Two more legendary classic-rock acts return with new music, just weeks after fellow stalwarts Paul McCartney, Yes, and Peter Frampton. Continue reading…
You wait until tonight Diversion of the trace Get ready for the vamp The stage, the other face
Some things are monuments: raised in stone, fixed in place, built to instruct the future on what must be remembered. A trace is different. It is smaller, stranger, more unstable: a smear of light on glass, a footprint in dust, a pulse still moving beneath the surface. A trace does not announce itself from above. It survives at the edge of disappearance, carrying proof that something passed through, resisted, or remained. On their third full-length album, Trace, Athens dark synth duo Incirrina follow those marks through the maze of the “seeming real,” where what is imposed, cruel, and inhumane presents itself as inevitable truth.
Here, the night is not merely a setting. It is a stage, a shelter, a ritual chamber, and a corridor of escape. Cold analogue electronics flicker like neon over wet stone; basslines gallop and coil; drum machines strike with martial insistence; voices rise from the fog like warnings, spells, accusations, and prayers. Trace is a record of movement, but also of refusal: a dance through dread, memory, alienation, and defiance.
With Trace, George Katsanos and Irini Tiniakou expand the distinctive sonic universe they established with Lip Led Scream in 2022 and 8.15 in 2019, experimenting with instrumentation, rhythm, and vocal approach. The album gathers 11 songs written between 2023 and 2025 and shaped through the discipline of a 24-channel console, exploring the boundaries of dark electronic, synthwave, coldwave, minimal synth, and darkwave without reducing itself to the tropes of any of these genres.
Thematically, the songs explore the uniqueness of human experience and the struggle to preserve inner freedom and individuality in dystopian times. Celebrating diversity and self-expression while continuing to connect, create, and work with others becomes a way out of the false order. The album itself is the result of such a process: its creators consider themselves, against the odds, artisans and friends who make music, share it, and reinvent themselves. As its title indicates, Trace is the imprint of searching for wondrous, meaningful diversions, novel transformations, and transitory acts of care and defiance.
Katsanos brings analogue synthesizers, octapad, drum programming, electric bass guitar, kantele, alto melodica, samples, waterphone, and vocals into Incirrina’s sonic architecture, while Tiniakou’s synthesizers and unmistakable voice give the duo much of its spectral charge. Her delivery can feel whispered, wounded, commanding, or ritualistic, cutting through the electronic framework with theatrical force. On Trace, that chemistry is central: machinery and voice, pulse and poetry, body and alarm.
“Mutate” opens the album with drones that sound like metal being cut, before a galloping bass synth melody pushes the track forward with immediate force. Katsanos’ analogue electronics and drum programming give the song its relentless propulsion, while Tiniakou’s voice begins close, dark, and breathy before sharpening into an old-school goth edge. Buzzing synth sighs gather around the pulse, and when the drums lock into a dance beat, the track surges with classic 80s synthpop and darkwave energy. It churns, glows, and moves with the confidence of an opening manifesto.
Through its lyrics, “Mutate” frames the night as a ritual of self-remaking, where performance, fashion, fire, and the dance floor become weapons against conformity. The lyrics reject fixed identity, social obedience, faceless control, and dull authority, choosing eruption over submission. Through theatrical reinvention, the song turns mutation into survival, style into armor, and the transformed body into a radiant act of defiance.
“Find” begins with an ascending synth loop that feels almost mystical, rising and falling like a coded signal in the dark. Cinematic synth sighs drift beneath the melody, while Katsanos’ spare electronic framework leaves enough empty space for tension to gather around every repetition. Tiniakou’s vocal sounds haunted, sad, and resigned, drawing from the emotional severity of classic 80s minimal synth without slipping into pastiche.
The song’s lyrical structure reads like a minimalist inventory of growth through pressure. Time, wrongdoing, pain, courage, thought, and speech become stages in the difficult work of self-recognition. The song suggests that fear is not defeated by silence, but by naming it; even in isolation, the act of speaking proves that something has passed through the void and been heard.
“Alexia” opens with crackling, popping percussion before dark synth pads enter, followed by a sharp wail, a simple bass synth figure, and a buzzing melodic line. Katsanos’ programming keeps the track grounded in pulse, while the surrounding electronics feel vaporous, nocturnal, and lunar. Tiniakou’s reverbed vocal arrives with a witchy, dreamlike aura, giving the song the feel of a darkwave/minimal synth apparition.
The imagery in “Alexia” follows a spectral woman through night, landscape, dream, and city before she disappears into morning. The words move through sand, mirrors, snow, memory, and the senses, turning the title figure into a myth of escape. She is present everywhere and unreachable at once, making reality feel briefly fragile, sensual, temporary, and unfinished.
“She Is In The Dream” opens with an ominous weight, led by a thicker EBM-style bass synth and droning, cold, wind-like pads. Compressed claps snap through the atmosphere as Tiniakou’s vocal moves from gauze to witchy clarity. Midway through, a Kraftwerk-like synth pulse enters, shifting the track toward a hypnotic blend of synthpop, darkwave, and minimal synth. Katsanos’ low-end pressure and rhythmic architecture give the nightmare a dancefloor skeleton, while the vocal performance turns the dream into accusation.
