(Here is Daniel Barkasi’s extensive report on the second day of Fortress Festival 2026 in England, accompanied by his great own photos. Go here to see his article on Day One of the festival.) Sunday, Day 2 Intro Survive the first day, we did. To say that we were raring to go for day two, […]
The post FORTRESS FESTIVAL 2026 – MAY 30-31, SCARBOROUGH, NORTH YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND – DAY 2 appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.
Finnish industrial metalcore band Without Warning has released a new single and accompanying music video for “BREED,” featuring guest vocals by Chris Harms of Lord Of The Lost. The track leans into a heavy, aggressive sound built on mechanical textures and chaotic sections, contrasting the band’s harsh instrumentation with the clean singing and raw screams provided by Harms. Thematically, the song explores concepts of human instinct and primal aggression.
Operating out of Finland, the group blends modern metalcore with dark electronic and industrial elements. Fronted by vocalist Michaela Tuomenoksa, Without Warning builds their specific style by combining heavy rhythmic foundations with atmospheric, mechanical undertones to create a dark cinematic environment.
“BREED” serves as the final preview of the band’s upcoming debut full-length album, which is scheduled for release later this year. The forthcoming record will continue to expand upon the group’s conceptual narratives surrounding technology, power, and human contradiction. The new single and its music video are currently available to stream across all major digital platforms.
The post Without Warning Releases “BREED” Single and Music Video Featuring Chris Harms first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.
While Morrissey is still popular enough to headline festivals in America, his career suffered in the past few years, largely thanks to evidence of his fucked-up political ties, such as the time that he wore a button supporting the right-wing extremist group For Britain while performing on The Tonight Show in 2019. Last year, though, Morrissey claimed that he was the victim of a “decades-long campaign of fraud, disinformation, and defamation” that aimed to tie him to far-right politics. Now, Morrissey claims that he has identified nine people who have posed as him online, including one with ties to one of Morrissey’s former bandmates in the Smiths.
The post Morrissey Says Political Activists Have Been Posing As Him Online, Including One Linked To Former Smiths Bandmate appeared first on Stereogum.
Which translates to mother.
The post Black Spikes Launch “MOTINA” Music Video appeared first on Theprp.com.
Greetings, Decibel readers!
This week’s new releases bring a lot of though-provoking songs to the weekend. In particular, there’s two masters of weaving doom into their styles and creating remarkable and memorable sonic passages. There’s also the latest from a 2000s mathcore heavyweight and one of the best melodic black metal bands in the game. But if you want something with no frills and all kills, scroll to the bottom.
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It feels odd to characterize Fires in the Distance as simply a “melodic death metal band” or an “extreme doom metal band,” as the CT-based powerhouse is so much more than that. Although the band’s sound bears notable echoes of Draconian-style melancholy, Amorphis-style exploration, and the gloomy determination of early Katatonia and Empyrium, they’ve taken all of this in to construct something truly their own. Circadian Promise embodies a true sense of possibility for metal like this — epic and cinematic, but never overblown or self-indulgent. The blending of harsh and clean vocals follows the natural profile of each song, the sweep picking hits at just the right moments, and the songs build and descend in a way that gives the listener a feeling of being on a long and introspective voyage. I suggest we follow Fires in the Distance and see where they might take us next.
Stream: Apple Music
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Imagine if Trent Reznor or Al Jorgensen got really into mathcore, and you’d have a pretty good idea of what this album sounds like. Genghis Tron‘s latest shows the band, characteristically, going off in many directions, from post-punk to industrial and many other odd places in-between. But one constant is the engaging songwriting and strong riff work. And don’t worry, the band still rages out on songs like “Born Prey.”
Stream: Apple Music
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One of the masters of modern doom-laden heavy metal, Khemmis will always be a giant Decibel favorite. And to be honest, I might like this album the most out of anything I’ve heard from the band. The songwriting, especially the vocal melodies and swirling guitars, just pops off on this self-titled triumph.
Stream: Apple Music
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I wonder if any of the guys from Stormkeep ever have nightmares where they’re about to play a gig and then, to their horror, realize they accidentally packed the Wayfarer frontier gear instead. Anyway, I’m a giant fan of this project and am glad we get another righteous offering of mid-90s blue-cover black metal (and much else besides) to enjoy for all time.
