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Cherry Red [Release date : 28.08.26] CD1 : Something In The Air (1980) CD2 : Black Summer (1982) CD3 : Stand Up And Be Counted (1983) CD4 : My Kingdom Come (1894) CD5 : Night Of Mystery – Alive! Alive! … Continue reading →

The post Album review : NIGHTWING – Long Hard Road 1980-85 (5 CD Boxset) appeared first on Get Ready to ROCK!.

Chicago’s infamous DIY punk scene thrashes through the city constantly – unashamed of the grime, grit, and fire that lies woven within the community. So much of the greatest music of this scene is the young punks lit up with rage, societal nonconformity, & political unrest. This is my love letter to 3 of those bands.

GLAD: THE COMMANDERS OF SHE-MALE DOUCHEBAG SLUDGE-VIOLENCE (@glad.violence)

Rain Lopez, Liz Covalt, and MJ Ultra conduct the wizardry that is GLAD: the she-male-fronted, douchebag sludge-violence band that transformed my connection with the scene forever. I met GLAD in an aforementioned “shitty basement,” dripping in other people’s sweat, and writing bullshit on any blank space I could find on the wall. I carved my initials into the interworkings of the low ceiling while I avoided making conversation with the various bassists in the room who dated my friends. But there was something instantly commanding about the way that GLAD started their set. MJ threw herself into the crowd while she sang, Rain tore it up on the drums, and Liz was a killer on the bass. But perhaps even more endearing than that, my friends and I smoked a cigarette alongside MJ in the backyard. 

The duality of the Chicago punk & hardcore scene had never been more apparent to me than in this very moment. I got to watch these three people absolutely destroy a room, lighting something inside of me ablaze that would lead me to want to cement my place in the local scene forever. But more than that, the scene became approachable to me. Something pinched in my brain, and I realized that there is no imaginary posterchild that represents who you’re supposed to be when you go to these gigs. I didn’t need to bring my shitty boyfriend with me cause I thought it made me look cooler. I could come to a show after a 9-to-5 and melt away into the tinnitus-inducing trash music that I loved, and I didn’t need to do anything else except exist. And after almost an entire year of living in this post-transcendent aftermath, I finally got the chance to sit down with GLAD to talk about this, the scene, and the future of it.

When asked about what made all of them feel so connected to the scene, Ultra exhaled. “With GLAD, I feel like I get to be a bad person. You know? Like, when we’re playing for 20 minutes, and I get to let all that anger and disgust and hatred out. If you’re in the front, I might hit you, I might kick you, I might spit in your face, right? And in this moment, I don’t matter! But neither do any of you.”

We discussed how “punk behavior” is integral to the scene – the ability to jump, kick, mosh, and scream are all necessary parts of the experience. The big venues of Chicago don’t welcome that, and the endearingly shitty basements that do usually end up closing. We then started to talk about how many of our favorite nights were spent in these venues, and how modern spots like Casa Cafe (@casacafeshows) have quickly become the new ringleaders. 

“I think punk used to live in shitty basements,” Lopez said. “And with any luck, it’s just a transitional phase. I do think that it will come back. That’s what’s always been so special about Chicago.”

CHICAGOLAND’S BUG STOMPERS: YABAI! CHICAGOLAND’S BUG STOMPERS: YABAI! (@yabai_punk)

YABAI: A versatile piece of Japanese slang meaning anything from “sick” to “WHOA!”, secondarily referred to as THE FUTURE OF CHICAGO PUNK!

YABAI is a local punk band that makes self-proclaimed “evil music,” consisting of frontman Jesse Vasel, his brother Jaden Vasel on the drums, and friends Austin Martinez and Elian Gonzalez, both on guitar. 

It’s confirmed: Lightning DOES strike twice! I first discovered YABAI in the same basement I found GLAD. What’s so much fun about YABAI is how apparent it was that we were all witnessing the future of the scene – spiky hair, killer style, and stage presence that could light a room on fire. 

YABAI’s music is hardcore, it’s punk, it’s quintessential rage. YABAI delivers, and the entire crowd responds: they mosh, they stomp, and they scream. This band is a wicked force of passion and young rage. 

