The playlist: metal

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/18/playlist-metal

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King 810 – Fat Around The Heart

From the genuinely mean streets of Flint, Michigan, come my tip for the next big thing to make waves in the metal world. Not only are King 810 the real deal, they’re also an extraordinarily creative bunch: debut album Memoirs of a Murderer, due out in August, veers from crushing Slipknot-tinged brutality like this to elegiac acoustic songs redolent of Nick Cave at his brooding best. If the world can handle them, this band will be huge.

Monmuments – Atlas

Taken from these tech-metal diehards’ forthcoming second album, The Amanuensis, Atlas provides a thrilling showcase for the band’s latest incarnation. New frontman Chris Barretto has given Monuments an additional edge of charisma and accessibility that may yet draw in mainstream metal audiences. This is ambitious and epic heaviness with brains and balls by the truckload.

Divine Chaos – Death Toll Rising

Much of the best new metal emerges when young bands exhibit a true understanding of the genre’s core values and cultural staples. Divine Chaos are hardly reinventing the wheel here, but when it comes to balls-out sonic savagery, few recent bands have conjured such a technically devastating and compositionally refined take on age-old conventions. Extreme metal perfection.

Opeth – Cusp Of Eternity

Although Opeth have long since plunged into the world of unapologetic progressive rock, their roots in metal sure that they have retained as many old fans as they have converted new ones. The first track to emerge from new album Pale Communion, this once again proves that the Swedes’ knack for combining disarming melody and fearless exploration remains as potent and mesmerising as ever.

GODFLESH – Ringer

With a sound that perfectly encapsulates the bleak and bitter reality of mid-austerity Britain, the return of Godflesh is as timely as it is welcome. Pioneers of industrial metal at its grinding, despondent best, these underground legends remain a unique force for musical bravery on comeback EP Decline and Fall. There are few things heavier.