Blackened psych goth punk outfit Devil Master have premiered their new single “Death Anthem,” accompanied by a music video directed by Eva Tusquets. The song is taken from the band's upcoming album “Bloody Dreams,” which Relapse Records will release on September 4th.
The record features guest appearances from former drummer Festering Terror … Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com
Another all-star Accept cover has surfaced online. This time, Ghost vocalist Tobias Forge joins members of the German heavy metal legends alongside Anthrax bassist Frank Bello and Korn drummer Ray Luzier for a rendition of Accept's 1980 track “Save Us.”
Accept vocalist/guitarist Wolf Hoffmann commented on collaborating with the trio: Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com
Canadian nü-metalcore/deathcore band MOUTH BREAKER have premiered a music video for their new single “Step Down.” Matt Guarrrasi directed the clip for the track, which appears on the band's upcoming EP “MoshUp,” due out on September 9th via Seek & Strike.
The band said of the song: Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com
Metalcore band Blind Channel have announced “Painstream” as the title of their sixth studio album. The new full-length is scheduled to arrive on October 30th via Century Media. Alongside the announcement, the band have premiered a music video for the new double single “Diana” / “No Encores In A Swan Song.”
While no comments were prov… Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com
Hardcore‘s rise over the last half-decade has happened for many reasons, but one of the most pertinent is young musicians remembering that this is a genre that needs to evolve and be experimented with.
“Post-hardcore just meant hardcore guys trying new and different things,” shrugs Excide frontman Tyler Washington. “We definitely come from that lineage and ideology.”
You’ll hear that loud and clear when you stick on Excide’s second album, Bastard Hymns. It’s a superb slice of pounding hardcore, but peppered throughout with odd, angular time signatures and huge swathes of grungy, alt rock melody.
Snapcase showed me that you can make hardcore weird.
Tyler Washington
For fans of forward-thinking heavy music, this is a real gem. Tyler namechecks Quicksand, Failure, Fugazi and others as influences, but there’s one band that stands above them all.
“For me, it all started with finding [cult 90s New York hardcore band] Snapcase,” Tyler says of his biggest inspiration. “The lyrical content is super-positive, but it still has that poetic element. It showed me that you can make hardcore weird. We try and do that: rip a power chord and then throw a little pinkie out there and it just makes it… sort of strange.”
Considering the success of pioneering peers such as Turnstile and Knocked Loose, it’s not outside the realms of possibility that Excide could follow their lead. But Tyler states that as much as he’s pleased for them, he’s happy to stay in his own, idiosyncratic lane.
“Seeing those huge shows Turnstile do is awesome, so I’m not diminishing anyone’s achievements at all,” he begins. “But I’ve been in this scene and making this music since I was 15. I know I’ll be doing the same thing until I just can’t anymore. The ambition comes not from achieving success, but from connecting with people with our unique music.”
Bastard Hymns is out now via SharpTone
IN SHORT
SOUNDS LIKE: A fantastic amalgam of 90s alt rock heroes Failure’s melody with Every Time I Die’s knack for a killer riff FOR FANS OF: Snapcase, Quicksand, Every Time I Die LISTEN TO: Call Box
For Swedish post-punk and goth rock stalwarts Then Comes Silence, songwriting works best when it carries a little danger in its coat pocket, along with a nightclub flyer, a bent cigarette, and perhaps the phone number of somebody your mother warned you about. On Judgement Day, the Stockholm trio take that instinct and feed it through a bright synth opening that sounds almost indecently cheerful before the floor gives way beneath it.
The melody initially suggests a lost continental dance hit, polished enough to wander into an airport lounge without being questioned. Then Alex Svenson’s voice enters, carrying the moral weight of a man reading names from a very unpleasant guest list, while Jonas Fransson’s drums and Hugo Zombie’s guitar tighten the track into a stern, muscular march. Clan of Xymox, Killing Joke, and The Chameleons provide useful reference points, though Then Comes Silence retain their own heavy-footed grandeur, where every bass note seems dressed for a funeral, and every hook reads like a majestic elegy for the human race.
“This song is about failure, bad decisions and poor behaviour – those who will be the first in line on doomsday,” the band explains. The humor—or perhaps the confession—resides in the arrangement. By featuring an almost alien electronic motif at the outset, the trio playfully embeds their own musical misbehavior, all while enjoying the process. Then Comes Silence greet the end with a crooked smile, loosening goth’s funeral tie and sparing Judgement Day the pallbearer solemnity so often mistaken for depth.
Director Damon Zurawski of Future Legends Films places the band among dancers drawn from the gothic scene, creating a performance video that feels communal without sanding down the song’s severity. Svenson commands the center with bass in hand, Fransson drives from behind the kit, and Zombie cuts through the room with economical force. The dancers supply movement, personality, and proof that black clothing contains more shades than most paint stores.
Watch the video for Judgement Day below:
Judgement Day introduces Requiem Ballroom, due out on November 20th. The album follows 2024’s Trickery, a record Classic Rock described as “the post-punk influence of Bauhaus or Joy Division offset by an ’80s windblown, cinematic sense of drama presented with silky production and confidence.” Vive Le Rock concurred, remarking on its “huge, spectral sound that cascades the post-punk genres seamlessly whilst delivering a unique and compelling sound that is as captivatingly gripping as it is intense.”
