Today, London, UK-via-Asheville, NC musician Bex Vines released “Misfortune,” her debut single under the moniker lifepath99. The song, which was produced by Liam Brand (Zach Bryan, Mount Kimbie), transforms a nightmare into alternative bliss.
The post lifepath99 – “Misfortune” appeared first on Stereogum.
Down is gearing up for its next chapter. The band’s fifth full-length, Volume V, arrives November 20 via Nuclear Blast Records, and the quintet has kicked things off with a new single, “Blood Oath.”
Thirty-plus years in, Down still runs on the same fuel: a set of friendships that trace back to childhood in New Orleans. That chemistry between Philip Anselmo, Pepper Keenan, Kirk Windstein, Jimmy Bower and Pat Bruders is exactly what’s kept the band’s sludgy, groove-heavy sound distinct from anything the members do on their own.
“We were all excited about this,” smiles Anselmo. “There was a sense of lightness in the air. Everyone’s attitude was positive. There was more focus than ever. It just felt fresh again. Each one of us was individually striving for something, and I believe we achieved what we wanted to achieve. The record is a journey. It’s classic Down, but it’s also unique.”
“Everybody played their asses off, wrote great riffs, and Philip is singing amazing,” adds Windstein. “There’s so much electricity when we get together. To me, it’s the same vibe as our debut NOLA, but we’ve got another 35 years of experience as songwriters.”
“The five of us are from the same era, grew up together, and accomplished a lot on our own,” Keenan observes: “We all sounded different, but we’re still from the same 20-block radius. As far as what makes Down special, we knew one another before any of us had done anything. There’s history.”
That history runs deep. All five crossed paths as teenagers playing in local New Orleans bands, then went their separate ways to build reputations elsewhere — Anselmo fronting Pantera, Keenan handling guitar and vocals in Corrosion of Conformity, Windstein leading Crowbar, Bower slinging riffs in Eyehategod.
Most of Volume V came together across two writing sessions at Anselmo‘s home studio, Nodferatu’s Lair — the same clubhouse setup the band has leaned on since Down II. The songs were built in the room together rather than assembled remotely, with the material taking shape throughout 2025. Keenan and Windstein tracked guitars side by side, which gives the record a live, unified punch.
Opener “The Myth” sets the tone early with a powerhouse vocal and pummeling rhythm work. “Merciful Fate” brings in King Diamond for a vocal duel against Anselmo, backed by solos clocking in around 120 bpm — Diamond‘s wife, Livia Zita, adds her own dark touches to the track as well. Closer “Twice-Told Tales” brings the record home on a heavier, more hypnotic note. “It’s a conglomerate of tight riffs and blues rock mixed with the diligence of classic metal,” Anselmo reveals. “It’s an important song to us. I could feel Ozzy Osbourne‘s influence on me in the strangest way.”
Lead single “Blood Oath” leans on a riff that’s as hard-hitting as it is hummable, building to a chorus built for shouting along. The New Orleans references are baked in from the start.
“Anybody who’s from New Orleans is going to get a kick out of the references to the city,” grins Anselmo. “Musically, it’s got a big hook. It’s a Down song, but it takes a turn.”
“You’ll know it’s Down right off the fucking bat”, adds Keenan. “It’s heavy in its attack.”
Volume V was produced by Eddie Mapp and Down, mixed by Dave Fortman, and mastered by Maor Appelbaum at Maor Appelbaum Mastering in California.
Down is currently on the road for its North American headlining run, with Helmet and Spirit in the Room in support.
Down‘s origin story goes back to a 1991 jam session that produced a three-song demo — a tape that eventually laid the groundwork for the platinum-selling NOLA in 1995. Metal Hammer called it a rock classic outright, and Stereogum credited it with defining how the rest of the world hears Deep South metal. Since then, the band has delivered Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow (2002), Down III: Over the Under (2007), and the two-part Down IV (2012, 2014), while sharing stages with Metallica, Heaven & Hell, Danzig and Melvins and playing festivals like Aftershock, Louder Than Life, Hellfest and Sick New World. Revolver has ranked the band among the greatest supergroups in hard rock and metal history.
