Category: news

Bands:	Mißträu
Release:	Gegendemonstration / Leidensgenossen
Genre:	Black Metal, Post-Punk
Country:	Germany (Brandenburg)
Release Date:	13th of March, 2026
Released via	Bleeding Heart Nihilist, Cultkill Music
Cover Artwork:	Hagiophobic
Recording, Mix & Master:	Studio Tierhülle

With the release of their debut EP Gegendemonstration in 2024, Mißträu gathered quite a lot of attention patching together elements of Black Metal and Post-Punk in a unique manner. On those 6 original tracks, this band showcased that they were capable to manage the full range from Post-Punk (“In der Schwebe”), its entire way across everything in between the aforementioned and Black Metal (“Wer Zu Leben Weiß”) right into full-blown Black Metal (“Verabscheuungswürde”). After having been released on tape back then already, this EP will now see a fitting vinyl treatment that will be released on limited black 12″ pressing via Bleeding Heart Nihilist and Cultkill Music.

Apart from that, though, the B-side of this release will also deliver brand-new material of a second EP that goes by the name of Leidensgenossen. On this new EP, Mißträu reappear in the guise of Post-industrial and ambient noise textures. Diffuse and chaotic soundscapes are intertwined with abstracted narration and eccentric soundscapes. A mood piece that is simultaneously abrasive and solemn.

In order to prepare to the release of Leidensgenossen, feel free to get entirely lost in the first single “Beleidung” that is delivered with a fitting visualizer.

Gegendemonstration / Leidensgenossen will be released on the 13th of March and can now be pre-ordered at Bleeding Heart Nihilist or Cultkill Music.

Get the black 12″ pressing of GEGENDEMONSTRATION and LEIDENSGENOSSEN (vinyl, digital) here:

MIßTRÄU BANDCAMP
https://misztraeu.bandcamp.com

Bleeding Heart Nihilist:
Webshop
Bandcamp

Cultkill Music
Webshop
Bandcamp

Social Band: 
https://www.instagram.com/misztraeu/

Social Bleeding Heart Nihilist
https://www.facebook.com/bleedingheartnihilist
https://www.instagram.com/bhn_prod/

Social Cultkill Music:
https://www.facebook.com/cultkill.music
https://www.instagram.com/cultkill.music

Feature Photo by Marty Rickard Mark Chatfield has recorded cult records with The Godz and Rosie and spent years on the road with Bob Seger. Lately, he’s taken over for Bruce Kulick in Grand Funk Railroad, yet he remains underappreciated. “I’m one of those guys who’s been around, but faceless and nameless to the masses,” Chatfield tells ClassicRockHistory.com. “I was never very good at self-promotion and tooting my own horn,” he explains. “In my hometown, I didn’t need to. Medium fish in a small pond.” As far as his playing and songwriting go, Chatfield is and always has been a

The post An Interview With Mark Chatfield Of The Godz And Grand Funk appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Longtime readers of AMG may remember the last time German OSDM stalwarts Slaughterday graced these digital pages. It was long enough ago that EPs were still getting the full-on review treatment, which enabled Slaughterday’s second release, Ravenous, to land a respectable 3.0/5.0 rating. What I was surprised to discover was the lack of any additional coverage, despite Slaughterday dropping three subsequent long players since then—Laws of the Occult (2016), Ancient Death Triumph (2020), and Tyrants of Doom (2022). Whether this fact boils down to a lack of promo or a lack of interest is irrelevant, considering I was able to wrestle Slaughterday’s newest offering of odorous offal, Dread Emperor, from the murkiest depths of the sump. For a band that’s been cranking out consistently quality death metal since forming in 2010, it’s strange to me that this power duo doesn’t get more attention. Let’s find out whether Slaughterday is truly worthy to ascend the death metal throne, or if this Dread Emperor stands before us in the buff.

Monikered after a track from Mental Funeral, it’s unsurprising that Slaughterday establishes its soundation on the works of Autopsy. Avoiding mere clone status, though, founders Jens Finger (guitars, bass) and Bernd Reiners (drums, vocals) also line their sonic quiver with arrows laced with toxic amounts of Massacre, early Death, and Grave. After a doomy, engaging intro, Dread Emperor gets down to thrashy business as “Obliteration Crusade” comes galloping through the gates at full velocity. Showcasing the gamut of talents that Slaughterday wields, the track weaves bouts of blistering speed, salaciously solid solo work, and passages of drunken, doomy Autopsy worship into a skin-sewn tapestry of death, replete with creepy melodicism and a subtle, yet ear-wormy chorus. Finger’s bass lines pop like blood bubbles as Reiners’ brutish bashings bolster the rhythm section, aptly accompanying the man’s beastly roars, a discernibly deathly emulsion of Peter Tägtgren and Kam Lee. This opening salvo encapsulates the Dread Emperor experience, which is one of gut-wrenching goodness, proving that Slaughterday has as many musical tricks up its sleeve as Art the Clown has weapons in his kill sack.

