The Texan outlaw country singer Blaze Foley was never a big name during his lifetime, but his legend has grown since he was shot dead in 1989 at the age of 39. Foley has been the subject of tribute songs like Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel,” and Ethan Hawke directed and starred in the 2018 biopic Blaze. On Friday, we’ll get the new tribute album Sittin’ With Blaze, which features Foley covers from people like Phosphorescent, John Moreland, and the aforementioned Lucinda Williams. Today, Lucy Dacus shared her own contribution.
Phil Collins has not been in good health in recent years, but until now it wasn’t publicly known just how bad things got. In a new interview, Collins, 75, revealed he was on his death bed two years ago due to alcohol abuse.
The Statement: Due to visa issues beyond our control, we won’t be able to make it to the North American tour. We’re devastated, and truly sorry – we did everything … Continue reading Hypocrisy Cancels North American Tour→
After recent announcement of their final album Hate To Go – Take Out Or Delivery, due out on October 30th, Ministry have confirmed a route of their final European tour. Scheduled in spring 2027, ‘The Goodbye Europe Tour’ encompasses 21 shows and features support from Die Krupps. Read more…
Lacrimas Profundere, the Munich-based gothic metal band now in its 33rd year, has announced a new album, Lay Me Down O Silent Fear, due September 25 via Steamhammer. The announcement is accompanied by a music video for the debut single “O Silent Fear.”
The album marks Lacrimas Profundere’s first full-length in four years, a period during which the band performed more than 100 concerts across Europe, including appearances at major festivals and a support slot on a European tour with Paradise Lost in autumn 2025. The band has performed in 40 countries throughout its career and has earned consistent chart placements and “Album of the Month” distinctions for its previous releases.
Lay Me Down O Silent Fear finds Lacrimas Profundere drawing from a particularly wide palette. Vocalist Oliver Nikolas Schmid framed the album’s opening track with a question: what would “Bohemian Rhapsody” sound like if Bring Me the Horizon covered it? “We don’t know, but at least we tried,” he said with a grin. The answer, as the track “Days Of Doom” immediately delivers, is a sprawling charge across a Mad Max-like sonic wasteland.
The album’s range extends from the gothic-metalcore collision of “Faceless” to the multi-layered ballad “Veil XV,” the goth-rock directness of “Nevermore” and the near-Slipknot-intensity of “A Sinful Desire.” “Arcane Promises” carries the melodic spirit of Sentenced’s classic-era material. At the same time, “Heart I Will Break You Before You Break Me” sets the emotional weight of Anathema against the raw presence of Glen Danzig. The debut single “O Silent Fear” navigates the space between Amorphis, Arch Enemy and HIM.
Lacrimas Profundere was founded in Munich in 1993. The band has released over a dozen studio albums on Steamhammer and its predecessor labels over a career spanning three decades, consistently building an international audience through relentless touring and an ever-evolving sound rooted in gothic and atmospheric metal.
Following the release of Horrifier’a last album I was thoroughly on board with the band and hopeful for future releases; that time has come in the form of the band’s second full length album, Revelations Of Gore. Formed in 2022 out of Oslo, Norway, the band stylise themselves on all things putrid, rotting and macabre with a Demo, Split and soon a Single leading up to their debut 2023 record, Horrid Resurrection, a record I truly adored upon first listening. The band have since released an EP, 2025’s Burial Ground, a Split alongside Impugner, and now we come to their newest full length. Once again distributed via Personal Records, Horrifier return with ten tracks of slaughter to keep us sated and at bay. Revelations Of Gore sees the light of day August 7th.
Given Horrifier’a established affinity for speed and the wanton laceration of flesh, it’s interesting they should open their record up with more trudging songwriting indicative of doomy tendencies. Granted their tempo rapidly intensifies thereon but it demonstrates the band have already started looking to new frontiers by which their songwriting may transport us. The record, as it develops, isn’t afraid to change gears on a whim and thus deliver something slower before indulging in frantic blast beats and vocals with the rapacity of howling spirits.
The production for this record, in spite of the filthy and belligerent subject matter Horrifier indulge with, is surprisingly clean. However, it’s not clean to the degree of transparency where one may look straight through the band, Revelations Of Gore emits a piercing, razor-bladed exterior where merely touching its serrated edge is asking for grievous injury. It’s also remarkably compact, you get the feeling Horrifier wanted all their pieces close together in a bind so nothing could be ascertained to wandering off. Even as solos kick in there’s little indication things are set to break loose; its under such tight control you’ll feel it’s murderous inclinations with ease. Revelations Of Gore will have you under its eyes from start to finish.
