Pop-punk newcomer N4T! has recruited With Confidence‘s Jayden Seeley for an anthemic new single.
Tapping into the joyous energy of the mid-2000s scene, ‘BRAINDEAD!’ has the kind of chorus that’s made to be belted out at the top of your voice in a sweaty venue.
Written, recorded and produced in Los Angeles with Jayden, N4T! has spoken abut the meaning behind the track:
“BRAINDEAD! is about being stuck in something that’s slowly messing with your head where one day everything feels fine, and the next it completely unravels. It’s chaotic, unpredictable, and a little destructive.”
Check it out below.
Speaking on working with Jayden, they have shared:
“Recording ‘BRAINDEAD!’ in Los Angeles with Jayden was such a fun process! The energy in the studio was super easy and natural, and having Gus Scripelitti on live drums gave it that extra punch.”
It’s not the first time N4T! has worked with one of our favourites either.
Check out their collaboration with Sleeping With Sirens’ Kellin Quinn on ‘Burning Bridges’ below.
And their collab with We The Kings on ‘4 Leaf Clover’ here.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Fans who pre-order the album before midnight on Tuesday 12 May will receive an exclusive early pre-sale link for tour tickets.
Joining Kris Barras Band on the road are special guests 10 Years, the Knoxville, Tennessee melodic Alternative Metal outfit known for dominating US Rock radio for decades. The band recently toured with Mammoth and are also appearing alongside Black Stone Cherry before heading to the UK dates.
Speaking about the tour, Kris Barras said: “We are absolutely honoured to have 10 Years out with us on this run, great band, amazing songs, you are all in for a treat.”
October
The 1865, SouthamptonBrunswick Square, Southampton SO14 3AR
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK
Event Details
Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.
Kris Barras Band enjoyed major success with their 2024 album Halo Effect, which reached the UK Top 5 alongside Beyoncé and Linkin Park while topping the official UK Rock/Metal, Independent and Download charts.
The new album Monsters We Made sees the band return to a more anthem-driven hard rock sound filled with huge riffs, soaring choruses and powerful guitar solos. The album was produced by guitarist and keyboardist Josiah Manning, with the current line-up completed by bassist Frazer Kerslake and drummer Billy Hammett.
Following recent European tour dates with Adrian Smith and Ritchie Kotzen, Kris Barras has fully recovered from vocal issues suffered earlier this year and says he is now “singing better than ever.”
“Nonsense” opens with a slow fade-in of distorted guitars and seismic drums — the chaos before the swarm. It’s a trick of the trade, the extreme metal equivalent of a camera operator calling out “speed” before the tail slate clacks down. But for Gadget, it might as well be the sound of a band being roused from a deep slumber. “Nonsense” kicks off the EP Coerced, which is the Swedish grind band’s first new release in nearly five years. So, naturally, during those 30-odd seconds of build-up, you think, OK, does Gadget still have it? And then the quintet literally blasts off, sounding like SpaceX’s Starship trying to take off from inside a garden shed. Guitarists Rikard Olsson and Kristofer Jankarls furiously slash with that classically corroded Swedish guitar tone; bassist Fredrik Nygren and drummer William Blackmon feverishly shovel rhythmic coal into the engines to keep the tempo at full steam; and singer Emilia Henriksson fiercely screams with a caustic roar that would greatly concern an otolaryngologist. Oh yeah, Gadget still has it. You’re just left wondering where it put it for the last half-decade.
Release date: May 8, 2026. Label: De:Nihil Records.
“We are totally and completely hopeless keeping things in motion between our periods of playing live, and thus one of the least prolific bands on the planet,” Blackmon told Good Guys Go Grind in a 2023 interview. You don’t say. You can say, however, that when Gadget shows up, it has been worth the wait. Its 2006 sophomore outing, The Funeral March, is a gem of ’00s grind. What makes it stand out is how much ground the band covers in songs that rarely exceed two minutes. It’s not just an orthodox grind recitation of a FETO fable with a lack of personality papered over by more blasts. No, the band uses the versatility of Swedegrind riffs to explore fury from many angles, expanding the format’s range. Gadget always had a voice, and that voice is well-equipped to tell stories.
