HOWLING GIANT reveal the video clip ‘Beholder I: Downfall’ as the next single from the cosmic stoner metal outfit’s forthcoming album Crucible & Ruin. The third full-length by the Nashville, Tennessee band has been slated for release on October 31, 2025.
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HOWLING GIANT comment: “Our current single ‘Beholder 1: Downfall’ is a riff-driven heavy hitter, and in my opinion is one of the heaviest songs on the record”, bass player and co-vocalist Sebastian Baltes states. “It was a pleasure to collaborate with Jerry Roe again on the video, having previously worked with him on the clip for ‘Glass Future’. It has been particularly exciting for me to follow the journey of this song from its inception with a simple riff to a full blown song and the making of the video. I can hardly wait for you all to hear this track live!”
The differences between proper indie labels and major labels are manifold, but a key one is not professionalism, but passion. Riot Season release records for the love, not the money: they make enough to keep releasing albums, and that’s pretty much the aim. It’s by no means a capitalist endeavour. So when Andy announces the next release thus, it’s a sincere reflection of what it’s like to release an album by a band you love:
Over the years, I’ve released many a great noise rock (for want of a better term) record.
And pretty much every one of those bands have been influenced at some point by the Swedish underground legends BRAINBOMBS.
A band that thrills and disgusts in equal measure. With their bludgeoning repetitive riffs, and interesting lyrical themes, They’re pretty much held up as masters of the genre.
So, to be sat here in August 2025 announcing I’m releasing their new album on my little label is a fucking thrill. I’ve been listening to it non stop for about two solid months, and now you lot finally get to have a taste yourselves
And the press blurb is gold. Read it, and then get stuck into ‘Midnight Slaughter’ below. It’s a killer.
PRESS BLURB
The Swedish underground legends return with a brand new album.
Let this reddit user take over …
“Listening to Brainbombs has been one of my weirdest experiences with music.
Brainbombs are most definitely a band. I guess at the core they’re a hardcore punk/noise rock hybrid I guess? But… its so unlike anything I’ve ever heard and I still don’t know if its good or bad. I saw the edgelord Ed Gein album cover, and it intrigued me, so I listened to their biggest song and it was easily THE WORST thing I had EVER FUCKING HEARD. I shut it off as soon as it got to the vocals. I was shocked by the fact that it had almost a half million streams. But, a few hours later, I clicked on it again and didn’t know why.
Over the past few days, I’ve listened to all of their discography and looped a lot of it. And I don’t even think I like them. The music is abysmal, its the same single riff and verse repeating for 5 minutes. To make it worse, the vocals are just a guy with a swedish accent awkwardly talking about murder and rape. That sounds awful right? It is awful. But at the same time I want to keep listening? It’s so childishly edgy and obnoxiously repetitive but so.. intriguing? Catchy? I’m not even sure. Its one of if not the weirdest experience I’ve ever had with music and I don’t know how to feel about it.”
New Irish trio Rún are preparing to release their debut self-titled album on Rocket Recordings on 22nd August, and today share with us another taster in the form of ‘Strike It’.
About the track the band comment, “’Strike It’: A barely contained explosive doom riff with an industrial patina; points to the hypocrisy of a religious institution in profound dereliction of its duty to the most weak and vulnerable of us. The song addresses the macabre details of the Tuam babies controversy in Co. Galway, Ireland.”
The Irish word Rún can mean secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three, reflecting the many aspects of life that defy easy explanation. In wrestling with these, it can become necessary to commit oneself entirely, to jump in at the psychic deep end in search of the vibrations and feelings at hand. This is where the band Rún come in.
The debut album of Rún – the result of three powerful artists locking horns and bringing equally passionate and uncompromising approaches to bear – is no less than an extraordinary collective catharsis. Yet more evidence that true heaviness is about much more than a cranked amp. It’s an emotionally driven and richly atmospheric journey into the darkest recesses of states earthly and unearthly, from a spiritually intrepid outfit who alchemise experimental methods and improvisatory states to reach intimidating heights of sonic and psychic intensity.
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Live dates:
21 Aug / Galway / Roisin Dubh 22 Aug / Cork / Nudes 27 Aug / Dublin / Spindizzy Records (instore) 29-31 Aug / Birmingham / Supersonic Festival 6 Sep / Sligo / Minor Disturbance Festival 15 Nov / London / Rich Mix (w/ Sirom) 19 Nov / Glasgow / The Glad Cafe 20 Nov / Newcastle / The Lubber Fiend
Rún comprise firstly Tara Baoth Mooney – sometime Jim Henson voice artist, with a longstanding background in everything from folk and choral music to experimental film-making. Diarmuid MacDiarmada – Nurse With Wound co-conspirator and brother of Lankum’s Cormac, brings with him the experience of avant-garde collaborations with a plethora of artists stretching back over thirty years. Drummer, sound designer and engineer Rian Trench, meanwhile, has worked on everything from the psychedelic IDM of Solar Bears to auto-generative experiments to orchestral arrangements, and owns the studio – The Meadow on Ireland’s East Coast – in which the album was made. The disparate artistic practices of the three members of the band collude in this context to create something no member could have foreseen. “Beyond the larger themes we explore, the work is often inspired by dreams, synchronicities, and other uncanny influences found in everyday life” reckons Diarmiud.
