(Andy Synn returns with another collection of reviews for recommended releases by UK bands.)
Hola everyone!
As you may have noticed (or maybe you didn’t, maybe my absence went entirely unremaked) I didn’t post anything here at all last week, as I needed a bit of a break and a rest after all the time and effort involved in putting together my mammoth, week-long round-up of the year (which, if you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to do so via the following links):
- 2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): SHORT BUT SWEET
- 2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GOOD
- 2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT
- 2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE CRITICAL TOP TEN
- 2025 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP TEN
Now, of course, it’s worth re-stating that, collectively, those lists are still in no way comprehensive… nor was I able to write about every single album featured to the extent I wanted to.
But now that I’m back in action – albeit, still at a somewhat reduced schedule – I’m going to take the opportunity to catch you up on a few albums that didn’t get a proper review, which in this edition of “The Best of British” features two records which made my “Great” list, and one one which (for reasons I’m about to illuminate) just didn’t quite make the cut for the top tier list but which still thoroughly deserves your time and attention.
LYCHGATE – PRECIPICE
It may have been five years since their last EP (and seven since their last album), but long-time readers of the site will no doubt already be familiar with the artful extremity of Lychgate.
Those unfamiliar with the band and their distinctive brand of Avant-Garde “Blackened” Doom, however, would do well to check out both 2015’s An Antidote for the Glass Pill (still arguably their finest work) and 2018’s The Contagion in Nine Steps once you’re done immersing yourself in the doom ‘n’ gloom of Precipice (which was officially released just last week).
Evincing a slightly less progressive – the omnipresent organ-work of previous albums has been pared back a little to give the guitars a touch more prominence, while the liturgical clean vocals are entirely absent this time around (to the album’s detriment, in my opinion) – but noticeably more aggressive approach, Lychgate‘s fourth album marries the piercing bleakness of Prometheus-era Emperor with the oppressive intensity of The Ruins of Beverast, resulting in a bevy of tracks (like the unsettlingly hypnotic opening pairing of “Mausoleum of Steel” and “Renunciation”) whose darkly demonic nature also conceals an eerily infectious melodic undercurrent.
Some of you, of course, may have already noted that Precipice ultimately fell just short of making it onto my “Great” list this year, mostly due to the fact that – despite some other sites/writers declaring it “the band’s best album yet” – I found that the decision to simplify their sound (compared to their last two albums, that is) meant that the band found it a little harder to hit the same creative heights (or, at least, to do so as consistently) this time around, with the result being that a certain “sameness” did tend to creep in over the course of the album (with both the more limited vocal variety/delivery, and the occasional over-reliance on spiky, blackened harmonics, resulting in one or two tracks feeling a little repetetive and lacking in range).
That being said, it’s worth reaffirming that the band, at their best, still excel at crafting a uniquely brooding and unnervingly bleak sense of atmosphere (“The Meeting of Orion and Scorpio”, for example, is as baleful as it is beautiful, while the stunning way they explore extremes of both chaos and calm during “Hive of Parasites” serves as a testament to both their technical talents and their creative ambitions) which, while undeniably demanding (borderline disturbing at times), will certainly prove richly rewarding to any listener willing to put in the requisite time and effort to really engage with the material.
MONOLITH – THE PRICE OF THEIR HEAVEN
What is a band supposed to do when they reach the top of the proverbial mountain?
That’s a question which must have occurred to Devon’s own proggy Deathcore prodigies Monolith last year when they effectively reached their apex with the release of The Black Cradle (the third, and easily most artistically ambitious, of three albums the band released in 2024), and now we have the answer in the form of The Price of Their Heaven, which was released just at the start of the month (and which, if it had been released a little earlier, probably would have muscled its way onto my “Personal Top Ten”).
Not only does the band’s new album feature a marked sonic shift (opting for a more gritty and grounded Metallic Hardcore approach akin to the likes of Misery Signals and Shai Hulud) but also finds them moving away, lyrically speaking (though it is, apparently, still part of the same overarching concept), from the dystopian future described on their previous albums to focus on the developing dystopia right outside our door (with lines like “The boys down at Lockheed are smiling, they say business has never been so good” and “One day everyone will have always been against this” hammering home the fierce urgency and immediacy of the band’s message).
Of course, having a message which resonates with the current state of the world is one thing… making music that resonates with people is another… but thankfully The Price of Their Heaven is locked and loaded with killer (not to mention catchy) riffs and humongous (as well as heart-felt) hooks, with the likes of “Meaningful” and “Choice” (the songs themselves, by the way, lay out a key part of the album’s thesis) marrying punchy metallic intensity and visceral emotional melody, along with a series of infectious, staccato rhythms and some impressively propulsive percussion, in a way that makes them impossible to ignore (and equally impossible to resist).
As punchy and as powerful as the album is, however – and it definitely is, hefty, riff-heavy tracks like “Have” and “Left” leave no doubt about that – it’s equally capable of both moody contemplation and brooding introspection, with songs such as “The” and “People” (the latter especially) allowing the band to explore an even greater variety of sonic tones and textures, with the end result being an album which stands as arguably Monolith‘s strongest musical and political statement yet.
QRIXKUOR – THE WOMB OF THE WORLD
Qrixkuor is a name you’ve probably seen around quite a bit – even if it’s not always spelled correctly – when certain sites (those in touch with the “underground”, at least) have been discussing “the best albums of 2025”.
And with good reason, as the group’s new album – building as it does on evolutionary legacy of their 2022 EP, Zoetrope – is a work of such cavernous (though I know that’s a loaded term) darkness and esoteric creative ambition that it refuses both easy categorisation and stereotypical analysis.
References to the likes of Ævangelist and Abyssal, as well as their antipodean cousins in Portal, may prove somewhat useful, of course – at least in terms of situating your early expectations appropriately – but there’s no doubt in my mind that, while their earlier works may have found Qrixkuor chafing at the constraints of their chosen genre(s), on The Womb of the World they’ve discovered new ways to go beyond them (without abandoning their gnarled and nasty roots).
In particular, the group’s expanded use of oppressive orchestral layers, seems designed not so much to expand their cross-over potential (though I might go so far as to say that the strangled strings which wind and bind their way throughout the chaotic, caterwauling dissonance and distortion of “So Spoke the Silent Stars” help tie the track together far more neatly, and with more nuance, than anything they’ve previously produced) as it is to elevate them to an even more rarefied, arguably even more inaccessible, level.
At the same time, however, there’s more than enough grim, grinding intensity and barbaric blastery to be found during the likes of “Slithering Serendipity” (whose second album also conceals a menacingly malevolent, pseudo-melodic undercurrent) and “And You Shall Know Perdition As Your Shrine” to remind you of the mutated, Black and Death Metal DNA at the core of the group’s sound.
It’s the titanic, almost seventeen-minute title-track which truly showcases the lengths which Qrixkuor are willing to go to in order to let this sound achieve its full, nightmarish potential, the song’s torturously drawn-out (yet never over-drawn) run-time allowing them to push the extremes – from the heights of lunatic intensity to the brooding bowels of eerie, atmospheric minimalism to the outer-limits of sinister symphonic grandeur – in multiple ways as they continue to test just how much further they can take things with every passing minute.