Geese are everywhere these days, including the pitcher’s mound at Citi Field, where the Mets have been getting killed lately. Collectively, the band stepped up alongside Mr. Met to deliver the first pitch Sunday at the Mets’ game against the Colorado Rockies. Bassist Dom DiGesu, a southpaw, was the one who actually made the toss, sending it squarely across home plate to the delight of his bandmates, all of whom joined him in wearing Nike MLB Limited City Connect Jerseys. On IG Stories, Geese wrote, “Absolutely honored,” and DiGesu wrote, “Best day ever.”
To promote their forthcoming studio album Chemical Poetry, set to land in stores on October 30th 2026, French operatic power metal ensemble Avaland have premiered a brand new single “Destiny Calls”. Read more…
The fallout for former The Amity Affliction bassist and vocalist Ahren Stringer has shifted from the recording studio to the courtroom. Just months after his controversial ousting from the multi-platinum Australian metalcore giants, Stringer appeared before the Benalla Magistrates’ Court on April 21st to answer for a litany of dangerous driving and drug-related refusal charges. With the metal community still reeling from the band’s messy public divorce and Stringer’s subsequent health scares, these criminal allegations add a dark new chapter to an already volatile saga that proves the road to recovery is far from a straight line.
The Ahren Stringer Legal Crisis:
The Charges: Stringer faces five counts, including speeding 45 km/h over the limit and refusing breath and drug fluid tests.
The Incident: The charges stem from an alleged high-speed episode in the Benalla region of Australia.
The Fallout: Stringer was ousted from The Amity Affliction in February 2025; legal battles over the band’s finances are ongoing.
Health Battles: Following his dismissal, Stringer launched the project Self Checkout but was hospitalized for a “serious emergency” in late 2025.
Court Status: No plea has been entered yet; the case is adjourned until May 26th.
Inside the Charges: Dangerous Speed and Refusal to Cooperate
According to court records obtained byBlunt, Stringer isn’t just facing a simple traffic ticket. The five charges laid out in Benalla Magistrates’ Court paint a picture of a high-risk police encounter. Specifically, Stringer has been charged with:
Driving at a speed dangerous to the public.
Exceeding the speed limit by 45 km/h or more.
Refusal to undergo a preliminary breath test.
Refusal to undergo a preliminary oral fluid (drug) test.
Operating a vehicle in an unsafe or non-roadworthy condition.
The refusal to undergo drug and alcohol testing is particularly significant in the Australian legal system, often carrying penalties as severe as the offenses the tests are designed to detect. For a musician who has been vocal about his struggles with addiction, these specific charges are bound to ignite further concern among his dedicated fanbase.
The Messy Divorce: The Amity Affliction and the Financial War
While Stringer battles the legal system in Benalla, a secondary war is being fought in the boardroom. Stringer’s departure from The Amity Affliction in February 2025 was anything but amicable. Following his exit, legal action was initiated regarding Stringer’s stake in the band’s business and financial structure.
The Amity Affliction has already moved on creatively, releasing their first album without Stringer, titled House Of Cards. However, the “clean break” fans expected has yet to materialize. Sources suggest that the complicated nature of their shared business ties and the band’s current financial situation have kept both parties tethered together in a web of litigation that may take years to untangle.
We recently sat down with The Amity Affliction singer Joel Birch to discuss House Of Cards and the split with Stringer on a recent edition of The Loaded Radio Podcast which you can listen to at this location. Definitely a compelling conversation to say the least.
Self Checkout and the Fight for Mental Health
In the wake of his dismissal, Stringer didn’t go quiet. He teamed up with fellow embattled musician Gus Farias (ex-Volumes) to form Self Checkout in May 2025. The project was designed as a raw, honest outlet for their mutual struggles with mental health and substance abuse—a sonic therapy session for two men who found themselves on the outside of the industry they helped build.
