METAMORPH has just revealed their new single – a gut-punch of emotion and power, ‘Crown of Shattered Glass’. The song is impossible to ignore—a warrior cry wrapped in razor-sharp gothic rock.
Margot Day’s bold vocals cut through a cinematic soundscape of pounding beats and darkwave edge, delivering a chorus that demands to be felt: “Shattered, shattered, I’m stronger than you know”. Every lyric carries the weight of a hard-earned victory. The shattered glass isn’t a weakness—it’s a crown. This is the sound of breaking free. With sharp lyricism and relentless energy, this track transforms heartbreak into pure power, hitting hard and lingering long after the last note.
As the Wheel of the Year turns, METAMORPH unveils a new track every six weeks, each one an incantation of power, love, and defiance—all leading to a full METAMORPH album this fall.
NIGHTBEARER launch the crushing performance video ‘His Dark Materials’ as the first single taken from their new full-length Defiance. The third studio album of the German death metal bookworms, which is based on a concept inspired by Sir Philip Pullman’s fantasy book trilogy "His Dark Materials", has been scheduled for release on June 13, 2025.
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NIGHTBEARER comment: “The tell-tale title ‘His Dark Materials’ is both, lyrically and musically, an excellent represantation of what were are about to unleash with our third album Defiance in 2025”, vocalist Michael Torka declares. “We hurl ourselves into the millennia-old war against the tyranny of a god who never existed, against his corrupted earthly and celestial vassals. It’s a fight against brutal oppression that is carried out in the name of liberation from superstition. This is the final, relentless battle for freedom!”
While they’re no strangers to the Southern California independent music scene, hardcore foursome Feed the Beast are poised to introduce themselves to more regional, national and international stages and speakers with their latest album, Mercy, the band’s debut for Futureless.
Feed the Beast’s history has been cultivated via years of consistently releasing recordings and fortifying a considerable presence across venues in their western Los Angeles and Santa Monica locales. Mercy signals their return from a hiatus with a reshuffled roster and new record label affiliation in tow. The group has seized the opportunity to not only elevate its presence, but also expand its latitude of sonic expression, melding the time-tested heaviness with occasions for experimentation and engaging in novel musical niches.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Nick Jett (of Terror) in under a week, Mercy is a compendium of punishing yet precise heavy cuts, deftly interspersed with melody, space, dynamics and syncopated rhythms. Original members James Hutchinson (vocals) and Nicholas Garcia (guitar) penned Mercy across a span of a few months with former Feed the Beast members Tye Trujillo (bass) and Patrick Chavez (drums).
“Nick’s the man,” says Garcia of Mercy’s producer. “He’s very efficient and it still blows my mind that we tracked seven songs in three or four days. It’s very cool to get to work with someone who is very professional.”
Feed the Beast’s origins began as high school friends who connected through their love of music. “It was a very small school, which was even funnier how we were all into the same music,” says Garcia. “It was just kind of a coincidence.”
This coincidental connection eventually found the group putting their musical minds to work as Feed the Beast began composing its material just before the COVID era struck in early 2020. After the pause, Feed the Beast soon booked themselves a busy self-release schedule with a handful of singles, the Vengeance album in 2022, and 2023’s EP, Silhouettes.
With Trujillo and Chavez leaving to focus on other projects (Trujillo plays in Suicidal Tendencies, filling his father Robert’s spot that became available when he joined Metallica, while Chavez plays with OTTTO), Hutchinson and Garcia retooled the lineup, recruiting new band members Julian Lincona (bass) and Billy Greenwood (drums) to support Mercy, which is slated for a release on Futureless in May 2025.
Mercy’s first single is ‘Tombs Underneath the Tombs,’ of which Hutchinson says is about “being content with and even embracing hell, which is a fate worse than hell itself. It takes on the perspective of an incredibly narcissistic individual who believes they are smarter and stronger than everyone, including creation itself.” Additional singles from Mercy include ‘Exorcism’ (which Hutchinson describes as “the most hopeful song of the first four singles”) and ‘Unjustified’.
SUMAC and Moor Mother share the new piece ‘Hard Truth’, taken from their upcoming work The Film, to be released on April 25th. The piece highlights how inscrutably bold their collaboration is, invoking a haunting vocal melody atop burbling electronics and a density of distorted pulses, the throb accentuated by tactile scrapes. As a mere hint to what is contained within the album’s labyrinthian scope, the piece is brimming with the subtle, yet boundless creativity that the ensemble explores across the album.
The Film’s moniker speaks to the fact that it is conceived and delivered as a complete album, a full story or narrative. Moor Mother puts it best: “The idea is to create a moment outside of the convention. This is a work of art. Thinking about the work as a Film, instead of an album or a collection of songs. This task is impossible in an industry that wants to force everything into a box of consumption. You won’t understand or get the full picture until the artwork is completed. This work is developing and is requesting more agency within the creative process.”
The Film does have clear themes running throughout – again Moor Mother expounds: “the themes are universal in nature – land – displacement – the climate – human rights and freedoms – war and peace – the idea of running away from the many violent forces and horrific systems of man and empire.”
AUSTERE have unveiled the video clip ‘Time Awry’ as the first single taken from the black & dark metal duo’s forthcoming new album The Stillness of Dissolution. The band from Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia will release their fifth full-length on June 6, 2025.