At the heart of Dread Emperor’s success lies Slaughterday’s ability to craft truly great death metal songs. And with this talent, Finger and Reiners pay apt tribute to their deathly influences without slipping into derivative mimicry. Every time the groove settled into a swarming swing full of Autopsy swagger (“Subconscious Pandemonium,” “The Forsaken Ones”), my head was powerless to stop bobbing. While the majestic, Egyptian-tinged melodic leads and girthy, doom-laden death riffs of the title track “Dread Emperor” solidified themselves as the album highlight for yours truly. Dread Emperor also doubles down on a facet of Slaughterday’s previous efforts that, at times, was found lacking: the guitar solo. Fingers leaves no fret untouched, packing tons of excellent, melodic soloing (“Astral Carnage,” “Necrocide”) and loads of haunting lead work (“Rapture of Rot”) into Dread Emperor’s every nook and cranny. This here, boys and girls, is death metal created especially for death metallers, so if it isn’t bringing your raised fist and stank face to the yard, relinquish your fan card to AMG Headquarters.

From its near forty-minute runtime to Pär Olofsson’s ominously perfect cover art, I found little at fault with Dread Emperor. I suppose, if I had to pick at something, I’d say that many of the faster tremoloed sections tended to blend, sharing a marrow of similitude amidst Dread Emperor’s greater skeletal structure, but even that is a minor quibble. All due primarily to Slaughterday’s ability to construct compositions in such a way as to render the many inter-song shifts in style and tempo an organic strength as opposed to a stuttery distraction. Even Slaughterday’s version of Protector’s “Golem” sits comfortably at the end and fits the overall narrative of Dread Emperor well, escaping the fate of feeling tacked on, which is often the case with album-closing cover songs.

Does Slaughterday play meat-and-potatoes death metal? Sure, but this ain’t no watery soup from a can, this is stew like grandma used to make, filled with steamy hunks of fresh potato and chunks of beefy meat, swimming in an ichorous broth worth killing for. I didn’t anticipate how much fun I was going to have with Dread Emperor when I grabbed it, but it does exactly what it’s supposed to do: elicit a smile from my lips, a bang from my head, and Dio’s horns from my fist. Prime Tyme-certified death metal perfect for rotten valentines.

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Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320kb/s mp3
Label: Testimony Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 13th, 2026

The post Slaughterday – Dread Emperor Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Nine years have passed since the release of Converge’s last album, ‘The Dusk In Us’. While the more recent ‘Bloodmoon: I’ – the band’s admirably ambitious collaboration with Chelsea Wolfe – prevented the passing of a near-decade of Converge-less time, the wait for a new Converge album proper has never been greater. And the resultant ‘Love Is Not Enough’ is very much a Converge album proper. The gothic charm of ‘Bloodmoon: I’ is gone, to be replaced instead by the same raw atavism that made albums like ‘Jane Doe’ and ‘Axe To Fall’ the milestones they’ve become. In this regard, little has changed for Converge.

In others, however, everything has changed. Now in his fifties, guitarist Kurt Ballou has become one of modern metal’s most reputable producers. Vocalist Jacob Bannon holds the equally impressive achievement of co-founding the now well-established Deathwish Inc. record label; not to mention his various successes in visual media. This is all in addition to Converge’s accomplishments during the formative years of this century, when the band occupied a pivotal position at the vanguard of extreme music. It all adds to a return that many will greet with somewhat of a hero’s welcome. By now, Converge has nothing more to prove.

That said, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ is remarkably youthful. It is infused with a scorching ferocity that belies the band’s age and status. Bannon’s voice is at times scarcely believable for a vocalist this far into his career; the apotheosis of oral aggression. His upper register, which he deployed to a somewhat strained extent throughout ‘Bloodmoon: I’, is better refined here, with moments like ‘To Feel Something’ offering emotional light between the shade cast by his ferocious roars. Ballou’s riffs are equally affecting, sounding as blistering on the title track as they do chunky on ‘Force Meets Presence’.

