Legendary Italian experimental trio Zu recently announced their return with Ferrum Sidereum (produced by Marc Urselli), a big and bold double album arriving on House of Mythology on the 9th January.
The music combines the complexity of progressive rock, the grit of industrial music, the precision of metal, the spirit and energy of punk, and the freedom of jazz. The result is a sonic journey that is as cerebral as it is visceral, defying easy categorisation while remaining unmistakably Zu.
Today they share the new single and video for ‘Kether’ – about which the band comments,
“Kether is the crown, the halo, the nimbus, the corona. Since it has been symbolically attacked, we symbolically take it back.The golden crown became the sign of kings, but it is a much older and deeper symbol, and it is at anyone’s reach to reactivate the crown.”
Swiss death & thrash metal fanatics TOTAL ANNIHILATION unveil the music video ‘Beneath the Cross’ as the final advance single taken from the forthcoming new album Mountains of Madness. Their fourth full-length is slated for release in the band’s 20th anniversary year, on January 16, 2026.
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TOTAL ANNIHILATION comment on ‘Beneath the Cross’: “When we wrote this song, the topic of the lyrics was very important to me”, guitarist Jürgen Schmid states. “I felt an urgent need to put this old story back on the table again. This song deals with religions selling hope to their clients in order to manipulating them and filling up their treasuries in the basements of their temples. This one goes out to all those holier-than-thou Christians. There is no paradise! In death there is only darkness – so better take care of your own life and stop telling others what is right or wrong! As a fun fact for all music nerds: The melody that stands out in the middle of ‘Beneath the Cross’ is actually quite old. I wrote this tune at the age of twelve or thirteen and ever since I have been searching for the perfect match to put it in. Here we are – and I am very happy with the result. Hopefully, you will like it too!”
Progressive rock quartet Dhärä return today with their expansive new single ‘A PLACE IN TIME, (the entities, divided)’, offering the next glimpse into their forthcoming full-length album Elemental Four, arriving January 11, 2026.
Known for their immersive instrumental storytelling and dynamic compositions, Dhärä continue to push beyond strict genre boundaries on ‘A PLACE IN TIME, (the entities, divided).’ The track unfolds with patience and atmosphere before erupting into driving rhythms, soaring guitar interplay, and a powerful sense of momentum—highlighting the band’s signature balance between precision, emotion, and scale.
The band shares: “This is the opening of our concept album Elemental Four. ‘A PLACE IN TIME, (the entities, divided)’ introduces many themes that are heard throughout the album. This album is also a concert movie that features five ballerinas who perform modern lyrical dance to the music. Elemental Four is a journey of four entities whose world is shaken by a meteor which threatens their existence. They are separated by a great earthquake, and the only path to saving the planet and themselves is to unify and summon The Conduit, whose power can hopefully vanquish the threat.”
Watch the video for ‘The conduit, A PLACE IN TIME’ here:
Born in the shadow of Oxford’s dreaming spires and forged in a haze of down-tuned amplifiers, UK heavyweights Indica Blues return in 2026 with their most ambitious and apocalyptic work to date. Their long-awaited new album, Universal Heat Death, will be released on January 31 via digital platforms and CD, marking the band’s first full-length since their critically acclaimed second album We Are Doomed.
To herald the album’s arrival, Indica Blues unveil their new single ‘The Raven’, a towering slab of blues-soaked doom that captures the band at their most urgent and expansive. Driven by crushing riffs, haunting dual-guitar interplay, and a foreboding atmosphere, the track sets the tone for an album obsessed with collapse, consequence, and the slow grind toward oblivion.
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Since forming in 2014, Indica Blues have carved out a formidable reputation as one of the UK’s most compelling psychedelic doom-stoner hybrids, once described as “bong-filling rock that is platinum heavy, but blessed with a melodic sensibility underneath it all.” Their sound, a molten blend of fuzz-drenched blues, doom, sludge, and psychedelic melancholy has earned them devoted fans worldwide and praise from both underground tastemakers and major publications.
Their previous album, We Are Doomed, received 4 stars in Kerrang!, reached No. 4 in the Doom Charts, and proved eerily prophetic: an apocalypse-themed record released just as the first wave of the global pandemic brought the world to a halt.
