Wisconsin fuzz-pop artist Graham Hunt made his name with no-budget home recordings, but he went bigger with his forthcoming LP American Pyramid, recording most of it with an eight-piece band at Minnesota’s stories Pachyderm Studios. We’ve already posted the early singles “Waiting For You To Come Home,” “Riverboat Blues,” and “Getting Older.” With the LP dropping later this week, Hunt shares one more advance song today.
The post Graham Hunt – “Guardian Angel’s Arms” appeared first on Stereogum.
Silver Horses present the official video for ‘World On Sale‘, the closing track from their album ‘Weird Tales‘ (Elevate Records, 2026), available on YouTube since August 11, 2026. Stream/buy ‘Weird Tales‘ – here Buy the CD – here A bitter, dystopian sci-fi story: a group of con-artist aliens sells Earth to another alien race, marketing […]
The post Silver Horses Release New Video For ‘World On Sale’ appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.
What if the most powerful people in the world were not truly the ones making the rules?
The Cabal is a Gothic science-fiction short film in which ancient rivalries, secret rituals, and human ambition converge inside a ruined church. Behind the masks and decadent celebrations, two Igigi named Ishtar and Degan are quietly directing influential people toward a far darker objective: the destruction of the human race.
Their plan is not driven by a simple hatred of humanity. It is an act of revenge against the Anunnaki, the beings who once cast them down from Nibiru and reduced their status by sending them to Earth.
Written and directed by Chris Mariotti, The Cabal is also the proof of concept for Anuigod, an ambitious series whose story has been conceived across four seasons. The short film opens the door to a hidden mythology in which humanity stands between two ancient factions—and may unknowingly possess the one thing both sides need.
The world of The Cabal begins with a disturbing possibility: human history has never belonged entirely to humans.
Long ago, the Anunnaki forced the Igigi from Nibiru to Earth, stripping them of their former status. Ishtar and Degan never forgot the humiliation. Instead of remaining powerless, they adapted. They entered human society, learned its weaknesses, and gradually placed themselves near its centers of authority.
Over the centuries, the Igigi formed alliances with ambitious human beings. They offered access, influence, and protection in exchange for obedience. Politicians, financiers, religious leaders, and members of the social elite became useful pieces in a game they could not fully understand.
Today, Ishtar and Degan no longer hide at the edges of civilization. They occupy positions from which they can influence laws, institutions, and the stories people accept as truth. Their power does not depend on open conquest. It depends on persuading humans to build their own prison—and to believe they chose it freely.
At the center of the film is a secret gathering held inside a deconsecrated Gothic church hidden in the woods. The sacred architecture has been overtaken by rotting luxury. Candlelight falls across masks, gold ornament, oxblood fabrics, and pale faces as the guests surrender themselves to a night of excess.
The gathering recalls the rituals often associated with secret societies and Illuminati legends, but its true purpose is more practical. The Cabal gives Ishtar and Degan direct access to influential human beings. Behind the spectacle, agreements are made, loyalties are purchased, and new servants are selected.
The guests believe they have been invited because they are exceptional. In reality, their wealth and status make them easier to use. Vanity becomes a leash. Ambition becomes a contract. Every pleasure offered by the Cabal creates another form of control.
This is how the Igigi operate. They do not need to destroy civilization from outside. They encourage its most powerful members to weaken it from within.
The secret objective of Ishtar and Degan is to push humanity toward self-destruction. Wars, division, fear, greed, and the endless pursuit of control are all tools in a campaign designed to look entirely human.
If people destroy one another, the Igigi can complete their revenge without revealing themselves. Yet the extinction of humanity is not their final goal. It is the weapon they intend to use against the Anunnaki.
In the mythology of Anuigod, human beings generate a vital essence known as Veira. It is formed through the emotions, instincts, memories, and desires that define mortal existence. The Anunnaki evolved until they became almost perfect, but that perfection came at a terrible cost: they lost the ability to feel.
Unable to experience love, fear, longing, grief, or physical desire for themselves, the Anunnaki began feeding on human Veira. Through humanity, they can briefly touch the sensations their evolution erased.
