The post GUTVOID: Liminal Shrines, The Second LP By Toronto Progressive Death Metal Quartet, Is Now Streaming In Its Engulfing Entirety; Album Drops This Friday On Profound Lore Records appeared first on INFRARED MAGAZINE.
Reviewed by Gareth Pugh
German veteran thrashers Nuclear Warfare have stealthily dropped their seventh album “All Hail to the Liberator”, almost six years after the well-received “Lobotomy” back in 2020. If you like your thrash old school then this is the place to visit, as this is what these guys have been doing for the last 22 years, no frills traditional Teutonic thrash with a hint of the Bay Area, tweaked slightly with each release for maximum impact, and with a stable lineup of Fritz (bass/vocals), Seb (Guitars), and drummer Alexandre established since 2014, the band is a well-oiled machine.
Opening with the bruising ‘Nuclear War’, a subject that is perhaps a bit too close to the mark in these strange times, the band gets straight down to business right from the kick off, no fancy acoustic intros or anything like that, just bang, straight into the fray with some flat-out, full speed, catchy thrash. The riff is a twisting ear worm, technically excellent and yet sounds brutally simple, while the chorus sticks like chewing gum to the sole of your shoe. ‘Rough Day’ and ‘United by Thrash’ are a bit more playful, both with lots of fast riffage and plenty of hooks, and the guitar is both razor sharp and yet bludgeoning.
‘With Sword and Cross’ is the albums centrepiece, with more mature songwriting and is a spawling 7-minute epic, with slower chunky chord work and more melody than we’ve come to expect, but don’t worry if slower isn’t your thing, as ‘The Stricker’ soon ups the tempo once more and ‘Trouble in the World’ is more of the same with its chunky, galloping structure. ‘What I Really Can’ has a fantastic escalating arrangement with some cool curveballs from the guitar and vocals to make it really standout The album finishes with the title track which is full of relentless riffs and an interesting ‘woooaa oohh ohho’ refrain towards the end, which took me by surprise on first listen but it works surprisingly well, and ends the album on a high.
The band returned once more to Brazil to record and produce the album, this time at Dual Noise Studios in Sao Paulo under the excellent stewardship of Rogério Wecko who has given the album a powerful, classic sound whilst leaving enough grit for it not to sound too polished and modern sounding. “All Hail to the Liberator” is a welcome return from the German trio, the band know they aren’t reinventing the wheel here, and it won’t be in many top 10 albums of the year lists, but what they do they do extremely well, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you’re desperate for a new Sodom or Destruction album then this just might scratch that itch while you’re waiting.
The post Album Review: Nuclear Warfare – All Hail to the Liberator appeared first on The Razor's Edge.
Sleeping With Sirens are back with their first new music in four years, and their first release on Rise Records in 13 years.
Titled ‘An Ending In Itself’, it’s a song that finds the band pulling from their roots without simply bathing in what has already passed. A complexly built, atmospherically dense and wonderfully catchy piece of post-hardcore brutality and beauty, with Kellin Quinn dealing out as many caramel-coated melodies as throat-shredding howls, it is as quintessentially Sleeping With Sirens as it gets.
To find out a little bit more about where the song stemmed from and what it represents for the band, Rock Sound had a quick catch-up with Kellin.
Rock Sound: Where did this new song stem from for you? What does it represent in terms of how Sleeping With Sirens functions these days?
Kellin: It’s funny, because the song is called ‘An Ending In Itself’, but it’s actually the first song we wrote together as a band with Will Yip. I think the biggest thing for us was returning to our origins. Getting together in a room, playing together as a band and bouncing off each other. In the past, it was more of Jack [Fowler, former guitarist] and me doing everything in the studio with a producer. That’s kind of how a lot of bands operate now. For me, I knew that I didn’t want to do that again; I wanted to get back together and have everybody contribute and work organically as a band.
Everything feels like a return to form and a reminder of why we do this in the first place. You get to a point, as any artist or band, where you have to think back to why you started it. It can become very confusing to understand who you are. That’s especially the case with the resurgence of this genre of music and with everybody who is now discovering it for the first time, or who remembers what it was like to be a fan of this music. I think the best thing for us to do is to go back to where we started, and this song is the leading track towards doing that.
RS: What would you say were some elements within that thought process that uncovered themselves whilst you were writing it? What does stepping back into those old shoes, but from wearing them in the way that you function now, show you?
Kellin: To me, it felt a lot like being back in the days of ‘Let’s Cheers To This’. I don’t know what it was about us at that time, but we put out our first record, ‘With Ears To See And Eyes To Hear’, and I feel like we were dismissed as this certain sort of band. Told we were a poor man’s this or that. Going into ‘Let’s Cheers To This’, we had much more of a carefree attitude. We’re being dismissed anyway, so let’s make music that makes sense to us. We then threw the kitchen sink at that. I think a lot of it came from being unprepared going into it. We had three or four songs going in, and then the rest were just written on the spot
This song returns to that same carefree mindset. Let’s focus on what we want to make, and it should be something that makes sense to us, regardless of what everybody else is doing. I think in a lot of ways, this song and the attitude of the band are who we want to be right now.
RS: Lyrically, it’s a song that talks a lot about struggle, and serves as a song for anybody who is going through any struggle right now. What was it within your own life at the moment that made you focus on that word and experience? What was it that made you feel like it was the right time to write a song to let people know that they can overcome whatever is in front of them?
