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Their catalog varies in sound — and quality — but there's at least one winner on each album. Continue reading…

The Devil Wears Prada's Jeremy DePoyster discusses the band's latest album and pays tribute to Dave Shapiro and Daniel Williams a year after their death. Continue reading…

In April we heard “Geneva,” the debut single from Morgan Noise, and we learned that Morgan Noise is the band led by Fat Dog’s Morgan Wallace. Now, according to the sacred customs of the record business, she’s followed up that song by sharing another one and announcing her debut LP.

The post Morgan Noise Announce Debut Album <em>Something Built, Something Remembered</em>: Hear “Silly Me” appeared first on Stereogum.

Swedish heavy rock/doom architects THE SONIC OVERLORDS have returned with a thunderous new digital single, “Calling Demons By Your Name,” accompanied by a striking performance music video. Released via M-Theory Audio, the track serves as a powerful statement of intent as the band continues actively working on more new music.

The digital single is available on all streaming/download platforms, or watch “Calling Demons By Your Name” HERE: https://youtu.be/vrT2HwHy10A?si=6Jqwhmnl3P_SRWe4

As the world seemingly devolves into chaos, THE SONIC OVERLORDS shine a beacon of hope in the form of a new single, “Calling Demons By Your Name.” An unrelenting steamroller of a track, packed with grit and power, that for a few minutes pulls you away from everyday troubles and into a realm where metal reigns supreme.

The new track pushes the band’s signature blend of crushing classic metal and massive melodic hooks into exciting new territory. Guitarist Morgan Zocek explains the vision behind the new anthem:

“The foundation of the song is heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, but the chorus also brings in a touch of Journey through its melodies and harmonies. And that’s something I would like to keep experimenting with in the future, blending AOR elements with our doom/classic hard rock sound. I feel like that combination could become something quite unique.“

“CALLING DEMONS BY YOUR NAME” MUSIC VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrT2HwHy10A

Formed in 2017 by guitarist Morgan Zocek, THE SONIC OVERLORDS joined a few years later by vocalist Marcus Zachrisson Rubin and the bottom-end of bassist Daniel Ramírez caught the attention of the global metal underground with their 2021 debut album, Last Days of Babylon.

The band established a “warm familiarity” by seamlessly bridging the gap between late ‘70s/early ‘80s classic hard rock and epic heavy doom (think Dio/Martin-era Black Sabbath, and classic Rainbow, Candlemass, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Scorpions and Michael Schenker Group).

With “Calling Demons By Your Name,” THE SONIC OVERLORDS, together with drummer Michael Dahlqvist, are cementing their place in the modern heavy rock landscape while carving out a melodic path entirely their own. Stay tuned for more updates and new music announcements in the near future.

For more info on The Sonic Overlords:
www.m-theoryaudio.com
www.facebook.com/Thesonicoverlords
www.instagram.com/the_sonic_overlords_official
https://thesonicoverlords.bandcamp.com

August Burns Red’s albums number eleven across twenty years, and almost nothing about that career should have worked. A metalcore band from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, formed in high school, who never changed their lineup, never chased a trend, never had a public collapse, and somehow ended up with two Grammy nominations and a Christmas album. This is every ABR record ranked worst to best — and the one at the top has held that position for seventeen years for a reason.

How this ranking works

Three things: how strong the songwriting is front to back, how far the record moved the band, and whether it still holds up cold.

The complicating factor with ABR is that there are no disasters here. No sell-out record, no ill-advised reinvention, no album the band pretend didn’t happen. That’s rare, and it means the gaps between positions on this list are narrower than on most discographies.

It also means the ranking comes down to ambition. The records that took a risk rank above the records that executed the formula perfectly, even when the formula records are technically flawless.

We also recommend — Metalcore Bands Ranked: The 13 That Actually Defined The Genre

The count, cleared up

Eleven studio albums, and one of them is an instrumental Christmas record.

You’ll see ten quoted in places, because most reference lists predate 2026’s Season of Surrender. And some rankings quietly drop Sleddin’ Hill because a metalcore band covering “Carol of the Bells” doesn’t fit the narrative.

It’s a studio album. It’s in.

11. August Burns Red Presents: Sleddin’ Hill (2012)

Standout: “Carol of the Bells”

Putting an instrumental Christmas record last is the obvious call. Writing it off as a gimmick isn’t.

JB Brubaker and Brent Rambler used the session to show off how much classical theory they actually know, turning traditional carols into sweep-picked thrash arrangements with Matt Greiner’s double kick underneath. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is genuinely absurd guitar playing.

It’s entertaining and technically ridiculous. It’s also, by design, an album with no vocals, no lyrics and no emotional stakes — which is why it can’t rank higher on a list about a band whose best work is about grief and doubt.

10. Thrill Seeker (2005)

Standout: “Your Little Suburbia Is in Ruins”

The blueprint, recorded before the band we know existed.