To the Igigi, this dependence is the Anunnaki’s greatest vulnerability. If humanity disappears, the source of Veira disappears with it. The plan is therefore both genocide and rebellion: destroy the human race, starve the Anunnaki, and punish the beings who once condemned the Igigi to Earth.
The Anunnaki eventually discover what Ishtar and Degan are attempting. Rather than declaring war immediately, they send two emissaries from Nibiru to confront them.
Their message is direct: the killing must stop.
The warning reveals an unusual reversal. The Anunnaki are not traditional saviors. Their concern for humanity is inseparable from their need for Veira. They protect human life because they depend upon it, creating a dangerous relationship between preservation and exploitation.
Ishtar understands this contradiction and receives the emissaries with open contempt. She mocks their authority and refuses to submit. The meeting becomes less a negotiation than a declaration that the old hierarchy no longer holds.
No final battle occurs within the short film. Instead, the confrontation promises something larger. An ancient conflict is approaching, and Earth will become its battlefield.
Ishtar rules the Cabal through presence, intelligence, and fear. She does not need to raise her voice to command a room. Yet her voice is also the most dangerous weapon she possesses.
Her song begins with the beauty of a siren’s call. Long, hypnotic notes silence the gathering and draw every eye toward her. The melody appears almost sacred, but it gradually climbs beyond the limits of an ordinary human voice.
At its highest frequencies, the song becomes lethal. Beauty turns into violence without changing its form. Those who listen are caught between enchantment and terror, unable to know when the melody will become the last sound they hear.
This contrast defines Ishtar. She can seduce or destroy, offer pleasure or inflict death. Her performance is not entertainment for the Cabal. It is a demonstration of power—and a warning to anyone who might mistake elegance for mercy.
Visually, The Cabal combines Gothic horror, occult fantasy, and science fiction. Although the story takes place in the contemporary world, the secret gathering resembles an eighteenth-century masquerade corrupted by something inhuman.
The abandoned church becomes more than a location. It represents a sacred structure emptied of its original meaning and repurposed by those who see belief as another instrument of control. The altar becomes a stage. The nave becomes a ballroom. Ritual and celebration become impossible to separate.
Gold, bone white, and deep oxblood emerge from the darkness under candlelit chiaroscuro. Elaborate costumes evoke ancient Babylon, decaying aristocracy, and a future that has somehow grown old. Nothing belongs entirely to one historical period because the beings behind the Cabal have survived them all.
After her performance, Ishtar turns to the audience and casually reassures them about the young woman: “Don’t worry, she’s not dead. But humanity may soon be.” She then gives a playful wink, treating the possible extinction of the human race as if it were merely the punchline to a private joke.
A series of photographs follows, showing Ishtar and Degan at the sites of major tragedies across modern history. Chernobyl, Fukushima, the Titanic, Wuhan, and other catastrophes become part of a disturbing visual record. The images reveal that the pair were already present when these disasters occurred, suggesting that the Cabal’s campaign against humanity has been unfolding in plain sight for generations.
Beneath its extraterrestrial mythology, The Cabal is a story about manipulation. The Igigi can influence the world only because powerful human beings are willing to cooperate with them. The promise of status makes people surrender their freedom long before force becomes necessary.
The film asks how much evil truly requires a supernatural origin. Ishtar and Degan may create the conditions for destruction, but humanity supplies the fear, vanity, greed, and ambition that allow their plan to work.
At the same time, the story refuses to treat emotion as a simple weakness. Human feelings generate the Veira desired by the Anunnaki. The same capacity that leaves people vulnerable to manipulation also makes them capable of love, empathy, courage, and sacrifice.
The more perfect the Anunnaki became, the less alive they were. Human beings remain imperfect, mortal, and emotionally unstable—but those apparent flaws may contain their greatest strength.
Our emotions make us vulnerable—but they may also be the only thing that can save us.
The Cabal is designed as a self-contained short film, but its final confrontation opens the path toward a much larger story. It serves as the proof of concept for Anuigod, a science-fiction series whose narrative arc has already been envisioned across four seasons.
The series will expand the history of the Igigi and the Anunnaki, reveal how they shaped human civilization, and examine the rival factions fighting over Earth’s future. It will also explore the nature of Veira and the consequences of a species becoming dependent on the emotional life of another.
