The 2017 Arsies: January 9, 2017

January 9, 2017

Emotion	●●●	●●○
Memorability	●●○	●●○
Replayability	●●○	●●○
Innovation	●○○	●○○
Pace	●●●	●●○
Shredding	●●●	●●●
Vocals	●●○	●●●
Production	●●●	●●●
	✓

Welcome back, metalheads! We rejoin the action with a particularly unsubtle slamfest, so much so that I'm going to forego the usual multi-paragraph format and tell it to you straight: both Death Angel's The Evil Divide and Aborted's Retrogore don't even bother trying to move the Innovation needle. You get a generous helping of Bay Area thrash in the former, and a mighty slab of technical death metal in the latter. But while the former is arguably more conventionally musical, the latter is more convincing and mean and interesting. Aborted wins the round by a nose! They have the temerity to go up against Meshuggah on January 26th!
Tomorrow should be interesting: it's Norma Jean up against Amon Amarth.