Back in 1984, the pre-industrial synthpop version of Ministry had a single called “(Every Day Is) Halloween.” On his 2007 mixtape track “Upgrade,” Lil Wayne said, “I’m a monster, every day is Halloween.” Those two songs seemingly don’t have anything to do with each other, and I don’t think either of them has anything to do with alexalone’s new single “everydayishalloween,” either. I guess all of those people just share that “every day is Halloween” mentality.
Melodic Black Metal outfit Wormwood have, since their inception in Stockholm in 2014, released four full-length albums, one EP, and a live release, each one building on their reputation as a distinct-sounding and innovative force within the Extreme Metal scene. Å builds further on that reputation.
My first thoughts on Å are that it is one of the most powerful and emotionally stirring listens I have had in a long time. It left me feeling emotionally ripped in two, but in a good way. It may only be two tracks spanning fifteen minutes, but what fifteen minutes it is.
Soundwise, they continue to meld elements of Black Metal with Scandinavian melancholy, folk influences, and cinematic storytelling. There is also a blues rock feel in there too, and all these elements are seamlessly mixed and melded to create yet another innovative and massively engaging offering.
Wormwood release Å on 7 August 2026
Lyrically, Å is “a concept EP built around an idea that has been growing for some time, but never quite belonged on any previous – or upcoming – full-length album,” guitarist Tobias Rydsheim explains. “It is a contemporary portrayal told through two filthy stories, inspired by the more marginalised circles of Stockholm.”
First track Yra|Extas is in Swedish, but the lyrical translation provided shows that, as with many of their previous works, it is unnerving to the point of almost harrowing yet is also cleverly slightly ambiguous. However, if you watch the video at the end of this review, it greatly clarifies the picture.
Musically, it bursts forth with a huge wave of black riffing, dropping back to very well phrased riffs followed by a bleak, haunting melody that reflects the pain and torment within the lyrics and combined together they emotionally hit hard.
These elements form the repeating waves along with quieter, more reflective passages that pretty much make up this dramatically powerful, vocally acidic piece, which holds your attention fully throughout. The closing haunting leadwork is just sublime. It is a superb piece.
The second track, Purposeless Geometry, features from the offset Ingvild Rydsheim on choir vocals, whose high, child-sounding delivery puts such an unnerving edge and adds superb contrast to this mid-paced haunting beast of a track.
On the whole, it is a fairly straightforward piece. But the delivery and phrasing are everything, and it impacts hard like its predecessor. Just before midway the leadwork reflects the melodic aspect of the piece and amplifies them. A dramatic drop and shift midway through becomes very sparse, eerie and haunting.
Then you get the most sublime blues-rock lead work that emerges organically out of the quiet, gradually building up into something much blacker with the return of the acidic vocals. Of course, the track would not be finished without a return of those superbly haunting choir vocals.
The new EP Å is mixed and mastered by acclaimed producer Sverker Widgren (Wing Studios, Stockholm) and is out today via Black Lodge Records.
Whether you are an old fan or a new listener, you cannot fail to be utterly enthralled by Å.
It is a superb listen, which will be available as a CD, vinyl, or digital download. For more details, visit Wormwood at Bandcamp.
According to the interwebz, “verbolgen” is a Dutch word that roughly translates to “angry” or “outraged,” most often intended for formal contexts. This definition fits nicely into the overall execution of Washington black metal duo Hulder’s music, especially remembering the visceral tear of 2024’s Verses in Oath. While my dear sharkfren Carcharodonoriginally highly rated Verses in Oath, he later softened to a more “reasonable” 3.5.1 Personally, I’ve had quite the opposite development with Hulder’s last work. Over the past two years, I progressively aligned more closely with Sharky’s original score—and “Vessel of Suffering” is hands down one of the sickest tracks of the decade. This leaves follow-up Verbolgen in a tough spot now that it’s in my clutches and not Sharkboy’s. Can it live up to its name and fill Verses’ turnshoes?
One thing is certain: Verbolgen is not the same kind of Hulder record as Verses in Oath. What was once dense with riffs and scorched by a sinister blaze is now hoisted by majestic melodies and gentler arcs. The tones and textures that make Hulder instantly recognizable remain untarnished, and in fact find greater clarity in this mix. Hulder’s trademark rasps and howls are just as cutting as ever, but with better enunciation giving gravity to her swinging cadence. Husband and co-conspirator Necreon provides ample low end with his bass and his deeper growls to help anchor Hulder’s sweeping compositions with weight that is felt as well as heard. And while Verbolgen is a significantly longer affair at nearly 50 minutes (a full hour if you count the two excellent bonus tracks provided with my promo copy), its songwriting moves with such fluidity that time melts away.
