Lonely Street Discs [Release date : 28.08.26] The late Energy Orchard frontman and solo artist Bap Kennedy’s posthumously released ‘Above All, Love’ is an absolute gem of a record. Overseen by his widow, former band member Brenda Kennedy (an author, artist … Continue reading
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The band will be playing a career-spanning set during that October trek.
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It warms the heart to see that the allure of early At the Gates remains strong among the younger metal generation. England’s Xenith, a quartet made up of 20-somethings,1 cite early At the Gates and Opeth as inspirations for their debut album, To No Avail. While the Opeth inspiration isn’t nearly so obvious, clearly these guys have love for the thrashy melodeath that At the Gates play. It’s easy to see why young, hungry, passionate metal musicians would love them. Their relentless melodicism, playful riffs, and in-your-face vocals sound liberating for those who want to write catchy music with an edge rather than commercially-produced radio rock. With one EP under their belts in early 2025, Xenith quickly set to work expanding their repertoire with To No Avail, in the hopes they haven’t yet reached the zenith of their career.
There’s no doubting the At the Gates inspiration, as Xenith play a tenaciously melodic form of death metal that races forth with spunk and zip. Opener “Take Me Back Where I Belong” starts off with the sort of instrumental strumming that introduces In Flames’s “Moonshield” and Metallica’s “Fight Fire with Fire” and then dives into the exciting riffs and plucky energy played in those long-ago classics. Follow-up “Alone” carries the At the Gates mantle, starting off aggressively and serving as a much more tightly written and catchy composition. Vocalist Billy Hourigan has much in common with Bloodletter’s vocalist, Peter Carparelli—the punky shout of someone carrying a chip on his shoulder. It’s a confident, winning performance that brings a distinct personality to Xenith’s sound. Their songwriting culminates in the apex tune, “Arteries,” a mighty demonstration of their melodic riffcrafting, progressive tendencies, and creative instrumentals. The song packs a wallop and is alone worth the price of admission.
While I struggle to hear the Opeth influence, Xenith has a surprisingly progressive streak stemming from their tendency to go in instrumentally playful directions. This is evident on the opener, where they perhaps stick to the instrumental intro a touch too long, and even return to it later on. Xenith fill lengthy portions of many of their tracks with instrumental-only segments, showing off some fancy fretwork as well as solos on the likes of “Incite the Tragedy.” Even the closing minutes of “Arteries” go into instrumental mode, opting for some moody and creative drumming and tremolos before concluding on the highs of its melodic riffs. It’s clear these guys are bursting with ideas, and they’re able to successfully build them within songs without sacrificing coherence. In fact, it creates more rewarding repeat spins as you catch more nuances with each listen.
A few tunes step outside the melodeath box with mixed results. The most successful is “The Weight to Pretend,” which includes a distortion and lightness on the guitars that has an almost poppy, shoegaze character. It still has plenty of melody, but a distinctly different, almost happier vibe that makes for an interesting change of pace. The follow-up and finale, “Out of Contempt,” keeps some of this shoegaze character, yet what it plays is just not as interesting. Sure, there are some good riffs in the fold, but it just carries on too long at six minutes. The one track that doesn’t work is the bruising, awkward “Bludgeoned.” It nearly kills the record’s momentum following the fantastic “Alone” and lacks the hooks Xenith has in droves elsewhere. While 47 minutes is a decent length for what these guys do, trimming this song plus at least some of the last would give To No Avail a massive boost in energy and cohesion.
Those small issues aside, Xenith have proven a very fun and worthy addition to the melodeath canon. To No Avail is a very promising debut that hopefully foretells good things for these youths. These songs demonstrate impressive musicianship and songwriting as well as a willingness to do some things outside of the box. With a little more consistency combined with their knack for experimentation, the next album these guys record could be something great.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 28th, 2026
The post Xenith – To No Avail Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
Dawn Richard’s upcoming album Creole Culture is shaping up to be something special. It’s a further exploration into Richard’s New Orleans roots, something that she’s already dug into on past albums, and she recorded it with drummer/producer Greg Paul and his Katalyst collective. The early singles, “enough” and the Durand Bernarr duet “baby, can we?,” suggest that it’ll showcase Richard at her funkiest and most linear, and that’s also what I hear in her new song.
