(Andy Synn selects six albums from last month that may have flown under your radar)
January of 2026 was a very busy month… not just in terms of the number of albums being released but on a personal level as well (did I mention I’ve got a brand new song out this Friday from my own band, being released as part of a massive charity compilation?).
As a result it feels like I missed out on covering more releases than usual last month, meaning that this is going to be the first of two separate “Things You May Have Missed” columns this week, as there’s simply too many albums (and I still won’t be covering everything I’d have liked to) requiring your (and my) attention to fit into just one article.
BONE WEAPON – CHAOS MARKED BY DEATH OF SUN
Self-described “Paleolithic Death-Doom” monsters Bone Weapon – along with the likes of Tithe and Glorious Depraivty – are one of the bands I am most looking forward to checking out on the under-undercard of this year’s Maryland Deathfest… and one listen to their debut album (which some have called an EP, but which the band themselves have referred to as a full-length, so that’s what I’m going with) should make clear why.
Primal, yes, but not necessarily “primitive”… these four meaty, grime-coated and groove-heavy tracks (plus one noisy, chaotic intro) practically revel in their own nastiness, while also displaying a serrated sharpness (such as during the choppy, tooth-gnashing riffage of “Death of the Sun”) and a touch of morbid melody (especially during gargantuan closer “Dawn of the New Blood Sun”) that cuts through all the rumbling, low-tuned riffage and dank, murky atmosphere like a rough-hewn hand-axe through scarred and calloused flesh.
And while the obvious influence of the likes of Incantation, Asphyx, and possibly even Winter‘s seminal Into Darkness, rings loud and proud throughout the likes of the absolutely crushing (but surprisingly catchy) churn ‘n’ burn of “Blood Rock: Ritual Of Katash Amun”) and the brutal blend of hammering riffage and hanging chords that makes up “Retching Poison: Divide And Purge”, there’s also a sense of grim grandeur to Chaos Marked by Death of Sun – which purports to tell “…a mythic tale of war, black blood magick, gods of death, and ritual smoke ceremonies, where warriors battle mammoth hordes and dark blood spirits..“- that’s also somewhat reminiscent of more modern practitioners of the deathly arts like Krypts, Tomb Mold, and even Sulphur Aeon at their darkest and doomiest.
Indeed, for an album that’s more than happy to indulge its crudest, and most Cro-Magnon, tendencies, there’s actually an awful lot of surprising nuance to Chaos Marked by Death of Sun – especially when it comes to their use of atmospheric story-telling elements and sinister, pseudo-melodic undercurrents – suggesting that Bone Weapon‘s brain is more than a match for their brawn.
BOYHITSCAR – WAVES OF SOUND ACROSS OCEANS OF TIME
From something filthy and foul… to something positively overflowing with light and life and effervescent energy… Boy Hits Car (or BoyHitsCar, depending on how you prefer formatting it) may not seem like a band who fit our usual remit here (though, as a reminder, the whole “no clean singing” thing is more of an in-joke than an actual rule), but the fact is these guys write such killer songs, replete with a plethora of catchy chorus hooks and clever, proggy twists, that you’d be a fool to write them off.
Whether you think of them as “Nu-Metal”, “Alt-Metal” (whatever that is), or something else entirely – I like to jokingly refer to them as “Tantric Tool” or “Peace and Love Against the Machine“, though their distinctive brand of “Lovecore” is instantly recognisable on its own terms – the band have weathered all the slings and arrows and stylistics shifts that the genre wars have thrown at them over the years without ever sacrificing their integrity or abandoning their identity… and that remains true on Waves of Sound Across Oceans of Time.
Absolutely packed full of highlights – the brilliant “Ground Swell of the Disenchanted”, “Injustice Fatigue” (where the band proclam that, despite everything, they’re still not suffering from “compassion fatigue“), and “Eastern March” get the album off to a very strong start, all bright, blooming melodies, lithe, limber bass-lines, and nimble, nuanced fretwork (plus some pleasingly punchy bursts of rhythmic riffage), topped off with some emphatically emotional vocals (including some cool gang shouts here and there) – it’s clear the band have lost none of their passion or conviction, with similar stand-outs such as “Like A Revolution” (which features a slinky, Tom Morello-esque solo), the anthemic “Prism Eyes of Freedom”, and the irresistibly infectious “Mind Elevation”, helping maintain the album’s impressive early quality.
