Experimental Hip-Hop legends dälek offer up another new single from their latest full-length album, Brilliance of a Falling Moon.
Conceived, composed, and produced by Will Brooks (aka MC dälek) and Mike Mare, Brilliance of a Falling Moon is a sprawling, uncompromising record that speaks to the political timbre of the day. Taking its name from a section of Erik Larson’s 2011 novel In The Garden of Beasts, the album paints a fiery portrait of life and resistance in fascist America.
Today the duo share their latest single ‘Knowledge | Understanding | Wisdom’, which feels like a call to arms and reminder of the power that we can have in the face of the oppressor.
“’Knowledge | Understanding | Wisdom’ is righteous defiance in the face of those who attempt to keep us uninformed or misinformed. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of the oppressor like these three interwoven concepts.” – dälek
A little over two years on from the short film, Mill Session, Abrasive Trees have made another leap in pairing with Argonauta Records, a label which specialises in stoner, doom, sludge, and post-metal, and have unveiled ‘Carved Skull’ as a taster for upcoming album Light Remaining.
At first glance, having been variously described as Post-Punk/Post-Rock/Post-Folk, Abrasive Trees are a strange fit for the label, but with this seven-and-a-half-minute epic, it makes sense.
The intro is a slow-build, with echoes of latter-day Swans in the insistent percussion, repetitive jangling guitar and wordless droning vocals which pave the way for a spectacular sustained crescendo which introduces the riff which provides the track’s recurrent motif, and it’s almost two minutes before we arrive at the lyrics, in which Matthew Rochford reflects on the times in which we find ourselves and yearns for something better – a return to, if not necessarily simpler times, then honesty and humanity.
Can we write a eulogy, for this current age?
And leave the lies behind
Our fears are carved upon our skull
Our pain marked on our skin
The undercurrents reach back into dark folk imagery, and this is mirrored in the sound, too. Sonically, it’s rich and layered, simultaneously weighty but uplifting – which is perhaps a foreshadwing of the album’s thematics as alluded to in the title Light Remaining, which implies looming darkness, and yet., still some light – light synonymous with hope. These are dark times. But we must have hope. Without hope, what do we have?
With ‘Carved Skull’, Abrasive Trees have conjured a big sound, as is befitting of a big tune, which is bold and impactful, and likely an indication of what’s to come.
Founded by vocalist/guitarist Finnegan Bell, Love Ghost is an enigmatic Los Angeles-based act known for its distinctive blend of grunge, indie/alt-rock, emo, metal and trap rock coupled with mature, poetic lyrics. Their raw, energetic sound has earned numerous plaudits, while a series of collaborations with a wide variety of other artists have broadened the group’s cross-genre appeal.
Their version of ‘Rock Me Amadeus’, a global smash hit in 1986 for the Austrian musician Falco, is available as a single now. Turning the classic yet fun song into something darker with an industrial rock flair while preserving the pop brilliance of the original version, it is a must hear for any fan of Rammstein or Marilyn Manson.
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Founded by vocalist/guitarist Finnegan Bell, Love Ghost is an enigmatic Los Angeles-based act known for its distinctive blend of grunge, indie/alt-rock, emo, metal and trap rock coupled with mature, poetic lyrics. Their raw, energetic sound has earned numerous plaudits, while a series of collaborations with a wide variety of other artists have broadened the group’s cross-genre appeal.
The song is the second to be lifted from ‘Anarchy and Ashes’, a new EP out on 27th March. It follows ‘Vengeance’, an uptempo hard rock track with an anthemic quality released in mid-January, the music video for which has already racked up almost 300,000 YouTube plays.
Nordic experimentalist Fågelle returns with an album whose backdrop is the inland of Halland, a patchwork of forests and abandoned mills in southern Sweden – her most personal album yet. Bränn min jord (‘Burn my soil’) will be self-released on 27th February. Fågelle shares ‘Det blev våra liv’ today.
‘Det blev våra liv’ is a journey into Fågelle’s upbringing on the Swedish countryside. Built from a collage of old recordings from school hallways, samples from computer games, and hissing harmonium tones, the track unfolds as a meditation on growing up and accepting how things turned out.
Liam Amner’s hypnotic drums guide you through fragments of memory and rhythmic electro-pop. Lyrical choirs collide with warped electronic grooves, before resolving into the beating heart of a car driving by into the night.
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After years in Berlin and Gothenburg, Fågelle returned home — not out of nostalgia, but as an act of reclamation. She wanted to reconnect with the soil that shaped her and let something new grow from what had been left behind.