The story on Coerced is more immediate. Nowadays, Gadget is punkier than its younger self, which favored a near-death/grind sharpness. It’s not that things are looser, necessarily: the band still plays with controlled frenzy. But Coerced accentuates more of the core of grindcore, particularly the sonic bulldozer quality of a band like Breach. A couple of factors might be responsible. First, Olsson, who alongside Gadget plays in the hardcore bands Diskonto and the severely underappreciated Parasit, handles the music writing this go-around. Second, Henriksson, who is making her studio debut as a full-fledged member of Gadget after guesting on the 2021 Retaliation split and handling live vocals for a few years, hails from the raging Radium Grrrls, which is no stranger to punk pugnacity. (Johan Lundmark, who sang on the 2020 version of Gadget’s “Funerary Rites,” pops up again on the update.) Perhaps that’s why Coerced more readily embraces a more direct approach. Heck, some songs even flirt with the d-beatish direction of fellow Swedish Assault partakers, Disfear.
I think this punk path could be misinterpreted as a spin in the Wayback Machine, a regression, helping Gadget to choose a livelier sound befitting the flesh-and-blood warmth of vinyl over the fastidiousness of past albums that found a good home on CD. However, I think Coerced‘s punkiness is a natural evolution that has followed Gadget’s staff to where they are in their lives. How do you maintain grind fury beyond your forties, when “rage, rage against the dying of the light” turns into “rage, rage we have a parent-teacher conference on Thursday”? There’s still plenty to be pissed about — lord knows this modern world supplies enough ammo. But clearly, the calculus is different because other aspects of life, and aging generally, become part of the equation. On a personal level, I find Coerced moving because it mirrors where I am as an old, decrepit powerlifter, staring down the inevitability of having to pursue a simpler routine to preserve my longevity. My drive hasn’t changed, but I am forced to reckon with the degradation of my body — I can’t escape time, and I can’t live in the past when there’s a present that needs me. In that light, it’s admirable, then, that five people have found a way to come together and make new music, stoking the same fires of aggression while saying, “You know, maybe we can be a little less technical so these songs can be released in this lifetime?” The act of doing becomes more resonant when so much of life pulls you toward something else; you feel that you’re not totally and completely hopeless keeping things in motion.
And, you know, Gadget, a really good grind band, is really good as a punk band if that’s the shift it wants to make. After an extended expedition into noise, which we’ll get into in a second, the requisite slomo grind closer kicks in, and it’s the best song of the eight-song set. “Violently Silent” is sludgy hardcore with a mid-pace pummel that gives a band like Norna a run for its money. It’s additionally powered by a killer groove that, forgive the deep cut, might remind the right listener of Swarm of the Lotus. Conceptually, it’s kind of like taking a beat to slow down, examine the things in front of you while chaos swirls around you in your continually expanding worldview, and thinking, Man, I’m even more pissed off about this than I thought. To drive that home, it sure doesn’t hurt that Henriksson lets loose the vocal hit to beat of 2026: “UHHHHHGH.” I feel that in the very depths of my frustrated soul. And I feel Gadget’s life force in general — where it is, where it wants to be. That’s Coerced‘s story, then, and, as always, Gadget does a great job telling it.
***
OK, two observations before we go. First, the noise track, “False Pulse”: What are we doing here? The five-and-a-half-minute excursion eats up a third of Coerced‘s running time, and doesn’t have the courtesy to close the record, leaving you to ponder your life decisions before finally giving way to “Violently Silent.” Like the dork I am, I listen to a lot of stuff falling under the noise umbrella, so that’s my Reddit-ass “longtime [profession] here” bona fides. Accordingly, I can tell you that, in a vacuum, “False Pulse” isn’t bad as far as those things go. Heck, it would even fit in OK on a death industrial album. But that’s the point: Coerced is not a death industrial album. For a noise or ambient passage to work on a metal album, it has to be great because it needs to justify its existence to people who don’t care about noise, and five minutes is a lot to justify. In a related realm, the power electronics that the powerviolence band No Faith employ excel because they’re short — palette cleansers by blowtorch. “False Pulse,” by comparison, is dead wax.
