Category: news

Dutch psychedelic post-metal trio An Evening With Knives returns with a new two-track EP The Rabbit & The Mistake on September 2nd, following their 2025 album End Of Time. The release features “The Mistake”, accompanied by a brand-new video created by Paddy Murphy, plus “The Rabbit”, a previously unreleased track rescued from the End Of Time studio sessions.
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Brazil’s top exports include coffee, petroleum, iron ore, frozen bovine meat and now Karen Dió. Snapped up by Hopeless Records for her 2024 EP ‘My World’ EP, she now has to prove success wasn’t a fluke. The pressure is on. You’ve probably seen the slogan, with its three little diagrams, maybe on a t-shirt – ‘This is a chord. Here is another. This is a third. Now form a band’. It encapsules the punk ethos, perfectly. Simple music, held together with attitude. That’s Karen Dió’s modus operandi on her new EP ‘Fugaz’.

Maybe you’ve heard of the uptick in sales of dumb phones and vinyl, maybe there’s a thirst for bygone technology, a desire for honest connection. Dió is a punk, her music fits that bill. It’s built around guitar chord riffs and rapid drum beats with her yelling over the top. It’s a massive contrast to more mainstream artists with their auto-tune and overproduced digital soundscapes. This EP is also a massive contrast to her previous work. She’s never lacked confidence (it’s the sole merit of her bratty breakout hit ‘Sick Ride’) but here the attitude is shaped into something more than a soundbite. Hence, the songs are so much stronger. As ‘Euphoria’ opens with a raw strummed guitar she captures the thrill by singing; ‘I can feel something…’

All six tracks crackle with enthusiasm, whether it’s the stomp of ‘Free Yourself’ or the hi-hat being rattled on ‘Rat Race’, the drums give the music a wicked sense of momentum. Notably on ‘Choke’ the repeating guitar riff works as a flywheel, giving Dió freedom to snap and bark while the song drives itself. The simplicity also means details like squeals of feedback, the distorted bass that opens ‘Rat Race’ or the simple picked lead line on ‘Crawling’ feel intoxicating.

‘Fugaz’ means ‘fleeting’ in Portuguese. That’s a great way to describe Dió’s work. The songs here clock in at around two and a half minutes each, enough to make their point without wearing themselves out. By comparison, the six tracks of ‘My World’ burned past in twelve minutes, yet these feel shorter. They’re stronger ideas and better hooks, fleshed out and moving with intention. The promotional images features her pictured with The Hives’ Pelle Almqvist, a strong comparison.

Last year’s enthusiastic standalone single ‘Bexy’ hinged on cries of ‘Hey!’, and that’s the default position here; the choruses are easy to sing along to. Songs like ‘Euphoria’ or ‘Free Yourself’ are built around surprisingly catchy ‘ahh’ sounds, but it’s not all one note. The verses make the most of her rapid-fire delivery and low-sultry voice, and the way her voice distorts on ‘Crawling’ or ‘Fugaz’ is a great display of passion.

On the EP’s cover, Dió is pictured wearing a distinctive orange jacket while performing a high-kick. There’s a certain irony to this, given punk’s DIY ethos, but it’s a brilliant piece of graphic identity, capturing the music’s personality.

Karen Dió thrives under pressure. ‘Fugaz’ is filled with style, attitude and great songs.

IAN KENWORTHY

Featuring longtime favorites alongside new material from their upcoming album, ‘Dead Company’

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Spaniards Streamer have launched a video clip for “Rock All Around”, the first single from their forthcoming long player Into The Void.
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Wow. Wasn’t May just the other day? It seems like it to me! The fifth month of our Lord bestowed much quality material on us, and there were at least 4 key releases that garnered strong, fanboying support from the AMG peanut gallery located deep in the recesses of the Skull Pit. Funny thing about that gallery – they’re all tasteless hacks, but they’re OUR tasteless hacks, so we try to honor their likes.

