Today, the Los Angeles-based two-piece Crown the Empire released their new haunting single “raw” with Rise Records.Directed by B.K. Barone, the music video for the track finds Andy Leoand and Brandon Hoover delivering a moody, atmospheric performance in the back of a freezer truck leaning into the raw, visceral tension the song demands. This new track marks another step forward into the band’s ever-evolving […]
I can’t hear that he’s calling my name The sound is drowned out in the rain Shots ring out in the night
Some moments refuse to remain in the past. They return in fragments: a face suspended in memory, a sound drowned out by rain, a story replayed frame by frame until the mind begins mistaking its repetition for control. Grief carries its own damaged signal, breaking apart and reassembling itself in flashes. The more one tries to recover the moment that cannot be undone, the more distorted it becomes.
Washington, D.C. dark synthpop duo 2DCAT step into that unresolved space with the video for “Frames (Blue Rose Edit).” The track reworks “Frames,” a fan favourite the band loved but, by Johan Hauck’s own assessment, could never quite survive in a live set. The Blue Rose Remix of the track answers that problem by turning restraint into force.
“Frames was a song our fans loved and we could never play live,” says Hauck. “The Blue Rose remix is me solving that problem with a sledgehammer. Literally.”
That is not a metaphor. The primary snare line driving the remix was recorded at a county landfill, where Hauck took his self-built, LMD-649-inspired sampler and captured the sound of metal components being smashed and machinery being thrown into other machinery. Recorded through a 12-bit, 50 kHz capture chain, those impacts became the track’s percussive spine: not programmed violence, but found wreckage converted into rhythm.
The result carries the same grief-stricken lyrics as the original—helplessness, loss, and the sickening recognition of a moment that cannot be reversed—but the body around them has changed. The remix is harder, faster, and more physically insistent, pushing the song toward the dance floor without sanding away its sorrow. Its pulse feels forged rather than sequenced, closer in spirit to Einstürzende Neubauten treating industrial debris as an instrument than to a track built entirely inside a digital workstation.
Hauck’s machinery is central to the sound. Every synthesizer on “Frames” was built from his own designs, using 16nm Xilinx FPGAs as their backbone. His sampler, constructed from scratch, takes inspiration from the LMD-649, the Toshiba-EMI digital sampler developed by engineer Kenji Murata in the 1970s. Hauck reconstructed his own version from limited circuit specifications and historically plausible components, creating a machine that now follows 2DCAT onto the stage.
Around that hardware-driven violence, HAEZL remains the emotional centre of the song. An acclaimed opera singer, she brings precision and weight without overstatement: the diction is sharp, the range controlled, and the delivery heavy with the kind of grief that does not need to announce itself theatrically to be devastating. In the repeated admission “I couldn’t save you,” the song finds its wound and refuses to close it.
The Blue Rose designation points directly toward David Lynch. In Lynch’s world, a blue rose marks the kind of case that cannot be explained by ordinary means, something resistant to resolution. That logic fits “Frames”: a song about loss that does not settle into understanding, but instead remains suspended in the in-between, where memory becomes evidence and evidence becomes haunted.
The accompanying video extends that idea through stark black-and-white imagery and deliberate analog damage. It opens with blown-out machinery, glare, and a flickering title card before giving way to HAEZL’s face, partially obscured by horizontal smears, scratches, and ghosted signal breaks. Her image appears close enough to touch, then slips behind interference.
Performance footage places the duo inside a severe, high-contrast space framed by radiant light bars and deep pools of shadow. Hauck stands at the machinery while HAEZL moves through the foreground like a figure caught between transmission and apparition. The frame repeatedly tears, blooms, and bends; light flares swallow the image; faces double and dissolve; and the screen itself seems to become unstable under the pressure of the song.
Those distortions are not decorative glitches. The video draws on the signal-processing and video-art legacy of Steina and Woody Vasulka, whose work treated electronic degradation as a compositional material rather than a flaw to be corrected. Feedback ghosts, tear bends, and other analog artifacts become part of the visual language here, mirroring the way the remix turns landfill percussion and damaged signal into melody, texture, and momentum.
