Category: news

Tokyo rock band COCTEAU CALINES releases “A City Made of Sorrow,” a 6-minute dream-pop protest single questioning the

Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi dives into his next solo album, reflects on Back to the Beginning and celebrates the ongoing legacy of Ozzy Osbourne. Continue reading…

Ambient composer Eric Angelo Bessel unveils “Pathways,” a new composition from his upcoming electroacoustic album Illusion of an

Lake Malice have shared a new track titled ‘rly ok’, which is set to appear on their upcoming debut album ‘I Wanna Know If It’s Real’.

The track itself is a perfect amalgamation of everything that sits at the core of the band. Between trance-like builds, neon-soaked atmospheres, hyper-pop embraces, and splatters of modern metal, it ebbs and weaves between sounds with ease and joy. It’s anthemic, intense and beautifully considered.

It’s a different tone for the band, but one that is wholly welcome. By letting the words take centre stage, it tells a tale so many of us experience. The feeling of being pushed to the edge, unsure whether the thing we are passionate about is enough to keep us happy.

Let vocalist Alice Guala explain:

“I find it strange that we’ve accepted burnout as the norm in modern society. We’re told to work harder, dream bigger, stay connected, check in on everyone else… and if you’re falling apart, just don’t let it affect your productivity.

“I wrote this thinking about the reality for artists nowadays, or people who seek a career in a creative field, as that seems harder and harder when you need to pay bills first. More generally though, rly ok came from asking whether we’re actually living, or just becoming really efficient at coping. I don’t think humans are designed to live like this.

“This is one of the poppiest songs on the record, even featuring a sax solo!, but it’s written in a minor key, so there’s always this feeling that something isn’t quite right beneath the surface. It sounds like you’re having the time of your life while simultaneously falling apart, which kind of feels like the perfect soundtrack to modern life.”

‘I Wanna Know If It’s Real’ will be released on September 11.

The artwork looks like this:

Whilst the full tracklisting is like this:

1. Scatterbrain
2. Ghost In A Hell
3. Nobody Wants To Be You
4. Chrome Red
5. rly ok
6. EtheReal
7. 3D Robocop
8. Real Life
9. 90’s btch
10. Crystallised
11. Main Character Energy
12. Icarus

You can also check out ‘Chrome Red’ right now as well.

The post Lake Malice Share Euphoric New Track ‘rly ok’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

On Monday 24 August I was invited along to watch the early screening of Ghost’s 2 Big To Rig feature-length concert film at Cineworld in Leicester Square (one of the perks of living in London – you get to go to cool shit that only happens in the capital). When I first saw the title … Continue reading Film Review: Ghost – 2 Big To Rig

In an effort to spare the impatientest of you fine people, let’s proclaim right at the start that Reminiscence, the second album from Italy’s Miscreance, is a frankly incredible album of technical death/thrash that should speak just as legibly to fans of the foundational work done by Atheist, Death, Cynic, and Pestilence as it should to fans of newer heirs to that lineage such as Species, Droid, Dissimulator, and Anachronism. If that description sounds like you, then by the gods kindly get your ears in front of Reminiscence as quickly as your withering carcass can muster.

For the rest of us…

I – Profound/Profane

I don’t know about you, but my brain sometimes just gets stuck on something in language, like a word that feels connected to something else or an origin that suggests a deeper meaning. Lately, while cramming this new Miscreance album into my noggin, it’s set me to wondering whether there’s any etymological similarity between the words “profound” and “profane.” Turns out the answer is… nah, basically not. 

The English ‘profound’ traces back to the Latin words ‘pro’ (meaning “towards”) and ‘fundus’ (meaning “root” or “bottom”). So, something is profound when it probes towards the deepest foundation or truth of the matter. The English ‘profane’, though still tracing to Latin and using the same ‘pro’ prefix, is a different story, with ‘pro’ in this case meaning “out from” or “outside of,” paired with ‘fanum’ (meaning “temple” or “sacred ground”). In this way, something profane is that which occurs outside of or beyond the boundaries of sacredness. (That notorious barrel of laughs, the Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben, has an entire lecture series-turned-book on this topic, called Profanations.)

