The Finnish four man combo Circle of Contempt formed in 2006 and recorded Artifacts in Motion as their first album in late 2009. CoC play straight technical deathcore more than anything else, the sound is heavy, complex and diversified, riddled with stop-and-go riffs and raging drums. CoC is quite demanding to listen to but Artifacts in Motion also has its more melodic moments. The record is overall well crafted, played and produced.

Listen: Zerohour - Remnants Left - Color Lines - (close)

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Oceana introduced itself with a lot of screams on their first record The Tide. Fortunately, this did not change much. The new record Birtheater however, features some refreshing clean but powerful vocals by new singer Brennan Taulbee. Oceana did a major step in improving their sound, creating an amazing atmosphere throughout the album, not least because of the new singer Taulbee. Unlike the previous album, Birtheater also brings some quite catchy songs, for example The Family Disease. Convince yourself with some samples inside.

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Shadows Fall raised the bar again with their brand new work Retribution: On this fifth studio album the New England melodic thrashers improved their style beyond solid. Although the record is still pure "Shadows Fall", their sound definitely evolved. On the one hand, the record is moderate and well tempered, on the other hand thrashier, straight to the point, with a lot of heavy, non-stop assault parts. This is undoubtedly Shadows Fall's finest work to date!

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Dynamic, diverse, harsh, raw, intensive, unexpected, demanding, creative, all these attributes characterize Curse at 27's new work. The newcomers from Australia demonstrate solid skills on their debut album The Departed. The recording is great, their sound is powerful with heavy varieties in vocals, speed and style. Curse definitely found their very own niche as the album is a very unique piece of work. Regrettably, the disk is very short with about an half-hour of playing time. However, be warned, don't expect a few whiny emo-boys playing a cute song... prepare for the evil.

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Textures, a band from the Netherlands, plays an aggressive, complex and progressive style with many clean vocals and melodic parts, which rather sound like hard rock than metal, nicely integrated into the raw but atmospheric, heavy parts of the album. Those who liked former progressive posts in this blog like Harcride and The Ocean Collective will love this one. Take a shot inside!

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