Read our interview with Sofie Foster of Behind The Veil as she discusses their new EP Betrayed By Shadows, the band’s unique dual-vocal dynamic, and their rise within the Belgian metal scene.

Reuel

Hello Sofie! Congratulations on the release of your EP, “Betrayed By Shadows”. What’s the response been so far?

Sofie Foster

Hey! Thank you so much! Well we’ve had a bunch of good reactions to it, people are curious what’s next!

Reuel

I’m also curious! It’s a great EP. What were the inspirations behind the visual themes from “Betrayed By Shadows”?

Sofie Foster

I would like to thank Delphine for this part! She came up with the black and red theme, that we also use on stage when we dress up! She also designed everything you see on our EP, and our new merch. I love the darkness behind the design, a bit post-apocalyptic, but also a strain of hope, which matches our lyrics when you listen closely.

Reuel

Perfect. What, in your opinion, makes Behind The Veil stand out among other metal bands today?

Sofie Foster

We are a two-female-fronted metal band, you don’t see that a lot, especially here in Belgium. Our voices are also different, I sing in a clean hardrock voice and Delphine has those raw screams and grunts, but we are a great match! Also the rest of the band has different skills, for example our lead guitar player Pedro has a more bluesy sound. All together different but we make magic together!

Reuel

Your EP includes 5 killer songs. Which song seems to be the fan favorite so far? And are you surprised your fans preferred that song?

Sofie Foster

I think “Betrayed by shadows” is the favorite one, it’s also the first song that we dropped on streaming platforms as a single and also our first videoclip! We love it when fans sing along when we are on stage!

Reuel

In a universe where the sense of hearing and the sense of taste are mixed up together, what food or drink do you imagine Behind The Veil’s music would taste like?

Sofie Foster

As we are a mix of different sounds maybe a Mixed Grill plate? (LOL) different flavours but very tasty together haha!

Reuel

Well sounds delicious! Releasing music in 2026 involves so many musical and non-musical tasks, like marketing and social media. What has been your favorite and least favorite part of that process?

Sofie Foster

My favorite part (yet) is the recording of the EP in the studio! And the making of the videoclip, this was very new to me but something I want to do more in the future! My least favorite part.. hmmm.. difficult question because it has all been exciting to me haha, maybe the waiting and patience for everything to be released I guess 🙂

Reuel

What musicians can you credit as the ones who inspired you, personally, in your life or career as a musician?

Sofie Foster

Well I grew up around music all the time, but it wasn’t metal, more like UB40, Boy George, Michael Jackson and even the Backstreet Boys, didn’t see that coming right?! (LOL) but my taste in music has also grown in a wider taste! Now I’m inspired by a lot of female metal singers like Lena Scissorhands (Infected Rain), Tatiana Shmayluk (Jinjer), Maria Brink (In This Moment) and Courtney LaPlante (Spiritbox). My favorite singers are Jonathan Davis (Korn) and Rob Zombie!

Reuel

This is a huge palette to be inspired from! Great names. With your EP released, are there any plans for the near or far future you’d like to share with us?

Sofie Foster

After the summer we will bring out a new single! And we are already very busy making new material for a full album! So we are working very hard behind the veil, uhm scenes haha

Reuel

HAHA! What are your thoughts on how women are represented in music today, and what do you think can be done to promote more inclusivity and support for female musicians?

Sofie Foster

I think it’s crazy how the Metal world is growing, the female vocalists are in an uprise and standing strong! I’m proud to be a part of it! So I think it’s already going in the right direction! Maybe more female fronted metal festivals?

Reuel

That would indeed be great! Thank you for your time, Sofie! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Sofie Foster

Thank you for making this interview happen, very interesting questions! Maybe we’ll talk again when the full album is out haha! Cheers!

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The post Interview | Behind The Veil’s Sofie Foster: “All together different, but we make magic together!” first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.