II – The Ad Strawmanem Argument

Ugh, don’t you hate it when this kind of dilatory asshole introduces a fake linguistic binary simply for the sake of later connecting it to his risible impressions of a heavy metal album made by people who, if we’re simply playing the numbers, couldn’t give more than two shits of a care about a postmodern interpretation of their loud, fast, angry heavy metal? What an utter squirt.

III – An Atheist for All Seasons

When I was first diving into the world of death metal, I generally followed the principle of “the fancier, the better.” So, when I encountered Florida death metal legends Atheist, their third album Elements seemed patently the greatest of the three extant at the time. I loved the slickness of it, its interludes, its clearly-sketched complexity, and the seemingly Captain Planet-inspired conceptual framework of the various natural elements.

Over time, though, my tastes changed such that I was certain for years and years that Unquestionable Presence was Atheist’s masterpiece. It was clearly the perfect midpoint between the proggier smoothness of Elements and the scrappy, feral Piece of Time. How could LITERALLY ANYONE DISAGREE? But then, friends, I tell you what: just in this last year or two, some primal reset-lever in my brain must have finally clunked into place, because I am now fully convinced that 1990’s Piece of Time is THEEEEEE Atheist album, full-stop. (Jupiter, by the way: pretty good, I think! If we’re being honest, though, the particular way in which my grey matter is unwell means that I’d rather group things in threes than in fours.)

Why not imagine my sequential experience relative to these Atheist albums as knock-off tarot cards? (Given that there are an actual billion reasons why not, it’s a rhetorical question, chucklehead.)

IV – Get To The Point Or Get In The Sea

If you’re still here, thanks for bearing with us. Sometimes I need to sweep off the front porch before I can let myself into the house. The point I’m really trying to get at is that while Miscreance is hardly a carbon copy of Atheist, there’s enough similarity in the DNA that they seem like direct spiritual successors. A huge part of that connection here on album number two, by the way, is due to the incredible bass guitar work from Jean Claude Rossignol (the only member of Miscreance to change over since the band’s debut LP, Convergence). His active, fluid, intensely physical bass work recalls that of Atheist’s tragically-departed cornerstone, Roger Patterson (who was heard only on Atheist’s Piece of Time).

Despite that the membership is otherwise unchanged and the general stylistic template remains the same, Reminiscence is nevertheless a significant step up from the already-good Convergence. The tempos run a little higher, the aggression has been dialed up, the rhythmic interplay whiplashes a bit more wildly, and the band as a whole just feels a little lighter on their feet. Witness, for example, the album’s second track, “Vision.” It kicks the door straight in with a stout, punky thrash attack, but before long Rossignol and drummer Andrea Feltrin dance opposite each other for a transitional death metal breakbeat before the whole band sprints off in a third direction with a seemingly straight-ahead death/thrash pummeling. All of that, by the way, is just in the first minute or so of the song. Feltrin also pulls an admirable double shift here on drums and vocals, with his appealingly hoarse approach something like a midpoint between Martin van Drunen and John Tardy.

Across the smartly-concise 37 minutes of Reminiscence, Miscreance displays a gleeful mixture of seeming impatience and compelling, thoughtful songwriting. It’s as if they spend all their time in the practice space getting jazzed on fireworks – like “Oh shit, check out THIS lick” and “Yeah, man! And how ‘bout this tricky rhythm change-up in the main riff!” – but then back home, they sharpen their pencils and get down to the less-glamorous work of architecture. This means that there’s an interesting tension at play in the music, like a kid whose mind is torn halfway between wanting to finish the puzzle they’ve been painstakingly assembling and wanting to rip all the heads off their action figures and then Frankenstein them back together. 

