Posts Tagged ‘Riffs’

Kath & the Kicks – Sleep

Posted: 30 July 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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3rd July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

For so, so long, the UK music industry was so London-centric that it actually hurt. The music press would flock to all the regular London haunts within spitting distance of their offices and declare that they’d just witnessed the next big thing. often, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, because said bands found themselves in the national press, but because London is so huge, they rarely needed to venture beyond the M25. There were moments in time when cities in the North spawned scenes which were simply impossible to ignore – Manchester in the late 70s and again in he 90s, Sheffield in the 80s, and Leeds, also in the 80s – as much as the press tried to look the other way there. But over the last fifteen years or so, Leeds has consistently birthed acts of a remarkable quality.

It’s true that, living in York, I may be prone to a certain Leeds bias of the kind which tinged the London-based press historically, but I still have to travel to the next county to see shows in Leeds, which requires both time, effort, and expenditure. In short, the quality has to be there to motivate me to go. But more to the point, this is not a matter of settling for what’s accessible. In the late 80s and early 90s, I yearned to live in London because it seemed that’s where I needed to be to discover the most happening music. This is not the case anymore: the Leeds scene is positively foaming with exciting acts, more than I can even keep pace with.

During this time of new band emerging on a weekly basis, Kath and the Kicks have been beavering away, building a following through a steady live schedule and a flow of exhilarating releases, the latest of which is ‘Sleep’.

Pitched as being for fans of Skunk Anansie, Siouxsie Sioux, Muse, Guano Apes, No Doubt, and The Runaways, ‘Sleep’ brings together slugging grunge riffery and doomy / goth vocals with a subtle pop edge – that is to say, amidst the ethereality and posed drama, there’s a melodic accessibility. Here, they bring the kind of guitar-driven heft, blended with soaring melody, that invites comparisons to heavier contemporary acts like Cwfen (and given that Sorrows was one of my top albums of 2025, that’s no small compliment).

Their name may carry connotations of a middling, middle-aged pub-rock band, but Kath & The Kicks bring full-throttle power, and properly kick arse with gutsy guitars and a distinctive dynamism, and with ‘Sleep’ they bring it all together into a densely-packed guitar-driven blast. Top drawer.

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Ballpeen – What You Need, What You Deserve

Posted: 28 July 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Just over six years ago, one of my favourite labels, Cruel Nature Records, released Pachinko, the third EP / mini-album from Newcastle noisemongers Ballpeen – a band appropriately named, given their capacity to hammer home heavyweight riffs with bludgeoning brutality. With noise rock, grunge, and hardcore punk all in the mix Pachinko was rabid, raw, primitive, recorded, not produced.

2020 was a productive year for them, with the release of two live recordings and a split EP, and 2021 saw the stop-gap EP Bunch of Sevens, which featured material recorded in 2017 at the same time as their debut release. And then, silence. It transpires that they sadly called it a day some time after this. They’re not the first band to abort before the release of their debut album by any means, but the shock news is that they actually recorded an album which then got ditched.

But now here it is. Ballpeen are no more, but finally, there is closure in the delivery of the lost album, What You Need, What You Deserve. And it’s a beast. Thirteen songs packed into thirty-seven minutes. That’s an average of approximately 2.8 minutes apiece. And into these compressed timescales, they pack in so much energy, so much explosive riffery, and so much… just so much.

The first single, released in May, is also the first track on the album, and from ‘Modern Life is Hell’, it’s immediately apparent just how much they’d evolved from previous releases. It’s by no means polished or pop, but the sound is crisper, denser, the songwriting more sophisticated, a solid hook snaring the listener early, with a sound and style which warrants comparisons with Hawk Eyes, who are also now sadly missed. And the sentiment probably resonates more powerfully now than when it was recorded. How times have changed – and not for the better. We thought the pandemic was hell – because it was. But little could we have anticipated what was to come.

What follows is nothing short of a gut-busting guitar-driven blast. ‘Unit Three’ amalgamates the steely nihilism and sinewy strain of Kowloon Walled City with a thick bass-driven grunge heft. There are some neat descending bass runs in the second half of the song which remind me of something else, but we’re into the squalling wall of feedback that drives ‘Poverty of Ambition; before my brain has remotely got itself into gear. But ballpeen are very much in gear: there’s no mid-album slump, no breath-catching ballad here. Instead of slowing the pace, they crank up the distortion and stoke up the rage.

