Too Soon? Modtoid Man’s Best of 2019… So Far

Music fatigue is real, y’all. You listen to all the new shit that you can, regret the ones you missed, and somehow come to terms with the fact that you aren’t a superhuman music consumer. Try to force it, and you’ll burn yourself out on the artform and that’s not fun. With that in mind, these are the albums I have heard and liked. A lot in fact!

Pretty much every heavy music subgenre is repped here, but there’s one commonality: it’s all good. You can get thrashy with Lowest Creature, old school with Smoulder and Magic Circle, stoned with Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, or, uh… everything else with Devin Townsend. Oooh, special shoutout to The Chemical Mind who is on track to be my heavy album of the year almost regardless of anything else that comes out. Check him (yes, it’s almost all one dude) out if you like proggy black/post-metal stuff with lots of atmosphere.

Amygdala – Our Voices Will Soar Forever (Prosthetic Records)
Astronoid – Astronoid (Blood Music)
Avandra – Descender (Blood Music)
Barshasketh – Barshasketh (WTC Productions)
Contrarian – Their Worm Never Dies (Willowtip Records)
Devin Townsend – Empath (Inside Out Music)
HEALTH – VOL. 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR (Loma Vista Recordings)
Herod – Sombre Dessein (Pelagic Records)
Ithaca – The Language of Injury (Holy Roar Records)
Lowest Creature – Sacrilegious Pain (Isolation Rec.)
Magic Circle – Departed Souls (20 Buck Spin)
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Yn Il I Annwn (New Heavy Sounds)
Raiju – Non Sequitur (independent)
Smoulder – Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring (Cruz Del Sur Music)
Swallow the Sun – When a Shadow is Forced into the Light (Century Media)
The Chemical Mind – Beneath the Shadow It Casts (independent)
Venom Prison – Samara (Prosthetic Records)