“The Moaning Hill,” for example, opens with a jumping, spidery riff, but the band only rides it a few times before diving straight into a tom-heavy breakdown replete with backing didgeridoo (from featured guest musician Leo de Angilla, who shows up across the album on additional percussion, flute, and the single-stringed Afro-Brazilian instrument, the berimbau). Similarly, the first thirty seconds or so of the album opener, “Trait d’Union,” are a coolly funky section of bass, clean guitar, and bongos and other backing percussion that appear to have little connection to the song that follows. Then, in the final minute of the song, the band drops into a deeply emotive section (with beautifully interlocking guitars from Andrea Granauro and Tomasso Cappelletti) with some engaging clean vocals that give it a flavor of Gojira by way of Cynic. Rather than prove distracting or indicate a band that can’t decide what they want to do, these extra flourishes have the effect of showing off a band that’s deeply engaged in the process of finding all the coolest shit they can think of. When’s the last time you did that at your job?

V – It’s A More Pleasing Numeral Than IV

The outcome of this creative impatience is – you guessed it – both profane and profound. Reminiscence feels, on one level, like it’s really chasing something – as if there’s something out there, down there, some truth or emotional weight that might be at the core of everything, if only we could reach it. At the same time – and despite how much it speaks directly to my soul as a recent convert to the church of “fucking HELL Atheist’s Piece of Time is outrageously great” – Miscreance doesn’t feel particularly tethered here to any given orthodoxy. At times their enthusiasm almost threatens to outrun their abilities, but the key word there is “almost.” If the sacred ground of technical death/prog thrash/whatever sometimes seems to require a dour, shriveled-up obsession with clockwork precision, I’m fully in favor of folks like these Italian misbehavers who want to rip up the rulebook and burn it down to the one true criterion: If it slays, it plays.

The post Miscreance – Reminiscence Review appeared first on Last Rites.

I’ve always interviewed human beings, and now for the first time, I’m interviewing aliens too. I got the honor of interviewing Alien Rockin’ Explosion, one of the resident bands of Wacken Open Air!

Benedetta

I’m here with two wonderful artists from Alien Rockin’ Explosion. How are you doing today?

Alien Rockin’ Explosion

We are very happy to be here at Wacken again and meeting such great people, hanging around, and playing every night. We are very happy. This year we have had the opportunity to play on the Wackinger Stage on Wednesday and it’s a full experience for us.

Benedetta

So to play at Wacken on such an anniversary edition, how does it feel?

Alien Rockin’ Explosion

It feels amazing. It was such a good energy, very good vibes out there and many people. It was a big opportunity to present our own songs. And we were celebrating our 10th anniversary last year, so it’s kind of an anniversary for us as well.

Benedetta

Do you think that we will ever have some equality between men and women in the metal world?

Alien Rockin’ Explosion

Wow, that’s a difficult question to answer. Because, I mean, I’ve been working in the metal industry for a long time, not only as a singer, but also I was in a record label, a booking agency and so I have kind of the whole view. I mean, it’s improving, there’s more and more women right now, but we still need to improve. Yeah, I’m a bassist and trombonist too, and I think that people need to learn more about female members in bands. I think that each year people learn, but I think that it’s necessary to learn more about our position at the same time. From 20 or 30 years ago to nowadays, the females in music are more present.

Benedetta

Very true. Thank you so much for doing this interview with me and for taking the time and for being such amazing artists. Is there anything else that you want to say to the readers and viewers of FemMetal?

Alien Rockin’ Explosion

Music is something that unites us, it’s a community, it’s about sharing feelings, emotions, experiences. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, if you come from one place or another or even another planet. It’s something to enjoy, you don’t need to care about who’s best or who plays the best or to compare to each other. It’s about sharing experiences. That’s the main goal, I mean, that’s the main thing for me as a woman in metal. And just listen to music and if you like it, just be there and support your bands and support everybody involved. I think so, like a bassist, other people have a thing in their mind that if you play the bass, you need to play the same form that a man. Don’t compare this. It’s a thing that is uncomfortable and unhealthy for the community. On the other hand, music is a language. And when people feel the music, feel the scenes, feel the same time when you play, it’s the best experience. Don’t forget that nowadays, we have this problem, for example, or this uncomfortable thing. Nowadays, it’s still being compared how you play with respect to a man, but don’t let that discourage you.

