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Absolute Elsewhere dominated the voting ballots for our favorite death metal albums of the decade. However, it proved polarizing, with one writer saying, “I’d be down to contribute, only problem is if we get writer consensus and it’s a bunch of lame shit like Blood Incantation or whatever, I probably won’t be that stoked to write blurbs.” Beefs and hilarity ensued in the email chain. Enough so that those who derided Absolute Elsewhere passionately did so, and it would’ve been immoral not to platform their thoughts, since we are a democratic workers co-op, and all dissenting opinions of this magnitude are welcome, even those from our loyal intern Joel Madden.

Seeing as how Absolute Elsewhere was a lightning rod for heated takes, we decided to showcase our arguments for and against it being crowned our favorite death metal album of the decade thus far, albeit begrudgingly.

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Blood Incantation went all the way with Absolute Elsewhere. “The Stargate” and “The Message” each run for about twenty minutes, giving the band room to move through death metal, ’70s prog and electronic music. Blast beats and guttural vocals can suddenly drop away for Mellotron, clean guitar or a long stretch of synthesizers, only for the heaviness to come rushing back.

The guitar work is a huge part of the album’s character. Dense, dissonant riffs sit alongside melodic solos that sometimes feel almost weightless by comparison. Morris Kolontyrsky’s David Gilmour-inspired lead early in “The Stargate” is a great example, bringing a completely different texture into the song before the death metal takes over again. Later, Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning appears on synths, taking the song even further into the ’70s electronic experimentation that runs through the album.

There’s a real sense of freedom and adventure to Absolute Elsewhere. It’s a wonderfully bizarre and highly ambitious record made up of two enormous songs, and it became one of the most acclaimed metal albums of 2024, reaching an audience far beyond death metal. TIME even ranked Absolute Elsewhere the seventh-best album of the year. Blood Incantation’s roots in death metal run through the entire record, but they’re just as invested in seeing how far they can stretch its boundaries. The prog passages have room to develop, the solos are memorable in their own right, and the heavier sections retain their aggression. It’s an album that keeps changing as you listen, with each new direction feeling like a natural part of the record. This record is a reminder of what can happen when musicians are willing to take real risks and see where their ideas take them.

–Lily O’Delia

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The fact that Absolute Elsewhere didn’t make a strong impression on me is its own sort of condemnation. Blood Incantation’s discography is full of stunning proggy moments. When I hear those sliding, melodic basslines on “Subterranean Aeon,” or the psychedelic reverb-heavy exhalations throughout the bridge of “Hidden Species,” or the huge gong hit (no pun intended) and subsequent clean guitar on “The Giza Power Plant,” I can’t help but grin with that same vaguely conspiratorial glee that I experienced when I used to pore over those Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown books. By contrast, much of Absolute Elsewhere went in one ear and out the other, and the parts that did stand out were jarring genre shifts where the seams between death metal and prog rock weren’t just glaringly obvious–they were of entirely different colors.

I remember precisely two passages on the album after multiple listens. At the two-minute marks on both “The Stargate [Tablet I]” and “The Message [Tablet III],” there are incredibly awkward transitions–or lack thereof–from cleaned-up versions of Blood Incantation’s trademark spacefaring death metal and extended prog sections that feel like entirely different songs from an entirely different band. As mentioned above, Blood Incantation typically punctuates these inflection points with some kind of percussion or perhaps a melodic throughline. Here, we have nothing of the sort, just Dragon Ball instant-transmissions to other, less interesting realms. This incongruity only becomes more pronounced as each movement continues exploring the, erm, far side of Earth’s largest natural satellite, if you catch my drift. When the songs eventually slam back into death metal mode with emphatic OUGHs, I can’t help but wonder what these prog-first excursions contributed to either the journey or the destination.