The bass on the intro to ‘Engram Theory’ is nothing short of rib-rattling, a chunky, clunky, bruising assault of pure density, reminiscent of Shellac, for sure, but closer to that of Blacklisters with their original bassist – which is a fair comparison for the song as a whole, really, and it provides a welcome reminder of just how the North of England has been so strong in its generation of noisy bands over the last fifteen ears or so. Seattle and Chicago have the longstanding reputation for their scenes, but we’re looking back to the late eighties and early nineties for their heydays: more recently, Leeds and Newcastle have proven to be the crucial hotspots, and Ballpeen’s contribution is strong. The belated arrival of What You Need, What You Deserve only cements this view.

Second advance single, ‘Ukiah’ is yet another fiery onslaught, and compels one to consider what might have been. It’s true that such speculation is futile, and instead of mourning, we should be grateful, and the juddering riff of ‘Crossing Waters’ provides every reason to be grateful. It hits so hard, it makes you sweat. There isn’t a weak moment on What You Need, What You Deserve. In fact, there’s barely a moment to catch breath. It’s intense, alright.

There can be little doubt that it’s best to quit while you’re on top, kill things while you’re at the peak of your game (Nirvana perhaps took that a bit too literally, but Big Black are a fine example of a band who left a concise but unsullied legacy). And to the list, we can now add Ballpeen, a band who demonstrably saved their best for last.

What You Need, What You Deserve needs to be heard. It’s all killer and no filler, and more – and it doesn’t just go all the way to eleven: it starts at eleven and works its way up over its skull-cracking thirty-seven minutes. It’s the good shit alright, hitting with enough force as to dislodge your fillings.

This must surely be their legacy.

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Watch: ‘These Blades’ by Leper Colony

Posted: 14 July 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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LEPER COLONY drop the first brutal advance track ‘These Blades’ taken from the deadly international trio’s new full-length Back to Primal Sludge. The third album of these death metal fanatics has been slated for release on October 9, 2026.

LEPER COLONY comment on ‘These Blades’: “This ferocious track whips uptempo filth your way and opens up a new breathing hole in your neck”, shred-master Rogga Johansson claims. “Meaty, fully fleshed-out riffs, mercilessly pounding drums, and a brutal vocal delivery deluxe are included. For us, ‘These Blades’ creates a perfect equilibrium between the American and Swedish approaches to death metal.”

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LEPER COLONY hold firm and relentlessly soldier on in their unholy quest to create the perfect equilibrium between the Floridian and Stockholm styles of old school death metal on their third full-length Back to Primal Sludge.

This defines Back to Primal Sludge in many ways as a direct continuation of their sophomore album Those of the Morbid (2025). Yet, there are twists and tweaks in the details. While the previous release offered a handful of references to deadly German influences, these have been further reduced just as the second album had dropped the classic thrash elements from the self-titled LEPER COLONY debut (2023).

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Mortem – Mørketid

Posted: 30 June 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Peaceville – 3rd July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, you just need some metal, and the heavier and more extreme the better. This is something I only realised quite some way into adulthood. Perhaps it’s – at least in part – because the only metal I was exposed to as a youth in the 80s was chart or otherwise popular stuff like Iron Maiden, which struck me as corny and excessively widdly. It wasn’t until I started listening to John Peel in the 90s that I heard anything really fucking brutal, and grindcore proved to be a gateway of sorts. But even after that, so much metal felt a bit tame and rather like it was trying to hard to be menacing. It’s only through further exposure in my capacity as a reviewer that I’ve come to appreciate the myriad shades of metal and its cathartic qualities, particularly in a live setting.

I can immerse myself in ambience as a means of escape as happily as anyone, and often do. The tranquil, immersive experience is often soothing and transportative, even meditative and soporific. But there are times when a furious, guitar-driven blast of nihilism is what’s required. And with Mørketid, that’s precisely what Mortem deliver.

Although formed in 1989, amidst the most nascent bubblings of the swamp that would spawn the infamous Norwegian black metal scene, their first demo being produced by Euronymous and Dead of Mayhem, but they fizzled out fast, and it wasn’t until 2019 that they reconvened and recorded their debut album Ravnsvart. They could never be praised for striking while the iron’s hot, so to speak, but to toss another cliché, good things come to those who wait, and after nearly seven years of waiting, Mørketid has no weak spots whatsoever, with eight searing, lacerating sonic assaults that hit with an unrepentant fury.