Panopticon finally completed their massive Laurentian Trilogy with the release of Det hjemsøkte hjertet [out May 8th from Nordvis Productions (Bandcamp)], and the concluding installment has been received very positively by the metalsphere and elite intelligentsia alike. While we’re definitely not part of that elite metal intelligentsia ourselves, we have to agree with their positive buzz this time. This is a deeply introspective and nostalgic work of atmospheric folked blackness, written as a reflection of things remembered and things lost as the final curtain closes on a life. The material feels cathartic and delivers a long-building release. As Thus Spoke beautifully summed up, “A more perfect way to end things could not exist. My heart clings longingly to the place evoked by Det hjemsøkte hjertet‘s consuming atmosphere and touching humanity.” Moods 4 sale!¹

Runner(s) Up:

Draconian // In Somnolent Ruin [May 8th, 2026 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Sweden’s eternal Gothic doom crew Draconian have been at the crying game for a long, long time. Some of the names and faces have changed over the years, but the core sound and formula remains much the same. On eighth album In Somnolent Ruin, their doom edge is still sharp and ready to cut holes in your heart as only well-executed Goth-doom can. Unhurried and loaded down with bittersweet, exquisitely sad vocals from returning original singer Lisa Johansson, and anchored by the death roars of Anders Jacobsson, the Draconian experience still plucks heartstrings as it shakes the spinal cord. Perhaps most surprising is just how good the songwriting is across the entire album. It’s no surprise Kenstrosity spelled it out as “A love letter to Draconian’s storied past and a celebration of their modern era, refined to staggering excellence.” Taste the tears!

A Forest of Stars // Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface [May 8th, 2026 | Prophecy Productions | Bandcamp] — Britain’s avant-garde prog metal weirdos A Forest of Stars never did things the easy way. They blend genres with little regard to what should and shouldn’t go together, and somehow things usually work for them. With doom as a central tenet, the oddly named Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface unrolls a lengthy tapestry of sounds and styles for the patient listener. Long song lengths are kept lively by creative, dynamic writing and often unhinged vocal performances. A wild ride awaits the daring listener. As Grymm elegantly concluded, “A Forest of Stars, in a just world, should be heralded as purveyors of odd, eclectic metal. Here’s hoping that Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface is as much a jumping-on point for many of you as it was for me.” Get this Forest package!

 

The post Record(s) o’ the Month – May 2026 appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

This is the latest EP from Russian black/death metal band Thanatomass. Following on from 2023’s Hades, Thanatomass have now returned with the three-track EP The Rabid Dead. Across 20 minutes, Thanatomass deliver a scorching display of corrosive black/death nastiness. The EP opens with the title track’s furious barrage of monstrous riffs and screaming solos. The vocals are … Continue reading “Thanatomass – The Rabid Dead (Review)”

For the first time ever, Steve Hogarth, the unmistakable voice of Marillion and one of progressive rock’s most expressive vocalists, will perform in Australia, bringing his acclaimed solo show, H Natural, to audiences in Sydney and Melbourne this December.  Known simply as “h”, Steve has fronted Marillion for more than 37 years, helping shape one […]

[Cover Art by Jerry “Wyrmwalk” Hionis]

Damnation’s Veil, the sophomore effort from Maryland crossover thrashers Ninth Realm, has got me thinking a little bit about time travel. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of a particular album converting your brain into an inter-dimensional time machine that can journey to the battlefields of the distant past or the freshly terra-forming ecosystems of the far-flung future. Damanation’s Veil’s had just such an effect, transporting me all the way back to … about four months ago in Houston, Texas. That was when I took a fleeting break from the responsibilities of being a husband and dad to attend the Hell’s Heroes festival.

Hell’s Heroes was a blast. I got to witness a breathtakingly accomplished performance of Balls to the Wall by Udo Dirkschneider and his band of merry shredders. I locked arms with fellow travelers and reveled in a reputation salvaging performance by the recently much-maligned (at least in these corners) Eternal Champion. And, to the point of today’s topic, I was reminded that listening to heavy meal is, at least to me, a significantly physical experience. If you’ll allow me to set aside the ethics of moshing debate for a moment, I’d like to simply assert that every so often I really enjoy being in an environment of friendly, consensual violence. Given my day to day largely revolves around teaching toddlers about the finer points of active listening, sharing and thinking about our words before we say them out loud (and trying to practice those lessons myself through endless screen-mediated check-ins and loop-backs) no part of me can deny the salutatory effects of being hurled to the ground by a 300-lb Mexican dude wearing a Pleasure to Kill back patch.