Some of you fellow prog fans might argue that the genre has always been full of awkward segues. Do I also nitpick those weird double-time bursts of hard rock on Rush’s “Xanadu” or that bizarre funk that bubbles around Robert Fripp’s spiderlike fretboard maneuvers on “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic Pt. 1,” or…[gestures in the direction of Gentle Giant’s discography]? Occasionally, yes. However, I would argue that those moments are as memorable on their own as the musical leaps that precede and succeed them, and that is precisely where Absolute Elsewhere falls short.

–Alex Chan

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Absolute Elsewhere may not be best understood as a death metal record, although the fact that it came from death metal feels critical to its expansiveness and insistence on driving towards its aims; lots of extreme metal wants to get cosmic, but only death metal wants to open a university about it. In presenting itself as one text, two songs, and six “tablets” all at once, the record invites an approach that processes how its treasures are nested within each other, to be read in various combinations, zoomed-in and zoomed-out on. Blood Incantation’s familiar, titanic death metal becomes a sort of slipstream via which portals containing very different song modes can be entered, absorbed, and maybe reintegrated back into the whole, your close listen becoming a process the same story is received by very different means. I could expand on those portals—there’s the Floydian chants that arise in “The Stargate” and orbit back around in “The Message,” the peak indie cloud-breaking of the opening passage of “The Message,” the part where they visit the Tangerine Dream plane, literally— but at the risk of calling this record a campaign setting, the only way to understand it is to get involved. Absolute Elsewhere is stately, powerful, and gloriously, fundamentally progressive. Metal might be the only genre where it can be a problem if you’re too good to go unnoticed by all but the first ten rows; just ask Deafheaven, or more recently Agriculture. Don’t let a bunch of noise at the gates stop you from passing through. Inside, it’s all music. 

–Josh Rioux

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What made me appreciate Blood Incantation’s demo and Starspawn so much when it first came out was how the band would play with progressive ideas while still delivering crushing death metal songs. It sounded like they knew what they were doing and had a competent grasp on music theory without feeling like they got high on the smell of their own farts. Then, Hidden Histories came out. Something felt off to me. I couldn’t place it at first, but after a while I realized that the album was implying grandiose ideas without ever paying them off. After a year of seeing Histories praised to no end in every publication, I wrote the band off as something that wasn’t for me anymore. With the release of the ambient Timewave Zero (a release I, in fact, did enjoy), it became apparent that Blood Incantation wasn’t a death metal band, but merely a band using death metal as a conduit to express their “artistry.” By the time Absolute Elsewhere came out, I was over it. It feels like the band is talking down to you because you “just don’t get it, man,” but with the same patronizing demeanor of a college kid who decided to get REALLY into the Criterion Collection and weed. The big problem is that nothing after Starspawn makes me feel anything. It’s empty. 

There was a time in my life when I would have called Blood Incantation one of my favorite modern death metal bands. This was also a time in my life when Tomb Mold wasn’t getting called posers for wearing PlayStation shirts on magazine covers and we had no idea that Sanguisugabogg was going to turn into one of the worst things to happen to modern metal (I miss when they only had that demo about taking a piss or whatever). Unfortunately, that time has passed; I’m no longer the same whippersnapper I was back then in my early ‘20s, when I could down an entire 24-pack of shitty beer in one night and then show up to my shift the next morning half-drunk and KILL it. What I’m trying to say is that things change; sometimes you wake up and realize you do, in fact, get hangovers, and sometimes you hit play on an album and realize that a band you thought was cool are actually dorks.  I don’t care about your college thesis; I just want to hear some riffs. 