It’s the six-minute title track that bursts in, all guns blazing, to announce the album’s arrival, after a dark ambient instrumental intro that makes way for thousand-miles-per-hour guitar and drums, rasping vocals and some rather playful but simultaneously sinister keyboard work. It’s quintessential black metal, but with a broader sonic vision and some tidier production. This is to the album’s benefit: there’s an abundance of vision on display, and it would be a shame to lose the detail to production that makes it sound like it was recorded from the next room on a 90s phone. That isn’t to say it’s overproduced – far from it. On Mørketid, everything is cranked up to eleven and it hits with all the force the music deserves.

The driving, dynamic ‘Skyggeånd’ is – in the main – slower in comparison to the majority of the album, and its seven-and-a-half-minute expanse is rich in atmosphere and strong on power, which makes for an album standout.

For the most part, Mørketid is simply relentless, double-pedal drumming and a blanket of overdriven chords provide a backdrop to vocals ripped from Satan’s very own larynx. It’s dark and it rages, hard. One could have readily forgiven and accepted an album of template-based black metal from Mortem given their back-story – but instead, Mørketid is an album that ventures forth in the most unexpected of directions. Sure, it’s black metal all the way, and that’s quire as it should be. But Mortem bring something more. And that more is the detail and compositional skills that make Mørketid a cut above.

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Darkthrone – Pre-Historic Metal

Posted: 29 June 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Peaceville – 8th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The arrival of Pre-Historic Metal marks forty years of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto’s musical collaboration, initially as Black Death, the album’s back cover proudly boasting ‘No metronome since 1987’. The images which accompany the lyrics in the CD’s booklet depict damp logs, thick, verdant moss, and the centrepiece is a misty shot of what appears to be the remains of a stone circle – or just a rocky clearing – in a forest, where the band are lurking, shadowy figures in the background. It’s all a fair indication – or forewarning – of what Pre-Historic Metal, an album pitched as ‘the new studio album of primitive metal from the Norse cavemen’ is all about.

As Fenriz himself proclaims of the title’s symbolic origin, “Prehistoric is a loose term. I just figure it’s our VIBE, our take on things and it’s more a statement that we use old style to create something new”. It sets their stall out nicely, and prepares the listener for precisely what Darkthrone deliver, which is, quite simply, forty-one minutes of relentless, riff-driven metal.

There are twists and turns galore during each and every song, opener ‘They Found one of My Graves’ packing in some well-placed breakdowns and flourishes into its five and a quarter minutes, wedging these moments tight between the thunderous overdrive and gnarly guttural vocals, drawing together elements of Black Metal and Thrash in a completely natural fashion. The title is a hell-for-leather blast of blistering overload, which suddenly becomes a doomy pagan ritual, the commanding vocals booming through cavernous reverb amidst a chthonic growl of barbarically brutal guitar.

The seven-minute ‘Siberian Thaw’ takes the basic principles of a grunge riff and slows it to a glacial crawl, adding some Sabbath-influenced doom drone to its sludgy trudgery. And yes, they do the thing of picking up the pace to that of a solid headbang before bringing the riff back slow and low and denser than before. It’s a tried and tested template, and they play it to perfection, spinning a meandering prog mid-section before blasting in with the pulverizing grind segment that makes you go ‘hell yes!’ before, of course, finally, going back to the starting point.

The album’s second six-minute epic, ‘The Dry Wells of Hell’ plays out a delicate, atmospheric intro, and strikes a more theatrical stance all round, pitching some bold, soaring vocal melodic moments amidst the demonic snarling and the vibe is unmistakably and unashamedly vintage. But the joy of Pre-Historic Metal is that it’s not specifically one thing or another, but a curated catalogue of metal. And they don’t put a foot wrong.

Sure, if you’ve listened to enough metal, you’ve heard it all before, in various permutations, but that’s the point. Pre-Historic Metal is about execution rather than innovation, and every single riff lands in a way that absolutely hits the spot.

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Listen: ‘Malengine (The Scaffold)’ by Solace

Posted: 11 June 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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SOLACE offer a doom-laden glimpse of vintage heavy metal with the final advance track, ‘Malengine (The Scaffold)’, taken from their highly anticipated fifth full-length Fading Failing Ruin that is set for release on July 3, 2026.

