Archive for July, 2026

Earth Mother Fucker / Pound Land – Earth Mother Fucker / Pound Land

Posted: 12 July 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 31st July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s too hot. Granted, I make this complaint whenever it goes above 24C, but on day three – or maybe it’s day four or five or ten – of a 30-plus heatwave – the third heatwave of the year – I am absolutely dying. Typing is making me sweat like running a marathon. Hell, even thinking about typing is making me sweat like running a marathon. My brain is jelly.

The two bands have a side each on the vinyl, plus collaborative tracks closing each set.

I’ve devoted a fair quality of words effusing over the output of dour Derby dingemongers Pound Land, and as theirs is the second half of the album, I’ll focus first on the EMF who didn’t have any bouncy dance-driven indie hits in the 90s. Earh Mother Fucker formed in Ipswich – the hometown of the equally commercially-orientated Extreme Noise Terror – in 1988. Only unlike ENT, EMT (so close) didn’t record a bunch of Peel sessions, sign to Earache, or perform at The Brit Awards with The KLF before releasing a ridiculously rare collaborative single available only by mail order through Melody Maker or The NME. Again, so close.

Instead – and respect is due here – they’ve ploughed their own noise-rock furrow with a slow – very slow – flow of albums released on tape and CD-R. There was nearly a 20-year gap between Let Him Go Up (2001, CD-R) and It’s Shit (2020) and then another six years before the arrival of Do Not Resuscitate earlier this year. It seems they changed their mind, and are very much resuscitated, and two releases in a year is a real cause for celebration. Well, it is if you like Earth Mother Fucker.

There’s a sense that they don’t particularly want to be liked, and instead exist to test listeners with a uniquely English form of noise rock. Their solo cuts are scuzzy, grungy, abrasive and raw as it comes, but there are some sublime moments of melody, at least in the guitar department.

‘Happy Shopper’ powers in amidst a squall of angular guitars, landing primarily somewhere between The Fall and Sonic Youth. It’s a ramshackle racket, lo-fi grungy, gloriously unpolished. ‘Changeling’ does low-slung twisted country crossed with wonky noise and vocals – half-spoken, half-shouted, bridging Enablers and A Band of Susans. That’s a substantial gap to bridge, superficially, but Earth Mother Fucker span it with discordant, chaotic ease.

‘Puppy Fat’ is very much a spirit of 77 punk blast at heart, but twisted with a strong element of Krautrock as defined by its motorik beats, and almost veers into Fall-like Mancabilly. It also feels like the optimal summary of what EMF are about.

‘Second Aunt’, with Pound Land is a raucous maxed-out rendition of Eno’s ‘Third Uncle’, but based more on the Bauhaus cover than the original, and manifesting as a wild punky thrashabout.

Pound Land push things further still, ‘Liar’ being a rampant roar of disaffection. The bass is thick and booming, the production as gloriously primitive as the sax freak-out that runs all over it is wild. They lumber into even sludgier territory on ‘Janet’s Here’, a mangled mess of noise and snarling vocals atop that gut-churning bass giving it a hint of early PiL. ‘Feeling Sick’ lumbers and lurches in such a way it becomes a work of self-fulfilment, a musical manifestation of dire disgust and seething (self) loathing.

‘Shitoctacy’ sees Pound Land joined by Earth Mother Fucker, and is a true monster, with a collage of sped-up samples overlaid across some weirdy, warping drones before a ten-minute trudge begins, grimy bass and spewing vitriol atop the nastiest, most discordant racket, and from time to time there’s some pained sax from Jo Stone which wails in anguish over the whole heaving mess.

As split albums go, this one couldn’t have been better curated: it feels like the two bands – particularly with the collaborative works – are egging one another on to take the levels of grime and slime and nauseating churn up, notch by notch. The result is gritty, gruelling, and spectacularly visceral.

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Watch: ‘The Dying Hunt’ by Static Abyss

Posted: 11 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Emerging in the early 2020’s, Static Abyss is a monstrous hybrid of twisted, doom-laden brutal death, comprising of longstanding members of the US metal scene. The band consists primarily of the duo of Deathgrave’s Greg Wilkinson (Guitars/bass) & Chris Reifert (vocals), both also members of legendary American masters of sickness, Autopsy, with Chris also notably starting his career with genre pioneers, Death. The band’s debut, ‘Labyrinth of Veins’ was released in 2022, and their second album ‘Aborted From Reality’ followed in quick succession, surfacing in 2023.