–Caylen Darling

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I can accept, admittedly, the argument that Absolute Elsewhere is not best described singularly as a death metal album; its balance is certainly a progressive rock album that subsumes progressive and extreme metal elements rather than the other way around. But where for, say, Ne Obliviscaris you can utterly bypass the extreme metal and still have the core of their sound, that isn’t the case on Absolute Elsewhere. Blood Incantation’s lineage as a death metal band is what wields the progressive rock, with it being used in the places a typical death metal band, especially a proggy one, would have mellower sections for heightened contrast. Opeth, a band that was producing predominantly progressive rock records as far back as Still Life, doesn’t have their work of that early era facing this same debate, even if it would perhaps better reframe their later work. This sonic expansion was always on the docket; their demo clearly signals toward the “Vitrification of Blood” 20-minute suite of their debut, which in turn signals toward the inverted 2112 album structure of Hidden History of the Human Race and its similarly monumental Side B suite. Absolute Elsewhere does not represent a pivot of the band from death metal. It is the completion of their vision of death metal that happens to contain these other elements as fundamental pillars.

–Langdon Hickman

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Absolute Elsewhere is a stapled-together construction of progressive rock and death metal that is so derivative of its influences that it deifies them. I love it, but I have to as it is rather than as a death metal album because approaching it as the latter disappoints. “The Stargate [Tablet I]” pivots away from its voracious opening too quickly and suddenly to fully satisfy one’s bloodlust, a problem that doesn’t exist when the record is taken as a transient being but becomes apparent when considered as a death metal album. It inserts death metal snippets where there should be songs. While the cosmic logic dictating the album allows for this and asks you to rethink the purpose of transitions and cohesion, the groove and harmonious disharmony of death metal is neutered by it. 

Death metal doesn’t congeal with its surroundings on Absolute Elsewhere. It sparks against them. Which is not inherently bad, and once again, what I enjoy about the album, but it does nothing to advance the death metal itself. On Starspawn, Blood Incantation turned their ambition into the genre and explored it. Comparatively, on Absolute Elsewhere, their death metal feels inert, as if they put it on hold to expand their parameters. The metallic core remains unchanged since Starspawn. It feels wrong to call an album that’s only half death metal–that death metal being in suspension since 2016–“the best death metal album of the decade.”

Absolute Elsewhere doesn’t mine the carcass dry like Blood Incantation did before on “Viltrification of Blood (Part 1),” but sucks the blood like a mosquito before flying to a new host. The death metal here represents only the easy parts of the genre; what should be elementary in Blood Incantation’s book. And, for a band as good at writing both caveman death metal and death metal that explores the genre’s inner workings, it’s disappointing that Blood Incantation do plunge deeper. Absolute Elsewhere misses the connective tissues, song structures, and other intangibles that separate a token death metal band from one you listen to after leaving the venue. To reiterate, that was the intention with Absolute Elsewhere, and the album benefits from this when it’s taken as being “music with death metal in it,” but when looked at as the death metal album of the 2020s, is it not too much to ask for the death metal to be more than a carousel?

–Colin Dempsey

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Whereas our favorite black metal albums of the 2020s ranged from single-digit-listener Bandcamp releases to major-label records, staff voting for our collective favorite death metal records of the decade reached a strong consensus. There are seemingly more agreed-upon takes for death metal, at least among devotees. Perhaps it’s because the genre nurtures the stubborn as handsomely as it does the visionaries. It aims and accomplishes what it’s always set out to do, yet is unafraid of ambition or tweaking itself to the chagrin of ne’er-do-wells.

It’s then ironic how many large death metal bands didn’t make the cut on many, if any, of our ballots. Legends like Cannibal Corpse may have received a single vote despite still making good records. Modern acts, including 200 Stab Wounds, Fulci, Gatecreeper, Necrot, Hath, and even Undeath earned piecemeal praise, and don’t even get me started on the lack of attention Sanguisugabogg got (thankfully). In most cases, this speaks to how stiff the competition has been for death metal in the 2020s, which exists in a post-OSDM revival, post-cavernous, post-Maggot Stomp overstimulation timeline. It’s not that death metal is in a new era per se, just that in 2026, the waves that marked the late 2010s and early 2020s have crested. The playing field is more even. Tastes have returned to the tabula rasa–death metal that’s good.