SOLACE comment: “When I came up with the opening riff to ‘Malengine’, I really liked it”, guitarist Tommy Southard declares and explains: “The song felt moody and doomy with a certain sorrowful tone, but when I brought it to the band they had a hard time wrapping their heads around it. I guess it was in an odd time signature. Our other guitarist Justin presented it to some friends with deep formal knowledge of music, and they analysed that the first half of the riff is in 9/8 and the second half is 11/8! Once everyone had figured out the groove of the riff, the song really started taking shape. I really love all the twists and turns. It’s got doom. It’s got some metal flourishes and a killer kinda psych section. It went from maybe a song that wasn’t going to work to the final composition turning out as one of my faves songs on Fading Falling Ruin. This track comes with almost every element that makes Solace who we are. I sincerely hope people find it as interesting as we do.”

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SOLACE deliver their fifth studio album Fading Failing Ruin just in time to celebrate the anniversary of their 30th year as a band. And all the heaviness, experience, and obvious maturity of their songwriting across three decades is perfectly reflected in the seeming ease with which these master craftsmen hammer out one captivating and crushing track after the other.
Revolving around apocalyptic, infernal, and end time themes that easily fit this day and age, Fading Failing Ruin nails the current global mood by taking a strong dose of inspiration from the earliest days of metal and blending it with contemporary heaviness.

A direct link goes back to 1996, when SOLACE rose from the ashes of GODSPEED, who made their name on Headbanger’s Ball and Beavis & Butthead, appeared on the Nativity in Black tribute backing Bruce Dickinson, and toured with CATHEDRAL and BLACK SABBATH. Emerging at the dawn of the internet and the burgeoning stoner rock scene, SOLACE were driven by hardcore-infused metal, captivating vocals, and a dark doom underbelly.

The New Jersey band hit the scene with their ferocious debut Further in 2000. Its tracks remain as contemporary and relevant as in those early days, and an extended and re-mastered 25th anniversary edition became an unplanned but much deserved tribute to brilliant yet tortured original SOLACE vocalist Jason L., who had sadly passed away in January 2025. 
SOLACE continued to build on a solid foundation of classic metal, early doom, and punk ethic into which the four-piece infused a healthy dose of hardcore fury and groovy, grinding sludge.

Three years after the worldwide success of Further, SOLACE returned with the sophomore album 13 (2003), which highlighted the epic side of their songwriting. In the wake of this album, the band was invited twice to perform at the prestigious Roadburn Festival in 2006 and 2009.

The shoremen returned with their highly praised third album A.D. in 2010. Despite the band’s growing acclaim, SOLACE took an informal hiatus to revamp their lineup, returning even stronger with full-length number four, The Brink, in 2019.

SOLACE have called their amalgamation of doom and heavy metal with hardcore elements dirt metal, while elsewhere it has been somewhat tongue-in-cheekily dubbed shorecore. Others file the New Jersey five-piece under stoner metal – and in truth, all these descriptions have and still fit the band to an extent.

With Fading Failing Ruin, SOLACE erect a new milestone of US heavy metal that respects traditions from both sides of the Atlantic while churning toward a chaotic future. Time to bang those heads!

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs / Meryl Streek – The Crescent Community Centre, York, 14th May 2026

Posted: 15 May 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Once again, I’ve returned to my home from witnessing fantastic acts performing live with a few photos, and barely any notes. This is what happens when the bands are so good you just spend the entire set, transfixed, and when between acts, when you might otherwise capture a few thoughts, you see people you know, and in between a piss and a fresh pint, the time’s gone. I can’t complain about any of this, of course, and I’m not going to. Because this summarises everything that’s great about going to see live music in grassroots venues – not just seeing great bands in close proximity and being able to afford not only a pint, but more than one (you can buy two decent hand-pulled pints of local / regional beer here for the price of a single pint of mass-produced stuff at The Barbican or Leeds O2), but running into familiar faces and being part of a community of people who support live music and are properly into going to see bands.

I’m writing this up now having just seen that The Crescent in York has been named by Time Out as one of the 42 greatest independent venues in the UK, making the Top 10, no less, sharing a bracket with the likes of The Brudenell, Café Oto, and Glasgow Barrowlands. And the more I reflect, the more I feel it’s more than deserved. It really is that good, in that it has everything you could possibly want from an independent gig venue – and tonight is exemplary. It’s sold out, and the bar’s packed a good half an hour before doors, plus there’s a queue, meaning it’s filled up nicely by the time Meryl Streek takes the stage at 8.