Returning now for Static Abyss’ third studio album, and with the addition of Chad Gailey of fellow death merchants Necrot behind the drumkit for this release, The Dying Hunt plummets the listener again into the festering, psychedelic swamps of lunacy, with the spiralling melodies texturing the relentless savage riffs for an effective nightmare-inducing trip through the sonic abyss. Continuously and relentlessly flitting between brutal passages and hypnotic otherworldly craziness, The Dying Hunt reflects the ailing world & the unravelling of the psyche of its inhabitants in this darkly dystopian landscape, for a masterful descent into sick Death Metal combined with Crust and Doom elements.

Ahead of the album’s release at the end of August, they’ve shared a video for the album’s savage title track, which you can check here:

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Static Abyss

Photo by Fern Alberts

Listen: ‘I Believe’ by Huw Cadwaladr

Posted: 10 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Of this new release, Electronic Producer and DJ Huw Cadwaladr, says, ‘I Believe’, never originally intended for public release, offers the first glimpse into the world of Cambria Nocturna. The track marks a departure from the electronic work Gruff and I previously created as Carcharorion, moving toward a more songwriting-driven and lyrically expressive approach. While evolving creatively, the project continues to explore our shared love of cinematic electronic sound through experimental tape loops, field recordings, analogue instrumentation, and richly textured production. Originally conceived as a post-punk composition before transforming into a driving techno piece, ‘I Believe’ evolved over many months into its final form — a confessional and emotionally charged work. Recorded by Gruff and myself, and mixed by Alexander Green at The Zoo, the track became the first true catalyst and creative foundation for what would eventually become Cambria Nocturna.

Cambria Nocturna itself emerged from a period of profound personal trauma. During this time, I reconnected with Gruff after more than a decade apart, and together we began experimenting once again. What started as artistic collaboration quickly became something deeper: a source of healing, catharsis, and genuine therapy.

Through channeling these emotions creatively, Cambria Nocturna was born — a sonic tapestry of deeply atmospheric electronic music shaped by raw emotion, human connection, and resilience. By merging analogue electronics with acoustic instrumentation, we drew from a broad spectrum of influences, spanning 90s trip-hop, techno, electro, 80s Italo, and alternative electronica, alongside the work of artists such as John Cale and Nick Cave.

‘I Believe’ marks the beginning of a new chapter: emotionally resonant electronic music rooted in vulnerability, transformation and defiant survival— with further releases set to follow.

Hear ‘I Believe here:

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Emerging from a period of profound personal upheaval, Huw has created a sonic tapestry of deeply atmospheric electronic music shaped by raw emotion, resilience, and human connection.

During a time of recovery and reflection, music became both an escape and a lifeline. Around this time, he reconnected with Gruff, his longtime creative partner in Carcharorion. After more than a decade away from creating together, the pair began experimenting once again, discovering that the process offered not only artistic fulfilment, but genuine therapy.

The result is Cambria Nocturna: a deeply personal project born from vulnerability, reflection, and survival. Never originally intended for public release, the project became an honest exploration of emotional darkness, connection, and self-expression.

The debut single, ‘I Believe’, marks the beginning of this new chapter – emotionally charged electronic music rooted in atmosphere, honesty, and catharsis, with more releases set to follow.

Outside of his own music, Huw is also a presenter on Radio Sudd, where he hosts a show focused primarily on club-based electronic music.

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Valentin Silvestrov – Moments Of Silvertones, Evgeny Gromov

Posted: 10 July 2026 in Reviews, Albums
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Kyiv Dispatch – 17th July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

For those of us who have never lived through war – domestically, that is – it’s hard to imagine what life is like. Living in the UK, I have the privilege of not having experienced it: both of my parent were born at the end of the second world war and lived under rationing as children, but they didn’t grow up living in fear of bombs falling. And while I look out into my back yard and see the brick and concrete bomb shelter which I use to brew beer, it’s beyond my conception to imagine what it must have been like to live in a time where I would actually have to take refuge in it, although the part of York where I live – or nearby – was bombed in 1942, with numerous some 94 people killed and 238 injured by some 84 tonnes of bombs, dropped in just 90 minutes.

