Ice Nine Kills have unleashed a (pretty damn great) new ’80s glam rock single, under the guise of spoof band Grave Diggler.
The rocking new tune – which goes by the name Hell Or High Slaughter (Grave Diggler: Pt. 2) – has been released as part of upcoming comedy-horror film Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come. And if you dive deeper into how it came to be, it turns out the band are actually comprised of Ice Nine Kills’ ‘dads’: Cubano Cortada, Shmuel Sugarman, Sonny Charnas, ‘Shreddie’ Murphy Occhiuti and Miles Long. As INK frontman Spencer explains: “What people don’t know is that the way that Ice Nine Kills actually met is that all of our fathers were in Grave Diggler.”
Following family politics and legal battles, Spencer reveals that, “I’ve been estranged from my father for a long time. But this movie, and this song, while bringing a lot of complicated feelings to the surface, also brought us back together.”
Watch the wild video for Hell Or High Slaughter (Grave Diggler: Pt. 2) below:
Ice Nine Kills (very much not Grave Diggler) return to the UK this summer to appear at Download Festival2026.
Boundaries have announced that they have signed to Sumerian Records, and shared an absolutely debauched new track to celebrate.
That track is ‘Skies cast amber black’, and finds the band dealing out the pain harder and faster than ever before. Breakdowns that could split tectonic plates, guttural howls of anguish and anger and an atmosphere that feels like the end of all things wrapping itself around you, it is metalcore at its most belligerent and brutal. An unrelenting, unparalleled slice of heaviness that will leave you broken, breathless and begging for more.
All in a day’s work for the band, really.
Vocalist Matthew McDougal had this to say about the song’s themes:
“I have a deep desire in the pit of my making to surround and suffocate the growing plague of people’s self-interest. Given the chance, I’d remove every ego from the music landscape and burn it off for fuel to power blood hungry behemoths whose only goal is to crush and disable. This song is my plea to cleanse a community I adore of people who see it only as an opportunity or a stepping stone.”
The track is the band’s first release since their 2024 album ‘Death Is Little More’. Here is ‘Easily Erased’ from that very record.
Boundaries will be playing Download Festival this Summer, alongside a set of support slots in the UK and Ireland. Here’s where you can catch them.
JUNE
14 – DONINGTON PARK Download Festival 15 – BELFAST Limelight # 16 – DUBLIN Academy # 17 – CARDIFF Y Plas * 19 – NORWICH Voodoos ## 20 – EXETER Cavern ##
* – w. Kublai Khan TX # – w. The Plot In You ## – co-headline w. Heriot
The Four Kents at the Piper Club, Viareggio, Italy. Image from Nevil Cameron
According to this website, Indianapolis native George Chandler was serving in the US military in northern Italy when he formed this soul quartet with fellow expatriate servicemen Rudy Rollins, Charles Cannon and Stanley Evans.
The Four Kents formed a backing group called The Submarines in mid-1968 to support them live, which comprised a mix of British, Italian and Lebanese musicians.
Thanks to baritone sax player Roger Warwick who provided further information about this group, The Submarines also included Georges Dersey (trumpet); Carl Viola (tenor sax); Bill Mayer (bass); Tony Ollard (lead guitar); and Mauro Paolucci (drums).
Dersey and Warwick had both come from The Patrick Sansom Set. Warwick had joined this outfit in December 1966 after singer Patrick Sansom approached him to join the group in Italy while playing with Freddie Mack.
Warwick knew Tony Ollard from the north London scene. Ollard had previously played with The Robb Storme Group, The Creation and The Warren Davis Monday Band.
In June 1968, The Four Kents and The Submarines toured Britain for a short tour.