The post Dawn Richard – “chuuuuurch” (Feat. Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph) appeared first on Stereogum.
COC and The Sword will be co-headlining.
The post Corrosion Of Conformity, The Sword & Hippie Death Cult Set To Tour The U.S. In November appeared first on Theprp.com.
Corrosion Of Conformity and The Sword will co-headline a 14-date US tour this November, with Hippie Death Cult opening. The run starts November 2 at Town Ballroom in Buffalo and finishes November 19 at Vinyl Music Hall in Pensacola, Florida, taking in Asbury Park, Hampton Beach, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Birmingham along the way. General tickets go on sale Friday, August 28. And Corrosion Of Conformity are out behind a double album with an origin story you won’t guess.
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Fourteen shows, November 2 through November 19.
Nov. 02 – Town Ballroom – Buffalo, NY
Nov. 03 – Asbury Lanes – Asbury Park, NJ
Nov. 04 – Hampton Beach Casino – Hampton Beach, NH
Nov. 06 – Elevation 27 – Virginia Beach, VA
Nov. 07 – Port City Blitz Festival – Wilmington, NC * COC only
Nov. 08 – Capitol City Music Hall – Harrisburg, PA
Nov. 10 – The Sovereign – St. Louis, MO
Nov. 11 – Granada – Lawrence, KS
Nov. 13 – The Apollo Theatre – Belvidere, IL
Nov. 14 – The Vogue – Indianapolis, IN
Nov. 15 – Bogart’s – Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 17 – The Senate – Columbia, SC
Nov. 18 – Workplay – Birmingham, AL
Nov. 19 – Vinyl Music Hall – Pensacola, FL
‡ Corrosion Of Conformity only. The Wilmington date is a festival appearance — The Sword and Hippie Death Cult aren’t on it. Worth knowing before you buy.
Tickets: a presale runs Wednesday August 26 through Thursday August 27. General on sale is Friday, August 28 at 10am local time.
Pepper Keenan’s own announcement was characteristically brief and characteristically him — a shout to the free thinkers and beer drinkers, a promise that the Corrosion train won’t stop, and a note that it’s going to be a ripper with The Sword and Hippie Death Cult. He signed off with something we can’t print.
LIVE & LOUD: Stream the World’s Hardest Radio Station 24/7Here’s the detail nobody else is going to lead with, and it’s genuinely one of the strangest facts in heavy music this year.
Corrosion Of Conformity are touring Good God / Baad Man, the double album they released April 3 via Nuclear Blast. It was produced by Grammy winner Warren Riker — whose credits include the Fugees, Cathedral and Down — with cover art from New Orleans artist Scott Guion.
It was recorded in three places. Blak Shak Studios. Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana.
And Barry Gibb’s home studio in Miami.
A Bee Gee’s house. A sludge metal double album partly tracked in the room where the man who wrote “Stayin’ Alive” works.
Nobody in the release explains how that came about, and honestly it’s better as a mystery. But if you ever wanted proof that the New Orleans and Southern heavy scene operates on connections nobody outside it can map, there it is.
The Riker connection is less surprising and more telling — he also worked on Down, Keenan’s other band, whose first full album in nineteen years arrives in November. Same producer, same orbit, two records inside eight months. The man is having a year.
Two recent additions worth knowing about before you turn up.
Bobby “Rock” Landgraf is on bass. Nick Shabatura is on drums — and his previous credits include the band Desecrate The Hour and, delightfully, a Chicago-based Nirvana tribute act called Smells Like Nirvana.
