#FirstListen Caldera by Pillar of Light
I can't remember where this recommendation came from, but it's the next up this year for me as I was looking for a bit of headspace on a dog walk this week. Turns out this bad boy is from summer 2024. Well, better late to the party than never.
There's a reason, it turns out, that all of the track titles are in capital letters. Aaron Whitfield is an energetic, angry, and intense-sounding man. I don't know what the songs are about at this point, but I don't doubt their weight and importance to Aaron.
The music is equal to the intensity of the vocals. This is a towering mountain of riffs. But it's also complemented by some more introspective, nuanced interludes that are interspersed amongst the bombastic assault.
With the vocals I find I'm reminded of The Ocean's Pelagial from time to time, whilst the music conjures more of a post-metal version of the excellent Shrinebuilder.
This is a big, doomy, sludgey, unrelenting gut-punch of a record. Hard-going at times, but well worth the time.