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VIEW HEAVY DIGIMAG #475 HERE This weeks DigiMag is a cracker, featuring Amon Amarth on the cover as we catch up with frontman Johan Hegg to talk about the bands new album The Allfather Awakens. We also spent time getting to know Nothing But Thieves, Protomartyr, The Dandy Warhols, 28 Days and more. There’s tour […]

Ghøstkid are still a relatively young band. Sebastian Biesler started the project in 2020 after leaving Eskimo Callboy. The self-titled debut arrived that same year, and having Heaven Shall Burn frontman Marcus Bischoff contribute vocals to “Supernova” certainly helped put the band on the radar a little faster. After Hollywood Suicide landed in 2024, the third Ghøstkid… Continue Reading →

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HXTXD Unleashes Ambitious 20-Track Double Album The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

Los Angeles Metal Trio Delivers Its Most Expansive and Emotionally Charged Release Yet

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles metal trio HXTXD (pronounced Hated) has officially unleashed its ambitious new double-disc album, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf , released August 21, 2026 via Riot Ready Records . Spanning 20 tracks, the sprawling new release represents the band’s most expansive and fully realized work to date, pushing the boundaries of its sound while maintaining the raw aggression, emotional weight, and underground authenticity that have defined HXTXD since its formation.
Formed in Los Angeles in 2020, HXTXD emerged from the chaos with a simple goal: make heavy music that hits as hard emotionally as it does physically. Featuring Wesley Richards on vocals and guitar, Staxx Tightsey on bass, and Cash Monty on drums, the trio draws from metal, melodic death metal, hard rock, metalcore, and hardcore without allowing itself to become trapped by any single genre.
On The Hour Between Dog and Wolf , those influences collide in a record that embraces both brutality and atmosphere. Crushing riffs, aggressive rhythms, emotionally charged melodies, and moments of unexpected clarity create a dynamic listening experience built around contrast.
The album’s title reflects that very idea. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf refers to the uncertain space between light and darkness, instinct and reason, violence and vulnerability. HXTXD uses that liminal concept as a foundation for an album that explores alienation, resilience, despair, catharsis, and the human instinct to fight back.
Rather than simply delivering one relentless barrage of heaviness, HXTXD allows the music to breathe, shift, and evolve. The result is an album that can be savage one moment and deeply reflective the next, finding common ground between bone-crushing intensity and genuine emotional songwriting.
” The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is our most expansive and fully realized work to date,” says Wesley Richards . “We wanted to push the sound into new territory without losing the rawness, grit, and authenticity that have defined HXTXD from the beginning.”
The entire album was written, engineered, produced, mixed, and artworked by Wesley Richards at Riot Ready Records in Los Angeles, California. Mastering was handled by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege in Portland, Oregon.
With years of underground experience behind them and a growing reputation for intense live performances, HXTXD continues to carve out its own space within the West Coast metal scene. The band proudly wears its influences on its sleeve while transforming them into something distinctly its own.
For listeners drawn to the aggression of Cannibal Corpse , the melodic intensity of modern extreme metal, the raw energy of hardcore, and the emotional punch of metalcore, HXTXD offers something that refuses to sit neatly inside a box.
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is more than a collection of heavy songs. It is a record about existing in the space between extremes, where chaos becomes catharsis and darkness can become its own form of clarity.
HXTXD is:
Wesley Richards — Vocals / Guitar
Staxx Tightsey — Bass
Cash Monty — Drums
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

Artist: HXTXD
Release: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
Format: Double-Disc Album / 20 Tracks
Release Date: August 21, 2026
Label: Riot Ready Records
Location: Los Angeles, California
Check them out on YouTube: 

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by HXTXD

Listen & Follow
https://linktr.ee/RiotReady

Contact

Wesley Richards
Riot Ready Records
info@riotreadyrecords.com
HXTXD — The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
Twenty tracks. Two discs. No interest in staying inside the lines.

