Ukrainian born and Europe based modern metal band NOAPOLOGY released the music video for their new single “Test Me Now” on September 9. The visual release immediately gained major traction, passing one hundred thousand views on YouTube within its first twenty four hours. The track serves as the second preview from their forthcoming studio album and delivers a cinematic modern metal sound. Driven by alternative metal weight and tightly controlled grooves, the song balances atmospheric electronic layers with the powerful rock vocals of frontwoman Daria Zaritskaya.
The music video was created entirely in house by Zaritskaya alongside guitarist and producer Sergey Sershen. The duo retained complete control over the visual language by jointly handling the shooting, editing, color grading, and final visual effects. Thematically, “Test Me Now” explores the exact moment when intense pressure stops breaking a person and instead becomes a powerful awakening. Following the massive success of their 2025 debut album Uncovered, NOAPOLOGY will soon bring their original material to stages across Europe with an eight date tour scheduled for October and November.
Dutch deathcore and hardcore quartet Everything Decays released their debut full length album Requiem II: We Will Slaughter the Lambs on September 11. Formed by musicians from established acts including Ragepyre and Cyanide Paradise, the Eindhoven based group delivers a hostile wall of sound that drags heavy aggression into new territory. Blending crushing riffs, filthy grooves, and savage vocal deliveries, the four piece unit draws heavy sonic inspiration from prominent acts like END, Machine Head, and Knocked Loose. Prior to the launch of the new record, the band celebrated with a massive hometown release show on September 6 alongside Boneripper, Man as Plague, Bloodcrypt, and Left to Love.
Thematically, Requiem II: We Will Slaughter the Lambs operates as a cohesive conceptual narrative that directly follows the story established on their previous extended play, Requiem 1: The Serial Killer’s Symphony of Liberation, Deliverance and Relief. Each track on the new album represents a specific chapter exploring a descent into the darkest corners of the human mind, where oppression breeds trauma and rage demands retribution. Lyrically, the project follows the journey of individuals stripped of their humanity who rise against their oppressors, only to realize that their violent revenge comes at the ultimate cost of their own souls. The debut album is currently available digitally and on physical compact disc.
Bimbocore pioneer SCENE QUEEN has released a heavy new single titled “METALICIOUS” featuring guest appearances from Left To Suffer. The track arrives in tandem with the launch of her brand new extended play METALICIOUS, which was released on September 11 via Hopeless Records. Described by the artist as a collision between indie sleaze club music and heavy metal, the new song conceptually captures the chaotic energy of a girls night out in a heavy metal mosh pit.
The METALICIOUS extended play finds SCENE QUEEN, also known as Hannah Collins, pushing her established sound into its heaviest territory yet while experimenting with nostalgic pop influences. Delivering her lowest vocal screams to date alongside prominent deathcore features, the new project balances heavy trauma processing with unapologetic fun. To celebrate the arrival of the new record, the vibrant artist is preparing to bring her fierce stage presence to fans across the United States on her upcoming headline tour.
At 81 years old guitar hero Robin Trower is enjoying an Indian summer, recording prolifically. Live sightings of him in the UK in the eighties and nineties were quite rare, but he’s been a regular visitor since. The last time … Continue reading →
In 2015 Prog looked back to the short-lived neo-prog era, selecting five albums from the 80s that illustrate the power, energy and lasting influence of the British second-wave movement.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. According to the official, BBC‐approved version of rock history – you know, the one featuring footage of Rick Wakeman in a wizard’s outfit and the Emerson Lake & Palmer trucks rolling down the motorway – progressive rock was consigned to the dustbin five minutes after the Sex Pistols swore on live telly. Anyone who was remotely cool immediately binned every prog album they owned, cut their hair and got with the programme. Year Zero had arrived, and nothing that went before could ever dare to show its face again.