Here was my medium responsible HH routine: embrace the fleeting and exquisite opportunity to sleep past 10 AM, wander the streets of Houston in search of a passable breakfast, then return to my hotel room and drink 4 Shiner Bocks as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t have to drop $10 for a domestic brew at the venue. And so anyway, the first few hours on the festival grounds after the bocks were go-time, dawg. Very few of my favorite bands hit the stage in these hours, but the most enduring memories of the festival revolved around trading forearms and shoulder-meat with my fellow weekend warriors during sets from Toxic Holocaust, Tankard and Whiplash. It’s all a bit of blur of getting knocked to the ground, picked back up, and hoisted ass over elbow into a sea of frantic and friendly arms only to be safely deposited right back down onto my own two feet. For a feller like me who has a golden retriever where his brain ought to go, it’s simply a 10/10 experience. But here’s where I have to kinda hand it to the anti-mosh contingent: as much as those post-Bock bashings are precious memories to me, the actual sound of the music is not a core part of those recollections.

So what’s up with all this yammering, then? What’s up is that Ninth Realm mostly makes the kind of muscular metalcore that I would very much enjoy getting my ass beat to, and then immediately forget.

This is hard hitting but po-faced stuff–the kind of no-nonsense battery that mostly serves to remind the

listener that nonsense is often where the beauty lives in this whole putting emotions to sound game. Track after track relies on a reliable but reliably predictable formula of 1-3-4 power chord thrashings, with fleeting melodies exactly doubled or harmonized at the fifth. Tough guy stuff, no time for goofs and gaffes on the track when there’s frowning to be done. “Damnation’s Veil” is a competently structured mid-paced bruiser built around a foreboding Phrygian scale riff that could certainly motivate a pack of goons to strut around in concentric circles.

“Cohorts of the Abyss” is another mover, conjuring Dismember’s conjuration of Autopsy.  You know what I’m hearing on these tracks? I’m hearing rehearsal room riffs arranged into tracks in Spartan fashion. Big sounding shit that absolutely bangs coming out of the amps or through the playback monitors, but starts to wither a bit under the scrutinizing ears of weary listeners looking for a little something/anything to make them say “hmmm.” And so yes, mostly, Damnation’s Veil is less a record of note than promotional material for a live experience.

But, ah! That mostly is load bearing. This one does have some shit it.

“Wyrd of Stideborne” is less stern metallic hardcore and more jaunty melodic metalcore with a some sugar tossed in the tea thanks to harmonized riffing atop homesick Scandi-style tremolo. “Twilight’s Blade” takes us to the NWOBHM zone; while much of Damnation’s Veil is built around stock and blocky down-picked riffs, here the horses get their chance to gallop and they’re runnin’ free, yeah. While I’ll bet this one was born in the jam room, it also carries the mark of some lonely hours in the woodshed getting tweaked until it was just right. “Beyond the Void” is your standout. There’s a chain-swinging bluesy breakdown here that, yes, will absolutely slit throats in a live setting and through your sensible motor vehicle’s sound system. Rather than just pushing aggression uber alles, here the boys ease up the gas, develop some interesting and catchy riffs, and set your ears up to really hear them. I’d take much, much more of this.

Ca. 2026, the metal critics job is less about telling you what you ought to listen to, and maybe more about giving you a few inklings about how you ought to listen to it. My “how” here is pretty simple; get off your ass for Damnation’s Veil. Throw some weight around to this album. Plug it in for when you need a little boost at the end of a run. Do you ever just go into your backyard and throw stuff? These be jams for huckin’ stuff; not sitting and thinkin’. And, by all means, if the opportunity arises to get cordially pummeled by your fellow man while Ninth Realm does their thing in the background, take it. 

The post Ninth Realm – Damnation’s Veil Review appeared first on Last Rites.

The post New Music Review: JOYOUS WOLF ‘In Between’ appeared first on INFRARED MAGAZINE.

When vocalist Roye Albrighton died in 2016, Nektar’s future looked uncertain – then in 2020 a line-up featuring original members and aliumni released new album The Other Side. Co-founder Derek ‘Mo’ Moore told Prog about the record, and what really happened with the ‘other’ Nektar.