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Members of Guns N’ Roses, Meshuggah, Coheed And Cambria, Polyphia and more guest on this new record.

The post Bear McCreary Announces Guest-Filled New Album “The Singularity: Ekleipsis”, Debuts “Black Box” Featuring Gojira’s Joe Duplantier appeared first on Theprp.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RIFTPATROL LAUNCHES CINEMATIC UNIVERSE WITH NEW SINGLE “PARASITE” FEAT. YUUKO SINGS, DJ NEON NIGHTS & AMANDA POWER

Riftpatrol, the boundary-pushing project formed in 2025, is stepping fully into its own lane with the release of their new single “Parasite,” out now on all major platforms.
Built as more than just a music project, Riftpatrol fuses modern heavy music with cinematic storytelling and a growing visual universe. The sound pulls from metalcore, alternative rock, goth, and J-rock, shifting between crushing heaviness and eerie atmosphere without ever settling into one box. It hits hard, then pulls you into something stranger right after.
At the center of Riftpatrol’s world is The Captain, a detective navigating fractured realities, chasing truth across timelines and broken dimensions. Every release adds another chapter to the story, expanding through manga and webtoon-inspired visuals where characters evolve alongside the music itself.
“Parasite” is the latest entry in that unfolding narrative, and it does not hold back. The track explores isolation, emotional weight, and the slow collapse that comes when you feel disconnected from everything around you. It is heavy in both sound and meaning, built to pull the listener directly into that headspace.
The single features Yuuko Sings, DJ Neon Nights, and Amanda Power, bringing together a global mix of voices and styles. The result is a cinematic metalcore and J-rock fusion layered with multilingual vocals, eerie melodies, and massive drops that swing between beauty and chaos.
Riftpatrol continues to build through collaboration, bringing together artists from different countries, languages, and creative backgrounds. The goal is not to fit into a scene, but to build a universe of its own.
“Parasite” is out now.
Stream it here:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/riftpatrol/parasite-feat-dj-neon-nights-yuuko-sings–amanda-power
About Riftpatrol

Riftpatrol is a 2025-born multimedia music project blending heavy genres with cinematic storytelling, visual narrative, and cross-cultural collaboration.


 Connect: 
https://www.instagram.com/riftpatrol/
Contact: riftpatrol@gmail.com 

The Van Halen star has been performing the surprising cover on his 2026 North American tour. Continue reading…

Leading up to the release of The Harvest, Ashen Horde finds themselves pushing against the boundaries of the identity they’ve honed since forming in 2013. Conceived by Los Angeles-based Trevor Portz, the sole contributor through the band’s first two albums,¹ Ashen Horde stands as a studio-only project, blurring the lines between black and death metal with progressive tendencies while telling unified stories through each album’s runtime. On third album Fallen Cathedrals, Ashen Horde enlisted the talents of powerhouse vocalist Stevie Boiser (Inferi, Equipoise) to tremendous effect. Portz and Boiser delivered another gem on follow-up Antimony, joined by drummer Robin Stone (Chestcrush) and bassist Igor Panasewicz (NightWraith). On fifth album The Harvest: newcomer Karl Chamberlain (Putrefier) replaces Boiser and leans heavily into melodic cleans, Panasewicz exits the fold, the narrative element has been replaced with a looser theme,² and Ashen Horde begins rehearsals for their first-ever live performances later this year. Do all these changes result in an effective crop rotation, keeping The Harvest’s yield fresh and rich, or do the white-hot flames of slash-and-burn songwriting blaze too brightly, leaving only a bumper crop of ash?

