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Nightwish singer Floor Jansen has announced her second solo album, Hytress, due Jan. 15, 2027 via REVAMP Music/Warner Music. Concurrently with the announcement, Jansen has released the album’s first single and music video, “Bring Me Silence,” and confirmed the “Hytress” Tour 2027, bringing her and her full live band to club stages across Europe and South America.

Jansen explains the inspiration behind the single: “The world is constantly demanding your attention. Sometimes it becomes so overwhelming that you can barely hear yourself anymore. “Bring Me Silence” is about that longing for space in your head and system. For clarity, a moment where all is quiet, and you can breathe all the way to your belly again and feel satisfied and at peace.”

On how the song fits within her artistic identity, Jansen adds: “This song is one of the first ones we wrote for the new album. Musically, it feels very natural to me. Metal has always been an important part of who I am. Its power, directness, and intensity are deeply rooted in me as an artist.

“At the same time, my solo work has allowed me to discover more openness and vulnerability. In ‘Bring Me Silence,’ those sides come together in a very organic way.”

Hytress builds on the foundation of Jansen’s debut solo record, Paragon, taking the power and intensity of her metal roots and fusing them with emotional depth and vulnerability. The 12-track album features down-tuned guitars, layered vocal arrangements and Jansen’s signature commanding vocal range. Moving between the fierce energy of her festival shows and the intimacy of her recent sold-out theatre tour, the “Hytress” Tour 2027 will capture the full spectrum of her musical identity.

Jansen confirmed she was cancer-free in November 2022 following surgery to remove a tumor after a breast cancer diagnosis. Born in the Netherlands, she joined her first band, pioneering symphonic metal group After Forever, at age 16; the band released five albums from 2000 to 2007 before disbanding in 2009. Her next band, ReVamp, released two albums in 2010 and 2013. Jansen joined Nightwish as a full-time member in 2013; the band’s first album with her as lead singer, Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015), landed in the Top 10 in multiple countries. Nightwish’s most recent studio album, Yesterwynde, was released in September 2024.

The post NIGHTWISH’s FLOOR JANSEN Announces ‘Hytress’ Solo Album; Shares Music Video For New Single “Bring Me Silence” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

There comes a point, after enough headlines, alerts, feeds, clips, corrections, denials, cropped videos, expert panels, anonymous sources, and professional faces staring gravely into cameras, when information begins to resemble an industrial solvent poured directly onto the brain. Reality remains somewhere underneath, presumably, but reaching it requires digging through so many layers of interpretation that certainty starts feeling less like knowledge than another product somebody is trying to sell. Baltimore electro-industrial duo Pygmy Children, brothers Pete and Brian Roper, plant Proof in Lies directly inside that psychic mess.

The track leads their forthcoming fifth studio album, Into The Silence. The music carries the physical force of industrial rock without turning itself into machinery: drums strike with hard, deliberate weight, guitars grind against serrated electronics, and Pete Roper delivers his vocals from somewhere between accusation, exhaustion, and the suspicion that everyone in the room has already agreed upon the wrong version of events. Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Christian Death, and the severe electronic rock of later Gary Numan all come to mind, although Pygmy Children funnel those affinities through their own Baltimore-bred sense of unease.

“I rediscovered some old lyrics in a notebook for a track that had never fully materialized,” says Pete Roper. “I still remembered the original chord progression, so I rewrote the lyrics, recorded the initial drum tracks, and the project began to take shape.”

That resurrection feels appropriate for a song preoccupied with evidence, memory, and the slippery authority of whatever appears before our eyes. Proof in Lies examines a culture in which perception competes continuously with experience, while repetition can make the grotesque seem ordinary and the ridiculous seem plausible. Once violence becomes entertainment, catastrophe becomes content, and human suffering becomes another image between advertisements, the ability to distinguish participation from spectatorship begins to rot.

Roper ultimately locates his remaining point of orientation in music, describing it as a place of clarity, peace, and honest expression. That conviction gives the track an emotional center beneath its metal-edged pressure: somewhere behind all the competing signals remains the stubborn belief that expression can still communicate something uncorrupted.

