“Inner Dimensions”, from Unaligned. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: this is a Death Metal band from Florida. No way, shocking, right? But hold your horses – this is not a Morbid Angel / Deicide / Monstrosity clone, but rather a very young and very new band that really really digs mid-career Behemoth. The attitude is right, the mix here is solid, and the lyrics are rather interesting. If their first officially released song is any indication, hopefully there is more to come from this band down the road.

“Storm The Walls” from Stray Gods. This is a Greek project that is apologetically influenced by (and is frankly a wannabe clone of) “Fear of the Dark” era Iron Maiden. This homage is a fun nod to a time when Iron Maiden concentrated on writing cool galloping riffs and less on stretching three minutes’ of ideas into 10+ minute “epics”. The vocals, the meat&gravy of anything Bruce Dickinson-adjacent, are at times a little too on target, as there are occasional hitches from when the dude is almost trying to outdo Bruce in a very Bruce-like fashion. But the writing here is quick and catchy, and seems to pack a huge Maiden-ish punch in a tidy package. Does this song really need to be 6:26 in length? No, but as the meme goes, “I’ll allow it”. This should be an interesting find when the album storms the walls in March.

“It’s Time… To Rise from The Grave” from Undeath. An outfit from MA, this is a taster of their second full-length, but my first exposure to the band. I dig the immediately accessible chugging head-bang’able groove, featuring gristly chunks of Cannibal Corpse, Jungle Rot, and maybe some Malevolent Creation. Some lyrical variations in the chorus would be nice, but with this flavor of Death Metal, clever wordplay is not exactly the name of the game. This could be interesting when it’s time to rise from the grave comes in April.

And speaking of Cannibal Corpse…, here’s the self-titled solo from Corpsegrinder. This is obviously a much more mainstream pick, but musically Mr. C. Grinder, Esq. has dug deep into the toxic waste dump of the underground of Death Metal here. This sounds more visceral and frankly more dangerous by half compared to what his main band has been doing the past few years. He’s got a rather killer lineup, and the production here is thick, meaty, and very sweaty (not unlike Corpsegrinder on stage lol). Grabbing this in February is a no-brainer!

What is also a no-brainer? Do not walk, run, away from Bloodywood’s “Rakshak”. The band’s name is the first clue that this is bad. Really, really fucking bad. The band is from India, home of Bollywood-style movies and music. So while I’m sure they think they are being oh-so clever with “metalizing” the Bollywood tag to come up with their band name, it 100% smacks of amateur hour. And the music? Folding in cultural tidbits and snippets of a foreign language (e.g. Urdu) can be a great way to breathe life and interest into a project (e.g. the Vedic aesthetics of Rudra). But here? Oh fuck me…, the sitars and Bollywood beats morph into knuckle-dragging metalcore chunks, “tuff guy” chest thumping, silly drop-D beats, caveman riffs, and downright embarrassing beatbox rapping. Being able to listen to this without me doing either a spit take or having my eyes roll into the back of my skull are both life skills I care not to exercise. This turd plops its way out of a giant elephant’s ass and into the world come February.