Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts.
The challenge when writing year-end lists lies in deciding which albums make the cut, as it’s hard to hold so many records dear over the course of a year. 2023 will not face that challenge because it has been absurdly good for metal, even before entering the peak-metal season when the temperatures dip to intolerable levels and frost tints our windows. While fall and winter are the most contextually relevant seasons for metal albums, dismissing what’s already released this year would be farcical. Heavy bands have demanded attention through their art.
Theoretically, the high-quality output that’s marked every month thus far can be attributed to metal’s interplay between live shows and self-actualization. For as much crowd-crushing riffs and mosh pits dominate the genre, its soul comes from the introspective task of sitting in a room alone and honing one’s craft on an instrument. Or, similarly, meditating on how that music extends from the creator. Especially in the underground extremities, metal musicians are more concerned with the amorphous philosophies that underlie human interaction (hence why their lyrics often read as medical textbooks or academic papers) rather than the interactions themselves. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but there’s much more music concerning spirits, death, and unknowable powers than there is the job market, for instance.
What happens when you combine this mindset with two years of isolation from a global pandemic? Rampant improvement across the board. In 2021 and 2022, many acts put those improvements to tape, then toured with those new compositions. Now, in 2023, we’re seeing the fruits of battle-testing their pandemic-era music and seeing what works in live settings. Musicians had the time to develop their art in solitude, test it in front of an audience, gather data, and bring it back to the lab. Only now can we witness how those long, isolated development periods interact with a revitalized concert-going crowd, hungry simply to re-engage with the music that saw them through such a desolate time.
The result is that every month seems better than the last, at least for metal releases. There’s genuine excitement when two of the most forward-thinking death metal bands drop new projects on the same day as if they’re Stone Cold Steve Austin returning to whack The Rock in the head with a chair. The quality is almost overwhelming. It’s common to feel like you’re missing out on some record or a certain band, but 2023 has been more akin to a buffet than a restaurant, inasmuch as it’s hard to feel like you’re missing out on a penne rigate when you can load your plate with all the spring rolls, Singapore-style noodles, and fried green beans you can stomach.
And, at least on a personal level, 2023’s metal output has been revitalizing. Musicians continue to double down and improve their craft, challenging each other not for competition’s sake but to push the genre as far as it can go. Tomb Mold’s new album (which you’ll read about later) is essentially a thesis on how you can shove death metal into every crevice of your astral-plain-prog-rock-psych-Phish-jam-band-worship and it’ll only be better for it. If that doesn’t make you want to find a diamond in the rough — or, conjure a diamond from the coal in your hand through sheer force of will — then I don’t know what to tell you. There’s plenty of metal that makes you feel like Conan, but 2023 has been about metal that inspires you to fashion your own war axe. All that being said, here’s our picks for September’s best underground metal releases.
– Colin Dempsey
Bekor Qilish – The Flesh of a New God
I’d like to think that when King Crimson fomented progressive rock which from what had until then been mostly a primordial stew of psychedelic and heavy rock elements, this was the kind of profound and angular evil they envisioned would be made. Following up their remarkable debut with this much more savage sophomore release, Bekor Qilish manage to retain every bit of the wild progressive splendor of their debut while increasing the requisite heavy metal savagery. This is a feeling from the world of thrash that more extreme metal bands sometimes lose and is often the determining factor between a black metal record that buzzes soporifically versus one that slits your throat in your seat. Progressive metal that makes me want to get in strung-out 2 a.m. fist fights in a poorly-lit Denny’s parking lot is the pathway to my true inestimable power. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman
The Chronicles of Father Robin – The Songs & Tales of Airoea: Book 1
Forgive me if straight ahead progressive and psychedelic rock doesn’t strike your heavy metal fancy, but this record and its primordial ties to the very roots of what we treasure in the world of metal is too strong for me to ignore. Plus in all honesty this is one of my most-listened to records of this month, after the new Tomb Mold and KEN Mode, meaning I’d feel more than a bit dishonest if I didn’t squeeze it in. This is the pure and visionary stuff: complex folk arrangements, huge beds of synthesizers, Moog leadlines and organ embellishments, and enough crunchy rock guitar to make it obvious why heavy metal drew so much inspiration from this stuff in the first place. A gentle nudge here or there and you have all the hallmarks of dark metal, of the more expansive realms of black and death metal, of the vaunted halls of the majestic wing of traditional and power metal. It’s beautiful stuff. Buy it on Bandcamp. – Langdon Hickman