But the fact is that life goes on – because it has to. And art is still made – because what else are artists to do? The title of this release is a little confusing, but the text which accompanies this release, which is particularly powerful, and speaks of the effects of war on the citizens of those countries stricken by war sheds some light on the questions of artistic ownership. It also highlights the fact that wars are waged by governments, not the people. and so we learn how ‘In 2022, with war in Ukraine raging, the composer Valentin Silvestrov was forced, at the age of 85, to flee Kyiv, abandoning his home studio. Silvestrov is one of the leading figures of the Ukrainian musical avant garde, active from the early 1960s onward and for Evgeny Gromov, Ukrainian pianist, researcher and curator, his forced departure was a tragedy, his absence keenly and personally felt’.

The notes go on to explain how this prompted him ‘to hasten the release of this double album, on which Gromov performs key piano works by Silvestrov, from his early, modernist period to his later, more beautifully accessible pieces. The sense of urgency is not just because Silvestrov is approaching ninety years old but also out of the daily sense of mortality felt by all those living in Kyiv. Hence also the founding of the Kyiv Dispatch label in 2022, dedicated to showcasing the full spectrum of Ukrainian new music. Both artistic and existential immediacy underpin the album, as Evgeny Gromov explains: “A great deal of Silvestrov’s music simply does not exist in sound. It exists as scores, as reputation, as a name but not as a lived, performed body of work. There is still no real tradition of its performance. For decades I have been working with this music across its full range, from the early avant-garde works to the later Bagatelles. In a sense, I am its performing extension. And at a certain point it became obvious: if this is not played now, systematically, insistently, it will remain absent.’

This is significant. How much art, how much thought, is lost in time due to an absence of documentation? This, then, is more than a matter of the impacts of war, but also a question of legacy, and of ephemerality.

Recorded in just four days, Moments Of Silvertones is Gromov’s urgent, even desperate, attempt to capture and document the work of Valentin Silvestrov, and we are all fortunate that he has. ‘Five Piano Pieces 1961’ is dramatic – essentially neoclassical in style, in places playful, in others feeling more moody, while ‘Triad 1962’ is very much more geared toward the delicate side, but again revealing a levity which counterbalances the shade.

The expansive ‘Piano Sonata No 2’- extending to almost sixteen minutes in duration, is a magnificently balanced work, and entertaining, playing with the tropes of jazz and minimalism as well as classical music with some bold hits resonating as hard as falling down a flight of stair, and evoking the spirit of silent movies – although it’s a fair way from Laurel and Hardy. Because it’s as a bygone age, and as much as we may wish to remember it fondly… we are increasingly drawn by nostalgia, as we cling with ever-increasing desperation to a past which felt to much better, so much easier, but, despite its focus on compositions from the 1960 (in its first half, at least), while also being devoted to preserving the more recent past (the ‘Bagatelles, Op.’ pieces dating from 2003-2006), Moments Of Silvertones is ultimately a collection of pieces which are delicate and soothing. And despite the conditions of its recording, nothing could be further removed from war or its soundtracking. This is what it means to be human. Moments Of Silvertones is an album hat needs to be heard as a reminder of this – and also because it’s an example of magnificently poised composition and beautiful musicianship.

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Valentin Silvestrov – Moments of Silvertones, Evgeny Gromov digital cover

Watch: ‘Last Of All Sleep’ by Crumbling Ghost

Posted: 9 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Crumbling Ghost recently announced their return after a number of years away with the release of new album Four on 7th August via New Heavy Sounds. The group’s core idea is deceptively simple: traditional folk material rearranged and refracted through the haze and heft of heavy, fuzzy stoner rock with a chunk of psyche and a smattering of doom.

Today the band have shared the video for new single, the slowcore/grunge inspired ‘Last of All Sleep’ which you can check out now:

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Within the broad church of ‘rock’ or ‘alternative’ and its many offshoots – it remains a minor thrill to stumble across a group who seem to exist at a slight tangent to everything else.

Crumbling Ghost is one such anomaly and an irresistible one at that: a group who feel less like a discovery than a secret belatedly shared. Their new album Four set for release on 7th August (New Heavy Sounds) was announced last month.

