The Twilight Sad seem to be one of those bands that remain niche and somewhat divisive. But those who are into them are really into them, and with good reason. They’ve been long championed by Robert Smith and have access to a huge, huge audience following epic tours supporting The Cure, but they obstinately refuse to tone down their overt Scottishness, and they stubbornly refuse to bend to any kind of commercial leanings, or to cheer the fuck up. They’re also one of the most emotionally intense bands around: their live shows are quite simply something else.
‘Designed to Lose’ is the second single from their next album, and simultaneously harks back to the blistering welter of noise that was their second album No One Can Ever Know, while pushing forward on the trajectory of their last album, It Won/t Be Like This All The Time, which was both glorious and harrowing as fuck.
It Won/t Be Like This All The Time was released in 2019, so it’s been a long wait for new material. Oh, but this is worth it. The Twilight Sad aren’t a band to rush-release something sub-par, and ‘Designed to Lose’ is classic Sad on first listen, and just gives more with each play.
Puget Sound’s progressive sludge-metal collective Mother Crone have shared another glimpse of their long-awaited second album Embrace the Death, set for release in early 2026.
After revealing of the title track, the band now present their brand-new single ‘Fever Stone’. A bold and foreboding taste of what’s to come, ‘Fever Stone’ marks Mother Crone’s return in towering form – a storm of crushing groove and progressive textures that announces a powerful new chapter for the band.
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Formed in the Puget Sound area of Washington in 2013, Mother Crone are a band forged from diverse musical backgrounds, converging to create a sound that is as heavy as it is dynamic. Drawing on influences that stretch from the psychedelic depths of Pink Floyd, the classic heaviness of Black Sabbath, and the groove-driven attack of Pantera, to the progressive and atmospheric worlds of Bison B.C., Alcest, and Shrinebuilder, the band weave a progressive/post-metal tapestry that shifts seamlessly between doom, thrash, and groove.
The band introduced themselves with their debut album Awakening in 2015, followed by two years of extensive touring across the region. Life’s demands eventually forced the group to slow down, but Mother Crone have now returned revitalized and refocused, ready to deliver their most ambitious material yet.
With their forthcoming sophomore record Embrace the Death, Mother Crone push their sound to new extremes, heavier, darker, and more expansive. Backed by a refreshed lineup featuring Preston Wilson (bass), Charlie Romano (drums), Edoardo Curatolo (guitar), and Joe Frothingham (guitar/vocals), the band aim to raise the standards of energy and execution in the Seattle scene and beyond.
Louisiana-based ‘industrial bass’ pioneer, SINTHETIK MESSIAH has unveiled their latest EP, Beneath The Surface.
Beneath The Surface is a descent into the undercurrent — a raw, unfiltered excavation of the chaos, cruelty, and confusion that define the world we live in. Each track is a spade hitting the dirt, digging deeper into the systems, histories, traumas, and human instincts that keep everything so relentlessly messed up. It’s not about offering answers. It’s about refusing to look away.
Sonically, the EP blends the smoky unease of 90s trip-hop with the rusted edge of 90s industrial — a fusion of broken textures, distorted synths, and dragging, dirt-covered beats. It’s jagged, emotional, and sometimes angry — the way truth sounds when it’s unearthed.
‘Caught In The Grip Of The City’ is representative of the EP’s dark atmosphere. Hear it here:
Between the Buried and Me offer fans a second preview of the prog-metal titans’ upcoming album, The Blue Nowhere (Sept. 12, InsideOutMusic) with the release of the new track, ‘Absent Thereafter’.
Tommy Rogers describes how the song captures the spirit of the upcoming album: “To me, ‘Absent Thereafter’ feels like the quintessential BTBAM song – fun, intense, spacy, and still fucking heavy. I like to think it takes the listener on an unexpected journey, with ear candy waiting around every corner. It’s a deeper dive into all of the dynamic places you’re taken within The Blue Nowhere!”
Dan Briggs elaborates on the musicality of the single: “This song moves arrangement-wise in two parts divided by a key change and tonal shift of the chorus, but is ultimately the big fun time bombastic energy of a Van Halen shuffle with Huey Lewis and the News horns going through variations that are sometimes heavily syncopated, sometimes lost in space, and sometimes inspiring you to break out into a do-si-do. Grab your washboard and let’s go!”
