Another week, another offering of awesome EPs for us to look at, from rock to metal to country! Let’s check it all out!
Godless: Genesis of Decay
The Indian death metal band put out their first release since their 2021 debut album today, and it is every bit as good as that was. Right from the offset, opener ‘Amorphous Mass’ starts things off with a bang and sets the tone of the release perfectly. The. You have the absolutely incredible riffing in ‘Doctrine of Hate’, the sheer balls-to-the-wall assault of ‘Silent Oppression’ and ‘Echos of Collapse’ rounds things out perfectly. This whole thing is insanely solid from front to back; 15-minutes of well-crafted modern death metal. I honestly loved this a lot, far more than I expected to. The production on it was phenomenal and it almost gave Fit for an Autopsy vibes, which I am more than down with. The band have a big new fan in me, and if you are a fan of the heavier side of the modern metal world, I cannot recommend this enough. It’s a solid 9/10 from us!
Sea of Flames: Mercury
The Denver quartet are on their 13th year as a band, celebrating in style with their fourth EP. What an EP it is, too! Masterfully combining hard rock, stoner and heavy/alt metal together, the closest thing I can compare it to is Spirit Adrift. It’s packed full of awesome riffing, catchy melodies and overall great songwriting. The pace is pretty full-on and almost gives thrash vibes at times, not that that is at all a complaint! Tracks like the opener, the White Zombie-like ‘Never Get Out of the Boat’ and the grunge-meets-early-Tool ‘Inspo’ are all personal highlights. However, every song is just as good as the last on this, and all six are well worth a listen! The band are incredibly talented and the fact that they don’t have more buzz around them is honestly criminal. It immediately made me a fan of the band and made me desperate to hear a full album from them after all these years. I cannot recommend this EP enough to anyone, and it’s made me instantly want to go back and listen to their older stuff. I’ll be listening to this a lot moving forward, and it’s another easy 9/10!
Blake Whiten: Six Mile
The South Carolina neo-traditional country singer-songwriter released his highly anticipated debut EP today, and it’s fucking awesome! We’ve sadly heard 4/6 of the songs before as singles, but that doesn’t take away from the quality and impact of the release at all. His voice is haunting and packed full of weight and emotion and a harshness far beyond his years. It gives off big Last Knife Fighter or Wyatt Flores or even Cody Jinks vibes, which I love. It’s simple, just Blake’s guitar and vocals for the most part, but he’s got such a commanding presence that it doesn’t at all feel empty or lacking. It’s so hard to pick highlight tracks as they are all so good, and pretty similar due to the stripped-back nature. It honestly gave me goosebumps multiple times throughout; it may be one of the best vocal performances of the year, at least in country. He has an incredibly bright future ahead of him, and it’s no wonder he’s gotten so big off just a few singles. I might be a little obsessed, but I cannot recommend this enough to anyone reading this, be a country fan or otherwise. It’s a darker, later-Cash-style of the genre, and it fits Blake perfectly. I can’t give this anything less than 9.5/10, wow!