Someone close to me lamented the loss of music that is willing to take its time, to let moments land, and to stretch its legs; Verbolgen is an ideal example of how to do this right. It beautifully renders its story through movements and moments that require songs of greater length and slower pace. However, that by no means indicates Hulder lost any fire, as barn burners “Verbolgen” and “View From Nemeton” aptly demonstrate. They aren’t riff monsters like “Verses in Oath” or “Enchanted Steel” in the traditional sense, but they offer a powerful ferocity and intimidating presence nonetheless. Verbolgen doubles down on Hulder’s penchant for medieval aesthetics and melodies, which helps tracks like “The Crowning,” “Thy Binding Oath,” and “The Glow of Dawn” shine with an almost whimsical quality even as double bass kicks pummel me into the mud and serrated tremolo buzzsaws shred my flesh asunder. Lacking any kind of interlude, Verbolgen creates an unbroken trajectory through its core, but wastes not a second as mid-album highlights “In Blood and In Earth” and “Den Nacht Zijn Lied” defy their protracted seven-minute runtimes relentlessly writhing between fiery measures and entrancing phrases. Above all, though, Verbolgen feels complete and refined. It’s a mature record that showcases Hulder’s growth and unflinching confidence as a songwriter and thereby hypnotizes its audience with an inexplicable ease.
It’s doubly frustrating, then, that I find myself missing the unchecked vitriol of Verses’ deadliest attacks. While Verbolgen offers huge, epic songs with tons of layering and dynamic guitar performances, it offers that oh-so-satisfying neck-snapping riff in a scant few locations. That stomping crush at the final quarter of “The Crowning;” the galloping push of the title track; the multiphase assault from the urgent “View from Nemeton;” these moments screw my face up well enough, but I crave MOAR. My greed knows no bounds when it comes to Hulder’s way around riffs or devastatingly heavy refrains, and Verbolgen can’t quite sate it. However, it clears in the category of entrancing melodies, lovely tones, and cohesive storytelling. Ultimately, Hulder writes so well I never leave wholly unsatisfied, but depending on the day I might walk away a bit wistful for a proper dressing-down as only Hulder can provide.
As the sun sets over this darkened horizon, I feel a great sense of relief that Hulder managed so well with Verbolgen. A softer, gentler record, but still gripping in its own hypnotic way, Verbolgen is a beautiful work of art that inherits a challenging position following a primal experience matched by few. Its grander scale and more relaxed tempo offer great value to a world of music obsessed with immediacy and relentless attack. And yet, it sometimes leaves me yearning for a showstopper riff offense all the same—only because I know what Hulder is capable of. Let that not stop you from blasting Verbolgen out of the castle walls at all hours. It is worthy!
Rating: Very Good! DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3 Label:20 Buck Spin Websites:Bandcamp | Official Releases Worldwide: August 7th, 2026
Progressive art-rockers The Pineapple Thief are excited to announce their brand new studio album Far and Wide will be released via InsideOutMusic on the 9th October 2026. On this latest record, The Pineapple Thief feel more like a rock band than ever. Still progressive. Still masters of spine-tingling atmosphere. Still attuned to the strange, troubled world around us. And now, a decade and seven albums on from the arrival of Gavin Harrison on drums – and newly signed to InsideOut Records – they capture the chemistry, road miles and bigger stages of the last few years.
Coinciding with this announcement is the launch of the hard-hitting single ‘New World Order’, complete with a striking video by longtime collaborator George Laycock at Black Tide Productions. Watch the video here:
Far and Wide is the sound of a group with dreamlike complexity at their fingertips, channelling it into hard-hitting, incisive songs.
“We realised, for instance, that you don’t need more than two guitar parts at any one time,” frontman/founder Bruce Soord says. “You know, ’why have we got four or five guitars? Why have we got six-part harmonies when there’s only three of us singing?’ We deliberately created those constraints, because we thought, ‘we’re a rock band, there’s five of us on stage, this is what we should be about in the studio.’”
“You do start to imagine what a song would look like on a stage, and sometimes that does influence the arrangement,” Harrison adds. “Like, ‘this would be amazing live when we do this, if this section just went into this other thing’, and you can picture it with the lights and the atmosphere on stage.”
It’s a fitting mindset for Far And Wide’s powerful, immersive track-list. You’ll find vignettes of a society in turmoil here. Moral courage in the face of adversity. Personal loss and its ripples. Points that intensify the foundations laid by 2024’s It Leads To This, in which the band contemplated all that the next generation stood to inherit.
