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The hard-working blues-rocker Jack J Hutchinson is heading back out on the road. Jack has just announced his “Soul Believer Tour 2026”, which will see him tearing up venues across the UK in support of his upcoming studio album, Soul Believer, set to drop early next year. The title track single is out on Friday … Continue reading Jack J Hutchinson announces “Soul Believer” UK tour dates for 2026

With Dee Snider unable to participate in Twisted Sister's reunion, fans have thoughts about the group choosing Sebastian Bach to lead dates in fall 2026. Continue reading…

12 of the Hottest Emo Hot Takes was originally published on HM Magazine by Nao Glover.

Cullen and Mason are joined by their friends Meg Ryan and Lindsay Fickas to discuss their hottest takes about emo music. What are your emo hot takes? Check out Meg Ryan and Lindsay Fickas, and listen to the BlackSheep podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Spreaker. You can also follow us on Instagram and subscribe on YouTube.

12 of the Hottest Emo Hot Takes was originally published on HM Magazine by Nao Glover.

Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda tap former Skid Row singer following Dee Snider’s resignation due to health concerns.

The post SEBASTIAN BACH To Front Reunited TWISTED SISTER For Select Fall Dates appeared first on Metal Injection.

Daoud Tyler-Ameen is known as a former member of Bad Moves, the beloved DC power-pop band who played their last hurrah of farewell shows last year. Bad Moves are missed, but Tyler-Ameen has also had another project up his sleeve called Art Sorority that’s been going strong for years and absolutely scratches the Bad Moves…

The post Art Sorority Teams With Snow Ellet On New EP <em>Critical Distance</em> appeared first on Stereogum.

Wow! .

The post Wow! — Twisted Sister to play select shows in the fall featuring Sebastian Bach on lead vocals first appeared on Sleaze Roxx.

Four decades is a long time to be at the top of anything. Sales records are topped. Winning percentages are beaten. Music gets louder, faster, and more intricate as each new artist tries to top what came before it. But when it comes to thrash metal, there are few albums that have stood the test of time and remained one of the greatest examples of the genre than Metallica’s 1986 masterpiece, Master Of Puppets.

Looking back on it now in 2026, it’s easy to see Master for where it stands in the pantheon of metal albums. It’s unassailable in almost every way. From the opening salvo of “Battery” to the firebreathing, furious fuck you of “Damage, Inc.” the entire 55 minute runtime pulls no punches. And unlike its predecessor Ride The Lightning, there are no filler songs like “Escape” to muddy the waters.

But I cannot fathom what it was like on March 3, 1986 when the metal world was forever changed by the release of this titan of a record. Up until this point, Metallica only had two albums under their collective belt. And while Ride The Lightning was already considered a certified banger, nothing prepared the world for the sonic barrage that was their third studio effort. Imagine, if you will, opening up a copy of Master Of Puppets on release day and hearing “Battery” for the first time, followed by the now infamous title track. If your hair wasn’t already on fire and your neck wasn’t already sore, you could have probably been deemed legally dead by a physician.

Then came the slower and at times haunting one-two punch of “The Thing That Should Not Be” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”. The former is yet another song in Metallica’s discography about H.P. Lovecraft’s works of cosmic horror, while the latter is a song inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And while the latter song is slightly controversial because of claims that Metallica plagiarized the song’s main riff from Bleak House’s “Rainbow Warrior”, it still remains a fan favorite.

Then comes what I consider the “hypocrisy” block of the album with “Disposable Heroes” and “Leper Messiah”. In “Disposable Heroes”, Metallica confronts the hypocrisy of sending our young men and women out to fight and die in some war for bullshit reasons (totally not applicable to today, though… /s). Then “Leper Messiah” deals with the hypocrisy of televangelism and churches demanding you pay money to “get a better seat” to heaven. Both songs are a big “fuck you” to those institutions.

Then comes “Orion” — the incredibly tasty instrumental track that really highlights the incredible bass playing of the late Cliff Burton. This would sadly be the final album that Burton ever played on, since he was sadly killed in a bus accident in Sweden that September at the age of 24. Burton’s deft playing really stands out above the rest of the band throughout the whole thing, but it’s at about the four minute when things slow down a bit and the bass line really floats within the mix. It’s an amazing moment where you get to just vibe with the record and hear Burton and the rest of the guys just jam. It’s a great moment of reprieve before things pick up again just in time for the album’s finale, “Damage, Inc.”

Not ones to let the album go quietly into the night, they blast into one hell of a closer with “Damage, Inc.” This isn’t a “metal anthem”, so much as it’s a call to action. From the intense riffing to Lars just thundering away on the drums in a way that he couldn’t even dream of doing these days, this final track is a reminder that at the end of the day, Metallica is here to lay waste to the pretenders. Posers beware — “life ain’t for you and we’re the cure.”

This album was the manifesto of a Bay Area thrash metal band planting their flag on the genre and claiming it for their own. Master Of Puppets was a mission statement — the world was going to fucking listen to this quartet from California and finally understand what thrash metal was all about. This was the benchmark by which all other thrash metal records will be judged moving forward. After all, Slayer doesn’t release Reign In Blood until seven months later in October, Anthrax’s Among The Living doesn’t come out for another year or so, and Megadeth won’t release Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? until September. So for months, Master Of Puppets was the new hotness in town and it propelled Metallica to begin headlining arena tours and never again looking back.

I’ll leave this retrospective with a personal anecdote. Back when I was just getting into metal, I was a nu metal kid — Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park — you know the drill. I’d been dipping my toes into other, more extreme forms of metal to see what I liked and at the time, Slayer kinda scared me (I was still kinda religious back then) and I never even heard of Anthrax or Megadeth. It wasn’t until I got Master Of Puppets as a gift that I realized this was my shit.

