Exodus: Blood In, Blood Out review – feral energy and refined catchiness

The Bay Area thrash legends’ return to the brutal simplicity they helped define 30 years ago is welcome indeed, writes Dom Lawson

Godflesh: A World Lit Only By Fire review – pioneers of heavy experimental music return

Justin Broadrick’s most celebrated band return with more crushingly heavy riffs and machinistic unease, writes Dom Lawson

Electric Wizard: Time to Die review – immense hypnotic power

Their recent welcome into Shoreditch hipster favour has fortunately not seen the band compromise their monumental, mesmerising desolate sound, writes Dom Lawson

Cannibal Corpse: A Skeletal Domain review – their most absorbing record in years

Cannibal Corpse stick to their formula of straightforward brutality and lyrical grotesquery with winning results, writes Dom Lawson

Opeth: Pale Communion review – strange, intricate prog-metal genius

Sweden's Opeth return with another uncompromisingly creative but admirably coherent record, writes Dom Lawson

DragonForce: Maximum Overload review – wickedly infectious metal

With plenty of anthemic choruses and flashes of ingenuity, the group proves they're no one-trick power-metal ponies, writes Dom Lawson

Wovenwar: Wovenwar review – former As I Lay Dying members return in force

After the shock of their singer's jailing for a murder plot, As I Lay Dying's former members return with a fierce and fresh metalcore sound, writes Dom Lawson

Knifeworld: The Unravelling review – complex, mischievous psychedelic rock

The second album from these intuitive oddballs conjures up a psychdelic sonic realm all of their own, writes Dom Lawson

Judas Priest: Redeemer of Souls review – Metal Gods back on track

After some worryingly erratic musical behaviour in recent years, Priest sound more in love with metal than ever here, writes Dom Lawson

Black Sabbath review – unfettered joy to hear landmark rock sound

Ozzy Osbourne was on chipper form in front of a 55,000-strong crowd, as his band delivered rolling riffs that sounded as if they could have flattened Mayfair, writes Michael Hann

Arcade Fire, Metallica, Elbow: Alexis Petridis’s Glastonbury 2014 roundup

Lily Allen stemmed the downpour, Arcade Fire overcame their mud aversion, Metallica broke Glastonbury's heavy-metal taboo – but the odd act sank in the quagmire. Alexis Petridis reviews Friday and Saturday at the festival

Misfits review – schlock-horror kitsch

More metal than punk, this is a different band to the one that recorded their dark early albums in the 80s, but their classics are still lively enough to raise the dead, writes Dave Simpson

Metallica at Glastonbury 2014 review – enough ferocity to silence the naysayers

This may not mark the dawning of a new era for metal at Glastonbury, but the heft of Metallica's sound is enough to win over the sceptics, writes Alexis Petridis

The Soft Pink Truth: Why Do the Heathen Rage? review – fun satire of black metal

Drew Daniel exploits black metal's potential for mickey-taking with this ludicrous set of covers of key tracks from the genre, writes Dave Simpson

Mastodon: Once More ‘Round the Sun – brilliant but familiar metal bluster

One of modern metal's most admired bands return with an album that could edge them closer still to the mainstream, writes Dom Lawson