Review: Wailing Banshees With Rattlesnakes, Moskito & Heartstrung The Drill, Lincoln – August 1st , 2026 Reviewer / Photographer – Dan Mann Those fine chaps at Upstaged put together a four band bill at what is a rather splendid venue, namely The Drill in Lincoln. I’m going to be honest and say that the first […]
The post Review: Wailing Banshee With Rattlesnakes, Moskito & Heartstrung – The Drill August 1st appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.
For nearly 30 years, the Cincinnati musician Yoni Wolf has been making music under the name WHY? — first as an abstract rap traveler and Anticon co-founder, then as the leader of an always-evolving indie rock band. WHY?’s most recent album was The Well I Fell Into, a 2024 account of a devastating breakup. This fall, Wolf will follow it with Oh Golly / Yes Lord, a new LP about living a middle-aged life in the aftermath of that breakup.
The post WHY? Announces New Album <em>Oh Golly / Yes Lord</em>: Hear “In Spirit” appeared first on Stereogum.
Japanese metal pioneers Sigh have shared a music video for “Unputenpu,” the debut single from their upcoming new studio album, Goh-ka. The video was directed by Costin Chioreanu. Among the additional contributors to the track, Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth delivers a special guest guitar solo.
Speaking about the new track, frontman and band mastermind Mirai Kawashima said: “Honestly, I have no idea at all how the song sounds to other people. Shuffle is the world-widely used rhythm, and Japan is no exception. I’ve been using this rhythm in songs like ‘Shikigami’, ‘Ecstatic Transformation’ and ‘Midnight Sun’, but I guess I have completed my own Japanese style on ‘Unputenpu’. The guitar lead by Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth definitely gives another boost to the song.
“‘Unputenpu’ expresses the idea that whether a person is blessed with good fortune or struck by misfortune is determined by God’s will, the will of heaven, fate, or something totally beyond our control, and we cannot do anything to change it. Anyone could die today or lose somebody you love. Life can be cruel any time. The song is based on my personal experience, but I don’t want to talk about the details…”
Pre-order the album here.
Goh-ka draws on the sonic DNA of Celtic Frost, Voivod and Black Sabbath, filtered through the lens of horror movies, Japanese musical traditions, psychedelic rock, progressive rock and classical music across close to an hour of material. Kawashima describes it as equally personal — both musically and lyrically — as the band’s previous album, Shiki.
The album title “Goh-ka” carries a triple meaning in Japanese: infernal fire scorching sinners; the immense conflagration that burns down the world at the end of time; and karma.
The primary thematic thread running through the record is “Kuso-zu,” a series of Buddhist paintings depicting the nine stages of a human body’s decomposition after death, created to encourage meditation on life’s impermanence and the inevitability of death. Related is “Kuso-shi,” a poem based directly on those images. The artwork on the cover and in the booklet of Goh-ka consists of actual Kuso-zu paintings.
Sigh’s current lineup comprises Kawashima, vocalist/saxophonist Dr Mikannibal and guitarist Nozomu Wakai, joined by bassist Frédéric Leclercq (Kreator, Dragonforce) and drummer Mike Heller (Raven, Fear Factory). Goh-ka was mixed and mastered by Lasse Lammert at LSD Studios in Germany.
Sigh formed in Japan in 1989/1990 and released their genre-classic black metal debut, Scorn Defeat, in 1993. Over three subsequent decades, the band evolved into one of metal’s most singular avant-garde forces, fusing psychedelic, jazz, progressive and classical elements into an ever-expanding catalog. Their most recent releases include Shiki (2022) — their first for Peaceville Records — and I Saw The World’s End: Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV (2025), a re-recording of their 2008 Hangman’s Hymn album created as part of their 35th-anniversary celebrations.
The post SIGH Share Music Video For New Single “Unputenpu” Featuring OPETH’s MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
Megadeth have announced Breakout: Hibernation Of The Nations, the European chapter of their multi-year global farewell tour. The 24-date arena run opens March 9, 2027 at The O2 in Belfast and closes April 13 in Lisbon, Portugal, taking in the United Kingdom, Ireland and mainland Europe.
Black Label Society and Testament join for the entire run. The tour follows Megadeth’s seventeenth and final studio album, the self-titled record released January 23, 2026, which became the band’s first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Cyber Army presale opens Tuesday, August 4 at 10am local time, artist presale Wednesday, August 5, with general on-sale Friday, August 7. Megadeth are Dave Mustaine, Teemu Mäntysaari, James LoMenzo and Dirk Verbeuren.
STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY NOW:On today’s Metal Breakdown Daily, Scott Penfold gets into the Megadeth announcement — why 2027 dates on a farewell tour are exactly what Mustaine promised rather than a bait and switch, the routing decision hiding in the itinerary, and the statistic about that final album that stops you cold. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and take the show with you.
Twenty-four arenas. Belfast to Lisbon. Black Label Society and Testament on every single night.