Down is:
Philip Anselmo / Vocals
Pepper Keenan / Guitars
Jimmy Bower / Drums
Kirk Windstein / Guitars
Pat Bruders / Bass
The post DOWN Returns With Album “Volume V” & Drops Crushing “Blood Oath” Single appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
Metalheads,
ihr habt einige Fragen zum Thema Special Camping Gutscheine und hier sind noch einmal die wichtigsten Infos zu dem Thema:
Solltet ihr weitere Fragen zu dem Thema haben, welche hier nicht beantwortet sind, schreibt bitte eine e-mail an ticketstore@wacken.com .
Euer
W:O:A Team
Der Beitrag Info: Special Camping beim W:O:A 2027 erschien zuerst auf Live, laut, legendär!.
Earlier this year, the former Muncie Girls leader Lande Hekt released Lucky Now, her first solo album since her band broke up in 2023. It was lovely. Today, Hekt announces plans to follow that record with a new EP called Threadbare, and it seems likely that this record will be just as lovely, at least if we’re judging by its lead single.
The post Lande Hekt Announces New EP <em>Threadbare</em>: Hear “Circles” appeared first on Stereogum.
Claire Cronin is the author of the 2020 book Blue Light Of The Screen, about her obsession with horror movies and supernatural imagery, and she’s also a singer-songwriter who makes uneasy folk music that’s inspired by doom metal and drone. It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Cronin, but she’s about to return with her new LP The Bruise, her follow-up to 2021’s Bloodless.
The post Claire Cronin Announces New Album <em>The Bruise</em>: Hear “Black Water” appeared first on Stereogum.
Wasted Wizards are back with ‘Wannabe Rockstar‘, the first single taken from their forthcoming EP ‘Wake Up Dead‘, and a song that finds the young Swedish band leaning into a rougher and more streetwise side of its hard rock sound. Stream ‘Wannabe Rockstar‘ – here The ingredients will feel familiar to anyone who has followed […]
The post Wasted Wizards Release New Single ‘Wannabe Rockstar’ appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.
Do you, like me, ever find yourself missing the sheer metallic perfection of the first few Mercyful Fate albums? Both Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath cast such a brilliantly macabre, occult atmosphere that they surely amplified the already palpable Satanic Panic of the mid-80s. Good things never last, but for a brief time, In Solitude managed to partially fill the dead spot in my heart that longed for more albums like those Fate classics, but all too soon they were gone too. Enter German metal crew The Night Eternal to fill the gap created by In Solitude, if not the yawning chasm left by Mercyful Fate. I discovered them on their 2023 sophomore release Fatale, and was quite impressed. Their sound was like an early, less Satanic Fate strained through a Goth rock filter, and it worked exceptionally well. Now, a few years later, we get the follow-up, Cold Velvet. The basic template is still in place, but this time they’ve gone deeper into the Goth rock doldrums and dulled their heavy metal edge in the process, approximating the Idle Hands / Untoothers material. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ’em.
The Night Eternal’s strengths heard on gems like “In Tartus” from Fatale are still present on opener “Where This World Ends,” as frontman Ricardo Baum’s slick merger of King Diamond, To Die For’s Jarno Perätalo, and Amorphis’ Tomi Joutsen pays big dividends. The pure metal quotient of the backing music feels a touch softer than last time, even approaching Ghost-levels of hard and Goth rock, but the song works and hooks you in. As Cold Velvet plays out, the Goth vibe increases. “Eurydice (Don’t Look Back)” is a polished take on 80s Goth rock, and it has legs and memorability that demand replays. This could have sat on Mana by Idle Hands and fit right in if they added a few werewolf-y grunts and howls. “Caught in a Spell” is a very laid-back piece of Goth flair with an easy breezy charm, and after a few spins it cements itself into your nerve clusters. It even has a vague Wytch Hazel vibe that adds extra charisma points.