Bränn min jord (“Burn my soil”) grew from this process of renewal. Its title references the tradition of burning the ground to spark new life — a metaphor for the personal upheaval and rebuilding at the heart of the album. The music explores the tension of growing up somewhere you know you’ll have to leave, yet which keeps pulling you back. It speaks about identity, memory, and the hidden emotional landscapes of overlooked places.
Fågelle worked with local musicians, dancers, and communities to bring the region into the recordings. She captured dancer Nathalie Ruiz moving across forest floors and wooden stages; collaborated with Våxtorp and Sennan Brass Orchestra; and recorded Stefan Isebring’s self-built hurdy-gurdy and Lars Bylund’s singing and screaming. She also created a 24-hour “sound time capsule” in the communal hall of her small high school town, inviting locals to drop in and leave sonic traces in the album, and worked with EDM producer Samuel Reitmaier and local teenagers to capture the sounds of passing EPA cars, a uniquely Swedish rural subculture. Instrumental sessions took place at Folkhemmet, a forest studio in Unnaryd, with Petter Eriksson and drummer Liam Amner (Hey Elbow, Alice Boman).
Sonically, Bränn min jord blends organic and industrial textures — distorted guitars, brass, field recordings, and unguarded vocals. Atmospheric yet physical, it shifts between light and shadow, desolation and tenderness.
By integrating local musicians, dancers, and even the ambient life of small towns into the recordings, Bränn min jord reimagines how music can reflect and reshape the landscape it comes from and bridge the gap between folk tradition and contemporary sonic art.
Though rooted in Halland, the album reaches beyond, asking how places shape us, how memory lives in the land, and how returning — even when wrenching — can be a way of fully coming home.
Scotland’s iconic 1980s music mavericks Fini Tribe present ‘Me and My Shadow’, the latest offering from their loaded anthology The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe: 1982-1987, released via Shipwrecked Industries. Crackling with the sound of ideas arriving faster than they can be contained, this track emits youthful ingenuity and unorthodox tools, surging forward with hypnotic force.
The band members themselves barely out of their school uniforms, "Me and My Shadow" captures Fini Tribe at the instant their raw curiosity became something lean, propulsive, and unmistakably their own. A cool, searching vocal circles themes of selfhood while guitars slice with cinematic precision, locked to a driving, machine-like momentum that never lets up. Swirls of off-kilter electronics blur the edges, and the opening seconds—where the tape itself seems to wake up—drop the listener straight into motion. Fini Tribe emerged in 1980 in post-punk Edinburgh, soon becoming a six-piece with Chris Connelly, Simon McGlynn, Andy McGregor, Davie Miller, Philip Pinsky and John Vick. Curated and designed by the band, this retrospective features archival photographs, essays by longtime friend Shirley Manson (Garbage, Angelfish, Goodbye Mr. MacKenzie), renowned author Alastair McKay, and original band member Andy McGregor, who also designed the album artwork.
Including the first legendary John Peel Session, produced by Dale Griffin and originally broadcast in May 1985, this colossal collection was previewed by the razor-edged singles ‘I Want More’ and ‘We’re Interested’. The original 12” singles (including ‘Detestimony’) and the WaxTrax! singles are also here, along with several unreleased live tracks – remastered and produced by the band’s members.
“’Me and My Shadow’ was taken from our second studio session in spring of 1982. We were all still in secondary school in Edinburgh. In fact, the lyrics were written during a library period in lieu of French studies or some tedious Thomas Hardy novel. This would be the first session with Davie Miller, who had previously been in the formidable band Explode Your Heart,” says Chris Connelly.
“The song addresses identity. Written by a 16-year-old, the lyrics float above a meticulous almost-spy-thriller guitar melody, which anchors the song to a fast-paced mechanical rhythm. At the time, we were swimming around in Can and French Noir, like every schoolboy should”.
The tracks on The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe were recorded in Edinburgh at Wilf’s Planet, Pier House, Niddry Street Rehearsal Rooms, Pleasance Theatre, and Calton Studios, and in London at Southern Studios and at BBC Studios, Maida Vale. Influenced by Throbbing Gristle, Wire, Can, Captain Beefheart, they also drew from modern film, writing, and the art that was abundant in the festival city.
“For me, ‘Me and My Shadow’’s may be the definitive 80s Fini Tribe recording: Chris words, John’s trippy keyboards, and the prescient motorik metal rhythm (played on a chrome clothes rail, as I recall),” says Andy McGregor.
“I’d say it’s also probably the best recorded example of me ‘at one’ with my RAPIER 44, a red sharkfin plectrum, and a matching kitchen stool. I used to sit down to play most of the time, and I can see why. I don’t know if it was a mistake, but there’s something in the way that the recording starts with the reel to reel getting ‘to speed’ — that is the perfect start to a song that feels like the audio equivalent to a fever-dream motorway timelapse.”