Besides this, an extremely diverse range of musical influences make their presence felt here, from William Basinski and Pauline Oliveros to Om, Coil and The Necks. “Suffice to say that there was a variety of sacred musics, acid-folk, cosmic jazz, stoner / sludge-metal, avant-garde composers and a hint of R&B being ground up and baked in with everything else in our wonky witches’ kitchen.” They say, “Things that possibly shouldn’t go together are juxtaposed to create something surprising and new.”
Parisian fuzz fanatics Electric Jaguar Baby return to burn down the garage with Clair-Obscur, their wildest, heaviest, and most electrifying album to date, set to be released on September 5, 2025 via Majestic Mountain Records (Kal-El, Saint Karloff).
Today, the duo ignite another surge of fuzz-fueled energy with the release of their latest video, “Bring Me Down,” featuring a special guest appearance by Patrón.
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This follows the release of the raucous lead single ‘My Way’, and the recently premiered ‘Heroine’, which features guest vocals by Chris Jr. of Greek doom heavyweights Acid Mammoth, another fuzz-drenched bombshell from the upcoming LP.
Formed in 2015, the duo comprised of Franck (drums/vocals) and Antoine (guitar/vocals), have spent the last decade distilling garage, stoner, punk, psych, pop and grunge into pure fuzz-fueled chaos. Known for their explosive live shows and no-rules approach, they’ve shared stages with everyone from Sepultura to Death Valley Girls. Now, “Clair-Obscur” marks their third full-length and most fearless outing yet. Recorded live and drenched in distortion, the album rips through 11 unfiltered tracks of raw sonic adrenaline, with killer guest appearances from Lo (ex-Loading Data) and Chris Babalis Jr. (Acid Mammoth).
With a new EU tour in the works and their amps permanently stuck at 11, Electric Jaguar Baby are revving hard into a new era and you’re invited along for the trip.
Emerging once again from the shadows of Gothenburg’s heavy metal underground, LOMMI returns with a vengeance. The Swedish riff-worshipping power trio announces their long-overdue new album 667788, set to be released on August 1st via Majestic Mountain Records.
Following a decade-long hiatus, 667788 is a bold and thunderous statement that marks a fierce new chapter in LOMMI’s evolution. A decade in the making, the record sees the band lean harder than ever into their signature fusion of traditional heavy metal, groove-driven Swedish grit, and no-frills sonic power. The result is their most focused, aggressive, and riff-drenched release to date.
Just recently, LOMMI has unveiled their blistering new single ‘Down’, a heavy-hitting anthem that perfectly captures the band’s trademark intensity and razor-sharp songwriting.
One of the strongest cases in favour of attending shows at local grassroots venues is that a punt may reward by striking pure gold with the discovery of a band that absolutely blows you away. It may be rare, but when it happens… POW! And so it was that a few months ago, I witnessed Glasgow’s Cwfen’s first live performance south of the border in the middle of the lineup for a £6 midweek gig at my local 150-capacity venue. Even before I learned that they were signed to New Heavy Sounds – a label which consistently delivers on the promise of its name, in finding bands which are heavy, but offer something new, something different, and have homed so many outstanding acts through the years – and had some much bigger shows lined up, it was clear that this was a band of rare talent, and who wouldn’t be playing 150-capacity venues for long. On stage, they had that quality that you only know when you see it. And they had songs.
And here they are, recorded in the studio, on their debut album, Sorrows. The huge, riff-driven epics are interspersed with brief incidental instrumental pieces, appropriately entitled ‘Fragment’ and numbered sequentially. The first provides a soft intro before ‘Bodies’ blasts in with seven minutes of supreme chuggage. It’s a gritty hard rock behemoth, but it’s more than just another monolithic riff monster: there’s a shade of goth sensibility about it, not least of all in Agnes’ brooding vocal, but there’s also the brittle-edged lead guitar work, and the song brings a powerful sense of drama and theatricality, building to a rabid, demonic climax… and straight away, it’s apparent that this is something special.