I have a distinct memory of me begging my mom to leave me in the car while she went shopping just so I could practically blow out her Pontiac’s speakers listening to Master Of Puppets. I remember the looks I got from passersby as they could clearly hear what I was listening to while I thrashed about in the front seat.

This album, above all else, changed my life and I know I’m not the only one. As I turn 40 this year as well, it’s hard not to look back at the years and wonder where it’s all gone. This album’s older, I’m older… Hell, the dudes in Metallica are way older. But what will outlive us all will be the fact that Master Of Puppets is one of those albums that will stand the test of time. From its release in 1986 until the eventual heat death of the universe, it’s an undeniable, unfuckwithable metal classic.

The post 40 Years Later, Metallica’s <em>Master Of Puppets</em> is Still the Quintessential Thrash Metal Record appeared first on MetalSucks.

Though the initially announced Twisted Sister 50th Anniversary Celebration Tour was met with a brief cancellation based on the exit of longtime member and frontman Dee Snider (seen HERE), a … Continue reading Twisted Sister To Continue 50th Anniversary Tour with Sebastian Bach Fronting →

Bach and roll.

The post Twisted Sister Recruit Sebastian Bach For Their Upcoming 50th Anniversary Shows appeared first on Theprp.com.

Once upon a time, before I was a battle-jacket-wearing, corpse-paint-adorned, trve-metal warrior of the highest order, I was a high-school prog nerd. The djent wave was cresting just as I began to really delve deeper into music, and the hordes of technical, djenty bands with ultra-modern production and surprising amounts of melody still sit near and dear to my heart, even if I rarely reach back into the Sumerian-scented pile in my regular listening habits. ¹ That’s why when I saw the promo for Hiraeth, the 2nd album by Brazilian prog metallers Abstracted, with comparisons to The Contortionist, The Human Abstract, and Between the Buried and Me, I couldn’t help but get a little excited at the prospect of newer music tapping into those formative sounds. Abstracted have been a band since 2013, and their long-gestating debut record, 2022’s Atma Conflux, was an effective and varied slab of djenty progressive death metal, marred by tepid production and less-than-stellar clean vocals. More than anything, though, it showed potential as a record brimming with ideas that was so close to being great. With Hiraeth, can the Brazilian group finally unify their influences into something more than the sum of their parts?

On Hiraeth, Abstracted demonstrates a thorough understanding of contemporary progressive metal styles and integrates them into something all their own. The band’s main sound is a djent-fueled take on modern progressive death metal, closest to early-era The Contortionist in its blending of odd-meter riffery, post-rock-influenced textures, and an enticing contrast between melancholic space-age cleans and technical 6-string chugs. Abstracted balance this with more traditional Haken-esque classic prog turnarounds and jazz breaks (“Sirens”), fast-paced Between the Buried and Me riff marathons (“To Quench This Insatiable Thirst”), and harmonic nuance within darker moments à la Persefone (“Requiem”). The result is a varied and dynamic set of tunes that glide effortlessly between impressive riff-fueled aggression and cathartic melodies. Songs like “The Utter End” and “The Barren Grave of God” demonstrate the band’s ability to naturally move from strength to strength without missing a beat, unfolding across expansive guitar arpeggios, delightfully off-kilter breakdowns, virtuosic solos, and powerful musical climaxes.

This level of fluidity and genre cohesion on Hiraeth is only made possible by the high level of musicianship Abstracted display. Guitarists José Consani and Leonardo Brito give varied performances that successfully meld more djent-centric playing with classic death metal sensibilities and demonstrate keen melodic ears with dense jazz chords and powerful lead lines. Drummer Fernando Pollen blends Latin grooves with acrobatic modern metal flourishes, and the production’s more natural drum tone allows his dynamic nuances to guide several songs. ² On bass, Riverton Alves turns in a thoroughly warm and jazz-based, Cynic-flavored performance that shines during quieter moments, while keyboardist Carol Lynn supplies plenty of atmosphere through subtle synth textures and steps to the forefront a few times with quirky, but effective synth lines reminiscent of Diego Tejeida. Together, this ensemble breathes plenty of life into a style of music that can often feel over-processed, and their performances help to unify this collection of songs into a cohesive whole.The only elements of Hiraeth that aren’t immediately impressive are the vocals and the production. Rosano Pedro Matiussi delivers an impassioned performance, and his vocal lines often fit the songs well, but his clean singing lacks a certain impact or personality to elevate good moments into great ones. Initially, this was enough to deter me from really digging deeper and appreciating the songcraft on display, but the singing grew on me quite a bit with time. Similarly, his death growls are solid, if not one-note, and they feel like they exist more so to fill a role than to accent particular sections. This could potentially be the production’s fault, as Hiraeth sounds generally good and more natural than the swaths of overproduced modern prog ³ but lacks a certain sonic clarity, occasionally making especially dense sections harder to parse. There’s a distinct lack of reverb on the harsh vocals, and I can’t help but wonder if a stronger mix could fit the layered clean singing a bit better. Matiussi’s vocals are far from bad, and there are parts like the somber intro to “Requiem” where he sounds great, but when everything else is operating at such a high level, they feel like a weak link.

With Hiraeth, Abstracted have delivered an impressive piece of modern progressive metal. This record is a grower for sure, with dense and layered compositions often revealing their clever construction and intense interconnectedness only after repeated spins. Even if the vocals leave a little to be desired, the Brazilian group has successfully combined the sounds of several of the best modern prog bands into something exciting and nuanced.

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Rating: Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: M-Theory Audio
Websites: abstractedmetal.bandcamp | facebook.com/abstractedbr
Releases Worldwide: February 20, 2026

The post Abstracted – Hiraeth Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.