If there is one undeniable certainty in the heavy metal universe, it is that when Sweden’s premier Viking metal juggernauts Amon Amarth decide to unleash a new record, you drop everything, grab your drinking horn, and prepare your neck for an absolute beating. For over three decades, Amon Amarth has been the gold standard for […]

In which the 1960s’ doors of perception cracked open. Rubber Soul, The Beatles’ sixth album, is where their fascinations with American folk and soul fused with their own barrelling beat-pop momentum to create a pivotal Sixties artefact: the pop album as complete artistic statement, and the first buddings of UK psychedelia.

In the twangling sitar of Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), the Grecian textures of Girl, the baroque effects of In My Life (Lennon’s self-proclaimed “first major work”) and the Byrdsy drug fun of The Word and If I Needed Someone, The Beatles took their boldest steps into revolutionary pop experiment, and nothing – music, art, fashion, your mum’s body count – would ever be the same again.

The album itself, be it in the mono, stereo or Dolby Atmos mixes included in the various formats of this Special Edition of up to five LPs or four CDs, repels criticism by this point. It’s a masterwork; argue among yourselves over this or Revolver. But the expanded release has other treats to recommend it.

The inclusion of a seven-inch of Day Tripper /We Can Work It Out is a nifty gimmick smacking of period authenticity, and the decidedly folk-rock Capitol Records US version that ditches some of the more intriguing tracks (Drive My Car, Nowhere Man, If I Needed Someone) in favour of a couple of songs left off the US version of Help! evinces how far American fans were behind The Beatles’ evolution as 1966 dawned.

It’s the discs of unreleased demos, instrumentals and alternative session takes that will most excite the faithful. Amid the magical larks, fluffs and Goonslike Beatle-babble – the laboured We Can Work It Out demo that becomes a game show interlude, or the whole track of Beatle Talk in which they quote Stingray lines and call each other “pickled onion” – some tracks arrive ready-made for greatness (In My Life), while others evolve on-mic.

Michelle begins in country trek fashion, Nowhere Man has several wonky early iterations, and take one of Drive My Car almost invents grunge. Most revealing are the various takes of Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), involving a clunky, heavy-handed folk take and a highly experimental sitar version that illuminates their desire to push their own boundaries, and a previously unheard Lennon demo titled Little Girl, a twee romantic acoustic ditty exposing his true feelings towards such material by 1965: ‘If you’d asked me yesterday,’ he sings, heartthrobishly, ‘then I’d have told you sweet FA.’

Since first emerging from the underground with their distinctive blend of shoegaze, grunge, alternative rock and hardcore, Fleshwater have become one of the most talked-about bands in heavy music. This November, the Massachusetts outfit return to Australia for a national tour following a huge twelve months that has seen them release their acclaimed second album […]

German hardcore powerhouse Half Me release their new album Dogma on October 23 via Arising Empire. Combining crushing metallic hardcore, oppressive grooves and emotionally charged songwriting with an even stronger focus on atmosphere and dynamics, the album delivers some of the band’s heaviest, darkest and most emotionally resonant material to date. “DOGMA is a reflection […]

Joe Bonamassa has paid tribute to Buddy Guy’s enormous influence on blues and rock music ahead of Buddy’s Got the Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration, taking place Thursday, October 1 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Speaking with Blues Rock Review during Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival in Austin, Bonamassa reflected on Guy’s place in music history, his influence on generations of guitarists, and his remarkable ability to continue delivering memorable performances at 90 years old.

Bonamassa recently had the opportunity to perform with Guy at the Hollywood Bowl alongside Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and came away impressed by what he saw.

“Of all the Buddy Guy shows I’ve ever seen, opened up for, been around, that was in my top five best Buddy Guy shows I’ve ever seen at the Hollywood Bowl,” Bonamassa told Blues Rock Review. “He was just on fire, and he’s 90. It’s amazing.”

Guy’s ability to entertain stretches far beyond just fans of the blues.

“If you don’t like blues and you go to a Buddy Guy show, and you’re not entertained, you’re a psychopath,” Bonamassa joked. “I would really think you’d need to be institutionalized at that point.”

