The Best Colorado Metal Albums of 2019
If anything is to come of the past decade it’s Colorado’s rise to metal dominance. Spitting out band after band of killer metal and setting the pace for so many other bands to follow, Colorado has made it’s claim, and awesome metal is it’s stake. 2019 was no different. We’ve seen so many bands from Colorado rise to the top of the moldy pile and while those bands are off making people take notice of our scene, there’s a bunch of new bands coming up, poised for even more metal control. It’s an awesome thing to witness and I hope there’s no fucking end to it.
TOP COLORADO METAL RELEASES OF THE FUCKING YEAR
Seed of the Sorcerer, Womb of the Witch - Spell Book I: Ceridwen EP
There's no shortage of doom bands around Denver but none that sound like Seed. Rugged and filthy, Seed revel in the nastiest of the death/doom corners, evoking the feeling of an ancient, nameless evil that has lurked for centuries. Not content with just the deepest, murkiest death/doom weight, Seed throws in a fierce black metal attack on "Three Drops" before plunging into an almost funeral doom like dirge. Seed is doing doom their own way and that originality is exactly what the genre needs. Fucking killer.
BANDCAMP
Upon a Fields Whisper - Self Titled
Give me all the blasting, infectious, crusty, black metal punk bands there are! Especially super fucking rad, melodic, doom ones like this.
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Zygrot - Demo
Filthy as fuck, crusted-up and grindy metal with some nice doom flavors peppered in here and there. Denver metal as fuck and featuring my old buddy Dean crushing it on drums.
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Vale of Pnath - Accursed EP
I know that Allegaeon is want to be the dominating tech death force here in Colorado but if you ask me, Vale of Pnath is running circles around Allegaeon's science based tech death with their horror, cultish, Lovecraftian-like tech death. I know, splitting hairs and who fucking cares, really, because both bands are rad but for my money Vale is fresher, more on point with the tech and death metal combo and just flat out awesome.
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Call of the Void - Buried in Light
Denver's own Call of the Void bring the nasty, dirty sludged-up punk metal vibes. Damn intense and energetic and well done all around.
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Dreadnought - Emergence
Dreadnought's music is simply beautiful. Combining elements of post rock/metal with black metal, psychedelia, and backed with some trippy keyboards, Dreadnoughts third album is their best outing yet. A band that keeps getting better is amazing to watch and hear and leaves you breathless with each move.
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Noctambulist - Atmospheres of Desolation
Denver is on fire this year already. Noctambulist play in that same technical, murky, experimental, dark pool that bands like Ulcerate swim around in. Noctambulist incorporate in to their take dissonant black metal, slight melody, and just fucking dense, weighty, production. I dig this sound but it lasts me a while.
BANDCAMP
Malum Mortuus - The Sign of the Ram
It's seems rare nowadays in black metal for a band to just do straight up black metal with no "blackened" this or "post" that, or "atmospheric" this but that's just was Malum Mortuus is. Black metal. Shreddy, lower-fi, nasty, filthy black metal and it's super rad.
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Necropanther - The Doomed City
Necropanther is all about the riffs for me. Massive, melodic, operatic riffing. There's a concept going on here about Logan's Run, keeping with their sci-fi angle, but for me, these guys are all about those hooks and melodies. I've always felt they share a lot of similarities with Skeletonwitch and I'm glad to see them going more in on the grosser sounding vocals and death metal parts. It helps round out their sound and distinguish them as their own thing
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Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
I was kind of in a sour mood about Blood Incantation and the flood of bands that have been aping only the superficial aspects of their sound (IE the old school death metal worship) and their less than humorous retort to being called out for using the same album art as Agony did over 20 years ago but truth be told, on a musical level, this new album is a fucking ripper. Blood Incantation do owe a debt to bands like Time Ghoul and Death and Morbid (especially Death and Morbid Angel) but they're so good at weaving their own tale with those bands influence. This album is them and their extreme, sci-fi bent death metal firing on all cylinders and I'm sure it's going to get heaps of praise piled on it.