The best moments come when The Night Eternal put their foot on the accelerator and dial up the metal. “The Veins of Time” is a throwback to Fatale, hitting the sweet spot between metal and Goth. It’s a bit more urgent and edgy without forsaking the sadboi glumness, and there’s a Sisters of Mercy vibe under the surface. My personal favorite track is “Shape of Sorrow” as it’s the most jacked-up version of the band’s current formula. It’s hardly a face-melter, but it offers more intensity and less moping and feels considerably heavier than the rest of Cold Velvet. Unfortunately, a few tracks, while good, just don’t sizzle enough to excite the grey matter, and when teamed up with the album’s languid vibe, they drag the excitement factor down a few notches. “When the Last Candle Dies” is like a lost modern Ghost track, and it’s okay but not much more, and closer, “Dance on Crimson Ground,” is the longest here at 7 minutes, but it isn’t all that interesting. At 42-plus minutes, Cold Velvet isn’t a challenging listen, but it isn’t the most exciting one either. The Goth influences result in a muted, sometimes drab expanse, and though the writing overcomes the limited color scheme at times, the album merely glides but never soars.
As with past outings, Ricardo Baum is the star of The Night Show. He’s got a big vocal presence that’s hard to resist, and he’s the kind of frontman that elevates everything a band does. He can sound like a youthful King Diamond, but this time he seems much more determined to turn himself into the prototype for an 80s Goth rock hero. He regularly delivers slick vocal hooks and phrasing that add a cool factor to everything the band does. There’s an argument to be made that the music behind Baum is more anodyne than last time. Robert Richter and Heinrich Käseberg can be a potent guitar tandem as they demonstrated on the prior albums, injecting classic metal and NWoBHM influences into their playing. Here, however, they dial things back to more Goth-appropriate levels, sacrificing power for poise. That makes for a less dynamic listen with fewer big, brain-shaking metal moments. Talent abounds, but the material feels overly restrained and held in check, and that’s unfortunate.
The Night Eternal are a very good band capable of delivering solid music that spans several genres. On Cold Velvet, they deliver some high-quality moments, but these highs aren’t as lofty as last time, and they get tangled in a series of less animated moments that sink the album into a Gothy bog. Cold Velvet is plenty classy, but it isn’t bashy enough for its own good. This gives me the sadz in the wrong way. Still worth a listen.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: thenighteternal.bandcamp.com | thenighteternal.com | instagram.com/thenighteternal_official
Releases Worldwide: August 21st, 2026
The post The Night Eternal – Cold Velvet Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
San Jose, California deathgrind maniacs Deathgrave are back with their third album, Hell is Evil, and Decibel has an exclusive early stream of the new album for your listening pleasure. Formed more than a decade ago by veteran musician and engineer Greg Wilkinson (Autopsy, Brainoil, Earhammer Studio), Deathgrave have maintained a steady stream of releases and live activity.
On Hell is Evil, Deathgrave open themselves to outside influences, pulling more from thrash, death metal, punk, noise rock and even industrial than ever before. As a result, the 32-minute record is packed to the gills with action and you can get in on it by streaming below. The album is out officially tomorrow, August 21, on Tankcrimes (digital here). Keep reading for an interview with Wilkinson about the new album.
Literally the world in not a totally awesome way. I’m getting distracted. In regards to Deathgrave, we were able to explore more musical boundaries and fully develop our sound. We started writing our previous album, It’s Only Midnight, when Clint [Baechle, drums] joined in 2018. A lot of songs were pretty old hat to us by the time the album came out. So, for Hell is Evil, we really all got to musically understand each other and lean into expanding our sound with a more solid focus. The album from front to back was freshly composed, new and exciting for us while creating it.
We have always been a band that straddles multiple musical genres. To me, this aspect is no different than before except I focused on blending the styles and transitions to feel more seamless. Each song was written with a musical motif in mind so some songs lean more in one direction or another.
No, each song has its own theme and set of lyrics.
I mean, it made it easier to have him come down! The short story was Andre [Cornejo, vocals] wanted a rant during the section where Chris sings. He hit a block there while tracking. Andre and Fern [Alberts, bass] were talking in the kitchen while I was sifting through tracks and they mentioned how cool it would be to have Chris come down and do his thing. I wrote Chris and he was down at the studio within an hour or so. He even wrote his lyrics for that section after reading Andre’s lyrics and discussing what the song was about. Super fast and professional as always.