The accompanying video pushes the idea further through live performance footage, original visual effects, and public-domain animation produced during the 1940s, recombined into an uneasy collision of obedience, fantasy, violence, and entertainment.

“The imagery in the video challenges our blurred perception of the boundary between reality and fantasy as we move through life increasingly disconnected from one another, following established paths without question and becoming desensitized to experiences beyond ourselves. The social acceptance of violence as a form of entertainment also emerges as a recurring theme. Finally, the unanswered question of what the recurring mysterious character possesses invites deeper interpretation.”

Watch below:

By the end, Proof in Lies leaves certainty battered beyond recognition, which may be the most accurate portrait possible of an age where everybody has access to everything and somehow nobody can agree on what they have seen.

Listen to Proof In Lies below and order the single here, out now via Re:Mission Entertainment.

Follow Pygmy Children:

The post Baltimore Electro-Industrial Duo Pygmy Children Blur the Lines Between Reality and Fantasy in Video for “Proof in Lies” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Paul .

The post Paul Di’Anno’s Battlezone’s remastered album ‘Children of Madness’ getting released on vinyl first appeared on Sleaze Roxx.

The members of hard rock band Buckcherry were involved in a multi-vehicle crash while on tour in the U.S.

The post Buckcherry Announces Involvement in Tragic Bus Crash appeared first on Audio Ink Radio.

The Sword – Red Fang – August 18, 2026

In 2018 I had no idea who The Sword was.  I was in Washington DC working on a movie, and a co-worker with informed musical taste dragged me out to their show after a 14-hour day, claiming they were his favorite band.  Well, I couldn’t turn that down – it isn’t every day that you get to experience a trusted friend’s favorite band live, especially when you haven’t even heard of them.  We went down the stairs of the now defunct 400-cap Rock & Roll Hotel, and I was immediately hit by the smell of stale beer and a wall of sound that exploded from the stage.  The Sword was the real deal, and from the first note I was a fan.

The Sword

A lot has happened in the eight years since I’d first seen The Sword.  They took a break in 2022, something guitarist/vocalist JD Cronise described as a “dissolution”, and their sound underwent a gradual evolution, from doom metal to a modern-day reimagining of old-school rock.  JD described that progression in SPIN Magazine as “Our tastes have changed and evolved and matured over the years, and to me, everything we’ve done feels totally natural.”

What hadn’t changed was their show, and their ability to unite an audience with great music.  On this night, it was coming from a 100-year-old Hollywood stage looking out over 1200 excited people, instead of a cramped basement, but the music and vibe was exactly the same.  People had turned out in droves to have a great time, and that’s exactly the vibe The Sword provided. 

The Austin Texas band was there to throw down, and as song after song played, the audience got wilder and wilder.  It was exactly the show people had paid for and come to expect from this band over the years – from sharing the stage with Metallica to logging millions of miles on the road, The Sword are a fine-tuned touring machine, and exactly what you’d hope for in a night of rock & roll mayhem.

The Sword is:

• John D. Cronise – Vocals, Guitar
• Kyle Shutt – Guitar
• Bryan Richie – Bass, Keyboards
• Santiago "Jimmy" Vela – Drums

Setlist:

1) Celestial Crown

2) Barael's Blade

3) Maiden, Mother & Crone

4) Tres Brujas

5) Hammer of Heaven

6) Freya

7) Empty Temples

8) Mist & Shadow

9) Sea of Green

10) Necron

11) The Horned Goddess

12) To Take the Black

13) Cloak of Feathers

14) Winter's Wolves

Red Fang

Portland Oregon’s co-headliner Red Fang came prepared to blow away the Hollywood crowd with their trademark dual guitar attack and massive sound.  Their music has been described as stoner rock with a sped-up punk beat – I dislike putting bands in predetermined descriptive boxes.  All I know is the audience was hooked from the first song, and the vibe grew in intensity as songs were checked off the setlist.  From the audience participating and clapping along to “Wires”, to a killer mosh pit, to one solo guy pogoing, there was something for everyone in attendance – but mostly great music and vibes.