“We started putting it together about a year ago and the first rehearsal was fantastic,” says bass guitarist and vocalist Derek ‘Mo’ Moore of the new version of Nektar. “We just clicked again. It was like going back 40 years.”

The bass guitarist and vocalist’s enthusiasm for the reformed US-based band, who have just released a new album, The Other Side, is tangible. He was one of their founder members, playing with Nektar from 1969 in their progressive space rock heyday through to their dissolution in 1978. Since then, with shifting line-ups, Nektar have had various periods of activity and disbandment. Moore last played with them in 2002.

Things have recently become a bit more complicated following the death in 2016 of lead vocalist and guitarist Roye Albrighton, who had featured in the majority of the band’s line-ups from 1969 onwards. It seemed that they had reached the end of the line, but then in December 2018 a new version of Nektar announced the release Megalomania, with an online statement that read: “the baton has been passed [to keyboard player Klaus Henatsch] as musical lead, producer and head of the band.”

As there’s nothing about that album on the website now, we can all be forgiven for being a little confused. As it turned out, Megalomania was actually released under the name New Nektar. Moore’s Nektar, meanwhile, features drummer Ron Howden, the only constant in all line-ups since their inception. Moore explains the situation, and how the two variants came to be.

“When Roye died, Howden was left holding the bag. And Klaus Henatsch, who’s been a sideman for the band [since 2007], said to Ron, ‘Now I’m in charge and I’m going to call the shots on the production and what we do.’ And Ron said, ‘Well, I’m the original guy here and I’m not going to do that.’ So he left and when he came back to the States he said, ‘Will you help me get a band together?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ We then reached out to [guitarist and vocalist] Ryche Chlanda, who played with us in 1978.”

The line-up also features Randy Dembo, who played bass with Nektar in the early 2000s – now also on bass pedals and 12-string – and keyboard player Kendall Scott from Chlanda’s band Flying Dreams. “We had him come down to the studio and I knew after a few notes that he was going to fit,” says Moore.

They also approached lyricist and lightshow man Mick Brockett, who first joined in January 1970. “Nektar was a music and light theatre. The music was enhanced by the lightshow – it told the story – so it was a concept rather than a band,” says Moore. “But that got lost over the last 30 years or so and I brought Mick back because I wanted to have that same feel that we had in the beginning.”

Much of The Other Side was recorded live in the studio and consequently it sounds fresh and full of energy. It feels like it’s informed by all stages of the band’s career, from acid prog to hard rock to more melodic near-pop, but it clearly nods back to their 70s sound. In fact, most of it dates back to unused material from 1978, but these works-in-progress have been extensively rewritten by the new line-up, including new musical sections, ideas from jams and new lyrics.

When asked if it was difficult working without Albrighton, Moore replies: “We feel that Roye was there with us.” Also, most of the music originated from a time when Albrighton had briefly left the group, but in an affectionate tribute, The Devil’s Door – which was played live but never recorded – begins with his guitar introduction from a reel-to-reel recording of a show from 1974.

Going back to their 1971 debut, Journey To The Centre Of The Eye – which follows the story of an astronaut abducted by aliens who then receives their knowledge – Nektar’s most defining work has had a conceptual basis. The Other Side was prompted by the death of Albrighton and their live soundman Vinny Schmid and deals with themes of loss, longing and the division between life and death. And typical of classic Nektar, the title track extends to 18 minutes.

“SkyWriter is a story about a guy whose significant other/wife/girlfriend, dies and he is up in the sky writing letters to her, hoping that she can read it, so every song has a connection to the other side,” says Moore.

“If you listen to the double album in the order that we have it you get a story. If you change the order around you get a different story. The idea is to use your imagination on the album. We’ve given you the themes. The other side is where Roye and Vinny now reside, and lots and lots of friends. It’s something that’s inevitable for all of us and we wanted to take you on that musical trip. To my mind this album would have been a great follow-up to Recycled [from 1975]. It’s got a great feel to it.”

Like many English musicians in the 60s, the group that were to become Nektar – then The Upsetters – had gone over to Germany to play the American military bases.