At times, the video feels like a broadcast from a machine that has learned to mourn. The images do not simply illustrate the song’s grief; they behave like grief itself—looping, fragmenting, overexposing, and returning to the same impossible frame. By the end, “Frames (Blue Rose Edit)” has transformed loss into motion without pretending that motion is the same as escape.
Watch the video for “Frames (Blue Rose Edit)” below:
Based in Washington, D.C., 2DCAT are a dark synthpop and darkwave duo inspired by the late ’70s and early ’80s European synth music scene. Their live sets have brought them to sold-out club nights and festival stages across the United States and Europe, drawing from darkwave, synthpop, and gothic audiences.
“Frames (Blue Rose Edit)” is out now. Listen to the song below, and order it here.
Our a-ha Songs Ranked list takes a look at a band from Norway that released the smash hit single “Take On Me” in 1985. While the band never repeated that success in the United States and many other countries, the group stands as one of the most successful bands of all time in their native home in Norway. Over the course of a thirty-year career, the band has released ten studio albums and thirty-nine singles. What is most impressive is the number of hits the band has continued to have among their Norwegian fans and other International fans. In Norway,
Your patience will be rewarded. Chile’s RIPPER returns with their first full-length since 2016’s Experiment of Existence.
The last decade has seen RIPPER refine their attack into a lethal blend of old-school death metal and thrash-or-be-thrashed aggression. The band has undeniably earned a reputation as one of South America’s premiere extreme metal exports.
Witness the band’s triumphant return with the first single offTowards Rebirth, “The Source Exterminator.” Stream the track at: youtu.be/J_QqGRoVQ2Q?si=BafNTXKHy5hO3jOz
Towards Rebirth contains the band’s most violent work to date. Razor sharp guitar work, intense drumming and well-crafted songs are still there…only more concise, more vicious.
Dark Descent Records will release Towards Rebirth on July 24th on CD, vinyl and digital formats.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IRON BONES, HEXJAKT, AND DOOMHERRE FEATURED IN METAL INJECTION’S “NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK – 6/26”
Metal Devastation PR is proud to announce that clients Doomherre, Hexjakt, and Iron Bones have been featured in Metal Injection’s latest weekly roundup, “New Releases – 6/26” , standing alongside major names including The Pretty Reckless, Junius, Nunslaughter, Amberian Dawn, Mortiis, Muse, Haggus, Exploring Birdsong, Sans Froid, and more.
The feature highlights a strong showing from the underground, with Metal Injection spotlighting multiple releases representing the heavier end of the spectrum this week.
FEATURED RELEASES
IRON BONES – “STRIGOI (BRINGER OF DEATH)” OFFICIAL VIDEO
From the upcoming album Poison Riot (out February 19, 2026)
Chile’s Iron Bones deliver a relentless surge of Heavy Speed Roll on their latest single “Strigoi (Bringer of Death)”, the first official video from their forthcoming full-length Poison Riot . The track showcases the band’s uncompromising blend of speed, grit, and raw rock and roll aggression, driven by razor sharp riffs and a no compromise attitude.
Blending the ferocity of Motörhead, Venom, Discharge, and Midnight, Iron Bones push a sound built on velocity, attitude, and intent rather than nostalgia. Lyrically and visually, the track explores mysticism, collapse, and confrontation, delivered with a raw, ritualistic edge.
Iron Bones are currently seeking label partnership and worldwide release support for Poison Riot , a fully completed album set to arrive February 19, 2026.
HEXJAKT – FOUR ALTARS OF SIN (SPLIT) OUT NOW VIA MAJESTIC MOUNTAIN RECORDS
Swedish doom force Hexjakt appear on the new four way split Four Altars of Sin , released June 26 via Majestic Mountain Records.
Emerging from Västmanland’s underground, Hexjakt craft slow moving, atmospheric doom built on dense fuzz, heavy low end, and patient, ritualistic pacing. Their contribution, “Svartkonst,” leans fully into their signature approach, where repetition becomes pressure and atmosphere becomes weight.
Four Altars of Sin unites four distinct acts from the Nordic underground: Doomherre, Hexjakt, Ordos, and Kaiser, each contributing exclusive material to a unified statement of modern doom heaviness.
