‘Survival of the Shittest’ is the brand new EP from party doom band GURT.
Two original tracks and a cover of the 1993 dance floor classic ‘No Limit’. With a busy live schedule in 2026, including their third appearance at Bloodstock Festival and many other independent festivals including Uprising, Cult fest and Mangata festival, GURT thought it was about time for some new material.
The lead single is a cover of ‘No Limit’. This reimagining features a guest appearance from ‘Black Mist’, lead vocalist for the greatest hardcore band of all time THE HELL! The band comment, “As a band we have a real mix of musical tastes, from the heaviest of heavy to the cheesiest of cheese. We’ve always loved to do unexpected and weird covers and have a firm belief that a good riff is a good riff regardless of where it’s from. No Limit has always gone hard and we’re proud to say that our version goes even harderer!!”
Look, I told you they’re good. And now you can see / hear for yourselves. I might be a bit disappointed that having seen Miško Boba in December 2024 and March 2026, I missed this set in December 2024, but it’s thrilling that a band can nail such a powerful live album – not just in audio, but visuals, too, with a multi-cam recording capturing every aspect of their performance in close-up detail.
Check the visuals for the first track of the set, ‘Ateik Pas Mane’ here, and the full audio below….
NYC-based art-rockers Ecce Shnak are back with ‘Vincent’, the first single from their full-length album Dandy Variances, out later this year via Records, Man Records. Operatic trills collide with frantic rock energy in a high-decibel takedown of a formulaic antagonist through the power of one’s own voice. Directed and edited by DJay Brawner, the video was produced by DJay Brawner, Brooks Jones, Beth Narducci, and David Roush.
Formed in the mid-noughties and forged in NYC’s experimental scene, Ecce Shnak (pronounced Eh-kay sh-knock) is made up of David Roush (composer, bassist and one of two singers), Bella Komodromos (vocals), Chris Krasnow (guitar), Gannon Ferrell (guitar), and Henry Buchanan-Vaughn (drums).
“This is a mid-tempo, jumpy, flash-in-the-pan hardcore song with classical art song vocals. I originally wrote it for a film that was never made but was imagined by a classmate of mine at Temple University in Philadelphia in 2015. The character Vincent is an archetype of a smug, inconsiderate jerk most of us occasionally come across, try as we might to avoid them. Vincent is not an absolute scoundrel, but he is wack enough to rightly deserve the average person’s indignant eye-roll,” says David Roush.
“Ultimately, the narrator resolves to overthrow Vincent’s jerkface’itude in the final refrain: “I’ll destroy your equipment with my voice!” If you have a medium-tier opponent in your life whom you would like to rid yourself of somehow, you can sing this line to yourself. Hopefully your Vincent will buzz off and go kick rocks!”
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Ecce Shnak has a reputation for astounding performances, their music a volatile yet meticulously crafted ecosystem, where technical precision meets a sense of inspired mayhem. May brings their East Coast Tour with platinum-selling legends EMF, followed by UK dates in June. Last year, the bands did a West Coast tour, along with Spacehog. Then Ecce Shnak featured on EMF’s stellar track ‘LGBTQ+ Lover’ with both Davey and Bella contributing vocals. The video footage was filmed during the 2025 tour.
“The music video is an homage to an important music video in the average millennial’s musical subconscious, that of ‘Down’ by 311. The tempo, feel and musical production of the two songs is similar enough that, when I was imagining what the music video could be, the idea of doing a cinematographic tribute to that 1990’s relic seemed compelling. We asked the director and editor DJay Brawner to create as close to a shot-for-shot tribute as he could, and we feel that he and his crew succeeded handily. However, we deviated playfully a little from the original,” says David Roush.
“There is a reference to another important music video of the last 20 years in the pale, silver-haired, demon-like being who is the ‘Vincent’ in this music video – a re-imagining of the S&M-tinged monk-like Hell-being in the music video for Meshuggah’s ‘Bleed’. However, unlike the poor chap in the ‘Bleed’ video, the good guys (members of Ecce Shnak) liberate themselves from Vincent’s spiritual dominion with compassionate magic and send him hurtling into the blue sky, their raised jazz-hands trembling together as the video comes to a close.”