Crumbling Ghost are not newcomers. They’ve been operating for some time, releasing records sporadically, Four is in fact their fourth release.  Along the way they’ve accumulated a fervent coterie of followers, not to mention the occasional nod of approval from tastemakers such as Stuart Maconie, Stewart Lee and Tom Ravenscroft. And though they’ve appeared at Roadburn, shared stages with Hawkwind and even Damo Suzuki, they remain (possibly by design) curiously under‑the‑radar. That might change with the quite wonderful ‘Four’.

The group’s core idea is deceptively simple: traditional folk material rearranged and refracted through the haze and heft of heavy, fuzzy stoner rock with a  chunk of psyche and a smattering of doom. But crucially, this is done without the costumery and theatrical tics that often accompany such collisions.  No mock‑pagan pageantry, no graveyard cosplay, no cartoon Satanism.

What Crumbling Ghost latch onto is not folk as a museum piece, but as a lived experience, the dramas rooted in the culture, stories, and daily lives of ordinary people, the folklore, the tales of love and death, murder and adultery, freedom and oppression.

On Four those narratives are dragged into the present via churning distortion, hypnotic repetition and a sense of looming atmosphere. Fairport Convention with fuzz. Trees with heft. A pastoral Sonic Youth.

The result is a set of murder ballads, supernatural reckonings and cautionary tales, all wrapped in slabs of heavy, thumping fuzz and atmospheric sonics. Harnett’s voice sits at the centre: unmistakably folk‑rooted, but shorn of prettification, melodic yet capable of real bite. There’s no “hey nonny nonny” here.

Musically, it’s a combination that really does work, and it’s delivered in some style too. And to fully appreciate the world of Crumbling Ghost, listening closely pays dividends, and those stories come to life.

New single ‘Last of All Sleep’ is not a Crumbling Ghost reinterpretation of a dark and distant folk murder ballad, nor a cover of a little known 90’s SubPop grunge downtuned, downtempo album-track-that-should-have-been-a-single, but it feels like a song you’ve wanted to hear and yet known for years, in other words, an instant classic.

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CG - 3 - Credit Ryan McClelland and Hannah Cheesbrough

Pic: Ryan McClelland & Hannah Cheesebrough

Sun Ra ǀ Merzbow – Strange City

Posted: 8 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Reviews
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Cold Spring – 26th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

This release is something of a curio, in the sense that it’s a collaboration between two of the most famously prolific recording artists of recent times – Sun Ra recorded over 100 full-length albums, comprising well over 1000 songs prior to his death in 1993 at the age of 79, while Merzbow, active since 1979, has released in excess of 500 albums to date. However, this collaboration occurred posthumously for Sun Ra, and it’s worth quoting the context as given by the label, Cold Spring here:

Officially licensed from Irwin Chusid, who oversees the catalogue of the late Afrofuturist artist/composer/bandleader Sun Ra, Cold Spring negotiated rare and unreleased tracks from the Sun Ra archive to be remixed and treated by Masami Akita (aka Merzbow). The tracks incorporate the jazz power of Sun Ra with the brutal excess of the Japanese noise artist Merzbow.

Originally released by Cold Spring a decade ago and long sold out, the music was spread across vinyl and CD, with completely different music on each format. The tracks have now been collected together for the first time, using the original master tapes and presented in the order intended (the vinyl format dictated the order due to optimal sound quality restraints).

Included for the first time on any release is a bonus two minute track entitled ‘Granular Jazz Part 5’, a special composition created for ‘Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone’, a weekly radio show on BBC 6 Music in the UK. It was broadcast ahead of Merzbow’s live concert at the FAC251 venue in Manchester in September 2016.

There are obviously practical reasons why the different formats featured different track listings on the original release, although these things can prove frustrating for fans finding themselves faced with the dilemma of missing material or forking out for multiple formats. This ‘complete’ reissue has the added incentive of an unreleased track, and while it’s only a couple of minutes of unreleased music, it does round off what is unquestionably a monster release – the six pieces having a combined run time of a massive 104 minutes.

So, to begin with a brief content comparison, the contents of the original CD – the 32-minute ‘Livid Sun Loop’ and ‘Granular Jazz Part 2’ (34 minutes long) makes up the corresponding first disc here, while the 2016 vinyl contained ‘Granular Jazz’ parts 1, 3, and 4. Chances are that some will still be dissatisfied that the CD tracks still haven’t made it onto vinyl, but you can’t please all the people all of the time, and as much as I’m a fan of vinyl myself, the longform nature of the compositions does seem well-suited to CD.