In a way, yes. I wrote the basic skeleton of every song before anyone learned anything. Everyone wrote their parts and immediately tracked. This is how all of us work. Our recording process is almost like an ad-lib. We could have technically done this anywhere with this process but it was great just doing this ourselves on our own schedule. When it came to mixing and mastering, I didn’t want to overwork anything. Deathgrave is an untamed beast and needs to sound that way. Who better for the job than ourselves?
On a personal level, when I record my own music, I tend to grab the inspiration while it’s there. If a song or part isn’t working, I won’t beat it to death. It goes straight to the can or the holding cell for a potential revisit in the future. There were two parts on the record where I compositionally changed the sections while tracking because they weren’t working as I envisioned. We have to facility to do this and wasted the 20 minutes to redirect the parts. It happened in real time while Clint was tracking the drums.
In both instances, they served the song better. I believe if the song doesn’t bloom during the creation process, it may be best to let it die on the vine. If it is something magical, it will come back during another wave of inspiration, most likely. The important thing is to constantly create new ideas so losing some along the way is a huge part of the process. It is important to keep a fair amount of improvisation within the writing, layering, composition and recording. We are, in theory, trying to capture lighting in a bottle. If it takes a long period of time and labor to capture a song, it is no longer an encapsulation of inspiration. So doing this ourselves on our own schedule, in my studio, and on our own terms is definitely the smoothest way for us.
The post Full Album Stream: Deathgrave – “Hell Is Evil” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
Size isn’t everything.
When historians look back over the US alternative rock scene of the 1990s, they will naturally focus on the scene’s biggest hitters – Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, etc,. But that won’t be the whole story, with some of the finest bands of the decade – Shellac, Hole, Girls Against Boys, The Flaming Lips, Fugazi, Living Colour, Tad, Babes In Toyland, etc,. – having their own fascinating and indelible contributions to the musical landscape.
The Afghan Whigs are one such band. From 1992’s Congregation, their second album on Sub Pop, through to 1998’s 1965, their sixth studio album and final major label record, the Cincinnati, Ohio band never took a wrong step, never failed to deliver.
Led by frontman Greg Dulli, the suavest motherfucker in alternative rock, the group blended influences from punk, funk, soul, gospel music, and old school R&B into some of the decade’s most compelling music. Dulli, a one-time Catholic altar boy, seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of sin, and first-hand insights into man’s deepest, darkest desires, making the central characters in his band’s richly-textured songs figures as dangerous as they were seductive: that Dulli chose Gentlemen as the title of the band’s 1993 album was obviously loaded with irony when you read into his lyrics.
In 2001, The Whigs split, allowing Dulli to go deeper into cinematic, after hours rock with The Twilight Singers, The Gutter Twins (alongside his good friend and one-time room-mate Mark Lanegan) and his own solo albums. Ten years later, the Whigs returned, better than ever: their forthcoming tenth album, the excellent Soft Control, coincides with their 40th anniversary.
“I don’t have to do this,” the ever-charming Dulli says when Louder sits down with him in a Kings Cross bar. “I made a series of investments in my younger days that mean I don’t need to play music to pay the rent. So if I didn’t get off on doing this, I wouldn’t be doing it. And here we are. People know who we are, people know that we’re pretty untouchable in what we do, and people know not to fuck with us. That’s all I need.”
There’s a quote in your band’s latest biography where you admit to having been an “angry young man” once upon a time. Looking back, where do you think that anger stemmed from?
I had daddy Issues. And I came from a tough part of Hamilton, Ohio, and I had to punch my way out of there. You find yourself looking for snipers, and not trusting many people. Forming this group and becoming friends with the original guys went a long way in beginning to soften me. But like a lot of young dudes I was pissed off. And sometimes you don’t even know why you’re pissed off.
Hamilton is an industrial town, and would have had a working class/blue collar culture I’m guessing. That sort of environment isn’t always the most nurturing for young men and women with artistic sensibilities, and aspirations to do something creative.
Yeah, I had a good group of friends when I was a kid, but we were constantly defending ourselves. There were a bunch of other angry young men there that you literally had to take on. There’s frustration that builds in places that don’t have a lot of resources. And you had to present confidence to survive. Where I lived, if you were seen as ‘beta’ or if there were perceived weaknesses in you that could be exploited, you were going to face problems.