Most importantly, Anuigod will place humanity at the heart of the conflict. Humans may appear to be pawns, livestock, or collateral damage to the ancient beings surrounding them. But the qualities those beings dismiss as weaknesses could eventually disrupt every plan made for them.
The short film offers the first glimpse of this universe: a secret ceremony, a defiant queen, two emissaries from another world, and the beginning of a war that has remained hidden for thousands of years.
The Cabal begins in the shadows, among masked guests who believe they have entered an exclusive celebration. By its conclusion, the gathering has revealed a conflict far greater than any of them could imagine.
Ishtar and Degan are no longer willing to accept the order imposed upon them. The Anunnaki cannot allow humanity to vanish. Between these two forces stands a species that does not yet know the truth about its own history—or the value of the energy carried within every human life.
The coming war will not simply decide who controls Earth. It will ask whether humanity can stop serving the ambitions of hidden powers and finally choose its own future.
The Cabal is written and directed by Chris Mariotti, with Edgar Allan Poets.
Explore Gothic clothing, dark art, and designs inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, psychological mystery, and the cinematic world of Edgar Allan Poets.
The Cabal follows Ishtar and Degan, two Igigi who secretly manipulate powerful humans while planning humanity’s destruction as an act of revenge against the Anunnaki.
The Igigi are ancient beings who were cast down from Nibiru and sent to Earth by the Anunnaki. Ishtar and Degan have since infiltrated human society and gained influence over its ruling institutions.
Veira is the vital energy created by human emotions, instincts, desires, and memories. The highly evolved Anunnaki feed upon it because they can no longer experience those sensations naturally.
Humanity is the Anunnaki’s source of Veira. By leading the human race toward extinction, the Igigi hope to deprive their former masters of the energy they need and take revenge for their exile.
Anuigod is the planned science-fiction series for which The Cabal serves as a proof of concept. Its story arc spans four seasons and expands the conflict between the Igigi, the Anunnaki, and humanity.
The Cabal was written and directed by Chris Mariotti as part of the creative world of Edgar Allan Poets.
The post The Cabal: An Ancient War Hidden Within Human Power appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.
The Washington, DC art-punk band Shudder To Think started in 1986 and released a series of confoundingly foxy records before breaking up in 1996. Frontman Craig Wedren went on to a prolific career scoring films and TV shows, and Shudder To Think returned for reunion tours in 2008 and 2025. Last year, they released a two-song single that constituted their first new music in 27 years. Next month, they’ll follow that with a new three-song EP called Who Sent You?
The post Shudder To Think Announce New EP <em>Who Sent You?</em>: Hear The Title Track appeared first on Stereogum.
Are y’all up on Stella Lefty? The Chicago pop-country artist/Groupon heiress born Stella Lefkofsky? When I heard her song “Boston” on the radio I was like, wait, are people already recording Noah Kahan covers, or has his melodic phrasing just become extremely influential? It turns out that “Boston” liberally interpolates “Stick Season,” Kahan’s signature hit (though not on purpose, as we’ll see).
The post Stella Lefty Explains Why Noah Kahan Got Retroactive Writing Credit On “Boston” appeared first on Stereogum.
Korn’s albums, ranked worst to best, cover fourteen records and more than thirty years — and no band in modern heavy music has a stranger arc. They invented a genre out of a Bakersfield rehearsal room, sold forty million records, lost a founding guitarist to religion and got him back a decade later, made a full dubstep album nobody asked for, and then quietly put out some of the best work of their career at an age when most of their peers were coasting on nostalgia. This is every Korn album from worst to best — and the one that reset heavy music forever isn’t in the same league as anything that followed it.
Not nostalgia, and not recency.
We’ve followed this band from the Bakersfield club circuit to festival headline slots, watched the lineup fracture and reform, watched Brian “Head” Welch leave and come back, and watched them go from analogue chaos to modern precision.
What matters here is three things: how strong the record is front to back, how much it moved the band or the genre, and whether it still holds up when you press play today rather than when you were sixteen.
That third one is where most Korn rankings fall apart.
The dubstep album. Somebody had to be last.
