I noticed I could't get the chorus to most of these songs out of my head, I knew this had to be on here. It's actually a very good slab of Thrash, with intriguing stuff going on in the background, which really gave the whole record a new feel. So, you know what to do. Bow down to Machine Messiah.
Sepultura - Machine Messiah
2. Gothic - Demons
Getting to my promises at last. Gothic is a band from Romania and they have just released their best work yet. They got a harsh vocalist and improved their style, embracing MeloDeath as a major direction. Sadly, this is the only Romanian album I have for you today.
Gothic - Demons
3. Nasty Surgeons - Exhumation Requiem
I think I haven't posted some good ole Grindcore in here for some time, so now's as good a time as any to give you another taste of this genre. This album has the brutality and ancient rage that's displayed in Grindcore, but every song has the lenght of an average DM one, so everything comes together to form this monster of an album.
Nasty Surgeons - Exhumation Requiem
4. Kreator - Gods Of Violence
Download Kreator - Gods Of Violence
5. Skeletal - Dreadful Life
The long-awaited follow-up to 2012's Phantom Antichrist (also on here, ahem, shameless advertisement) brings more of the same good stuff you found on that album with some added MeloDeath flavor for everyone to enjoy.
Kreator - Gods Of Violence
5. Skeletal - Dreadful Life
The first piece of random Death metal I've found while waiting for Overkill's latest. This album is nothing that crazy special and unique, it's just half a hour of fun old-school Death metal at it's finest. There's no reason to consider this album inferior to others just because Skeletal will probably never gain the status they deserve.
Skeletal - Dreadful Life
6. Over(FUCKING)kill - The Grinding Wheel
This is what I've been waiting to get to! Overkill come crashing back and storming into 2017 like Satan's thunder, and Parazitii lyrics come to mind: "You open the door, I crash through the wall" (sounds infinitely better in Romanian). Overkill are and probably will always be my favorite Thrash metal band, and The Grinding Wheel is just another right step to establishing themselves as the best band of this subgenre right now.
Overkill - The Grinding Wheel
7. Obituary - No (Single)
Before you kill me, let me explain what a single is doing here. Firstly, I'm crazy excited for the self-titled dropping this March, so I'll take whatever material I can get. Secondly, I can proudly say that I was the only one to give enough of a fuck about their Decibel single to rip it from Decibel's Soundcloud page 2 days before the scheduled release, while the song was still set as private. That was some crazy hacker shit, with me scavenging through the HTML of a couple of pages before I found the hidden link. Also, this has given me the opportunity to learn how to rip artworks off Soundcloud! You can all thank me, you ungrateful little...
Obituary - No
8. Six Feet Under - Torment
I'm fresh blood when it comes to Six Feet Under, only knowing that the glue that sticks the band together is the first CC vocalist, mister Barnes himself. Since I like most of CC's stuff, unlike many of my metalhead friends, and Butchered At Birth being one of all-time favorites, I was eager to devour Six Feet Under's latest opus, after going thorough Undead, Unborn and Crypt Of The Devil and being pleasantly surprised. Having listened to Torment, I can safely say that this and Unborn are my favorite SFU albums, with at least one of them having the potential to enter the all-time pantheon after some more spins.
Six Feet Under - Torment
9. Immolation - Atonement
Immolation return to the Death metal scene with the most haunting album of this list, truly adding that sweet Deathy flavor to the end of February. The maddening solos and the entire dreading atmosphere of this record make it one of the more crushing in recent memory, and even if I don't like it as much as Kingdom Of Conspiracy, it's a fantastic album.
Immolation - Atonement
10. Sinister - Syncretism
I'm not even afraid to admit my biases. I am a Sinister fanboy and I don't see any reason in stopping. But when Sinister told me, just a little fan in their -hopefully- huge fanbase that they would release a new album early 2017, I could not imagine it would become not only my favorite Sinister record, but also enter the pantheon of top albums without any kind of trouble. Truth is, from the first time I heard the first single, Blood Soaked Domain, I was taken aback by the charm and sheer quality of Sinister's latest masterpiece. You just have to listen to it.
Sinister - Syncretism
Look out for Obituary this March.