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Tour dates:
July 30 Istanbul, TR IF Performance Hall
July 31 Râşnov, RO Rockstadt Extreme Fest
August 1 Budapest, HU Monolit Festival 2025
August 2 Wien, AT Szene *
August 3 München, DE Free & Easy Festival
August 4 Berlin, DE Hole44
August 5 Katowice, PL Miçdzynarodowe Centrum Kongresowe
August 6 – 7 Jaroměř, CZ Brutal Assault 2025
August 9 Kortrijk, BE Alcatraz Metal Festival
August 10 Utrecht, NL Pandora
August 11 Tilburg, NL 013 Next Stage
August 12 Köln, DE Luxor
August 14 Dinkelsbühl, DE Summer Breeze
August 15 – 16 Compton Martin, UK ArcTanGent
August 17 Carhaix-Plouguer, FR Festival Motocultor
September 14 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
September 15 Boston, MA Royale
September 16 Ottawa, ON Bronson Centre
September 18 Toronto, ON Danforth Music Hall
September 19 Montreal, QC Théâtre Beanfield
September 20 Portland, ME Aura
September 21 Albany, NY Empire Live
September 22 New York, NY Warsaw
September 23 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom
September 25 Raleigh, NC The Ritz
September 26 Charleston, SC Music Farm
September 27 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
September 29 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
September 30 Orlando, FL House of Blues
October 1 New Orleans, LA The Joy Theater
October 2 Houston, TX Warehouse Live
October 3 San Antonio, TX Kill Iconic Fest
October 4 Dallas, TX Granada Theater
October 7 Phoenix, AZ The Nile Theater
October 8 Riverside, CA Riverside Municipal Auditorium
October 9 Las Vegas, NV 24 Oxford
October 10 San Francisco, CA August Hall
October 12 Portland, OR Revolution Hall
October 13 Seattle, WA The Crocodile
October 14 Vancouver, BC The Pearl
October 16 Edmonton, AB Union Hall
October 17 Calgary, AB MacEwan Hall
October 19 Spokane, WA Knitting Factory
October 20 Boise, ID Knitting Factory
October 21 Bozeman, MT The ELM
October 22 Missoula, MT The Wilma
October 24 Denver, CO Summit Music Hall
October 25 Wichita, KS TempleLive
October 26 Des Moines, IA Wooly’s
October 27 Chicago, IL The Vic Theatre
October 28 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
October 29 Nashville, TN Brooklyn Bowl
October 30 Charlotte, NC The Fillmore
July 30 – August 17: Performing Colors in its entirety
September 27-October 30: Co-headlining dates with Hail The Sun
Following recent tours with Wardruna and God is an Astronaut, composer and sound designer Jo Quail is set to release her 7th album Notan on 12th September.
Notan is the seventh album from composer and sound designer Jo Quail—a work of striking contrast and graceful power. Drawing its name from the Japanese concept that explores the interplay of light and dark, the album unfolds as a deeply personal journey through polarity: presence and absence, softness and intensity, expansion and return.
What began in June 2023 as a series of raw, looped improvisations evolved into something far larger: a symphonic tapestry titled Ianus, now destined for recording with full orchestra in late 2025. But Notan is not that orchestral vision—it is the source from which it sprang, and the space to which it returns.
In these solo iterations, the music breathes with both intimacy and grandeur—cello, electric cello, and piano intertwine in richly layered textures. The sounds Jo creates on both acoustic and electric cello range from the traditional to the highly sculpted; all sound design and modelling is her own, forming the distinctive sonic identity that makes her music instantly recognisable. Each track is a live take, with every looped section performed in full, capturing the immediacy of live performance while allowing for a more considered control of sound—one that honours the context of making a record.
