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Guitarist Joe Stump has released “Hyperbolic,” the second single from his upcoming solo album, Lord Of The Strings. The record is due this Friday through Silver Lining Music, following the opening track “Full Throttle.”

“Hyperbolic” stacks heavy riffs and strong hooks on top of fast shredding. Partway through, it swerves into Eastern-flavored lead work in the style of Blackmore, then closes the solo section with a run of arpeggios. Stump describes the result as a mix of several metal styles with plenty of attitude.

Stump said, “‘Hyperbolic’ is one of my favorite tracks from the new record. The best way to describe it is complete metal badassery. This one contains some of my favorite riff action to date and it combines really nicely with all of the strong melodic content of the track.

“The solo section starts out with some old-school high-velocity shred, then moves into some full-on bionic Blackmore snake charmer induced eastern playing. It concludes with a vicious arpeggio bit before returning to the riff section to end it. All in all a very cool combination of various schools of metal.”

The 12-track instrumental album covers a fair amount of ground. “Full Throttle” is all speed, and “Playing With Fire” returns to traditional melodic heavy metal. On “In The Hall Of The King” and “Eternity Of Darkness,” Stump shifts to a more lyrical approach, letting his detailed licks carry the story. “Den Of Vipers” and “Leipzig 1722” bring quieter acoustic moments. Overall, though, Lord Of The Strings is a relentless record, and Stump himself calls it “a heavy metal guitar orgy.”

If you want loud, screaming guitars, this is the album for you. Stump likes his riffs big and his leads quick, and he plays each track with power and precision, pushing the instrument hard from start to finish. The album is built to hit fast and hit hard.

Lord Of The Strings will be available here, on standard CD digipak, special edition CD digipak, digital download and streaming, plus special D2C bundles.

Credits:

All guitars and bass guitar: Joe Stump
Keyboards and all drum programming: Francisco Palomo
Produced by Joe Stump and Francisco Palomo
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Francisco Palomo at the Dungeon
All guitars recorded at the Dragon’s Den

Stump will also tour this fall as lead guitarist for Alcatrazz, joining thrash metal veterans Raven and British heavy metal band Girlschool for a run of U.K. dates. The tour starts in Glasgow and runs through early December.

2026 Tour dates:

25 November 2026 – Classic Grand, Glasgow
26 November 2026 – Planet Rockstock, Porthcawl
27 November 2026 – The Brook, Southampton
28 November 2026 – The Craufurd Arms, Milton Keynes
29 November 2026 – Digital, Newcastle Upon Tyne
01 December 2026 – The Underworld, London
02 December 2026 – Corporation, Sheffield
03 December 2026 – The Factory Live, Worthing
04 December 2026 – Blackbox, Hastings
05 December 2026 – Academy 3, Manchester
06 December 2026 – The Palace Nightclub, Bridgwater

The post JOE STUMP Drops “Hyperbolic,” A Blackmore-Flavored Shred Workout From “Lord Of The Strings” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

Sharon Osbourne has revealed that doctors warned her, her husband and her family that playing Black Sabbath‘s Back To The Beginning show could kill Ozzy, but that he insisted he wanted to perform.

The revelation comes in an emotional exclusive interview with Rolling Stone.

Announced in early 2025, Back To The Beginning was put together as Ozzy Osbourne’s final bow, following his retirement from touring in 2023 due to Parkinson’s disease and other health issues. The show was held on July 5, 2025, at Villa Park, Brmingham, a short distance from where the singer grew up in Aston, and featured a who’s who of heavy metal – including Metallica, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses, Mastodon, Tool, Gojira and more – paying their respects to Ozzy and Black Sabbath.

In her interview with Rolling Stone, Sharon Osbourne says that Ozzy was advised not to perform.

“He was in hospital in America before he left,” she says. “We moved back to England, and we had a whole new team of doctors. His new doctors didn’t want to take doctor’s notes from America. They wanted to make their own assessment on him. He was in hospital for a week in England.

“After he came out of hospital, they asked for a meeting, and they came to our house. We had six different doctors and, like, a quarterback, because there were all of these specialists for the heart, for Parkinson’s, for his lungs, because of all the different things that were wrong with him.

“They advised us not to do the show,” she admits. “They said it would kill him. We were all together and Ozzy said, ‘It’s not an option. It’s what I want.’ He said, ‘I know I’m dying. If I miss a few months of my life, I want to go this way. This is what I want.’ It was his wishes and we went through it. He said to me, ‘Another six months, what’s it going to do for me?’

“He was very, very emotional,” Osbourne admits. “But you know what? It was beautiful too. It was amazing. How lucky was he to go out that way? I say he went out like a Viking.”