The post “When people feel the music, it’s the best experience” – interview with Alien Rockin’ Explosion first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.

2020 intro

Three weeks before the release of 2020’s Impulse Voices, Plini’s phone blew up. During the MTV EMA evemt, American singer and rapper Doja Cat performed a surprisingly metal version of her hit Say So – but what grabbed attention was the newly-added guitar solo and its imilarity to the title track from Plini’s 2016 album Handmade Cities.

“I was sent the video by a bunch of different fans,” the Sydney-based guitarist recalls. “Some of them were outraged and some were curious. I watched it and I thought, ‘Hey, that is similar,’ Then I watched it again and I was like, ‘Hey, that’s really similar!’

“I tried to find out who the band was, but some fans did the research for me and found the musical director, who claims to be a big fan of mine. So I found that it was directly inspired – which I actually thought that was pretty cool.”

While some people’s thoughts might have turned to lawsuits and compensation, he took a more relaxed position. “I think there was enough keyboard warrior outrage that it became an issue, even if I didn’t necessarily think it was a huge issue. I just thought it was hilarious! Doja Cat sent me a big apology on Instagram. She said if the musical director was so big a fan to take a chunk out my song, then he should have just hit me up to collaborate on it. And that was sort of that.”

He continues: “It was the perfect timing for the album’s press campaign – what better way to get thousands of people who’ve never listened to instrumental prog to at least check it out, because their favourite artist is in a headline?”

Plini’s humble handling of the controversy epitomises his career to date. A guitarist with an immeasurable amount of talent and an immaculate ear for melodies, he’s always gone about his business without fuss or drama. Instead, his music – and heavy touring – has always done the talking.

Despite releasing Impulse Voices without any record label support, it gained one million streams in a mere 60 hours. He also sold out of the numerous vinyl pressings and merch bundles in the process. All from an artist who doesn’t play up to hype and doesn’t have the word ‘overblown’ in his vocabulary. Quietly but assuredly, he’s become one of the most celebrated young guitarists of the 21st century – not through egoism or clever media management, but through the quality of his music and his easygoing, friendly demeanour.

“I usually write everything but the melody first,” he says of his creative process. “The melody is sort of the lowest common denominator. Once I have something in a stupid time signature with chords all over the place, I’ll think of the simplest thing I can overlay to mark that it’s a song and not a math exercise.”

Which is why his music resonates so well. For a musician labelled a virtuoso in his
craft – a title that can often lead to derivative acrobatic one-upmanship – Plini’s music
is sweet with melodies and ripe with accessibility. Even when the flips and tricks
do come they’re still inherently musical and feverishly addictive.

“A lot of the music I listen to is very simple harmonically; that’s what sounds good to me,” he says. “I have a lot of simple progressions, but for each chord I’ll find a way to play it that I haven’t done before, and by that time I’ve built it into a new place where it might sound a bit more abstract. Some parts are more just trying to figure out how to get as weird as possible while still sounding pleasant. But I try to make as much room for moments like simple melodies as I do for ‘Check out this sick lick!’”

Impulse Voices, an album born out of a most unusual 12 months, takes steps in so many different directions. Much of that diversity can be traced back to having much more time for the project.

“I tend to be a bit optimistic with my time management, so it was a positive thing, having a lot of extra time I didn’t think I’d have,” he says. “It took maybe six or seven months in all, rather than the three I initially planned for, and I had a lot of fun with it. I let everything rest, going into a lot of detail and having everything sound exactly how I wanted it to be before releasing it.”