This predates both Jake Luhrs and Dustin Davidson, and it’s a much rawer, more chaotic proposition — frantic mathcore velocity out of Solid State Records, heavily indebted to bands like Misery Signals.

The breakdown patterns that would eventually define the genre are audible in flashes. What isn’t there yet is the production, or the vocal hooks, or any sense of restraint. A cult favourite and a genuine historical document, but an engine without a steering wheel.

9. Leveler (2011)

Standout: “Empire”

The most polarising record they’ve made, and the first time they pushed back against the metalcore label.

It’s a strange album. There’s an acoustic salsa interlude in the middle of “Internal Cannon.” There are progressive rock dynamics that baffled the purists. And there are two of the biggest songs of their career in “Empire” and “Poor Millionaire.”

The problem is cohesion. It plays like a collection of very good ideas competing for space rather than an album with a shape. The ambition was right; the execution came four years later.

8. Phantom Anthem (2017)

Standout: “Invisible Enemy”

The most technically flawless record in the catalogue, which is exactly why it sits here.

By 2017 the band had perfected the contrast between classical guitar melody and percussive violence, and Phantom Anthem is that formula executed without a wasted second. “Invisible Enemy” earned them their second Grammy nomination, and Greiner’s polyrhythmic work under Brubaker’s syncopated patterns is genuinely astonishing playing.

But it’s the playbook run perfectly rather than the playbook rewritten. On a discography with no bad albums, that’s what separates eighth from third.

7. Death Below (2023)

Standout: “Ancestry”

The darkest thing they’ve done, and the least concerned with being liked.

Written and recorded through a period of genuine global isolation, Death Below abandons conventional song lengths and lets the tracks bleed into one another, closer to progressive post-metal than anything on the radio.

The centre of it is “Ancestry,” where Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage trades vocals with Luhrs across a song about depression and generational trauma. Twenty years in, it’s the record that proved they could still sound genuinely unsettling.

Dense, difficult, and worth the effort.

6. Guardians (2020)

Standout: “Defender”

The riff record, and it arrived at exactly the right moment.

Guardians pulls back from experimentation into a straightforward riff-first approach, and it produced some of the most immediately memorable guitar hooks of Brubaker’s career. “Defender” and “Bones” are built for rooms of ten thousand people.

What makes it work is the tension it maintains — enormous, uplifting melodic movements sitting directly against some of the most brutal breakdown drops they’ve written. Triumph and violence in the same bar, which is a very ABR trick.

5. Found in Far Away Places (2015)

Standout: “Identity”

The moment the progressive identity clicked.

Their first record for Fearless, Found in Far Away Places achieved what Leveler had reached for. The classical transitions feel organic rather than bolted on, moving from cinematic passages into technical thrash without the seams showing.

“Identity” earned the band their first Grammy nomination, for Best Metal Performance in 2016. Elsewhere, “Ghosts” features a strong guest turn from A Day To Remember’s Jeremy McKinnon.

It’s the record where they stopped being a very good metalcore band and started being composers.

4. Season of Surrender (2026)

Standout: “Legions”

The newest album, and proof the fire hasn’t gone out.

Season of Surrender trims away the progressive sprawl and delivers the heaviest, most volatile songwriting the band has produced in over a decade. Thematically it’s about self-sabotage and the act of letting go, and Luhrs gives a career-best vocal performance sitting right at the front of the mix.

The guests land properly too — Mike Hranica of The Devil Wears Prada on opener “Legions,” and Jamie Hails of Polaris on the crushing “Sonic Salvation.”

It’s their mid-2000s aggression welded to twenty years of arranging experience, and it’s a genuinely surprising record from a band this far in.

3. Rescue & Restore (2013)

Standout: “Fault Line”

An argument, made in album form.

By 2013 commercial metalcore had been overrun by electronics and autotuned choruses. ABR’s response was to make a record that took the genre somewhere none of those bands could follow — jazz chords, real string arrangements, and actual mariachi horns on “The Creative Captivity.”

“Fault Line” is one of the most emotionally direct things they’ve written. The whole album is a statement about what heavy music is capable of when nobody’s chasing a playlist, and it’s aged better than almost anything from that year.

2. Messengers (2007)

Standout: “White Washed”

The record that rewired the genre.

Messengers is the debut of Jake Luhrs and Dustin Davidson, and it landed like a detonation. Eleven tracks with the clean-vocal conventions of the era stripped out entirely, built on the opening riff of “White Washed” and the rhythmic assault of “Comrades.”

Almost every metalcore band that came after has tried to make this album. Most of them are still trying. It’s the raw, unrefined version of everything the band would spend the next two decades perfecting, and there’s an argument that the rawness is the point.

1. Constellations (2009)

Standout: “Marianas Trench”

The best thing they’ve made, and it isn’t especially close.

If Messengers proved they could overpower a scene, Constellations proved they could out-write it. The balance between breakdown violence and genuinely beautiful melodic writing is perfect from the first bar to the last, and there is no filler anywhere on it.