Meryl Streek is a revelation, and a world away from Pigs stylistically, sonically, in terms of performance… and this is a strong positive. For one man with a backing track, he sure does a good job of making up for the absence of a band, constantly pacing back and forth with a frenetic, kinetic, nervous energy. The set is strewn with samples and recordings of news items, predominantly about suicide and murder, prefacing or integrated within songs on the same. Real people are the subjects, and he pours heart and soul into every word. The vocal style is not exactly rapping, and certainly not singing, but essentially agitated ranting over electronic-based tracks with sturdy bass and booming beats. At times it’s near disco, others quite abrasive noise. He apologises for the content, and for – well, I’m not quite sure what for. The crowd’s behind him (even when he’s off the stage and in the middle of them, if you see what I mean) and deservedly so. Musically entertaining, lyrically harrowing, it’s a strong set.

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Meryl Streek

AC/DC’s ‘For Those About to Rock’ is played in full as an intro before Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – or Pigs x 7 as they tend to be more commonly referred to, for obvious reasons – take to the stage. It’s an apposite choice: we are indeed, about to fucking rock.

Their back line is immense. The sound is beyond immense, and they blast out riff after riff after riff. They roll up all of the best of riff monsters and chuck in some space rock for good measure, resulting in a glorious hybrid of Sabbath, Mötörhead, and Hawkwind. And while on the face of it, there’s nothing unique on offer, when it comes to riffs, size matters, and these guys do riffs on a truly galactic scale. The delivery really makes it, though. The bass and drums are locked in tight, and the two guitarists swap effortlessly between lead and rhythm parts, sometimes both playing both.

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs

Matt Baty, in shorts and vest, dripping with sweat (and the copious water he pours over himself) adopts a stance like Henry Rollins as he hollers into a vortex of reverb. But given his build, and tendency to bounce lightfootedly and strike random poses, it’s more like watching Barry McGuigan doing Freddie Mercury on Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes. They’re a band who clearly don’t take themselves too seriously, and every three or four songs – hammered out back to back – there’s a pause for breath, during which he relays a tale in three or four parts which is more or less about the fact that they’ve never been invited to play Download Festival (cue pantomime booing and hissing from the crowd). This is very much Download’s loss. There’s also a reference to ‘The hardest man in Billingham’ – which happens to be a song by fellow northeasters IRKED, who we welcomed to York only last week. There’s some good stuff happening up there right now, and it’s great that we get to share in this. In fact, despite the fact that the world is insane and there’s war everywhere, the cost of living is crippling, and pubs and venues are closing at an alarming rate, this is a good time for new music.

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Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs

As they’re touring to promote their (fairly) recently-released fifth album, it stands to reason that the set should focus on that, opening with ‘The Wyrm’ and playing pretty much the album in its entirety, with occasional delves into the back-catalogue, with ‘Big Rig’, ‘Mr Medicine’ and ‘Ultimate Hammer’ from Land of Sleeper also making an appearance and ‘GNT’ from 2018’s King of Cowards being the oldest song in the set. No-one’s beefing about the setlist: the new album is a corker and live, they slay from start to finish. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs = Riffs Riffs Riffs Riffs Riffs Riffs Riffs, and tonight’s show was an absolute rip-snorter.

Froglord / Space Pistol / Troll Mother – The Fulford Arms, York, 21st April 2026

Posted: 22 April 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Suspicious Liquid had originally been down to open this evening’s dark proceedings, but they’ve been replaced by Troll Mother. While not getting to see Suspicious Liquid again is disappointing, southern power sludge duo Troll Mother are everything their name suggests… or are they? They’re more Mötörhead than Melvins, with a hardcore punk edge in places. They also boast an absolutely fucking MASSIVE drum kit, meaning that when the drummer takes on vocal duties – something they share – it’s not always immediately obvious because he’s largely obscured by a huge bank of toms and a swathe of cymbals. They make a cracking racket, too, with next to no pauses for the full duration of their half-hour set.