Nonsense, of course. But all the same, by the turn of the 1980s, there had unquestionably been a seismic shift in the UK musical landscape. All of which meant, ironically, that what had been dismissed a few years previously as the bland, complacent music of the establishment was now the ultimate outsider music. In the early 80s, if you wanted to be a true rebel, you came out of the closet as a prog fan.
In many ways, it shouldn’t be surprising that a new generation of prog bands should have come to prominence at that time. It fits in with the usual decade‐long cycle that sees those people who are fans at 13 or 14 soon pick up instruments and form bands of their own, and by the time they’re in their early 20s, they’re writing their own music informed by those teenage influences.
They soon found that there were plenty of people who wanted to hear it. Unfortunately, the neo‐prog scene’s time in the spotlight was a relatively brief one. And for that we can put the blame pretty squarely at the doors of Britain’s major labels.
Pallas, Twelfth Night and IQ all signed major deals after Marillion proved that prog could still prove a commercial force to be reckoned with – but attempts by the industry to build interest in the neo‐prog scene were half‐hearted at best. As the 80s turned into the 90s, the big deals were no longer on the table, and progressive rock’s great second wave had completely lost momentum.
But in many ways, that wave gave progressive music a lift with which to build itself back up. Later on, the rise of the internet helped bands forge more effective links with its audience and sell records and gig tickets directly to fans – a process pioneered by the neo‐prog bands. The revitalising spirit they injected into the genre is still being felt.
We present Prog’s selection of the top five essential neo-prog albums.
Marillion: Script For A Jester’s Tear (EMI, 1983)
Undoubtedly the record that put the Second Wave of British Prog on the map. Long-form songwriting and ear-catching musicianship (Steve Rothery’s guitar lines and Mark Kelly’s keyboard hooks have rarely been more sublime) were shot through with a charisma and lyrical bite not seen since the prime of a certain band beginning with ‘G’ to whom Marillion were incessantly compared.
The melancholic melodramatics shot through these six compositions were repeatedly offset by Fish’s intense, angst-ridden vocals, touching on heartbreak, heroin addiction, urban isolation and the troubles in Northern Ireland en route.
Pallas: The Sentinel (Harvest, 1984)
The Aberdeen outfit’s initial intention to make a concept album out of their Atlantis Suite song cycle was scuppered by their label switching the running order and including more commercial tunes. Yet this is still a fine record, even if the central conceptual narrative is somewhat disjointed by the rearranged tracklisting.
The driving synth-rock of Arrive Alive (Eyes In The Night) grabs your lapels with its instant hook and jumpy tempo, then Cut And Run and Shock Treatment reinforce the dystopian sci-fi theme with some gusto. But more lasting pleasures can be found in the sweeping symphonic pomp of final track Atlantis.
Pendragon: The Jewel (Elusive, 1985)
Neo-prog had gone fully overground by the time Pendragon released their first full-length album. The upbeat prog-pop of Higher Circles that opens the set reflects the distinctly radio-friendly style it was now adopting, but the plot thickens considerably on the trippy, windswept Alaska and the staccato rhythms of Circus.
Yet throughout, the stirring, heart-on-sleeve romanticism that has characterised their best work since this album is already high in the mix, courtesy of Nick Barrett’s distinctly English, folk-influenced vocals, the Moog-heavy melody patterns and piercing guitar excursions.
IQ: The Wake (GEP, 1985)
The Southampton neo-prog survivors’ second album is widely regarded as their defining early statement, and the 1985 long-player manages to marry a distinctive, soaring synth sound with a punky, agitated tempo and some seriously dizzying time signatures.
Peter Nicholls’ fragile, uneasy vocal has a drowning-not-waving quality to it that’s strangely magnetic, even if his years listening to Peter Gabriel have obviously rubbed off heavily. What really stands out, all these years later, is the sheer strength of the melodies – something that has helped IQ endure as a band to this day.