Lyrically, “She Is In The Dream” turns desire, guilt, shame, and punishment into a recurring nightmare. The song’s words conjure a woman as judge, accuser, and wounded image, forcing the lyrical narrator into a confrontation with dread and bodily pain. Erotic fixation and religious torment blur together, and waking offers no real escape; the dream remains lodged in the body.
“Region” begins with rustling, clockwork-like sounds before giving way to a deep bass synth and cinematic pad. A wistful keyboard melody enters, then a hi-hat beat, and Tiniakou’s voice carries the song toward something almost folkloric. There is a fairy-tale quality here, like a legend told in a cottage on a windswept moor, but the atmosphere is private, wounded, and strange. Katsanos’ palette of analogue synths and unusual textures gives the track an antique mechanical shimmer.
The lyrics for “Region” recount the return to childhood as a half-lit emotional geography. Dollhouses, trains, books, toys, sealed crimes, and unhealed time gather into a place where memory stays open. The words address someone lost inside a soundless internal territory, offering devotion and protection as if love might still survive fear, absence, and remembrance.
“Always Here” opens slowly with misty, faint droning before a pulsing bass synth enters like a rapid heartbeat. A quick bell-like warning flickers through the atmosphere, and Tiniakou’s whispered delivery heightens the sense of threat. When the beat locks in, Katsanos’ programming gives the song a darkwave dancefloor charge, with the deep bass melody pushing forward like blood under pressure. As the bell motif returns more frequently and becomes more melodic, Tiniakou’s voice cracks through the layers like a command.
Lyrically, “Always Here” is a stark meditation on emotional survival. The song presents laughter, tears, thought, and dreaming as necessary acts against numbness and surrender. Without feeling, imagination, and reflection, the lyrics warn, people fade into the false reality of the “seeming real.” Renewal begins by rediscovering what was present all along, beneath fear and resignation.
“Diver” sets itself in motion with a machine-gun percussion beat, a dull warning synth, pulsing electronics, and icy cinematic pads. Katsanos’ drum programming turns the track into a piece of urban machinery, while the synths move like rails, screens, and locked doors. Tiniakou’s voice carries an electroclash edge while remaining rooted in darkwave, adding human volatility to the mechanical enclosure.
The lyrical terrain of “Diver” transforms public transit into a claustrophobic descent through anxiety, compulsion, and sensory overload. The words move through trains, tracks, crowds, voices, bodily signals, and the pressure of routine until motion itself becomes a cage. Maps and routes fail to locate the heart; the body keeps traveling, but the self remains trapped inside noise, metal, and panic.
“Presence” is built around a deep, dark synth melody that rises and falls in repeated melodic beats, building tension until layers of icy pads gather beneath it. Katsanos’ electronics create the sensation of moving forward through a storm, while Tiniakou’s vocal begins with almost melancholic restraint before the song’s drama tightens around her. The result is cold but not empty, severe but not distant.
In its lyrical arc, “Presence” turns perception into a borrowed, compromised act. The song moves through urban machinery, denial, surveillance, and mass anonymity until one figure breaks the spell. Beauty becomes a disruptive force that strips away false sight, forcing blindness before clarity. Freedom does not arrive through comfort, but through confrontation with reality.
“Sometimes” is the vocal exception on Trace, carried by George Katsanos. His sorrowful delivery has a gravity reminiscent of Brendan Perry’s deeper, mournful register in Dead Can Dance. Misty synths and a piano-like melody give the track a slightly folky darkwave character, while the snare drumbeat moves like a despondent march forward. The arrangement does not overstate the pain; it simply walks with it.
The confession at the center of “Sometimes” is one of emotional collapse. The words cycle through tears, death-wish imagery, longing, helplessness, suffocation, despair, and emptiness without dressing the pain in abstraction. Its repetition gives the song the force of a private admission, capturing depression not as a single dramatic event, but as waves that keep returning.
“Alien Room” moves on a pulsing bass synth, witchy vocal wails, cold harmony effects, and a dance beat that keeps the room spinning. Katsanos’ low-end movement and programming give the song its hypnotic structure, while Tiniakou’s voice turns the domestic setting into an incantation. The atmosphere feels ritualistic, almost brushing against dungeon synth in places, but the track remains physical, tense, and strange.
In the song’s strange domestic vision, “Alien Room” turns ordinary space into a paranoid science-fiction chamber. Couches, windows, drinks, stained floors, broken objects, and living-room details become signs of invasion. The words mix pulp cosmic imagery with everyday dread, suggesting that the end-times charge may arrive not through spectacle, but through ordinary collapse inside the home.
“ΚΡΥΦΟ (Hidden)” closes the album with a propulsive darkwave beat, whoops and wails, smoldering Greek-language vocals from Tiniakou, and a catchy guitar riff. Katsanos’ rhythmic drive gives the finale its bodily force, making the track one of the album’s most dancefloor-friendly moments. After so much dread, memory, pressure, and transformation, the closer does not retreat into shadow; it moves through it.