Stream: Apple Music
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But nevermind all that. Maybe you just want to listen to some death metal. Here is some really good, HM-2-style death metal straight from the crypts. Yes, this style has been done to pieces many times over, but there’s a good reason it keeps reassembling and reanimating itself. All the proof you need is in these four tracks.
The post Five For Friday: June 12, 2026 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
Modern culture often treats sadness as a condition that must be corrected immediately. Yet Gothic literature, noir cinema, melancholic music, and dark aesthetics continue attracting millions of people precisely because they create emotional spaces where grief, loneliness, memory, and introspection can exist without apology.
The attraction to darkness is not necessarily a fascination with suffering itself. In many cases, people connect with melancholic art because it feels emotionally honest. Gothic atmosphere, noir imagery, and reflective music acknowledge emotional complexity instead of simplifying human experience into permanent optimism.
Gothic woman in candlelight surrounded by books, skulls, and moonlit darkness representing melancholy and emotional introspection.
Across literature, music, fashion, and cinema, darkness frequently becomes a symbolic language for emotional depth. Shadows, candlelight, silence, rain, ruins, nocturnal streets, and melancholic melodies externalize internal psychological states that are otherwise difficult to describe directly.
Rather than encouraging emotional collapse, dark aesthetics often transform painful emotions into structured artistic experiences that feel understandable, controlled, and meaningful.
One reason melancholic art resonates so deeply is because sadness often feels psychologically truthful. Human life contains grief, uncertainty, mortality, regret, loneliness, and emotional contradiction. Gothic literature and noir storytelling acknowledge those realities openly instead of hiding them behind constant reassurance.
Edgar Allan Poe understood this tension with unusual precision. In The Raven, mourning becomes an obsessive psychological rhythm rather than a simple narrative about loss. The repetition of “Nevermore” traps the narrator inside unresolved grief, transforming emotional suffering into atmosphere itself. Similarly, Annabel Lee treats memory and mourning as inseparable emotional forces that survive beyond death.
Poe’s work continues resonating because readers often recognize emotional states inside his stories that ordinary social language struggles to articulate clearly.
Psychologists studying “aesthetic sadness” have repeatedly observed that people often experience melancholic art differently from real-life suffering. Research by scholars such as Winfried Menninghaus and his collaborators explored why sadness inside music, literature, and cinema can produce emotional pleasure rather than distress. Their work suggests that artistic melancholy creates psychological distance, allowing difficult emotions to be explored safely within aesthetic structure.
Atmosphere plays a major role in this process. Dim lighting, candlelight, rain, silence, reverberation, and slow musical pacing encourage introspection by reducing sensory overload. Dark aesthetics frequently slow emotional perception itself. Instead of overwhelming attention through speed and stimulation, Gothic atmosphere encourages reflection and emotional immersion.
Darkwave and Gothic music demonstrate this effect clearly. Bands such as Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, Clan of Xymox, and The Sisters of Mercy relied heavily on repetition, spacious production, restrained vocals, drum-machine rhythms, and reverberating guitar textures. These sonic environments sustain emotional tension gradually instead of forcing immediate catharsis.
Songs like Bela Lugosi’s Dead or Marian feel immersive because they create psychological space rather than emotional resolution. Silence, repetition, and atmosphere become part of the emotional architecture itself.
Across Gothic art, beauty rarely exists independently from fragility, decay, mortality, or longing. Candlelight becomes visually powerful because darkness surrounds it. Ruins feel emotionally beautiful because they preserve traces of vanished lives. Melancholy intensifies emotional perception rather than diminishing it.
This relationship between sadness and beauty appears repeatedly throughout Romanticism, Symbolism, Gothic literature, and noir cinema. Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe rejected the idea that art should function primarily as moral reassurance. Both writers treated emotional contradiction as aesthetically meaningful.
Modern Gothic fashion operates similarly. Black clothing, Victorian silhouettes, lace, silver jewelry, pale makeup, and nocturnal imagery function as emotional symbolism rather than decoration alone. Clothing becomes atmosphere made visible.
Dark aesthetics also create emotional permission for solitude. Contemporary culture often associates silence and isolation with social failure. Gothic culture frequently reverses that idea entirely by treating solitude as reflective rather than shameful.