Second, we have an early frontrunner for album art of the year. Caroline Harrison once again threads the needle between the gorgeous and the grotesque. Many reads are possible: A bevy of open sores weep while vines sprout from others; the decomposition of the body, and a reminder that there’s life after death, it’s just not ours — we will return to the loam. Perhaps it’s also the wounds we suffer over the course of a life, where some stay fresh, and we can make them far worse by digging into them, but experience can grow from others. Fits Coerced well. Anyway, it’s as phantasmagorically evocative as ever. It’ll look great on a wall if you never want to have normal people over again.
Devon-based hard rock heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK headline tour in almost two years, set to take place this October. The news follows the announcement of their upcoming album, Monsters We Made, which is scheduled for release on 14th August 2026 via Earache Records. Joining the band for the full run … Continue reading Kris Barras Band announce UK tour and new album ‘Monsters We Made’
Scene Queen has unveiled her heaviest track to date, and it’s an absolute rager.
It’s titled ‘Tracksuit’, and it’s got a little bit of everything we love about Scene Queen. Filled with riffs, chaos, and plenty of sharp-witted humour, it takes aim at cheaters in blistering style, showcasing some of the gnarliest vocals of her career so far.
Speaking on her latest single, Scene Queen has shared:
“Tracksuit is what would happen if you combined my two favourite things: y2k fashion and terror. The song is meant to feel like a continuous train of thought from when you bust in the door of your home and see a tracksuit that isn’t yours (imagine thinking SCENE QUEEN wouldn’t notice a tracksuit that isn’t pink) to when I get arrested for murder. The message is simple: don’t cheat on SCENE QUEEN because she is crazy.”
Confess are a Swedish five-piece whose fourth album, Metalmorphosis, is due to be released on 15 May 2026. Their fourth album, Metalmorphosis, is an upbeat ten-song collection of accessible Euro metal with more than a nod towards the ’80s, and a very polished production.
The opening track, Colorvision, kicks things off with a gentle intro and soft choral vocals, before a drum and guitar assault on the eardrums, complete with quick-fire riffing. This song will have you tapping your feet quicker than a hellion crash-landing on your drive at full speed.
John Elliot’s vocals are absolutely on point, the lyrics drip with lone-hero sentiments, and there are lots of backing vocals as the rest of the band support the verses and chorus. There is no daylight between any of the band with this powerfully crafted song. I am not too sure what it is really about, but that’s okay, because I am too busy enjoying the music.
Up next is The Warriors, with a crunching riff intro, and much heavier than the melodic slant of the first track. This song has got lots of energy and deep-throated chorusing reminiscent of Accept, while John Elliot is like a heavier version of Vince Neil. The solo is quite unusual, with an almost music hall reverb kind of sound, but overall, it is loud, catchy and upbeat.
Wicked Temptations is chock-full of fast-paced guitar and keyboard riffing, kinda like Europe on steroids. John Elliot’s vocals have a grittier tone on this song, competing with the full-drumming wall of sound rhythm section. If you like your Metal full-on, with a slight synth frill and plenty of eighties, pre-grunge nostalgia, then this will be right up your bandana-festooned street. It’s fast, driving, carefree and not at all too serious.
The title track, Metalmorphosis, is another song with a slow, acoustic, clean-sounding intro, which then leads into an uber-’80s fast riffing track that sounds like Bonfire at their best, combined with high-pitched Scorpions. It is chest-beating Metal that does not look too deeply into the philosophical pond of life, and does not take itself too seriously.
This is one of those songs you can take many meanings from, but I am reading this as a celebration of Metal, an acknowledgement that the music can always lift you onto greater things. I think we can all get on board with that, and the positively supersonic guitar solo definitely helps. There is definitely a formula to this album, but there are still curveballs, like Beat Of My Heart, a slow, introspective, very short song. It is also acoustic and gives a refreshing take on the overused ballad formula. It is definitely the deepest song on the album, and I really like it. The solo is slow and moody, and it is an interesting departure.