Sung in Greek, “ΚΡΥΦΟ (Hidden)” centers on concealment, self-address, and unheard voices. The song connects private suffering with children, sand, earth, sea, breath, betrayal, dawn, and the first cry of awakening. Hidden knowledge becomes both a burden and a force pressing toward revelation, turning secrecy into motion and suppressed pain into sound.
By the time “ΚΡΥΦΟ (Hidden)” fades, Trace has completed a circuit through mutation, fear, memory, transit, perception, collapse, invasion, and disclosure. Incirrina’s third album is not merely a genre exercise in dark electronic, synthwave, and coldwave form. It is a document of friendship, craft, and resistance: the work of artisans who make music together, share it, and reinvent themselves against the odds. Its title becomes its method. Trace leaves behind the imprint of searching for wondrous diversions, meaningful transformations, and small, transitory acts of care and defiance.
Incirrina’s Trace is out now via Cold Transmission Music. Listen to the album below, and order it here.
George Katsanos and Irini Tiniakou’s journey as Incirrina began in Athens in late 2017. The duo released 8.15 in 2019 through Geheimnis Records, followed by the digital maxi single Utter in 2020, the split maxi single Devastations / R.Daneel with The Man & His Failures in 2021, and Lip Led Scream in 2022 via Cold Transmission. They later released Immersion in 2024 and the singles “Only One Smile Alone” and “ΚΡΥΦΟ (Hidden)” in 2025.
They have appeared at numerous gigs, live stages, and festivals across Greece and Europe, including Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia. Their festival appearances include Death Disco Open Air Festival, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Athens Music Week, Metavasis Festival, Japan Festival, schwarts + Bruits De La Cave Festival, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Pliisken Festival, Cold Transmission Festival, and Morphic Festival. They have also opened in Athens for Front 242, Soviet Soviet, Die Selektion, and Potochkine.
Beyond the club and concert stage, Incirrina have also moved into theatre. In 2024, they composed music for Andrew Keatley’s Alligators, directed by Giannis Laspias at Gloria Theatre in Athens, with the music performed live on stage. They also composed soundscapes and orchestrated songs for Little Women, adapted, translated, and directed by Athina Hatziathanassiou at Alambra Theatre.
Their unique blend of analogue electronic instrumentation, distinct vocal quality, and band chemistry has made their live performances especially powerful, described as having emotional melodies that stick in the mind, heavy and strong beats that impel the body to dance, and vocals that cut through the musical layers, leaving a lasting impact.
Upcoming Live Dates
10 July 2026 — TBA
24 October 2026 — Sounds From The Heart Festival, Dynamo / Werk 21, Zürich, Switzerland
25 October 2026 — Lovataraxx & Incirrina, Die Stadtmitte, Karlsruhe, Germany
New York’s The Velvet Underground left an impact not just on punk rock but on music in general. Consisting of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker, they played music for four years and seemed to go unnoticed until Brian Eno pointed out that the few who had formed a band were fans and had bought their record. Author Ritchie Unterberger has put out a massive book on the band with Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground, released by Omnibus Press. At over 800 pages, the book is the ultimate resource on The Velvet Underground’s lasting legacy.
The book starts with chapters on Lou Reed and John Cale, in relation to the page count they don’t spend long in their pre-Velvet Underground lives. It details Reed and Cale’s meeting at a party in NYC. While we don’t get a lot of info about their childhoods, we get an idea of their defiant views from their time in college and how it informed their music. There’s even a chapter on the pre-Velvet Underground band The Primitives that Reed and Cale played in after they met, but also proto-Velvet Underground collaborations, The Falling Spikes (also known as the Warlocks), and the additions of Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker to form the Velvet Underground.
Unterberger mostly sticks to the band members’ professional lives unless it applies to something in the band. The author is very meticulous about the info, even if the citation is decades after the event takes place. Some of the descriptions jump around in time a bit, as it allows connecting the earlier experiences and germinations of the songs to the versions of them we already know. Teases are sprinkled throughout the book about the band’s eventual releases and even the collaborations with Andy Warhol and their hesitant acceptance of taking Nico into the band. There’s this dichotomy that tethers the band to these people, almost making them the supporting cast in their own story. Unterberger can keep these grating moments bittersweet, but recognizes them as tentpoles.
The book is super detailed, but the prose moves fast. There has been so much written about the Velvet Underground that a lot of words are spent on particular subjects, such as recording sessions and gigs. There are numerous accounts of the song recordings, their differences, and what they evolved into, and where they would end up being released whether while the band was active or on a special edition. At such a high page count, it’s clear that there wasn’t much of a limit on how much Unterberger was able to pile on. The book gets a little too meta as it talks about the numerous sources it pulls from in the prose, but this is understandable with a book this massive. If you are a stickler for details, this book has it: shows, demo recordings, relationships, tension, and eventual disbandment.