From the eerie, childlike singing that fills the opening bars of We Are Sane, it’s clear that this first studio album release from the neo-prog pack was taking a distinctly different tack to the Tolkien-esque textures associated with the original prog movement. The use of samples on that track and This City add spooky atmospherics to the sonic stew, and there are strong hints of Peter Hammill in Geoff Mann’s malevolent, theatrical vocals.
Mann would leave the band soon afterwards, and the group would pursue a broader, more accessible style on subsequent albums. But as a startling statement of how the new breed could shake up a supposedly moribund genre, this takes some beating.
Levi Benton and Jerod Boyd have been there since 2007. Nineteen years, two constants, and a band that survived the scene it came from. Their eighth album, No Place For Me, arrives October 2 on Solid State, their first for the label, and Levi Benton has described it as everything he’s felt for a long time but never had the words for. This week he joins Scott Penfold to talk about it. Also on the episode: Autumn Kings’ Jake Diab, whose first label album lands in the middle of a tour with Black Veil Brides. Listen below.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE NOW:
Levi Benton on the album that taught him who he is, five singles from a ten-track record, and nineteen years without a lineup change — plus Autumn Kings’ Jake Diab on what release day looks like from the back of a van. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play, or hit play above.
Miss May I: nineteen years, five people, no drama
Start with the thing that shouldn’t be remarkable and is.
Miss May I formed in Troy, Ohio in 2007 and became one of the defining bands of the American metalcore wave that followed. Apologies Are for the Weak in 2009, Monument, At Heart, Rise of the Lion, Deathless, Shadows Inside, and Curse of Existence in 2022.
The current lineup is Levi Benton on vocals, Jerod Boyd on drums, Ryan Neff on bass and clean vocals, and Elisha Mullins on guitar.
In a scene that has spent the last two decades chewing through vocalists and staging reunions, that kind of continuity is genuinely rare. Ask around the bands they came up with and most of them have a different singer, a hiatus, or a lawsuit somewhere in the story.
Neff has also been quietly useful elsewhere — he stepped in to cover touring duties for Polaris earlier this year, which is the sort of thing that only happens when other bands trust you.
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No Place For Me, and what Benton has said about it
The eighth Miss May I album arrives October 2 via Solid State Records. It’s their first for the label and their first full-length since 2022.
Ten tracks: “Sanctuary,” “Portrait of Pain,” “Hand Me A Halo,” “Pray for Silence,” “Death Threat,” “Die on the Vine,” “Fire Falls,” “Bury Me Down,” “Ashes Of The Altar” and “Highbrow Thieves.”
Benton’s own framing of the record is unusually direct. He’s described No Place For Me as everything he’s felt for a long time but never had the words for, and said that writing it taught him who he actually is — even when that hurt to look at.
That’s not press-release language. That’s a man describing something that cost him.
Half the album is already out
Here’s the thing nobody has asked him about.
Five of the ten tracks have already been released — “Sanctuary,” “Pray For Silence,” “Hand Me A Halo,” “Die On The Vine” and “Death Threat.” That’s half a record in public before release day.
For a band nineteen years in, on a new label, that’s a deliberate choice rather than an accident of scheduling. Whether it’s a Solid State strategy, a confidence play, or a response to how people actually consume records now, it’s a decision worth understanding — and it’s the one part of this campaign nobody in the press has picked up.
“Death Threat” and the video they made themselves
The most recent single is also the most revealing.
Benton has described “Death Threat” as being about being held in an emotional chokehold while someone uses your own flaws against you — and added that our darker habits deserve to be seen and worked through, not weaponised.
The video was made entirely in-house. Benton came up with the concept, William Story produced and directed, and the whole thing was shot at the band members’ own properties using whatever they could get hold of.
Nineteen years in, on a new label, with a budget presumably available — and they went and filmed it in each other’s back gardens.
Miss May I co-headline with Born of Osiris through November and December, with Convictions and Downswing supporting.
It’s a strong pairing — two bands who came out of the same era and went in different technical directions, sharing a bill at the point where both catalogues are deep enough to build a set from. If you’re planning the rest of the year, our touring guide has the wider picture.