The drum intro to “Marianas Trench” is one of the most recognisable moments in modern metalcore. “Thirty and Seven” is the emotional weight. “Indonesia” showed the band could build something cinematic without losing the aggression.

Seventeen years on, it’s still the record every other metalcore album gets measured against — and the one that made this band the standard rather than a participant.

Also Recommended – August Burns Red Frontman Jake Luhrs Reveals Overcoming Brutal Depression, Altering His Voice for Heaviest Album Ever, and More on The Loaded Radio Podcast

The full ranking

11. August Burns Red Presents: Sleddin’ Hill (2012)
10. Thrill Seeker (2005)
9. Leveler (2011)
8. Phantom Anthem (2017)
7. Death Below (2023)
6. Guardians (2020)
5. Found in Far Away Places (2015)
4. Season of Surrender (2026)
3. Rescue & Restore (2013)
2. Messengers (2007)
1. Constellations (2009)

August Burns Red albums in release order

Thrill Seeker — 2005, Solid State
Messengers — 2007, Solid State
Constellations — 2009, Solid State
Leveler — 2011, Solid State
August Burns Red Presents: Sleddin’ Hill — 2012, Solid State
Rescue & Restore — 2013, Solid State
Found in Far Away Places — 2015, Fearless
Phantom Anthem — 2017, Fearless
Guardians — 2020, Fearless
Death Below — 2023, SharpTone
Season of Surrender — 2026

Twenty years, five people, no drama

Worth saying plainly, because it’s the most unusual thing about them.

Since Jake Luhrs and Dustin Davidson joined in 2006, the lineup hasn’t changed once. Luhrs on vocals, JB Brubaker and Brent Rambler on guitars, Davidson on bass, Matt Greiner on drums. Twenty years, eleven albums, no departures, no acrimonious splits, no reunion tours.

In a genre that chews through vocalists — and in a year when Slipknot lost another founding member — that’s close to unheard of.

Luhrs has been open about what sits underneath it. He came on the Loaded Radio Podcast to talk about working through serious depression and about deliberately altering his voice for the band’s heaviest record, which is a level of honesty you don’t get from most frontmen at this stage.

The band formed in Lancaster in 2003 while the members were still in high school, and they’ve spent two decades proving that technical proficiency and a functioning working relationship will outlast almost any amount of talent without them.

Where this ranking will start arguments

Phantom Anthem at eight is the one that’ll get the most pushback. It’s a flawless record. It’s also the one that took the fewest risks, and on a discography with no weak entries that’s what decides it.

Rescue & Restore at three is the placement we’d defend hardest. It’s the most artistically ambitious thing they’ve done and it consistently gets overlooked in favour of the two records either side of it.

Season of Surrender at four may well climb. It’s the newest album here and it hasn’t had time to prove it lasts — the same test every other record on this list already passed.

The top two aren’t moving.

If you want more of this, the full Loaded Radio rankings archive is here, and the Type O Negative and Slipknot rankings are worth your time.

TL;DR

• Eleven studio albums from 2005’s Thrill Seeker to 2026’s Season of Surrender, including the instrumental Christmas record Sleddin’ Hill.
• Best: Constellations (2009) — the perfect balance of breakdown violence and melodic writing, with no filler anywhere on it.
• Worst: Sleddin’ Hill (2012) — technically ridiculous and genuinely fun, but an instrumental holiday album can’t compete on a list about emotional weight.
• The one that changed the genre: Messengers (2007), the debut of Jake Luhrs and Dustin Davidson.
• Two Grammy nominations, both for Best Metal Performance: “Identity” in 2016 and “Invisible Enemy” in 2018.
• The lineup: unchanged since 2006. Twenty years, eleven albums, same five people.

FAQ

Eleven albums, twenty years, and the same five people the entire time. Does Constellations still hold the crown, or has the modern material caught it? Settle it in the comments. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.

The post August Burns Red Albums Ranked: Complete Discography appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Deathcore force To The Grave have officially announced their signing to BLK II BLK label. To mark the new chapter, the band have unleashed “Eyestalk Ablations”, their first new music since mid-2025.
Read more…

The OBGMs previously had the banana man in question stage diving at one of their past shows.

The post End It’s Facebook Disappears Amid Banana Man Fallout, Escuela Grind & The OBGMs Rally Behind Banana Man appeared first on Theprp.com.

This is the fifth album from US doom metallers Khemmis. If you’re a fan of Khemmis, then a new record from the band is a big deal. If you’re not, you must check out Absolution, Hunted, Desolation, and Deceiver, as well as this new one. We’re in self titled territories here, which usually Means Something. … Continue reading “Khemmis – Khemmis (Review)”

Their catalog varies in sound — and quality — but there's at least one winner on each album. Continue reading…

In support of their recently released new album Through Zero, psychedelic/stoner metal formation Elder has confirmed another set of tour dates in Europe. Scheduled in early 2027, this trek will feature support from Temple Fang and Rezn (UK dates only).
Read more…