Across its arc, Notan evokes archetypal energies. ‘Butterfly Dance’ embodies matriarchal authority—stately and untouchable in its raw grace. First single, ‘Rex’, by contrast, traces Jo’s own evolution. First appearing on her 2010 debut as a tentative, fragile offering, the piece was left untouched for years. Reawakened during the solitude of lockdown, it transformed—emerging here as something altogether more commanding: majestic, grounded, and complete. Jo comments,
The first single from Notan is Rex, some of you who’ve been with me since the early days might remember it first appearing back in 2010. It’s a piece I’ve returned to in live performance, and over time it’s evolved and reshaped itself. This version is something quite different: a reimagining that feels both familiar and entirely new. I’m really proud to be releasing it now — and yes, it’s over 9 minutes long (a bold choice for a single, I know!).
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Jo Quail is also set to tour the UK in September to support the release:
Finish purveyors of extreme noise, Vorare, has paired up with Earthflesh to create the abrasive blast of an album which is Rope Tower. We’re on the edge of our seats for the album, and are beyond thrilled to present an exclusive premier of the second track from the album to be unveiled after ‘Seepage’.
On the face of it, a mining disaster in the North of England which occurred way back in 1844 may seem like an unusual choice of subject matter for two artists based in mainland Europe: it’s a pretty niche piece of local history. But it’s also a harrowing historical event that warns of the risk to life the industrial age brought. County Durham had a long mining heritage, and Haswell was one of the county’s largest collieries, employing over 300 men and boys. This single incident – an explosion – caused the deaths of almost a third of the workforce, with the blast itself killing 14, and a further 81 dying by suffocation.
For a moment, just imagine the scene, and the sensation. ‘Haswell’ makes for a fitting soundtrack, with a reflection on not only the how of their deaths, but the why…
Lyrics:
We find ourselves in the mines day in and day out, breaking our bones, shoveling our route to the alluring ore necessary for someone else to thrive off of. The caged canary leads the way deeper and deeper into the uncharted maw of Earth left gaping by bombs built by weak little men far from here. The clangs of pickaxes haunt our dreams while the fetters on our ankles might as well be extensions of our limbs alongside the instruments designed to violate the soil below our homes. As the morning seeps in lightless, we continue our work. Descending to the black hole stretching for miles on end, the explosions seem particularly strong today. We can’t see, but we can hear and feel. The chirp of the canary abates and soon runs out. Is this the smell of profit?
An account of the Haswell Colliery Explosion can be found here.
HIBOU is back with new single ‘Night Fell’, along with the announcement of a new EP ‘Arc’ (due 13 January 2023).
Floating through a breezy blend of gossamer vocals, twinkling instrumentals and lush textured melodies, “Night Fell” is a delicate and jangling track that paves the way for Hibou’s new EP ‘Arc’.
Born in Seattle and now based in Paris, ‘Arc’ is Hibou’s first release since his 2019 full-length LP ‘Halve’ and the new body of work sees the artist emerge from his lengthy silence and reel listeners right back into the glistening whirlwind of his sound.
A delicate blend of lo-fi alt-pop, nostalgic shoegaze and diaphanous dream-pop, Peter Michel (aka Hibou) spent the summer writing the EP along the Canal de l’Ourcq, before recording in various apartments, bathrooms and rehearsal spaces in Paris. Engineered and produced by Michel himself, the multi-instrumentalist also performs vocals, guitar and bass on each track, with drums courtesy of Jase Ihler.
A dreamy and diverse project, ‘Arc’ melds together a rich amalgam of sounds: from the delicate and dazing “June” to the buzzing and buoyant “Already Forgotten” and from the eerie twanging guitars on “Devilry” to the stormy, seesawing soundscapes on “Upon The Clouds You Weep”.
Taking its name from “an electric arc between things, or arc lightning”, ‘Arc’ is both sentimental and stylish with its carefully composed melodies seeming to tap into long-forgotten, hazy memories from the past just as easily as it does bolster hope for the future.
Inspired by shoegaze greats both past and present, Hibou’s elegant arrangements are hard to pin down, falling somewhere between the indie-rock tinted musings of Beach Fossils and DIIV, the folk-flecked intimacies of Alex G and the tenderly tormented sound of The Cure.
Swiss five-piece metalcore group Ascends have just shared new track titled ‘Lightrays’ off band’s debut album Lost in Gravity, which is set for release on October 28th.