Bonamassa placed Guy alongside Bobby Rush as part of a generation of blues musicians who built their reputations through years of touring and performing, long before artists could reach audiences through social media.

“These guys are coming from a different cloth,” Bonamassa said. “I mean, these guys work their way up from nothing. I mean, literally nothing. There’s no social media, no TikToks, you know, no viral anything. They just work the clubs and the Chitlin’ Circuit and made themselves into legends by step and repeat being great entertainers, great songwriters, great singers, performers, guitarists, you name it.”

Bonamassa said that path is one of the reasons he holds musicians from Guy’s generation in such high regard.

“That’s how all those original guys did it,” Bonamassa said. “And you have to respect that. I put that on the highest pedestal I could put any musician on are those guys, because of how hard they had to work to get noticed.”

Bonamassa experienced some of that approach early in his own career, which began before the rise of social media, but acknowledged that Guy and his contemporaries faced a much more difficult road.

“They had it way harder than we did,” he said.

When asked directly what Guy’s legacy will be, Bonamassa pointed to an influence that extends well beyond blues.

“His impact on rock and roll and guitar playing, I mean, without Buddy Guy, I’m not sure James Marshall Hendrix plays the way he played,” Bonamassa said. “Without Buddy Guy, definitely Eric Clapton doesn’t play the way he played. So his impact on rock and roll is immeasurable.”

Guy’s connection to the formative years of electric Chicago blues is another major part of that legacy. Bonamassa pointed to Guy’s history with some of the genre’s most important figures and his work during the legendary Chess Records era.

“His impact on the blues, his legacy on the blues, the fact that he rolled with Muddy Waters, he not only toured, played on those recordings with Howlin’ Wolf and all that Chess stuff in Chicago, that alone puts you in the Hall of Fame,” Bonamassa said.

But Guy’s legacy isn’t limited to the musicians he worked with or influenced. Bonamassa also emphasized the longevity of a career that has kept Guy performing for audiences for more than six decades.

“The fact that he’s had a six-decade career of absolutely going out there and killing it every night and entertaining folks, and still does it to this day,” Bonamassa said. “He’s on the Mount Rushmore of the blues and will always be.”

Bonamassa will be among the artists helping celebrate Guy’s career Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall for Buddy’s Got the Blues: A 90th Birthday Concert Celebration.

For Bonamassa, getting to the show won’t require much of a commute.

“It’s just nice to go back home, New York, and that gig’s six blocks from where I live,” Bonamassa said. “So I’m happy to just walk over and play my song.”

And when asked at the end of the interview what was next for him following Crossroads, Bonamassa had a simple answer.

“I’m gonna go home,” he said. “Then I’m gonna play with Buddy Guy on Thursday.”

Watch the full interview with Joe Bonamassa below.

The post Joe Bonamassa on Buddy Guy: ‘His Impact on Rock and Roll Is Immeasurable’ appeared first on Blues Rock Review.

Fake Your Own Death’s Airplane Disease carries a dark, restless post punk character, built around the uneasy feeling of returning to reality after spending too long somewhere detached from it. The track creates a sense of disorientation through brooding instrumentation and a tense, atmospheric arrangement, giving the idea of coming back down to Earth a suitably uneasy soundtrack. There is a cinematic quality to the production, but the song remains grounded in the rougher edges of indie rock and post punk. Fake Your Own Death let the mood develop gradually, creating an atmosphere that feels both introspective and unsettled. The stranger in the song seems to be searching for a way to understand how things reached this point, and that uncertainty gives Airplane Disease much of its emotional weight. It feels like an arrival without a clear destination, caught between detachment and the uncomfortable process of reconnecting with reality.

Coming back down can be stranger than getting lost.

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Celebrating for a fifth year running, Eora/Sydney-based photography and videography studio Good Loco and Good Intent are celebrating Australian Music Month extending a helping hand to the music community, providing complimentary dry hire of their studio to independent artists across weekdays this November. In ’25, the senior management team (Rob Carroll, Nick Moran and Rick […]