Before the internet, many stories coming out of the scene seemed like myths. People could only get interviews and stories with bands from magazines or books, but there wasn’t nearly as much documentation as there is now. That’s not including whether the subject was willing to be interviewed or not and how cooperative they would be. Eventually, the internet made it easier to find and catalog these interviews, leading to where we are now. We get these giant books on the things we love, no matter how undesirable they may have been to the general public during their time. Unterberger’s undertaking and choice of the Velvet Underground as his subject reflect this shift and show how far the acceptance of this genre has come.
Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground. is the most comprehensive book covering the Velvet Underground, compiling almost every resource into one compendium. While the band’s trials and tribulations are on display, the book mostly focuses on the minutiae. While minutiae sometimes get a negative connotation, here it should be celebrated as much as the band itself. Unterberger’s research and Omnibus Press’s release of this book are proof that the Velvet Underground is still relevant in conversations about genre-defying music and its history.
You can pick up Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground by Richie Unterberger at you local bookstore or through Omnibus Press.
The spirit of metal has always been transgressive. Even though the genre can no longer be epitomized by a group of men with long hair, wearing all black, screaming about Satan and death,1, there remains an element that threatens an established order or sensibility. This is most obvious in the sound itself, which apparently turns a majority of listeners away even as it attracts weirdos like us. But while we may roll our eyes at metal of any kind being dismissed as ‘just noise’ and ‘horrible’, there are some cases where we can acknowledge that the music in question really is very inaccessible. Then we’re confronted with that same transgressiveness non-metalheads face when they listen to less-extreme metal, and enjoyment—let alone qualitative assessment—becomes complex. So it was when I was faced with Dhrupad Anutpada (ধপদ অন$ৎপ&দ): Apophatic Ragas Of Non-Origination, the debut of Indian/Canadian act Nirriti whose intense blackened noise is paired with a philosophical theme that denies the occurrence of creation. Its heresy is every bit as transcendentally horrifying as it sounds.
Nirriti are fully committed to their unorthodoxy. As members of black/noise circle Kolkata Inner Order Propaganda—along with Tetragrammacide, Necrodeity, among others—the trio demonstrate a level of nightmarishness worthy of the circle’s proclaimed “esoterrorism.” Not only is the lyrical theme bizarre yet intriguing, but the music is some of the most oppressive I’ve ever heard. For context, after finishing my first play-through of Dhrupad Anutpada, I decided to listen to Portal to “wind down.” Nirriti’s use of guitar as something from which to make a shuddering wall of sound, from which the occasional dissonant tremolo scale creeps out, is somewhat similar to Portal’s. Here, this wall feels still more monolithic due to Dodecahedron-on-steroids percussive violence that breaks away from a cacophonous blast, only to smash any hint of quiet with cymbals. Omnipresent vocal reverb, that iterates nigh on every hellish roar into a multiplicity of frightening confusion and chaos, becomes the final smothering layer in Dhrupad Anutpada’s impenetrable shroud of horror.
Up to this point, everything I’ve said about Dhrupad Anutpada could be taken positively or negatively—a quirk of how we often discuss extreme metal. This cognitive dissonance is as central to the proper experience of the album as literal harmonic dissonance. Nirriti’s take on noisy brutality approaches the hypnotic as they infuse passages with a sense of repetition through just-audible repeating scales and the aforementioned flickering echoes of vocals (“Mandukya…,”2 “In the Hallways…”). This creates a viscerally chilling sense of a tape skipping or playing backwards, or of the dizziness you feel just before you faint. It’s strange, but such passages grip the listener more powerfully than those where the reverb and blackened sensibility soften to allow the riffs breathing room (“One Foot…,” “Glissando…”), though the latter do reset the sempiternal rhythm, and inject needed jabs of urgency at their best (“One foot…,” “Golden Yolk…”). The relentless drumming, often more prominent than the guitars, serves primarily as a propeller to churn up these waters, such that it becomes a perverse relief when it settles into a battering, crashing attack (“In the Hallways…,” “Golden Yolk…,” “Vilambit Laya…”); because you can at least count the blows.
Dhrupad Anutpada maintains a consistent level of intensity thanks to these constant, if sometimes subtle, fluctuations. Creeping guitar ascents (“In the Hallways…,”), a rhythmic syncopation between roars and drums (“Mandukya…”), and the sudden breaks into noise (“Glissando…”) or the comparative ease of dissonant death metal (“One Foot…”) keep one hooked, straining one’s ears to catch the nuances in this chthonic chaos. Nirriti display an impressive command of their craft, turning harsh vocals into a weapon of horror, wielding guitars like percussion and percussion like punishment. It’s clearly intended to overwhelm and unsettle its audience. The problem is that it’s perhaps too successful, Dhrupad Anutpada being so exhausting that it can make one feel physically nauseated. After many listens, once the initial shock has passed, it’s easier to spot the places Nirriti reuse their tricks, and the corresponding movements lose a little potency (“In the Hallways…,” “Vilambit Laya…”).
I want to believe Dhrupad Anutpada is as profound as it presents itself. There is something to be said for an album that so powerfully confronts and terrifies its listener—it is the very essence of metal and the heart of philosophical unorthodoxy. Yet Nirriti tread a touch too far into the formless abyss to reach all but the most dedicated acolytes of the heretical metal underground. Dhrupad Anutpada may open your mind, but it’s just as likely to send you scrambling, horrified, away from the nightmare Nirriti have unleashed.