I’d seen Red Fang previously, and was super-excited to catch another show.  They have a thickness to their sound that is unique, while at the same time having a clean sound that allows each instrument to be distinctly heard without bleeding into one another – not an easy feat for this style of music in a theater of this size.  Throughout the night Aaron Beam beat the living shit out of his bass while singing, while Bryan Giles sang and traded off screaming guitar solos with David Sullivan.  Not to be outdone was John Sherman behind the kit, driving the relentless locomotive beat with ease. 

Red Fang is a top-notch live band and well worth catching if you get the chance – it’s impossible not to have a good time at their show.

Red Fang is:

• Bryan Giles – Guitar, Vocals
• Aaron Beam – Bass, Vocals
• David Sullivan – Guitar
• John Sherman – Drums

Setlist:

1) Blood Like Cream

2) Malverde

3) Crows in Swine

4) Arrows

5) Night Destroyer

6) Antidote

7) Into the Eye

8) Wires

9) Good to Die

10) Dirt Wizard

11) Bird on Fire

12) Sharks

13) Prehistoric Dog

14) Hank Is Dead

15) Throw Up

Spoon Benders

On paper, the Portland Oregon trio Spoon Benders seemed to be a little out of place in the evening’s lineup.  Would their psychedelic punk flavored brand of music translate to the stoner rock crowd in attendance?  The answer was a resounding yes.  The audience was ready to celebrate a great line-up and everyone on it, and despite being a different type of band than Red Fang or The Sword, the seven-song set the Spoon Benders played was the perfect way to kick off an exceptional night of great music.

The Spoon Benders are:

• Katy Black: Vocals, Bass
• Leo Pastor: Guitar
• AJ Herald: Drums

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Death has always had a public-relations problem. We prefer it announced by thunder, church bells, skeletal hands, or some other unmistakable emblem, because ambiguity would require us to admit how easily extinction can borrow the language of consolation. On We’re Here, Washington, D.C., duo 2DCAT writes entirely from the perspective of the dead, addressing those who remain alive. On first listen, their message can sound warm: you are not alone, someone is present, and your fear will eventually lift. That reading is intentional, since 2DCAT imagines it as what the dead themselves would want us to hear. Yet the speakers from beyond the grave offer no promise of survival. They are here because they have already died, joining the largest congregation imaginable: everyone who came before us.

“Fate sealed. Gates closed. A door appears. The path looks clear.” The verses trace a single account of dying, with each image marking another irreversible step. This sequence offers no metaphor for hope, recovery, or passage into a brighter phase. The dead recognize the path because they have already walked it and know where it leads. Their assurance that fear will soon be gone refers to what happens afterward, when fear disappears along with the life experiencing it.

HAEZL, an opera singer whose disciplined voice gives the words an eerie composure, sings as one of those departed voices without the theatrical menace one might expect. Her restraint is essential. Death here has no need to raise its voice. Johan Hauck builds and fabricates the synthesizers used on the track, a detail that gives the music an unusually physical provenance. These machines are handmade objects producing music about the disappearance of bodies, and their cool contours provide an elegant counterweight to HAEZL’s formal poise. The arrangement draws from early European synthpop and darkwave, favoring severe textures, measured motion, and a sense of space that seems to narrow as the song proceeds.

The chorus—“We’re here to remind you you’re never alone”—embodies a literal truth. Everyone who experienced the same ending still exists within this collective voice, surrounding the living as part of an immense community. The dead have always been present, and the living are simply a fleeting minority within that ongoing presence. Their companionship is genuine, not menacing: having shared the same fear, they provide the reassurance that comes from understanding how every life ultimately concludes.

The video presses that claustrophobia further. Near-black frames, unstable illumination, and coarse grain reduce the visible world to fragments, as though the image itself were losing access to ordinary life. Faces and forms seem caught at the edge of perception, suspended between the unseen multitude speaking through the song and those still able to hear them. The result is less a ghost story than an encounter with inevitability, stripped of folklore and made strangely intimate.

