The whispery Y2K-era British post-rock band Movietone have not been heavily canonized. In my experience, you could get into indie music in the 2000s without ever hearing them mentioned. But Movietone might finally be getting their due. Last year Mark Richardson wrote a thoughtful retrospective of their 2000 album The Blossom Filled Streets at Pitchfork, and now Domino is reissuing 1997’s Day And Night.
North Carolina’s bastion of melodic death metal Aether Realm, strikes with the first single from their forthcoming blasphemous onslaught, Season of Bloodshed, out December 11 via Napalm Records. Entitled “The Blood Is Calling,” the explosive song arrives today alongside a striking animated music video, offering a first glimpse into the band’s next chapter.
From its first heartbeats, the album bares its teeth. The vampiric opening track “The Blood Is Calling” is layered with thunderous kick drums and cataclysmic string arrangements, setting the stage for something truly ghastly. Propelled by blast beats from drummer Tyler Gresham, ornate guitar harmonies, and Martin Gonzalez’s enveloping orchestrations, this first single is a herald of a new era as the band transforms into something darker.
Soaked in blood and craving more, Aether Realm has undergone a violent transformation, emerging with their ferocious new album Season of Bloodshed. Since the band’s 2020 album Redneck Vikings From Hell, Aether Realm has held on by the skin of their teeth through a global pandemic, the historic Hurricane Helene, and a mid-record lineup change, with former guitarist Donny Burbage departing and new guitarist Chris Jones entering the fray. Season of Bloodshed clutches you in its blood-soaked claws and guides you on an intense exploration of an existential transformation fueled by rage.
About the album, the band states: “This is an album born from an anger that was allowed to fester for too long. At the confluence of the great injustices of our time and the insignificant wrongs that get under our skin every day, we can find ourselves transformed into our worst selves. It is in the expression of this feeling—through these cruel riffs, shredding solos, and crushing breakdowns—that we may find peace.”
Album tracks such as “Control” open with a triumphant harmonized guitar duel before taking off at one hundred miles per hour with virtuoso guitar duo Heinrich Arnold and Chris Jones weaving riff tapestries, embracing listeners in a dystopian dream of the future. Always looking to experiment with the form, “Broken Fist” enlists guest vocalist Taj Jewett to lend their rage to a track that fuses nu metal and prog into a showcase of infectiously bouncy grooves and unstoppable riffage.
The aptly titled “Get Fukt” is as vitriolic as the title suggests. Bassist and frontman Jake Jones delivers a venomous verbal onslaught alongside driving harmonized riffs clearly developed at the school of Bodom. “The Weight” offers the album’s first brief respite, with serene synths paving the way for another hellish breakdown; tectonic drums crack the ground as flaming guitars emerge from the rubble and lash at the sky.
Featuring the impeccable orchestration of composer Wayne Ingram (known for his work in Wilderun and on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok), the track expands into mesmerizing grandeur. Opening with a serene folksy respite provided by departing guitarist DonnyBurbage and violinist Sarah Stepanik, “Path of The Wind” emerges as an explosive blackened folk song with singalongs and blast beats that tells the tale of how the band emerged physically unscathed from Hurricane Helene. Further honoring their southern roots, “Achilles’ Heel” opens with intimate banjo strums dancing around vocalist Jake Jones‘ heartfelt croon, sung from the perspective of Patroclus, the companion of the titular mythological Greek hero Achilles. This bitter song honors the epic with guitar and string orchestrations of equally grand composition, coupled with a chorus that you can’t resist stomping your foot to.
Album closer “Terminus Omnium,” a Latin phrase translating roughly to “The End of All Things,” opens with cinematic, Game Of Thrones-level pounding drums—courtesy of orchestrator and mix engineer Rob Carson—beating a cataclysmic opening for the record’s most expensive track. Enlisting the Western North Carolina Pagan Choir, there is a level of finality in the arrangement akin to an Elden Ring boss battle.
Despite the obstacles put in their path, Aether Realm emerges revitalized, determined, and simmering with anger while maintaining their trademark complex melodies and ferocious guitar attack.
Season of Bloodshed is available to pre-order here.