DOOMHERRE – FOUR ALTARS OF SIN (SPLIT) OUT NOW VIA MAJESTIC MOUNTAIN RECORDS
Stockholm’s Doomherre appear alongside Hexjakt, Ordos, and Kaiser on the newly released four way split Four Altars of Sin , out June 26 via Majestic Mountain Records.
Doomherre contribute “Blood Relics of Old,” a slow burning descent steeped in decay, pursuit, and inevitability. The track moves with deliberate force, stripped of excess and grounded in classic doom weight and atmosphere.
The release stands as a unified statement from four distinct Nordic acts, each delivering a different interpretation of heaviness while maintaining a shared ritualistic thread.
ABOUT THE FEATURE
Metal Injection’s weekly New Releases series continues to highlight both major label releases and underground movements, with this week’s edition showcasing a strong balance of established artists and rising independent heavy acts.
Metal Devastation PR extends a massive thank you to Metal Injection for supporting underground heavy music and highlighting our roster alongside some of the biggest names in modern rock and metal.
Go check it out here: https://metalinjection.net/upcoming-releases/heavy-new-releases/the-weekly-injection-new-releases-from-the-pretty-reckless-junius-nunslaughter-and-more-out-this-week-6-26
Fear is easiest to manufacture at a distance, when cities are understood through alarmist headlines and political talking points rather than lived experience. Public transit becomes evidence of social collapse, and the strangers riding it are reduced to silhouettes onto which anger, suspicion, and resentment can be projected. This performance of toughness depends on keeping those people abstract: unnamed, unknowable, and therefore easy to blame. Step onto the train and encounter them as individuals, however, and the imagined enemy begins to look like another person carrying groceries, heading to work, or simply trying to get home.
Kansas City quartet RxGhost brings that contradiction of public bravado and private fear onto the platform in “Subway.” The new single is the latest preview of the band’s forthcoming album, Upkeep, due this fall on vinyl and cassette, and the first RxGhost recording to feature guitarist and vocalist Jen Kean.
After a patient, suspended opening, “Subway” settles into a firm mid-tempo pull. Chris Smead’s driving bass and Justin Brooks’s steady drums hold the floor while the guitars widen overhead, accumulating atmosphere without obscuring the song beneath them. Josh Thomas supplies the grainier rhythmic foundation, while Kean’s lead lines drift patiently through the surrounding haze rather than forcing themselves to the front.
The track grows through pressure and accumulation instead of chasing a sudden shoegaze eruption. Its guitars thicken, recede through a quieter middle passage, and return with greater weight, but the rhythm section maintains the same controlled momentum throughout. Melody remains visible inside the distortion, giving the song the balance of immediacy and abrasion that RxGhost describes as “danger pop”: pop songs wrapped in shoegaze and alt-rock noise and texture.
Sonically, “Subway” sits somewhere between The Cure’s pop-shaped interplay of bass and guitar, Deerhunter’s introspective blur, and the muscular drift of DIIV and Swervedriver. The atmosphere is heavy without becoming shapeless, allowing the vocal hook and political argument to remain legible inside the guitar weather.
That argument takes aim at a particular performance of fear: the self-styled tough man who speaks as though the city were a combat zone while remaining terrified of a train full of people he has never met. Fed a steady diet of media-driven panic, he turns unfamiliar faces into enemies and mistakes suspicion for courage. The chorus reduces that reflex to its essential mechanism: “another strawman to blame.”
The subway becomes more than the song’s setting. It is a test of whether public life is understood as shared space or merely catalogued as a series of threats. The frightened subject does not know the names of the people he has been taught to hate, but ignorance is useful to the fiction; recognising them as individuals would interrupt the story he has been sold.
As the song progresses, RxGhost redirects the anger away from invented enemies and toward the economic forces responsible for material insecurity. The song asks why blame is so readily aimed across a train carriage rather than upward at the investment class. Its frustration is directed not only at fearmongering itself, but at the way manufactured panic keeps people fighting one another while those with actual power escape scrutiny.
Listen to “Subway” below:
“Subway” also documents a turning point within RxGhost. Kean joined after former guitarist Jeremiah James stepped back to concentrate on his primary band, Redder Moon, as its touring schedule intensified. RxGhost knew Kean through shows shared with her former Kansas City post-rock group Still Ill, and brought her into the lineup rather than continuing as a three-piece.
