(written by Islander)
Only five days ago Bandcamp announced that it would continue Bandcamp Fridays in 2025, with the first one happening today. Before that, it wasn’t clear that they would continue, so it caught most of us by surprise. But word obviously spread very fast. What was already unfolding as a packed week for new music became a typhoon over the last few days. I was already agonizing about what the hell to do for tomorrow’s usual SEEN AND HEARD roundup, but now I feel like someone caught on the beach as a towering tidal wave rushes ashore.
Bandcamp Fridays are always an ideal time to spread the word about new music, but because of other duties around here I rarely have enough time to pull something together until the day after. I really don’t have much time for it today either, but felt like I needed to do something to make tomorrow’s task even a bit less overwhelming.
What I decided to do is a bit out of character for myself and the site as a whole: focusing exclusively on some of the bigger names in metal (or in one case, metal-adjacent). We don’t ignore the big names around here, as long as what they’re doing is good, but we often use them as a way of luring people into music from bands whose names are much more obscure. If I’d had more time, that’s what I would have done with this small roundup. It was just easier and faster to stick with these four.
But of course, none of these four new songs and videos would be here if I didn’t think they were worth recommending.
P.S. Here are the dates for the other Bandcamp Fridays for 2025:
May 2nd
August 1st
September 5th
October 3rd
December 5th
BEHEMOTH (Poland)
In this very shitty time you’re gotta love the name of Behemoth‘s new album: The Shit Ov God. What we got a few days ago was a video for the album’s second single and opening track, a lyrical call to arms named “The Shadow Elite“.
For a change, it doesn’t look like the grainy new black-and-white video was shot in one of Dante’s hellish circles, though the crowd does seem to have escaped through the infernal gates (no wonder Behemoth were performing within a cage). As for the music, it’s blistering, blasting, and berserk, a furious side of Behemoth not always seen in recent years, though it does have its ruthlessly imperious aspects too.
Come to think of it, that circle pit in the video might be a new circle that Dante overlooked on his journey.
https://behemoth.bfan.link/tsog.ema
https://www.facebook.com/behemoth/
CYTOTOXIN (Germany)
Yesterday brought us a video for the title song off Cytotoxin‘s new album Biographyte, which “takes listeners on a journey through the radiated wasteland of Pripyat.” The new song and video were accompanied by this statement:
The title track itself reflects the situation of firefighters collecting graphite bricks on the night of the explosion, suffering irreversible damage to their skin and bodies—often resulting in fatalities. This scene is depicted in the album artwork, which portrays a liquidator carrying the weight of the reactor on his back. BIOGRAPHYTE also showcases the slamming and groovier side of CYTOTOXIN. The song, written in a Phrygian dominant scale, further ties back to the desert-themed album artwork.
Cytotoxin are in the fast lane here, as they often are, still radioactive as ever and with drums blasting, strings darting and squirming, and maddened roars in full bloom. They also bring out the jackhammers as well as insidiously swirling and dementedly frenzied leads, plus an eerie but also fret-melting guitar solo and enough quick stops and starts to keep listeners off-balance.
The song is a big adrenaline rush, and it’s fun too see the band members throwing themselves into it.
https://www.cytotoxin.de/shop/
https://www.instagram.com/cytotoxin.official
https://www.facebook.com/cytotoxinmetal
FALLUJAH (U.S.)
Also just a couple of days ago, Nuclear Blast announced that it would be releasing a new Fallujah album in June named Xenotaph. Vocalist Kyle Schaefer describes it as “a lyrical story that traverses unfolding layers of time and reality in an otherworldly, post-death realm of existence.” Along with that announcement we got a video for the album’s first single, “Kaleidoscopic Waves“.
This song makes a good follow-on from the Cytotoxin track, in the sense that it blasts, jolts, and spins heads with fleet-fingered fretwork too, but there the similarity ends. Fallujah sing as well as snarl and howl, and the soloing is cosmic, like other phases of futurism in the song. Predictably, the band also indulge proggy as well as techy diversions.
Definitely a blood-pumping head-spinner, and like the Cytotoxin video it’s fun to see all the bandmembers strutting their stuff.
https://fallujah.bandcamp.com/album/xenotaph
https://fallujah.bfan.link/xenotaph
https://fallujah.bfan.link/kaleidoscopic-waves
https://www.facebook.com/fallujahofficial/
GHOST (Sweden)
Back in Ghost‘s early days I fell hard for what they were doing, and some of the most fun metal shows I’ve ever seen were performances they put on back in the subversive days of Opus Eponymous and Infestissumam. I was also a fan of Meliora, but since then I’ve gradually drifted away from them, and not just because they’ve become ridiculously successful as they’ve increasingly brought non-metalheads into their fold (I don’t reflexively begrudge any band’s success, except when it seems absurdly un-earned).
But I may be drifting back, based on their new song “Satanized“, which appeared two days ago. It features new vocalist Papa V Perpetua (and who knows who else?), as well as big funky bass lines and head-hooking beats. With the vocals carrying the melody, the guitars hang back at first, subtle and sinister. And of course, there’s a big vocal hook in the soaring chorus.
The guitars do begin to diabolically pulse, and the solo is a sparkler, a lead-in to an evolution that begins to sound psychedelic. Despite, or because of, the tale it lyrically tells, it’s a diabolically jubilant song. (It will take me longer to figure out whether the new Papa’s voice will have lasting appeal – at first blush I prefer earlier ones.)
“Satanized” is from Ghost‘s new album Skeletá, which will be released on April 25th by Loma Vista Recordings.
https://ghost-official.com/
https://ghost.bandcamp.com/album/skelet
https://www.facebook.com/thebandghost/