SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: LAUDARE, SHEVILS, DEATH PARADE, AETHERIAN, VANISHING EARTH, BRED FOR SLAUGHTER, MERIDIAN VEIL

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Nov 142026
 

(written by Islander)

Weeks that end on Friday the 13th include just as much metal hub-bub as weeks ending on a Bandcamp Friday. Most superstitious people view those days as unlucky (an example of triskaidekaphobia!), but metalheads tend to be contrary by nature and so Fridays the 13th are to be celebrated. It’s not so much a rejection of superstition as a turning of it on its head.

I guess it’s a good thing that the next Friday the 13th won’t happen until August 13, 2027, and that will be the only one next year (we had three of them this year!), because the flood of new metal that happens in such weeks makes it hard for people like me to keep up. It has certainly complicated my choices for this usual Saturday column, especially because it followed an immediately preceding Bandcamp Friday, which always produces its own flood of new music.

I had so many things I wanted to recommend last weekend that I had to leave some of them by the wayside. Usually when that happens I don’t pick them up at a later point and instead just move on. But for today’s roundup I decided to start off with three songs I didn’t have time enough to write about last weekend and then move on to four that I discovered this past week, for a lucky total of seven, which is also a happy number. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2026

 LISTMANIA 2026, Metal News  8 Responses »
Nov 132026
 

(written by Islander)

Well, holy shit, is it already time here on only the 13th day of November to begin our site’s annual LISTMANIA orgy? Lo and behold, it is.

It has become an annual (and reflexive) tradition at our humble site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA series with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and they’ve done it again this year, just in time for us to share it on this Friday the 13th.

I need to repeat, of course, that the reason we also use their list as the launching point for all of our own forthcoming YE features is because, in my humble opinion, DECIBEL is still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal. Also, their list always generates healthy discussions (and sometimes unhealthy ones), so it’s still a fitting way to launch the latest LISTMANIA season apart from their list’s early-bird status.

The DECIBEL 2026 list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2027 edition (which can be ordered here and includes a cover story on Cro-Mags frontman Harley Flanagan celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Age of Quarrel, a Hall of Fame on YOB’s Clearing the Path to Ascend, interviews with the artists who rank near and at the top of the list, an exclusive new Mother of Graves flexi disc, and writers’ commentary about the Top 40 list), but DECIBEL again decided (for the 12th year in a row) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: THE GREAT SEA, RAT KING, OREAMNOS , PROFANE ALTAR, VORLUST, HAGEL

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 072026
 

(written by Islander)

I’ve been seeing the word “tsunami” a lot this week. I assume it’s because yesterday was a Bandcamp Friday, which always provokes a flood of new music and a typhoon of traffic in our in-box from bands and labels trying to take advantage of Bandcamp’s relinquishment of their revenue share. I dunno, maybe there was another reason. I’ll have to investigate.

I kept pretty good track of all the new music I wanted to check out in preparation for this regular weekend roundup. My spouse has been away from home visiting her favorite sister and so I spent a lot of time yesterday making my way through that big list of possibilities.

After much mental backing-and-forthing I came up with six picks for today, including a pair of EPs, while still leaving a lot of candidates for the usual Sunday column tomorrow. Continue reading »

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST ANNOUNCES FULL 2027 LINEUP AND REVEALS ARTWORK

 Metal News  1 Response »
Nov 062026
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest announced its final lineup for 2027 and revealed the official poster art for the event. As you can see, the artwork created by Adam Vick (with layout by Christian Alm) is tremendous, and the lineup is too.

Yesterday NWTF revealed the names of 10 more bands who hadn’t previously been disclosed: Gorguts, Immolation, Imperial Triumphant, Fulci, Coscradh, Distest, Generation Decline, Melancholia, Nyx Division, and Ripping Remains. They make an already very strong lineup even stronger, joining Napalm Death, SubRosa, Deadguy performing Fixation on a Coworker, and more. Here’s the full international lineup in aphabetical order: Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SUNDAY: BAEST, SERPENT, GORMA, FORTRIU, DAWN OF SOLACE, HOLY DEATH, GEISTERFAUST, BELTEZ

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Nov 012026
 

(written by Islander)

We all know that expectations can be disappointed even when the expected person is dependable. You probably expected a roundup of new songs and videos here yesterday, especially because it was Halloween, maybe even a grab-bag of horror videos. What you got instead was the premiere of an album whose themes had nothing remotely to do with Halloween.

What you’ll get today is the roundup you were probably expecting yesterday instead of the usual SHADES OF BLACK column, which I suppose is another dashed expectation. Rest assured that this collection does include some black metal, but overall it will be more cross-genre in its scope.