By then, Upkeep had already been developing for some time. RxGhost spent roughly two years making the album across two lineups, recording its first stretch with James. Those sessions produced the previously released singles “Sponsored Content,” “Anytime But Now,” and “Undersaid.” When James departed, the band had completed eight songs—enough to establish the album’s shape, but not enough to finish it.
Rather than treating the lineup change as an interruption, RxGhost continued writing with Kean. The completed record is divided relatively evenly between material created before and after she joined, with “Subway” serving as the first song released from the second phase. Her atmospheric lead work expands the band’s existing language without making the two eras sound like separate records.
The current lineup of Thomas, Kean, Smead, and Brooks has been performing together around Kansas City for more than a year. RxGhost have also shared stages with Shiner, Cloud Nothings, and The Veldt. Their debut album, Scaffolding, appeared on KMUW’s list of the best local and regional albums of 2024, establishing the band’s ability to fit concise hooks into a volatile mix of shoegaze, post-punk, and dissonant alternative rock.
“Subway” is out now on all major streaming platforms. Upkeep follows this fall on vinyl and cassette.
The album opens with “Cowboy Armageddon,” a short and mysterious introduction that evokes curiosity. This intriguing paves the way for the rest of the album, preparing listeners for something unique. Following this enigmatic introduction is “Problematic,” a song infused with vintage vibes. The vocals are reminiscent of Alice Cooper, layered over a rhythm that echoes the Rolling Stones while still maintaining the band’s distinctive identity.
Next is “Chatbot Don’t Like It,” which features an engaging rhythm interspersed with psychedelic shifts that even hint at punk influences. The song successfully melds various musical ideas, keeping listeners entertained while showcasing the band’s versatility. “Save Ourselves” begins with a beautiful psychedelic choir that pulls listeners in, reminiscent of the 1970s sound. The song envelops the listener with energy; the doubled guitar solos feature long, visionary notes that elevate the experience. It possesses a driving rhythm that encourages movement, amplifying the positive atmosphere.
“Heedless of the Storm” emerges next, presenting a compelling experience with a hypnotic and intense beat that invites dancing. The vocal delivery is almost oracular, channeling the ethereal vibes of David Bowie. This track stands out for its ability to blend powerful rhythm with evocative lyricism. “Pleasure Craft” introduces funky elements that awaken the desire to dance. This song captures the essence of Saturday Night Fever, demonstrating the band’s knack for crafting tunes that inspire motion.
The album takes a reflective turn with “Someone’s Dream,” a beautiful ballad that encourages listeners to dream. It feels ethereal and intense, surrounding the audience in refined vibes. The interaction between the male and female vocals adds depth and richness to the track, emphasizing the unity within diversity.
The album concludes with the radio version of “Chatbot Don’t Like It,” where the explicit language is censored. This choice highlights the band’s approach to accessibility, allowing a broader audience to engage with their music while maintaining its original spirit.
Problematic – Sound and Atmosphere
Throughout the album, the diversity and intensity of each track are evident, showcasing Motihari Brigade’s ability to surprise and engage listeners. It is a classic example of their evolving style while retaining core elements that fans have come to love.
Each song presents a different facet of the band’s artistry, ranging from vibrant and energetic to more dreamlike and introspective. The blending of varied musical influences showcases their innovative spirit and unique sound, ensuring listeners remain hooked from start to finish.
The overall experience of “Problematic” captivates with its combination of nostalgic influences and modern sensibilities. The album succeeds in inviting listeners into a world rich with musical exploration and emotional resonance. Themes of curiosity, energy, and introspection are woven through the tracks, allowing for a dynamic listening journey. The band continues to push boundaries while remaining grounded in their musical roots, making “Problematic” a noteworthy contribution to their discography.
The band name, Diles Que No Me Maten, translates to “Tell them not to kill me.” That alone should perk up your ears before you even hear a note. When you press play on Escrito En Agua, the Mexico City band’s new album released this month, you may then be further intrigued by the funereal New Orleans jazz dirge that greets you. And when that song, “Las noches que dormimos en sillas,” leads you to “Hiriku,” you may wonder how you ended up traversing space and time to a Can show in Cologne in 1971. Any lingering confusion will soon give way to excitement about this wholly unique ensemble.
If you love this music: