Summer has arrived, and with it a hefty batch of essential new metal releases. Among my picks for the best metal albums of the summer season are a surprise new release from a Pacific Northwestern tech death group, an underground heavy metal ripper that verges on punk, an actual band called Ripper, a towering post-metal and screamo hybrid, and more. These are the best new metal albums of summer.
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Ænigmatum – Infinitude’s Passage
I’ll confess that last Friday I was a little too preoccupied with travel and some personal concerns for it to register at the time, but we were blessed with a surprise Ænigmatum album, which is the best kind of surprise. Now that my head’s clear and I’m back at my own desk again with the attention span to dedicate to this intricate beast, I’m pleased to report that it’s as dynamic and ferocious a death metal album as expected. The Oregon group continue to showcase the best of what a technical death sound can be without sacrificing songwriting or atmosphere. It’s complex yet accessible, rife with labyrinthine but well lit passages that lead to unexplored lands. Infinitude’s Passage scratches a very specific death metal itch, and it’s so, so satisfying.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Thrill JockeyBig|Brave – In grief or in hope
When Big|Brave released 2024’s A chaos of flowers, a gorgeously and gently abrasive album that shifted some of the focus away from overwhelming weight and impenetrable presence, I questioned whether I’d continue to make appearances in a column covering metal. That album wasn’t really a metal album, nor was their instrumental 2025 record O.S.T. But In grief or in hope only complicates matters further, because while they’ve taken a direction that reads on paper more like ambient art-rock, in practice the album feels as overwhelming and massive as anything they’ve ever done. The emotional weight of the music is arguably even heavier than the music itself, but make no mistake, In grief or in hope pairs that depth of feeling with an impenetrable wall of sound.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
EpitaphConverge – Hum of Hurt
It feels a little like showing off, but it’s not like I’m complaining: Converge followed up their first great album of 2026, Love is Not Enough, by releasing yet another one only months later. Hum of Hurt scans a little more like noise rock than its explosive counterpart, with moments of nauseated churn and uneasy throb. Taken together, they comprise what feels like a comprehensive whole of Converge’s sound. But they’re also spectacular on their own; where its predecessor showcased an unrelenting sprint of a record, this one harnesses a particularly brutal groove, at its most transcendent on a slow-burning ascent like “Dream Debris.” Are any of us surprised that Converge’s second album in less than six months is yet another essential? No, of course not—but it’s still worth celebrating.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Iron LungFake Dust – Decrepitizing Din of the Cerebral Psyopticon
Iron Lung Records is home to more than a few blistering and absolutely essential grindcore releases, so it’s not that much of a surprise that the best grindcore record I’ve heard this year—Fake Dust’s Decrepitizing Din of the Cerebral Psyopticon, conspicuously absent from most streaming platforms—also hails from the Seattle-based label, which specializes in all things abrasive. A scorching 20 minutes of absolutely bonkers energy and precision, Decrepitizing Din carries more than a little groove in its explosive bursts of menace and mayhem, dense and compact (only two songs surpass the two-minute mark) while showcasing an impressive range in terms of songwriting and dynamics. While grindcore has a way of numbing the senses sometimes, Fake Dust make the most of their eruptive assault by making every crack of the snare and every power-chord chug feel like a punch to the jaw.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
CarbonizedGoetia – Mortuary Cult
Washington, D.C.’s Goetia bears connections to a number of other bands throughout the D.C./Northern Virginia region, the most prominent being death-doom group Genocide Pact, who as recently as a half-decade ago were part of the Relapse roster. A death metal band with an old-school rawness and almost-punk level of immediacy, Goetia make quick work on their full-length debut, delivering a half-hour’s worth of mayhem that serves as a reminder of just how much fun metal can be when it’s straightforward and absolutely savage. Not entirely practitioners of JDM (Just Death Metal), Goetia offer searing passages of black metal misanthropy and thrash-laden pummel—and they’re often just a hair’s breadth from spiraling into grindcore chaos. But death metal is the force of gravity that holds Mortuary Cult together—that and inertia of motion, because this album goes.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Persistent VisionOstraca – Thread
