From the heart of Edinburgh’s underground, Kakihara return with Love Songs Part II, a raw, chaotic, and utterly unfiltered dose of metallic hardcore, and in advance they’ve unveiled the video for the EP’s lead single ‘Calamari.’
The band had this to say about the new track: “Because two minutes in heaven is better than one minute in heaven, ‘Calamari’ is our metallic-hardcore energy and mathcore chaos smashed into a single strike. It’s got jagged riffs, stop-start rhythms, and a punishing beatdoon that lands like a hen party on the Cowgate. The vocals cut through the melee with equal parts desperation and defiance, matching lyrics that flick between hopelessness and resolve. ‘Calamari’ shows exactly what we’re about, raw, unpolished, and built for the pit.”
Recorded live in a single living room and fueled by raw energy, Love Songs Part II captures the chaos and urgency of the band’s relentless live shows. Drawing inspiration from Converge, Coalesce, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Heaven In Her Arms, Envy, and Botch, Kakihara fuse mathcore dissonance, screamo textures, and punishing hardcore grit into something entirely their own.
Love Songs Part II will be released on December 5 via Ripcord Records.
UNHAPPILY EVER NOW returns with one of its most moving releases to date — ‘To The Light’; a deeply personal alt/art-rock single.
Written as a tribute to his cat by songwriter, Stephen Watson, the song captures the bittersweet beauty of unconditional love and the ache of time passing too quickly. Its textured guitars, spacious production, and vulnerable vocal performance create a cinematic soundscape that invites listeners to feel rather than simply hear.
“He’s been with me through everything,” Stephen shares. “His presence gave me strength when I didn’t have any. This song isn’t a goodbye — it’s a promise that his love will always live in me.”
Blending influences from Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, ‘To The Light’ balances raw emotion with atmospheric artistry. It’s a song for anyone who’s ever loved — and been saved by — a soul that made life worth living.
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UNHAPPILY EVER NOW consists of Stephen Watson – lead performer and songwriter of Cleopatra Records’ recording artist, Green Jelly, and vocalist, Maria V. The band is the sonic embodiment of a world lost in time. The band merges emotional storytelling with cinematic intensity along with the haunting vocals and lyrical depth. Drawing from influences like TOOL, Puscifer, A Perfect Circle, and Stabbing Westward, UNHAPPILY EVER NOW constructs songs like time-worn ruins—beautiful, broken, and impossible to ignore.
Inspired by the dark, time-bending world of the science-fiction show, 12 Monkeys, their songs speak to the ache of disconnection: the lives we’ve left behind, and the struggle of trying to exist in a present that no longer feels like it belongs to us. It’s grief without closure. Time without direction.
UNHAPPILY EVER NOW doesn’t offer answers. It holds up a mirror to what we’ve become—and asks if we can bear to look. Maybe that’s what we need most.
Legendary psych outfit Gong are back today with their new single ‘Stars In Heaven’ alongside a brand new music video created by Drain Hope. The band have also teased the release of their new album which fans will see in 2026 and shared the album’s name – Bright Spirit.
“It’s such an eclectic record,” says singer and guitarist Kavus Torabi. “This is the most colourful and kaleidoscopic album so far from this incarnation of the band. There are Eastern-infused epics, long instrumental jazz-inspired sections, meditative and cosmic detours and blistering, incendiary psychedelic rock. When picking the first song to be released, it has felt as if there’s an extra weight on the choice, as if the song somehow has to represent the whole album.”
Lyrically it expands on the idea that the world is as you are. “If you are a cynical, defensive or suspicious person, then that’s the world you’ll inhabit,” continues Kavus. “You’ll see mean-spirited behaviour and selfishness all around you but it’s always a choice. I think perhaps some people forget that. That’s not the world I live in, nor would I want to. It’s a sad old world for sure but it’s also a beautiful one bursting with hope, possibility, wonder and magic in every single moment.”
‘Stars In Heaven’ is the first single to be released from the new album Bright Spirit which will be released in 2026 on Kscope. Bright Spirit continues the legendary Gong catalogue – an extensive and acclaimed collection of releases that has seen Gong produce over 30 studio albums during a career spanning more than 50 years, since the band was founded in 1970 by the late Daevid Allen.