Rating: Mixed DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3 Label: Iron Bonehead Productions Websites: Bandcamp Releases Worldwide: June 19th, 2026
Call Of The Wild Festival: Day One, Lincolnshire Showground, Friday 28.05.26
We’re back on the festival circuit this weekend with a trip out to the Lincolnshire Showground for Call Of The Wild. Known for its fan-first, fiercely independent grassroots vibe, this is a beautifully compact, easy-to-navigate site. The weather forecast is scorchio!, setting an incredible tone for the crowd moving between the side-by-side main stages and the packed Trailblazer tent.
Onto the music then, and we had a massive mix of modern hard rock, heavy sleaze, and highly anticipated reunions to look forward to on Day One.
First up on the main stage is Midlands-based trio, Beggars Bliss (8). They bring a funky, bass-driven groove that does a brilliant job of warming up the early afternoon crowd. They are followed immediately by London’s Dead Zebras (8), who completely light up the stage. This is a band with a high-octane, Van Halen-inspired classic rock vibe, and they play with tons of energy and fun, and a little bit of Bad News cheekiness! Next up is Foxx (8) festival stalwart Dean Foxx. Taking to the stage in his signature rockstar shades and a massive grin, the former Knockout Kaine frontman just loves being on stage. He’s a showman and loves to perform.
With the heat rising both temperature and performance wise on the main stages, we pop over to the Wolfpack beer tent to check out the Trailblazer Stage action, where the talent search is fierce. Dead Reynolds (9) deliver a crushing, nu-metal set heavily channelling early Linkin Park, which gets the tent moving early on. Back over on the Kilmister stage, we get a taste of dark, Emo infused metal from Matted (9). They put on a brilliantly atmospheric, industrial-tinged performance, and were one of the weekends discoveries for me.
We stuck around for the next band up on the Southall Lawless stage as they were local Midlands lads Straight For The Sun (8). This bunch are a brilliant burst of energy for the afternoon slot. They deliver a set packed with heavy, driving riffs and a massive wall of sound that has the sweltering crowd banging their heads from the very first chord. It’s pure, unadulterated hard rock played with real passion, and they lock down a fantastic groove that keeps the festival momentum flying high.
After a much needed break from the relentless sun and to refuel we got back to the Southall Lawless stage just in time to catch The Hot One Two (8), and they delivered a reliably brilliant, melodic hard rock set that the crowd lap up. The band are known for their hard hitting riff and non-stop on stage energy, and even in this heat they are relentless.
By now the bands are overlapping between the outdoor stages and the Trailblazer stage so it’s a juggling act to try and catch as much as we can, and I’m glad we popped into the tent to catch Kuro (9) who were completely new to us but blew us away with their powerful set that had influences from industrial, nu-metal, emo, horror. Think Linkin Park meets Wednesday 13.
Following on from a brilliant, melodic hard rock set by The Hot One Two, the early evening kicks off over on the Kilmister Stage with Swedish street-rockers The Chuck Norris Experiment (9) They hit the stage with a massive wall of loud, unapologetic high-energy rock ‘n’ roll that gets a brilliant reaction from the crowd, and they finish their set with band members in the crowd! This was one of Tony’s top picks of the weekend
Meanwhile, we head over to the Trailblazer stage to catch the headliners of the tent, Thieves Of Liberty (9). They receive an absolute hero’s welcome. Utilizing a powerful guitar driven rock, they create a massive wall of riffs anchored by a powerhouse vocal performance. They have the packed tent completely engaged from the very first chord, playing a chaotic, highly energetic set that proves exactly why they earned that headline slot.
Elsewhere, back to the Southall Lawless stage for one of the most emotionally charged and highly anticipated moments of Day One—the return of Tomorrow Is Lost (8). Playing together for the first time in four years, they sound absolutely fantastic. Cass King is in her absolute element, showing off an incredible vocal range on the slower numbers while leading a rapturous crowd through bouncy, infectious anthems. It’s a beautifully nostalgic performance, and the loyal fans are singing back every single word.
Next up, the Kilmister Stage lights up for the long-awaited return of metalcore favourites Glamour Of The Kill (8), and they kick things off with serious intent. As a tight four-piece, they produce a colossal sound that gets the adrenaline pumping. Cranking through a blistering, rapid-fire set, its melodic and crushingly heavy, and played with a pent up, aggressive energy.
Anchoring the headline slot over on the Southall Lawless stage is legendary British rock veteran Myke Gray (8) (Skin, Jagged Edge). Fronted by the fantastic lead singer of The Karma Effect, Henry Gottlier, Gray proves himself to be a guitarist’s guitarist through and through. He delivers classic rock riffs with an immense amount of style, swagger, and it’s simply great old rock and roll, and the whole crowd is having a whale of a time singing along.
The heat of the day has barely cooled as we go into the twilight zone, the main headliners Florence Black (10) take to the Kilmister Stage to close out what’s been a superb first day. This marks a massive milestone in the Welsh powerhouse trio’s grassroots journey, and literally explode onto stage with pyro that adds to the sultry heat. Their performance is an absolute masterclass in heavy, grunge-infused melodic rock.
