Opeth
Heritage
Roadrunner Records
Street: 9.20
Opeth = Yes + Rush + Opeth
Opeth has a sound so original, so trademarked, you know instantly when you’re listening to them. This is just as true on Heritage: it is, at its core, Opeth. But if past albums were recorded on misty, haunted mire, this one is from a backwoods hippie commune possibly fueled by black magic. Mikael Åkerfeldt is no pussy with experimentation; this time he’s laced their sound with jazzy, 70s folk guitar work, and the result is interesting but lacking muscle of albums past. “Haxprocess” is easily as emotionally wrenching any song from Orchid or Blackwater Park; the final 2-3 minutes is a bluesy but Euro-dark guitar and bass tale that chills your blood. “I Feel The Dark” is ghoulish with good sections that seem pieces of separate songs. The highs and lows of “Nepanthe” are a sonic ride and a solid demonstration of the direction the band is taking. There are some transition problems, both within songs and between them, but this could be just growing pains of a new progression that will be rubbed away over time. – Megan Kennedy

True Widow
I.N.O.
Kemado
Street: 10.04
True Widow = Whirl + Young Widows + Dwellers
I bought True Widow’s As High as the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth earlier this year after I read a review in Decibel that described the album as “glacial,” which appealed to the side of my that likes big, heavy, frozen things. The first time I spun the album I was floored—it turned out that I was playing it at 33 RPM and it was supposed to be at 45, but even when sped up, its beauty still lay in its slow spaciness. This 33 minute EP is being released only six months after their latest full length, and it complements As High... while expanding True Widow’s sound in some subtle and some not-so-subtle ways. Opening track “For Grace” is immediately striking because it is entirely acoustic, but the heavy air that permeates True Widow’s sound is undeniably present, even without their trademark volume. The title track follows, and it is in its 14 minutes that those subtle and not-so-subtle expansions really shine through. While As High As... was largely about repetition, I.N.O. is more about creating a space and moving about it freely (albeit very, very slowly). True Widow’s music has always evoked a certain droniness, but “I.N.O.” actually transforms into a Boris-like drone track after about 8 minutes of super heavy shoe gazing and Nikki Estill’s seductive, dreamy vocals. Because of the weight of the volume, listeners will have to really pay attention to hear True Widow growing, but I have a feeling that I.N.O. is paving the way for some major transformations for this band. -Ricky Vigil



Warbringer
Worlds Torn Asunder
Century Media
Street: 09.27
Warbringer = Vio-lence + Death Angel + Exodus
Warbringer’s always instilled an irrepressible giddiness in me. Call it my biased bent towards bullet-belted metallers playing anything moshable and primal, but when it comes to iGeneration jeans-tucked-into-Reebok thrash, these Ventura nutjobs lead the pack, and Worlds Torn Asunder proves it. Maybe it’s Dan Seagrave’s artwork. Maybe it’s Steve Evett’s beefy production, lending John Kevill’s slobbery bark the rabid edge it’s never had. Maybe it’s the leadoff cut “Living Weapon”—four minutes of war-time audial savagery abuzz with machine gun riffing, air-raid siren solos, and psychotic lyrical fare spat forth with all the subtlety of a meat hook in your pimply forehead … but it’s exceptionally memorable. “Wake Up … Destroy!” and “Demonic Ecstasy” prove capable of reducing brains and necks to quivering mushes of Bay Area bongloads and teutonic clashing, and somewhere in hell’s inner sanctum, Paul Baaloff is stomping poseurs into the devil’s nutsack while listening to this record on repeat. Come stagedive at The Complex (11.01). –Dylan Chadwick