the return of relapse!

I’m not gonna lie, I have been looking forward to this day for almost a year: Relapse Records returns to eMusic!

Relapse is one of my favorite labels running, and in the first batch we’ve got the cream of their recent crop. I’m going to run down a few of my musts, and any other fans, please add to the comments!

Baroness, Blue Record: Even if you don’t like metal, you will like this album. I promise. This was one of my favorite albums of last year — the musicianship on this record is jaw-dropping. The riffs! The drumming! The whiplash time signatures! I reviewed it, and in that review I say:

Baroness’s roots are in hardcore, not prog, so The Blue Record‘s grand ambitions are leavened with a healthy punk snarl. They’re self-confessed metal outsiders — as is producer John Congleton, whose resume includes St. Vincent‘s Actor as well as albums by the Mountain Goats and Okkervil River. Don’t think Armored Saint, think Hot Snakes with more compositional flair. The songs are packed with an astonishing level of detail: hairpin turns, methodically arranged subsections, surgically precise tempo changes and guitar leads that require an almost supernatural dexterity (How many 32nd notes can two men play?) Witness the apocalyptically named “A Horse Called Golgotha,” how it goes from blistering riffage to hammering punk rock to full-gallop hard rock — all within the first minute. Jaw-dropping dynamo “Jake Leg” is composed of no fewer than four distinct passages, but it moves so quickly and so fluidly its complexity almost escapes perception. Its single central riff — a call-and-response between Baizley and the group’s other guitarist, Peter Adams — corkscrews its way angrily up the song’s center, sounding nastier every time it appears — at different tempos, in different key signatures, with different effects. Baroness pulls off a cunning feat, reverse-engineering hardcore and gilding its raw brutality with alarmingly elegant guitar solos.

More Relapse picks after the jump!

Coalesce, Ox: Long-running hardcore band Coalesce returns with Ox, a record that’s as bracing and vital as any in their catalog. Ox is non-stop, man, hammering percussion, full-throated vocals and split-second songs that bottle up and explode like shaken soda pop.

Dillinger Escape Plan, Calculating Infinity: Breakthrough album from now-legendary technical-metallers — this is the one that earned them their rep, and just a few seconds makes it clear why. Light-speed playing, full-on fury. A must.

Howl, Full of Hell: This is a recent Relapse release, but I rep hard for it. Hear me out: this is practically a shoegaze record. The guitars on that first song sound like they were lifted from Starflyer 59′s Americana or something. But then that demonic vocalist comes in and the whole thing takes a long black dive into the abyss. It’s some kind of weird hybrid of stoner metal and black metal — everything is superfuckingslow and menacing. On my list of favorite records of 2010.

Mastodon, Leviathan: Breakthrough album from metal gods — one of their early experiments with a concept record, this one loosely based on Moby Dick. A new metal classic.

Pig Destroyer, Phantom Limb: YESSSS. This record is psychotic. The songs are about 90 seconds long, super intense grind metal, lots of flailing and shrieking. This is an adrenaline shot to the heart.

Tombs, Winter Hours: Brutal slab of metal from promising Brooklyn band. This is only their 2nd record, but Tombs are off to a great start. Roaring and cataclysmic with deep long nods toward hardcore. There are moments that you can hear a Dischord influence, which is fine by me.

Black Anvil, Time Insults the Mind: Black Anvil are a New York band playing Scandinavian black metal. Fairly straightforward in execution, but black metal fans should love.

Minsk, With Echoes in the Movement of Stone: I got way into Minsk’s first record; this one is slightly less technical but still super ominous. Minsk like long, atmospheric songs — Tool isn’t too far a jumping-off point, but that comparison tends to give people the heebie-jeebies. Long, loping, art metal. Maybe a bit of Danzig in here, too? But like if Danzig went to art school. Did Danzig go to art school? Anyway.

Neurosis, A Sun That Never Sets: This seems to be a fairly divisive Neurosis record among fans, but I like it just fine.

Brutal Truth, Evolution Through Revolution: Grindcore pioneers on another fine outing.

Brian Poeshn, Fart and Weiner Jokes: And why not close it all down with some comedy? Poeshn is metal’s court jester, and his latest is a light remedy to all of Relapse’s awesome darkness.