Cwfen have a supreme grasp of dynamics, of mood, of atmosphere, and Sorrows has all of these in spades. Single cut ‘Wolfsbane’ grinds in, meshing together gothy lead guitar, rich with chorus, and reverb-laden vocals which are simultaneously haunting and commanding, while a thunderous bass nails things down tight at the bottom end. Next up is ‘Reliks’, released as their debut single, and it’s different again, an atmospheric mid-tempo song which soars, managing to incorporate elements of classic 80s rock and shoegaze, while at the same time bringing the atmosphere of Fields of the Nephilim. Nothing’s overdone, and nothing’s underdone, either: everything fuses together in perfect balance, while ‘Whispers’ melds 70s rock vibes with a hard rock, delivered with a hint of anthemic power ballad. And in the background, raw banshee screams fill the swell of sound towards the end with pure emotional release. ‘Penance’ brings the weight with thunderous drums, squalling feedback, and a crushing riff behind a demonic howl of a vocal, which switches to achingly magnificent melody for the chorus. ‘Embers’, meanwhile, makes for a megalithic monster of a tune, delivering seven minutes of crushing riffery and standing as the heaviest and maybe one of the most overtly ‘metal’ song in the album – although full-force closer ‘Rite’ plunges deeper into darkness, a blackened anthem by way of a finale to a superlative set.
On Sorrows, Cwfen deliver on their name: magical, mystical, menacing, haunting, dark… but they bring so much more, and certainly do not belong in any given pigeonhole. While this is indisputably a ‘heavy’ album, it’s accessible – without going pop or being overly polished. It’s an album which makes a high-impact first impression, but reveals more depths and layers with subsequent listens. Sorrows is a masterful work, which ventures far and wide in its musical inspirations and touchstones, meaning it’s never samey, never predictable, but at the same time, Cwfen demonstrate an intense focus, forging a sound which is distinctive, rather than derivative. A rare gem, and a standout of 2025 so far.
For his second album under the Evidence of a Struggle moniker, W P C Simmons V a.k.a. Rev. Billy Simmons has managed to recruit a band lineup with some serious pedigree, with Matt Walker (Smashing Pumpkins, Morrissey, of1000faces, Garbage, Filter) on drums and synths, with bass contributions by Alan Berliant (Chris Connelly, Mavis Staples, Saint Asonia) and Solomon Walker (Liz Phair, Bryan Adams, Morrissey). We’ll forgive Walker and Solmon for Mozz – musicians need to work and get paid, after all.
We aired the title track here on Aural Aggravation a little while ago, and it launches the album with all engines blazing, a full-throttle industrial / grunge beast of a cut in the vein of Filter. And from hereon in, things get darker, heavier, and weirder. ‘The Whale’ adds a psychedelic spin to some dense, sludgy riffage, coming on with some hints of Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins, and Queens of the Stone Age in the blend.
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‘Alma’ takes a skipping detour into rippling, expansive electronics, even alluding to prog as it locks into a looping, metronomic groove and serves up an extended guitar solo towards the end of its sprawling six minutes. But there’s a tough, serrated edge which remains consistent throughout. It’s hard to really pinpoint, but there’s a drawl, a sneer, about the vocal, and something about the treatment – be it compression, reverb – that calls to mind Girls Against Boys. Musically, there’s no similarity: in fact, Eddy Derecho is an album that’s difficult to pin down stylistically. There’s a keen 90s vibe to it, in some rather abstract way. It’s a guitar album, but that in itself isn’t it, not by a long shot. I’m almost reluctant to describe it as ‘heavy’, too: the guitars may be big and overdriven and the drums thunderous, but, well, it’s all relative, is my point. What made grunge exciting in the early 90s was that we got to hear music with aggression, angst, and edge, in a mainstream setting: anyone who was in their mid- to late teens or early twenties in in the early 90s had been raised on crisp, clinically-produced music in the charts, and sure, that production was phenomenal in so many ways – listen to Duran Duran’s Rio and it’s truly remarkable just how clean and yet, at the same time, dynamic it sounds. We also grew up with the studio slickness of Phil Collins and the like, and even ‘rock’ was highly polished. It’s no wonder that grunge was an absolute phenomenon. But was it that heavy? Not really, not in comparison to the likes of, say, Earth, or Swans, or, for that matter, early Melvins. Nine Inch Nails smashed everything with Broken and The Downward Spiral, though. Those releases were truly revolutionary. The reason I’ve taken this diversion is because Eddy Derecho is an album which has all the hallmarks of emerging from this musical milieu. The guitars are bold, but it’s not so heavy that you’d shit your pants. It’s edgy and has aggression, but it’s also fairly accessible, in that it has tunes, with tangible structures. There’s melody.
The sinewy ‘Orchan’ is perhaps one of the hardest-hitting tracks on the album: all of the elements just seem to come together to render a sum greater than the parts, and not only is the drumming mighty, but the mix is such that the snare really cuts through in a way that’s rare on contemporary releases.
