Unto the Locust isn't just a great album, it's an important statement that metal doesn't have to fall into trite categories or draw from pre-existing formulas to be accessible.

Five albums in to an unexpected late-career burst of greatness, grindcore pioneers Napalm Death have done it again with this awesomely titled album.

All told, it’s a huge and defiant return.

Post-hardcore group Thursday's latest, No Devolución, is a grand experience, full of depth and atmospheric subtleties that show off a new side to the group.

These five tracks bridge the gap between pop punk and melodic hardcore in a way that’s so infectious that you’ll be too busy singing along to notice.

Probably the best indie drone rock since Galaxie 500 put the Velvets jangle to hypnotic use (although Low reach even greater peaks of elegant sublimity). [#4, p.106]

Is Survived By isn’t all pit-fodder; the cinematic-sounding “Non Fiction” showcases a mastery of dynamics that’s equally as impressive as the heavy stuff.

the Georgia-based quartet venture even further into their own by creating songs that are alternately bluesy, soulful and propulsive--and often all three. ... It’s rare to come across a band that can do so much so well.

It’s all the necessary B-adjectives–bludgeoning, brutal, burly--but it’s something else too; Bloodcurdling.

Kylesa nods toward their feral past as choruses make muscular concessions to hardcore floor-punches. But other tracks are their artiest and dreamiest yet. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.96]

The record is exactly as advertised, despite three new members entering the lineup. Wrong has rarely sounded so right.

This is music at a slow simmer, not a fast boil, and as such, takes time and patience to absorb. But the passion and intensity is undeniable.

TesseracT’s real strength is that they focus on the whole instead of getting bogged down with the intricacy of the parts.

This long-awaited solo project by Converge frontman Jacob Bannon is nothing like what fans would expect, and everything they could have hoped for.

Touché Amoré’s music has always been intensely autobiographical and that introspection has reached peak levels on its fourth full-length, Stage Four.

The Migration seems to wander a bit more than 2011’s focused and phenomenal The Collective, losing some steam by the last few tracks.

There's a real sense of hip-hop culture in the lyrics, and there's a sophistication in the way that the rap is made rock here-in other words, this isn't just whiney frat-boy rhymes slapped on top of generic, down-tuned riffs.

It’s weird, it’s creepy, it’s unstable, but man, there’s art here, something that few bands can boast.

The band deftly treads the fine line between revival and revision, blasting out fistfighting hard rock anthems like “Dancing with the Wrong Girl” and “Cold War Love” that synthesize Thin Lizzy’s flair for raging riffs, jazzy chords, twin-guitar harmonies, and ruggedly romantic words into something that’s both fresh-sounding and satisfyingly familiar.

While She Sleeps have delivered the best album so far about post-Brexit/post-election anxiety. You Are We is frantic and grim, preoccupied with personal and political disintegration, but it’s also huge.

If bong-rattling stoner doom is your cup of flayed meat, you won’t want to miss this demonic feast.

Rather than play into expectations and write 12 15-minute songs about H.P. Lovecraft or the Dead Sea Scrolls, Atlanta's finest created a more-than-decent metal record.

Their third album takes the stylized blur of their previous LPs, and somehow finds new room for Circle Jerskian hooks, mid-tempo suckerpunches, and one Neurotic sludge workout. p[Jul/Aug 2010, p.90]

Packed with epic melodies, searing solos, and medieval horror imagery, Forever Abomination totally rocks, aided by (finally for these guys!) a perfect production sound.

The lyrics are in a combination of Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, so it’s anyone’s guess what Bruun is talking about. Luckily,the music speaks for itself.

On their fourth full-length and first on their own label, jazz-spazz-metal epileptics the Dillinger Escape Plan re-embrace the all-killer, no-filler attitude that made their earlier albums and EPs so simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating. [Mar/Apr 2010, p.88]

Dark Roots offers shred-heavy political statements ("True American Hate"), hook-laden power-jags ("Native Blood"), and straight-up rippers ("Man Kills Mankind"), slipping only on slower material like the title track and quasi-ballad "Cold Embrace."

The repetition of downtuned breakdowns will probably tire even deathcore superfans by album’s end. Solid–but this Witch could use a few new tricks.