To summarize what death metal has been in the 2020s would be as large of a misnomer as it would’ve been to encapsulate its 2000s or, hell, 1990s stage. Based on our picks, the genre is weird, varied, and forward-thinking, while remaining strongly devoted to its founding ideals.

–Colin Dempsey

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Heilung is waking up. More than a year has passed since the world-famous ritual collective’s last performance. Now, after a period of rest, they are officially ending their hiatus. This October, Heilung will return to Lava Studios to begin work on their highly anticipated fourth full-length studio album.

“When Heilung creates its magic, we do so by fully immersing ourselves in our bubble by closing the doors to the noise of the outside world, which these days, between automation and conflict, seems louder than just a few years ago”, Heilung says.

“In German, Heilung means healing. It speaks to one of the core intentions for our project: to heal. Because healing is needed and has always been needed”, they continue. “The path the band has taken, and will remain committed to, is deeply rooted in history, spirituality, and art. It will not be influenced by any modern ideology, trend, or form of automation.

“Heilung lives between all this. It lives in the imperfections between the perfect. It lives in the grass and, sometimes, the thorns beneath our bare feet. It lives in laughter, crying, love, and fear.

Everywhere you focus, there’s a door that leads to healing. Heilung guards this door and welcomes you inside”.

As the world eagerly awaits their next official studio album, today, Heilung is excited to reveal Sagas, a special amplified gift from the past that they will soon share with their fans.

“This is no ordinary Heilung release”, the collective says about Sagas. “This is something special”.

Sagas collects the recordings Heilung made in collaboration with computer game developer Ninja Theory for Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga. It includes unheard recordings that do not appear in the game.

“Eight years ago, we began collaborating with Ninja Theory”, Heilung says. “This led to a long, intensive and hyper-creative period that focused on the crossroads between vast Icelandic landscapes and the innermost corners of the human mind. Some of the sounds we created found their way into Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga. However, many did not. Until now, with Sagas. Soon, these recordings of our travels from deep underground ice caves, over bursting volcanoes, through endless lava deserts and into the very depths of our own minds will be released in their raw entirety”.

Heilung doesn’t play shows. They perform a ritual. Every performance begins with Kai Uwe Faust leading Christopher Juul, Maria Franz, and the rest of the Nordic collective in an ancient prayer. Soon after, the audience is swept into rapture, swayed by incense and throat singing, primordial rhythms, subtle electronic textures, a mesmerizing light show, an army of warriors, and bursts of fire.

Since they began in 2015, Heilung has been paving melodic paths to the past with their unique and mystifying sound. Evading all conventional genre tags and the confines of any specific label, the group aptly describes their sound as “amplified history,” emphasizing their ability to connect modern society with the rudiments of humanity’s beginnings through music.

“Our ancestral Nordic civilizations did not just pop up, exist, and disappear in isolation”, says Faust, a throat singer and one of Heilung’s three composers. “With singing these primordial songs, we want to give tribute to these cultures, reconnect to the beginnings, and remember that we all, from East to West, from past to present, are connected through the exchange of ideas and inspiring each other”.

While Heilung features authentic and archaic instrumentation that ranges from rattles and ritual bells to human bones and throat singing, their captivating brand of music is far from primitive. Producer and founding member Christopher Juul implements subtle electronic elements that elevate the musical atmosphere and provide a more in-depth and layered soundscape.

Indeed, Heilung’s success has been unprecedented, achieving milestones in its few short years of existence that many do not see in a lifetime. The collective already had rapidly been growing a buzz upon the self-release of their first full-length Ofnir in 2015, but their dizzying upward trajectory really took off from the moment they set foot on the stage at Castlefest in 2017 for the now-legendary debut of their live ritual. Luckily for those who were not fortunate enough to bare witness to this magical event, the full ceremony was captured on film, having since been viewed by tens of millions of fans across the globe.