Despite my enthusiastic focus on aspects of the production, this is by no means an attempt to milk the engorged udders of nostalgia – although if any ‘new’ bands should get a pass for sounding ‘retro’ it’s these guys, since they were there at the time. Eddy Derecho is an album with tunes – and the slow-burning, seven-and-a-half-minute epic ‘Aethyrs’ is a standout among them, a hefty grunger which spins in some Six-era Mansun vibes.
Eddy Derecho may well sound like a lot which has come before – but that’s true of so much music now, inevitably. But what sets it apart is the quality, and the consistency of that quality, and by sprinkling a dash of cosmic pop dust on the top, Evidence of a Struggle have hit a winning formula here.
Southern Italy’s riff-wielding power trio King Potenaz have officially signed to Majestic Mountain Records for the release of their highly anticipated sophomore album Arcane Desert Rituals Vol. 1, due out June 27th, 2025 on both vinyl and digital formats.
To mark the occasion, the band has just unleashed their blistering new single and video for ‘Rivers of Death’, a 10-minute descent into fuzzy doom, psychedelic dread, and scorched-earth riff worship.
“We’re back with a vengeance, unleashing our long-awaited second album, Arcane Desert Rituals Vol. 1! Says the band. "This is our heaviest, most intense work yet — a sonic onslaught that’ll blow your mind. We can’t wait for you to crank it up and dive into the chaos!”
With a sound steeped in the grimy tradition of Electric Wizard, Sleep, and Monster Magnet, King Potenaz blend occult doom, stoner fuzz, and eerie psychedelia into a swirling ritual of sound. “Rivers of Death” is the perfect first taste of what’s to come: hypnotic, devastating, and weird in all the right ways.
Sometimes, when a band has forged its sound with the assistance of quality producers, there’s a niggle of concern when they decide to go it alone. Why are they doing this? Why now? Have they become overconfident in their abilities?
Eva Sheldrake explains the decision: “We’ve worked with incredible producers, and we’ve taken so much from every experience, but with Get With Me, it all came together so naturally that we knew Jude had to produce it. We caught lightning in a bottle—the energy is real, it’s raw, and it’s straight from the heart. The song channels something a lot of women go through but don’t always get the space to talk about. Instead of letting it fester, we flipped it on its head and made it ours. It’s fierce, it’s defiant, and it’s exactly what Eville stands for.”
The fact that it was simply something that happened, that felt right, matters, and that’s significant. More significant, though, is the fact that there was simply no cause for concern, as they’ve absolutely mastered the sound they’re after here. The track dives in with the fattest, filthiest bass grind, and then the guitar is a dense wall of distortion, and then Eva’s vocals are sassy but keenly melodic, and there are layers of harmony in the mix and once again, they’ve mined solid gold. Balancing crunching juggernaut grungy / nu-metal riffery – something about both the sound and structure of the musical elements are reminiscent of Filter here – with a pop sensibility which comes through in the vocals, ‘Get With Me’ has got the lot.
And if the title suggests some kind of schmaltzy romantic allure, think again. This is Eville, and they are not to be fucked with. The mid-section brings all the grunt and threatening fists like a menacing bodyguard looming forward, before the full-throttle finish. The message of ‘Get With Me’ is really ‘get real’ – and it’s driven home hard , with brutal force. Yep, Eville have done it again….
San Francisco punk rock band M.U.T.T. has unleashed their blistering new single ‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ a snarling anthem about embracing sin, seizing chaos, and stepping into the Devil’s shoes to rule the underworld. And the band isn’t stopping there. M.U.T.T. has also announced their brand-new LP, Toughest Street In Town, dropping June 20 via Quiet Panic Records.
The new album is a love letter to the band’s gritty San Francisco neighborhood—a place many outsiders fear, but where M.U.T.T. finds their strength.
Frontman John Jr. says, “I don’t fear my neighborhood, I am inspired by it. I find myself thriving in the mayhem. I walk around the blocks at night ’cause I know I can take care of myself. You gotta have a tough presence and a tough mind in order to survive in this part of the city. Some of you couldn’t last a week on my street. Maybe that’s why I love it so much.”
‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ captures that raw energy and streetwise perspective in full force. As No Echo puts it, the song sounds “like Appetite-era Guns N’ Roses trying to channel the Circle Jerks”—a perfect storm of sleazy glam rock swagger and unfiltered punk attitude. It’s rock ‘n’ roll that doesn’t compromise your punk cred.
Formed from the remains of the critically acclaimed band Culture Abuse, M.U.T.T. includes John Jr., Matt Walker, Isa Anderson, and Shane Plitt—four ex-touring punks with empty pockets and no plans to slow down. Their debut LP Bad To The Bone made noise across underground circles and was praised for its unrelenting, four-chord punk anthems and gritty authenticity.
With Toughest Street In Town, M.U.T.T. continues their journey—hardened, loud, and fiercely loyal to the place that raised them.
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