Albums of October 10 and October 17, 2025

The most interesting releases of these weeks!

The latest installment of Old Guy Master Thrash Presents A New Album, Para Bellum was released on Nuclear Blast. Para Bellum starts off with a rapturous drum header leading into a simple, yet catchy riff that Testament toy around with through breakdown and chorus. Nobody should be surprised that this record contains sharply written, professionally produced thrash that never breaks too far from genre conventions and could have used a bit more of an editor. I dig some of Testament‘s little tricks such as their vocal effects in opener “For the Love of Pain,” but this is still Testament. Para Bellum will live and die based on your feelings on the guitar work and how infectious you find the riffs.

I do wish that several of the tracks and that the album as a whole were a bit shorter, but otherwise Testament spend all of Para Bellum showing why they’re one of the biggest and most influential thrash metal bands still playing. Para Bellum isn’t their best work, nut that was never a real expectation. I found this album thoroughly enjoyable and plan to return many times. I especially appreciate the expressive range of the vocals and the sharp, energetic performances of the drums and bass. Para Bellum is a good walk along well-tread ground.

Malignity was released on Me Saco un Ojo Records, and Vile Apparition‘s second full-length release. The band plays death metal that doesn’t fit in with the technical death metal subgenre and also represents a different take on death metal than OSDM or similar styles. Fans of Stargazer or Altars may find similarities here, although Vile Apparition is a just a bit less crazed than either of those bands. Fans of Suffocation will also feel at home. The riffs on Malignity baffle me. Vile Apparition pile waterfall on top of syncopation and somehow end up with a final product that stays in my brain far longer than more direct death metal riffs.

Absurd drum performances steal the spotlight throughout Malignity. The beat seems to change 3 times a phase, with stuttering blast beats being interrupted with more tempered rolls and back again before an extended riff finishes. At 34 minutes, this already short album absolutely flies by given the frantic, ever-changing nature of the songwriting.

Growl is a…math rock? album released on Pelagic Records. The instrumental duo plays “loop-based” music with post rock and math rock bases. The songs get quite minimal at times. They use this minimalism along with repetitive and off-timed motifs to create some amazing moments of growth throughout Growl. The result is an album with some big mountains and interesting moments in the crevices.

Third track “Lezard Rouge” showcases many of NYOS‘s talents. The track starts by slowly building a short riff that sounds just a little-bit undanceable and then adds drums that play in the same beat only occasionally. This riff then goes on for fucking ever as various other strings noodle along above and behind the main motif. Sometimes these are added to the cacophony, sometimes they drive away. After almost 3 minutes, everything drops out and a new motif is abandoned. Some of the previous noodling comes back in a twisted form and some new friends wander by as the drums keep doing their thing, with the tune gradually building back up to a more subdued conclusion than the climax of the first half of the song. Growl is odd and not for everyone, but those who like it will find plenty to enjoy.

Endbryo is the newest terribly-named death/grind debut from Nefarious Industries. Defigurement sound a bit like Agorophobic Nosebleed recalling their youth after settling down and having a kid. Despite being labeled death/grind, Endbryo leans heavier on the grind. The band aren’t afraid to push boundaries either. Every song sounds carefully crafted to have a secondary goal of going somewhere different than the previous song.

Given the band’s songwriting approach and I did not anticipate Defigurement‘s riffs being as memorable as they are. Experimental death/grind is one thing, experimental death/grind with earworm hooks is quite another. It’s a testament to Defigurement‘s musicianship and compositional skills that they were able to serve different, often conflicting masters in this way.

Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone was released on Church Road Records. This post-black release fuses black metal and hardcore influences into an album filled with emotion and restraint. This is Terzij De Horde‘s third full-length. The band plays with an everything-all-the-time approach to performance, and Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone leaves me feeling exhausted.

From a songwriting perspective, Terzij De Horde tend to build on simple riffs, sometimes letting a single theme run through an entire hefty track with little to not reprieve. While they’re not alone there, the harsh songwriting and mixing make it more noticeable than on most albums. The band keeps things interesting through sheer emotional gravitas and well-written riffs. Terzij De Horde also build around their repetition quite well, switching up other aspects of the music to help show their main riff in a different light.

Pest is an older German black metal band, releasing their fifth full-length and comeback album Eternal Nightmare on Heidens Hart. Apparently the band mixed the album themselves in their rehearsal room, and the result is a ragged-sounding black metal release that would fit right in with any basement-recording from the genre’s past. The band’s co-founder passed away in 2011, and it seems like this will be it for the group.

Pest make the most of their raw sound. Eternal Nightmare‘s riffs are ideal for cutting through mud, and the vocals evoke an unknown creature from another room in the dungeon. Nothing outside of second-wave orthodox pops up on Eternal Nightmare, but the album doesn’t need any other flair. Eternal Nightmare simply gives us direct, well-written riffs and strong performances from all band members.

Transmission Echo was released on Pitch Black Records. After the short guitar-intro, the proper opening track starts with the most shameless retro 80s guitar line I’ve heard in a long time. The vocals show up after half a minute of this, with some interesting harmonizing that always sounds severely in danger of going flat and ruining the experience but never does. I don’t entirely know what causes some vocal performances to sound more fragile than others, but my god was I anxious all the way through this record. Fans of Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, or Yes may like Transmission Echo.

Transmission Echo only lasts for 43 minutes, but the album would have been a better experience if Flitcraft had edited down the record a bit more as it drags in some parts. Despite all of the anxieties and meandering, I had a blast with Transmission Echo from the moment I first heard it. The band’s performances are tight enough make anything sound good, and the songs themselves contain a flurry of retro choruses and harmonies that deserve attention. Transmission Echo is a flawed record, but it’s a flawed record with heart and talent.

Mendacium, released on Profound Lore Records, repelled me enough at first listen that I wasn’t planning on writing about it. It turns out that the band’s low, dismal style of funeral doom just wasn’t what I needed in the moment. This album is gigantic, enveloping, and not something I would listen to every day. But it’s just stunning in the right circumstances. The production is some of the best of the year, with every instrument occupying just enough space to make the record sound like a complete world. And Evoken‘s performances are top-notch as well.

But Evoken‘s songwriting is where this album turns into something truly special. Mendacium goes so many places, does so much. This album sounds subtle, exhaustive, precise, and immense. Evoken‘s compositions unfold slowly over a full hour, calming shifting through a variety of dark emotional evocations, calling to mind some of Esoteric and Bell Witch‘s best works. An album like this needs years to fully settle in and make its impact known, but I haven’t felt this way about a funeral doom record on release since Mirror Reaper. Mendacium isn’t an album to listen to every day, but it’s an album to experience when you can.