Where Boiser’s vocals amplified Ashen Horde’s ferocity within the confines of black and death metal, Chamberlain’s stylings push the band’s sound into a more melodic arena. Clean vocals sparsely populated Ashen Horde’s Boiser era, but The Harvest sees them co-headline, prominently featuring Chamberlain’s versatile melodic phrasing. Prior releases’ touchstones Opeth and Enslaved continue to be relevant, yet the emphasis on cleans skews heavily towards Trivium and, to a lesser extent, Killswitch Engage.³ The shift is broader than the vocals, though, as the instrumentation diversifies as well. Frantic trems and knotty compositions previously grounded Ashen Horde’s sound in progressive black metal akin to Ihsahn, but The Harvest evolves to bring a distinctly Voivoidian essence to the guitar work (the riffing after the solo on “Backward Momentum” is classic Piggy). Performance-wise, Ashen Horde delivers first-rate moments that ground returning listeners in a familiar setting, with Portz laying down his usual impressive stringed attack and Stone supplying nuanced exhibitions throughout. In total, these changes evince a band at a crossroads, uncontent to rest on its laurels while a new outlook is forged.

The maturation of Ashen Horde’s sound amounts to more than an inflated list of references, though. For starters, the underlying genres require reevaluation. Fallen Cathedrals and Antimony classify as black metal, death metal, and progressive metal, yet The Harvest adds a healthy dose of melodic death metal and a dash of thrash. Specifically, “Remnant” evokes a slightly proggier take on 90s In Flames while “Apparition” recalls a less rabid The Black Dahlia Murder. Besides Voivod, The Harvest taps into thrash via the jazzy grooves heard on Species’ latest (“Entropy and Ecstasy”) and the whirring, dissonant refrains endemic to Coroner (“Autumnal,” “A Place in the Rot”). With so many moving pieces, it’s a wonder that Ashen Horde retains as much of their core identity as they do.

Given the dramatic musical pivot, The Harvest feels like a snapshot of a band mid-flight rather than one reaching their final destination. With Ashen Horde stacking so many elements on top of one another, I’m not sure how well they gel into a unified album. The vocals in particular give me the biggest pause—not because of Chamberlain’s performance, which is potent across harsh and clean deliveries. I’m just not convinced how well they work in concert, given the even split between them. On previous albums, cleans were sparingly used as accents, but their expanded involvement on The Harvest conjures disparate moods that flit back and forth in a way that occasionally feels jarring (“Autumnal”). The end result is a compromise that lands between the familiar and the bold.

Despite Ashen Horde exploring a new identity on The Harvest, plenty of earwatering fruit awaits a good reaping. As the band calls out in their promo materials, even though the central theme is about endings, The Harvest is a new beginning. I expect opinions will be split on the new direction, but Ashen Horde is a project that teems with ideas and new frontiers, and I’ll take that every time over a band that’s content to remake the same album over and over. Now go check out this week’s Harvest and sample its tasty Ashen Hordeuvres.

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Rating: Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Release
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 1st, 2026

The post Ashen Horde – The Harvest Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Hailing from Limerick in the west of Ireland, Tooms’ progressive sludge metal has been evolving into ever more astounding forms since 2017. Bassist Anto Donnellan, drummer Kieran Grace and guitarist/vocalist Alex Hölzinger had been working together for four years prior to that, under the name of Gaia, but it was with the first Tooms single, ‘Simon Ferocious’, […]

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Ghost went into the awards show with six nominations.

The post Watch: Ghost’s “Skeletá” Wins Best Metal/Hard Rock Album Of The Year At 2026 Swedish Grammis appeared first on Theprp.com.

The French dance producer Madeon has been working for a long time without getting much attention from Stereogum, and that seems to be working out just fine for him. He’s playing huge festival sets and doing well for himself. He doesn’t need us. But now, Madeon has a new album coming out, and he’s got…

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With the previously-released Celestial EP laying a powerful foundation, Australian/Finnish dark progressive gothic metal collective THE ETERNAL return with a striking new chapter: an animated lyric video for their brand new single “Lament For The Hollow.” The track offers a first glimpse into their upcoming studio album Obscured Horizons, set for release on September 18th via Reigning Phoenix Music! Following the widespread acclaim of their […]

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