As for the contents of this ten-year expanded reissue… it’s no criticism or complaint to comment that it very much sounds like what you’d expect. ‘Livid Sun Loop’ encapsulates the album in its entirety in the first few minutes – shrieking horns flying in all directions against an apocalyptic churn of cement-mixer noise with the treble cranked to the max, feedback and flayed circuitry exploding like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. A squall of treble, scraping, screaming, like a Brillo pad scouring away at the inside of your skull. There are prolonged segments which are pure Merzbow, shredding digital noise, but then, suddenly, amidst the blitzkrieg, there are honking horns and random toots which pop through the raging wall. The track is a truly relentless assault, and brutally harsh. The frequencies very much favour the top-end, with howls and hisses of tinnitus-inducing quality tearing from the speakers with not so much as a second’s let-up. Every time you think that this must – must! – be the limit, Merzbow does the Merzbow thing of finding new frequencies with which to cause injury. Oh yes: this hurts. But what else did you expect? Some cozy club vibes, a bit of mellow sax and piano? Right. Merzbow brings the harshest head-shredding hell.

Twenty minutes in, there’s a segment that sounds like everything is breaking – not just the gear, I mean it sounds like a field recording of the collapse of civilisation, the absolute end of the world as we know it. And it just goes on. And on. What have I done to deserve this? What has anyone done to deserve this? Actually, perhaps this is the answer to the UK’s issues in the penal system. Being forced to listen to this a couple of times may be a viable altern alternative to shorter custodial sentences. But here I am, listening with great interest and even with a degree of perverse pleasure – although after half an hour, I will admit that I’m wilting somewhat, and not just because it’s 30C with 70% humidity in my office at 9pm. This is nothing short of punishment: it hurts. And it ain’t very jazzy. It’s a mangled mess of skin-peeling, face-melting horror.

But if ‘Livid Sun Loop’ makes for a long and challenging half hour, you’d better buckle in and brace yourself for the endurance test of all endurance tests. To dissipate any doubt, I am a big fan of noise, and enjoy basking in blistering waves of aural annihilation. And Strange City is special in its vision and scope, and its sheer enormity. There are fleeting flickers of strolling double bass which pep through the wild bleepery, woozy drones and sheet metal shredding.

‘Granular Jazz Part 1’ yawns and snarls, bibbles and bleeps and pulses and creaks and swashes and swinges its way through just shy of eighteen minutes of existential anxiety, but it’s simply a prelude to part 2. The slow fade-in and trickling digital cacophony is simply a lure, creating the illusion of listenability. And it does take some time to build. But, of course, build it does. A quarter of an hour in, and it’s reached a sustained crescendo or chaos that’s dense enough to crush your skull. The jazz quota is ratcheted up, too, and the result is something else. Finding the words for this is a challenger, but I’m starting to feel that it’s not words I need, but an ambulance.

Strange City is… intense. In large parts, it feel like Merzbo is the dominant party in this mash-up (which is essentially what it is), and at its best, Strange City makes for a fitting posthumous release for Sun Ra. But from whichever able ou approach it, Strange City is one serious blast of noise. Killer all the way.

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Watch: ‘PEN I S MALL’ by Chat Pile

Posted: 8 July 2026 in Singles and EPs, Recommended Streams and Videos
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Since Chat Pile’s formation just over six years ago, the Oklahoma City-based quartet has grown from a scrappy passion project of four local film and music enthusiasts into one of the defining heavy acts to emerge from the 2020s underground.

Ray B. (vocals), L. Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap’n Ron (drums)’s crushing, crass, and cathartic take on noise rock resonates in a cracked reality. Their music captures a raw, undeniably human essence that’s increasingly fleeting in an age marked by ceaseless torrents of algorithmic slop, technological overreach, and the cold, crestfallen state of society. Nothing about their forthcoming third LP, Who Loves the Sun, feels synthetic.  In a world increasingly shaped by disposable content, Chat Pile answers with something defiantly real and organic.

Who Loves the Sun’s latest single, ‘PEN I S MALL’ is “…the heaviest Chat Pile song to date. The song and title refer to a stretch of time when Raygun was working as a maintenance man at one of the local shopping malls here in OKC. He screamed himself into a pretty brutal headache tracking this one if I remember correctly,” says Stin.  Ray B. continues: “If survival wasn’t so brutal in the United States, a maintenance job at a local mall could in theory be a fun gig… Of course, the awful beast known as Capitalism is extremely rickety with not enough to truly go around in fair share as those in the lower and even middle positions know all to well.”