In July, Lankum’s Radie Peat released her debut solo single, a take on the Irish folk song “Still I Love Him.” Now, the Dublin musician is announcing her debut solo album No Human Tongue Can Tell. She’s sharing the new single “The Moon And Stars” today.
Def Leppard, still holding the title of Britain’s greatest arena rock band, releases Volume 4 on Nov. 13, 2026, the fourth installment in a six-volume series collecting the band’s entire recorded output. Available on 180g vinyl and limited-edition CD box sets through UMR, the set covers every studio recording from 2015 through 2023, including Def Leppard, Diamond Star Halos and Drastic Symphonies, all in their original packaging across both formats. It also rounds up a deep well of rare material handpicked by Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott, much of it hitting vinyl and CD for the first time. Mastering duties fell to Ronan McHugh at Ro’s Garage.
Each box set comes housed in a rigid case with a hardback book featuring rare photos from Ross Halfin and liner notes penned by Classic Rock‘s Paul Elliott. Def Leppard members Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Rick Allen, Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen also sat for exclusive interviews included in the set.
Elliott couldn’t hide his excitement: “At last! It’s here! Volume 4 gathers together our remaining studio albums and some very interesting bonus material. Some of the bonus bits are quite recent but there is also something that was lost in the vaults for over 33 years until earlier this year. We’re extremely excited to finally put this box set in front of you, it’s a great listen and a good read too!”
Among the rarities tucked into Volume 4 is a previously unreleased cover of The Beatles‘ “Revolution.” Pulled from the Rarities disc, the track was originally cut for a TV commercial that never used it, leaving it buried until now. You can hear it below.
With more than 110 million albums sold worldwide and two diamond certifications in the U.S., Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees Def Leppard, made up of Joe Elliott (vocals), Phil Collen (guitar), Rick Savage (bass), Vivian Campbell (guitar) and Rick Allen (drums), remains one of rock’s defining acts.
Across its catalog, the band has delivered genre-shaping records like the 14-times-platinum Hysteria and 11-times-platinum Pyromania, records that set a bar generations of artists are still chasing. Def Leppard‘s reputation as a live act has become just as core to its identity as the songs themselves. In May 2022, the band released its widely praised 12th studio album, Diamond Star Halos, which debuted at No. 1 on Apple, Amazon Music and Billboard‘s Hard Rock charts and landed a Top 10 debut on the Billboard 200, the band’s eighth career Top 10. It also scored multiple international Top 10s, including a Top 5 debut in the U.K. Def Leppard followed that up in 2023 with its 13th studio album, Drastic Symphonies, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which hit No. 4 in the U.K. (its best U.K. chart showing in more than 32 years) and spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Current Classical chart.
In 2024, the band teamed up with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello on the single “Just Like 73,” which topped the Mediabase Classic Rock chart. By year’s end, Def Leppard will have sold more than 4.5 million tickets worldwide since its 2022 stadium run with Mötley Crüe. The band has also built a social following of roughly 20 million across platforms and recently picked up a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Jon Bon Jovi doing the honors. After wrapping its 2018 co-headline North American run, Def Leppard had already moved more than 1,000,000 tickets, a number it topped again with Mötley Crüe during the 2022-2023 stadium tour, selling over 2.1 million tickets across 27 countries and five continents. Def Leppard wrapped its third sold-out Las Vegas residency in February 2026 before heading to India and Europe, including a sold-out headline show at London’s O2 Arena and a stop at the 85,000-capacity Wacken Open Air festival in Germany.
As Thomas Miller’s Lazarus Effect, the new venture from former founding Symphony X bassist Thomas Miller, prepares to release its eponymous debut through Sensory Records in October, the label presents the album’s second single, “Closer To The Sun.”
Thomas Miller started his music career in central New Jersey and played in numerous cover and original bands influenced by progressive bands from the 1970s and 1980s. In 1986, he met Michael Romeo, a local progressive and classically influenced guitarist, with whom he then recorded and played in several bands. In 1994, they formed Symphony X and recruited the rest of the band members to complete the lineup and sign with the Japanese record label Zero Records.