Following this notion it must be observed how grounded Horrifier’a performance feels; there’s no concept put forth that they’re set to play death metal about fantastical ideas or avant-garde subjects, their songwriting matches the slaughtering and mundane actions of human death. There were numerous sequences where my head naturally bopped to their momentum, where songwriting slowed to a steady crawl, initiating this fervent, foul nightmare . As a result Horrifier’a sound takes on a familiar and frightening dimension, bringing the horror out of the netherealms and before your very corporeal form. The band ultimately bring you face to face with death in all its malicious apathy.
Though multiple elements of the band throughout this release deliver ruthless and unrepentant performances, the mix manages to balance each of these forces, typically low in tone in their own right, and crafts stellar cohesion out of it all. It’s what aids the band in that grounded, cadaver-creating miasma coating every minute of this record with the cessation of life. But then you the drums, notably the cymbals and other aspects of the kit, that burst forth through the din and still apply the ravenous rancour Horrifier so established in their last record. The most minute of cymbal strikes are audible as are the interchanging drum patterns that carry us from one sequence to another. Throw in too the frantic playing Horrifier showcase when speed is the prerogative and the band becomes a true savage, shackled to earth, knowing full well the devastation it may set loose were it freed. It’s in that knowing malevolence, acknowledging one’s own bloodlust, that gives Revelations Of Gore its unhinged psychopathy.
In conclusion, Revelations Of Gore is a record that has been submerged in blood and viscera for much longer, and at greater depths, than their debut record ever was. Though the threat of ripping our person apart remains, Horrifier seem far more intent on accomplishing that end this time round. Things are more real, techniques more laid out towards achieving their goal. Killing isn’t some fantasy borne from sadism but a genuine, deeply sated need for blood. Revelations Of Gore brings in plenty of slower, creeping pieces of songwriting hearkening to mind a hidden and abject fury blown into reality with death metal that shall never tire and never renege on its plans. It’s certainly Horrifier’s strongest work to date and that’s saying something considering the strength of their last record too.
Metal Hammer has teamed up with German electro-metal party-starters Electric Callboy for a special bundle you won’t find in the shops.
In celebration of the six-piece’s long-awaited new album Tanzneid, we’re giving customers the chance to buy our new issue with an exclusive cover, as well as a number art print dedicated to the band – only via the Louder webstore!
The new Hammer contains an extensive interview with singers Kevin Ratajczak and Nico Sallach, looking back on their career so far as well as the story of Tanzneid. Sallach opens up about his past throwing weekly house parties for all his friends.
“At its peak, we had 80 people in this tiny flat. People that we didn’t know were ringing the doorbell,” he says. “They treated our flat like shit. I wanted to go to bed, and there were drinks and liquids that I couldn’t identify all over my bed! Very good memories, even if it doesn’t sound like it.”
The issue contains an in-depth review of Tanzneid. “Tanzneid may not represent a dramatic reinvention, but it doesn’t need to,” writes journalist Holly Wright.
“Few bands have spent the last five years turning irreverence into such a potent creative and commercial force. Electric Callboy once looked destined to become nothing but a joke. Instead, they’ve become one of modern metal’s biggest success stories.”
Elsewhere, we talk to modern metal standard-bearers Loathe about their new album A Stranger To You, which came out more than five years after its predecessor, and see what on Earth took so long!
“When I was younger, I felt very angry at the world,” guitarist/vocalist Erik Bickerstaffe admits. “I had a ‘fuck everyone’ attitude, and a lot of music would be me putting all this resentment out there. I’ve definitely been more self-centred in the past. I was a bit selfish. As I’m getting older, I’m becoming more of a human in the world.”
We also talk to veteran Slipknot producer Ross Robinson about the 25th anniversary of the nine-piece’s landmark second album, Iowa. “We were looking to help Norway burn some more churches,” he says. “We wanted to join that extreme metal club!”
All that, plus we send a writer into an escape room with zombie-metal sensations Dominum, give I Prevail singer Eric Vanlerberghe your burning questions, discover Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner’s personal playlist, talk to Sharon Osbourne about her efforts to preserve Ozzy’s legacy, and much, much more.
(This is Wil Cifer’s review of a new album by Bay Area grindcore fanatics Deathgrave. It’s set for release on August 21st via Tankcrimes.) 2023’s It’s Only Midnight was pretty decent, but Deathgrave have perfected the kind of thrashing chaos they kick up with Hell Is Evil. The title track that opens the album finds […]
Way back in the early ’00s, the Athens, Georgia musician Andy LeMaster’s lush, textured indie rock project became the first out-of-town act to sign with the Omaha indie juggernaut Saddle Creek. LeMaster was a Bright Eyes collaborator before Now It’s Overhead released their 2001 self-titled debut, and his band became a key player in Saddle Creek’s golden era, alongside Bright Eyes, the Faint, Cursive, and fellow non-Omaha band Rilo Kiley. LeMaster’s band went inactive soon after the release of their third album, 2006’s Dark Light Daybreak. Now, they’re coming back.