Back then you’d walk down the street and somebody would start fucking with you. So you could either run away or get into it, and even if you got your ass kicked, that person wouldn’t fight you the next time, because they know you’ll fight back. I got my ass kicked a lot until I started kicking people’s asses, and now you can walk down the street and you’re safe.
I believe you were a heavy metal fan as a teenager.
I was. Metal shows were the only shows that came to our part of town because again, it’s the Rust Belt, it’s industrial America. I actually grew up on R&B and country and western music, from my grandparents, but I got into metal, and I love the energy of metal. I saw Judas Priest six times. I would never miss their shows. They were phenomenal shows, super theatrical, and they had very catchy songs, and an amazing frontman. But I’ve always been omnivorous about music, I love punk, and reggae and classical and jazz too. There’s only two kinds of music: good music, and bad music.
And when did you first see a band that could be classified as punk, or to your understanding of what punk was at that time?
Maybe The Damned, then Hüsker Dü, and then the Ramones. It was my freshman year at college, and there was a venue in Newport, Kentucky, called The Jockey Club where I saw those bands, and Killing Joke and Violent Femmes and whoever. I’d grown up with a lot of kids who loved Rush, and they could play super technical, complex music which was intimidating to me: I knew I couldn’t do that, and I never wanted to do that. Then I moved to California, and saw The Dream Syndicate, and seeing them made me think that playing in a band wasn’t out of reach, that I could do this.
What was your early vision for the band?
I just wanted a band. I’m not sure that I specifically planned what kind of band we were going to be, at the start you just want to be a band to get over the boredom. But the first drummer we had was a guy named Steve Earle [who played on the group’s first four records] and he came from a metal background, so whatever kind of jangling music we wanted to play, we all had to get distortion pedals just to be heard over him.
But it was probably when we did Congregation that I thought we could be a unique band. To me, that was when we became The Afghan Whigs. When I listen to that record it doesn’t sound like anybody else. We are now a unique entity, and we do what we do. That was the moment that I thought this is something that I could take somewhere. And I have not had a straight job since that album.
Were there bands on the circuit at the time that you felt an affinity with, outlook-wise or personality-wise?
Peer-wise? Yes, of course. I’ll give you a perfect example, The Flaming Lips. They came to town, we opened for them, and they liked us, and brought us along for some more shows, That was the band that kinda underlined the attainable for us. They did everything themselves. They had no roadies. They loaded their own gear. They drove their own van. They did their own light show with foot switches and stuff. It was really remarkable and impressive, and absolutely inspiring.
So the so-called alternative rock ‘revolution’ kicked in in the early 90s, post-Nevermind. How did that change the the ground for The Afghan Whigs?
Well, I correctly anticipated that there would be a feeding frenzy after Nirvana. The world changed. It doesn’t make me a genius that I saw that, but it was clear that if you were under 25, played alternative or punk rock, and had an audience, they were coming to look for you. I probably had dinner with 15 different labels, taking my first ever first class flights at their expense, and raiding everybody’s CD closets. And after that, we signed to Elektra. Nirvana blew a hole in the wall for the rest of us to walk through.
Nirvana blew a hole in the wall for the rest of us to walk through
Greg Dulli
How hungry were you for that? Did you aspire to that level of success, or did you always know that that level of success was going to be damaging?
I don’t know that I thought that. I think, like anyone, you would like as many people as you can to love your music. But I’ve never wanted something I didn’t have. Our audience was very organic, and, again, our style was not like everyone else. We were outliers, and we liked that. But that was the moment that I thought that I could do this for…. until I’m talking to you today.
The way you were portrayed in the media circa Gentlemen and maybe even Black Love was as this handsome, seductive, charming but slightly dangerous and deviant lothario. Did you recognise that character as being you?
Honestly, that stuff you just have fun with at that point. I could be less than honest in my interviews just for fun, and just to help them perpetuate a myth. In reality, I’m a pussy cat, but I’m also a fan of mischief, misdirection and manipulation, whatever that says about me or any kind of sociopathy I may have. It was all in good fun. You can’t control what people say about you, and what they write, so if you can step in and amp it up a little bit, where’s the harm?
