Category: news

April breezes are blowing across the AMG estates even though the summer heat reigns supreme. With several big-ticket releases and a collection of killer platters from lesser-known acts clogging the April voting sheets, it was a pretty fat month for extreme music. This caused consternation among staffers as loyalties to iconic bands clashed and lengthy histories of excellence were rehashed, compared, and contrasted. In the end, hard decisions were made, office furniture was hurled, and curses were invoked. This is the AMG way. Welcome back to April!

If one band exemplifies death metal majesty, decay, and consistency over 30-plus years, it’s New York’s own Immolation. Since launching their crusade of brutality way back in 1989, the band have become one of the most influential acts in the genre, with a sound that evolves and mutates but is always recognizably Immolation. April brought us the 12th installment in their legacy of ugliness, and Descent [out April 10th from Nuclear Blast (Bandcamp)] is another statement on what death metal should be. Wickedly heavy, technical as hell, and ugly as fook, it’s the kind of album that feels like a tanker full of anvils. It highlights the inventiveness of Immolation even as it revisits past eras of the band’s enormous catalog. As a well-impressed Steel Druhm pointed out, “Immolation remain a rare, altered beast among other repellent horrors, painting their uniquely disturbing soundscapes across history and time.” An equally gobsmacked Kenstrosity added, “This twelfth album, soon upon us, perpetuates that standard and may even prove, with time, to have elevated it once again.” Strong words for the Grand Titans of Death. All hail Immolation.

Runner(s) Up:

At the Gates // The Ghost of a Future Dead [April 24th, 2026 | Century Media | Bandcamp] — It’s very difficult to review an album that you know will be the last for a metal luminary. It’s the end of a life, an era, and a musical companion you’ve traveled with for years, even decades. Such was the dilemma facing Grymm when The Ghost of a Future Dead was released in the aftermath of the tragic passing of legendary vocalist Tomas Lindberg. At the Gates have had plenty of genre-defining moments over their career, and fortunately, what Tomas left us with here can stand proudly among their very best. It’s a vicious, face-melting slab of thrashy melodeath with hooks and fangs aplenty, showcasing the classic At the Gates sound and the caustic, corrosive vocals of a brave and ever-defiant Tomas. As Grymm astutely summarized, ” If this ends up being At The Gates’ swansong, this is a hell of a way to go out, as they dropped another classic on our sorry asses. Awesome job to all those involved. Rest in power, Tompa.” Journey on, metal brother.

Green Carnation // A Dark Poem Part II: Sanguis [April 3rd, 2026 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Successor act of Norway’s In the Woods..., Green Carnation traveled a strange musical path since 2000, passing through death and Gothic metal to eventually arrive at a kind of progressive metal-lite. A Dark Poem Part II: Sanguis finds them continuing their Poem trilogy, offering hard-edged moments alongside plenty of sad, sullen set pieces sure to bring the feelz to the coldest of hearts. Musically, Sanguis explores some older Green Carnation sounds while also pushing their style forward into new spaces, always with quality songcraft at the forefront. There are some genuinely tear-jerking moments here if you like to feel unhappy. As the usually jaded, cynical, and cranky-assed Doc Grier gushed, “For those who need something in these trying times to bolster their spirits or tear them apart (if only for a moment to reset), Sanguis is here for you.” Flower power!

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

On September 25th 2026, Irish death metal crew Zealot Cult will release their second full-length effor dubbed Psalms Of Filth (Awakening Records). Vocals, acoustic guitars, and drums were recorded at Wanderland Studios with Ben Wanders.
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“Mental Butchery”, the first single from Filth‘s sophomore long player Death Exhibiton, has surfaced online. The new outing from Swedish death metallers arrives through Me Saco Un Ojo Records on September 11th, 2026.
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Swedish rockers The Hellacopters and Norwegian hard rock collective Gluecifer will join forces for a string of shows in Australia next March.
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Hailing from the sun-scorched streets of Phoenix, Arizona, hard rock quartet Sweet Mess has just unleashed their highly

In wake of their upcoming full-length release Operating Altar, set to land in stores on September 11th via Everlasting Spew Records, Cartilage present the first single titled “The Operating Altar”.
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Most artists release something, then figure out who they are. Gavin Coates did it the other way around.

CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Release Official Single & Lyric Video ‘By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human’ from Upcoming Album “Acoustism”

In the middle of summer 2026 — while the world outside grew louder and hotter and less certain of itself — Andrzej Citowicz sat down in his home studio in Cairo and finished a song that had been pressing against the inside of his chest for a very long time.

The result is By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human — the first official single from Acoustism, the forthcoming album from Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, scheduled for release in autumn 2026. The single is available now on all major streaming platforms. An official lyric video is available on YouTube.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/698xSMmEbCk?si=FoJlcBkMDw4PWqpM

It is one of the most direct, most unflinching, and most necessary pieces of music Andrzej has ever released.

THE WORLD THAT MADE THIS SONG

There are songs that arrive from craft. And there are songs that arrive from necessity — from the specific pressure of living through a moment in history that demands a response. By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is the second kind entirely.

The lyric does not soften its diagnosis. It looks at what modern civilisation has done to itself — the trading of truth for comfort, love for pride, humanity for the kind of progress that turns out to be organised sinking — and it refuses to look away. Every generation reaches farther, the second verse observes, finding less within its reach. It is the most concise summary of the modern condition Andrzej has ever compressed into a single line.

“The mirror never lied to us — we simply learned to celebrate.”
 — from By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human

But the song is not nihilism. It is grief — which is an entirely different thing. Grief implies that something worth mourning was lost. That the person doing the grieving once knew what it felt like to be more than what they have become. The chorus does not condemn so much as mourn. And the outro — perhaps the most quietly devastating lines Andrzej has ever written — does not end in accusation but in hope worn thin:

“If tomorrow still remembers us — let it remember we tried.”
 — from By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human

That line, Andrzej says, arrived last. And when it did, he knew the song was complete.