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TOUR DATES
MAY 07 Philadelphia, PA, USA – Nikki Lopez MAY 08 Buffalo, NY, USA – Town Ballroom MAY 09 Toronto, ON, Canada – Dance Cave MAY 10 Montreal, QC, Canada – Bar Le Ritz MAY 11 Boston, MA, USA – City Winery MAY 13 New York, NY, USA – Sony Hall MAY 14 Millersville, PA, USA – Phantom Power MAY 15 Baltimore, MD, USA – Metro Gallery MAY 16 Hamden, CT, USA – Space Ballroom JUN 02 Manchester, UK – Gorilla JUN 03 Worthing, UK – The Factory Live JUN 04 Portsmouth, UK – Kola JUN 05 Southend, UK – Chinnerys JUN 06 London, UK – The Garage JUN 07 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Portland dreampop outfit Wooden Overcoat presents ‘Finally Arrived’, the second taste of the band’s debut Hello Sunbeam EP, featuring a hypnotic foundation of viscous Gooey guitars and deliberately slow thudding drums, creating a rhythmic trance-like pulse, locking in this dreamy soundscape.
The accompanying video was created by Italian multi-arts visionary Francesca Bonci, well known for her work with The Dandy Warhols, Pete International Airport and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, LA’s Tombstones In Their Eyes, Federale (The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Collin Hegna), post-rock outfit The Quality of Mercury, and iconic British bard Philip Parfitt.
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Emerging from a period of digital isolation, ‘Finally Arrived’ weaves together a tapestry of personal mourning and romantic friction with a critique of the grand fantasies surrounding stardom. At its core, it examines the delicate nature of human connection, lamenting a cultural tendency to view individuals as replaceable assets rather than cherished companions. Wooden Overcoat is the sonic brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Brant Hajek, having returned to music after a hiatus, recording songs he’d written in his late teens. What started as a practice in self-production transformed into a deep creative obsession with soundscapes and gear. Recording in a rented basement, Hajek built the foundation of the EP through spontaneous experimentation—often veering away from planned sessions to follow sudden bursts of inspiration.
“I wrote ‘Finally Arrived’ when I was thinking a lot about social media, which I was completely off of for many years. Like many songs, it’s actually about multiple things all at once. Some of it reflects my own experience at the time going through grief and relationship issues, and it’s also about the delusions many people have about fame, making it big, becoming larger than life,” says Brant Hajek.
“I think the through-line is actually about the fragility of our relationships to others in our lives. I was feeling that many people take others for granted and can sometimes treat people as expendable, which is something I find really sad.”
Earlier, Wooden Overcoat shared their shimmering debut ‘Home’, enveloping the senses in a reverb-drenched sanctuary and blending in sun-drenched textures. Between the wash of tape echo and reverb, the track finds a sweet spot where lo-fi garage psych meets 90s shoegaze, all anchored by layered harmonies and an evocatively intimate vocal delivery. While Wooden Overcoat’s lyrics and aesthetics might suggest a certain darkness, they are often rooted in inside jokes and a sense of warmth. You could call it an exercise in productive contradictions. Hajek’s creative process is a deeply personal, layered journey involving mumbled placeholder lyrics and a patient wait for the specific spark that turns an ‘emotionally restless’ melody into a finished piece.
While Hajek performed every instrument on the studio recordings to preserve the project’s intimate DIY spirit, he has since found his tribe, assembling a full live band to translate these compositions to the stage. With Hajek leading on guitar and lead vocals, Wooden Overcoat is rounded out by Dillon Glusker on bass, Mac on guitar, and Brian Levin on drums and backing vocals.
The name Wooden Overcoat—an old Americana euphemism for a coffin—hints at the project’s core philosophy: a playful balance of moody, mystical imagery with light-hearted humor. Hajek’s creative process is personal, the rough versions eventually coalescing into vivid, emotionally resonant themes. In contrast, this music is vibrant, creating a fantastic dreamlike environment for lovers of life.
In a second glimpse of the forthcoming album Headwater (out 26th June), Room40’s Helen Svoboda now shares the sparse and mystical ‘Void of Space’. The song begins with a stark vocal, before close harmonies and pizzicato strings lurch the song into something more quizzical, full of wonder and uncertainty.