However, the road took a terrifying turn in September 2025 when Stringer was hospitalized for a “serious and unexpected emergency.” While details were kept private, the incident occurred just months after the alleged driving offenses in Benalla, suggesting a period of extreme personal turmoil for the vocalist.
As of this week, no plea has been entered. The court has adjourned the matter until May 26th, giving Stringer’s legal team time to review the evidence. Whether this leads to a plea deal or a full trial remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Ahren Stringer is at a crossroads.
Between the criminal charges in Benalla and the financial deadlock with his former bandmates, the man who provided the melodic soul of The Amity Affliction for nearly two decades is now fighting his most important battle off-stage.
The Loaded Radio Final Word
We’ve watched Ahren Stringer dominate stages for years, but this is a different kind of intensity. While we never condone dangerous behavior on the road—especially refusing sobriety tests—you can’t help but see the human cost of the “rockstar” lifestyle. Here’s hoping Stringer gets the help and the legal resolution he needs to get back to what he does best: making music. We’ll be tracking the May 26th court date closely.
TL;DR:
The Bottom Line Former The Amity Affliction vocalist Ahren Stringer appeared in an Australian court on April 21st facing dangerous driving and drug test refusal charges. The incident follows a year of personal and professional chaos, including his firing from Amity and a major hospitalization. The case has been adjourned to May 26th.
(The Dutch metal extremists Soulburn will release their fifth album on June 12th through Testimony Records, and that created a good opportunity for our Comrade Aleks to check in with Soulburn co-founder Eric Daniels. A great discussuion ensued, and you can check it out below along with the album’s first two singles.) Dutch extreme metal […]
On Saturday night, Donald Trump attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton. During the ceremony, a California resident named Cole Tomas Allen reportedly sprinted past a security checkpoint on a different floor of the hotel. Before he was arrested, Allen fired one shot that reportedly hit a Secret Service agent’s bulletproof vest. Otherwise, nobody was harmed. Trump and his administration officials were taken out of the dinner, which eventually resumed. Trump seemingly faced no immediate danger. Bruce Springsteen, for one, is thankful that Trump wasn’t shot.
Spell is an appropriate name for the band because listening to their music feels like having a dark enchantment placed upon you. Their brand of heavy metal has, over the years, become awash with ornate gothic romanticism and it is absolutely fantastic. Wretched Heart continues to develop these sonic ideas, featuring more dark, occult psychedelia than ever before while also being a heavier album than its predecessor. If a Dario Argento movie were a metal album, it might sound like this.
The latest Devenial Verdict EP updates a few tracks from their Soulthirst EP, released in 2016, alongside newer cuts that demonstrate their development into a streamlined outfit. Old Blood – Fresh Wounds dips its toes into puddles of melodeath, old school death metal, and stupidly groovy breakdowns as if it’s trying to get along with everyone at a party.
The modern and overblown production on Vento can be initially off-putting because it subtracts the fuzz and grit from the instruments. Fortunately, Malorshiga do not rely on those attributes. Their arrangements are ornate, edging into atmospheric territory and implementing choirs, field recordings, and bagpipes in place of synths. The distinction is subtle but appetizing.
Complaining about a death metal band from Sweden that loves Bolt Thrower? Do you also whine when your steak is too juicy and your bread too buttery? Or when a boxing match ends with a knockout? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Dormant no longer, Chicago’s Lair of the Minotaur are back on the scene with I Hail I, their first full-length since 2010’s Evil Power. The bruising barbarian metal trio now features underground fixture/superproducer Sanford Parker on bass. I Hail I consists of 10 new tracks in just over 30 minutes and will be released on the group’s own label The Grind-House Records. For all of the metallic elements organically incorporated into their sound, the overt hardcore influences were always the most intriguing to these ears. “I Hail I” is a doomy powerviolence-tinged eruption that introduces a new facet of hardcore extremity into the LOTM maelstrom, whereas the queasy twisted “Prowler Twin Sister” sounds like it could’ve been on Morbid Angel’s Domination.
