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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

The post Nirriti – Dhrupad Anutpada (ধপদ অন$ৎপ&দ): Apophatic Ragas Of Non-Origination Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Call Of The Wild Festival: Day One, Lincolnshire Showground, Friday 28.05.26

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.

BEAT

Eventim Apollo, London – 8 June 2026

Words: Paul Monkhouse

Photography: Phil Honley

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

A night to feel alive.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Current Month

August

KK’s Steel MillStarworks Warehouse, Frederick St, Wolverhampton WV2 4DU

27aug7:30 pmAccept, WolverhamptonKK’s Steel Mill

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

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.

Time

August 27, 2026 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

Location

KK’s Steel Mill

Starworks Warehouse, Frederick St, Wolverhampton WV2 4DU

Other Events

Organizer

Accept

Tickets

KK’s Steel Mill

Tickets

CalendarGoogleCal

The O2, LondonPeninsula Square, London SE10 0DX

28aug7:30 pmAccept, LondonIndigo at The O2

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

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.

Time

August 28, 2026 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

Location

The O2, London

Peninsula Square, London SE10 0DX

Other Events

Organizer

Accept

Tickets

Tickets

CalendarGoogleCal

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.

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:

The post Electric Callboy Announce UK/EU Arena Tour appeared first on Rock Sound.

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 post Kings County Announce New Single ‘What Now’ appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.

Spiritbox have teamed up with American electronic duo SLANDER for a propulsive new rock-dubstep track.

Titled ‘Under My Skin’, the collaboration has been more than three years in the making, and the result is a track that collides the ferocious energy of heavy dubstep with emotive bass and the enchanting vocals of Courtney LaPlante.

Opening with haunting acoustic guitar before exploding into something that feels blistering and ethereal all at once, it’s the kind of song that really needs to be heard to be believed.

Speaking on the tune, Spiritbox have said:

“The song has been stuck in my head ever since hearing the first demo. I’m really excited for the Slander fans to hear the final version, because they’ve been hearing the demo version at Slander shows for a long time now!”

On working with Spirtbox, SLANDER have said:

“Getting to work with Spiritbox on this song was such an incredible experience. Their kindness, professionalism, skill, and passion was so refreshing. They gave the song so much intensity and light.. bringing it to new heights that were previously unimaginable. Also getting to watch Courtney scream in the studio is something we will never forget. The precision of her vocal performance during recording was astounding. Additionally we gotta big up Mike for adding some amazing riffs and insane guitar lead lines. We are over the moon about how this collaboration turned out and how well our sounds worked together.”

The post Spiritbox Team Up With SLANDER On Dubstep Infused New Track ‘Under My Skin’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

Craig Morgan’s song catalog reflects a life that has been anything but ordinary. From heartfelt country ballads and working-class anthems to songs inspired by family, faith, and military service, Morgan has built a recording career that resonates with listeners who appreciate authenticity and real-life storytelling. This complete list of Craig Morgan songs from A to Z showcases the depth of a catalog that has produced enduring country radio favorites, including “That’s What I Love About Sunday,” “Redneck Yacht Club,” “Almost Home,” “International Harvester,” and “Bonfire.” Kingston Springs, Tennessee, has always remained at the heart of Craig Morgan’s story. Before becoming

The post Complete List Of Craig Morgan Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.