As Heilung trekked across Europe and brought their mystifying experience to new audiences, talk of this new band and their stunning ceremony made its way to Season of Mist label owner Michael Berberian, who quickly offered the band a record contract after seeing their undeniable musical impact for himself.

Heilung has performed their rituals all over the world. After completing their 2025 Amplified History tour, Heilung went on hiatus. After a restful period, in September 2026, the collective announced that they would return to the recording studio in October to record their fourth studio album. They also announced Sagas, which collects the recordings they made in collaboration with Ninja Theory for Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga.

More information about Sagas is coming soon.

The post HEILUNG Enters Studio for Next Official Album “Sagas” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

In April, the young-ish Chicago quartet Friko released Something Worth Waiting For, a staggering indie rock album we rated as one of this year’s absolute best. This Friday, they’ll release an expanded version of that record. After sharing “Necessary” along with the announcement, the band followed up this week with another bonus track, the raw and catchy “Dirty Diamond.” It does that thing so many Friko songs do well, where all the members play with wild abandon without ever falling out of sync. Bailey Minzenberger’s drums feel especially unhinged here.

The post Friko – “Dirty Diamond” appeared first on Stereogum.

That song was previously exclusive to the Japanese release of “Death Above Life”.

The post Orbit Culture Launch “Nuclear God” Music Video appeared first on Theprp.com.

Soulfly and Nailbomb lay waste to the grounds of London as they strike the ignition with a groove Metal dose of nihilistic and tribal power – a fitting reminder of the mammoth legacy Max Cavalera is nowhere near finished carving out. 

Soulfly – Nailbomb – Prodigal

Electric Ballroom, London – 4 September 2026

Words: Lucy Dunnet

Photography: Dominic Beaven

Prodigal

Hailing from Gloucestershire, Prodigal show up to support the Nailbomb + Soulfly extravaganza with a blend of grunge, alternative, nu-Metal, and shoegaze that immediately has the crowd whispering, “Ooh, Deftones.” Deftones, but with less seduction and more grit.

They start torturously heavy, then lean into some chilling melodies and even some Korn-esque “boom da da booms” that sound like frontman Stan Kayley’s vocal cords have been run through a shredder. It is great.

“I don’t wanna see you waste another second of your life. We set the tone, and then they [Nailbomb and Soulfly] come out,” barks Stan at the crowd of nodding Churchill dogs who have not quite found their dancing feet yet.

With their neck-whipping riffs, spasming vocals and the overall heady atmosphere that this four-piece breathe out whilst on stage, Prodigal may not physically warm the crowd up, but they certainly get them excited. 

Nailbomb

It is almost too easy to forget that witnessing Nailbomb live is still a totally nutty experience that was never meant to happen. Up there as one of Metal’s greatest one-album, two-show wonders, the Nailbomb duo of Max Cavalera and Fudge Tunnel’s Alex Newport released Point Blank in 1995, played live twice – including their legendary set at Dynamo Open Air Festival – then nada for over 30 years.

During an interview with Metal Hammer discussing the reason behind Nailbomb’s resurrection in 2024, Max said, “The main reason is that I just really love the Point Blank record. It’s one of my top five records of all time. I learned so much from making it, that there’s this other way of making music, which is total freedom.”

It is that total freedom that swarms London’s The Electric Ballroom tonight. Chants of “Cavalera” heave through the venue and, despite morphing into a SpongeBob SquarePants sing-song, serve as a warm welcome for the Cavalera-led crew that take over the stage.

“I never thought I’d be here, playing with my son Igor,” Max says mid-set, the pride and joy evident on his face as he looks to the guitarist on his right.

With the stench of the devil’s lettuce bringing out the green in Max’s wayward curls, tonight’s iteration of Nailbomb whip through the primal Point Blank tracks with reckless abandon as the crushing change of pressure in the room gives way to a suffocating push pit and eager crowdsurfers. 

