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MetalBite's Top 10 Albums of the Month - August 2026

August - Top 10

Welcome back to MetalBite's Top 10 Albums of the Month! Michael's on the injured reserve for this round, but the riffs wait for no one, as you likely know. This month's edition is a little bit shorter, but that doesn't mean that it was a weak month. Perhaps we're just getting more picky as a group, as if a side effect of contributing to this column long-term is a tendency towards snobby pretension and the decreasing ability to enjoy music due to overexposure?

You be the judge, I guess.

-Nate

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Dymna Lotva - Vyraj
Prophecy Productions

Sometimes, the shrieking, DSBM-esque banshee wails seem at odds with the prominent symphonic element, sometimes they coalesce into a beautiful soup. While it's got an ethereal beauty and wistful nostalgia, there's also an underlying creepiness to this that, like if Cradle of Filth and Alcest combined to tell twisted children's stories. Their unusual thematic approach to black metal has me intrigued - there's an array of garnishes sprinkled about that draw your attention, and the powerful riff base seals the weirdness into your brain.
-Nate

Abyssal Rift - Burning Sun
Transcending Obscurity

The drumming makes this feel unhinged - what Brandon Smith lacks in nuance and technique he makes up for in sheer bestial intensity, contributing to this aura where it feels like they went back in time, plucked neanderthals out of the wild and sat them in front of instruments.

Obviously there's a lot more texture and detail in the compositions once you peel it back, but the energy present is very unusual for death/doom - it's chaotic, almost falling apart at the seams and there's wild, unexpected mood swings. While it sometimes feels clunky and lumbering, that lulls you into a false sense of security, because they can rip you in half with the tension they are able to generate.
-Nate

METALBITE'S TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE MONTH

Sev Lezu - Blood Conscript

10: Sev Lezu - Blood Conscript
Ordovician Records

This new band comprised of veteran musicians first caught my attention because of guitarist Melissa Moore (Crossspitter, Sonja). I am a big fan of her 2022 album Loud Arriver so I was hyped to hear she was doing black metal again! After being fired by the losers in Absu, it's safe to say she bounced back with incredible projects. Completing the trio of Sev Lezu is Sasha Stroud (drums, vocals) and FW (bass). This album sounds raw and authentic but with a real production, it doesn't sound like it was recorded with a Fisher-Price record player but also, it does not sound like robots playing an over produced and sterile unlistenable crap. It sits in a sweet spot. The mix of blackened death, subtill melodies and that grindcore edge makes for a satisfying mix. Sasha's a real highlight, her drumming is complex, delicate yet absolutely relentless. And her piercing shrieks cut through the wall of sound and feel savage as fuck! It's awesome to see Melissa and the gals having fun and making aggressive music, my only complaint, the album is really short! 22 minutes, I mean, come on, I want more!
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8/10

Vertiginous - Incessant Affliction

9: Vertiginous - Incessant Affliction
Comatose Music

This has a…snake-y quality to it. Riffs bleed into one another in a linear, yet smooth fashion, with the slams being the only punctuation mark to wrap the song structures on. It's not quite Disgorge levels of clusterfuck-y but it sniffs around those ideas a lot. The snare has a ridiculous ping, the vocalist sounds like he's at the bottom of a slurpee, and this has little ambition of doing anything beyond stupefying brutality - basically, this rules.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8/10

Deceptor - Reign Of Terrorr

8: Deceptor - Reign Of Terror
Naturmacht

Raleigh, North Carolina is not a place that comes to mind for metal, or anything in fact, sorry… But now, old school death/thrash band Deceptor will absolutely come to mind! Their first album establishes these three boys as unavoidable in the thrash scene. Their sound comes directly from the late 80's, when thrash was beginning to mutate into its wonderful, deformed offspring, death metal. The album opens with an instrumental and from here, 4 of the first 6 songs are instrumentals, 3 of them about one minute long. It's a bold choice but even the instrumentals are great so it's not a burden, it only builds anticipation for the "real" songs. The vocals are a reverb drenched shouting growls with occasional deeper grunts on "Fog Of War". The music has plenty of fun moments like the over-the-top use of the whammy bar on the appropriately named "Whammer" or the crazy solos of the last song. Lyrically, it's classic thrash, denouncing hate movements and the human toll it costs: "Aggression, obsession Manipulation Feeble-minded dregs fueled by ignorance and lies Burning procession Intimidation Lethal ideologies cost millions of lives". Really cool album with a superb cover telling you how good the album is going to sound!
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.1/10

Epicardiectomy - Dismal Landscapes Of Voluptuous Pustular Cadaverosis

7: Epicardiectomy - Dismal Landscapes Of Voluptuous Pustular Cadaverosis
New Standard Elite

I would absolutely love to be a fly on the wall for this band's sound check, specifically when the sound engineer is mic'ing up the drum kit.

