Ascetic Reflection is everything I was hoping it would be and then some. Thankfully Altars has raised a sophomore offering aloft that brings all the verve and focused intensity of Sloan and company’s best collective work. With several years passed since Brendan Sloan graced our ears with the mad gyrations of Convulsing’s Grievous, I’ve been eagerly anticipating another death metal project of equal magnitude and caliber. – JA Best of the Rest Altars – Ascetic Reflection Expect to see it peppering our year-end content. I’ve given this thing a great many spins and am nowhere close to tired of it.

It’s wildly creative, oddly catchy, intensely immersive and on the whole another staggering achievement from one of the best bands in the game. I could ramble about aspects of this record for a very long time, but I’ll stop here by claiming Spirit of Ecstasy as one of the best metal records of 2022. I’ll state it here and loudly that Kenny Grohowski is one of the best drummers in metal and Spirit of Ecstasy may be his best work to date. His work on this record is beyond stellar, and I would posit that there are few drumming performances I can remember that balanced propulsion, embarrassing riches of competence, and thoroughly unique personality this astutely. While the extreme music world is filled to the brim with amazing drummers, especially in this particular creative slice ( Ulcerate fans know what I’m talking about), I don’t feel like Kenny gets the love he deserves. Guest musicians abound, but the band’s core members truly are the stars of the show here, especially the percussive work of Kenny Grohowski. While IT has always been known as a collective of insanely talented musicians, Spirit of Ecstasy brings their copious skills to the forefront in ways that feel more intense and impactful than ever. It’s glorious, just like the rest of the album. on the sax) as a perfect example of this juxtaposition, showcasing IT’s riding the razor’s edge of legibility and full-on scribble freak-out. Take “Merkurius Gilded” (featuring none other than Kenny G. Sure, there’s more to latch onto here than in Vile Luxury, but that doesn’t mean the band’s songwriting unpredictability is any less stark.

The finale of “Metrovertigo” and the central motif of “Tower of Glory, City of Shame” are among the most memorable sequences of music the band have yet written, showcasing the band’s deeply experimental tendencies and grounding them in recognizable, but not exactly accessible, tropes. Those seasoned to the band’s sound will find a veritable treasure trove of tweaks and contortions to the band’s established (albeit highly erratic) soundscapes, primarily in its emphasis on chunky, warbly, death metal-adjacent riffs.

If you’ve never heard an IT record before, this may be both the best and worst place to start. They are their own thoroughly unique, uncompromising, gloriously insane entity and have here crafted an album that amalgamates their journey thus far into a marvelously coherent yet fully delirious whole. Imperial Triumphant, love or hate them, rest in the creative shadow of none. Which is the principal strength of their latest release Spirit of Ecstasy. How I typically answer this inquiry is by telling the asker that they sound like no one else. Each of their altogether fantastic records is a blend of so many unique and seemingly incompatible musical styles that answering the question “what do they sound like?” often feels borderline impossible. It’s always difficult to classify a new Imperial Triumphant record in terms of genre. – Jonathan Adams Cream of the Crop Imperial Triumphant – Spirit of Ecstasy What did we miss? What were your favorites? Shoot us a comment or two and tell us why we’re wrong. It would take another month of listening on our end to come close to covering it all. The below offerings present only a small smattering of the incredible content released over the past two months. But we’re back with some spicy records from the past few months that we cannot wait to share with you. Special shout out to my fellow contributors tolerating my erratic schedule as well. Your patience with my tardiness (which is why this column skipped a month) is greatly appreciated. Multiple family weddings and starting a new job have waylaid my typical music listening and writing endeavors over the past few months. Life has been particularly insane for yours truly as of late.

Winner takes it all chords