Category: news

The dark nights are drawing in, but don’t worry – we’ve got an excellent soundtrack to keep you warm in these Autumnal months. Speaking of which, let’s go through the results of last week’s vote!

As we’ve come to expect, a big name doesn’t guarantee top billing in the Hammer TOTW chart, and the likes of Tony Iommi and Hatebreed were left behind some emergent talent. Aussie metalcore mob The Local Romance took third place, while Japanese newcomers EMNW stormed ahead with the fun Party Loud. But our overall winners for the week were the brutish, no frills hardcore champs of Inherited, Wasted Space proving anything but.

We’ve got a wide-ranging selection for you this week, as we always hope is the case. Trivium and Hanabie. have announced new albums for this side of Christmas, while Battlesnake and Resolve are eyeing early 2027 release dates for their new records. There’s also brutish death metal, CoB-style melodeath and some wild and wonderful music that crosses so many genre boundaries it’s pointless even trying to pin down (Hello, Calva Louise). Don’t forget to vote for your favourite in the poll below – and have an excellent weekend!

Trivium – Crown In The Grave

It’s only been a couple of weeks since Trivium dropped Dead Inside Of Me, but they’ve barely let the dust settle before announcing that new album Crown In The Grave will be out on November 20. Alongside the announcement, the band unveiled a video for the title-track, a song which certainly upholds the classic-meets-contemporary sound they’ve been honing over the past few records with sublime guitars and a big, chest-beating chorus that’s sure to land when they hit the road again next year.

Thy Catafalque – Tombok

Want some weird black metal? Thy Catafalque have been masters of the art for decades now and if you ever thought jaunty flutes couldn’t work against crushing, blackened heft then clearly this is your first time listening to the band – welcome, things are about to get wonderfully weird! Tömbök comes from the Hungarian band’s new album XIII: Sárga erdő, which is due out November 20. Opening on 70s style keys, its not long before the track is blustering forth on blackened death metal blasts, only to get suddenly jaunty with jazz flutes. It’s glorious.

Wage War – God Complex

Metalcore with a bit of meat between its teeth, God Complex is a plain banger. From its bounding main riff to the shrieking high-end that adds a nu metal energy to the track, Wage War’s latest single has serious metal club anthem energy and we dare say that’ll translate well to gigs and festival fields next summer. Either way, their new album Landfall is out today and well worth a spin if you like big, hooky metal.

Employed To Serve – Absolute Onslaught

More proof that metalcore isn’t in a creative dead-end, you say? Well, look no further than the killer thrash-friendly pace of Absolute Onslaught, which isn’t a tribute to Bristolian thrashers, but instead a new offering by Woking’s Employed To Serve. With a guest appearance from Cabal’s Andreas Bjulver – who ETS will be touring with next month – it’s a solid fist to the lugs that’ll make you want to dropkick a pumpkin till the mush becomes a fine paste.

Power Trip – Precinct 3

Want thrash riffs? Power Trip have always had ’em and in spades, and look – THEY’RE BACK! It’s been a rough six years since the passing of original frontman Riley Gale, but the Texans have come back with a renewed force and fury with new vocalist Seth Gilmore. The band have released two new songs this week, Precinct 3 and Scavenger, and both are excellent, muscular showcases for why this band got people so excited in the first place. There’s even an air of Ministry’s mid-00s car-crash thrash to the early riff (we’re proper hearing Rio Grande Blood), which is a delight when that band have dialled back in recent years. Either way, we’re getting new Power Trip in 2027 and we couldn’t be happier.

Calva Louise – La Promesa

We fell in love with Calva Louise last year when they unveiled the wild genre-hopping opus that was Edge Of The Abyss. It’s looking like the band – based in the UK but made up of members from Venezuela, France and New Zealand – will have a new record coming next year, and if new single La Promesa is anything to go by, it’s gonna be even wilder than the last. Mixing snarling metalcore, Venezuelan folk (Joropo) and even little Mozart-like key flourishes, it’s typically madcap and utterly delightful.

Black Royal – Extremophiles

Slowing the pace down some, Finland’s Black Royal excel at chucking together elements of black’n’roll and sludge metal. You can hear both of those elements in full swing on Extremophiles, a stomping, Motorhead-friendly riff delivered with tar-thick heft and grinding force that makes you wanna bang your head until your neck muscles pop. New album Abyssian is coming October 30, and well worth raising some hell to.

Hanabie. – Bari Bari Buddy

Well this one crept into the schedule! Hanabie.’s new album Umami is coming on December 2, and the Japanese group have celebrated the fact by dropping a typically unhinged mixture of snarling, riffy metal and cutesy J-pop melody. We’ve come to expect nothing less at this point and they’re still one of the most vibrant new things in metal right now.