Jonathan Davis paired up with Skrillex, Noisia and a rotating cast of EDM producers, and the result abandons the band dynamic entirely. “Get Up!” and “Narcissistic Cannibal” charted, and in fairness Davis had genuinely been into that scene before it was fashionable.
But it doesn’t sound like Korn. It sounds like a Jonathan Davis solo project with the band’s name on it, and it dated faster than anything else in the catalogue. Disconnected, isolated, and the only record here that feels like a detour rather than a chapter.
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Reuniting with Ross Robinson to recapture the debut’s rawness. On paper, perfect. In practice, no.
The band deliberately rejected modern tools — no click tracks, minimal editing — and the sessions were reportedly emotionally brutal. But aggression can’t be manufactured on demand. “Oildale (Leave Me Alone)” hits properly, and the rest sounds like a band imitating their younger selves rather than being them.
You can’t reverse-engineer instinct.
Head’s return, and it should have been a moment.
There’s real chemistry here — two guitarists who learned to play together back in the room — but producer Don Gilmore sanded the edges right off. “Love & Meth” shows flashes of what this could have been. The rest is competent and safe, which are two words that should never apply to this band.
Historically important. Rarely essential.
Underrated, but you can hear the burnout.
Self-produced and turned around fast, it’s got genuine aggression — “Right Now” and “Did My Time” both land — but almost no new ideas. The hidden live cover of Metallica’s “One” with Kid Rock and Fred Durst is legendary for reasons that aren’t entirely musical.
This is the sound of a band running on fumes right before the wheels came off.
The most divisive record they’ve made, and the most interesting failure.
With David Silveria gone and Terry Bozzio and Brooks Wackerman handling drums, this is a moody, industrial-leaning album that rejects nu-metal outright. “Evolution” and “Hold On” genuinely soar.
What holds it back is the mix — the bass is buried, which on a Korn album is close to sacrilege — and a sense that they’d stripped away the old identity without settling on a new one.
Braver than it gets credit for. Not better.
The survival record.
No Head, The Matrix in the producer’s chair, and a deliberate pivot toward pop structure. Longtime fans winced, and plenty still do. But “Twisted Transistor” and “Coming Undone” are undeniable, and this is the album that kept Korn commercially alive through the exact stretch when nu metal was being written off entirely.
Adaptation isn’t a betrayal. Sometimes it’s just how you stay in the room.
The actual comeback.
Head fully reintegrated, Nick Raskulinecz forcing genuine collaboration rather than four people emailing files, and the bite back in the songwriting. “Rotting In Vain” is the heaviest thing they’d cut in a decade, and “A Different World” with Corey Taylor is a legitimate late-career highlight.
This is the record where Korn stopped reacting to the culture and started sounding like themselves again.
The hardest one to listen to, and that’s the point.
Written in the aftermath of profound personal loss, this is Jonathan Davis processing grief in real time on tape. The sobbing on “Surrender To Failure” isn’t a performance choice — it’s a man coming apart, and the band left it in.
Bleak, unflinching, and one of the most emotionally honest records in their catalogue. Not one you put on casually.
Nobody expected this.
Recorded largely live to tape with the band in a room together, Requiem is lean, focused and confident in a way Korn albums hadn’t been in twenty years. “Start The Healing” and “Forgotten” have a chemistry that genuinely rivals the early records.
Twenty-eight years in, and they made a record that sounds like they wanted to rather than had to. That’s rarer than it should be.
Ugly, fast, and completely honest.
Written and recorded quickly, fuelled by excess and the shock of sudden attention, this is the sound of a band with no plan and nothing to lose. “A.D.I.D.A.S.” and “Twist” were doing shock culture before anybody worked out how to sell it.
It’s a mess. That’s the appeal. Nothing on it is calculated.
Darker, more melodic, and their commercial peak.
“Falling Away From Me” and “Make Me Bad” are two of the best songs they’ve ever written, and debuting the album live at the Apollo Theater — a nu-metal band, at the Apollo — is one of the great flex moments of the era.
It’s less immediate than Follow The Leader and more cohesive than anything around it. Plenty of people have this at number one, and the argument holds up.
The best-sounding album they’ll ever make, and they nearly killed themselves making it.
