Brooklyn-based trio Shop Talk, following a series of singles and EPs the last three years, has just unleashed a self-titled album on One Track Mind Records/Revolver USA. Recorded in Nashville with James Mechan of The Sleeveens, this 11-song long player does something that’s very hard to do: take obvious inspiration from first wave punk rock while still sounding contemporary and original.
If you’ve heard Shop Talk before, you know this isn’t a band that’s easy to pin down. But hey, why would you even want to? If I got into rock geek mode, I could say this band sounds a little bit like The Adverts might have if they’d come out of Los Angeles but listened to a lot of New York punk rock. The style is powerful, slightly moody melodic punk with intelligent lyrics and razor-sharp hooks. I’m not surprised at all that someone with impeccable taste like Henry Rollins is a fan. Also not surprising is that James Mechan was able to elicit such a perfect recording for a punk rock record. Jon Garcia’s guitars really pack a punch but never overwhelm Tristan Griffin’s nimble, hard-driving bass lines. The sound is crisp but not excessively polished. Garcia, who mixed the album, and Mikey Young, who mastered it, really get what timeless punk rock ought to sound like. The songs are lean and well-crafted, and they manage to create a dreary-ish mood while still radiating pure energy. I appreciate that the band re-recorded some of its earlier tracks (“Ramona,” “Black Friar,” “Camp Hero”, “Mirage of Love”) for this release. They were too good to leave off a full-length album, and they fit in perfectly with new scorchers such as “SOS,” “Love Dart,” and “Terra Damnata.” Clocking in at less than 27 minutes, this album is definitely an all-killer, no-filler experience. If you love first wave punk rock but perhaps lean towards some of the more progressive bands of that movement, Shop Talk is a current band that ought to be on your radar.
How do The Dollyrots do it? After more than a quarter-century as a band, countless releases to their name, and thousands of live shows played, Kelly and Luis still hold on to the enthusiasm and style that made The Dollyrots such a breath of fresh air in the punky pop rock ‘n’ roll scene in the early 2000s. “Attention Span,” the band’s new single on Wicked Cool Records, is instantly recognizable as a Dollyrots song. It’s a high energy blast of punchy punk-pop that pairs a sugar rush of hooks with very relatable lyrics about how this age of constant connection ultimately makes us feel more disconnected from one another. The single arrives in conjunction with the band’s Spring Break From Reality Tour, which launched a couple days ago and continues through the 22nd of this month. Straight-up, this song is an earworm. But that’s not a surprise, is it? Most of us could use a little break from reality right now, and “Attention Span” sends me on a three minute vacation to my happy place. Hit up The Dollyrots’ web site for more tour info!
Aw man, we are getting close to the end! Jolly Joker is number 49 in Friends of Cesar Romero’s Doomed Babe Series — making it the penultimate entry in a series that dates back to December of 2011. This is something a little different for FOCR: a “semi-live album.” Basically, this is J. Waylon’s very own Peel Session, and I dig the vibe. This set was recorded for a radio segment that never aired, and now we get to enjoy some FOCR blasts from the past in all their unpolished glory. If you’re a fan, this is a huge treat. These songs from the 2010s date as far back as 2011’s “Skull Carpenters” (off of Return to Zero, the first installment in the Doomed Babe Series). A lot of these tracks are up there with the band’s best — such as 2012’s “Tammys of Tomorrow,” 2016’s “Grab Your Heathers and Run,” and 2018’s “Longing Heart Condition.” Kicking off with the stomper “Wolf in Houndstooth,” this is a really hard-rocking set. For all of us who will never experience FOCR as anything more than a studio project, it’s thrilling to hear the group as a proper live rock ‘n’ roll band that puts the power in power pop and the rock in garage rock. If you, as I, were a late-comer to the Doomed Babe Series, you might find yourself inspired to go back and check out some of the early installments that feature these songs. I’m notoriously “meh” about live albums in general, and I’m not sure what my policy on semi-live albums is. But I’m enjoying Jolly Joker tremendously and am quite thankful it was released. Now we await installment #50!