Read the interview in full at RollingStone.com

A documentary about the gig, Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning, will get a global cinema release on October 28, for a limited time. Sharon Osbourne says that every artist who performed will appear in the film.

“There’s never been anything like that that’s happened in the history of rock and roll,” says Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who was musical director of the show and helped pull the bill together. “There’s never been a precedent for a show like this… [Black Sabbath] gets to play their final show basically in the Ground Zero of where they created heavy metal.”

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Few bands are as kvlt as Blood and Sun, and they play folk. Luke Tromiczak has toiled away at his dark Americana neofolk project since the mid-2010s, mixing 70s-style folk and black metal atmosphere with the purpose of delving “into the borderlands between song, spell, and memory.” With two albums behind him—most recently 2020’s Love & Ashes—Tromiczak now reaches into Blood and Sun’s deepest history for this year’s Aion’s Light. What he found was a Tascam 414 four-track cassette, the same he used for the project’s earliest demos. On it, he recorded each of Aion’s Light’s songs as they were written and tracked, every decision and mistake put to tape and heard in the same order as they were committed. This stringent, low-tech approach to recording leaves little room for mistake. So, does Aion’s Light capture an artist’s rawest expression in unmasked clarity, or do Blood and Sun capture more recording artifacts than magic?

If you’ve longed to hear Jim Morrison sing Leonard Cohen songs with black metal production, say hello to Aion’s Light. Blood and Sun’s distinct moody Americana and Tromiczak’s booming voice are as puissant as always on Aion’s Light, but now with an even more energetic, organic, and off-the-cuff feel. Blood and Sun weave dark tones and raw production into pensive folk scores, sporting dungeon-like synths and an Aquilusesque rustic, romantic dread. Listeners are treated to strident acoustics and bombastic synths with sprinklings of percussion,¹ ranging from simple and aggressive solo guitar (“A Nation Falling”) to full-blown symphonic grandeur (“All Is Bloom All Is Ruin”). “Gifts of Oneiroi” and “Aion’s Light” showcase Tromiczak’s baritone croon at its most sultry, while “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Life Lessons” flex a greater theatrical bombast. At its best, Aion’s Light is a gripping foray into American gothic and western balladry, replete with eerie tales for odder trails.

Blood and Sun set a strong mood on Aion’s Light and write like they have somewhere to be. Like a Giles Corey or Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter record, Aion’s Light often sounds like it’s at the cusp of breaking. Its strings pop and synths waver while its tape crackles under Blood and Sun’s intensity, felt strongest on the haunted “Horrid Host” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” In Aion’s Light’s biggest moments, it feels ready to burst (“Axe and Mistletoe,” “All Is Bloom All Is Ruin”). But Blood and Sun maintain lean form and keep each track tight and economical. Even when spinning harrowing stories on “A Nation Falling” or majestic scenes in “Kiss the Wilds,” Aion’s Light keeps to easily digestible runtimes and only flirts with bloat on the six-and-a-half-minute “Gift of the Oneiroi.” This keeps Aion’s Light immediate, which is largely to its benefit, as the longer songs on Love & Ashes could get away from them. Aion’s Light feels like the work of an expert storyteller, both timeless and timely and deeply enjoyable.

In recording Aion’s Light the way Blood and Sun did, however, comes certain difficulties the record doesn’t completely overcome. For instance, Aion’s Light is relatively back-loaded, with the opening title track and “Kiss the Wilds” lacking the gravitas of later cuts like “Gifts of Oneiroi” or “All Is Bloom All Is Ruin.” None of Aion’s Light is bad, but I think Tromiczak really got rolling about halfway through recording it. Also, though Blood and Sun’s songwriting has never been better than it is on Aion’s Light, they don’t sound as great as they have before. I find myself missing Love & Ashes’ lush soundscape—see “By What Road”—a reality most likely out of the reach of this album’s constraints. Nonetheless, if given the choice of having a more conventionally made rendition of Aion’s Light or the one Blood and Sun gave us, I’d take the latter every time; you’d lose more than you’d gain otherwise.

Blood and Sun rocked that four-track and gave us their best record yet with Aion’s Light. Tromiczak possesses a mightily compelling voice and an ear for song structure, imbuing his newest opus just the right amount of blackened rawness, dreamlike effects, and gothic swoon. It’s an easy listen for uneasy feelings and just what the doctor ordered for these autumn days. If neofolk’s on your horizon, then let the Aion’s Light in at once.

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Rating: Very Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps MP3
Label: Nordvis Produktion
Websites: bloodandsun.net | facebook.com/Blood-and-Sun | bloodandsun.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: October 16th, 2026

The post Blood and Sun – Aion’s Light Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

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Posted on October 13th 2026, 5:33pm