“I did not write this song to point fingers. I wrote it because I looked around at the summer of 2026 — at everything the world was carrying, at everything my own life had been through in the past year — and I needed to say something true. Something that did not flinch. This is that song.”
 — Andrzej Citowicz

THE SOUND: WHERE ALTER BRIDGE MEETS UNPLUGGED BON JOVI

Musically, By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human exists in a space that Andrzej has been approaching his entire career but has never quite occupied so completely until now. The acoustic version carries the intimacy and emotional weight of the great unplugged rock tradition — Bon Jovi’s MTV Unplugged performances, the raw confessional energy of a guitar placed directly against a lyric with nowhere to hide. Clean, wide open, and devastating in its simplicity.

“The acoustic version asks you to sit with the words. Some people need the quiet to hear clearly…”
 — Andrzej Citowicz

ACOUSTISM: THE ALBUM THAT IS COMING

By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is the first window into Acoustism — the most ambitious and most personal album Andrzej Citowicz has ever announced. Due for release in autumn 2026, the album is built around the intersection of Andrzej’s acoustic guitar work and his identity as a person on the autism spectrum — his ICD-11 diagnostic code, 6A02, has already given its name to one of the album’s tracks — alongside songs that document the extraordinary personal journey of the past twelve months.

A life-changing year. The loss of a beloved friend and mentor — H — whose memory lives inside the For The Hawk album released earlier in 2026. The discovery of an adult daughter, Esther, whose arrival Andrzej describes simply as a miracle beyond imagination. The grief. The gratitude. The bittersweet, overwhelming experience of finding that life, in its fifties, still has the capacity to rearrange everything you thought you understood about yourself.

All of that is inside Acoustism. By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is its opening declaration — the song that sets the emotional and philosophical stakes for everything that follows.

“This album is unlike anything I have made before. Not because I planned it that way. Because life made it that way. I am a different person than I was twelve months ago. The music had no choice but to reflect that.”
 — Andrzej Citowicz

ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ: THE LIVING ROOM ROCKSTAR

Born in Wałbrzych, Poland, and now based in Cairo, Egypt, guitarist and songwriter Andrzej Citowicz has spent his career building one of the most quietly determined independent music projects in contemporary rock. Recording under the name Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, he operates entirely without label support — writing, performing, producing, mixing, and mastering from his home studio, with Suno AI serving as his virtual band alongside his own guitar work and the lyrical contributions of his wife, Shereen Shoukry Citowicz.

His musical DNA runs deep in the classic rock and power ballad tradition — Bon Jovi’s New Jersey and Blaze of Glory eras, Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Adrenalize, Desmond Child’s songwriting architecture, the neo-classical guitar vocabulary of Joe Satriani’s The Extremist. These are not influences he has moved on from. They are the foundation everything else is built on — and By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human demonstrates exactly what that foundation looks like when it is carrying the full weight of a life examined honestly.

2026 has been Andrzej’s most prolific and most personal year to date. Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 — released April 13th — completed songs written between the ages of 14 and 20, discovered on old tape cassettes. For The Hawk — released May 4th, Star Wars Day — honoured the memory of a beloved friend and mentor. And now Acoustism arrives in autumn, carrying everything the year has taught him about loss, identity, love, and what it means to still be here.

“The guitar is always first. It has always been first. Modern technology helps me build what I hear around it. But what I hear — I have been hearing since the early 1990s. That has never changed. And it never will.”
 — Andrzej Citowicz

SINGLE & ALBUM DETAILS

Single: By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human
Versions: Acoustic Version
Music, Guitars & Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz
Available: All major streaming platforms — now
Lyric Video: YouTube — now
Album: Acoustism — Autumn 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February

STREAM & WATCH
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/


By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human — Out Now
First Single from Acoustism — Coming Autumn 2026
Citovitz and The Fireflies of February


℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

This is the ninth album from Australian death metallers Psycroptic. Whether it’s 2015’s Psycroptic, 2018’s As the Kingdom Drowns, or 2022’s Divine Council, Psycroptic always put out something special. The Pulse of Annihilation is no exception to this trend, as the band spend 40 minutes showing once again just why they are so highly regarded by extreme … Continue reading “Psycroptic – The Pulse of Annihilation (Review)”

Miss May I have shared the details of their upcoming 8th full-length album, the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Curse Of Existence’.

Set to be called ‘No Place For Me’, it will be released on October 02 via Solid State Records.

Vocalist Levi Benton had this to say about what the record represents for him:

“No Place For Me is everything I’ve felt for a long time but never had the words for. Writing it taught me who I actually am even when that hurt to look at. It’s a full journey: Where it started, what I discovered, and where I am today.”

The artwork looks like this:

And the tracklisting like this:

1) Sanctuary
2) Portrait of Pain
3) Hand Me A Halo
4) Pray for Silence
5) Death Threat
6) Die on the Vine
7) Fire Falls
8) Bury Me Down
9) Ashes Of The Altar
10) Highbrow Thieves

As you can see it will feature the already released ‘Die On The Vine’ and ‘Pray For Silence’. You can also hear opening track ‘Sanctuary’ right now, a brilliantly atmospheric, wonderfully bludgeoning, sensationally catchy thrill ride.

Levi had this to add about the track:

“‘Sanctuary’ is a song about wanting to feel safe and realizing you’re the one making that impossible. It’s a cycle I’ve struggled with my whole life and I think a lot of people know exactly what that feels like.”

The post Miss May I Announce New Album ‘No Place For Me’ appeared first on Rock Sound.