Reliquia – In Theory And Practice (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
A relatively new face on the UK metal scene Reliquia bring gloomy gothic metal out of Manchester. They’ve been slowly building a following around the UK with melancholic singles that found their way on to a collection on 2025 and numerous shows with some of the saddest and maudlin bands around on the UK scene.
These rituals of misery have sculpted the songs on their debut album
In Theory And Practice, a record of dark atmospheres, flashes of unbridled rage and philosophical musings that collide into six musical journeys, telling their own stories as they unfurl their gothic majesty. They’re a band with a number of comparisons to the big boys and girls in their field but they embrace these comparisons with very strong material.
From the growled death doom of
Caesar Bejewelled, we move to the cleaner tones of
Temple Terrace, both have the hefty chug of Paradise Lost balancing clean/harsh vocals intertwined with some mournful keys, Gregg Neville the architect of both, the synths adding some My Dying Bride ambience over the intricate guitar playing of Tobias Gray and George Kal, distorted riffs combined with melodic leads.
In the engine room Karim Nahser’s drumming has a surgical bite to it, in the snare especially while the bass too plays a big role in the overall mood, played on the record by Andy Lindley. The production of Joe Clayton (Ba’al, Conjurer) and Ben McEwan, giving the album a crystalline dissonance where the mood is dark and dreary but the resonance of the instrumentals and vocals is affecting.
Away from the marching chug, they spread their broken wings into goth/post rock moodiness as
Crestfallen and the grooving
Bone And Shale both shout about the influences of goth icons Fields Of The Nephilim and Sisters Of Mercy, the latter creeping like a Andrew Eldritch night terror.
An
Interlude leads to the climax, Give combining all the dark, tragic lyricism of Reliquia with their dark and light of their melodic maladies.
In Theory And Practice is a strong first effort from Reliquia.
8/10The Flatliners – Cold World (Dine Alone Records/Rise Records) [Spike]The Flatliners have finally stopped running. For a band that built its reputation on the high-velocity, heart-attack pulse of the Ontario punk scene,
Cold World represents a total atmospheric reset. It’s the sound of the lights being dimmed and the humidity being sucked out of the room. As someone who has spent decades watching genres mutate from the front row, I find this kind of evolution far more interesting than a band trying to recreate their 2007 velocity. This is a record of mid-tempo grit and dark-edged melodies that understands that you don’t need a hundred miles per hour to be heavy.
Things start with
Stolen Valour, and the shift in reality is total. There is a “cold,” mechanical precision to the guitars that sits right in the pocket of 80s post-punk, draped over a rhythm section that feels more like a heartbeat than a drum kit. Chris Cresswell’s vocals have aged into a pained, articulate rasp, there’s a narrative weight to his delivery that reminds me of the more literate end of the shoegaze spectrum. It’s not “shouting”; it’s a documented account of survival in a world that’s becoming increasingly distant.
What makes
Cold World such a compelling listen is the layering. Tracks like
Good, You? and
Inner Peace possess a shimmering, reverb-drenched quality that rewards a decent set of speakers. The production avoids the high-gloss traps of modern pop-punk, opting instead for a dirty, honest sound where the strings groan and the feedback feels like it’s actually in the room with you. It’s a sophisticated bit of engineering that allows the melody to survive the distortion.
The heart of the record is found in the middle stretch.
Whyte Light and
Into Annihilation are sprawling, cinematic monuments to the band’s current state of mind.
Into Annihilation, in particular, is a four-minute masterclass in sustained tension, moving through movements of brooding restraint before eventually snapping into a cathartic, melodic roar. It’s an honest, unvarnished bit of songwriting that suggests the band has finally stopped trying to be the “next big thing” and started defining their own landscape.
The back half,
Pulpit, Gush And Burn doubles down on the attrition. There is a “North Atlantic” grit to the rhythm section here, a jagged, resilient energy that refuses to sound like a polite radio export. By the time we reach the final, melodic sigh of
United In Spite, the lore of
Cold World is complete. It isn’t a “fun” punk record, but it’s a vital one.
The Flatliners haven’t just made another album; they’ve created a climate. It’s a heavy, shimmering triumph of tone over trend, proving that sometimes the most powerful noise is the one that forces you to face the cold. I’ll be listening to this a lot in the future. It is a record for when the world feels just a bit too much.
8/10IATT – Etheric Realms Of The Night (Black Lion Records) [Matt Bladen]Fan of disgustingly complex extreme metal where the standard black/death offerings are shaken up with Latin, jazz fusion, folk music, blues and classical making for a sound that is about as progressive as you can get? Great then put down that Wintersun record and dive into some IATT an American band who have been doing this since 2008.
This music features big concepts and dense narratives, letting them do what they want with their music, experimenting with as many genres and styles as they want. More so on this new album which deal with dream realms and the subconscious, these explorations of worlds confined to a heavy sleep, mean that they can evolve their style again with this new record.
The whole album backed by cinematic orchestrations as if a metal band has fallen into a soundtrack for a Chris Nolan film. In fact IATT have leaned into filmmaking themselves for this album with a series of music videos with a linked narrative that tell the story of the record, giving you a full audio/visual experience, and lifting IATT’s commitment to their craft that little bit higher than some of their contemporaries.
Etheric Realms Of The Night is a massively cinematic album from these American veterans, binding their intense extreme metal with virtuoso musicianship and multiple colliding ideas.
8/10
Abuser – Blood Marks (Xtreem Music) [Spike]If you’re going to name your band Abuser and title the debut
Blood Marks, you aren’t exactly planning a quiet night in. Hailing from Wroclaw, Poland, this lot have spent the last few years sharpening a very specific kind of blade, one that owes its edge to the Teutonic thrash royalty of the 80s. I’ve lived through the original rise of Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, and I’ve seen countless bands try to replicate that frantic, borderline-out-of-control energy. Most fail because they try to make it too tidy. Abuser succeeds because they let the gears grind.
What’s most impressive here is the persistence. Abuser formed back in 2018 and dropped a well-received demo in 2019, but a debut album didn’t just appear overnight. It’s taken years of lineup changes and presumably a fair amount of grit to get this project to the finish line in 2026. That seven-year gap since their first recording has clearly been spent wisely; this isn’t the sound of a band rushing to meet a trend, but rather a unit that has spent over half a decade internalizing the “shock and awe” of the early pioneers.
The record opens with
Cry Of The Innocent, and within thirty seconds, the intent is unmistakable. This is high-velocity, teeth-grinding thrash that refuses to offer a single moment of “experimental” reprieve. Paweł Dominiak’s vocals carry that raw, snarled vitriol that reminded me immediately of Mille Petrozza in the mid-80s, a voice that sounds like it’s being forced through a throat full of rusted wire.
The rhythmic weight is what keeps Blood Marks from becoming a blur. Tracks like
Suspended In Torture and
Painbringer possess a primal fire, with guitar solos from Dominiak and Albert Matuszny that feel like flailing barbed wire, chaotic, sharp, and genuinely dangerous. I’ve been listening to this in the car over the last few days, and
Lethal Obsession and the title track have a way of making you realize you’re doing ninety in a sixty without noticing. The production, handled with a solid “no-frills” honesty by Xtreem Music, allows Jakub Klimkiewicz’s domineering drum work to act as a physical heartbeat for the record.
The closer,
Witnessing Madness, provides a breathless race to the finish line that sums up the band’s ethos. It’s a jagged, uncompromising bit of survivalism that proves the old school of thrash still has a hell of a lot of life left in it. It took them a while to get here, but Abuser have finally bottled that original lightning. It’s a masterstroke of mayhem that was well worth the wait.
8/10