Sure, at just over an hour long Waves of Sound…does overstay its welcome a bit – there’s a definite drop-off after the heartfelt “Love Wanted (Enquire Within)”, which reminds me of the more radio-friendly material from latter-day Alice In Chains – although thankfully the climactic pairing of “Be Here Now” (whose dreamy, dynamic slow-burn recalls Devin Townsend at his most sublime and sincere) and the poignantly proggy “Is Anyone Listening?” (either of which could have been the album closer, though the latter’s riotously riffy finale ultimately clinches it) should help ensure that at least some of you will be coming back for more (and, hopefully, we won’t have to wait for another ocean of time to hear something more from the band after this, either).
SANCTVS – DE L’ABÎME AU PLÉRÔME
Clocking in at just under 43 minutes, De l’abîme au plérôme – the second solo album from Canada’s Xavier Berthiaume (Atramentus, Gevurah, etc) – is six tracks of pure, riff-focussed Black Metal whose raw energy and ravenous intensity is comparable (in the best possible way) to the likes of Misþyrming, Weakling or (early) Spectral Wound in texture and timbre.
From the brooding opening bars of “Rex Hominum” – which, soon enough, explode into a seething torrent of raging distortion and rattling percussion (all handled by Berthiaume himself) – to the final fading chord of moodily melodic closer “La Lumière de l’infini”, De l’abîme au plérôme takes no prisoners and offers no reprieve from its blood-pumping blend of scorching melody and seething fury, all flavoured with a touch of grisly dissonance and a dash of grim groove, plus a soupçon of immersive, introspective atmosphere (the mid-section of “Thrène pour un monde révolu” being particularly rich in this regard) to futher sweeten the recipe.
Tragic in tone yet triumphant in its delivery, it’s an album whose unwavering obsession with death is married to a fiery sense of life, with the keening tremolo melodies, cascading blastbeats, and caustic vocals of early highlight “Sacrifié sur l’autel de la rédemption” and the majestic riffs and humming hooks of “Tour d’ivoire” suggesting a simultaneous acceptance, and denial, of our own mortality.
It is, however, the solemn slow-burn and sudden, surging ferocity of “Tabula rasa” however, which perhaps best expresses this captivating contradiction at the core of the album’s appeal… the song’s inherent, inchoate darkness, woven deep into the fabric of every clashing chord progression and cathartic vocal eruption, burning like a black flame (espeically during the more track’s more intricately melodic second half) which refuses to be extinguished and aims to outlast the passage of time, even as it pays tribute to its inevitability.
Make no mistake, this is a powerful album – both musically and thematically – whose obsession with death only helps breathe new life into the band’s savage, blackened sound.
TOOTHLESS – PAST FUTURES
Last, but by no means least, we have this jagged and abrasive slab of technical, almost math-y, Metalcore (the ultra aggressive kind, not the crowd-pleasing, “every song has to build to a poppy clean chorus” kind… though the band do make occasional use of a crooning, clean sung passage to add an extra dose of texture and contrast to the material) that hits hard and fast and should, with luck, leave a lasting impression.
And though you can occasionally still see the scars and seams from where the band have stitched together their influences – comparisons to the likes of Converge and Norma Jean are certainly valid when the band put the pedal to the Metal(core) on tracks like “Forced Purpose” and “Setting the River On Fire”, while their occasional foray into more atmospheric (“Confidence Man”, for example) and/or technical territories (“One of a Kind”) suggests a hint of Poison the Well and early Protest the Hero in their DNA (or even a dash of Tosin Abasi’s pre-AAL band Reflux, if you’re looking for a deep-cut reference) – for the most part they mix and match these elements and inspirations in just the right amounts to make them more than just the sum of their parts.
I’ll admit that I’m not entirely convinced by the band’s foray into slightly more predictable, Post-Metal-tinged waters on “Lucid” (it’s not a bad song, by any means, and it definitely helps break things up a little, it’s just that the superior “Slow Exit” does much the same thing, only better, later on in the album), but considering the fact that the back half of Past Futures contains just as many absolute bangers – the twitchy energy and anxiety-inducing grooves of “Tunnel Rat”, the techy thrills and proggy, Post-Hardcore passages of “Don’t Look Down”, the caustic metallic intensity and keening melodies of “Grave Dancer”, not to mention the aforementioned “Slow Exit” – as the first part, the occasional mis-step can be easily forgiven.
This is especiallyy true considering how strongly the album ends, with the weightier, moodier, and altogether more morose strains of “Spin” taking a little bit of everything that’s come before and combining them in a way that subtly stretches the band’s melodic and empathic side just that little bit further, hinting at a hidden reservoir of still untapped potential just waiting for Toothless to dig a little deeper and truly “find themselves”.