‘Love Is Not Enough’ is a trim half-an-hour, with no song within the album’s opening half exceeding three minutes. It’s Converge’s shortest album to date, but it’s also one of their punchiest. The five songs that constitute the album’s first half are expectedly imperious, but the songwriting remains consistently slick too. The aforementioned ‘To Feel Something’ is a highlight thanks to the song’s loose tempo changes, themselves backed by an approach to percussion that has us questioning just how many drums Converge has at their disposal. Meanwhile, ‘Distract and Divide’ has a scuzzier feel, with instruments that sound like they’ve been dragged through dust-ridden wasteland, only to be plugged into amplifiers with frayed cabling and sparks flying.

According to Bannon, the new album does something that no other Converge record has previously. “It keeps ramping up,” he says, “and that’s definitely by design.” The quantifiable effect this has on the album is twofold. Firstly, the songs become longer as the album progresses. Secondly, the album’s latter moments are its most expansive. It’s to Converge’s credit that the record finds cohesion in its variety. It’s a short album, but one that’s underpinned by a diversity of sounds that coalesce into a bundle of listless intensity. A band who consummately executes melodies and rhythm are often applauded. In Converge’s case, the same acclaim should be afforded to their use of texture.

Beginning with the somewhat unadventurous ‘Amon Amok’, this portion still sees Converge at their domineering best. And that includes a penchant for the unpredictable, as is demonstrated to great effect when Ballou injects an almost cinematic pomp into the dizzying final stages of ‘Force Meets Presence’, or with the dour introspection that sees ‘Gilded Cage’ transform the band into lovers of ‘90’s shoegaze. It’s commendably executed too; with the song seamlessly finding a place within the album’s wider scenery.

Then there’s ‘We Were Never The Same’; a meditation on loss that finds comfort in collective anguish. The song’s setting – a funeral – is the theoretical epitome of grief, yet the common-ground found between attendees engenders a chain-reaction of healing. In a moment of philosophical sincerity, Bannon questions why “we all gather to mourn yet not to cherish” – to consequently end proceedings with a strangely sweet demeanour.

Yet it should be to nobody’s amazement that these closing moments see Bannon as a sentimentalist. After all, Converge are not a new band and time makes romanticists of us all. “Being past your average middle age, we’re starting to see deeper than before into a variety of places,” as Bannon himself says. To be so consistently indebted, however, to a lifetime of music within a genre that falls all too frequently between the cultural cracks, requires not just dedication, but emotional investment. “We still identify this band as the outlet that’s essential to our lives,” Bannon says. It is thus apropos that, for those who feel similarly, ‘Love Is Not Enough’ will represent both an outpouring of commitment and a jubilant return.

BEN WILLIAMS

Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, The Hu and The Black Keys lead this week's new tour announcements. Continue reading…

[Cover art by Jesse Jacobi]

A recent conversation among friends – all current or former Last Rites writers – discussed Opeth’s (in)famous song “Black Rose Immortal,” and its merits and pitfalls. Some friends love the track, and one friend quite notoriously despises it because of its rather, shall we say “riff salad” structure. Said friend likes to point out that Mikael Åkerfeldt himself is in the Morningrise reissue liner notes saying his only goal with the song was to cross the 20-minute mark, which is a pretty valid argumentative point.

But any outcomes of the discussion/argument itself are not necessarily the important part—no one’s opinions changed in the slightest. No, the part relevant to this review is what another friend said, that his opinion of the song likely formed before he developed “critic brain.” He was able to come at the song with a purer, less analytical mindset, just allowing the 20 minutes of great riffs and passages to impact him regardless of how they all fit together. Basically, he came at the song with “fan brain.”

This battle between critic brain and fan brain has been on my mind as I’ve attempted to digest all 78 minutes and 57 seconds of Cryptic Shift’s sophomore full length, Overtime & Supertime. Not only does the record push a CD capacity to its limit, it’s also only five songs, and one of them (“Stratocumulus Evergaol”) is nearly 30 minutes in length. It’s also dense, with little in the way of stylistic variation other than scattered softer passages or jazzy breaks. So you’re starting to get the picture, eh? My fan brain and critic brain are locked in a war of wits over this album, with fan brain basically loving every cool techy death/thrash passage that hits my ears, while my critic brain knows that the record can’t possibly justify its colossal run time or reach its lofty, conceptual goals.