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Troll Mother

Space Pistol bring the riffs, and they do evoke Melvins, as well as Faith No More, and Hawk Eyes, among others. The three are decked out in matching orange boiler suits and the bassist, who has a board with about 36 pedals plays with his face. He also leaps and bounds – and yes, positively cavorts – about the stage with a flamboyance that’s uncommon to a bad that are this big on hefty riffs. There are false endings galore, and at one point they lock statue-like positions and maintain silence for maybe a good twenty seconds, during which time you could hear a pin drop. They absolutely love this, to the extent that it seems that this moment is a career high point for them. Since they’ve come all the way from Milton Keynes for this, we’re pleased that York is a memorable show for them, and I’m pretty sure they’d be welcome back up here any time.

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Space Pistol

Froglord, meanwhile, are making a return visit after just eleven months. The concept is pretty ludicrous, the stage show even more so: a stoner / doom band all about amphibians, kitted out in masks and arranging their sets as some form of swamp-centric ritual. The fact that they’ve eked this out across six albums now is nothing short of remarkable. But the fact that every show is an event, shaped by that sense of occasion and ritual is part of the appeal – that and the fact the performances are entertaining and they really know how to riff.

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Froglord

But there is a certain serious element to the band (not that heavyweight sludgy riffs in themselves aren’t serious), in that they’re genuinely eco-conscious, and their frog fixation isn’t all just japes, with 100% of the proceeds from digital sales of their new album, Lower & Slower Vol 1, released in March, are being donated to the Waterfowl & Wetland Trust (WWT) – the wetland charity, as well as 50% of all physical media and merch profits. Or, as they put it, ‘At it’s [sic] core, Froglord have always been an environmentally [sic]-driven band. Through their fundraising and tale of an amphibious deity, reeking vengenace [sic] on humanity for the environmental destruction they caused.’ Personally, I like them even more for this. Once could reasonably argue that just a handful of the world’s billionaires could eradicate poverty and save the planet and not even notice a reduction in lifestyle and that Froglord’s sales aren’t even a drop in a puddle in comparison, but that’s not the point: the point is that these guys actually care, and are using their platform for good.

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Froglord

They also put on a great show. It’s no huge development on the last time around: their website positions it as follows: ‘Returning with brand new masks, costumes, and a 6th studio album, Froglord deliver another massive offering of amphibious swamp doom. Recorded live in the studio in a single take, Lower & Slower briefly pauses the band’s concept storytelling of the Tale of The Froglord saga, instead revisiting six previously released tracks from across their discography’. And the fact is, it works: tonight’s performance feels very much like a consolidation, and they seem particularly focused, the set’s structure absolutely honed to perfection in every way. They drop a powerful cover of ‘Iron Man’ early in the second half of the set, and in many ways, this speaks for itself. The bassist plays wearing a frog glove puppet for a while, and after the ritual circulating of the giant rubber toad later in the set, said toad is then used to bash bass strings before eventually tucked in the crook of an elbow in a more friendly fashion for a time.

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Froglord

Admirably, they never break character for a moment: this is outstanding theatre. It’s also outstanding, riff-driven fun. All hail the Froglord!

Listen: ‘Desolation’s Wake’ by Restless Spirit

Posted: 9 April 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Restless Spirit present the final advance single, ‘Desolation’s Wake’, taken from their forthcoming self-titled album. Restless Spirit is chalked up for release on May 8, 2026.

In further news, Restless Spirit have announced a massive co-headling US-tour with GOZU to take place in May & June this year.

Restless Spirit comment: “We’re beyond excited to take the new songs on the road after working so hard to create what we feel is our best album to date”, vocalist and guitarist Paul Aloisio states. “We’re already curating a setlist that will cater to fans of all eras of the band, both old and new. By joining forces with Gozu there will be an abundance of heaviness each night and that we know for a fact!”

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Restless Spirit comment on the new single: “With ‘Desolation’s Wake’ we present the fastest song of our new record”, Paul Aloisio writes on behalf of the band. “This track is pure energy and fury, and it comes with one of my favorite choruses that we’ve ever written. Interestingly, ‘Desolation’s Wake’ was pretty difficult to nail despite it being one of our simpler tracks – at least, we thought it was that! Everyone will be able to hear it live on the upcoming US tour that we’re co-headlining with Gozu.”

With their self-titled full-length, Restless Spirit have reached a point in their career where the band of friends from Long Island, New York knows exactly who they are and where they stand. As the eight tracks on Restless Spirit are the most distilled version of what the trio is about, they saw no need for further explanation in the title.

So, what are Restless Spirit about? Pure metal, no more, no less. Born from the steel mills of Birmingham this musical style has deep English working class roots that the East Coast outfit translates into an American sonic slang with elements from desert and stoner metal and even the occasional progressive flourish. As a result, they seamlessly merge classic heavy solos with roaring guitars and a pinch of psychedelic fuzz.