AUSTERE comment: “The first single, ‘Time Awry’ was the second song written for The Stillness of Dissolution, our forthcoming new album”, guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist Mitchell Keepin explains on behalf of the duo. “The first few songs written for the album tend to have a slightly more stripped back ‘rock’ sound than those written later, and that is on display here. Lyrically, it is presented from the viewpoint of a betrayed and solemn soul – a man with a heightened awareness of the inescapable running of time and seeking to accelerate that process.”
Finnish stoner rock power trio KAISER has just dropped a brand-new music video for ‘Brotha’, a standout track from their crushing second album, 2nd Sound, released March 7, via Majestic Mountain Records.
Building on the raw, riff-fueled foundation of their debut, KAISER pushes their sound further into heavy, groove-laden territory, delivering thick, blues-soaked riffs, thundering rhythms, and soaring melodies that land somewhere between Kyuss, Sleep, and early Clutch.
There are two kinds of heavy bands: the ones that make a lot of noise and the ones that drag you somewhere you didn’t know you needed to go. Cwfen (pronounced ‘Coven’) are the latter, and Sorrows is a record that doesn’t just crush – it haunts long after the final note.
The allure of Cwfen’s sound lies in contrasts: the glacial ferocity of Amenra, with the velvet-and-razor vocals of King Woman, and the rotting grandeur of Type O Negative. It’s as hypnotic as it is harrowing, but somehow even better than the sum of those parts.
Since emerging from Glasgow’s underground just 18 months ago, Cwfen have built a solid reputation, selling out shows and pulling growing audiences into their doom-laden fever dream. Released in October, the band’s debut single ‘Reliks’ was a hit with fans and critics, landing a spot on Kerrang!’s release of the week playlist. And rightly so. Their sound devours and delights in equal measure. And people are craving more.
"Cwfen have emerged from the darkest depths of the Caledonian underground with a beguiling blend of doom metal and gothic post-punk for those who like to live deliciously." – Kerrang!
About new album Sorrows – released on 30th May via New Heavy Sounds (Shooting Daggers, MWWB, Death Pill):
“We never set out to write an album. We were just four friends making music we wanted to hear. But then Sorrows emerged, and when it did, it pulled us into its orbit. We couldn’t ignore it,” says Agnes Alder, vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Cwfen. “When we stopped trying to fit into any one space, what came out was this beautiful mix of dark and light. Something visceral and cathartic.”
Sorrows lives in the space around doom where the weight of the riffs is matched by the weight in your chest, where the lyrics and the songwriting are as important as the music itself. Loud and crushing, yet sharp enough to stick in your head for days. It builds, burns, collapses, resurrects. Big on riffs, bigger on feeling. The kind of songs you carry with you. Agnes Alder bears her claws one minute, then whispers the next, as the band follows like a storm front, rising, breaking, drowning you in the weight of it.
The songs have range. From the guttural Penance to the lush Whispers, to the feral Wolfsbane and the insurrectionist Rite. It includes a long anticipated reworking of Embers and Bodies, the two self-recorded demos that launched them into the scene with a bang and that fans already adore. Intricate vocal arrangements, heavy and harsh guitars, a mix of atmosphere and heft, produced by the band alongside Kevin Hare at Deep Storm Productions, and mastered by James Plotkin. It punches above its weight for a debut.
Upcoming shows including UK tour dates with Faetooth:
16/03 – Audio, Glasgow – supporting Dopethrone
24/04 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds – Strangeforms Festival
Restless Belarus expatriates DYMNA LOTVA release ‘Come and See’ (Ідзі І Глядзі), another lavish music video for the opening track from their current album, The Land under the Black Wings: Blood (Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў). This harrowing piece adds an accordion to black metal that is also prominently featured in the clip:
Video by Jancyk Kurcavy
DYMNA LOTVA comment: “We have never treated music videos as just another promotional tool”, enigmatic singer Katsiaryna ‘Nokt Aeon’ Mankevich declares. “We see every clip as a chance to explore the story and emotions behind a track even further through visual means. This video was originally planned for 2023, but due to many reasons, we are only able to reveal it now. Despite the long wait, its topics have become even more relevant as Plague, War, Famine, and Death have not gone away. These Four Horsemen have only moved closer towards all of us. Then again, just maybe these are actually Four Horsewomen.”
‘I’m Tired Of Being Your Mother’ is the third and final post-release digital single from the Jesus Lizard and, along with ‘Cost of Living’ and ‘Westside’, will make up the Record Store Day exclusive Flux EP, out April 12th in independent record stores.
This will be the only physical release of these three songs, available April 12th, on Black Vinyl with an etched b-side. Download and stream now, along with the new album, Rackhere.
About the track, David Yow says; “When a friend of mine was about eight years old, living outside of New Orleans, his mother once said to him, in a slow dull drawl, “I’m tired uh bein yo mutha.” That really struck me. The lyrics are actual quotes of awful things mothers have said to their children. Heartbreaking!!”
Sydney’s sludgiest stoner outfit Amammoth has dropped a new single, ‘Among Us,’ from their forthcoming record, Distant Skies and the Ocean Flies, to be released via Electric Valley Records on February 21 on three vinyl variants and across digital platforms.
“Our second single ‘Among Us’ is a B-grade psychedelic, sci-fi adventure, kind of like ET on acid,” says Ammamoth about the track.
Aural Aggravation 