As usual, the choices were difficult because there was so much to choose from. With Friday being devil’s night and Saturday being Halloween, metal bands and labels really loaded up the week with new stuff. Hope you enjoy the picks I struggled to make. Continue reading »

HEART OF WINTER FESTIVAL 2027 PREVIEW

 Metal News  1 Response »
Oct 232026
 

(We present here Daniel Barkasi’s preview of the next Heart of Winter festival, a three-night event scheduled to take place in Richmond, Virginia on January 14-16, 2027.)

A truly great festival in the United States that features the sort of underground bands that get this scribe to take notice is admittedly hard to come by. We have the always-excellent Maryland Deathfest and of course the NCS-sponsored Northwest Terror Fest as tentpole events, but outside of that, it’s relatively slim pickings, especially compared to what Europe has to offer.

Heart of Winter Festival is here to answer the call.

Beginning as a small upstart event hosted in Richmond, Virginia, it was dormant for 15 revolutions around the sun until this past January, with a statement-making return that included Hulder, One of Nine, Daeva, Evoken, Woe, Inter Arma, Krieg, Demiser, Valdrin, and a bunch of others. We were lucky enough to attend, and what impressed us the most about the event itself beyond the notable lineup was the real DIY attitude and the care in every detail that made that weekend a special occasion.

We won’t have to wait another decade-and-a-half for the next iteration, and with every indication, Heart of Winter is pulling out every stop to make this one hell of a time. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM, DÄMMERUNG, KORPSESOTURI, SONIC MOON, HVRT, FAKE DUST

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Oct 172026
 

(written by Islander)

I slept for a very long time last night. This is becoming more common on Friday nights. One key factor is that I’m convincing my restless mind that I don’t have to roll out these Saturday roundups as soon as I used to. I can sleep late instead, having realized that the world won’t end if this column arrives near mid-day in my time zone. Our weekend visitors will catch up when they can, or so I tell myself.

I did succeed in making almost all of today’s choices yesterday. The one exception, which comes last in the order, arrived via a recommendation I saw this morning that I couldn’t ignore. I’ll explain when we get there. The five bands that lead up to it are significantly different from each other in the music they make. Which is to say, I’m again satisfied that this collection will keep your head on a swivel as you move from one to the next, and maybe it will spin all the way off! Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EXTOL, AETHERIAN, ARONIOUS, NIDARE

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 162026
 

(written by Islander)

On almost all weekdays for many years I have committed to make either two track premieres or an EP premiere or an album premiere. Sometimes there is a day off because of some late-stage mishap (never my own, of course), as there was on Tuesday of this week, and sometimes we either receive only one invitation for a track premiere or only one that we’re happy to accept (believe it or not, I do turn down invitations when I can’t enthusiastically recommend a song).

Today was one of those rare days when I only calendared a single song premiere. And so, as on Tuesday, I had a bit of time to use for catching up with new songs and picking a few to recommend in another rare weekday roundup. Barring some kind of unexpected interference I will have more to recommend, as usual, on Saturday and Sunday. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: RADIANT KNIFE, NIHILO, ANCESTROS, GNULL, SUNDOWNER, GHÂSIQIN

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 132026
 

(written by Islander)

We’ve had a couple of reviews today that are well worth reading — DGR’s take on Behemoth’s new compilation and Andy Synn’s writing about the fantastic new album from Great Falls. I was supposed to prepare the premiere of a full album stream for today as well, but that fell through because the band jumped the gun without warning to the label or me. So, I decided to use the unexpected free time to pull together this roundup.

As you may know, I didn’t write the usual weekend columns last weekend due to being on a short vacation in Eastern Washington with my spouse and some good friends. Fortunately, Andy filled the void with two review collections on Saturday and Sunday (here and here, in case you missed them).

Because I didn’t plan to do anything myself, I have a ton of possible roundup selections that had accumulated before last weekend, and even more now. With not enough time to attempt any kind of comprehensive survey, I resorted to impulse in making the choices. Fortunately, impulse control isn’t one of my strong suits. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: OBSCVRE SER, ASSUMPTION, RISE ABOVE DEAD, VOID SECTOR ZERO, ACÉDIA, DISFEAR

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Oct 032026
 

(written by Islander)

Yesterday was another Bandcamp Friday, when the platform waives its revenue share so that artists and labels can take in more money from their sales. There will be two more of those this year, on November 6th and December 4th.

In deciding what music to recommend in this column I nearly didn’t pay any attention to our in-box for the last two days, because I knew it would be flooded with messages from people trying to take advantage of the Friday benefit (and to be clear, I don’t blame them a bit). I already had plenty of possibilities from preceding days this week and last week.

But I wound up wading through the flood anyway, and fielding recommendations from assorted other people online. I didn’t listen to everything I listed for myself, because if I had, it would already be Sunday. But I listened enough to make the choices difficult. Here’s where I came down. I hope you’ll enjoy the picks. Continue reading »

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