After years of stages shared with Fields of the Nephilim, Clan of Xymox, Chameleons, and A Place to Bury Strangers, Then Comes Silence sound firmly in possession of their machinery. Judgement Day turns failure into propulsion, poor behavior into choreography, and doomsday into a club night worth attending before the lights come up and the bill inevitably comes due at dawn.
Then Comes Silence are on tour in mainland Europe in August and September, including an appearance at the M’era Luna Festival in Hildesheim, Germany on 9th August. Further info and tickets for all shows can be found HERE.
Born in Austin, Texas in 1954, Eric Johnson is ranked among the all-time great Texas guitar slingers. His dazzling 1990 showpiece Cliffs Of Dover won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and made him a shoo-in for the third spot (alongside Steve Vai) when Joe Satriani launched the G3 tour six years later. Guitar pyrotechnics can be taken as read, but as Johnson’s choices below confirm, there’s far more to his palette than shred.
The first music I remember hearing
My dad used to play a lot of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington around the house. But as far as rock’n’roll, I remember being about four years old and hearing Elvis’s (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear. I still love his music.
The first guitar riff I mastered
I begged my dad for a white Fender Musicmaster, and the first song I learnt was Your Cheatin’ Heart by Hank Williams. But that’s just chords. My first riff was Out Of Limits by The Ventures. Was I instantly brilliant at guitar? Oh no. It’s always been a struggle. If I’ve hit anything decent over the years, it’s because I’ve grovelled and really tried to learn it. I don’t think it ever comes for free.
The first song I performed live
I was probably thirteen years old. Now, playing guitar is mainstream, but back then it was rebellious to play loud music and grow your hair out. We played at a party, and people were barely listening, but I remember the whole setlist: (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, Gloria, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and Splash by the 13th Floor Elevators. Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild was a big one for us.
The guitar hero
I totally remember hearing Are You Experienced [1967] for the first time. It was like somebody had landed from outer space. Hendrix is timeless. But if you put that album in perspective of when he came out, nobody was doing that. It was so revolutionary – all this feedback and fuzz – that I didn’t even know if it was guitar. At first, that record was kinda over my head. I wasn’t even sure if I liked it. But the more I listened, the more I realised how great it was.
The singer
Sam Cooke. Just his soulfulness and intonation, all the little nuances he put in. The way he delivered a song like You Send Me, it just drew you in. And he spawned a lot of great singers after him too.
The songwriter
Joni Mitchell is one of them. I love Ladies Of The Canyon [1970] or Clouds [1969], and For Free is one of the most emotional songs I’ve ever heard. Her guitar tunings sound so fresh. I started listening to her in high school. I wasn’t very cool at that age. I was just this strange geezer, and I was becoming more withdrawn, because I was just waiting to get out so I could go play music.
The greatest album of all time
Stevie Wonder’s Music Of My Mind, for the vibe, the writing and his musicality. It’s a record I’ve been listening to my whole life and I’ve never gotten tired of it, because the feeling behind the notes is so strong. It makes you take a fresh look at your instrument, instead of just being stuck in the ABCs of guitar.
The best live act I’ve seen
I always knew Queen was great live, and I’d kinda heard their music on the periphery, but I have a friend that knows their stuff verbatim. And about five years ago she said: “Hey, you gotta come to this show.” The songs, the musicality, the production, the stage set-up, the sound – everything was just world-class.
My rock anthem
Summer Of ’69 or Run To You from Bryan Adams’s Reckless [1984]. That’s the perfect driving music. He’s got just the right amount of distortion on his voice, and [producer] Bob Clearmountain captured a magic emotion – it feels like you’re a kid and the whole world is ahead of you. I know those songs have been played a bunch, but when they come on it’s like: “I’m sorry, we gotta crank the stereo”.
My cult hero
I would say Free. I mean, they were big. But they did that record Highway [1970], and I’ve read they were very disheartened and broke up soon after that, because they put so much heart and soul into it and it didn’t get the success and attention it deserved. I think it’s a pop masterpiece.
The cover version
All Along The Watchtower. It was a great song that Dylan wrote, but what Hendrix did to it was amazing. I mean, you can learn the lead lines, but Jimi played them with such soul and emotion. And it’s the little nuanced rhythm things he’s doing in between the vocals. You might think: “Oh, I can play that”. But it’s so hard to get that vibe and pocket it just right.
The song I want played at my funeral
Well, I’m gonna be cremated, so I think I’ll have ’em play Elvis’s Hunk Of Burning Love. I could even get an Elvis impersonator, and he can be up there going: ‘He’s just a hunk, a hunk of burning love’, and I can be, like, going up in flames. I think that answer is even more morbid than your question was!
DGM / Panegyric 2026 The debris and the metaphors come forth to steer the Seven-Headed Beast into another spell of life. When the dormant ensemble emerged into existence again to re-enter the stage in 2014, it awakened a sense of … Continue reading →
Ann Wilson has announced an Australian tour capped off with a very special show at the GABBA.
A campaign has been launched to save The Black Wreath in Central Australia.