Megadeth have announced the European leg of the long goodbye, and it’s called Breakout: Hibernation Of The Nations. March 9, 2027 through April 13.
If your first reaction is wait, they’re still going? — that’s the correct reaction, and it’s also the point.
Here’s the context most coverage today is going to skip.
When Dave Mustaine announced the final album and farewell tour back in August 2025, he didn’t frame it as one lap and out. And in November, speaking to Kerrang!, he put a number on it: the farewell would easily run three to five years.
Do the arithmetic. A run starting in 2026 that lasts five years ends in 2031, the year Mustaine turns 70.
So a 24-date European arena leg in spring 2027 isn’t scope creep. It isn’t a cash grab bolted on after the fact. It’s month fifteen of a plan that was stated publicly, in print, before a single ticket went on sale.
The band’s own framing backs it up — rather than one farewell run, the final journey has been designed as a multi-year, multi-continent thing, so fans in different parts of the world actually get a shot at it. Mustaine’s line on the announcement: “This isn’t about saying goodbye.” It’s about celebrating four decades.
Now, the obvious objection: metal fans have been burned by farewell tours before, repeatedly, and a five-year goodbye sounds like a punchline waiting to happen.
Mustaine got there first. In a Metal Hammer interview last December we covered at the time, he addressed the fake-retirement trend head on and named names — saying he won’t be like Mötley Crüe or Slayer, who in his telling announce it and then don’t stick to their word. He’s also been clear that the studio door is closed for good after the self-titled record.
Whether he honours that is a 2031 question. But he said it out loud, on the record, with names attached, which is more than most.
LIVE & LOUD: Stream the World’s Hardest Radio Station 24/7Look at the itinerary and there’s an actual strategy in it.
The European leg visits 12 of the 22 global markets where the final album landed in the Top 5. That’s not a booking agent throwing darts at a map — that’s routing built directly off where the record actually performed.
And it performed. The self-titled album hit No. 1 in Australia and Austria, No. 2 in Finland, Sweden and Belgium, No. 3 in the UK and Germany, No. 4 in the Netherlands, and No. 5 in Italy and New Zealand. Several of those were career-best positions for the band in those countries.
So the tour goes where the album went. Simple, and smarter than most farewell routing, which tends to just hit the biggest rooms in the biggest cities regardless.
Here’s the one that should give you pause.
Megadeth released seventeen studio albums between 1985 and 2026. Killing Is My Business. Peace Sells. Rust In Peace. Countdown To Extinction. Youthanasia. Dystopia. Thirty-eight million records sold worldwide. A Grammy, finally, on the twelfth nomination.
Not one of them ever reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Until the last one. The self-titled record debuted at the top with 73,000 equivalent album units for the week ending January 29, 2026 — 69,000 of those pure sales, meaning people actually bought physical and digital copies rather than streaming past it.
Forty-one years of records. The closest they’d previously come was No. 2 with Countdown To Extinction in 1992.
The album that finally got Megadeth to the top of the chart is the one they made on the way out the door. Make of that what you will, but it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen often, and it reframes what this tour is. They’re not limping to the finish. They’re leaving from the highest point of their commercial career.
Worth saying plainly: Black Label Society and Testament for the entire run is a legitimately strong package.
Testament are Bay Area thrash originators who’ve been at this nearly as long as Megadeth and have spent the last decade making some of the sharpest music of their career. Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society bring the doom-and-swagger counterweight, and Wylde’s own history with Ozzy gives the whole bill a certain weight in 2027.
That’s three bands you’d pay to see individually, playing arenas, for six weeks straight. Compare it to the Canadian run with Anthrax and Exodus and you can see the pattern — Mustaine is stacking these bills properly rather than padding them.
The band closing this out is Mustaine on guitar and vocals, Teemu Mäntysaari on lead guitar, James LoMenzo on bass and Dirk Verbeuren on drums.
Mäntysaari — formerly of Wintersun — joined in late 2023 replacing Kiko Loureiro, and the self-titled album is his only Megadeth studio record. LoMenzo returned in 2021 after an earlier stint from 2006 to 2010.
And no, there’s no reunion coming. Mustaine ruled it out definitively in January, dismissing the revolving-door format and saying it would be unfair to the musicians actually in the band. That closed the door on David Ellefson’s public campaign to be part of the finale, which had been running since the announcement.
If you’re waiting for a Rust In Peace lineup victory lap, don’t.
March
April
On-sale: Cyber Army presale Tuesday, August 4 at 10am local. Artist presale Wednesday, August 5 at 10am local. General on-sale Friday, August 7 at 10am local. Tickets and VIP packages at megadeth.com.
Get your tickets at this location.
VIP includes meet-and-greets, premium merch, early entry and memorabilia. The band is pointing fans at the Cyber Army for first access, which is the usual advice and, on a farewell run with arena-sized demand, probably worth taking seriously.
Breakout: Hibernation Of The Nations runs March 9 to April 13, 2027 — 24 arena dates opening at The O2 in Belfast and closing at Sagres Campo Pequeno in Lisbon, covering the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.