“We want to trick [non-punks] into thinking we’re like, not evil. Like really really cool,” Jesse said. “Then they come to the show and see like the chaos and it’s like, oh, what the fuck? But then they like it. That’s what we want to happen.”

YABAI is that in a nutshell! An unexpected meteorite of hardcore morals, vibes, and demeanor. These four come together to create something very special, something that thrives off the energy of a bunch of no-good kids going crazy in a dimly lit basement. *THAT* is what the Chicago scene is about, and as a fan, I couldn’t not talk about how crucial that is to the punk scene in our interview.

Before they reworked their Spotify, their songs CORPO and WAKE UP CALL were in my ‘Most Listened To.’ I loved how listening to their studio recordings felt like I was at a show even if I was actually on the Red Line, and one of the things I love about the scene is how much you wish you were there when you’re anywhere else.

We spoke again about the state of Chicago DIY venues. “This shit is run by hardcore kids, for hardcore kids, and it’s just like a pure scene,” Jesse stated. “These venue owners aren’t some outsiders, they’re just grown up hardcore kids.”

YABAI consists of hardcore kids who love hardcore more than anything. 

FLY THE CHI-TOWN FLAG: IT’S FOUR STARS! (@fourstarsil)

I actually met the guys of Four Stars in a slightly more established non-basement: Beat Kitchen. The Chicago-based Pop-Punk band is made up of lead singer Aida Ahmed, drummer Mikey Williams, and guitarist Danny Escobar.

I found them after I tuned into their soundcheck after an interview with a separate artist – they played Fall Out Boy to get their ball bearings aligned before their set which immediately perked my ears up. We connected through social media, and I’ve had the greatest fun sharing how crucial pop-punk has been to our lives with each other. What I love about Four Stars is how quickly they turn into “Four Stars,” in the sense that it takes mere seconds for them to turn into the wickedly talented performers that they have built alongside each other. They are funny, they’re fresh, and they’re raw – they love to wear their hearts on their sleeves with no shame at all. They talk about break-ups, relationship problems, and their gripes with this crazy, crazy world all in the form of music. They are unbelievably them as well as unbelievably punk in a city that has so many wonderful sounds. 

But it is in these bars and local venues that they become most themselves. Even their name is a tribute to the iconic Chicago flag, featuring blue and white stripes with four bright red stars in the middle. These 3 grew up on the scene with famous pop-punk bands like Yellowcard, Blink-182, and Sum 41, which turned them into the musicians they are today. They are unabashedly Chicago punk, living off the energy of the locals and all those who love to go crazy to emotionally distraught lyrics. “Four Stars” is Chicago through and through, and it would be an understatement to say that Ahmed, Williams, and Escobar are amazing examples of the endlessly giving Chicago DIY scene.

There are a few phrases that I could theoretically read in a promo blurb that would get me to instantly pick it up.¹ When my eyes landed on the line “Lord Carrion seeks to usher in 1000 years of ruin to fascists and authoritarians of all stripes,” I thought “say less,” and took Man Made Hell without any care for the fact that its black metal comes with a significant dose of southern hardcore—not my preferred subgenre. I’m glad I did. Their debut LP after two years honing their craft with an EP and a split, Man Made Hell is Lord Carrion’s first big chance to bring about the promised destruction to oppressors. The stark redness of the cover, the marrying of some of metal’s noisiest styles, and the band’s proud antifascism make for a loud statement that the music must live up to. And does it?

Man Made Hell certainly does not flinch away from the implicit violence of its influences. A crusty, second-wave black metal base meets with the boundless energy and acidity of rampaging hardcore for a sound that’s both aurally and spiritually raw as fuck. Jonross Maddog² Maddox’s d-beats and the clattering pivots of snare rollovers and cymbal smashes drag you by the scruff of your neck behind a rampaging train of Matthew Price and Miguel Hallare’s riffs, as Jake Plissken screams in your face through a mouthful of barbed wire. Sometimes, it’s no more than this: sanguine yet standard noisy rampaging that doesn’t break any moulds (“Suicide Planet,” “Billions Dead”). At others, Lord Carrion pull back from showing their teeth just enough for some layers and gripping melodicism to show their heart.