The truth is that they’re both right. This record is both rad and somewhat bloated, yet it speeds by despite that bloat, even if you’ll undoubtedly lose the thread on more than one occasion. Will a listener’s perception of Overtime & Supertime depend more on their perspective than the record itself? Well, perhaps, but that’s true of all art to one degree or another. If this is beginning to read like an excuse to not actually render a verdict, well, that kind of is the verdict. But that doesn’t mean we won’t dig in a little deeper. Details coming…

…right about now. Cryptic Shift plays a whirlwind style of technical death/thrash, delivering and abandoning ideas at a near grindcore rate while bringing to mind big names like Voivod and Atheist and Vektor and anyone else combining science fiction with metal in both lyrics and sound. They also play with an undeniable glee that ought to make you picture Edward Van Halen riffing away with that unforgettable smile of his. Riffs are spry, bass is in constant motion, solos rip and shred, drums blast away, and the gruff vocals are delivered with personality and charisma. The constant onslaught, shifts, impeccable production, and clear impression that the band really, really loves this stuff help the album move, and yes, seem much shorter than those 78-plus minutes.

However, because of those constant shifts, and a shortage of real unifying motifs, it’s quite difficult to distinguish between the songs themselves; it mostly feels like one very long piece of music. In fact, you’re most likely to notice differences within the songs, as opposed to between them.

But within the songs, hot damn you’ll find some wicked stuff. Apologies for the timestamps, but when the shortest song is almost 9 and a half minutes, this is the only way: In “Cryogenically Frozen,” there’s the rolling brutality of the brief chorus and slick, sassy solo at about 5:10; “Stratocumulus Evergaol” contains approximately 12,000 ideas, all of them at worst solid, but really wins when it emphasizes the need to really rock out (slippery stuff at 6:25 and the extra Van Halen vibes at 16:00); there’s an absolute deluge of killer soloing in “Hyperspace Topography,” not to mention that Demilichian string hopping at about 7:15; “Hexagonal Eyes (Diverity Trepaphymphasyzm)” is loaded with latter-era Voivodisms; and the title track uses all of the band’s tools while also bringing in Mike Browning for a little theremin, just to add to the sci-fi vibes. It’s a lot of album, but nearly everything displays excellence in both riffcraft and performance.

And yet, again, each song not really feeling like a contained unit undeniably affects the flow of the full record a little. Even at their substantial lengths, songs don’t so much end as they have “to be continued” moments to serve the lyrical story. In fact, one gets the impression that much of the record’s excessive run time might have come from forming the music to the words, which comes at the expense of some depth and efficiency (especially the latter). Even the closing title track doesn’t arrive at some raging climax in the music – at least not the type you’d expect after an album of this length – instead sounding like it’s happy to let the words close out this sci-fi story. That bothers critic brain a little, but by this point fan brain has been so thoroughly rocked as to not care much.

So the battle of brains rages on with each successive spin of Overspace & Supertime. I will admit that the more I listen, the less critic brain is bothered by the more riff salad aspects of the album and the more the flow sets in. After all, when all the ingredients are so tasty, the whole has to be pretty good, right? In this case, yes, absolutely, and it has to be repeated how insanely cool these ingredients are across the entire album. Cryptic Shift has crafted a gargantuan record that probably won’t appeal to every metalhead out there, but just about everyone absolutely needs to hear it at least once. Your ultimate opinion of it will undoubtedly depend on your taste for this much tech metal – not to mention how much you’ve been infected by critic brain – but there’s no denying that at least on a surface level, this record is a blast.

The post Cryptic Shift – Overspace & Supertime Review appeared first on Last Rites.

    


[Photo Credit: Patric Ullaeus]

“We’ve literally never had this much trouble picking singles. And honestly? That’s the best problem we could possibly have. Every song on this record is fighting to be the one you hear first—because we poured everything into making an album we’re flat-out obsessed with. Like always, there are no fillers, no compromises, just twelve tracks we’re stupidly proud of and will be for the rest of our lives. Pre-order the album now and join the weave!”

Pre-Order Architects Of A New Weave HERE:

Welcome to Four Records! Each episode, we feature one guest as they go over four records at four different times in their life. This week, Forrest and Karina speak with Death of Youth vocalist and song writer, Rob David. Their newest record, Nothing Is The Same Anymore, releases on 2/16/2026. The band has some shows coming up, if you’re in the UK, go out to support.