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While Chat Pile’s debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves the Sun now peels back the skin on how a collective indifference for a decaying world defines this new century. Touring off the back of their previous albums in part lent itself a confidence in the universality of their music. Stin comments, “I’ve always felt that Chat Pile is such an American concept thematically, but it seems like that’s not particularly true – people all over the world are resonating with what we have to say.” Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities as a result of inaction on climate change, the dread of working dead-end jobs, and the species’ collective submission to data-driven inauthenticity, Who Loves the Sun depicts the common experience of existing in a doom loop which feeds the malaise that permeates all aspects of our lives.

Reaching into the collective consciousness to commiserate and carouse, Chat Pile now dissects how the apathy-bloated state of 21st-century existence is an active, slow-motion apocalypse, threads of which are woven through the album’s ten tracks. The album is lyrically and sonically as aggressive and confrontational as ever, but here Chat Pile approached the record’s songwriting with hooks in mind, drawing on the melodic tones of pre-2000s indie/alt-rock and new wave.

The perfect allegory for the thematic essence of Who Loves the Sun is the photo embossed on the record’s cover. As with much of Chat Pile’s work, Oklahoma City itself looms over the album like a character, its sprawling isolation, economic contradictions, and underlying sense of decay embedded in the fabric of the record. Devon Tower, a glassy, largely vacant monolith of a building, looms alone high above the Oklahoma City skyline, while an unknown burnt-out home or storefront envelops the foreground. Devon Tower was originally owned by the Devon Energy Company, who announced they were leaving Oklahoma last year. A monument to empty promises stands without a care in the world, while it’s only a matter of time before the blight it was responsible for swallows it up, too.

Live dates:

UK/EU
08/06 – Ancora, PT – Sonic Blast
08/08 – Katowice, PL – OFF Festival
08/09 – Prague, CZ – Fuchs2 ~
08/10 – Budapest, HU – A38 ~
08/11 – Vienna, AT – Arena (supporting HEALTH and Carpenter Brut)
08/12 – Munich, DE – Live/Evil ~
08/14 – Col Du Lein, CH – Palp Festival
08/19 – Dublin, IRE – Button Factory ~
08/20 – Dublin, IRE – Button Factory ~
08/22 – Bristol, UK – Arctangent Festival

NA

09/12 – Oklahoma City, OK – Tower Theatre = (SISU Fundraiser Fest)
09/17 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue +^
09/19 – Chicago, IL – Riot Fest 
09/20 – Englewood, CO – The Gothic Theatre +&
09/23 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Metro Music Hall + &
09/25 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo + &
09/27 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall + &
09/29 – Sacramento, CA – Ace of Spades +
09/30 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom + &
10/03 – San Diego, CA – Music Box + &
10/04 – Los Angeles, CA – The Belasco + &
10/06 – Mesa, AZ – The Nile Theater + &
10/08 – Austin, TX – Radio/East + &
10/09 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall + &
10/10 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater + &
11/05 – Detroit, MI – The Majestic Theatre + %
11/06 – Millvale, PA – Mr. Smalls Theatre + % 
11/08 – Norwalk, CT – District Music Hall + %
11/10 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel + %
11/11 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer + %
11/12 – Washington, DC – Black Cat + %
11/14 – Charlotte, NC – Underground + %
11/15 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade + %
11/16 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl + %
11/18 – Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall + %
11/20 – Indianapolis, IN – Deluxe at Old National Centre + %
11/21 – St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall + %
11/22 – Lawrence, KS – The Granada + %

~ with Ragana
+ with Soul Glo
^ with Prize Horse
& with Virga
% with Shallowater
= with Portrayal of Guilt, Nightosphere, Traindodge, Primal Brain

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Photo credit: Ryan Lawson

Watch: ‘Put You Out Of Your Misery’ by Xasthur

Posted: 7 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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XASTHUR premiere the track ‘Put You Out of Your Misery’ as the first advance single taken from the forthcoming new album Open to Misinterpretation. This self-made recording of Dark American Folk is chalked up for release through Prophecy Productions on October 2, 2026.