The Melvins and Napalm Death join forces for Savage Imperial Death March (10th April, Ipecac Recordings), a true collaboration – not a split, but a new album featuring members of both bands.
The album shares its name with the bands’ Savage Imperial Death March tours from 2016 and 2025, but marks their first full-length studio collaboration under the moniker.
Yesterday, the first track from the album, ‘Tossing Coins Into The Fountain Of Fuck,’ premiered with Jose Mangin on SiriusXM’s Liquid Metal.
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The album 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).
“I have loved the Melvins forever and their outlook on music,” Embury explains. “A chance to make an album of eclectic musical madness with them was truly an honour and a whole lot of fun, which surely is the whole point! Let’s do another one soon.”
“Napalm Death are one of my favorite bands ever,” Osborne says. “It was an absolute pleasure and a dream come true to do this collaboration with them. We wrote songs together. I would write a riff and we would learn it and record it right there. They wrote stuff and we would learn it immediately as well. It was truly a 50/50 partnership.”
"Funny how life turns out sometimes… collecting hard-to-find Melvins 7-inches on Bleecker Street in 1989 and then touring twice and doing an album with them within the following 35 years,” Greenway adds. “Had a great time with it all, and nice to work with fellow travellers in the Melvins who also couldn’t care about pandering to ‘demographics’. I felt myself almost babbling lyrically during the recording, and that alone made for very fun recording times."
Savage Imperial Death March pre-orders are available now. The eight-song album will be released on CD, digitally, and across four limited-edition vinyl variants: Black As Your Soul, Indie Exclusive Obnoxious Orchid, Ipecac Exclusive Absurd Aqua, and Revolver Exclusive Neon Coral. An abbreviated version of the album was released during the band’s 2025 tour as a hyper-limited vinyl/CD edition. This iteration features new Mackie Osborne-created artwork and two new tracks (‘Awful Handwriting’ and ‘Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy’).
Scotland’s ibex-obsessed blackened thrash bastards of Hades otherwise known as Hellripper are pleased to share another new song off their upcoming, fourth studio album Coronach, to be released worldwide on March 27th, 2026 via Century Media Records.
Check out the epic album’s title track ‘Coronach’ in a lyric video created by Irvan Dionisi / Theblackvisual.id here:
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Hellripper’s mastermind, guitarist/vocalist and songwriter James McBain checked in with the following comment about the upcoming album’s title track ‘Coronach’, which also closes the album:
“A coronach is a vocal lament traditionally performed at funerals in the Scottish highlands. Intertwined with my own words is the poem of the same name by Sir Walter Scott, which served as an inspiration for this story: the funeral of an ambivalent and mysterious figure, revered by his community for his heroic deeds but whose life hid many dark secrets. As well as lyrically, the track is also a musical experiment for me; it was primarily influenced by late 80’s thrash metal along with bands like Bathory, Gallowbraid and Atlantean Kodex. A dash of post-punk, a fair amount of Iron Maiden-style guitar harmonies, some classical references and the haunting wail of the bagpipes fading in the distance: this song feels like the perfect farewell to the album”.
Hellripper – Live:
SA 21.03.2026 Aalst (Belgium) – Oilsjt Omploft Festival
FR 27.03.2026 Glasgow (Scotland) – Garage *
SA 28.03.2026 Bern (Switzerland) – EmMetal Festival
FR 03.04.2026 Nottingham (England) – Saltbox **
SA 04.04.2026 London (England) – The Dome **
MO 06.04.2026 Utrecht (Netherlands) – De Helling ***
The context for this, the debut release from Ergocaust, is in some ways an uplifting tale, whereby something positive emerges from a bad situation. They explain that the track was ‘Composed the day I got fired and refined until I made peace with reality, this song was forged out of blood, sweat, tears, hunger, and misery.’
The wheels of capitalism drive our lives, and we have simply no choice in the matter. Hate your job? Tough shit. Suck it up. You’re expendable, and easily replaced. Labour is cheap, and so is life, and not just to the highest echelons of society, but even to lower-level management. They’re only interested in the stats, and will do anything to save their own arses when under scrutiny by the next level up… and so it goes on up the hierarchy. The bottom line is about profit, and survival, and the person above you does not give a fuck about how you pay the rent or feed your family. It’s about how they pay their rent and feed their family, and how they can make cuts to boost their own bonus.
