Over ten weeks in now and you guys are still enjoying it so it looks like this series will continue on! It looks to be becoming more sparse as we approach the end of the year, with not many bands wanting to release albums so close to Christmas and New Years. However, there are still a bit of new music coming out, with four huge albums being released last Friday. Without further adue, let’s check them out!

Black Label Society: Doom Crew Inc.

Ozzy’s part-time axe-man has established himself as an equally great frontman over the last 20 years or so that Black Label Society have been a thing. Now onto their 11th studio album, the band aren’t letting up at all! It’s an hour of stomping, heavy biker metal, and I love it. It’s maybe the best Zakk Wylde has sounded vocally, and there could be an argument made that soloing is up there with some of his best too. A band long and unfortunately overshadowed because of Ozzy, this new music deserves to push them to a higher status in the rock world. Whether it does or not is another story. Highlights include the opener, ”You Made Me Want to Live’ and the emotion filled closing track. 8/10

Lordi: Lordiversity – Superflytrap

Definitely one of the weirder albums I’ve covered here so far, Finnish heavy metal band Lordi put out a disco album last week. Yep, you heard me right. Let’s get weird. I have no idea why it happened, all I know is that I love it. I cannot even find words to describe it, I just urge you to check it out down below, then find the whole album. If anything should win Christmas #1 outside of Gypsy Pistoleros, it’s Macho Freak. It’s like slightly heavier ABBA. I’ll be listening to this album a lot of the rest of the year, and you should too! 9/10.

Cynic: Ascension Codes

Prog-metal band Cynic returned with their fourth studio album and first new music since 2014, Ascension Codes. While I understand the importance of the bands first release, Focus, to the prog-metal genre as a whole, I have to say that personally, I don’t get it. It’s the same with this album. Don’t get me wrong, they are all clearly very accomplished musicians, but there was nothing here that really interested me. Lead single ‘Mythical Serpents’ was about the best of the bunch, with the other single being a close second. Neither held my attention that long, sadly. For such an interesting genre usually, it didn’t captivate me at all here. A shame. 4/10

Hypocrisy: Worship

While being the winners of album artwork of the year (seriously, it’s a thing of beauty), Swedish death metal band Hypocrisy also put out an album that’s good enough to live up to it. From the HUGE opening barrage of the title track through the awesome ‘Dead World’ all the way to the closing track, ‘God of the Underground’, it’s a class in how to do death metal damn well. From start to finish, this was another awesome album, and my favourite death metal album of the year hands down. 8.5/10