You would be forgiven for looking at the album name and art and expecting an ambient black metal album with pretty keyboards and barely audible windlike vocals. Enter the Woodland Realm, Eveale’s debut album, is nothing like that. It’s far more focused on blistering riffs and a pounding pace with a hint of lush progressive rock. There are moments of beauty as well, creating a powerful and diverse album that fans of Enslaved and Borknagar should enjoy.
The “progressive” descriptor supersedes all the other subgenres Ashen Horde dive into on their fifth full-length. Going a step further, the group’s home city is arguably more important than any other adjective. Los Angeles and its tendrils that connect to all manner of art and genre, to the point that it ignores the differences between styles, shaped Ashen Horde, as The Harvest is as true to any fundamental form as an Impossible Burger is to a beef patty. This comes as a relief, dismay to genre gatekeepers as it may be, because it frees Ashen Horde to explore tones, textures, and pitches that would otherwise be scrapped on a black or death metal album.
Despite being a one-man raw black metal band with dungeon synth framing, Ysbrydnos play like they should be a much bigger affair. Not just in terms of relevance, but that they should be a multi-person operation with maps and extended lore. The epic scope of Welsh Mythical Darkness is a touch rustic and grainy because of the whole solo raw black metal schtick, and that’s for the best.
Newcastle upon Tyne’s finest export, the one and only Venom are making their long awaited return to the global stage with Into Oblivion, the iconic trio’s 16th studio album. The new record, the group’s first batch of fresh material since 2018’s Storm the Gates, is the painstaking result of an arduous creative process Venom paid for in “blood, sweat and tears,” according to Cronos. This prolonged battle with adversity appears to have paid off very well indeed as guitarist Rage characterized Into Oblivion as “astounding,” before stating: “I’m so proud of this record…It feels so different, yet so familiar.” The familiar, yet similar dichotomy was also echoed by Cronos who said: “I think it’s healthy to recognize things from back in the day and bring them into a new setting.” This tension is obviously something that all bands with formidable legacies have to negotiate when releasing new music and it’s sort of refreshing to hear it openly acknowledged. Venom’s pride in the new material seems justified when “Lay Down Your Soul” barrels triumphantly from your speakers that first time, hitting a speedy relentless Motörhead style stride over which a rejuvenated Cronos pledges once more his allegiance to dark unholy rock’n’roll apparitions. “Kicked Outta Hell” conjures up more of ye old metal magick with burly modern production that adds extra density to their still potent roar.
RidingEasy is unleashing an extremely rare live set from tempestuous American doom legends Pentagram. High Voltage–”Live at Spotsylvania ‘78” is a fascinating, highly anticipated document for numerous reasons. The concert took place in the backyard of then bassist Marty Swaney’s mother’s house in Spotsylvania,Virginia, a reputed all night affair attended by 500 eager heathens. Pentagram’s infamous frontman Bobby Liebling claims: “the show began at 1am on a foggy night and featured rare songs with a raw, powerful performance.” Liebling’s lore provides dramatic context for one of the few surviving aural fragments of what Pentagram devotees refer to as the “High Voltage” era, whenn the band was briefly a five-piece, twin-guitar doom and damnation machine. That line-up’s considerable (but ultimately unfulfilled) potential is on full display during a gloomy grinding rendition of “When the Screams Come,” which sees lead guitarists Paul Trowbridge and Richard Kueht split the misty Virginia night with colossal riffs and tasty shredtastic solos. The surprisingly solid yet still suitably raw audio quality “blends a low-level board mix with ambient mic recording” and was mastered by Nick Townsend.
Gentilesky: Dream Slovenly Recordings Vinyl & Digital Out Now Italian-Turkish punk outfit releases their second album, reclaimed feminine rage front and centre, shortening the gap between 17th-century subversive art and modern radical expression. MK Bennett hosts. […]