Gong continue to carry the torch ignited by Daevid Allen with their UK tour alongside fellow psych legends HENGE currently underway -
UK electronic outfit Scissorgun announce their album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, out November 21 via Dimple Discs. Mixing urban electronica with fuzz and wah guitar, these trailblazers present a solid collection of songs, dances and abstract soundscapes. A must-have for Factory Records collectors, the vinyl includes seven tracks, while the digital and CD versions include three bonus tracks. Ahead of its release, they present the tracks ‘Gone Rogue’ and ‘Bad As Bingo’.
Formed in Manchester in August 2016, Scissorgun is an electronic trio comprised of Dave Clarkson (synths, rhythms, tapes, percussion), Alan Hempsall (vocals, treated guitar, samples, loops) and Adrian Ball (light show and projections). Carriers of Factory Records’ legacy.
“We always operate on instinct and improvisation is the key starting point. Some ideas become structured songs, but others remain as first recorded, with the music finding us and not vice versa. The title is a soft attempt at social comment, intended to be inferred rather than overt,” says Dave Clarkson.
Their musical scope is varied – pastoral dreams one minute and, the next, crashing swathes of noise chased down with a dub twist.
“The idea for ’Gone Rogue’ started with a busy electro bass line and, as soon as we found a good quote from a conspiracy theorist on social media, the whole thing seemed to turn into a polemic against turning your back on humanity in revulsion. We dwell on the impact of the fight for our attention on the individual and the damage done. All the while, the driving beat is pushing us on with heavy cowbells and pulsing bass. We’ll all feel better if we dance,” says Dave Clarkson.
Alan Hempsall adds, “As for ‘Bad as Bingo’, we were both overjoyed when this came out of the mincing machine. We’d been looking for something with a go-go beat to it, so this was perfect. The words flowed automatically as the best ones always do. Broad brush observations of a situation gone bad coupled with a mawkish sentimentality for what’s lost. The glitching and grinding bass line and barking dogs take on a life of their own. Suddenly it all makes sense and the initial spark revolts into structure and form.”
Alan and Dave first met in 2007 when Dave’s band, Triclops, were supporting Biting Tongues at Islington Mill in Salford. Alan was in the audience and was so taken with Triclops’s performance that he wandered over to show appreciation and a friendship was struck up, bonding over a mutual weakness for early industrial, rock and modern jazz. After nine years of gig-hopping and hanging out, the timing was suddenly right for them to organise some jam sessions to see what came out.
It so happens that both of their bands were on hiatus at the time. While Dave Clarkson was in Triclops from 2000 to 2015, he was in White Cube prior to that. He since boasts an extensive catalogue of solo works.
As for Alan Hempsall, he was the vocalist for Crispy Ambulance, who was on Factory Records from 1980 to 1982, before spending five years in the mid ‘80’s playing percussion in a Brazilian Samba band. Hempsall also famously appeared on stage with Joy Division in April 1980, standing in for Ian Curtis at a show in Bury that descended into a riot.
“As with any album, we operate on instinct. Improvisation is the key starting point. At this moment, anything can and generally does come out. The bizarre accidents and serendipity that occur during this process are the parts we keep. Those moments that feel like you’re merely the vessel that the music is transmitted through,” says Alan Hempsell.
Dave Clarkson adds, “Some ideas gradually emerge into structured songs whilst others have the fortitude to remain in their original form to some extent or another. Yet no conscious decision is made. We are not in control. It is the music that finds the musicians. As the body of work is growing and developing, it seems to take on its own identity, something else we appear to have little influence on. So, there is an element of Praxis at work here, we’ll do it because we want to and think up the reasons why later.”
Bite the Boxer is unquestionably an unusual and intriguing name for a musical project: my mind immediately leaps to the infamous ‘bite fight’ between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield in 1997, where Tyson lost through disqualification after biting off a chunk of Holyfield’s ear in one of sport’s most shocking moments.
In combining an eclectic range of elements spanning industrial, alt-pop, trip-hop, and ambient lo-fi, there’s nothing about Matt Park’s music which indicates any connection to this moment in sporting history. The same is true of his objective to create music imbued with ‘he feeling of impending doom but with just a glimmer of hope’, which is inspired by ‘horror video games and dystopian, post-apocalyptic films’.
‘Venom Test’ is haunting – at first ambient, before bursting with an expansive, cinematic feel, then plunging into darker territory. Even without the aid of a beautifully-shot and remarkably stylish video, the rack leads the listener through an evocative sequence of sonic transitions. Although never harsh, the distant drums are weighty, powerful, and the overall experience feels like a juxtaposition of must and decay with rays of shining hope breaking through cloud. The listener feels as if they’re being pulled in opposite directions, the suspenseful end offering no conclusion, but instead, leaving a sense of emotional quandary, an uncertainty. ‘Venom Test’ creates a tension, and provides no closure or conclusion, only a sense of a door being left ajar. It’s a deftly woven piece, and one which feels very much like it belongs to a much larger project – which it does, being a taster (which doesn’t remotely have the flavour of bloodied ear, to the best of my knowledge) for the forthcoming album, Haunted Remains Pt.2. As a choice of single, it’s a good one, leaving us in suspense to hear it in the context it was intended.
The US electro-industrial act genCAB have returned with a single entitled ‘Open Grave’ on Metropolis Records. A dancefloor confession that digs into a narrative of self-sabotage and quiet collapse, it demands to be heard as much as it begs to be ignored.
“The song explores the decay of our own undoing. I’m a self destructive person, and ‘Open Grave’ is about lying in my own mess that I create for myself,” explains group founder David Dutton. “Most of the advice we get is to keep our inner pain hidden and so we isolate further. So, here it is for everyone else to hear, whenever they feel like hearing it. This track is more accessible than some of my past work, and I think it complements a message that is universal. At the end of the day, sometimes life is as simple as a dance track and an easy outlet to lose yourself. Who knows what’s left when you tear yourself apart, but at least it’s an honest practice.”
The first new music by genCAB in 2025, ‘Open Grave’ has been made available together with an ‘Unsolved Remix’ by labelmate Lost Signal and a cover version of ‘Last’, a 1992 song by Nine Inch Nails.
We’re late for the Halloween announcement, we’re late on this… but we love GHOLD and we love Human Worth, so… better late than never, eh? And it’s only a couple of days belated…
‘Place To Bless A Shadow’ is the second single to be taken from GHOLD’s forthcoming album Bludgeoning Simulations, produced by Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad), to be released on November 14th on Vinyl and Digital via independent label Human Worth. Proceeds from Bandcamp sales will be donated to registered charity SkatePal, providing skateboarding equipment and training courses to underfunded communities in Palestine.
Continuing the thread of my review of the new Eville EP, which sees a young band push hard on the forward trajectory of a nu-metal revival, I find myself basking in the retro sound of ‘Anything,’, the latest offering from JW Paris, trashy indie / alternative trio from London. This isn’t some kind of nostalgia wank, whereby the 90s is largely misrepresented through the prism of Britpop (or grunge), but a cut that reminds us just how eclectic the 90s – particularly the first half of the decade – was. It was a melting pot of skewed guitar-led bands which were often lo-fi, ramshackle, bands who would grace the pages of Melody Maker but rarely play outside Camden, and the only way you’d ever hear any of their music would be by tuning in to John Peel, where they’d be wedged in between some weird dancy shit and the filthiest grindcore going, alongside something jangly on Sarah Records and something else entirely on Rugger Bugger records. And something by The Fall, of course.
‘Anything’, the lead track from their forthcoming EP, packs the essence of that period into just shy of three and a half energetic minutes. As much as it’s 90s indie / Britpop in its attitude, it’s the early Wonderstuff that comes through most strongly here. Before they became the beloved band of every cherry-red DM wearing sixth former, and way before the Gallagher brothers came onto the scene, Miles Hunt swaggered forth with colossal confidence, and songs that sizzled with snappy wordplay and hooks, and while I never really dug much after The Eight-Legged Groove Machine, they were exhilarating and fresh, and it’s this that JW Paris recreate here. The woo-ooh-wooooh backing vocals are a bit dandy Warhols, and there’s a lot going on, a lot of ideas and energy compressed into this neatly crafted nugget of a tune.
When you’ve singlehandedly created a new subgenre, what better way than to cement the trail you’ve blazed with a release bearing its name? This is precisely what Eville had done here with the Brat Metal EP. For the uninitiated, their unique contribution to the musical landscape has been to give the slugging, concrete-slab guitar riffery of nu-metal a makeover, and by blending it with strong pop elements and delivering it all with a strong, empowering feminist message and truckloads of attitude, they’ve kicked the whole ‘sports metal’ ‘rock for jocks’ kind of thing in the nuts and made it something that’s culturally relevant here in 2025.
Maybe I need to unpack ‘relevant’ here. It’s a fact that in music, what goes around comes around, and there are always cycles of recycling, revivals and renaissances, waves and generations. But a nu-metal revival always seemed unlikely because it was so patently uncool, even at the time. But here we are: a new generation is discovering Limp Bizkit, who are back and riding a wave that combines nostalgia for those who were in their teens around the turn of the millennium, and the fact their kids are now teens who are educating themselves with their parents’… what, Spotify playlists now? But more significantly, women are still having to fight just as hard now as they ever did just to hold ground. Sexism, misogyny, and abuse are rife, and there are enablers everywhere.
This all makes Eville’s rapid ascent even more impressive, and something the world truly needs. It’s remarkable just how a flip can transform testosterone-led whiny shit into something truly powerful, and Eville have, over the course of a handful of single releases gone from being hopeful newcomers to Kerrang favourites performing Reading and Leeds with festival dates already on the calendar for 2026. There’s a very good reason for this: as I’ve been saying from their very inception, they’ve completely nailed their sound, are confident in their identity, and have killer tunes.
Brat Metal offers four more. None of the songs on here breach the three-minute mark, and all are thumping, riff-driven blasts bristling with hooks. ‘BR4T MBL’ powers in with a Prodigy / later Pitch Shifter vibe paired with sneering vocals which are autotuned to fuck for the verses, but then switch to a lung-busting guttural roar. Single cuts ‘No Pictures Please’ and ‘Accidents Happen’ bring real attack, sassy rap and stuttering beats colliding with force. In the former, ‘bitches’ takes on a different slant when delivered by a woman, and it feels like there’s a reclamation of sexist language happening here.
‘Bikini Top’ again brings the dense chug and squalling harmonics of Pitch Shifter, and at the same time offers the flippant lyrical simplicity of Wet Leg’s ‘Chaise Longue’ but it’s charged with the challenge to the male gaze, and it’s a lesson in how it’s possible to make music that’s heavy but accessible, to entertain while offering substance instead of mere fluff. Brat Metal shows that Eville can sustain the intensity and the quality over the duration of more than just standalone singles: it is packed solid, and their most focused document yet.
British industrial techno/gabba artist JUNKIE KUT is excited to reveal his new single ‘OutPSYders,’ available on the main digital streaming platforms.
Following the release of last year’s ekstasis album, JUNKIE KUT returns more fierce than ever with his blistering new anthem for the outcasts:
“So many of us struggle to live in mainstream culture, so I wanted to make a track of optimistic rage, dedicated to the people who don’t fit in; the goths, the ravers, the punks, the geeks, the freaks – its a battle-cry for individuality in a painfully homogenous world.”
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Junkie Kut fuses industrial, punk and metal with the sounds of speedcore, gabba, techno & trance. Fresh from opening the main stage at both Resistanz Festival and Infest this year, Junkie Kutis bringing a wake up call to our ‘culture of despair’ with his fierce energy, raw passion and psalms of freedom.
Destroying traditional genre boundaries, he is recognised for confrontational live shows in both the industrial / alternative world and the digital hardcore / speedcore network – performing at hardcore raves and cybergoth festivals worldwide. Playing on stages with the likes of Aesthetic Perfection, Zardonic, Deviant UK and Ayria, as well as countless iconic hardcore festivals such as Hardshock, Pokkie Herrie, Terrordrang and Berlin’s F*ckParade – it has built a loyal fan base in Germany, Netherlands, and the UK.
Inspired by radical counterculture and neo-shamanic visions of a future utopia, JUNKIE KUT brings a refreshingly optimistic battle-cry to our lost society and summons the magick of our collective emancipation. This is music for the outPSYders!
Aural Aggravation 