“Then the guitarist left and Roye had been jamming with Ron when they were in Hamburg, and we offered him to come with us and we clicked from day one,” Moore recalls. “The first gig we played, we’d never performed together before and we jammed the whole night. It was wonderful.”

Nektar made Germany their home and occupied a unique position as an English
band in the thick of the emergent krautrock scene. Their lengthier excursions were not dissimilar to those of German groups such as Amon Düül II. Does Moore think that those bands influenced Nektar?

“I wouldn’t say ‘influenced’ but we know them all,” he responds. “Amon Düül have
been friends of ours for years and a lot of other German bands, like Karthago and Guru Guru. We used to play festivals with them all of the time. Everybody had their own thing going. The beauty about Germany was they were just sucking up anything new, they weren’t interested in pop music, they were just interested in new music, so we were right in there.”

Although Nektar made quite a name for themselves in their adoptive country, from a UK perspective they were the odd band out. British hairies were aware of them, but it was difficult to get a handle on them as they didn’t play as extensively in the UK and didn’t get much coverage in the music press, which only added to the enigma.

“We headlined a festival in Düsseldorf in 1973 and everyone and their mother were on the bill -– Gentle Giant and all kinds of people – and they were all saying, ‘Who the hell is this band who are headlining?’” Moore recalls. “It was strange; we were an English band but we were living out in Germany.”

Given the era, the band’s spacey music, spectacular lightshow and the title of their 1972 album, A Tab In The Ocean – with its mind-bending cover art – were any psychedelic drugs involved in the writing of their music?

“I think all of them,” says Moore, laughing. “We were most definitely doing psychedelic stuff back then. It was an awesome scene, it really was, but we got through it okay!”

They’re playing in Germany, which is confusing the hell out of the fans. We’re spending money on lawyers right now. How the German patent office didn’t look into what they were registering I have no idea

But did all that actually help them creatively?

“It might have done, but if you don’t have the creativity to start with it’s not going to do anything,” Moore says. “You can enhance what you have and it might give you other ideas, but you can’t enhance what you don’t have. We would jam for 10 hours straight and then pick out pieces – that piece would go nicely over here. We wrote a lot of music. Now we’re just doing drugs for blood pressure and cholesterol.”

When Nektar moved from Germany it was over to the USA, where Moore still resides, and for a brief period they had significant success there, with their 1973 album Remember The Future hitting number 19 in the Billboard charts, Down To Earth (1974) reaching number 32 and Recycled (1975) reaching number 89.

Down To Earth was a concept album about the circus with the group augmented by a brass section, PP Arnold on backing vocals and Robert Calvert playing the role of the ringmaster. The songs were shorter now and more accessible, but it was still pretty weird and not what one might associate with the taste of your stereotypical American punter. Can Moore enlighten us as to why they achieved this success?

“Remember The Future was huge over here. I think a lot of it was that FM radio played the hell out of it,” he explains. “In St Louis they were playing it on rotation and when we went to play there the first time we sold out three shows at the Ambassador Theater – 3,000 people a night.”

While the venues aren’t as big this time around, Nektar are currently touring in the US and have sold out shows in St Louis again. But things are set to be less straightforward in Europe where New Nektar are now also calling themselves Nektar. The situation is a close reflection of the case of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who made a successful complaint to the Intellectual Property Office after former promoter Bob Carruthers’ company had registered their name.

“We are going to come to Europe,” Moore asserts. “We’ve got a little problem with the other band who registered the damned name and are trying to stop us from going to Germany, which is not fun, but we’re trying to deal with that now.

“They’re playing in Germany, which is confusing the hell out of the fans. They were playing as New Nektar and put the album [Megalomania] out as New Nektar, then their manager went and registered the name. We’re spending money on lawyers right now. How the German patent office didn’t look into what they were registering I have no idea.”

But Moore is feeling positive about Nektar. The bass guitarist hadn’t played at all since Nektar reunited to play at the 2002 NEARfest and he’d been running a construction company, from which he has retired. And now he’s rejoined a career trajectory he couldn’t have imagined back at the group’s birth in 1969.

“It’s a trip,” he says. “I didn’t expect to be doing it again but when I did, I had a vision of the band and when we started playing it just grew. And the album turned out so well, we had to go on tour with it. We had no option.”