From Wasting Away all the way through to Sick Life, it is filthy chaos incarnate. The no-fucks-given nihilism that is the make-up of this record comes out in an unwieldy purge on stage, with foot-stomping, fists flying, and Pig Destroyer’s Alex Cha windmilling over his sampler like he is the last wind turbine standing in the face of an apocalyptic catastrophe.

It is “bloody awesome”, wheezes the crowd when the band leave the stage to make way for Soulfly. 

Soulfly

As the crew cover the stage in camo netting, Max is offered a short break of respite before returning with his trailblazing groove Metal group, Soulfly.

With their splintering thirteenth album, Chama, released at the tail-end of last year, Soulfly have been charging around the world, not so subtly proving to everyone that they are still very much setting the world ablaze.

Soulfly are a band that could just as easily power up a rebellion as they can a whole room of sweaty moshers. Every scream and thumping riff comes straight from the crumbling streets of Belo Horizonte, Max’s birthplace in Brazil and the place where he found Metal in the same way a drowning man finds oxygen.

Every song, be it No Hope = No Fear and Bumba from their self-titled ’98 album, or Chama’s No Pain = No Power, give The Electric Ballroom a serious blast of pummelling, hair-ripping groove power.

The crowd bounces all over the place, one moment a sea of warriors celebrating post-battle, the next a group of a couple of beers in football fans, egged on by every “OOH OOH AI AI” chant Max leads from the front of the stage (of which there are many).

Warbringer’s Chase Bryant looks perfectly at home on the camo netted-up, tribal grounds of Soulfly, weaving in between his bandmates with his feet out. Maybe going barefoot is a secret knack for bass players because the weighty four-string becomes the growling engine of tonight’s turmoil. 

“In Capoeira, we clap to the beat,” Max instructs as he brings out a berimbau for a scratching, stripped-back rendition of Umbabarauma. As if veterans of Capoeira displays, the crowd claps, chants and sways to the glistening notes and booming commands coming from this Brazilian legend.

Max Cavalera looks happier than most people even a third his age to be on this stage, and becomes the leader of a tribe we all want to be a part of, and can be, so long as we scream “porrada” and move to the beats of Soulfly’s hypnotic drums until the very last blast fades. 

The post Soulfly And Nailbomb – Max Cavalera Leads A Tribal Charge Through The Electric Ballroom first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

DEVIL’S ISLAND featuring Bela Fool

Welcome to this weeks edition of Devil’s Island! Every week we maroon a band or artist on the island and see what they get up to, how they cope with being all alone on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It’s not your average desert island and we’ll see just how each person copes with the extreme conditions.

This week when we arrived at Devil’s Island we find Bela Fool sat on the beach. The island is far from their home, so how did they end up here and how did they cope with life on Devil’s Island?

Find out now…

Welcome to The Razors’e Edge and our somewhat lovely, warm desert island. Don’t worry about it’s name I’m sure it’s not as bad as that would suggest.

You’re marooned here on this island, but before you ended up shipwrecked you chose one album that you couldn’t live without. Which album did you each chose and why?

Sye: Does it count if it’s a compilation CD with my fav songs? Who even burns CDs anymore ay. Jokes aside if I had to choose a single album top to bottom right now it would be Dark Side Of The Moon. Ain’t saying I won’t eventually get bored of it or would listen to it on repeat but it’s been the album that when I’ve needed it it’s always been there for me.

Jordan: My album would have to be Abraxas by Santana. I discovered this album when I was 14 and I’ve played it multiple times a year for decades now. It’s only nine tracks, but it has a flavour for pretty much every musical sense. Every track brings something different, but it all fits together seamlessly, with Santana’s singing guitar running through the whole thing. A true masterpiece.

Jonas: One album (of many) that I would have to bring with me would have to be ‘…and out come the wolves, rancid’. There’s nothing like some good old ska-punk when you’re stuck on a desert island.

