Each month, the ManBQue Music staff gives you our picks for the month’s best records. This time, we’ve rounded up our favorites to provide the soundtrack to your own personal OctoberFEAST:

Ricky Thumbs:

Trapped Under Ice: Big Kiss Goodnight (Good Fight Music)
Good ol’ fashioned, stompy gang vocaled, two-stepping tough-guy, metallic hardcore. This band has repeatedly stepped it up with some worthy records and shows. Good stuff for fans of Terror, Have Heart, Bane.

Skeletonwitch: Forever Abomination (Prosthetic Records)
I always thought it was hard to put these guys in a specific box, and that’s probably why I like them so much. Not quite thrash, not quite black metal…They tend to really pay homage to obvious heroes Mercyful Fate, Exodus, Megadeth, Bathory, Testament and Possessed with just a hint of Dimebag influenced southern hospitality on the riffage.

Trash Talk: Awake E.P. (True Panther Sounds, October 11)
The band has a great little introduction that really adds to the charm of their music.Totally strong, bold, frantic, biting, relevant California hardcore punk. Their ties to Steve Albini and Keith Morris have given them some well deserved press as well. (IMHO, Harm’s Way may be the Chicago answer to this powerhouse).

Tom Waits: Bad As Me (Anti-)
Tom Waits’ body of work is so expansive and I have certainly not heard the majority of it, but what I have heard, I have liked greatly. He’s just that eccentric uncle that we’re either embarrassed by or proud of. His weirdness is only complimented by his output.

Carnifex: Until I Feel Nothing (Victory Records)
The swarm of ‘death core’ artists seems to have subsided, but the few bands that are still surfacing continue to ‘go to work.’ I love when trends start to wane, it’s like the ‘company’ that it started up from starts laying off the dead weight. Carnifex is my favorite of the bunch, mainly cause their last record was smothered in some gorgeous Satanic imagery and included a fantastic rendition of Slayer’s Angel Of Death. These guys definitely come more from the school of Behemoth than Suicide Silence anyway. They’ve continued to add more substance to their sound and I love their way of structuring songs.

 

The Other Woman:

Black Cobra: Invernal (Southern Lord)
This Oakland, California duo boasts a raw, urgent, bottom-heavy sound that could blast, not peel the paint off the walls. All riff, no filler. Love it.

Hull: Beyond The Lightless Sky (The End Records)
The sophomore effort from Brooklyn metalers Hull has been one of the fall’s most anticipated heavy releases. Based on a Mayan tale of two brothers divided by their passions for good and evil, the album, which was co-produced by Brett Romnes and mixed by Billy Anderson (Sleep, High On Fire, Melvins), is as heavy, and as epic as the story that inspired it.

The Strange Boys: Live Music (Rough Trade)

Austin-based snotty garage-punks are back with a third album, recorded in part with Spoon drummer Jim Eno. Recommended if you like the Velvet Underground and playing hooky.

Elder: Dead Roots Stiring (Meteor City)
One of the more interesting groups in a new generation of doom metal bands, Elder’s hypnotic atmospheres and intricate, syncopated rhythms are heavy enough for hardcore stoner metal enthusiasts but with a velvety smoothness that is appealing to a wider psychedelic/classic rock fan base. Singer Nick DiSalvo sounds a bit like the Hellacopter’s Nicke Andersson too.

Russian Circles: Empros (Sargent House)
If you live in Chicago and haven’t heard (or better yet, seen) this locally-based trio then you have my condolences. With each new recording, the group gets heavier and more powerful, and Empros, the group’s fourth album, promises yet another round of colossal, cinematic, emotionally-gripping songs delivered by three incredibly talented musicians.

 

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Tags: Angel Of Death, Anti- Records, Bad As Me, Bane, Bathory, Black Cobra, Carnifex, Dead Roots Stiring, Elder, Empros, Exodus, Forever Abomination, Good Fight Music, Harm's Way, Have Heart, Hull. Beyond The Lightless Sky, Invernal, Megadeth, Mercyful Fate, Meteor City, Possessed, Prosthetic Records, Russian Circles, Sargent House), Skeletonwitch, Slayer, Southern Lord, Terror, Testament, The End Records, Tom Waits, Trapped Under Ice: Big Kiss Goodnight, Trash Talk: Awake E.P., True Panther Sounds, Until I Feel Nothing, Victory Records