The distinctive sonic world of Headwater weaves sixteen threads or ‘earworms’ built around two double basses, two voices, and electronics; heard as singular and combinatory bodies of material. The album forms an abstracted picture of self, rooted in a devolved song form. It can be experienced as a tapestry that blurs the edges of identity; strange, beautiful, evaporative, and fluid, like memory itself.
About the track, Helen says, “’Void of Space’ exists in the in-between, in a daydream, where thoughts evaporate into one another. The lyrics paint this picture, where a stream of thought "climbs up a cloud, but falls through", in a never-ending abstract void of space.”
Filmmaker Angus Kirby adds, “This video is a trip from the vaguely familiar to the unknown. Besides a literal interpretation of the title, ‘Void of Space’ has a celestial quality in its silences and sense of scale. To listen to it is it float through an eerie vacuum. I figured the video should reflect that with experiments with light and empty locations we’re used to seeing populated. Gradually we become untethered until we find ourselves in the titular void."”
Helsinki’s death/doom/industrial metal unit DARK KOMET is proud to announce that their new EP Ghost Of Silver Light has been released today, May 1st.
The second single from the release, “Only Frozen Reality,” is launched alongside the EP with a music video, which you can watch here:
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The EP draws its themes from cosmic nihilism: time, meaninglessness, and life as a phenomenon without purpose on a universal scale. Ghost Of Silver Light builds a cold and alienating soundscape where crushing riffs and industrial beats merge into a hypnotic whole. DARK KOMET offers no comfort – only a glimpse into a reality where meaning is an illusion and existence itself is a contradiction.
It’s dark and as heavy as hell, and quite the hybrid, with snarling vocals and grinding bass cutting through a maelstrom of noise and swirling electronica. Get your lugs round it here.
HEXVESSEL drop the digital single ‘Horse Tears’, which was previously only available as a bonus song with the premium edition of Finnish psych-folk and occult doom band’s latest album Nocturne. ‘Horse Tears’ is a cover track taken from British electronic duo GOLDFRAPP’s debut album Felt Mountain (2000) and features the original former IN THE WOODS… vocalist Jan Kenneth Transeth.
HEXVESSEL comment: “Me and Jan Kenneth Transeth go way back”, singer and songwriter Mat “Kvohst” McNerney writes. "I have toured Europe with In The Woods… in 1996, a stowaway in their van, after tracking them down to Kristiansand as a young blackpacker (as Black Metal tourists to Norway are now commonly known, myself being one of the first in the mid-90s). I have always adored Jan’s voice and the early In The Woods… demo and records are so important to me. It is such a high honour to have him sing this song, one of my most favourite singers of all time doing a cover with us of one of my favourite songs, ‘Horse Tears’ on one of my favourite albums, Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain! To have his daughter Lea join him, singing this song with him, makes it even more touching. Those that have missed Jan’s voice with that old sound, can take a trip with us to a time when Avantgarde Black Metal was truly influential and alive. For me those albums and sounds, Jan Kenneth’s voice and the atmosphere that goes with it has never stopped being so vital. Let the shivers take possession!”
Cinder Well – the hauntingly stark musical project of multi-instrumentalist Amelia Baker – announces a new album A Blooming Body which arrives July 17th via Hen House Studios (where the album was recorded with Harlan Steinberger). The album is preceded by the lead single and video ‘While the Womb Screams Silently.’
About the track, Amelia says… “This song is inspired by the movie Portrait of A Lady On Fire from director Céline Sciamma. In the film, a woman is arranged to be wed, and because of her intense resistance to the situation, a painter is commissioned to secretly paint her wedding portrait without her knowing. The song is about listening to your inner knowing, which often screams loudly but is ignored for the sake of conforming – constantly trying to break out of the restraints and projections of patriarchy while stumbling over new ones and internalized ones along the way – “pulling at an endless thread of thistle – whose hooks and briars they catch things you thought you couldn’t miss em / while the womb screams silently for you to listen”.”
