Jeanne Fury

Suffocating layers of grind, sludge, punk are bound, flayed, torched malevolently by Utah crew.

Stop rubbernecking '90s nostalgia, and dig a fresh crop of wiry guitars, zany vocals, and butt-moving sass.

Almost too perfectly styled 70s psych-metal from a Berlin trio that cheated on Led Zeppelin with Pentagram.

Unlike plodding hXc, Enabler’s nimble wrath bounces, somersaults through blackened punk-metal playground.

U.K. doom trio invokes the classic grimness of St. Vitus, but with tempos for more muscled lurching.

Eccentric System of a Down frontman caterwauls prophetic apocalyptic warnings over manic-depressive rock.

Led by Brutal Truth and Mastodon fellas, these manimals go apeshit on a chest-thumping hardcore-punk debut.

French art-metallers wage guerrilla warfare, chop through heady melodies, ambush with feral death-grooves.

A new singer brings burly balls to the fauxmosexual death-punker party, but the glory hole is one-sided.

Irascible ex-Mclusky noise-punks take Biafra-brand graters to the thumbs of suckers.

Fetid pools of crust punk, wretched doom and Satanic gurglings coagulate into a black metal money shot.

NWOBHM, thrash riffs and Valhalla references aside, studly vocals are what make this trio’s fantasy a reality.

Processional doom, ethereal female harmonies and high-strung riffs incite head-bowing, not -banging.

Déjà vu riffs and Ian Astbury’s hard-rock shaman voodoo are still great, but the weapon tends to misfire.

More Lita Ford than Joan Jett, four L.A. girls offer polished pop-metal for quasi-runaways.