Xasthur comment: “Wherever you go, there you are – and you have to live with yourself”, mastermind Scott Conner writes about ‘Put You Out of Your Misery’. “This song revolves around reaching that inner crossroads where something has to give, and you either confront the issues that make you miserable or you are allowing them to destroy you.”

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The eminent French philosopher and Literature Nobel Prize laureate Albert Camus posed and taught that the key in dealing with the absurdity of life and the universe is acceptance. Xasthur founder Scott Conner, an astute chronicler of the dark side of the American dream, has come to terms with that idea in his own way.

Conner has learned the hard way that his work can confuse people and be misread. He has come to accept that. This notion is clearly expressed in the title of his new work Open to Misinterpretation. This insight has also firmed his resolve to neither change his artistic direction nor to attempt making his music easier for people to access. Conner is just not interested in chasing what has worked for other people or fitting neatly into a genre.

This does not mean that Xasthur are standing still. Open to Misinterpretation represents a deeper and more developed version of what Conner already does. He keeps honing his expression and to find new sounds and moods for his ideas. As a result, his songwriting has become equally more detailed as well as harder to predict at the same time. The bass is used more prominently and also more technical on this album. A greater variety of guitar tunings opens up new possibilities, while the drum programming has become a serious part of how the songs are built.

The production has audibly been cleared up, even though Conner still aims for the recording process to feel live, organic, and real. Open to Misinterpretation probably feels more complete because these songs have already been performed live on stage due to Xasthur’s prior touring activities on both sides of the Atlantic. This means that the reactions of the audience have become a part of the tracks.

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Old Corpse Road / Miško Boba / Evil Dungeon Crawler / Aubzagl – The Fulford Arms, York, 5th July 2026

Posted: 6 July 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Like many places, York may have lost a fair few venues through the years, but its live music scene is positively buzzing right now – especially when it comes to alternative music. And so it is that today sees day three of the tenth annual Swinefest – ostensibly a punk festival, but a broad church which offers a celebration of all kinds of weird, even down to The Masochists playing a set of covers of Rudimentary Peni songs – on Millennium Fields in the afternoon, while in the evening The Fulford Arms promises a smorgasbord of the darkest, most extreme metal. My daughter and I swing by the Fields for a bit in the afternoon, passing The Dark Horse coffee shop which has a (very loud) acoustic performer playing outside on the way, and catch The Sex Cripples’ set before hayfever drives us home. And then the evening, once the pollen has descended, I’m able to venture out safely without wanting to tear my eyes from their sockets. It’s bliss. Entering the dark venue, already murky with smoke, I find myself immediately at ease, and a pint of Vocation Heart & Soul is a winner.

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The Sex Cripples (Because I have to document every act I see, regardless)

I’m here first and foremost for Miško Boba, a band so powerful live they’re probably addictive, but The Fully has a record of hosting some quality metal gigs, and this one, curated by Steelheart Promotions, proves to be one of them.

Oftentimes, black metal can be a bit hit and miss, and in particular the openers can be a bit rough and ready, but while Leeds’ Aubzagl – purveyors of ‘antifascist blackened metal’ may not quite have their image down, but their sound is definitely there, with their twin vocals –guttural growling from the guy who also plays keyboards, a higher, screaming howl from the flame-haired, mask-wearing bassist/lead vocal who’s centre stage, and quite a presence. One of the guitarists is wearing a PWEI T-shirt, which seems a bit incongruous, but apart from the aforementioned bassist, they’re all in shorts and T-shirts and thrash hard. It’s a meaty racket alright. There’s a cover towards the end of the set which they say is a 90s song that influenced them, and it takes me a bit to recognise that it’s an adaptation of Nirvana’s ‘Tourettes’. They play hard, and fast. Very fast, and have songs about killing nazis and hating billionaires. Easy targets, but YES! With 5-string bass and 7-string guitar, they’ve got density. They call up their former bassist, Luke, whose birthday it is (he’s defected to Miško Boba, but all seems amicable) , to join them, and as a 6-piece they’re absolutely phenomenal as they bring the set to a ferocious finale.

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Aubzagl

Evil Dungeon Crawler is a name that sounds like it came from a black metal band name generator, but what does it matter when the logo is a classic spiky pile of sticks? They’re committed to the look alright, with all the hair, spikes and the most elaborate face paint, but how to they sound? Dark and deranged, and as if dragged from flaming purgatorial pits. Their set is a brutal, fierce, and relentlessly hellish half hour, delivered with captivating showmanship, through a whorl or twirling hair. So much hair… Would see again.