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RESTLESS SPIRIT live US 2026 with GOZU
24 MAY 2026 Providence (US) Alchemy
26 MAY 2026 Rochester (US) Photo City
27 MAY 2026 Erie (US) Centennial Hall
29 MAY 2026 Lansing (US) The Green Door
30 MAY 2026 Chicago (US) Reggies Music Joint
31 MAY 2026 Minneapolis (US) 7th St Entry
02 JUN 2026 Kansas City (US) The Record Bar
03 JUN 2026 Denver (US) HQ
05 JUN 2026 Boise (US) The Shredder
06 JUN 2026 Seattle (US) The Funhouse
07 JUN 2026 Portland (US) High Water Mark
09 JUN 2026 Sacramento (US) Cafe Colonial
11 JUN 2026 Los Angeles (US) Knucklehead
16 JUN 2026 Austin (US) The Lost Well
17 JUN 2026 New Orleans (US) Siberia
18 JUN 2026 Nashville (US) Eastside Bowl
19 JUN 2026 Atlanta (US) Bogg’s Social & Supply
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Melvins with Napalm Death – Savage Imperial Death March

Posted: 5 April 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Ipecac Recordings – 10th April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

What better pairing could there possibly be than the gods of grindcore paired with the supreme lords of sludge? It’s hard to think of one. They’ve toured together under the Imperial Death March banner in 2016 and 2025, but this is their first release together – and it’s not a split album, but a truly collaborative work, featuring members of both bands. It was recorded at the Melvins’ Los Angeles studio, with Buzz Osborne (vocals/guitar) and Dale Crover (drums) joined by Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway (vocals), Shane Embury (bass), and John Cooke (guitar).

And as advance single releases ‘Tossing Coins into the Fountain of Fuck’ and ‘Rip the God’ forewarned, so it is that Savage Imperial Death March is one absolute fucking beast of an album. It’s ‘Tossing Coins’ that kicks it off, a rabid overload of guitar mayhem, grindy riffery and wild guitar breaks underpinned by dingy riffs, all played at breakneck speed. Greenway gives guttural growls all the way and it’s nothing short of a sonic blitzkrieg. It’s very much a positive to summarise it as being a sum of the parts.

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The nine and a half minute ‘Some Kind of Antichrist’ is much more Melvins – with the weight of Bullhead, but as if the 33rpm album was being played at 45: thick, megalithic, speaker splitting riffs, but on Red Bull, and Buzzo’s hyper vocal countered by Greenway’s salivating growl. It’s a wild, filthy mess, and it goes on, and on, and it’s fucking fantastic – even when, or especially when, it goes weird about four minutes in. because weird is, good, and Melvins are good at being weird. Sometimes, they’re not quite so good at being weird, as the Prick and the ‘Cowboy’ single attest, but like they give a fuck. Melvins have always pleased themselves, and that’s reason enough to love them, if not necessarily all of their releases. You could hardly call Napalm Death crowd pleasers, either, and their lineup’s as been as evolutionary as their sound.

‘Awful Handwriting’ is a brief experimental electro-led interlude that’s daft and noisy in equal measure, and stands in total contrast to the grungey post-metal crossover of ‘Nine Days of Rain’ which immediately follows. Credit where it’s due, this album brings some stylistic surprises which sound like neither band, let alone what you’d expect from the two combined, and this is very much one of those songs.

After the sludge-grunge of ‘Rip the God’ which marks the start of the album’s second half and is very much on the side of the Melvins’ style, there’s a rush into the fast and furious, and while it’s wild and heavy and full-on and loud, it’s also fun, and entirely serious, it is not. With operatic vocals and bold, cinematic synths, ‘Comparison is the Thief of Joy’ leans very much toward the experimental side, while the final track, ‘Death Hour’ just goes all out of the riffery and guitar overload, with raving raw-throated vocals courtesy of Greenway sitting alongside Buzzo giving it his most Ozzy, before once again, shit gets weird. It’s as if they can’t help themselves. Ach, we’ve done some riffs, let’s fuck shit up and go weird… yeah, man. And why not? Neither band has anything to prove after all this time. And now it’s time to embrace the strange… but the keyboard riff from Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ played limply at the end…? That might be a step too far.

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