He continues: “I’ve listened to so much different music in the last few years, especially a lot of electronic stuff which started sneaking its way into my music. I’d think, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna put in a dance beat in this section,’ or, ‘There’s going to be a disco beat in 19/8 and we’ll make it as musical as possible.’ I’d learn from the experience.”

His days were split between tinkering in his home studio and taking time away from his instrument. “Thankfully, living in a really beautiful part of the world where the weather’s usually good, I could just wander around with my headphones when I wanted time away from writing,” he says.

The Impulse Voices press release says podcasts were a major part of what snaked through his thoughts on those wanders. “I listened to a lot of Meshuggah records as well. Some people don’t like to listen to other music while they’re working on their own stuff because they want to avoid anything seeping in – but I’ve found almost the opposite.

“So as well as the podcasts, which I felt was something to keep my brain doing new things, I was listening to a lot of different music that really helped with the process. I’d find a little production trick I wanted to use in this song, or a structure I could use to help with that song. It was a constant research process.”

What’s even more impressive than the record’s diversity is how effortlessly Plini flits between styles. Featuring his most delicate playing as well as his most rampant riffing, the album explores so much between those extremes. From saxophone and electric harp solos to 90s dance breakouts, Impulse Voices is a celebration of musicality over self-flattery. Its variance helps give it a greater sense of scope – but he also makes all those different genres feel like kindred spirits rather than bitter rivals.

As the dust settles after the Say So drama, Plini welcomes the idea of metal and pop embracing again. “I think it’s awesome that a whole minute of the Doja Cat arrangement was guitar solos,” he says. “Hopefully more and more pop songs will get rearranged in different ways. Then all we need is for it to happen with metal songs too. Eventually we’ll no longer have genres and it’ll be a happy, happy world.”

In the 50 years since their formation in Soligen, Germany, Accept have played a significant role in the birth and development of heavy metal. They’re still driven by guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, and Mark Tornillo (formerly of New Jersey’s TT Quick) has been their singer since 2009.

Below, Hoffmann previews a guest-strewn album of re-recordings, Teutonic Titans 1976-2026, and this week’s three British dates.

Congratulations on a half-century of Accept.

Thanks. I wouldn’t even have thought we would last five years, to be honest, let alone fifty. We were just teenagers. We didn’t have a clue.

How did you choose the eighteen songs for Teutonic Titans?

It was complicated. The producer, Zeus, and I went through the whole catalogue and figured out which might be the most interesting ones to do. Some people say Fast As A Shark started the whole speed metal thing, but we also have some older tracks that got less attention over the years.

What a great selection of cameos appears on the rebooted Fast As A Shark – Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Phil Anselmo from Pantera, ex-Motörhead and current Scorpions drummer Mickey D and Mr. Big bassist Billy Sheehan.

Pretty much the creme de la creme of the heavy metal genre. Kirk Hammett told me how much he loves that song, and how much it influenced him.

Are you friends with Phil Anselmo?

I wouldn’t say friends, but we met a few times over the years. He jumped on stage with us at Hellfest years ago, that surprised me a lot. He just walked on said: “Right, I’m joining in.” It might have been Fast As A Shark that he sang that day.

Judas Priest’s KK Downing and Rob Halford are both on the record, albeit on separate tracks.

Accept supported Priest on a UK tour in 1981, so that’s a nice reunion. Every time we run into those guys I mention that tour and all of us remember it fondly. I’m honoured to have both of them on this album.

Your fellow countryman Matthias Jabs from the Scorpions appears on another of Accept’s classic songs, Balls To The Wall.

I asked him, please make it sound authentic, like you would do it, and he put down this sort of very Scorpions or Matthias Jabs-sounding lead part. It’s just brilliant.

Few people will have had Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins down as an Accept fan, but there he is on Love Child. Who would have thought it, huh?

I reached out to Billy via my guitar tech who knew him, and he did the song in his own style, which is fantastic. Billy told me that Accept was among the first metal shows he saw as a kid.

Which of the album’s songs would you say was transformed the most by a special guest?