That’s a hell of a career jump. From playing “Lithium” in Chicago bars to holding down the back end for one of the most important American heavy bands of the last forty years.
For context on why that matters: Corrosion Of Conformity’s first four records left a permanent mark across three separate scenes. Eye For An Eye in 1984 and Animosity in 1985 are hardcore-crossover underground classics. Blind in 1991 and Deliverance in 1994 pushed them into Southern-fried metal territory and made them genuinely significant — Deliverance in particular is one of the foundation stones of the whole NOLA sludge and Southern heavy tradition.
By the time No Cross No Crown arrived nearly a quarter century later, they’d become legends to two generations of punk, metal and rock fans at once — which almost nobody in the history of this music manages.
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The co-headline billing here is genuinely earned, because The Sword are in the middle of a moment too.
They’re currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of Age Of Winters, their 2006 debut, and finishing a West Coast run with Red Fang before this tour starts.
For anyone who came in later: The Sword emerged from Austin in 2003 and built an immersive, self-contained mythology on top of enormous riffs — cinematic themes, otherworldly concepts, and the kind of guitar work that turned them into a critical favourite well outside metal circles. Rolling Stone, the Washington Post and Decibel have all been in their corner.
Six albums: Age Of Winters (2006), Gods Of The Earth (2008), Warp Riders (2010), Apocryphon (2012), High Country (2015) and Used Future (2018). They’ve shared stages with Metallica, Lamb Of God and Clutch, and sold out headline runs on multiple continents.
They went on hiatus for two years and officially reunited alongside the 15th anniversary of Warp Riders — a record Consequence has since called a classic.
The lineup is JD Cronise on vocals and guitar, Bryan Richie on bass and keys, Kyle Shutt on guitar and vocals, and Santiago Vela on drums.
If your entry point into heavy music was riff-first, volume-forward, Sabbath-descended rock, this is your bill. Both bands trace straight back to the same foundational lineage, and they’ve each spent decades doing something distinct with it.
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Opening every date bar Wilmington, and worth turning up early for.
The Portland trio deal in genuinely heavy psychedelic doom — big fuzz, big groove, and the kind of low-end that makes a small room feel structurally unsafe. They sit comfortably in the same world as the essential stoner and doom canon without sounding like a tribute to it.
Three bands, one bill, and not a wasted slot on it. If you’re mapping out the rest of the year’s heavy touring, this one belongs on the list.
The US co-headline tour with The Sword runs from November 2, 2026 at Town Ballroom in Buffalo, New York through to November 19 at Vinyl Music Hall in Pensacola, Florida — 14 dates across the East Coast, Midwest and South.
General tickets go on sale Friday, August 28, 2026 at 10am local time. A presale runs from Wednesday August 26 through Thursday August 27.
Portland psychedelic doom trio Hippie Death Cult open every date except the November 7 show in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is a festival appearance featuring Corrosion Of Conformity only.
Good God / Baad Man, a double album released April 3, 2026 via Nuclear Blast Records. It was produced by Grammy winner Warren Riker, features cover art by New Orleans artist Scott Guion, and was recorded at Blak Shak Studios, Dockside Studios in Louisiana and Barry Gibb’s home studio in Miami.
JD Cronise on vocals and guitar, Bryan Richie on bass and keys, Kyle Shutt on guitar and vocals, and Santiago Vela on drums. The Austin band formed in 2003 and are currently marking the 20th anniversary of their debut album Age Of Winters.
Two bands with forty years of riffs between them, and a double album partly cut in a Bee Gee’s house. Which date are you catching? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
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Louder Than War Live festival announces bill
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(written by Islander) Less that two weeks ago the Swiss experimental extremists Death. Void. Terror returned after a five-year silence with their release through Sentient Ruin Laboratories of an EP named To The Great Monolith 2.5. The EP’s name signifies a progression from their 2018 debut album To The Great Monolith and their 2020 full-length […]
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