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Evil Dungeon Crawler

There’s perhaps a bit much bass and not quite enough guitar to begin with, but Miško Boba are as fierce as ever. And as the set progressed, so the sound improved, and the detail of the interplay between the two guitars and the folkier aspects of their compositions came through. The atmospheric, melodic passages render the returning riffs even more powerful. And perhaps around halfway through he set, I realise just how devastatingly loud they are. And I say that having seen Sunn O))) earlier in the week. It’s a different kind of volume intensity, of course, and with more treble, but in a low-ceilinged small venue, their sonic impact is significant.

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Miško Boba

There’s something ancient and earthy ingrained within their sound which sets them apart. It’s as though the black metal ferocity systems from prehistory, something primal, and every song manifests as a purging from the pain of past lives. They close the set with a new song about a massacre which took place outside Lithuanian capital. It’s the heaviest thing yet. Holy shit. If it’s in any way representative of the forthcoming album, then their best is very much yet to come.

Old Corpse Road boast two guitarists, one of whom looks like Uncle Fester exhumed, a bassist who resembles Giant Haystacks – also exhumed – and a hooded singer who doesn’t look too menacing despite the corpse paint. But shit, they’re heavy from the first bar. Sonically, it doesn’t get much darker or more black metal than this.

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OId Corpse Road

Theirs it truly the sound of souls shrieking as they incinerate in hell. It hurts. The droning, sepulchral synths add layers of menace to a sonic assault which is relentless in its punishing ferocity. My notes are scant because I’m completely enthralled. When done half-arsed, black metal can be lame cosplay, but at its best, it’s nothing short of terrifying and utterly ruinous. Old Corpse Road are firmly in the latter category, and tonight’s set is gloriously brutal.

Watch: ‘Frames – Live in Paris’ by HamaSaari

Posted: 5 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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French progressive rock outfit HamaSaari have shared a stunning live performance video for ‘Frames’, one of the standout tracks from their acclaimed sophomore album Pictures, released earlier this year via Klonosphere.

Captured at the iconic Le Petit Bain in Paris during the band’s recent European tour supporting Norwegian progressive rock veterans Gazpacho, the video showcases HamaSaari at their most accomplished, translating the cinematic atmosphere of the studio recording into a powerful live performance. The footage was filmed by Pascal Van Beurden and edited by guitarist Jordan Jupin.

Reflecting on the experience, the band comment: “Le Petit Bain, floating on the Seine, is one of those Parisian venues with a soul all its own. Playing that stage, in that setting, felt like something special. That’s where we laid down ‘Frames’ that night, on our date with Gazpacho. We were already a week into the tour by then, well drilled, and it was their team, Pascal on sound and Jael on lights, who had our backs that night. It made for such a comfortable show. They even let us play one extra song, a gesture that really touched us. We’d also like to thank Lena Hemp (Uxcr Official / Hemp Prod) for capturing the footage and letting us loose in the edit room. And thank you to everyone who was there and shared that beautiful night with us.”

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Their latest album, Pictures, expands upon the foundations laid by their debut Ineffable, exploring themes of perception, memory, mythology, dreams, and the invisible boundaries between reality and imagination. Rich in atmosphere and emotional nuance, the album invites listeners to reflect on the images we choose to preserve, the stories we inherit, and the beliefs that shape who we are.

Fresh from touring alongside Gazpacho, HamaSaari will continue bringing Pictures to audiences across Europe throughout the year, with appearances at clubs and festivals in France, Germany, and the UK. Check out the confirmed dates below:

04.07 — Holzbunge, DE — Woodbunge Festival
16.07 — Lille, FR — High Voltage Bar
17.07 — London, UK — The Camden Club
18.07 — Abingdon, UK — Prog For Peart Festival
19.07 — Manchester, UK — The Peer Hat
21.07 — Middlesbrough, UK — Café Etch
22.07 — Nottingham, UK — Mist Rolling Inn
25.07 — Xanten, DE — Rhine Ent . Festival
29.08 — Tresboeuf, FR — La Charrue Festival
17.09 — Nantes, FR — Prog Night (la carriere)
14.10 — Lyon, FR — Rock N’ Eat
24.10 — Amiens, FR — La Filature

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