Listen here:
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Formed in 2008 under the name I, The Deceiver, Ascends is a five-piece group from Sion, Switzerland playing a powerful and electrifying mix of progressive metal, metalcore and post-rock.
Following a 5-track EP, numerous shows in France, Germany and Switzerland and some line-up changes, it was in 2015 with the arrival of Marco Romero (Nakaruga and ex-Breach The Void) on vocals and Simon Vuignier (Catch My Story) on bass that they decided to change the name to their current moniker. This new lease of life gave the band the opportunity to change their musical identity too, adding different textures and influences into their already eclectic sound.
Their debut album Lost In Gravity clearly demonstrates a band stepping out their comfort zone, finding a striking balance between melody and brutality. Mixed and mastered by Nicolas Delestrade from Novelists, Lost In Gravity deals with several themes, detailing the problems of the human being, its solutions and the consequences.
IMHA TARIKA unleash the first track taken from their forthcoming sophomore full-length Sternenberster, which marks the Germans’ debut on Prophecy Produktion black metal sub-label Lupus Lounge. The album has been slated for release on December 11th.
The fierce single ‘Brand am Firmament’ (‘Celestial Blaze’) can be heard here:
Kerem Yilmaz aka Ruhsuz Cellât comments: "Our song ‘Brand am Firmament’ deals with the final overcoming of the aggressor that resides in your heart and pulls you down into the depths of loss time and again", explains IMHA TARIKAT’s mastermind. "How often will you allow yourself to relive failure and misery? How long will you continue to let it tear you apart while a vicious joy grows out of your futile efforts to fight this? The root of this suffering hides in places where only darkness lurks. ‘Brand am Firmament’ is a vision of a failed cause that flickers with lucid disappointment. Annihilate it! Mature and grow through this war of passion!" On further news, Lupus Lounge will also make IMHA TARIKAT’s early works available again. Parallel to the release of Sternenberster on December 11th, they will hit the stores under the combined title "Kara Ihlas / Kenoboros – Initiation of Passion Bursting".
Ahead of the release of their new album, Nightmare Logic through Southern Lord on 24th February, Power Trip have unleashed the title track by way of a taster. You can hear it here, with tour dates alongside Napalm Death and Brujeria listed in full below.
POWER TRIP JOIN ‘CAMPAIGN FOR MUSICAL DESTRUCTION TOUR’ WITH NAPALM DEATH & BRUJERIA
Tuesday, 25 April 2017 Copenhagen – Amager Bio, DK Wednesday, 26 April 2017 Gothenburg – Pustervik, SWE Thursday, 27 April 2017 Stockholm – Kraken STHLM, SWE Friday, 28 April 2017 Flensburg – Roxy, DE Saturday, 29 April 2017 Magdeburg – Factory, DE Sunday, 30 April 2017 Haarlem – Patronaat, NL Monday 1 May 2017 Koln – Underground, DE Tuesday, 2 May 2017 Berlin – SO36, DE Wednesday, 3 May 2017 DAY OFF Thursday, 4 May 2017 Krakow – Kwadrat Club, PL Friday, 5 May 2017 Brno – Klub Fléda, CZ Sunday, 7 May 2017 Saarbrücken – Garage, DE Monday, 8 May 2017 DAY OFF Tuesday, 9 May 2017 Birmingham – O2 Institute, UK Wednesday, 10 May 2017 Glasgow – Classic Grand, UK Thursday, 11 May 2017 Manchester – Rebellion, UK Friday, 12 May 2017 London – The Electric Ballroom, UK Saturday, 13 May 2017 Paris – Le Glazart, FR Sunday, 14 May 2017 Antwerpen – Zappa, BE Monday, 15 May 2017 DAY OFF Tuesday, 16 May 2017 Six Fours Les Plages – Espace André Malraux, FR Wednesday, 17 May 2017 Geneva – L’Usine, CH Thursday, 18 May 2017 Bologna – Zona Roveri, IT Friday, 19 May 2017 Karlsruhe – NCO Club, DE Saturday, 20 May 2017 München – Backstage, DE Sunday, 21 May 2017 Eindhoven – Effenaar, NL …with more dates to be announced
Aural Aggravation 