Far and Wide will arrive on several formats, including a Ltd 2CD & Blu-ray artbook which includes the bonus track ‘Daylight’, as well as a second CD of instrumentals and a blu-ray featuring Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD 5.1 Surround Sound & 24/48 Stereo Mixes. The album will also be available as a Special Edition CD Digipak, Gatefold LP (in several colour variants) & digitally as both stereo & Dolby Atmos. All formats feature the striking cover image of an abstract sculpture by the late Michael Schoenholtz, father of Harrison’s longtime partner Hannah.
Founded in 1999 by Bruce Soord, the band has long been one of the genre’s most successful and accomplished outfits, releasing 16 studio albums and touring worldwide. The band consisting of Soord (vocals, guitars), Jon Sykes (bass), Steve Kitch (keyboards), and Gavin Harrison (drums).
Anytime he wants, the Killers frontman Brandon Flowers could retire and live a very comfortable life on “Mr. Brightside” royalties alone. He wouldn’t even have to touch that “When You Were Young” money! But Flowers isn’t done, and he affirmed it in a recent Times feature:
Anthrax has today (August 7) released the latest single and video, “Everybody’s Got A Plan,” from their long-awaited 12th full-length studio album Cursum Perficio out September 18 via Megaforce Records.
The new video was mostly filmed on July 7 in Lisbon, Portugal, when the multi-Grammy Award-nominated New York hard rock titans—Scott Ian (guitar), Charlie Benante (drums), Frank Bello (bass), Joey Belladonna (vocals), and Jonathan Donais (guitar)—toured with Iron Maiden in Europe. It features live performance footage and behind-the-scenes backstage fun with cutaways to classic B&W boxing footage that underline the song’s central lyrics: “Everybody’s got a plan/That’s until they get punched in the face…”.
“‘Everybody’s Got a Plan” has always been one of my favorite songs on Cursum Perficio”, Benante says. “The video basically shows the band on and off stage in a montage of video clips that kinda matches the velocity of the song. ‘Everybody’s got a plan/That’s until they get punched in the face’ is such a great line, and so true!”
“Most of this video was shot opening for [Iron] Maiden in Lisbon, Portugal at Estádio da Lu on July 7, 2026,” Ian notes. “We wanted to capture us having fun on tour, and what better way to do that? That was a plan that didn’t end up with a punch in the face! Have fun watching my friends!”
Bello adds: “This video is a great representation of a day in the life of Anthrax on tour.”
Anthrax has previously released two singles and videos from Cursum Perficio: “It’s For The Kids” a classic Anthrax ripper locked and loaded with buzzsaw-sharp riffs, explosive drumming, and a howling and head-banging hook. It undoubtedly has all the makings of a future live staple. It was followed by “The Edge Of Perfection,” highlighted by clean guitar echoes and cymbals that gently shake until a blastbeat blows open the doors. Guitars buzz like a motorboat on the River Styx, making waves through the darkness. In their wake, a crushing rhythm trails the melody of lead singer Joey Belladonna’s lament, “My heart breaks…I’m on the edge…I’m on the edge of perfection.”
Meanwhile, the group recently announced they were rolling out uniquely animated short clips based on the album cover, with the first clip shared July 28. The worked with artist Mark Stritzel for the striking cover and the animation was done by Emmanuel Cappellini. Mark initially worked with the band’s Charlie Benante on the characters featured on the album cover. Every Tuesday, the group will unveil the individual stories of each character featured on the album. Beyond the Magician’s story, subsequent weeks will reveal more about the Woman in White, Dog, Winged Skeleton, concluding September 1 with Hands.
Cursum Perficio marks the band’s first record in ten years since 2016’s For All Kings, which debuted in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. The phrase Cursum Perficio is Latin for “My journey has come to an end,” “My journey is over,” or “I complete my journey.” It proves apropos for such a complete body of work. It will be available as a standard CD; Target exclusive CD with a fabric patch of the album cover; standard black double LP with pop-up gatefold; Target exclusive double LP, red zoetrope with pop up gatefold; Amazon exclusive double LP, purple zoetrope LP with pop-up gatefold; merch exclusive lilac vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Metal Injection exclusive white vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Talk Shop Live exclusive signed with red ripple vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Indie exclusive – red, orange yellow vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold. To pre-order/pre-save, click here.
The band dove into recording Cursum Perficio in earnest during 2022, working out of Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Los Angeles. They carefully pieced together what would be this magnum opus, mining their history with reverence, delivering on fan expectations tenfold, and broadening the scope of their signature sound. Produced by Jay Ruston and Anthrax, the result is an album that’s as angry, aggressive, and alive as their most celebrated fare.
Their journey has brought them to Cursum Perficio —a powerful, pummeling, and poetic milestone in Anthrax’s 45-year career.