Epicardiectomy is some of the purest slam in existence - they heard Cephalotripsy and asked "what if it slammed more?". Half the band probably came out of the womb in Devourment shirts. The intriguing part is partially how united the band is in accomplishing a single goal, and partially how much variety they are able to extract out of half the base ingredients most bands use. The no toms approach seems comical at first, but the more you listen, the more you start to question if they're necessary in any slam band. These Czechians only need a pummeling kick drum and a snare that sounds like a wet cow carcass against concrete.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.2/10

Atomic Aggressor - The Occult Forces

6: Atomic Aggressor - The Occult Forces
Hells Headbangers

Currently, there appears to be a Chilean death-thrash album for every month, and August's contribution is the second full-length from Atomic Aggressor, a mere 12 years after their debut. Happily, this is worth the wait, and maintains the virtually flawless hit rate of a nation that appears to have replaced its currency with ripping riffs. "The Occult Forces" is a little more raw and technical than July's outstanding effort from Ripper, but this is no bad thing, allowing the band's boundless energy and intuitive fluidity through a raft of tempo changes and riff transitions to carry the songs. Early Kreator playing early Morbid Angel (everything about this band is early) is a reasonable characterisation of the band's combination of choppy syncopation and swelling tremolos, and the outstanding track on the album, 'As I Descend' is the perfect exhibition of Atomic Aggressor's power and intensity. From beginning to end, this is infernal, arcane magic.
-Benjamin

MetalBite's Rating: 8.3/10

Gorod - The Ember Gone

5: Gorod - The Ember Gone
Season Of Mist

Perhaps it's evidence I haven't kept up with their more recent albums, but I don't remember Gorod being this…proggy? It's obviously always been present in their music, but holding this up to the "Leading Vision" / "Process Of A New Decline" era shows a sharp increase in clean vocal passages (and just a wider array of vocal styles in general) and sparse sections with unusual time signatures that are more like Fractal Universe than Spawn of Possession. Gorod has always had hooks in abundance, but they were natural products of the insanely infectious riffwork, whereas the hooks on "The Ember Gone" are more based on repeated motifs that are designed to stand out and stick in your head. It's not bad, it's just different, and requires some adjustment in how I consume it.

Fortunately, I can get down with some prog rock and they also do a very good job of writing songs that flow amidst bridging disparate genres. They give you an occasional complex lick to remind you they still have their insane technical chops, but now it's just one tool of many in their expanding arsenal. It's not quite what I expected, but still met my quality standard either way.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.3/10

Street Tombs - Existence Is Corruption

4: Street Tombs - Existence Is Corruption
Carbonized Records

New Mexico's crusty, d-beat infused death metal band Street Tombs has one mission, making you headbang till your neck is sore with plenty of infectious bouncy riffs. Not in the Entombed, death n roll groovy kind of way (my less preferred way), and more like, Bolt Thrower playing punk rock kind of way! It's 30 minutes of high energy death metal that's fun and that feels completely authentic. Plenty of dive bombs and cool solos makes this a memorable experience and frequent short tempo changes prevents the endless d-beat fatigue that can sometimes happen. I haven't been able to find lyrics except for this short summary: "the complacency, corruption, and destruction that plague modern society." In short, great vocals, riffs and drumming, add an impeccable production, recorded by Greg Wilkinson at Engine 70 Studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico and mixed and mastered by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studio in Oakland, California, it's organic and sounds huge.
-Raphael

33 minutes. About one 'Angel Of Death' longer than "Reign In Blood", but otherwise the perfect length for an album as nasty and relentless as this. Crammed to bursting with dirty almost-but-not-quite death metal thrash that eschews the opulence and grandiosity of the Bay Area, in favour of a sound that falls somewhere between "The Laws Of Scourge"-era Sarcofago, the entire black-thrash sub-genre, and the d-Beat of Discharge, and any other band sporting the 'Dis-' prefix. Brittle tremolos battle chugging cadences, while rumbling, clattering drums threaten to derail the band at every turn, and the Damian Jacoby's stentorian vocal rasp adds another vicious dimension to the US quartet's furious attack. Street Tombs are primitive, but not rudimentary, and the occasional hint of progression, such as the instrumental passage within ‘Upset The Grave' hint at hidden depths of sophistication that may come into play in the future. For now though, enjoy a band that simply plug in, and thrash until death. And they almost certainly kill live.
-Benjamin

MetalBite's Rating: 8.4/10

Warforged - The Grove | Alamnac

3: Warforged - The Grove | Alamnac
The Artisan Era

While this is obviously a band I would thoroughly recommend, they come with a few qualifiers. They are ill-suited for lists like these that demand a timely turnaround, because Warforged is a band that necessitates several listens and thorough contemplation before you can fully make an assessment on them. They're a grower, not a shower, even if you're coming in well versed in progressive death metal. There's a lot of buildup and very little climax, and you can hear splashes of everything from ambient to downtempo electronica to deathcore to math rock in a soup that can occasionally feel incongruous with everything it tries to fit into the same box - but the unhinged, unexpected twists is all part of the ride.