And we’re off to a typically sloth-like start to 2026, with the Record(s) o’ the Month posts already well in arrears. We have no excuses beyond institutional malaise, dysfunction, and slackwagoning. We will endeavor to be better, but there are no guarantees in life or blogging. Let’s get the ball rolling and jump into January before it becomes a distant memory, shall we?
Of the Big Three of Germanic thrash,1Kreator had the weirdest evolution and the most consistently good output. While 2022’s Hate Über Alles was a minor letdown, these unkillable krauts roared back in a major way with Krushers of the World [out January 16th, 2026, from Nuclear Blast Records, buy it on Bandcamp!]. Taking all the things they’ve done well over the decades, Kreator spiced the brew with Gothic, traditional, and power metal elements to land on a sound that is at once olde and new. The thrash feels potent and heavy, and the Gothic vibes from Endorama work well, giving the album a dark mood. What really excels is the songwriting. Krushers is full of face-melting metal anthems with bite and force aplenty, and Millie and crew sound young and mean. I’ve loved these guys since I was a dumb teen, and Krushers reminds me exactly why while beating my ass into assdust. As I summed up in my review (in which I may have underrated the album), “The Kreator sound is still there after all these years, even if it gets gussied up with lighter moments occasionally.”
Runner(s) Up:
Hällas // Panorama [January 30th, 2026 | Äventyr Records | Bandcamp] — Sweden’s retro psychedelic prog rockers Hällas returned to the fray with Panorama, and fans of older sounds and slick musicianship took notice. If you hunger for Uriah Heap channeled through the NWoBHM, Hällas have the goods for you, and across Panorama, they unleash a torrent of old-timey, richly textured prog-rocking goodness. Slick guitar noodling bounces off keyboard excesses, and it’s all wrapped up in a rich, 70-centric production that sounds like a portal to the past. Panorama is a larger-than-life tapestry for a talented band’s ambition, and as Creeping Ivy gushed, “It’s only January, but these Swedes may have already dropped the neo-proto-metal album of 2026 (and a list-topping contender for yours truly).”2
Invictus // Nocturnal Visions [January 26th, 2026 | Me Saco Un Ojo Records | Bandcamp] — Blending various shades of old school death metal brutality with a slightly modern sheen, Invictus set out to maul you from the first notes of Nocturnal Visions until the last. They aren’t doing anything new in the classic sense, just blending genre tropes in such a way as to sound fresh and vicious. Riffs satisfy the hunger for abrasive abuse, and hellish, subterranean vocals gurgle and croak in ghastly ways. The writing is slick and delivers the good, and all is as it should be on a killer slab of death metal. A much impressed Kenstrosity was heard to exclaim, “Nocturnal Visions is, simply put, a staggering monument to old-school death molded for the modern era.” Get yourself InvictedER.
Sad news Saturday, folks. Earlier this morning (Saturday March 14), we found out that former Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell has unfortunately passed away. He was only 64.
His family made the announcement via a social media post from his band Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, which includes his actual sons, Todd, Dane and Tyla.
The post reads:
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved father, Philip Anthony Campbell, who passed away peacefully last night following a long and courageous battle in intensive care after a complex major operation.
“Phil was a devoted husband, a wonderful father, and a proud and loving grandfather, known affectionately as ‘Bampi’. He was deeply loved by all who knew him and will be missed immensely. His legacy, music and the memories he created with so many will live on forever.
“We kindly ask that our family’s privacy is respected during this incredibly difficult time.”
Shortly after Phil’s death was made public, Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee made a post of his own in remembrance:
“We got the news this morning, and it’s so extremely sad, about the sudden passing of my brother and dear friend, Phil Campbell.
“He was the funniest guy I have ever known and the best rock guitar player I have ever played with. His vibe and feel for rock music were outstanding. We wrote 12 studio albums together, and he never stopped surprising me with his extreme talent. Most of all, I will miss hanging out with the nicest guy you could ever meet.