“We’re looking forward to touring Universal Heat Death*, and hope no cataclysmic world events stop us this time,” laughs bassist Andy Haines.
Projekt Records artist Lowsunday emerges with their first record comprised of all-new material since 1999, bridging three decades of distinct sonic legacy. The Low Sunday Ghost Machine – White EP delves into emotional isolation, this music laced with a counterbalance of escapism, dreamlike sounds, drones and feedback, with carefully-placed classic song structures with melodic hooks. This is the first of a two-EP series being released via Projekt.
Based in Pittsburgh, Lowsunday is now a duo made up of Shane Sahene (vocals, guitar, synth, bass, drums) and Bobby Spell (bass, guitar, drums), this EP serving as both a reflection and a resurgence. The band also presents their new video for ‘Love Language’.
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Blurring the lines between post-punk, shoegaze, dreampop, and darkwave since 1994, Lowsunday brings something new to the music scene, treading sonic waters with screeching guitars and layer upon layer of arsenic-laced melodies, crowned with bittersweet and emotive vocals. From quiet intensity to sweeping sonic landscapes, Lowsunday makes a welcome return with their retro-futurist daydream.
The White EP demonstrates a connection to the band’s history while showcasing a natural expansion that builds upon guitar-driven atmospheres, synth textures, emotive vocals and stripped down drum beats. A confident return to form that explores darker yet more expansive sonic territory, at times, they push atmospheres to the limits of noise and, at more delicate moments, into a dream pop air of deeper melancholia.
Sahene and Spell distill years of sonic exploration and inspiration into this release. Lyrically and sonically, these songs use classic post-punk rhythms and atmospheric layers to express simple, fundamental emotion.
This five-track EP arrives on the trail of the extended 30th anniversary remaster of their debut album Low Sunday Ghost Machine a 2-CD feast recorded at the height of their ascent. The original nine tracks are complemented by a second disc with seven unreleased tracks, remixes and reinterpretations. Projekt also released the 25th anniversary remaster of their sophomore album Elesgiem in 2024.
Society is in a shambles, fascism is in fashion, and the Ultra Heavy Beat remains resolute and resolved to rise up and rip the system! 42 years of conceptual continuity and distinction through diversity, KMFDM are back, declaring themselves the ‘ENEMY’ with their 24th album! It is out on 6th February 2026, two weeks before the band begins a previously announced and almost sold-out European tour.
‘OUBLIETTE’ is out today (12th December) as the first single from ENEMY. From the French word ‘oublier’, meaning ‘to forget’, an oubliette is a dungeon with the only access being via a trapdoor in its ceiling. Perfect constructed from a captor’s perspective, detection and escape are more or less impossible. “A place to be forgotten,” the band simply state. “What nobody sees, nobody knows.”
Kommanded by the songwriting and vocal power of Sascha ‘Käpt’n K’ Konietzko and Lucia Cifarelli, and backed by the percussive onslaught of Andy Selway, KMFDM is now joined by London six-string slinger Tidor Nieddu bringing his own bold and vivid guitar flavours. Having hypnotised audiences on the band’s 40th anniversary tour with her rendition of ‘Professional Killer’, Annabella Konietzko also appears with her own hit-list on the explosive ‘YOÜ’, marking her songwriting debut with the group.
Never a band to take the easy path, ENEMY delivers some of KMFDM’s most stylistically challenging and politically scathing material yet; from the dance/rock melodicism of ‘OUBLIETTE’ to the darkened grooves of ‘CATCH & KILL’, the satirical brute force thrash of ‘OUTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION’ to the vicious and hyperbolic industrial metal of ‘L’ETAT’, and the funky throb of ‘VAMPYR’ to the cheeky dub of ‘STRAY BULLET 2.0’.
KMFDM keeps moving, dancing on the blood-dimmed tide, roaring as a rough beast to make noise against a world that demands the silence of ignorance. Join the Ultra Heavy Beat and make yourself the ENEMY of hypocrisy, discrimination and injustice!
Foetus has unveiled the first material from the forthcoming final album. When JG Thirlwell told us at Aural Agravationit was going to be ‘epic’, he wasn’t kidding. AS if we ever thought he might have been.