Kellin: The perspective that I’m starting to realise is that the determining factor of how you see life is realising that it doesn’t always get easier. It actually gets harder as you get older. To understand that, in whatever moment you’re in, you can break everything down, take it one day at a time, and focus on what you can do today is one of the most important things you can do. If you think about it in that way, then it makes it a lot easier to overcome challenges and struggles that you’re going through. But if you’re making this some larger-than-life thing, it can weigh you down and feel like a burden all the time.
Trying to think in terms of what I can do today, how I can approach it, and how I can change my thoughts and be a better example has been my mentality as of late.
RS: The first hurdle is being able actually to tell yourself that. Question your own way of viewing yourself. People will look to you for that guidance, but if you’re not practising what you preach, then how can you hope to help anyone else?
Kellin: I mean, it’s not always easy. I definitely have days when I say, ‘Screw this, I’m going back to bed’. It’s just the act of trying, I guess. That’s all you can really do. I think now more than ever, we build on each other as humans through the way we connect and interact. If we can be vulnerable and honest, then I think that we can change a lot more things. I think that’s the hardest thing about navigating life nowadays, like we have to put our best foot forward all the time. If we can do away with that and just be honest about what we are going through, it makes it easier for other people to say, ‘Okay, I can do that too’.
So, now you know.
Now it’s time to listen.
The post Sleeping With Sirens Release Sensational New Track ‘An Ending In Itself’ appeared first on Rock Sound.
Sleeping With Sirens have unveiled a brand-new single and video, An Ending In Itself.
Produced by Will Yip, the track is the band’s first back on Rise Records since their 2013 album Feel, and as Kellin Quinn calls it, it’s a “love letter to anyone in the midst of struggle. I think we live in an age where we’re supposed to pretend like we have it ‘all together all of the time’ so much so that we’re afraid to let anyone in. I think it’s important to have open dialogue and to ask for help when we need it. This song is about being brave enough to admit that we’re not always okay. No matter what you’re going through, there is hope.”
Speaking to Kerrang!, the frontman reveals that, “An Ending In Itself is the band returning to form, getting back in a room together, creating without expectation, which is why we started doing this in the first place. I haven’t felt this way about our music since [2011’s] Let’s Cheers To This. Oddly enough this feels more like a beginning than an end…”
Watch the video for An Ending In Itself below:
Read this next:
Posted on March 19th 2026, 1:00p.m.
In a Blues Rock Review exclusive premiere, watch the performance video for “Anybody Knows,” the new single from Lily Vakili, ahead of its official release on March 20. Recorded live with her touring band and collaborator, Grammy Award-winning, Emmy-nominated producer/engineer Reed Turchi at Second Take Sound in New York City, the performance captures the raw, unfiltered energy that defines Vakili’s sound. The track will also appear on her upcoming Live Wire EP, set for release May 8.
“Anybody Knows” captures the yearning of waiting for a lover to return. “The room is empty when they’re gone, complete when they return,” says Vakili. “I wanted to write about this kind of small, interior moment (waiting for a lover to come home) and have it occupy an entire song.” The slow-burning arrangement mirrors that emotional tension, with each instrument playing a distinct role in building the atmosphere. “Performing the song live is delicious – the slow, driving beat and build up are fun to play with when the band is all in – and they sure were in this studio performance. We had a good time,” Vakili adds.
The forthcoming Live Wire EP is an intimate six-song collection that showcases Vakili’s dynamic live sound. Featuring Eric Burns on guitar, Joseph Yount on drums, and Drew Hart on bass, the EP was recorded shortly after touring together, allowing the group’s chemistry to shine through. Vakili once again teamed up with Reed Turchi to produce the project at Second Take Sound, aiming to capture the authenticity of a true live performance.
“What makes my music most compelling is when I perform it live with a band,” says Vakili. “This is the message audiences have been telling me for a long time, so I decided to try to capture that sound in an in-studio session recorded the way jazz and vocalist performances used to be made, with everyone in one room with no headphones, no click track – just like we would on stage. It either works or it doesn’t, but when it does, it’s electric and authentic.”
Watch the exclusive premiere of Lily Vakili’s “Anybody Knows” below.
“Anybody Knows” pre-save HERE
Live Wire EP out May 8 pre-save HERE)
Tour Dates – East Coast Full Band Shows:
Wednesday, May 6 in New York, NY at Francis Kite Club (EP Release Show)
Wednesday, May 13 in Atlanta, GA at Smith’s Atlanta Room
Thursday, May 14 in Charleston, SC at Tin Roof
Saturday, May 16 in Charlotte, NC at Starlight on 22
Tuesday, May 19 in Washington, DC at Pie Shop DC
Wednesday, May 20 in Philadelphia, PA @ Nikki Lopez
Tour Dates – West Coast Duo Shows (With Guitarist Eric Burns):
Wednesday, June 10 in Phoenix, AZ at Thunderbird Lounge
Friday, June 12 in Los Angeles, CA at Kulak’s Woodshed
Sunday, June 14 in San Francisco at Lost Church
Tuesday, June 16 in Portland, OR at White Eagle Saloon
Wednesday, June 17 in Seattle, WA at Fremont Abbey
The post Premiere: Lily Vakili – “Anybody Knows” appeared first on Blues Rock Review.