Packed with ferocious live energy, massive hooks, and plenty of stadium-level punch, they pound away through a rapid-fire, top-class set that takes the roof off the place. I’ve been dying to see this band for such a long time but for one reason or another it’s never happened until today and boy was I blown away, their cover of Breadfan was something special, and the climax of “Sun and Moon” left me breathless, one of the highlights of the year let alone this weekend
It’s a powerfully climatic end to Day One. Between the affordable prices, the incredibly welcoming community feel, and a line-up that perfectly bridges raw classic rock energy with modern heavy alternative, it’s a brilliant start to the weekend.
Four extraordinary musicians playing the music of one of the most extraordinary bands in the history of rock music, this is what BEAT brought to the famed halls of Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo, a sold-out audience hanging on every note.
One of the most innovative and wilfully headstrong acts to get labelled progressive, it could be argued that King Crimson embodied the term more than any of their peers, their skill in blending the accessible and the angular peerless.
Over a fifty-three-year lifespan, the outfit became a who’s who of world-class players and when they finally drew a line over their career in 2021, they left a catalogue of legendary albums that continue to thrill and inspire.
Paying tribute to these leading lights, former King Crimson alumni guitarist and singer Adrian Belew and bass player Tony Levin have been joined with Tool drummer Danny Carey and guitar virtuoso Steve Vai in forming BEAT, a supergroup in the true sense of the word.
BEAT – Eventim Apollo, London – 8 June 2026. Photo: Phil Honley
Given the sheer complexity of the output, the quartet were perfectly equipped to tackle the rich textures of the music, and whilst on the other side of the Atlantic, the comeback of Rush the previous day had lit up the internet, in London it was an evening to bask in the equally breathtaking return of ‘proper’ music.
Opening with the frantic and fractured Neurotica, the quartet hit a natural groove, the stuttering rhythm and tortured guitars of Neal And Jack And Me providing a flashy one-two punch to kick things off with.
Giving Vai his due, the besuited six-stringer was happy to stay in the shadows and add just the right amount of colour as he and Belew brought the swirls and jabs of their guitars, with the respect given to the material and the focus above personal showboating.
BEAT – Eventim Apollo, London – 8 June 2026. Photo: Phil Honley
Given the phenomenal talent onstage, the temptation to show off could have reared its head, but barring the welcome swing of largely improvised portions of Industry, everything was played fairly straight.
Truthfully, few bands can boast the range of the largely more straightforward Heartbeat, through to the cosmic jazz of Sartori In Tangier and onto the punchy drama of Dig Me, a number that must have been the touchstone for most of Primus’s sonic blueprint.
With a luxurious Larks’ Tongue in Aspic (Part III) closing the first half of the set, Levin and Carey effortlessly displayed their chops, and it would be impossible to find a more accomplished rhythm section on the planet, such is their groove and feel.
There is a tribal and natural atmosphere to Waiting Man that manages to bring together the same bounce as Paul Simon’s Graceland opus, with its latter section breaking loose into something much less structured.
BEAT – Eventim Apollo, London – 8 June 2026. Photo: Phil Honley
The wonderful Sleepless, covered so beautifully by The Unthanks, is a cooling balm to the soul before Vai is given the chance to cut loose with his solo and contorts his guitar, making it howl, and a funky Elephant Talk gets everyone frugging in their seats.
Three Of A Perfect Pair is shimmering and magnetic, the mesmerising playing almost overwhelming the senses in a cathedral of sound before the maelstrom of the aptly titled Indiscipline brings the curtain down.
BEAT – Eventim Apollo, London – 8 June 2026. Photo: Phil Honley
Returning for a romp through the heavy-duty Red and Theia Hun Ginjeet, the band took their bows to an ecstatic crowd, leaving them to emerge out of the venue to the grey concrete flyover and neon lights of Hammersmith, old friends reunited and smiling from ear to ear.
In a musical world full of fakery and no imagination, BEAT and the music of King Crimson bring that craft and passion to full, blooming life, and for that alone, they earn all the plaudits that rain down upon their heads.
With Teutonic Titans 1976-2026 set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, and UK shows set for Wolverhampton and London in August, Accept are welcoming us all to join the celebrations with their manifesto of Metal. For Wolf Hoffmann, the time is right. “I was never a fan of those nostalgia tours,” he told MetalTalk, “but after 50 years, I thought we had to do something special.”
Wolf Hoffmann is the type of guy who looks forward and says he never consciously thought about this landmark over the years. “Of course, it gets to 48 and 49 years,” he says, “and you think, wow, 50. That’s a big number. It’s like a lifetime.
“But I never think about the past. I always think about the here and now and plan for the future. I always avoided doing these big anniversary tours. 40 years of Balls To The Wall, 40 years this and 40 years that. We could have done this, but I always thought we had so much new stuff to show.”