February 15 – Hope and Anchor, Islington, UK.  (Record Release Show)

Supporting incaseyouleave

March 6 – The Pipeline – Brighton, UK

March 7 – Pur-Pulse Eastbourne, UK

March 8 – The Grand Burstin Hotel Folkestone, UK

April 11 – Piehouse Co-Op – London, UK (Chalk Hands Record Release Show)

You can also purchase the record below

UK Vinyl

UK Cassette Tape

US

Germany

France

Italy

Lithuania

Rob David’s Four Records:

0-10: Abba – Gold

Teenage: Funeral For a Friend – Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation

Twenties: Touché Amore – Parting the Sea Between the Brightness and Me

Recent Record: Chalk Hands – Don’t Think About Death 

Listen on Podbean

Listen on YouTube

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LIsten on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Amazon Music

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Email: fourrecordspodcast@gmail.com

www.DyingScene.com

Opening song: Rad Skulls – Loud as Shit

Closing song: Lucas Perea – Underneath Ashes

Primaluce – Way Of Perfection (Primaluce Records)

If something is labelled as for fans of Dream Theater, Rush, Toto and even mentions Enchant then I’ll be listening to it. So it turns out I’m a little late to the party with Primaluce, formed in Paris by Stefano Primaluce (rhythm guitars, keyboards, backing vocals, programming), back in the 90’s.

The band is an outlet for his creativity, founded as a long-term compositional project rather than a fixed band, with this new album, they have written songs that all link conceptually featuring vocals for the first time to add more emotion to their songwriting, sacrificing some of their heaviness to make sure that the melody is just as important as the complexity.

Way Of Perfection is the band trying to achieve just that, the previous album saw them shedding their experimental project, skin to become more song driven entity, adapting the songs to feature broad soundscapes and cinematic moments over technical virtuosity. That’s still there, obviously, with Stefano a one man band himself but Andrea Rocchi’s guitar playing is impressive a lot of the time but at moments it’s also beautiful.

The rhythm section of Marco Adami (bass) and Michele Avella (drums) has a mind of it’s own, driving these songs with shifting time signatures and immense skill. Way Of Perfection begins with The Wind Remains, brilliantly modern prog, like Van Halen meeting The Dirty Loops, the instrumental side absolutely mind blowing but also filled with groove, that danceable thump comes again on the hip shaking Countdown At Dawn.

However like I said this is their first record with vocals and singer Falco (not that one) is a powerhouse in the Myles Kennedy meets Ted Leonard via Joseph Williams vein, he soars above the music adding the emotion to the dynamic virtuoso playing with tracks such as Back Into The Blue that don’t play safe, with some power metal meets AOR elements to it, keys duelling with guitars.

Heart Of The Moment and When The Light Returns are both strongly AOR, the one a punchy rocker while the other is a perfect American FM radio ballad from the likes of Daughtry or Shinedown, this has to be a single, though I’m sure it will confuse anyone who loves this track but hates prog, Standing In My Name keeps this style coming with a bit of keyboard friendly Alter Bridge.

Running Out Of Yesterday enters into the Dream Theater zone, returning to prog, angling in a bit of Toto as well. On Black Static Halo it hits me, Primaluce sound like Ra, and I love Ra (you should too), the personal lyrics, the complex compositions it’s all very close to Sahaj Ticotin and co, which for me makes me love it more. Synthwave dominates Echoes Of Tomorrow, the riffs (and solos) come back for In The Tides Of Time and the modern prog sound returns for closer Where The Water Meets The Stone.

It’s all brilliant, I don’t care that it’s 12 songs and over an hour, The Way Of Perfection is exactly my sort of album, prog meeting AOR colliding with metal and alt rock. Creating a magnificent musical journey performed with incredible skill. This isn’t The Way To Perfection, it’s about as close as you can get, keep the vocals, with them, Primaluce should dominate the prog world. 10/10

Kröwnn – Santa Somnia (Subsound Records)

Formed back in 2012, as a doom trio, Kröwnn have been kicking out riffs since then, with inspiration from Robert E Howard, Michael Moorcock and George R.R Martin their first two albums brought the sword and sorcery through thick psychedelic doom riffs. Just before their third album they added another guitarist to expand their sound further and with a change in drummer they now are primed to release their fourth record Santa Somnia. 

Photos by: Pahan Senevirathne  Words by: Lucinda Scott Special thanks to Destroy All Lines If you squeezed into the sold out 170 Russell on Thursday expecting a safe pop show, you were in the wrong place. LA based duo VOILÀ might have blown up online but the Magic Word tour proves that the live stage is […]