Record(s) o’ the Month – March 2025
By Steel Druhm
March was two long months ago (and change), but it seems like only yesterday when you exist in the AMG timestream. That’s because all those goddamn 3.0 trees outside AMG HQ tend to warp space and time, making a prompt running of certaintime-sensitive blog features akin to a holy war against science itself. March may not have been the most exciting release period for metal, but it had a few clear high points to get geeked up about. We kicked tires and weighed souls and came to the well-reasoned conclusions below. Accept them as your own, and nobody needs to see my Banhammer.
In an age where melodeath can sometimes feel overexposed and tired, there are still acts out there that can make it crackle and hum. Aversed are one such band, taking a progressive melodeath sound and running it through the Berklee School of Music filter. Sophomore opus Erasure of Color is far from black and white in its florid riffage and stellar musicianship led by mastermind Sungwoo Jeong. There are traces of the heroic guitar work of Jeff Loomis and hints of Nevermore and the In Flames / Arch Enemy school, along with bits of core and classic metal idioms. This all coalesces into an intriguing mulch with plenty of twists and turns. As an impressed Dolphin Whisperer summed up, “Alas, it’s easy to love the best of what Aversed has to offer with Erasure of Color, its clanging rhythms and finessed guitar weeping sticking readily to memory with its most careful hooks.” Melodelicious.
Runner(s) Up:
Imperial Triumphant // Goldstar [March 21st, 2025 | Century Media Records | Bandcamp] — Call them the “cool kid” act or the darlings of the pretentious elitist set, but Imperial Triumphant won’t go away, and they keep the metalverse bickering and feuding. Their music is dense, chaotic, and rarely user-friendly, but there’s no denying the talent and raw creativity these golden masked weirdos bring to the coven. Crazy grooves, off-kilter rhythms and tempos, and strange choices spew across every gilded inch of Goldstar, but there are undeniably memorable moments too. As a confused but convinced Al Kikuras gasped, “At this stage, it would be a disservice and disrespectful to call Imperial Triumphant ‘jazz-influenced metal’ or black or death or any kind. They have transcended all those genres to forge a new medium, and over the sleek 38 minutes and 15 seconds that comprise Goldstar, they massage the listener to accept it.” Embrace the massage.
Nephylim // Circuition [March 7th, 2025 | Self-released | Bandcamp] — For the very first time in blog history, an AMG Unsigned Band Rodeö entry makes it to the big leagues! The little band that could, Nephylim shocked the AMG crew with a highly polished and mature dose of gloomy melodeath with echoes of Omnium Gatherum, Edge of Sanity, and Enshine in its DNA. Larger-than-life atmoscapes power the material on Circuition, while a poise you wouldn’t expect from an unsigned act guides the ship steadily. The good stuff here is really good indeed. Opinions on just how good differed among the mostly impressed staff, with Kenstrosity gushing, “Experiencing this, as much as I pine for new material from those great acts that Nephylim remind me of, I know in my soul that Circuition is one of 2025’s foremost contenders.” Unsigned but mighty.
#2025 #Aversed #Circuition #DawnOfOuroboros #ErasureOfColor #Goldstar #ImperialTriumphant #Nephylim #RecordSOTheMonth