Irish rock group Florence Road released a new single today, but if you’ve been to any of their shows over the last couple of years, you might recognize “7563.” “So happy to finally release this song, after two years of playing it live,” the band shared on social media.
Empress Of is gearing up for the release of her new album Dream House, the follow-up to 2024’s For Your Consideration, arriving next month. She has already shared the title track and the striking, orchestral string-led single “Wild Storm.” Today, she’s back with “SYW,” a collaboration with Cecile Believe.
It’s a big week for Ry Cooder, whether he knows it or not. First, in my interview with Sam and Louise Sullivan, Sam noted that he interpolated a guitar part from Cooder’s “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live” on their song “Ms. Mercedes.” Now Deloyd Elze has released a new Cooder cover.
Rush fans have two reasons to circle October 2 on the calendar, as the UMe/Mercury and Anthem Records camps keep the band’s resurgence rolling with a pair of vinyl releases timed to the ongoing “Fifty Something” tour.
Leading the charge is a 50th-anniversary liquid vinyl pressing of Rush‘s 1976 breakthrough 2112, an album that’s since gone quadruple platinum. A limited batch first hit shelves exclusively at the UMusic Shop in New York City in late July, coinciding with Rush‘s run of four sold-out Madison Square Garden shows. The liquid vinyl edition draws its look from the record’s iconic artwork, with a die-cut sleeve that lets the swirling vinyl itself become part of the cover. It’s now up for pre-order as a Sound Of Vinyl exclusive.
Producer Terry Brown was back behind the board for 2112, and the sprawling, seven-part title track that dominates side one cemented Rush as one of the era’s most ambitious bands. Clocking in past 20 minutes, “2112” follows one man’s fight against a controlling system, a theme that hasn’t lost any of its bite five decades on.
Side two spreads the writing credits around. Neil Peart penned both “A Passage To Bangkok,” a travelogue of highs and lows on the road, and “The Twilight Zone,” a tip of the hat to a pair of episodes from Rod Serling‘s classic anthology series. Alex Lifeson‘s slide-guitar showcase “Lessons” sets up Geddy Lee‘s tender “Tears,” before “Something For Nothing” closes things out with Peart‘s take on choices and consequences.
The second release marks the first-ever vinyl pressing of the band’s 2003 compilation The Spirit Of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974-1987, wrapped in artwork from longtime creative director Hugh Syme. The set arrives in two forms: a full 16-track 2LP pressed on 180-gram black vinyl, and a trimmed-down, retailer-exclusive 10-track single LP. The two share nine songs, but “Finding My Way,” the opener from Rush‘s self-titled 1974 debut, only shows up on the single-disc version. Both are open for pre-order now.
The Spirit Of Radio runs through a heavy stretch of Rush staples, opening with the muscle of “Working Man,” the homesick sprawl of “Fly By Night,” the us-versus-them framework of “2112: Overture / The Temples Of Syrinx” and the emotionally bare “Closer To The Heart.” From there it moves into the character study of “The Trees,” the radio-static joy of “The Spirit Of Radio,” the odd-meter workout “Freewill” and the quietly prophetic “Limelight,” a meditation on artists guarding their privacy while chasing the spotlight.
The tracklist also pulls in the concert warhorse “Tom Sawyer” and the high-speed backroads thriller “Red Barchetta,” along with the reggae-inflected “New World Man,” which topped Canadian charts and gave Rush its only U.S. Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. The synth-heavy “Subdivisions” rounds things out with its portrait of restless suburban youth.
Later cuts include “Distant Early Warning” from 1984’s Grace Under Pressure, the Top 50 single “The Big Money” and 1987’s “Force Ten,” which hit No. 3 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Closing both versions is “Time Stand Still,” notable for featuring one of the rare outside voices on a Rush record: ‘Til Tuesday’s Aimee Mann, whose haunting counter-vocal plays off Lee‘s lead. Mann joined the band onstage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles back in June, singing the track live with Rush for the first time during the tour’s opening dates.
Rush‘s widely praised “Fifty Something” tour continues across North America through the rest of 2026, with South American and European legs planned for 2027. Founders Lee and Lifeson, joined by drummer Anika Nilles and keyboardist Loren Gold, launched the trek in Los Angeles, marking the band’s first tour in 11 years. Each stop features two sets pulled from a rotating 40-song pool spanning the band’s five-decade catalog.
According to the interwebz, “verbolgen” is a Dutch word that roughly translates to “angry” or “outraged,” most often intended for formal contexts. This definition fits nicely into the overall execution of Washington black metal duo Hulder’s music, especially remembering the visceral tear of 2024’s 