Did that image get you into any awkward situations in real life though? Because not everyone is going to be relaxed about Mr Steal Your Girl walking into the local bar.
I went to Street University, so fucking bring it on if it was going to become anything like that. I don’t condone fighting, it’s really an unhealthy way to live. The last fight I was in was 25 years ago, and I hope I’m never in another one, but what I do remember about that one is that I had this strange adrenaline that lasted like almost six months after that. I did not like the way I felt, it was detrimental to my mental health. So for the rest of my life, I’ll walk away from someone saying something disparaging about me or calling me a name that’s less than pleasant. I would rather that clang off of whatever armour I’ve built and walk away and not take the bait. Obviously, if like I was physically attacked and had to defend myself, different story. But if it’s name calling or something like that, not biting on that anymore.
There was a lot of ‘indulgence’ going on in the ’90s alt. rock scene, and a lot of musicians using drugs to help alleviate boredom or to maintain a sort of chemical level of dopamine hits. I know you dipped your toes in that world, but did you ever find yourself in danger of being pulled under?
Yes, I did, and a lot of people do, for the exact reason you said, boredom. You’re on tour, and between sound check and the show, you are fucking around, and you better start getting into some good books, or get into checking out museums, or find constructive ways to spend your time in that downtime.
Additionally, when you’re playing shows, and especially if your shows are going well and are well attended, and the audiences are responsive, you like that dopamine feel that you get. And when you don’t have it, and you can artificially stimulate yourself that way, its tempting. As that old warning goes, the devil finds time for idle hands.
What I’m saying is that it’s endemic to the profession, and whenever it happens to someone, no one’s shocked. It’s literally almost like a rite of passage. I had to talk to people in my own band… until I became the person getting talked to. I got past it, but I have a lot of friends – not just in rock ‘n’ roll – who didn’t make it out.
On a business level, as that famous essay from Steve Albini [The Problem With Music] brutally illustrated, a lot of bands got fucked over in their dealings with major labels in the ’90s. How was your relationship with Elektra?
Our honeymoon lasted for one record. We had a decent relationship during Gentlemen, and then there was a regime change, and then it was, from their side, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ In England, working with Mute was good for us, we felt protected, and understood. America was not like that. Like, I had developed a side project called The Twilight Singers and I had given Elektra some of the demos, which I had been really, really airtight with, and so when they slipped out into the trader market, and at that point my trust in them was zero, you can never tell me that it wasn’t someone at Elektra who leaked that.
And when The Twilight Singers came into view, with the first album emerging in 2000, The Afghan Whigs went on hiatus.
Oh, there was no hiatus, we broke up. I moved into The Twilight Singers as a full-time deal. [Bassist] John Curley had a baby, [guitarist] Rick McCollum had moved to Minnesota with his girlfriend, and so we were in three separate states, doing our own things. We felt like we had taken the band as far as we could.
So where did the impetus come from to put the band back together in 2011?
Well, so every time that The Twilight Singers went through Cincinnati, John Carley would get up and play with me on a Whigs song or two, and it was fun and made people happy. Then on my first solo tour in 2010, I said, What are you doing tomorrow? We’re playing Chicago, do you wanna come? And he got in the vehicle with us, and went to Chicago. Now John Curley and I had not been on a stage outside of Cincinnati at that point in 11 years, so when I introduced him in Chicago, the response of the crowd was deafening. And I was like, Wow, they’re tripping, they really missed this guy, and missed us being together. And that put it in my mind. Then I asked him if he wanted to come do the West Coast thing with us – LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle – and it was the same reaction every night. We didn’t get back together right away, but we did two years later. And it’s been pretty great ever since.
Let’s circle back to the angry young man who started The Afghan Whigs: If that guy was looking at Greg Dulli today, do you think he’d be pretty happy with how things worked out, and how he’d found his place in this world?
The answer to that question is that I would be happy that I like myself now. Because I think I had to move into that. I had to feel deserving of love, deserving of good things, deserving of you know friendship, just the basic tenets of life. And that young person would also be like, Wow, weed’s legal now! Cool!
Soft Control will be released on August 21 via Royal Cream/BMG