Battlesnake – Bog Bringer

Battlesnake must be the most disdainful band of Satan since Mr. Lordi announced the devil was a loser and also his bitch. After killing the horned one on a single earlier this year, now the weird and wonderful Aussies are apparently bringing us a whole album of colourful tales and weird fantasy themes, new single Bog Bringer toeing the line being ridiculous and utterly brilliant. There’s plenty of run up to this one – the album isn’t coming until February 19 next year, but we reckon its a strong contender for the maddest metal album of 2027. All hail the bogpocalypse…

Resolve – Godtier

If you’re looking for a tune to bound around to and lose your mind, Resolve have you covered. Godtier practically leaps off its main riff, mixing up melodic hooks, quick rap flows and grimacing snarls in a delightfully energetic package. The band’s new album Spread My Ashes Into Space is coming in January next year and is exactly the kind of energy we want to greet 2027 with.

Undeath – Arterial Bombardment

Propelled with all the force of a goods truck careening through a shopping centre, Undeath aren’t reinventing the wheel with Arterial Bombardment. But why the hell should they? The New York death metallers have carved a bloody niche for themselves by making primo old-school-style death metal and this latest single is no exception, lumbering forth like the only thing they need is a bit of carnage and a great riff.

Ulthima – Midnight’s Call

Coming out of Mexico via Finalnd – and boy can you tell – Ulthima offer up a distinct fusion of worlds. Starting out in the realms of grandiose symphonic/power metal – hello, Nightwish – they’re soon giving way to something more feral and extreme. There’s an air of Children Of Bodom to the fusion of styles they offer, but Ulthima don’t sound beholden to any one band or scene. Keep your eyes out for new album Midnight’s Call on November 27.

Below, The Mission‘s frontman and co-founder Wayne Hussey previews the band’s run of four unique nights at The Forum in London next month in celebration of 40 years of the group’s debut album, God’s Own Medicine.

God’s Own Medicine was released in the same year that London’s accursed M25 was opened, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded and NASA’s space shuttle Challenger blew up. Does it feel like 40 years have elapsed?

[Nodding] It was a long time ago and a lot of things have happened. I’ve made a lot more records since. Certain memories from those days are even more vivid than something I did last week. They were special times. And 40 years is a milestone worth celebrating.

Were you confident that God’s Own Medicine would be successful?

Oh yeah. We’d all been in bands before. It wasn’t like we were new kids on the block, we had worked hard to get to that point. By the time The Mission formed, all of us knew what we were doing.

The album spawned three Top-30 hits and went gold in the UK. How did you react to stardom?

I suppose like everybody else that it affects. You spend many years working towards something and initially it goes to your head. I was a young man around town. I milked it for all it was worth [chuckles]. But that only lasts for a couple of years, and then you begin to find yourself as a person within that maelstrom.

A review in US magazine Trouser Press dismissed the album as “a horrible amalgam of Led Zeppelin, Yes and Echo & The Bunnymen”.

I like Zeppelin and the Bunnymen, and I even went to see Yes when I was younger. We were never popular with the music press so we very quickly learned to take that stuff with a pinch of salt.

You smiled while saying that, almost like it was a challenge that had been relished.

It [banter with the press] was entertaining. With losing the weekly papers all of that has changed. Music journalism has now become more conservative, which is a shame as you no longer get characters like Nick Kent or Paul Morley [of NME]. Certain writers were pretentious to us back then, and it was nice to give it right back to them.

Ironically, John Paul Jones was hired to produce The Mission’s next album, Children. Was that a good collaboration?

Very much so. Suddenly we were being invited round to Iggy Pop’s for tea. We were the first thing John did after Led Zeppelin had split. He was great. He taught us a lot. I’ll never forget that one night we sat up late with him drinking and playing Zeppelin music. He started crying, telling us how much he missed John [Bonham].

Did those days feel like the best of times?

Not particularly. There have been a lot of great moments. We’re preparing a new album now – our first in 12 years – and it’s great to still be making music with your mates. It comes out in February or March of next year. If nobody likes it, then so what? We’re of an age where it doesn’t really matter. We’re doing it for ourselves.

The Mission are revisiting God’s Own Medicine over four gigs for its 40th anniversary. On the first night it will be played in its entirety, followed by other era-specific sets. Throw in different support acts each night and the ‘unique factor’ escalates. Such events are often a treat for the fans, but can be a nightmare for the musicians.

It doesn’t really bother me. When we go out on tour I like to change the setlist every night. There are three or four songs that you have to play, but I thrive on spontaneity. It certainly keeps the band on its toes, and me as well. And I love the idea of these gigs because they’re all in London, so there’s no travel involved.

The Mission play The Forum in London on November 4-7. Find tickets.