The following tour dates are incomplete
Tour dates:
16 June 1968 – Kinema Ballroom, Dunfermline, Scotland with The Submarines, The Falcons and The Shadettes (https://www.kinemagigz.com/1968.htm)
17 June 1968 – Carlton Club, Warrington, Cheshire (Warrington Guardian)
23 June 1968 – Riverside Club, Chertsey, Surrey (Woking Herald)
29 June 1968 – Tin Hat, Kettering, Northamptonshire with The Submarines (Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph)
Neurosis have returned without warning. The Oakland post-metal institution has surprise-dropped An Undying Love For A Burning World today via Neurot Recordings — their first new album in ten years, and by all accounts a statement of survival rather than a simple comeback.
The band wasted no words explaining why now. “We need this, perhaps more than ever, and we suspect we are not alone,” they write. “The trials and tribulations in our personal lives and as a band, combined with simply trying to navigate the insanity of our society, with the stress, anxiety, and isolation that come with it, can be excruciating. Add to that the existential confusion and sorrow of the climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction. It is enough to cause you to completely lose your mind if you can’t find release or catharsis.
“This strange, emotionally charged music has always been our method of trying to survive this, and this is what we’ve always been singing about. When you have spent a lifetime engaged with these energies and utilizing this form of expression to purge and purify, it feels detrimental to our well-being to let it sit idle and neglected. This was now or never.”
Joining the band on vocals and guitar is Aaron Turner — the man behind Sumac and ISIS, and a figure whose own artistic history has long run parallel to Neurosis‘s. The band describes his arrival as a natural fit. “He came straight out of the gate, contributing, writing, and presenting ideas. His energy matches ours perfectly. It’s as if he was always meant to be there.”
Turner himself is equally direct about the significance of the pairing. “From the moment I first heard Neurosis over 30 years ago, I felt this was the music my heart and mind had been seeking but not yet heard,” he says. “Now, after many years travelling along various musical paths of my own, the singular sound and spirit embodied by Neurosis continues to speak to the depths of my being. It is an honor and a true pleasure to have been welcomed so warmly into a band that not only shaped my perspective on the limitless possibilities of music but has lived and exemplified the necessity of upholding creative integrity and camaraderie above all else.”
On the question of whether this constitutes a reunion, the band is firm: this is not a reunion. They never broke up.
An Undying Love For A Burning World was recorded by Scott Evans (of Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, and And Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle across three weekends this winter, then mixed in three days at Evans’s Antisleep Audio in Oakland — just six weeks before release.
Neurosis will also make their live return after a seven-year absence, playing Fire In The Mountains festival on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. The event is organised with the support of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit focused on reducing youth suicide in Indian Country. Guitarist Steve Von Till, who serves on the board of Firekeeper Alliance, described last year’s edition as the most profound music event of his life.
“I cannot think of a more appropriate environment for us to return to the stage,” he says. “Last year’s Fire In The Mountains festival was the most profound music event I have ever been a part of. The weekend took on a healing, cathartic, ceremonial nature that is difficult to put into words. Using emotionally heavy music to build community and collectively stare darkness in the eye is something we have always believed in, but using it to directly address the heartbreaking reality of suicide, grief, loss, and trauma is taking it to another level.”
Rock band Hawthorne Heights is excited to continue celebrating 20 years of their acclaimed album If Only You Were Lonely. The band has today announced an additional U.S. leg to their worldwide 20th Anniversary Tour, kicking off on October 21st in Buffalo. They’ll again be joined by special guests letlive. and Creeper, as they bring the show to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, New […]
The new Hugh Jackman/Kate Hudson movie Song Sung Blue tells the true story of a humble Neil Diamond tribute band that hit it big in the ’90s, even performing with Eddie Vedder at a Pearl Jam concert at the height of their fame. So I guess the timing is right for another Neil Diamond/Gen X convergence from the archives.
It’s been a fair old while since we last heard from Annihilus Mundi, but the progressive extreme metal project is officially back in the game. After nearly seven years of tinkering away in the shadows, mastermind Daniel Saillant has finally unleashed a brand-new single and music video titled “Absolute Terror”. If you’re a fan of … Continue reading Annihilus Mundi returns with “Absolute Terror”, first new music in seven years