“We wouldn’t blame anyone for hearing this as hopeful,” says Hauck. “The gates being steeled, the door appearing, the path looking clear… that’s not hope. That’s dying. The dead are your guides because they’ve already made that walk.”

Watch the video for We’re Here below:

We’re Here belongs to a series of recent singles from 2DCAT’s forthcoming, still-unannounced album, mapping a world in collapse through several human positions: those waiting for salvation that never arrives, those retreating inward when the burden becomes unbearable, and those whose anger accelerates the destruction they fear. We’re Here supplies the voice of those who have already passed through that world. They look back upon the people still living inside it with the terrible clarity of knowing exactly how it ends.

The release follows 2DCAT’s first German tour, which included dates in Leipzig, München, Berlin, and Köln’s Echoes of Rebellion festival, carrying this communion between the living and the dead into crowded rooms abroad.

The We’re Here EP is out now. Order here.

Follow 2DCAT:

• Spotify
• Bandcamp
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

The post “You’re Never Alone” — The Dead Speak in DC Darkwave Duo 2DCAT’s Video for “We’re Here” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Joel .

The post Joel O’Keeffe describes what it was like working with Bryan Adams on two songs off new Airbourne record first appeared on Sleaze Roxx.

We’ll spread open to spread across the sky
and I’ll take you with me on the day I die

There are songs about temptation that behave like sermons, warning you about the cliff while quietly admiring the view, and then there are numbers like Staytus’s Secret Hand, which grabs desire by the collar, drags it under the lights, and asks why anybody should pretend the danger isn’t part of the attraction. Sam Grundemann has built Staytus around the place where industrial rock, electronic abrasion, metal weight, and theatrical self-invention start elbowing one another for room, and this track makes the collision physical.

Secret Hand is thick with tasty bass, hard guitar, and electronic pressure, but the arrangement has enough space for every hit to register. The riffs land with the blunt pleasure of machinery being overclocked, while Grundemann’s voice moves between invitation and warning as though those impulses have been caught sharing the same bloodstream. Desire here has teeth. Power changes hands every few seconds. Submission becomes less a conclusion than a wager placed with full knowledge of the odds.

“Secret Hand has some of my favorite guitar and bass work I’ve done,” said Staytus. “I wanted the music to feel just as seductive as it is dangerous—something that pulls you in before you realize how intense it has become. The video gave me the opportunity to fully embody that energy and step into this fearless, unapologetic version of myself as an artist.”

The setting also folds back into the song’s title. Secret Hand was recorded at Secret Hand Studios in Los Angeles, owned by drummer Jeff Friedl, and Staytus has described the place as central to the track’s creation. The music cheekily treats the phrase as something far more illicit and suggestive than a studio name.

Lyrically, Secret Hand navigates between caution and desire, craving to strengthen a drunken friendship despite potential regret and instability. Its vivid imagery combines themes of sex, pain, ambition, and exploitation, while the recurring “fuck the band” chorus hints at a clandestine alliance aimed at gaining advantage.

That tension becomes even clearer in Vicente Cordero’s video, which traps Staytus inside a black room streaked with neon, fog rolling through the frame while the camera churns around her in visual delirium. There is little distance between performer and viewer. Grundemann occupies the frame like somebody testing how much voltage a body can carry before performance turns into possession. Hair, leather, light, movement, smoke: Cordero keeps tightening the frame until the room feels less like a set than a pressure chamber.

The best part of the video is how thoroughly she commits to that embodiment. Nothing is coy, and nothing needs an alibi. Grundemann looks at the camera with the confidence of somebody who knows spectacle can be both armor and confession, then lets the song’s menace do the rest. Secret Hand turns appetite into performance, and risk into the sort of pleasure where the warning label is part of the invitation.

Watch the video for Secret Hand below:

Follow Staytus:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Spotify
• YouTube
• Bandcamp
• Website

The post Los Angeles Alt-Industrial Artist Staytus is Pulled by Danger and Desire in Video for “Secret Hand” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Yes, this is a real thing and you can thank the band Turnstile for making this happen. Continue reading…

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