Watch the video here:
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This album also marks a shift in recording process, with Amelia being just as involved in the production and mixing as the writing this time around. “I strived to record the initial takes of guitar and vocals live, to give the music as much life as possible… As far as arrangements, I also brought in different types of instruments and players – in the past, I would use violin to centre most of the melodies, but on this record there are horns by Amy Sanchez (Kendrick Lamar, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews Band, Kamasi Washington, Florence and the Machine and more), synths by Dylan Desmond (Bell Witch), e-bow and other fun textures leading the melodic instrumental parts.” Other contributors include; Greg Cohen (Tom Waits, John Zorn, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson) and Pete Olynciw (Leyla McCalla) on bass, Phillip Rogers (Hayley Hendrickx) on drums, and C.P.N. Hollywell (Twisted Teens) on vocals.
On A Blooming Body, Cinder Well creates a sound that is both expansive and cinematic, and the kind of experimentation which lead to her composing the original theme song and score for the hit BBC TV series Small Prophets (written, directed by, and starring Mackenzie Crook alongside Sir Michael Palin).
Through endless shifts in perspective, and a sound which knows when to bolster the lyrics, and when to let them speak for themselves, Cinder Well’s music becomes universal on A Blooming Body, laying bare a weight that exists not in guitar tracks or distortion, but the kind we carry with us day to day.
Experimental-rock band Abrasive Trees have announced their latest offering via Italian doom label Argonauta Records. ‘Tao To Earth’ displays the band at a spiritual and psychedelic edge, revealing more of their emotional centre.
Band leader Matthew Rochford said of the release:
“This track is based on a lucid dream and points to themes of finding meaning amidst a chaotic and confusing world. The lyrics were originally written as a poem and we just expanded that to go into an uninhibited slightly prog-rock blast.”
‘Tao To Earth’ is out on all platforms and features an incredible video by visual artist Jess Wooller. There’s an exclusive remix by producer Niall Parker of Gravity Machine via Bandcamp too.
Swiss noise-rock collective Coilguns have returned with their powerful new single ‘Peace Trader’, out now via Humus Records, accompanied by an official video.
The accompanying video, directed by Louis Jucker and shot and edited by Valentin Lurthy, reinforces the track’s raw and unfiltered energy, with DIY lyric subtitles further amplifying its message.
Check it here:
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Recorded by Scott Evans (Thrice, La Dispute, Neurosis), with additional production from Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe, The Armed), and mixed by Tom Dalgety (Ghost, Pixies, Royal Blood), the track hits with a new level of urgency and emotional intensity.
Built to be both punchy and deeply reflective, ‘Peace Trader’ confronts the growing dissonance between ideals and reality. As the band put it: “What is the meaning of laws, when our nations negotiate all?”
Rooted in their own reflections on Switzerland’s shifting identity, from a perceived safe haven for human rights and diplomacy to a more conflicted and ambiguous role on the global stage, the track channels frustration, disillusionment, and a stubborn sense of hope.
The band elaborates: "We grew up being told that our country was a safe nest for human rights conventions, a historical hub for humanitarian organizations, a neutral haven for diplomacy, a sheltering home for those in need, and a centuries-long advocate for peace. Yet, the older we get, the more frequently we see this image turn into a Dorian Gray portrait. We recently witnessed our federal representatives minimize dual-use goods exportations or support partial views on major international law violations. We discovered that our asylum system had silently turned into a racist and humiliating discouragement plan, and we still haven’t been able to make our international enterprises accountable for their colonialist crimes. Looking back at our school history manuals, we wonder where this whole fairy tale has gone, or if it ever existed, but we’d like to allow ourselves, and invite you, to keep believing in the idea that a peace-making Switzerland might one day become an actual thing.”
Musically, ‘Peace Trader’ expands Coilguns’ already wide sonic palette. For the first time, a bass player was involved from the earliest stages of writing, reshaping the interplay between instruments and adding a broader, more fluid dynamic to the composition. From warehouse-recorded drum textures to tightly coiled bursts of noise, the track balances abrasion with atmosphere.
“We wanted ‘Peace Trader’ to be punchy and sad, something that could carry urgent empathy and hope,” the band explain, highlighting the deliberate tension that defines the song.
Aural Aggravation 