That would be Save Us, because Tobias Forge from Ghost did that one. When he picked that song I couldn’t remember it, because it’s on I’m A Rebel [1980] and I hadn’t listened to it in years. He did it the style of Ghost, and it worked out really incredible.

The elephant in the room: did anybody suggest involving Accept’s estranged original singer Udo Dirkschneider in all of this?

We contacted him, and of course there was no response.

How would you describe your relationship with Udo these days?

It’s non-existent, and that’s a sad thing to me. And it’s not just Udo. Whoever leaves the band usually is never heard from again. To me, that’s weird. Why can’t we be friends, or at least remain in touch? But I hear it from a lot of other bands. It has a lot to do with bruised egos.

Bringing in Mark Tornillo is something that nobody saw coming, and few would have expected it to have lasted this long.

It’s worked out brilliantly because Mark’s voice really lends itself to the old material. He pulls it off night after night, but at the same time he puts his own spin on it. We are making albums together – six of them now – that are meaningful to fans, not just trying to live off the past. We’re having more success than we ever did in the eighties.

Are you familiar with Tailgunner, the young British band who will be opening for you in London and Wolverhampton?

I’m aware that KK Downing produced their album [Midnight Blitz], but although I don’t yet know their music I’ve heard great things about them.

Can you set the scene for the two upcoming gigs?

If you ever considered coming to an Accept show, this would be the year. In a special setlist we’ll play songs that we will never play again or haven’t played before. We will have a massive [stage] production with us, and possibly some special guests. It’s going to be amazing. Get your tickets while you still can.

What are you most proud of in the fifty-year Accept story?

This is pretty much the culmination of it; the celebration and the recognition from my peers. It feels better than it ever has done, to be honest.

Accept play Wolverhampton on August 27, London on August 28, and at the Stonedead Festival at Newark Showground on August 29. For tickets, check the Accept website. Teutonic Titans 1976-2026 is released on September 4.

A Night in Texas have always embraced the Extreme, and on The Darkest Side Of Humanity, they plunge headfirst into a sinister place. Their fifth full-length is crushing Deathcore brutality at its finest, with a relentless collision of blistering speed and oppressive darkness that feels almost suffocating, dragging the listener through with very little mercy.

A Night In Texas – The Darkest Side Of Humanity

Release Date: 4 September 2026

Words: Matty Hunter 

The Darkest Side Of Humanity finds the Australian quartet reconnecting with the ferocity of their earlier material while pushing their sound into uncompromising territory for their fifth full-length album and the second to feature vocalist Sam Cameron, guitarist Tommy Williams and bassist David Finlay, who all joined the Aussie deathcore outfit in 2023. 

Mixed and mastered by renowned producer Christian Donaldson of Cryptopsy, whose production credits include Suffocation, Shadow Of Intent and Ingested among others, it is a superb album.

Opening with Oblivions Dominion, A Night In Texas immediately establish the record’s bleak tone. An ominous introduction slowly drags the listener into a claustrophobic soundscape before erupting into vicious Deathcore violence.

Rather than exploding instantly, the track patiently builds tension, making its crushing instrumentation feel even more suffocating once everything is unleashed. It is an incredibly dark opener that perfectly introduces the sinister atmosphere running throughout the album.

If there is one track that encapsulates everything this album and band do exceptionally well, it is Rot From Within. The second song is perhaps the standout of the entire record, delivering technical Deathcore at an outrageously high standard.

Hyperactive guitars constantly weave between intricate riffs, the drumming flourishes with blistering precision and Sam Cameron’s guttural performance cuts through the chaos with immense authority. Just when it feels as though the song is finishing up, it launches into a punishing final breakdown before closing with haunting symphonic instrumentation.

It is superbly constructed and easily one of the album’s strongest moments.

Fed To Death continues the momentum with an overwhelming wall of sound driven by relentless blast beats. The drums are particularly impressive here, constantly propelling the song forward while keyboards subtly emerge throughout, which is typical of this band’s work.