But for the Accept 50-year celebrations, Wolf and the band thought they needed to do something special. “In the past, we always avoided that. We could have done a studio album with new songs. The Teutonic Titans idea was born because we always had guest musicians on stage (for example, Joel Hoekstra in 2024), and we found it so exciting to have other artists interpret our songs in a different way.
“We thought if we are gonna do something like that, then let’s do a full album and use songs that people haven’t heard that much, deep cuts of songs that have fallen off the radar over the years.”
Accept – Steelhouse Festival 2024. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Wolf, quite rightly, says he is proud of Teutonic Titans. “I never dreamt that our songs would have such a global reach amongst other musicians. I always saw us as this little band from Germany, especially in the early ’80s when we weren’t as connected as we are now.
“I didn’t realise that a musician on the other side of the world, somewhere in California, would take note of us and actually like what we do and be inspired by our own career path. I am still surprised when musicians come up to me today and tell me that it changed their lives when they first heard Fast As A Shark.”
For Teutonic Titans, the majority of the recording was completed remotely. “We met with some musicians, as they either didn’t have their own studio or were nearby. American musician and producer Zeuss (Chris Harris) did an amazing job, which was a massive undertaking to collect all the files and handle all the mixing and mastering, which he did in his own studio. You couldn’t do an album like this back in the ’80s.”
Was it easier back then to get noticed and become successful as a band? “I don’t think so,” Wolf says. “It’s maybe more difficult now to stand out as an artist, but it was difficult back then, too. If I think back, the record labels were the gods, and without a big record deal, nothing happened.
“And without selling millions of records, you didn’t earn any money. And you had to tour. Nowadays, there are no big record companies. There are small labels and independent labels. Some bands don’t even have a label.
“The income comes from live performances or selling merch, or in some cases, through YouTube or downloads. I am not entirely sure if it is better now or worse because it’s completely different now.”
Accept – Steelhouse Festival 2024. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
The highlights of his 50-year career with Accept are plentiful. “There are performances you don’t forget, lots of ups and downs, but the most exciting times were the ’80s, when the whole Heavy Metal era was exploding.
“I can especially remember 1984 when we released Balls To The Wall, and we got a worldwide record deal. We toured the US for several months. This was a really exciting time for us.
“I try not to think about the difficult and dark ’90s. They weren’t so great. Ultimately, a 50-year career is a constant up and down, and you learn how to deal with that. But in the end, it’s the longevity that matters, and it doesn’t matter that we never had a number 1 or a number 2 in the charts. In the end, it’s not that important.
“The important thing is that we are still part of it, and we are currently having a great time. We tour the world, we have a worldwide fan community, and life couldn’t be better.”
Accept toured with Iron Maiden in the ’80s. “The funny thing is that the touring bit hasn’t changed at all over the years,” Wolf says. “It’s exactly how it was back then. You still have to climb onto that tour bus, get to the next location, stand on stage with five people, have your instrument in your hand and try to entertain your fans.
“It was an exciting time for us as a band from Germany to be touring the world. We were all young, and the Heavy Metal scene was young, and nobody knew what was gonna happen in the future.
“Of course, it was unimaginable that both bands are still around 40 years later. I always thought that one day it would be all over, and then there is another music genre, which there were, like punk, grunge. But somehow Heavy Metal didn’t go away, and the demand has actually increased over the years, which we didn’t expect.”
Accept, Hellfest Festival 2024. Photo: Ryan Hildrew/MetalTalk
Over all this time, lineup changes and dynamics of the band and music style would have an influence. “Every musician who joined had their own style, and it changed the music a little bit,” Wolf says. “But I always saw it as my job as the last remaining original band member to make sure that the musical direction, the brand and the musical style of Accept didn’t change that much.
“We are in a lucky position that we have a musical direction and style that fans love and which we have mastered very well. So I always stayed away from experimenting, but instead stayed true to the style that fans love.”
Those early days saw the band driven in their ambitions, pushed by a desire to sing in English and not German. “We always wanted to be seen as a global band,” Wolf says. “Our heroes were Judas Priest, AC/DC and Deep Purple. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve that if we had sung in German, in those days anyway.
“We wanted to be part of that global arena of bands and to sing in English so people can understand us and take us seriously. Rammstein and others came much later.”
Accept – Teutonic Titans 1976-2026
Now the focus is on Teutonic Titans and these August UK shows. Is there anything left on Wolf Hoffmann’s to-do list, something he still wants to achieve?
“I don’t really have a big milestone in mind,” he says. “I’ve already achieved things I never thought I would. But at the same time, I still have the drive to make the next album, the next tour, the next song better.
“I don’t sit back and say I’ve done everything, I don’t have to make an effort anymore.
“Accept will go on, and I always say the best is yet to come.”
August
KK’s Steel MillStarworks Warehouse, Frederick St, Wolverhampton WV2 4DU
Accept have announced a landmark release celebrating 50 years of Heavy Metal with their upcoming album Teutonic Titans 1976-2026. Set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, the
Event Details
Accept have announced a landmark release celebrating 50 years of Heavy Metal with their upcoming album Teutonic Titans 1976-2026. Set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, the album features 19 reimagined classics and includes contributions from 50 guest musicians.