A reported four-million-dollar budget, recording sessions that stretched across continents, and a level of sonic detail nobody in this genre had attempted. “Here To Stay” won a Grammy and still functions as a genre benchmark.
Why it isn’t higher: for all the money and craft, it’s slightly too polished. The danger that made the first three records feel unstable got produced out of it.
Extraordinary record. Marginally less essential than the two above it.
The cultural detonation.
“Freak On A Leash” and “Got The Life” owned MTV for a year. Guest spots from Fred Durst and Ice Cube tied the whole nu-metal takeover together in one package. This is the album that made the genre commercially unavoidable and turned four guys from Bakersfield into the biggest heavy band on the planet.
It’s also just enormously good — tighter than the debut, hungrier than anything after it, and still the entry point for most people who end up loving this band.
Nothing else was ever going to be number one.
From the opening bass slide of “Blind” — arguably the most important eight seconds in nineties heavy music — this record rewired the whole thing. Seven-string guitars tuned into the basement, hip-hop rhythm sections, and Jonathan Davis putting genuine, unprocessed childhood trauma on tape at a time when nobody in metal was doing that.
Ross Robinson’s production captured pain rather than polishing it. “Daddy” is still one of the most difficult listens in mainstream rock, and it’s on a debut album.
Every band on our nu metal ranking exists downstream of this record. Half of the nineties metal landscape reorganised itself around it. Without this album, modern metal is a different shape entirely.
It’s not just their best. It’s one of the most consequential debuts any heavy band has ever made.
Check This Out – Deftones Albums Ranked: Every Record From Worst to Best (The Definitive 2026 Verdict)
14. The Path Of Totality (2011)
13. Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010)
12. The Paradigm Shift (2013)
11. Take A Look In The Mirror (2003)
10. Untitled (2007)
9. See You On The Other Side (2005)
8. The Serenity Of Suffering (2016)
7. The Nothing (2019)
6. Requiem (2022)
5. Life Is Peachy (1996)
4. Issues (1999)
3. Untouchables (2002)
2. Follow The Leader (1998)
1. Korn (1994)
Korn — 1994 Life Is Peachy — 1996 Follow The Leader — 1998 Issues — 1999 Untouchables — 2002 Take A Look In The Mirror — 2003 See You On The Other Side — 2005 Untitled — 2007 Korn III: Remember Who You Are — 2010 The Path Of Totality — 2011 The Paradigm Shift — 2013 The Serenity Of Suffering — 2016 The Nothing — 2019 Requiem — 2022
Untouchables at three will annoy people who consider it their masterpiece. Issues at four will annoy the people who think it’s their peak. And somebody, somewhere, is going to defend The Path Of Totality — that person exists and we’ve met them.
The top two aren’t moving.
If you want more of this, the full Loaded Radio rankings archive is here, and the Deftones discography is the natural companion — the other Californian band from that exact moment who went in completely the opposite direction. Lamb of God and In Flames are both worth your time too.
The 1994 self-titled debut. Produced by Ross Robinson, it introduced downtuned seven-string guitars, hip-hop-informed rhythm and an unprecedented level of emotional exposure to heavy music — effectively creating nu metal in the process. Follow The Leader (1998) is the most credible challenger and the more accessible entry point, but the debut’s influence is unmatched.
Fourteen studio albums released between 1994 and 2022: Korn, Life Is Peachy, Follow The Leader, Issues, Untouchables, Take A Look In The Mirror, See You On The Other Side, Untitled, Korn III: Remember Who You Are, The Path Of Totality, The Paradigm Shift, The Serenity Of Suffering, The Nothing and Requiem.
The Path Of Totality (2011). Built around collaborations with EDM producers including Skrillex and Noisia, it sidelines the band dynamic almost entirely and functions more like a Jonathan Davis solo project. Two singles charted, but the record aged faster than anything else in the catalogue.
Untouchables (2002), with a budget reported to have exceeded $4 million. The extended sessions produced the most sonically detailed record in their catalogue and won the band a Grammy for “Here To Stay.”
Fourteen albums, thirty years, and a debut nothing since has touched. Think Follow The Leader or Untouchables deserves the top spot instead? Settle it in the comments. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
The post Korn Albums Ranked: The Complete Discography appeared first on Loaded Radio.