As Ergocaust writes, this ‘encapsulates the idea very neatly just by the title’. It’s fairly direct, and puts an emotive, anguish-laden spin on the notion that under capitalism, workers are confronted with the contradiction of producing and reproducing the conditions of their own alienation. Never mind religion: work is the opium of the masses, whereby the workers are too busy earning a crust and too exhausted from doing so to rebel. The reason everyone is trapped on the hamster wheel is that as much as you hate your job, you need to work to survive. You want out of the hellish job, but to be released from the hellish job is to wonder how you will survive. There are no options.
Ergocaust channels a host of conflicting emotions by the medium of a song with a complex, detailed structure, which draws together a range of musical styles, spanning black, thrash, and industrial metal to forge a compelling hybrid. The fact that its instrumental is perhaps an asset. Articulating complicated and conflicting emotions is something which, all too often, words fail to achieve: in such instances, the language of sound and the power of music serves the purpose more effectively.
It may clock in under three minutes, but ‘Souls In Pain At Work’ is dense and it speaks – by which I mean, it howls anguish, rage, pain. But therein lies beauty and joy, in that from trauma emerges great art.
For the second single from their forthcoming debut EP, Look, Stranger! (the new musical project of Ian J Cole and Louisa Rose) have taken the unusual step of releasing a remix of the as-yet-unreleased lead track, ‘Broken’. Longer than the single version – which in itself is six minutes in duration – it replaces the sung vocals with a spoken narrative and dialogue – source undisclosed, but it’s quintessentially northern, to the extend you half expect Sean Bean to make a cameo with a “bastards!”
Despite the underlying electro instrumentation, the end result is quite different from its predecessor, ‘The Last Thing’, and, indeed, the rest of the EP. It’s indicative of an act not tied to formula and willing to mix things up – which gets the Aural Aggravation vote!
The iconic Jah Wobble has teamed up with guitarist Jon Klein on Automated Paradise, their third collaborative album and debut album as a duo with Dimple Discs. Out March 27th, this eight-track collection is previewed by the invigorating lead track ‘Fading Away’, a track that pulsates with motorik drive and the raw electrical tension of British post-punk and new wave, its shimmering progressive layers seemingly surging through the circuits of life itself.
The pairing of post-punk legends Jah Wobble (Public Image Ltd.) and Jon Klein (Specimen, Siouxsie & The Banshees) is no coincidence. Initially combining forces on the Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub album, released in 2021, they continue to collaborate – both live and creating music in the studio.
“Jah Wobble and I share a mutual desire to keep a momentum going at the centre of the creative process. So we keeping it moving and trust our instinctive decisions and ideas. Automated Paradise is essentially a collection of jams and sketches, all made very spontaneously. We’d made several albums together previously, starting with 2021’s Metal Box – Rebuilt in Dub, so he had a wide range of experiences and strategies to draw from,” says Jon Klein.
“‘Fading Away’ is an end-of-civilisation story, echoing one of the earliest themes of human literature and reflecting a persistent human anxiety about the fragility of social order.”
Jah Wobble adds, “Making this record with Jon Klein was (as ever) an absolute buzz . Totally in the moment. Proper post punk. Angry and humorous. ‘Fading Away’ was the first track we finished from this album. We did this record in a handful of very intense, spontaneous sessions. Right place, right time sort of thing”.
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This album follows two 2025 albums for Wobble - Dub Volume 1 (Dimple Discs) and the expanded reissue of the 2017 album The Usual Suspects, featuring 25 career highlights, re-recorded and including some of Wobble’s finest material, alongside tracks by Invaders Of The Heart and PiL.
This is Jah Wobble’s first post-punk album in recent years, following an array of travel and dub records. The brash guitar-driven tracks reflect his continuing preoccupation with the declining state of the nation. Driven by his experience working weekly at a music-based community project in Merton, along with Jon Klein, this record recalls the spirit of Mark Stewart – angry in an empathetic, constructive way. Like much of his recent work, the lyrical content was often inspired while traversing London’s transport system.
Jon Klein is a guitarist and producer best known as a member of Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1987 until 1994, which saw the release of the albums Peepshow, Superstition and The Rapture. Originally in the Bristol band Europeans, he then formed the glam-goth act Specimen and relocated to London, where he co-founded The Batcave nightclub. He has worked with Talvin Singh and Sinéad O’Connor, and co-produced a string of No. 1 albums for Warner-signed Spanish band Fangoria, fueling a decade-long streak of chart-topping success in Spain. His most recent work being as co-producer and guitarist with Jah Wobble.
Jah Wobble (born John Wardle) is a bass guitarist and vocalist from East London, whose career encapsulated genres from post-punk, dub and world music to experimental rock and electronic music. An original member of Public Image Ltd (PiL) from 1978-80, he made two groundbreaking albums with the band, which included the iconic Metal Box.
Aural Aggravation 