There are also a couple of unusual song titles, like Pursuit Of The Jenny Haniver. With a frantic drum and double riff intro, this is a historic, nautical, mystical epic, with lots of mentions of oceans. Jenny Haniver is some sort of mythical nautical sea-bestie, and the song itself has got a fabulous chugging riff just before the symphonic, Nightwish-type solo, that is also mixed in with a bit of Alestorm. You do not get that kind of combo very often.
A potential single is The Other Side, an upbeat love song that is very melodic. You can hear this being played on rock radio stations right around the world. It has a really nice techno-riff and full-throated vocal chorusing. This is unthreatening, well-produced, high-quality musical enjoyment that you do not need a degree in astrophysics to be able to enjoy. On that basis, does one dare call Confess a Nordic Nickelback?
The mood darkens with Running To My Death, which has a slow, doomy intro, in perfect keeping with the song’s title, before moving into a warp-speed riff and machine-gun drumming. This is a consequences-be-damned song of terminal desperation for those without any hope, which of course is then tricked up into one blistering Metal song that travels at the speed of sound. You can almost see the smoke rising from the guitarists’ fretboards at solo time, they are playing so damn fast.
The doomy themes continue with Plague Of Steel, and right from the start, with the simulated guns and explosion sounds, you know that this is the near-obligatory, die with your boots on type war song. It has a nice, chugging beat that will please everyone from early Saxon fans right through to Metallica.
Confess – Metalmorphosis – If you want relentless, accessible Heavy Metal entertainment, then just stick around.
If you want profound, then this entire album probably is not your cup of tea, but if you want relentless, accessible Heavy Metal entertainment, then just stick around. This one had me tapping my feet and grinning like an idiot for the full four minutes and forty seconds of its Metal-fuelled existence.
The album closes with Silvermalen, a song that has echoes of Black Sabbath meets Nightwish, with deep choral vocals and a wall of drums. I am not sure what the word silvermalen means, but this is a Game of Thrones, mystical, pagan battle-type song.
Let’s be clear, this is a band that plays quality Metal, and while they are not giving us deep messages, if you are a Confess fan, that is not what you are here for. The production really sets the scene musically, and the soaring guitar solo perfectly matches the stirring verses and chorus. This is fur-clad, horn-helmeted Viking-type Metal, and it hits that spot perfectly.
Overall, this is a solid, quality album by Confess, with a slick production and a definite ’80s feel to it. It is upbeat and high tempo, and if you like your Heavy Metal straightforward and uncomplicated, this might be just what you are looking for.
Confess release Metalmorphosis on 15 May 2026 via Frontiers Music s.r.l. Pre-orders are available from ffm.bio/confess_metalmorphosis.
Hayley Williams has brought out yet another special guest during her ‘Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party’ tour, with Scowl’s Kat Moss joining the party in Oakland, California.
Fans who’ve managed to catch Hayley on this run have been treated to a finale of ‘Parachute’, a stunningly emotional cut from her latest album.
Joining Hayley on Thursday night (May 07) at Fox Theater, the pair delivered a duet that felt incredibly special considering how long the two vocalists have been hyping one another up.
Check out some fan footage of the appearance below.
With just a handful of US dates left before she makes her way over to the UK and Europe this June, take a look at Hayley’s full list of upcoming shows below.
MAY
12 – LOS ANGELES The Wiltern 13 – LOS ANGELES The Wiltern 15 – LOS ANGELES The Wiltern
JUNE
05 – MILAN Alcatraz – Milan, Italy 08 – AMSTERDAM Paradiso 10 – COLOGEN Live Music Hall 11 – COLOGNE Live Music Hall 15 – BERLIN Tempodrome 16 – COPENHAGEN Poolen 19 – LONDON Roundhouse 20 – LONDON Roundhouse 22 – MANCHESTER Academy 1 23 – MANCHESTER Academy 1 26 – GLASGOW O2 Academy 27 – GLASGOW O2 Academy 29 – DUBLIN National Stadium 30 – DUBLIN National Stadium
