All at once, human voices are buried under textured explosions of fine-grit synth tones laying down a blanket of pumice and smoke that almost completely suffocates the screaming of those who could not escape.

Born out of a solemn art installation at an abandoned panopticon prison, the new album Panoptikon by Maria W Horn emphasizes the crushing mental consequences of living in such an environment.

On the new album Powersilence by our friend Halting, the gradient of noise and quietude is inverted, creating a Misophonian mirror world where traditional tonalities are traded in for the faintest murmurations amplified to eardrum-quaking resonances. Transposing stillness and chaos, Powersilence finds its musicality through a careful subversion of the normal sonic experience to a realm of delightful disorientation.

Deeply vulnerable lyrics cut right to the heart alongside swimming synths and dark guitars, delivering powerful baroque art pop along the lines of Kate Bush, Florence Wlech, Cocteau Twins, and early MUNA.

With her new record “please follow closely”, underground cybergrind darling Bottom Surgery discovers new avenues of creative self injury in an attempt to find relief from the banal evils of everyday life in dystopia. This record feels like a violent exorcism gone wrong, noisy ear-splitting riffs and hardcore breakdowns laced with glitchy explosions, all backing Havyn’s shrieks of desperation.

From IDM to EDM to straight-up rap verses, They Hate Change explores a wide variety of channels through which to direct their energy, a variety which comes home to roost within a solidly unified aesthetic that makes this album both unforgettable and endlessly replayable.

Repackaging a classical sensibility in the form of a sound so individual as to be nearly impossible to describe, The Germans explore an extremely specific spiritual journey that simultaneously feels relatable, constantly getting lost in the weeds in ways that feel all too familiar.

Lolica Tonica treats us to funky soul/pop with crunchy electronic breakdowns, fun and sexy 90s-ish house with a techno influence, and a vaporwave-adjacent track with breakbeats, all of which play remarkably beautifully together in Acid Future.

Stretching dungeon synth to its limits, traditional middle eastern melodies emanate from simple synths placed in cavernous acoustic environments, mingling with noise elements that emulate the anguished screams of onlookers.

Crushing their poppy, chiptune-adjacent hip hop under the weight of digital compression, Hooky’s new record Mirage takes a refreshingly varied look at the lo-fi sound that has so thoroughly saturated the internet.

This week, we finally got back up and running from the new year’s retail slump. Here’s two noteworthy releases to really get 2024 going in the realm of big indie and major label releases!

On Metal Roundup, we dive deep into the underbelly of underground metal to pick our three favorite new releases of the week, but there were so many killer drops last Friday that we’re doing three today. You’re welcome. 

Knowing that this record emerged from the mind of a single musician really helps drive its message home; even if we all see the writing on the wall, we fail to read it aloud to others in a way that could help guide us all to self-actualization.

A heavily punctuated sound with bouncy guitars and percussive lyrics turn every phrase into a foot-tapper, lending the record movement and energy that solidly divide this album from the stuffier and more self-serious side of progressive rock.

With no familiar riffs and no identifiable key signatures, there is no map for this sonic territory. The listener must join in on the direct experience with the artist, as together we participate in and explore the unfolding of a wholly new sonic landscape.

Pulling such beauty out of such a rigid and unforgiving concept requires a keen artistic eye, making From One to Eight a commendable achievement.

McKenna has always been a little more eclectic with his production than others in this niche, and this project is no exception with funkier beats and a slightly more experimental approach than you may expect.

Those who cling tightly to their preferred “death metal” or “black metal” genre boxes end up glossing over excellent releases like the debut album from Micturator, God in the Machine.

With the cleverly sparse usage of overwhelming, distorted crescendos, we follow the speaker to the brink, peering over the walls of a bottomless pit, staring nothingness in the face.

As the album sharply enters the second half, an indescribable succession of tape loops and other low, unorganized digital noise underpin an even more abstract set of tortured vocalizations, pushing past the limits of pain that typically appear in this already anguished genre.