Black Label Society and Testament, both appearing on all 24 dates.
Cyber Army presale opens Tuesday, August 4 at 10am local time, followed by an artist presale on Wednesday, August 5. General on-sale is Friday, August 7 at 10am local. Tickets and VIP packages are at megadeth.com.
Yes, and it’s on schedule. Dave Mustaine said publicly in November 2025 that the farewell would easily run three to five years across multiple continents, meaning it could continue to 2029 or 2031. The 2027 European leg is part of that original plan, not an extension of it.
No. Mustaine ruled out a multi-member reunion in January 2026, saying a revolving-door format would be unfair to his current bandmates. That includes founding bassist David Ellefson, who had publicly said he’d like to take part. The touring lineup is Mustaine, Teemu Mäntysaari, James LoMenzo and Dirk Verbeuren.
Seventeen albums and forty-one years, and the only one that ever hit number one is the last one they’ll ever make. Are you getting to one of these 24 shows — and what’s the one song that has to be in the set? Let us know in the comments.
Follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news
The post Megadeth Announce 24 European Arena Dates For Spring 2027 With Black Label Society And Testament appeared first on Loaded Radio.
UK progressive, alternative metal band HAKEN have released the ‘in a fever dream’ EP. Co-produced and mixed by George Lever (Loathe, Sleep Token), and featuring bass contributions from Bryan Beller (Joe Satriani, The Aristocrats) & Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood (Periphery), the band have crafted some of the most emotionally direct material of their career so far. The ep is currently available digitally, and will be released physically as CD and vinyl on September 18th.
In this new podcast, Guitarist and founding member of Haken, Richard Henshall, returns to talk about the new Haken ep ‘in a fever dream’, the direction of the band, and more.
Check out the podcast on these services:
Apple • Spotify • Amazon • PodBean • YouTube
The band comments: “This EP was born from a period of reflection and rediscovery. Over the last few years, we’ve faced challenges that forced us to look inward, both as musicians and as people, and the songs on this record are the result of that journey.
We allowed ourselves to be completely honest in the writing process, digging into real experiences, doubts, and emotions rather than hiding behind them. That vulnerability gave these songs a weight and purpose unlike anything we’ve created before.
Musically, we pushed ourselves into new territory, embracing fresh influences while holding onto the intensity and identity that define this band. Working with producer George Lever helped us sharpen that vision, and Vada Studios provided the perfect environment to collaborate and bring it to life.
This EP captures a moment in time of us finding our feet again – moving forward, taking risks, and creating from a place that feels as genuine as we have ever been.”
‘in a fever dream’ will be available as CD, Deep Blood Red LP (in Europe), Lotus White LP (in the US) and as a very limited clear LP edition available only from the bands store. Pre-order now here: https://haken.lnk.to/inafeverdream-EP
The full track-listing is as follows:
1. in a fever dream
2. delirium
3. eclipsed by you
4. bleeding sky
5. lotus
The band also recently announced a European headline tour for September & October 2026, with support from IHLO. Find the full list of dates below, tickets on sale now.
23rd September – Salamandra, Barcelona, Spain
25th September – Kiff, Aarau, Switzerland
26th September – Trabendo, Paris, France
27th September – Euroblast Festival, Cologne, Germany
28th September – Backstage Halle, Munich, Germany
29th September – Dürer Kert Man Hall, Budapest, Hungary
30th September – Roxy, Prague, Czech Republic
1st October – Simm City, Vienna, Austria
3rd October – Magazzini Generali, Milan, Italy
4th October – Largo, Rome, Italy
6th October – Frannz Club, Berlin, Germany
7th October – Oczki, Warsaw, Poland
9th October – Olympia-Kortteli, Tampere, Finland
10th October – Logomo Teatro, Turku, Finland
11th October – Tavastia, Helsinki, Finland
13th October – Rockefeller, Oslo, Norway
15th October – Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
The post Richard Henshall (HAKEN) Interview – in a fever dream appeared first on The Prog Report.
Interviewed by Patrick O’Reilly
Guttural Slug stop by for a chat at Offal Fest.
As well as talking about their set, we delve into the worlds of Warhammer and World of Warcraft, discuss the history of the bnd, their last EP, the writing process and also SHARKS!
You can listen to the interview below, or jump over to any of the usual streaming services!
Youtube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Youtube Music
Check out all of our interviews on the usual podcast channels!
Youtube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Youtube Music
For all the latest news, reviews, interviews across the heavy metal spectrum follow THE RAZORS’S EDGE on facebook, twitter and instagram.
The post Interview: Guttural Slug at Offal Fest appeared first on The Razor's Edge.
Better Noise Music [Release date 10.07.26] The female-fronted pop metal genre is a fairly crowded space these days. We have – for example – Ad Infinitum (Switzerland), Elysion (Greece) and not forgetting the trailblazers who are sounding as good as … Continue reading
The post Album review: EVA UNDER FIRE – Villainous appeared first on Get Ready to ROCK!.