‘Succulence’ is featured on the imminent new Foetus album HALT. All instruments on this track played by JG Thirlwell except drums, which are played by Brian Chase of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Play it LOUD!
German-born, Ireland-based musician DAMIEN CAIN returns this winter with Standarte, an atmospheric, emotionally charged alt-rock album available from today December 12th on the main digital streaming services. Now living in Co. Laois, the artist describes the record as “the most honest and personal work I’ve ever made,” a project shaped as much by his three decades in music as by the new creative grounding he found in Ireland.
In order to celebrate his new effort, DAMIEN CAIN released the music videos for the songs ‘Fascinating Face’ and the title-track. A dark, emotional fusion of nu-metal and emo rock, ‘Fascinating Face’ the song explores the feeling of being trapped between denial and desire, telling yourself you’re not in love anymore, while every memory still pulls you back in. The video reflects this tension: a stream of hyper-real faces emerging from darkness, each one holding a different emotion: longing, fear, hope, desire, regret. Behind them, subtly woven into the shadows, DAMIEN CAIN appears singing the song, as if haunting their memories… or being haunted by his own. It creates an unintended, but powerful illusion: as though the story plays out inside the minds of the people on screen, and inside the places we hide our unsaid feelings. ‘Fascinating Face’ is about the intimacy we try to forget, the seconds we sealed inside us, the scent, the skin, the breath – the pieces of someone we carry even when we insist we’ve moved on.
The title-track goes back to ‘Wallenstein’, a song from the early ’90s. DAMIEN CAIN explained that “the original ‘Wallenstein’ was inspired by Salvador Dalí’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. It was my protest song against war, power, and blind faith – written when I was twenty and full of rage and questions. The new song continues that thread, but from a different angle. It’s still a protest, but now it’s also a reflection. I’m angry about the same things, but I’ve learned to turn that anger into poetry instead of noise.”
You’re being watched… Los Angeles rockers CRYMWAV have unleashed new single ‘Speak No Evil’ ft. Roman Jugg (The Damned), and it’s accompanied by a video directed by Joe Cardamone, formerly of The Icarus Line.
‘Speak No Evil’ is about creeping fascism, big tech, and the sense that you’re always being watched, so watch what you say… The mood is dark, but the music and message hit hard, stamped with CRYMWAV’s signature twist on the classic rock sound. New drummer Pat Muzingo (Junkyard) kicks things off with a Jerry Nolan–esque drum intro, while a gothic piano/harpsichord break courtesy of former Damned guitarist/keyboardist Roman Jugg injects the haunting spirit of Phantasmagoria.
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Formed in Los Angeles in 2022 from the ashes of glam rockers Smash Fashion, CRYMWAV (pronounced Crimewave) is the brainchild of lead singer/songwriter Roger Deering. With roots in the American hardcore scene of the 1980s and influences spanning punk, post-punk, goth, NWOBHM, Thin Lizzy, UFO, and The Ruts, Deering recalls how the project first sparked, “I was staying in London about four years ago when a songwriting spree hit me. I wanted to channel the spirit of bands from that area—Hawkwind, The Clash, Killing Joke, Motörhead. I came back to LA with a fistful of songs, and CRYMWAV was born.”
That vision led to CRYMWAV’s self-released 2023 six-song EP 24/7, which drew rave reviews. Now, Speak No Evil—alongside the acclaimed earlier singles Contagious and Sense of Adventure, offers a glimpse of the band’s forthcoming full-length album, due spring 2026.
BLACK LUNG drop the opening track ‘Traveler’ as the first single taken from the American heavy psych rockers’ forthcoming new full-length Forever Beyond. The fifth album from the Baltimore, Maryland outfit is scheduled for release on March 6, 2026.
BLACK LUNG comment on ‘Traveler’: “This song is about relying on one’s anxiety and depression – almost like a super power”, vocalist and guitarist David Cavalier writes. “You think, it’s the things that are going to keep you safe and sharp. In reality, it’s the complete opposite. The song also touches on the idea of living in a blameless world. Radical acceptance of people and who they are. Musically, this is one of my favorite tracks. We made it as dynamic as possible and each section feels like its own moment.”
Aural Aggravation 