Just behind that palm tree is a shack for each of you to sleep in, with enough space for you to put up a poster on the wall of one album cover. What album cover do you each chose and why?

Sye: For a desert island it sounds like getting some preeeeetty comforts. Strictly talking graphics Abraxas or Supernatural by Santana definitely win the spot! I mostly like the music in there too, but mostly I’d choose them cause of them bright colours and imagery that would keep the mood up and the monotony of the island interesting.

Jordan: For the album cover on my shack wall, I’d probably go with Abraxas. What a cover! What? Sye too? No way. There’s only space for one Abrades in this town!

Jonas: Hmmm I would have to say ‘Metallica kill em all’ because it’s cool as funk but also it will remind me to stay vigilant whilst on this exhibition and that any time a predator jumps out on us it gets shot with the crossbow I’d been crafting since arriving.

There’s also a bar on this here island. But alas each of you only get to choose one drink for the entirety of your stay. What’s your tipple of choice?

So you’re telling me that I can live rent free, tax free in a place with zero annoying people with a bar? Strand me there now!

Sye: Deffo a Long Island ice tea. I want them booze, it all and I want it now!

Jordan: My drink would be soda water with fresh lime and three shots of vodka. It’s important to stay hydrated, but it’ll also be sooo boring, so why not make it fun?

Jonas: A bar?! On a deserted island?! Okay, okay. well in that case I’ll take a nice cold Madri, I don’t think I could get bored of them. I would have said Guinness but that wouldn’t sit so well when getting chased by tigers…  

Your suitcases were lost when your ship sank, but you each managed to salvage one item of band merch. What’s the merch and for what band?

Sye: Any band? Kiss air guitar strings

Jordan: We could use the pins as fishing hooks, they might reflect sunlight and attract the attention of passing planes, and if we get really bored we could tattoo each other. Multi-purpose merchandise.

Jonas: The merch I saved was a capo for Jordan because he always loses them, I think he’s on his 24th capo just this year!

You’re sat on the island thinking “I’m stuck here on this island with my bandmates for eternity”… who would you rather have been shipwrecked with?

Sye: Mhhhhhh good question, maybe someone I’d share my bed with after downing so many Long Island at the island bar! Gimme enough long islands I might even be fine with the bandmates…

Jordan: My missus and daughter, obviously. I’d be thinking about them and they’d want to be with me wherever I was. But if they’re not allowed on the island, I’m having Bear Grylls. He’d probably be quite useful.

Jonas: Probably Bear grylls or Martin (gym you don’t know Martin?) or someone like that I guess to make things easier, either that or Margot Robbie. Actually now thinking about it… definitely Margot Robbie, as long as I bring some Bear grylls books with me in the meantime.

There’s a walkman in your pocket, on the tape inside is the recording of the one live show that stands out for you. It could be any show, from any band, anywhere in the world. What show is on that walkman?

Sye: Close call between Led Zeppelin live at MSG in ’73 and Avatar at Wacken 2015. Maybe Zeppelin as it’s a longer show so it’d take more time to get bored of it.

Jordan: The live show on my Walkman would be Woodstock. The entire three-day concert. That’s a lot of songs.

Jonas: Our Pipeline show back in October 2025.

You’re getting desperate, you decide the only course of action is to put a message in a bottle and hope someone finds it. Your message could be to any member of any band, but should be the most suitable for a rescue attempt. Who is it?

Sye: Keanu Reeves plays bass right? Send him over now!

Jordan: The message in the bottle would go to my mate who’s in a local band. He’d definitely want to help. Or maybe he’d just like to see me suffer. Ha. I don’t know. I’d just write: “WE’RE F*CKED. SEND HELP.”

Jonas: In this case I’d have to send a message in a bottle to Jordan, he’s basically like a Jason Statham type of super man. He’d be swinging from trees and hunting prey no doubt. What? Jordan is stranded with us? We’re doomed.