Lord Carrion display their passion best when they stray outside of the lines. It’s tangible in the ballistic extremities—the snippets of solo drums (“Billions Dead,” “Yaldabaoth”) and the passages of particularly intense extended, repeated, throat-shredding screams (“Plutocrat Slaughter Ritual,” “The Walls are Closing In”). Most notably, the feeling on Man Made Hell is strongest in every place Lord Carrion make the sound entirely their own. Resonance that goes beyond its obvious atmo-black inspiration to transform a previously granite riff into a shadowy refrain (“Plutocrat…,” “Peace is a Bloody Sword”) when it isn’t blurring a tremolo melody for some randomly gorgeous meloblack (“What Remains”). Such buoyant, mournful melodies sprinkled around work together with punchy syncopation and aforementioned hellish vocals for compelling, satisfyingly sharp declarations (“Desperate Cruelty,” “What Remains”). Disso-death drips into arachnid arpeggios (“Billions Dead”) and drawling, sinister chords (“Peace…), injecting a cruel edge that just works. Rhythmic turns often take the best of both black metal and hardcore for fun (“Suicide Planet,” “The Walls are Closing In”) and darkly groovy (“Plutocrat…”) moments.

The greatest issue with Man Made Hell is that its brilliance is a little unevenly distributed. So fiery at its jawbreaking, moody, best, the (over-)use of more “standard” second-wave black/hardcore riffing risks the loss of any audience turned off by such mundanities.³ Similarly, the album would probably benefit from a smidge more time to fully integrate the many great ideas and segments it contains. As an example: the jumpscare of full-volume white noise that splits the doom-drone of “Peace…”‘s first act is visceral, and will probably split listeners into a love/hate dichotomy. The gentle beauty of “What Remains,” rising from carefully-placed strums and the hushed howling of wind to an emotional meloblack finale, though I love it, feels slightly out of place. I can hear the hints of atmosphere and nuance that Lord Carrion drop beforehand, and it seems like minor tweaks would integrate these aspects better.

Man Made Hell divides me, leaving me affected but uncommitted. It’s pretty fun in a satisfyingly gronky way, whilst also possessing a gravitas that portends—even though it doesn’t execute—greatness. What is certain is that Lord Carrion have got something; their ardour oozes out of most-every fuzz-choked note, and I think they make their point just fine for now.

Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: wav
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: August 24th, 2026

The post Lord Carrion – Man Made Hell Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Nickelback have released a song titled ‘Leave Me Behind’, set to appear on their upcoming new album ‘Everything Under The Sun’.

When the band announced the album, vocalist Chad Kroeger said it was set to showcase “every side of the band on it. There are songs that hit as hard as anything we’ve ever done, songs that take chances, and songs that remind us why we’ve been doing this together for so long.”

And in ‘Leave Me Behind’ they show off another strand of their multi-faceted sound, drifting into the realm of powerful ballads. Musically, it is as catchy as everything Nickelback has put their name to over the years, but lyrically it reminds listeners they don’t have to face this world alone. That they can turn to others to help them, even when things feels utterly hopeless. It’s emotional, but in a way that makes you shimmer with hope and promise for what is to come.

Chad had this to say about it:

“There’s a lot of weight in this song, but there’s also a lot of hope. It’s about being there for someone when they’re dealing with the things that have broken them down – picking up the pieces, taking some of that weight off their shoulders, and reminding them they don’t have to go through it alone. At the same time, there’s that feeling of not wanting to be left behind. We liked that tension. It makes the song feel really personal.”

‘Everything Under The Sun’ will be released on October 30 via Virgin Music Group.

It will also feature the crushing ‘Rattle The Cage’, which sounds like this:

The post Nickelback Share Fresh New Ballad ‘Leave Me Behind’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

‘Autonomatic‘ is the fuzz-drenched new single from Rival Sons guitarist Scott Holiday’s solo project ‘HOL1D4Y‘. Produced and Directed by Aaron Eisenberg (Sound + Vision Co.) and Scott Holiday Listen to the new single ‘Autonomatic‘ – here “Autonomatic: It’s a word I came up with by combining the words: autonomy and automatic.” states Holiday, “Autonomatic: The built […]

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