Autumn Kings: releasing an album from the back of a van
Also on this week’s episode, and worth your time.
Autumn Kings release Epiphanies on September 18 via Hopeless Records — their first album on a label after nine years of doing everything themselves.
The band formed in LaSalle, Ontario in 2015 and have since relocated to Detroit. Jake Diab and Joseph Coccimiglio met working at a grocery store. Eleven years later they have close to a hundred million streams, a Hopeless deal signed in August 2024, and three songs that charted before the album they’re on even existed.
That last part is the interesting problem. “Sleep When I’m Dead” reached 16 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. “Hellbound” hit 18. And “Gone, Gone, Gone” went to 6 — their biggest to date. Sequencing a debut label album around three songs the audience already knows is a genuinely awkward job, and one most bands don’t face.
The record also features Howard Jones, formerly of Killswitch Engage, on “yOunG BLoOds.” The band described the song as being about the sentiment of revolution simmering across the world and about being unafraid to call out injustice — and called Jones one of the greatest heavy metal vocalists to ever live, which is quite a thing to say about someone you’ve just emailed a song to.
And then there’s the timing. Autumn Kings are on tour with Black Veil Brides from September 16, and the Nashville show at Brooklyn Bowl on September 18 falls on release day. Their first label album comes out while they’re loading in.
Epiphanies tracklist
Sleep When I’m Dead · Hellbound · Young Bloods (feat. Howard Jones) · Only Human · Time · Snake Charmer · Become Numb · Tongue Tied · Help Myself · Gone, Gone, Gone · Fell for a Devil
Two bands, two very different clocks
Worth noting what these two conversations have in common, because it isn’t obvious.
Miss May I are nineteen years in with the same five people, moving to a new label for the first time in years, making a record their singer says taught him who he is.
Autumn Kings are eleven years in from a grocery store job, releasing their first label album in the middle of someone else’s tour.
One band has everything to lose and is making the most personal thing they’ve done. The other has everything to gain and is doing it from a van.
This week’s Loaded Radio Podcast: Levi Benton of Miss May I, plus Jake Diab of Autumn Kings.
Miss May I’s eighth album, No Place For Me, arrives October 2 via Solid State Records — their first for the label and first full-length since 2022’s Curse of Existence.
Five of the ten tracks are already out: “Sanctuary,” “Pray For Silence,” “Hand Me A Halo,” “Die On The Vine” and “Death Threat.”
Benton on the record: it’s everything he’s felt for a long time but never had the words for, and writing it taught him who he actually is even when that hurt to look at.
The “Death Threat” video was made entirely in-house, from a Benton concept, shot at the band members’ own properties.
Miss May I co-headline the Perpetual Iron tour with Born of Osiris in November and December, with Convictions and Downswing.
Autumn Kings release Epiphanies on September 18 via Hopeless — their first label album after nine years independent, featuring Howard Jones on “yOunG BLoOds.” Release day falls on their Nashville date with Black Veil Brides.
FAQ
When is Miss May I’s new album released?
No Place For Me, the band’s eighth studio album, arrives October 2, 2026 via Solid State Records. It is their first release for the label and their first full-length since 2022’s Curse of Existence.
Who is in Miss May I?
Levi Benton on vocals, Jerod Boyd on drums, Ryan Neff on bass and clean vocals, and Elisha Mullins on guitar. The band formed in Troy, Ohio in 2007.
What songs are on No Place For Me?
Ten tracks: “Sanctuary,” “Portrait of Pain,” “Hand Me A Halo,” “Pray for Silence,” “Death Threat,” “Die on the Vine,” “Fire Falls,” “Bury Me Down,” “Ashes Of The Altar” and “Highbrow Thieves.” Five have already been released as singles.
When is Autumn Kings’ album Epiphanies out?