You’ve been stuck here a while and food supplies are running low. There’s only one thing for it… which fellow band member gets sacrificed to help the others survive?

Jordan: Have to be Sye. He’s got massive legs. They’d last us a while. I like Sye a lot though, so I’d only eat the bottom half. I’d keep him safe from predators and, if a passing boat went by, we could use him as a float.Everyone wins.

Jonas: I hate to say it but it would have to be Sye as he has the most meat on him which as long as Jordan isn’t greedy; it should last us a couple weeks.

Sye: What a loooovely bunch of bandmates. Y’all can try, but imma go full Tarzan way before we start to starve. Ya got to fight my army of Gorillas before getting to me!

Finally, when the ship sank you each managed to save one person from the wreckage. That person is the one musician that has influenced your career the most, shaped your way of thinking and your outlook on life. Who did you save?

Sye: Tough question, my favourite guitarists do very different things from how I play! And no one really influenced me as a role model, I don’t care too much of trying to be someone else. It’d be fun to be stranded on an island with Jimi Hendrix for sure tho.

Jordan: Who did I save from the sinking ship? A ship is sinking. I’m looking to save my loved ones. I mean, thanks for the inspiration, but you’re on your own, muthafuka.

Jonas: I saved… Jack black

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Less than a month prior the release of their Cathedral Speech record, Spirit Possession offer in listening the second new track in advance titled “The Sharpening”.
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Their second new song in over a decade.

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Absolute Power has shared the title track and music video of its forthcoming second album, Needs Must When The Devil Drives, due Nov. 6 via Time To Kill Records. The song features former Judas Priest and Iced Earth vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens, who contributes his unmistakable screams to one of the album’s most powerful statements.

For Absolute Power’s Shane Embury, the track is also deeply personal. “This song, whilst being title track of our new record, also talks about how both Simon and I grew up in the West Midlands listening to heavy metal of the 1980s — all the classics as you would expect,” Embury explains. “The areas where we both came from were very much industrial areas.

“Working-class families and for us, as teenagers, heavy metal was our escape from the everyday realities of our areas — you did what you had to just to get by. Needs must when the devil drives!”

Absolute Power is the project of vocalist and producer Simon Efemey and Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury, two heavy metal lifers who spent five years crafting the second album. Drawing on the timeless legacy of Judas Priest, Saxon, Black Sabbath, Dio, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Needs Must When The Devil Drives combines old-school riffs, unforgettable melodies, and larger-than-life songwriting with the energy and attitude of 2026.

Efemey explains the album’s mission: “I want people to have a good time in the old school way. I want them to forget the mundane, boring or horrible parts of their jobs. I want them to forget themselves for a couple of hours.

“That’s what good music should allow us all to do.”

On the origins of the project, Efemey says: “When we did the first album, we wanted to make songs like our heroes — Judas Priest, Saxon, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal — everything we liked as kids. When we were on tour buses, we’d have a few drinks and start blasting old-school heavy metal like Black Sabbath or Dio. One day we said we should write our own tunes like that.”

For Needs Must When The Devil Drives, Efemey and Embury invited several respected musicians to contribute. Tim “Ripper” Owens returns after appearing on the debut record. The Mission and Tricky guitarist Mark Gemini Thwaite adds subtle layers and textures to several songs — “a little goth flavour,” in Efemey’s words — expanding the band’s traditional metal foundation. Also appearing are Napalm Death guitarist John Cooke and drummer Carl Stokes (whose career includes Cancer and The Groundhogs), along with Joe Taylor, Dominik Gryzbon and Ilsa Nielson on additional guitar duties.

The album also features a reinterpretation of Queen’s 1978 classic “Sheer Heart Attack,” preserving the original’s punk-driven energy while adding the unmistakable personality of Absolute Power.

Needs Must When The Devil Drives is available to pre-order here.

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