“My family and I send our thoughts to Phil’s family. I truly wish them all the best for the future, and I will be right here if they ever need anything.
“Sleep well, my friend and rock soldier. Say hi to Lemmy, Würzel, Filthy and Eddie. I am sure you’ll be a crazy gang hanging out together again!”
The official Motörhead social media was also updated to include the following tribute message:
“We cannot believe we’re saying this…it is with profound sadness that we have to say Philip Anthony Campbell has passed.
“He was Motörhead’s guitarist for 31 years (the longest serving member aside from Lemmy) having joined in 1984. After Lemmy’s passing, he was blessed to form Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons with his sons Todd, Dane and Tyla, which recorded and toured together for years.
“Phil was a wonderful guitarist, writer, performer, and musician who had Motörhead in his veins. He always led with his gift of guitar, and carried a great sense of humour, but most of all, Phil led with his heart. You could not be around him without a chuckle or twenty, because quite simply, Phil loved life and lived it with great joy.
“There will be plenty of time for us to share stories — tales of Campbell glory — and some damn good jokes together; for now, please send love and positive energy to Gaynor and the boys while affording them time, space, and privacy.
“Much love and RIP Phil. The world has just lost an enormous beam of light, and we are devastated.”
We may have had a little warning that something like this might happen, since last month, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons had to cancel shows they had in Australia and Europe from March to May “due to medical advice Phil has just received,” but no further details were given at the time.
Campbell’s legacy with the band certainly won’t be forgotten, especially since he was the band’s longest running guitarist—even being their only guitarist for the last 20 years of the their existence.
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Nearly five years on from a near-fatal medical emergency, Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner is still doing physiotherapy three times a day every time the band goes out on the road — and he has now opened up in full about the extent of the neurological damage he sustained in the aftermath of his 2021 aortic aneurysm.
Speaking to Charlie Kendall’s Metalshop, Faulkner addressed what it takes to keep himself functional on a Priest tour (transcribed by Blabbermouth). “I have to have a physio on the road with us,” he said. “We have a German guy called Bastian that comes out on the road with us, and I do physio with him every day, three times a day — morning, before the show, and after the show. And he works on my right side. Long story, some collateral damage from what happened affected my right side. So we’ve gotta keep the right side running and moving properly and stuff like that. So, yeah, it is a regime of, I’ve gotta watch my diet and physio every single day, and that’s just what it takes to keep it moving for me. And that’s just life. Consider myself very grateful. There are a lot of people out there with a lot worse than I have, and they have to deal with a lot of things every day. I’m still able to do what I do. I have to work at it, but that’s fine. I consider myself very grateful.”
Faulkner collapsed after Judas Priest‘s set at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky, in September 2021. It took surgeons at UofL Health’s Rudd Heart and Lung Center approximately ten hours to complete his first operation — an aortic valve and ascending aorta replacement with hemiarch replacement. What emerged in a candid April 2025 interview with Premier Guitar, and what Faulkner has continued to elaborate on since, is that the physical fallout extended well beyond his heart.
Roughly a month after the initial surgery, while walking the family dog near his home outside Nashville, Faulkner suffered what doctors later confirmed was a stroke. A second open-heart surgery followed when a leak was discovered. And through all of it, something was going wrong with his right hand — the picking hand. The connection only became clear after tests revealed damage to the left side of his brain.
“I haven’t felt comfortable up until this point — and I’ll tell you why — explaining what happened,” he said. “So long story short, we went into the hospital — this was a month after the surgery — we went back in, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. ‘Fuck hospitals.’ They saved my life, but I’ve had enough of them for a month. So I’m back in there. And they basically said, what I think it was, was a TIA, which means transient ischaemic attack, which is a TIA. It’s a small stroke. So they’re sure it’s that. They put me on some medication. Turned out later on, it was an actual stroke. So Mariah thinks I had one in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I don’t remember. I don’t recall anything. I remember small ones happening after the event. I was in the bathroom — it kind of went fuzzy, and I sort of fell over. I think they were the TIAs, the mini ones. And the hospital said is when you have those, the danger is that there’s a big one coming or a normal stroke coming. So that seems to be what happened — when we were out walking the dog, that’s what happened. And it was obvious — Mariah said, ‘Your face went, you couldn’t talk.’ It was like a weight was pulling me down. I was gonna fall over if she wasn’t holding me up.”
