Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on notable new music emerging from the unconventional metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels, or even releases from unsigned acts.
Calling June a “big month for underground metal” is like calling a night out with your boys a “legendary event.” The scope of the statement is immediately dwarfed by the reality that it is meaningless to almost everyone outside a select bubble. It's cool that a handful of the most innovative metal bands and interesting artists have released an album in the same 30-day period, just like it's cool that your friend Kyle stuffed four bags of Zyn into his gums at once. The world keeps turning, you still have to work the next morning and housing isn't getting cheaper.
However, if we do not appreciate these moments, all we will have is the endless spinning of the globe and the ever-increasing prices of houses. So yeah, kudos to Kyle for not throwing up or passing out at the bar and celebrating everything June brought us. His bill was headed by Alcest, who is not quite underground but still underground, signed to Nuclear Blast and is therefore ineligible for this column. However, his latest record The songs of the Dawn is wonderful (and mentioned in Strong consequencesmid-year list of the best metal and hard rock albums of 2024 so far). It's the end of their decade-plus search for a heavenly sound, where everything they've worked for comes together in a new light that, while obvious in retrospect, has yet to be heard.
The June release schedule went beyond its main lineup and, for some, even more exciting. Ulcerate returned after its extremely relevant to the context. Stare at death and remain still, released right at the start of the COVID pandemic and quelling the early anxiety of those first few months better than any album released during the lockdowns. The post-metal giants of the 2000s continue to dominate their domain as SUMAC and Julie Christmas release new music, the latter being particularly surprising considering it's been over a decade since their last album. The Converge and Hatebreed supergroup that is Umbra Vitae also released their second record, showing how death metal and hardcore would interact in a perfect world. Finally, there was Thou's stellar return to solo LPs, Umbilicalwhich strengthened the link between sludge metal and grunge.
These are by no means the only worthwhile records to emerge from the metal underground this month. These are just the most important acts, all of which have awakened after a long slumber of at least four years (with some caveats in the case of You and Jacob Bannon). Somehow, Dad had a birthday this past Father's Day. And not only did he bring the milk, he also brought the eggs, the flour and the sugar. June would be a gift even if those releases were standalone, but of course metal is just as deep as Lost Izalith, and there are other projects that deserve a place in your ears as well.
– Colin Dempsey
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