After international critical acclaim for their albums Symphony X, Damnation Game, The Divine Wings Of Tragedy, Twilight In Olympus, and A Prelude To The New Millennium, they did various tour dates in Japan, Europe, and NYC. Shortly afterwards, due to personal issues, Thomas stepped away from the band.
Continually writing and recording on various projects and honing his writing skills, Miller collaborated on a recording project with vocalist Hollywood How Portney in 2017, and after interactions with fans over the years and realizing his chemistry with How, he decided to start writing for a new project, which would become Thomas Miller’s Lazarus Effect. Two former Symphony X bandmates, guitarist Michael Romeo and keyboardist Michael Pinnella, would also lend their talents to the project, and Eric Rachel – producer of Symphony X’s first six albums as well as Black Sabbath, The Black Dahlia Murder, and countless others – was enlisted to mix and master the album, which was completed with art and design by Rodrigo Gudiña.
The result is an epic, forty-nine-minute progressive metal opus, inspired by majestic themes and various musical overtones. Fans of Symphony X, Dream Theater, Circus Maximus, Redemption, Kamelot, and other grand progressive metal acts should immediately check out Thomas Miller’s Lazarus Effect.
Miller delves: “‘Closer To The Sun’ takes a more progressive direction than the first single, ‘When Darkness Falls.’ This song represents the combination of mythological lyrics, Middle Eastern tonalities, and aggressive guitar and bass rhythms. I also liked the idea of acoustic guitar and violin to add another layer to the musical atmosphere, setting the storyline as a buildup to the main rhythmic themes.”
Sensory Records will release Thomas Miller’s Lazarus Effect on CD, LP, and digital platforms on October 30th. Preorders are live at the label webstore, and on Bandcamp.
If you’ve got 16 minutes, you have enough time to hear Wellness, the debut album from the New York band of the same name. Comprised of members of Liturgy, Kayo Dot, Chepang, Heavenly Blue and the critically-underheard Massa Nera, Wellness is built on a foundation of vintage mathcore and emoviolence, with expected flourishes of black metal.
Clocking in at seven songs over the course of its runtime, Wellness give their songs just enough time to expand and unfold before bringing them to a halt. The guitars are jagged and explosive, propelled by drummer Leo Didkovsky. Vocally, Aeryn Santillan gives just as much, fitting a significant number of lyrics into the album’s short runtime.
Wellness sounds like the early 2000s. There is a constant barrage of riffs that wouldn’t feel out of place within the Ferret Music, Deathwish and Ebullition catalogues, filtered through a diverse group of musicians. The album officially comes out later this week on Third House Records, but Decibel is streaming it below.
Nashville Materializer are a new group formed by brothers Chris and Conner Poole but their psych-tinged brand of chugging stoner/doom metal is captivating and effective. Their debut record, As the Body Flies, is on its way and Decibel has a preview of the album with “Unwind,” the latest single.
Stretched out over nearly eight minutes, “Unwind” coils and swirls as much as it embraces riff-first doom, recalling Queens of the Stone Age, Uncle Acid, Mastodon and Melvins all at once. Conner Poole sets the tone with his guitar playing, leaving plenty of room for the song to breathe, while Chris Poole builds and releases tension with his drumming.
“’Unwind’ serves as the mantra of As The Body Flies,” Materializer relay to Decibel. “A unique track that flirts with total dissonance and drone, while delivering some of the record’s heaviest moments.”
Speaking more generally about writing the album and making their first record as a duo, Materializer add:
“As The Body Flies is a cathartic release for us. The first record of a new project and a vulnerable look inside the years leading up to the beginning of Materializer. Putting this together has been an exciting and often puzzling experience figuring out a new writing process as a duo, and letting the songs lead the way. That process has led us to new song structures, new gear, and new sounds. We wanted to create the heaviest record we’ve been a part of while also leaning into our roots of melodic vocals, emphasizing on compression and release, chaos and serenity, and balancing the light and dark in a way that feels in harmony with the world around us.”
Wrapped up with some slick production, “Unwind” is a powerful statement of intent from the fledgling Materializer. Check it out below (along with a video made by the band) and hit their Bandcamp to hear more. As the Body Flies is out on October 2.