The right-hand problems that followed sent him in circles. He changed his picks. He took his rings off. He assumed it was something minor. It was only when he noticed the same issue in his right foot that the picture started to come together. “I was brushing my teeth one morning, and I thought, ‘Something’s wrong with the right hand. Something’s different,’” he recalled. “And the right foot, the right leg. So we went back in. We’d done some tests. They found some damage on the left side of the brain, which affects the right side. Now, fortunately, I don’t play guitar with my foot, so that’s fine. I can get away with that. But my hand, obviously, that’s our engine room.”
The damage has made rhythm work — the foundation of what Faulkner does in Priest — unpredictable night to night. “When we play with Priest, we go out… I mean, you go out, and you think, ‘How is it gonna be tonight?’” He said. “And it’s not so much the solo stuff because the solo stuff you can kind of adapt. It’s the rhythm — the coordinated rhythm patterns and stuff like that. It’s gotta be locked in. And I felt that in a band like Priest, it’s gotta be world-class stuff, and I don’t feel world-class. I went out there every night. I feel like a fraud because people don’t know — maybe. But one day they’re gonna find out. Someone’s gonna find out, someone’s gonna say he’s not playing that the same. [Priest‘s latest album, 2024’s] Invincible Shield, we came to record the guitars [at my home studio], and I couldn’t play what was on the demos from a year before. And we went out with [my side project], Elegant Weapons, in 2023, playing with the band. It’s, like, ‘I can’t do that. What’s going on?’ And the more I practiced, the worse it got. When you practice, you hopefully get better. It was getting worse.”
He described the emotional toll of performing under those conditions with brutal honesty. “I go out every night thinking… Sometimes I come off stage, and I call home, and I say, ‘I can’t fucking do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.’ There’s stuff that I used to play — I used to think something, and it would come out. And now I’m up there struggling to play like a rhythm pattern. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t. I’m gonna quit. I can’t do it.’ And then you have a good one. So who wants that? But that’s the way it is. That’s the truth. So that’s what I struggle with. That’s the collateral damage.”
Part of what kept him from disclosing any of this sooner was fear — specifically, the fear of what it might cost him professionally. “There’s a lot of fear from my side about being found out,” he admitted. “I feel like I’ve got a lot of trust from the fanbase, from the guitar companies, the string companies. They back you. They put their bets on you, and I don’t want anyone to know, because as soon as they know, they’re gonna lose faith, they’re gonna bail out. I’m not gonna be appealing to them anymore, or I’m gonna let the fans down.”
He cited two reasons for finally speaking out. The first was personal relief. The second was the hope that other musicians dealing with hidden struggles might feel less alone. “I know there are a lot of people out there that play, they sing, whatever they do, and they feel like they’re not good enough or that we don’t have these issues as well, and it affects your mental health,” he said. “And I want them to know that they’re not alone. All of us, probably more people than we are all aware of, struggle with something somewhere.”
As for Judas Priest heading back out on the road, Faulkner said the band remains in good shape collectively. “Everyone’s healthy. So why not? They love what they do. So why not?” He added that vocalist Rob Halford‘s own attitude sets the tone: “He says if he can do it, why not do it? Why not carry on? And he’s doing great.”
Faulkner joined Judas Priest in 2011 as the replacement for founding guitarist K.K. Downing. He and his partner, Mariah Lynch — daughter of former Dokken guitarist George Lynch — have a daughter, Daisy Mae, born in July 2020.
Hällas // 
Invictus // 