Even if you enjoyed their previous work (as I did), it's still hard to know what you're going to get out of this. The fact that they've created something this unique and challenging is worthy of merit on its own, but it's hard to know how that will shake out for your personal enjoyment of the experience. All I can suggest is to give it a try yourself - and make sure you listen to the full thing at least 3 times before you make a final judgement.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.4/10

Hulder - Verbolgen

2: Hulder - Verbolgen
20 Buck Spin

The crackling of a fire and a soft folk melody on the flute opens this album, it is a statement that Hulder is making, fully embracing the pagan elements of her sound. Now a duo, Marliese Beeuwsaert is accompanied by her husband, Samuel Osborne (nephew of Buzz Osborne and guitarist in Funebrarum). It's beautiful to see two people who love each other and who's creative musical talent combine in such a perfect way! As to signal the change in sound, she changed the logo for something more inspired by nature with its wooden design. I don't know if I like it more than the old logo, but I think it fits the sound well. On "Verbolgen" you'll hear flute, hurdy gurdy and keyboards, creating rich melodies but, never in an overwhelming manner, the sound remains savage black metal. Marliese's vocals are truly devastating, paired with blackened blastbeats, it makes your blood boil with pure rage. Comfortable with slower tempos, Samuel occasionally throws in deep guttural growls that makes this whole album really dynamic and never boring. This is Hulder at its best, for fans of every shade of black metal.
-Raphael

A curious tidbit about this album is that it has two session drummers and each of them play on half of the songs. Impressively, they sound functionally identical, which makes me think Marliese Beeuwsaert has a significant amount of say in the beat choices in the songcraft. It would make sense, considering that her songwriting is undoubtedly her greatest strength. Hulder doesn't really do anything different than any other black metal band you've heard, but they somehow manage to feel fresh and "invoke the second wave spirit" (as so many black metal promo blurbs erroneously describe the oodles of typical black metal that gets put out each week.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.5/10

Mastodon - Marrow Deep

1: Mastodon - Marrow Deep
Loma Vista Recordings

Mastodon must be one of the most consistent bands, at least for me, having a near perfect discography. They have this special ability to transform grief into something beautiful and timeless. "Crack The Skye" is meant as a homage to Brann's sister, Skye Dailor, who died by suicide at age 14 and a lot of the riffs were written by Brent when he was recovering from a traumatic brain injury.

The sudden death of Brent Hinds in august 2025 was a massive shock and even for fans, there was a time of uncertainty. When the band finally talked about the "mastodon in the room" and we learned more, it added a layer of tragedy. Just before the accident, they tried to tell him it wasn't working anymore, his drinking was impeding the good functioning of the band, and it was the last time they saw him. But despite this unbelievable tragedy, I had absolute faith that once again, they would create something beautiful out of this and well, they did it again.

"Barbarians Blood" opens with excellent drums and a simple but crushing riff with Troy's powerful voice, it's reminiscent of "Once More 'Round The Sun" era, which is an excellent start! And already on the first song we get a taste of what newcomer João Nogueira brings to the band with a keyboard solo. The album's first single, "Your Ghost Again", is a powerful tribute to Brent, and Brann's mother (who also passed away) that brings the heavy prog we all come for with the dual heavy soft approach with Troy sounding devastatingly heavy while Brann brings melody and a psychedelic atmosphere. Lyrically filled with raw emotions:" I saw your ghost again, Visions of a future, Non-existent, (I saw) I saw your ghost again, Followed by crushing, Feelings of regret" And the riff at the end is Mastodon sounding heavier than they did in a while! "Snakes For Dinner" is a more traditional sounding single with a verse chorus structure making it more accessible. This is a particularly strong chorus with Brann's melodic, catchy and epic voice. I did not like Troy's soft voice on "In the Ruins", at first, but after a few listen, I got used to it and the second part of the song is great, it gets heavier and Troy's performance is both heavy and emotional.

The second part of "Marrow Deep" is more experimental, letting their creative side shine with a lot of guests. "A Vampire's Demeanor" features the added powerful voice of Nate Newton and Randy Blythe, but they only add an extra oomph to Troy's already heavy performance, never overpowering him. It's a great subtle use of both voices. The solo on this one (and everywhere in fact) would make Brent proud! "The Vanishing" opens with a delicious bass section, courtesy of the legendary Geezer Butler himself! A great slow and groovy drumbeat follows with Brann's voice filtered through something like a Leslie rotating speaker (don't quote me on this) giving an extra psychedelic feel. You can also hear the distant chant of Joe Duplantier in the background adding a touch to the powerful drums and epic solo. The album ends with the longest song, as is customary for Mastodon, and what truly stands out on "The Three Fates" is the prog elements are boosted to the max! With a section straight out of prog rock era Opeth, with a superb back and forth on guitars and keys.

"Marrow Deep" is the proof that Mastodon is an unstoppable force, a grief processing machine if you will. They have been a part of my life since 2009 and their music has helped me during my darkest moments but also, during the bests! I saw them in Montréal and have a video of them opening the show with "The Last Baron"! One of the highlights of my life! Anyway, back to "Marrow Deep", it's a beautiful tribute to Brent, showing the best parts of Mastodon while injecting new elements to the sound showing their experimental muscle. As a longtime fan this album just feels good, it's a cathartic experience that puts a healing balm on the wound that is the departure of Brent!
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 9/10