Cameron’s impossibly high vocals are layered brilliantly over the dense instrumentation, creating an intense contrast against the crushing rhythm section. The track concludes with another earth-shaking breakdown accompanied by some truly ferocious vocal work.

The album’s first single, Metastatic Misery, carries perhaps its bleakest lyrical concept. Centred around cancer and the devastating reality faced by those diagnosed, the song demonstrates a willingness from the band to explore genuinely harrowing subject matter rather than relying solely upon abstract darkness.

Musically, it remains every bit as aggressive as expected, with lightning-fast blast beats and suffocating guitar work maintaining the record’s oppressive intensity.

At the halfway point comes Evolved From Hate, four minutes of continued brutality that leans heavily into guttural vocal delivery. Cameron’s vocal range is showcased well here, and the song possesses an almost stomping quality that sounds like it would translate live, while the instrumental mix allows every guitar flourish and rhythmic detail to hit with clarity without sacrificing sheer heaviness.

The album takes its most adventurous turn with When The Sun Burns Out, the longest track so far and arguably its most progressive composition.

Beginning with a smooth, almost calming guitar passage accompanied by clean vocals, it initially feels worlds away from the violence surrounding it, but you know the breakdown is coming.

Around the forty-second mark, harsher vocals begin creeping into the arrangement before the full instrumental force arrives roughly a minute later. From there, the song develops into a technical progressive Deathcore journey packed with shifting dynamics and atmospheric passages.

Its five-minute runtime passes remarkably quickly, and with around ninety seconds remaining, the song gradually strips itself back into a calm, fading conclusion.

That brief respite does not last long, however. A Primal Conditioning, the second single released from the album, immediately reignites the speed and aggression. As a fan of Fit For An Autopsy, this track reminds me of them and their modern sound.

There are moments within this one that evoke a similar polished and contemporary approach to deathcore that Fit have, particularly through its technical riffing and huge rhythmic hooks. It is another excellent addition that balances complexity with memorable songwriting.

Former vocalist Rheese Peters makes a welcome appearance on The Chronicles Of Nihilism, as the album approaches its conclusion. His presence gives the song an additional vocal dimension, with crushing performances trading seamlessly against the band’s already formidable instrumentation.

Symphonic elements once again sit subtly in the background, enhancing the cinematic atmosphere without ever overshadowing the sheer force of the composition in a really good song.

The penultimate track, The Infinite Maw, features Ryan Vail of Synestia and Larcenia Roe. Opening with an almost cosmic instrumental passage, the song quickly descends into another barrage of technical Deathcore violence while retaining the record’s dark cinematic identity. The rhythm section is absolutely relentless, driving forward with the momentum of a steam train.

Everything culminates in the title track, The Darkest Side Of Humanity, the longest composition on the record and a fittingly monstrous finale.

Blistering high vocals collide with crushing rhythmic patterns as the band maintain astonishing intensity throughout its duration. The song feels like a wrecking ball tearing through everything in its path, combining technical precision and overwhelming heaviness with a sinister atmosphere established from the opening moments.

Rather than easing the listener out, A Night In Texas choose to finish with one final devastating statement.

The Darkest Side Of Humanity is an excellent addition to A Night In Texas’ discography. It is a remarkably well-crafted Deathcore record that combines technical musicianship, symphonic textures and relentless aggression without losing sight of memorable songwriting.

Having not listened to the band properly for several years, this album proved to be a genuinely welcome return and one that has earned A Night In Texas a renewed place within my own playlist.

With several standout tracks, this is a powerful statement of just how devastating and creative the band’s modern technical Deathcore is.

A Night In Texas release The Darkest Side Of Humanity on 4 September 2026 via Unique Leader Records. Pre-orders are available from orcd.co/THEDARKESTSIDEOFHUMANITY. 

The post A Night In Texas Deliver Devastating Deathcore On The Darkest Side Of Humanity first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.