So much of the best metal in recent years has been rooted in or heavily influenced by screamo—Glassing, Portrayal of Guilt, Agriculture—that I’m frankly shocked when an installment of Shadow of the Horns goes by without an injection of screamo in my quarterly tribute to The Riff™. Such is not the case in this quarter’s column; from my own backyard in Richmond, Virginia, Ostraca have been on a hot streak over the past decade, their epic, atmospheric take on screamo swirled with the dreamy ambience of post-metal and a sense of scale that brings to mind fellow DMV legends City of Caterpillar. Their sixth album Thread is arguably their most stunning showcase of beauty and intensity to date, punctuating slow-burning standouts like “Song for November” with explosive climaxes, building a gothic instrumental into a furious storm of sound on “Uncollected” and just barely holding the violence beneath the surface on “Enmiserate.” A breathtaking and bilious collection of grace and venom.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Sargent HouseREZN – Cycles in the Infinite Dream
Chicago psych/post-metal group REZN have appeared in this column a few times, their unique sound growing stronger with each release as they expand their musical horizons further toward progressive rock from their home base of sludgy, riff-driven heavy metal—not unlike the evolution made by Boston/Berlin group Elder. But where that band scarcely resemble the stoner metal group they once were, REZN aren’t so much evolving from one specific sound into another as they are building up from a solid foundation. Cycles In the Infinite Dream comprises a whole galaxy of sounds, from Isis-like atmosphere to Baroness-style anthemic melodies and Pallbearer’s sense of emotionalism, as well as a gaze toward more progressive journeys a la Elder. Oh, and saxophone—can’t forget that. With Cycles, an already strong band follow their instincts to more triumphant results, making yet another case for being one of the best bands in metal right now.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Dark DescentRipper – Towards Rebirth
It’s not that complicated—if a band’s called Ripper, I’m probably going to listen to them. (And no, this has nothing to do with Tim “Ripper” Owens, who took over on vocals for Judas Priest in the late ’90s and early ’00s.) This Ripper hails from Chile, a locale that’s become synonymous with quality thrash metal, with bands such as Critical Defiance and Demoniac having offered their own killer entries in recent years. Ripper, meanwhile, have been active for two decades, but emerge in 2026 with their first new album in 10 years. And it’s a…well, you caught that their name was Ripper, right? Towards Rebirth is a stunning achievement in speed and aggression, moving at the pace of Reign in Blood and scarcely letting up for a moment to breathe. If you like pummeling intensity, blazing solos, music that generally sounds like it’s going to kick your ass, well then, Ripper is the band for you.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
RelapseWarning – Rituals of Shame
While a lot of my favorites in this summer roundup comprise albums that sprint like hell toward oblivion, I’d be remiss not to discuss the latest album from Warning, their first in 20 years and a beautifully crafted set of elegantly arranged doom metal. It’s a deeply emotional album at its core, but as frontman Patrick Walker explained to us in a recent interview, there’s nothing cathartic about the work he puts into crafting these gorgeously heavy epics: “It’s hard work, and it’s craft … the idea of being an act of catharsis makes it sound like we got into rehearsal and plugged in, and it’s like playing loud and screaming and that shit.” To the contrary, Rituals of Shame is one of the prettiest metal albums you’ll hear all year, which isn’t surprising for anyone familiar with Walker’s work with both this band and 40 Watt Sun. It’s at once a meticulously crafted work and one rich in feeling.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Sorry StateZorn – Return to Castle Death
In addition to writing a quarterly metal column, I also chronicle the best punk each season, and while it’s easy enough to keep the two separate, crossover happens often enough to serve as a reminder that power chords, denim and studded belts aren’t exclusive to one genre over the other. Philadelphia’s Zorn are a perfect example of where the lines blur, and for that matter a phenomenal band at keeping the pit swirling in the middle of the venn diagram. Their latest, Return to Castle Death, finds a happy medium between old-school heavy metal and old-school hardcore, with a touch of evil reminiscent of another band of Philly favorites, Devil Master. That the album was released on Sorry State, a great label and shop out of North Carolina, would suggest that Zorn might lean more punk than metal, but the soaring, harmonized leads of a highlight such as “Guest of the Mad Prince” should convince you otherwise.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
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