Opeth have been a band that have consistently delivered the goods, from their expansive career beginning as almost a black metal band with releases like Orchid and Morningrise and slowly moving into darker territory with the conceptual Still Life and  My Arms, Your Hearse to form their signature sepia tinged sound on the iconic Blackwater Park. If you’re not familiar with the (g)rumblings in the Opeth camp post Watershed then let us fill you in.

And Dragonforce are back! Whether you love to hate them, hate to love them, or just plain cannot contain your excitement whenever their name crops up, they have returned with a new offering – with the wonder just how long they can carry on with the core values that they have established in their music.

Belphegor have been big players in the blackened death metal arena, now with their tenth studio album Conjuring The Dead they have come back with a serious bang. After releasing Blood Magick Necromance in 2011 and finally finishing their extensive touring schedule Belphegor returned to the studio, this time choosing Mana Recording Studios with none other than esteemed death metal man Erik Rutan in charge of production duties. Opening with the furious assault of “Gasmask Terror” we’re treated to much of the same usual Belphegor formula, blast beats that are inhumanly fast and the guttural roar of Helmuth bringing the album to life in a fantastic fashion. Much of the album is simple riffing and compared to some of metal’s contemporary acts, fairly straight forward song writing, but therin lies the rub.

The folk metal titans Eluveitie are back with their latest offering, ‘Origins‘, with the album title deriving from the self-described ‘going back to the musical roots’ album. Supposing that means Eluveitie’s music will go back to the vein of the first two releases ‘Ven‘ and ‘Slania‘, but quite frankly not a whole lot has changed musically with Eluveitie since the very beginning. They still play a consistent stream of melodic death metal with virtuostic folk melodies underlaying the rhythms, but with their last effort, ‘Helvetios‘, it started to look like the folk metal masters were going stale.

Guitar virtuoso Chris Letchford has not only been one of the integral pieces to the Scale The Summit puzzle but has now decided than the progressive side of STS is not enough. Coming from the background of having been to the esteemed Berkeley University, Letchford knows his stuff. Perhaps not being happy with his output with his other band has now put out his first solo effort, Lightbox. Joined by members of Reign of Kindo on piano, drums  and bass  as well as bassist extraordinaire Evan Brewer on select tracks. Although its not strictly metal I find it interesting when musicians, whatever instrument they may play decide to go out of the (light) box and try something new, rather than rehashing the same tired riffs.

Fallujah are a band that we do not see often, having released The Harvest Wombs previously it was clear that there was something very different going on here. At first glance they seem like any other technical death metal band, they are so much more. Having constructed a sound that is stylistically different yet immediately identifiable in The Harvest Wombs. Fallujah released their EP Nomadic until finally having honed their sound they evolved into the unstoppable force that is The Flesh Prevails.