Noir cinema visualizes this psychology constantly. Characters drift through rain-soaked streets, dim apartments, empty diners, abandoned train stations, and late-night city landscapes that mirror emotional interiority. These environments communicate loneliness visually without reducing it to weakness.
Many people experience such imagery as calming because darkness reduces social performance. Silence softens overstimulation. Shadows create privacy. Atmospheric spaces allow emotional complexity to exist without immediate judgment or explanation.
This emotional relationship helps explain why candlelit rooms, rainy weather, nighttime walks, abandoned architecture, cemeteries, and melancholic music often feel emotionally comforting instead of frightening.
Modern life frequently rewards emotional speed, productivity, visibility, and constant stimulation. Gothic culture moves in the opposite direction by valuing ambiguity, introspection, atmosphere, symbolism, and psychological depth.
Dark aesthetics continue surviving across generations because they provide emotional language for experiences that mainstream culture often simplifies or suppresses entirely. Gothic literature, noir cinema, melancholic music, and atmospheric fashion all create symbolic spaces where grief, desire, alienation, beauty, memory, and mortality can coexist without contradiction.
Beautiful darkness does not celebrate suffering itself. Instead, it transforms difficult emotional states into artistic experiences that feel recognizable, reflective, and emotionally meaningful.
Explore Edgar Allan Poe apparel, Gothic aesthetics, noir-inspired fashion, and psychological darkness inside the official Edgar Allan Poets Noir Store.
Explore Gothic music, cinematic tension, melancholic atmosphere, and emotional darkness through the official Edgar Allan Poets playlist.
Melancholic art often feels emotionally honest because it allows grief, reflection, loneliness, memory, and emotional complexity to exist without forced positivity or immediate resolution.
Aesthetic sadness refers to the emotional experience of enjoying sadness within artistic environments such as music, literature, cinema, or visual art where difficult emotions can be explored safely through symbolic structure.
Gothic culture explores mortality, beauty, memory, isolation, emotional contradiction, and psychological depth through atmosphere and symbolism that many people find emotionally recognizable.
Dark aesthetics can encourage emotional reflection by creating calm, introspective environments that reduce overstimulation and allow difficult emotions to be processed symbolically through art and atmosphere.
The post The Psychology of Beautiful Darkness: Why We Find Comfort in Melancholy appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.
U.S. black metal torchbearers Hulder return with their third full-length statement Verbolgen and Decibel is proud to offer our own exclusive edition on Hardwood color vinyl limited to just 100 copies courtesy of our dear friends at 20 Buck Spin.
Over the course of three albums, Hulder has evolved from the vision of a solitary black metal entity into something more expansive and collaborative, though still guided by the strident vision of its creator and namesake. On Verbolgen long-time session member Necreon steps forward to join Hulder as full-fledged co-conspirator, amplifying the duos sweeping solemnity. Joined on session drums by both Vapula (the band’s live drummer) and Vrolok of the legendary Aeternus as well as live second guitar player Keld (Majesties, Obsequiae), who here contributes additional leads, keys and hurdy gurdy, the Hulder universe widens its collaborative disposition to a new creative level.
Mixed by Ahti Kortelainen at Tico Tico Studio in Finland, Verbolgen also features cover art created by Morrigan of Aeternus, her first cover work since contributing art for the earliest Aeternus LPs nearly 30 years ago. The result is a towering and immersive work that cements Verbolgen as the most potent and immersive expression of Hulder’s artistic vision to date.
Answer the call of the ancestral fires and forest spirits and pre-order Verbolgen now!
The post ONLY 100 AVAILABLE! Pre-Order HULDER’s New Album ‘Verbolgen’ on Decibel-Exclusive Hardwood Color Vinyl! appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
Featuring live performances of each track from the record.
The post Staind To Release “Break The Cycle (25th Anniversary Live)” In August, Stream “It’s Been Awhile” Live Video appeared first on Theprp.com.
Following the success of their critically acclaimed, JUNO Award-nominated self-titled album, The Damn Truth are thrilled to be joining the Frontiers Music family as the label prepares the worldwide release of ‘The Damn Truth Deluxe Edition‘ with bonus track on September 11th, 2026. Pre-order the album – here. To celebrate the announcement, the band will […]
The post The Damn Truth Sign With Frontiers Music SRL & Announce Deluxe Edition Of Self-Titled Album appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.