Accept will also perform live in the UK in August 2026, continuing their anniversary celebrations on stage.
Accept have announced a landmark release celebrating 50 years of Heavy Metal with their upcoming album Teutonic Titans 1976-2026. Set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, the
Event Details
Accept have announced a landmark release celebrating 50 years of Heavy Metal with their upcoming album Teutonic Titans 1976-2026. Set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, the album features 19 reimagined classics and includes contributions from 50 guest musicians.
Accept will also perform live in the UK in August 2026, continuing their anniversary celebrations on stage.
Tickets for the KK’s Steel Mill and Indigo At The O2 shows are available from acceptworldwide.com.
Teutonic Titans 1976-2026 is set for release on 4 September 2026 via Napalm Records, and pre-orders are available from lnk.to/Accept-TeutonicTitans/napalmrecords. Every track features a different combination of vocals, guitars, bass, and drums, giving each classic a fresh edge.
Tobias Forge delivers a commanding performance on the track Save Us (I’m a Rebel, 1980), joined by Ray Luzier on drums. Phil Anselmo, Kirk Hammett, and Mikkey Dee tear through the speed metal classic Fast As A Shark (Restless and Wild, 1982).
Balls To The Wall surges with the powerful range of Metal God Rob Halford, alongside the guitar work of Matthias Jabs, while the reimagined Love Child is elevated by Billy Corgan and David Ellefson (both songs from Balls To The Wall, 1983).
Other guest stars on ACCEPT’s extraordinary release include K. K. Downing, Bobby Blitz, Hansi Kürsch, Chris Jericho, Ralf Scheepers, Billy Sheehan, Ola Englund, and Jeff Loomis.
The album also features a re-recording of Hellhammer (Eat The Heat, 1989), performed by ACCEPT’s current lineup: Wolf Hoffmann, bassist Martin Motnik, guitarist Philip Shouse and drummer Christopher Williams, joined by Jason McMaster on vocals. The album masterpiece was produced, mixed and mastered by legendary producer Zeuss.
Electric Callboy have announced that they’ll be heading back to the UK and Europe in early 2027, bringing their party-starting live show to arenas.
Photo credit: Dajo Eberlei
Off the back of an absolutely career-defining performance at Download Festival over the weekend, they’re set to unleash their chaos upon some of Europe’s biggest venues in January.
Celebrating upcoming album ‘TANZNEID’, the freshly announced shows will kick off at Dublin’s 3Arena, before making stops in Manchester, Nottingham., Bournemouth and Cardiff.
Here are all the dates you need to know:
JANUARY
21: DUBLIN 3Arena 23: MANCHESTER Co-op Live 24: NOTTINGHAM Motorpoint Arena 26: BOURNEMOUTH Bournemouth International Centre 27: CARDIFF Utilita Arena Cardiff 29: TOULOUSE Zénith Toulouse Métropole 30: BORDEAUX Arkéa Arena 31: NANTES Zénith Nantes Métropole
FEBRUARY
15: PARIS Accor Arena 16: BRUSSELS Forest National 18: HANOVER ZAG Arena 20: MANNHEIM SAP Arena 22: MILAN Unipol Forum 24: PRAGUE O2 Arena 27: DORTMUND Westfalenhalle Dortmund 28: NUREMBERG PSD Bank Nürnberg Arena
MARCH
2: LEIPZIG QUARTERBACK Immobilien Arena
Tickets will be on sale from February 27 at 10 am
Rock Sound were there to catch all of the action when Electric Callboy took to the stage at Download Festival over the weekend.
Check out our full review below:
Electric Callboy, Download Festival 2026
LIVE REVIEW: There are things happening right now on the Apex Stage that have definitely never occurred at Donington Park before. The first time a German Schlager song has been performed. The first time a hardstyle remix of blink-182’s… pic.twitter.com/XUg1PyYpFr
Adrenaline‑charged hard rock band Kings County returns June 19th , 2026, with their explosive new single ‘What Now‘. It’s a track born from real‑life upheaval, sharpened by experience, and rebuilt for 2026 with a modern, aggressive edge. Stream – here Rob says, “One thing I’ve noticed when writing lyrics and addressing subject matters is when […]
The spirit of metal has always been transgressive. Even though the genre can no longer be epitomized by a group of men with long hair, wearing all black, screaming about Satan and death,1, there remains an element that threatens an established order or sensibility. This is most obvious in the sound itself, which apparently turns a majority of listeners away even as it attracts weirdos like us. But while we may roll our eyes at metal of any kind being dismissed as ‘just noise’ and ‘horrible’, there are some cases where we can acknowledge that the music in question really is very inaccessible. Then we’re confronted with that same transgressiveness non-metalheads face when they listen to less-extreme metal, and enjoyment—let alone qualitative assessment—becomes complex. So it was when I was faced with Dhrupad Anutpada (ধপদ অন$ৎপ&দ): Apophatic Ragas Of Non-Origination, the debut of Indian/Canadian act Nirriti whose intense blackened noise is paired with a philosophical theme that denies the occurrence of creation. Its heresy is every bit as transcendentally horrifying as it sounds.
