(In late January of this year Meuse Music released the second album from the Australian doom/death metal band Graves for Gods, and that prompted our Comrade Aleks to contact them for a second interview — and here it is.) Three years ago we interviewed Graves for Gods. Jak Shadows (Voices of Doom) and Matt Spencer […]
The post AN NCS INTERVIEW: GRAVES FOR GODS appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.
Rock ‘n’ roll lifer Lenny Kaye has done a great many things in his 79 years on this planet. Kaye is best-known as the longtime guitarist for the Patti Smith group, and that’s enough right there. Kaye has played with Smith for more than 50 years, and his work with her has impacted many generations…
The post Lenny Kaye Announces First-Ever Solo Album <em>Goin’ Local</em>: Hear The Title Track appeared first on Stereogum.
Doug Gillard: Parallel Stride (Dromedary Records) DL available here April 24 2026 A fabulously catchy album of songs from the old GBV and Nada Surf guitarist, Doug Gillard. Ah, songs, what would we do without them? Songs – good ones, which stick around in your head – are what you get in spades with Doug […]
The post Doug Gillard: Parallel Stride – Album Review appeared first on Louder Than War.
For a while now, Zakk Wylde’s been a busy, busy boy. Not only had he been touring with Pantera for a loooong time, but his band Black Label Society released their latest album Engines of Destruction and has been on tour with Zakk Sabbath (Wylde’s Black Sabbath cover band) for its ‘American Crusade’ tour. That’s all well and good, but that tour isn’t quite over just yet, as it was announced that a second leg of the tour will take place this summer.
Set to take place from August 25 in Albany, New York until the final show takes place on October 2 in Bend, Oregon, the second leg of the ‘American Crusade’ tour will once again see BLS and Zakk Sabbath share the stage, meaning Zakk Wylde’s gonna be pulling double duty for another 20 shows. They’ll also have Dark Chapel on the bill, so there should be some downtime for Wylde between sets.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, April 24 at 10 a.m. local time. That’s for both general admission tickets, as well as the VIP upgrades on offer. A pre-sale is currently ongoing at the band’s website. All you need to enter that is to use the code BLS2026.
You can find all of the tour’s dates below. Be sure to find the nearest venue to you and get your tickets when they go live this Friday.
Black Label Society ‘American Crusade’ Dates:
w/Zakk Sabbath and Dark Chapel
Aug-25 | Albany, NY | The Palace Theatre
Aug-26 | Buffalo, NY | Buffalo Riverworks
Aug-31 | Asheville, NC | Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
Sep-02 | Houston, TX | Bayou Music Center
Sep-04 | San Antonio, TX | Boeing Center at Tech Port
Sep-05 | Dallas, TX | The Bomb Factory
Sep-09 | N Kansas City, MO | VooDoo at Harrah’s Kansas City
Sep-11 | Chesterfield, MO | The Factory at the District
Sep-12 | Chicago, IL | Aragon Ballroom
Sep-13 | Cleveland, OH | Jacobs Pavilion
Sep-15 | Raleigh, NC | The Ritz
Sep-18 | Pittsburgh, PA | Stage AE Outside
Sep-19 | Grand Rapids, MI | GLC Live at 20 Monroe
Sep-22 | Green Bay, WI | Epic Event Center
Sep-24 | East Moline, IL | The Rust Belt
Sep-25 | Waite Park, MN | The Ledge – Waite Park Amphitheater
Sep-26 | Council Bluffs, IA | Harrah’s Stir Cove
Sep-29 | Garden City, ID | Revolution Concert House and Event Center
Sep-30 | Airway Heights, WA | Northern Quest Amphitheater
Oct-02 | Bend, OR | Hayden Homes Amphitheater
The post Zakk Wylde to Continue Double Duty in Second Leg of Black Label Society’s ‘American Crusade’ appeared first on MetalSucks.
The great Dave Mason died on April 19th, one month short of hitting 80, and hitting various marks and hurdles has always been his thing. Back in 2015, the veteran this scribe, when asked about his career arc, “Hopefully, I … Continue reading
The post Dave Mason Passed Away appeared first on DMME.net.
Posted on April 22nd 2026, 2:31p.m.
Some splits feel like a handshake. Toward Dead Temples, the new release from Baltimore black metallers Nixil and Portland black/death quartet Drouth, feels like two fronts advancing on the same battlefield—separately aligned, equally intent on leveling what stands in front of them.
Nixil’s side moves with a suffocating sense of spiritual decay, rooted in confrontation—both ideological and internal. The band frames their contribution as an excavation of “the spiritual depth of death and isolation,” targeting what they describe as the “crumbling edifice of Christo-fascism” with a clear endgame: total eradication of the oppressor. That intent isn’t abstract. It’s embedded in the language, the pacing, the atmosphere.
“Never Rise Again” sets the tone with imagery that feels ritualistic in its destruction—“every shard a poisonous seed sown under the nailbeds of god”—until divinity itself is reduced to something brittle and failing. There’s a sense of design behind it, a slow and deliberate tearing down rather than blind fury. That approach carries through “Bloody Footprints on the Path of Bones,” which reads like a trial by ordeal—self-annihilation as transformation, pushing forward through fire, isolation, and will.
By the time “I Am Not Here” arrives, the collapse has turned inward. The self dissolves into absence—“a wandering ghost in living death,” untethered from both form and meaning. It’s here that the band’s stated shift toward “stranger, more unsettling discordance” becomes fully apparent—less about impact, more about something that seeps in and stays there.
Drouth approaches from a different axis—less concerned with dismantling belief from within than with erasing its structures entirely. Their two tracks, originally recorded during The Teeth of Time sessions, serve as a bridge between past and future iterations of the band, carrying forward their dense, blackened death metal weight while pushing into more expansive, disorienting territory.
“Cathartes Aura” operates on scale, its language sweeping and elemental. Fire dominates—purging, illuminating, consuming. “Burn the library of antiquity… set fire our ships in glory,” they declare, cutting ties with history in favor of something harsher and undefined. There’s grandeur here, but it’s scorched—triumph reframed as something already decaying.
That sense of instability deepens in “The Outer Church,” which abandons scale for confinement. The track unfolds like a maze with no center—corridors looping, space collapsing in on itself, orientation slipping with every step. The plea—“Will you not lower me the rope?”—lands with real desperation before the final image seals it: a curtain drawn back by something vast and unknowable.
Together, Toward Dead Temples settles into a shared language of collapse—of systems, of belief, of self. Nixil strips the structure down to its foundations; Drouth burns what remains and leaves the void exposed. Both arrive at the same endpoint, just from different directions.
For fans of the dissonant, forward-pushing edges of Blut Aus Nord, Altar of Plagues, and The Ruins of Beverast—with flashes of Ulcerate’s density and Spectral Wound’s sharpened aggression—Toward Dead Temples doesn’t offer catharsis. It removes the illusion that you were ever meant to find it.
Pre-order the release here through either Nixil or Drouth before it drops on Friday, and—until then—stream the full package below.
The post Split Premiere: Nixil / Drouth – <i>Toward Dead Temples</i> appeared first on Decibel Magazine.