September 18, 2026 via Hopeless Records. It is the band’s first album on a label, following nine years as an independent act, and features Howard Jones of Light the Torch and formerly Killswitch Engage on the track “yOunG BLoOds.”
Where can I listen to the full interview?
The complete episode is embedded above and available on The Loaded Radio Podcast feed via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, TuneIn and all major platforms.
Nineteen years and the same five people, against eleven years from a grocery store job — two very different bands, one episode. Listen above, and subscribe to The Loaded Radio Podcast for new episodes every week. Keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
The mighty NEUROSIS continues to book new live performances in support of their mammoth An Undying Love For A Burning World LP, today announcing tour dates through the end of the year and into 2027.
Following the already announced San Francisco shows on October 16th and 17th, NEUROSIS has just announced two shows in Brooklyn on October 30th and 31st, two Chicago shows on November 21st and 22nd, two Portland shows on November 27th and 28th, a Seattle show November 29th, a set at Converge’s Saddest Day in Boston on December 12th, and a Los Angeles performance on January 2nd. They will also make their return to play two sets at Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands in April of 2027.
General ticket sales for the new shows begin this Friday, September 11th at 10am local time. Both San Francisco shows are sold out. Expect to see more NEUROSIS live announcements over the coming months.
photos by Bobby Cochran
NEUROSIS Tour Dates: 10/16/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA w/ Terry Gross [SOLD OUT] 10/17/2026 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA w/ Kowloon Walled City [SOLD OUT] 10/30/2026 Warsaw – Brooklyn, NY w/ Uniform 10/31/2026 Warsaw – Brooklyn, NY w/ Primitive Man 11/21/2026 Metro – Chicago, IL w/ Mr. Phylzzz 11/22/2026 Metro – Chicago, IL w/ Primitive Man 11/27/2026 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR w/ special guests TBA, Great Falls 11/28/2026 Revolution Hall – Portland, OR w/ special guests TBA, Trigger Object 11/29/2026 Showbox SODO – Seattle, WA w/ special guests TBA, Great Falls 12/12/2026 Converge’s Saddest Day @ Roadrunner – Boston, MA w/ Converge, Coalesce, more 1/02/2027 The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA w/ Special Guests TBA 4/17/2027 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL w/ Emma Ruth Rundle, more
The return of NEUROSIS and surprise release of their first new album in a decade, An Undying Love For A Burning World, tore a hole in the sky in March of this year. The album immediately became fan favorite in the band’s groundbreaking discography, heralded as one of the year’s best immediately upon its release.
An Undying Love For A Burning World was recorded by Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, Great Falls) at Studio Litho in Seattle over three weekends this Winter and mixed in three days, just six weeks before release at Evans’ Antisleep Audio in Oakland.
Watch the FIREKEEPER ALLIANCE x NEUROSIS short film featuring the songs “We Are Torn Wide Open” and “Mirror Deep” HERE and stream the album HERE.
An Undying Love For A Burning World is available on LP in an array of variants, CD, cassette, and digital/streaming via the band’s own Neurot Recordings HERE.
In wake of their forthcoming LP release Beyond Spacetime, prog/power metal ensemble Signum Regis offer in listening a new track “Time To Pay” featuring guest vocalist Tim Ripper Owens. Read more…
New York hardcore veterans Murphy’s Law will be heading out to Europe this fall for a headlining tour, celebrating the 40th anniversary of their self-titled debut album. London, UK based Clobber will be joining them on select dates. Read more…
Frontier Touring is thrilled to announce that Australia’s own Empire of the Sun, one of the country’s most visionary music projects, will bring the Ask That God: Afterlife Tour to Australia and New Zealand in February and March 2027. The six-date run will be the band’s largest tour of the region to date. When Australian […]
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Frontier Touring is thrilled to announce that Australia’s own Empire of the Sun, one of the country’s most visionary music projects, will bring the Ask That God: Afterlife Tour to Australia and New Zealand in February and March 2027. The six-date run will be the band’s largest tour of the region to date. When Australian […]