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Iconic rockers JET today announce The Rumblin’ Regional Revue Tour, a run of regional shows across Australia’s East Coast kicking off in late April. The tour will launch in Mackay before heading to Townsville, Ellis Beach, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Barwon Heads and Frankston, wrapping up in mid-May, performing in some of the most intimate rooms they’ve […]

THE ANIMALS were a major force in the British Invasion of the 1960s, blending blues, R&B, and rock into a sound that has inspired generations. Their music remains as relevant and powerful today as it was back then. Britannia ruled the airwaves in the 60’s. In the front ranks, marching in formation behind The Beatles, […]

Modern Metalcore outfit THE NARRATOR have announced the release of their sophomore album, Phosphor, on May 8, 2026 via Nuclear Blast Records. The follow-up to their acclaimed debut album Lore offers ten smashing songs that respond to the global crisis with inner exhaustion and shows how close hope and self-destruction are to each other. The […]

The concept of mono no aware lives in the small surrender of moments already loosening their grip. Magnolia petals spotting the pavement after a brief blaze. A song finishing its ride as the car idles, finger hovering over the key. A laugh carrying more years than the last time you clocked it. There’s a mild ache there, attention sharpened by time’s hand. Meaning gathers speed because nothing sticks around. You watch without grabbing, let the instant move on, understanding that noticing is the act itself. In Japan, sakura (cherry blossoms) carry this charge everywhere: on paper and silk, in poems and patterns, a seasonal reminder that life flashes, then bows out.

West Wickhams (Jon Othello and Elle Flores) operate in that slipstream, stitching England’s salt air to their native Sicilian stone. Their music wanders through old pages and ruined places, part séance, part scribbled manifesto, guided by abbeys, attic organs, and paperback dread. West Wickhams play at being a phantom rival crew to the storied “Bromley Contingent”: bedroom-born, rough-edged, smudged with tape hiss and pop instinct; post-punk filtered through autumn light and late-night reading lists.

Indeed, the band’s influences read like a bookshelf knocked over at midnight: “Mary Shelley, Whitby Abbey, pipe organs, flowers, dark punk, Gothic novels, rock ’n’ roll autobiographies, ancient myths, castles, abstract painting, euphoria, mist, autumn, Halloween, optical illusions, Edgar Allan Poe, Daphne du Maurier, Andy Warhol.” True to their word, these elements creep into their lyrics on little cat feet.

Up To The Old Tricks moves with a sly smile and a light step, a record that understands the power of restraint. Its language is pared back to chant and hook, synth lines kept simple, repetition treated as punctuation rather than emphasis. There’s a wink in the delivery that recalls the dry romanticism of The Magnetic Fields and the theatrical poise of Jim E. Brown, a sense of play that never curdles into clutter.

The accompanying video, garden mischief giving way to a pocket-sized vaudeville stage, leans into a kind of time-slip glamour, a 1960s daydream borrowing the manners of the 1920s. The visual lift from the 1966 Czech classic Daisies sharpens the gesture: spoiled worlds, spoiled girls, and misbehaviour performed as critique.

Ice Block pulls from early-2000s indie instincts, its chant riding spare keys and a drum machine that clangs with domestic insistence, bringing to mind the off-kilter ease of Modest Mouse and Bishop Allen. There’s a mechanical humour at work too, a wink toward Kraftwerk, where precision and quirk coexist without fuss.

As the Camera Shuts pivots the palette entirely. Airy synths, chimes, muffled voices, and guitar open the track before it drifts into colder post-punk air, echoing the poise and poise-adjacent tension associated with Siouxsie and the Banshees. It feels like a side door into the record—quietly distinct, its difference registered through atmosphere rather than announcement.

Later cuts tilt darker and looser. EQ The Viper circles with echo and unease, minimal lines arranged to feel suggestive, almost subliminal, its menace implied rather than declared. Save Yourselves relaxes the grip: a softer groove with a faintly psychedelic sway, vocals submerged like passing thoughts, echoing and gentle. Across the record, economy becomes attitude; small gestures accumulate. Old tricks, but handled with care, timing, and a knowing grin.

Listen to Sakura below and order the album here.

All told, it’s a record unafraid to play with form—five curious art-rock cuts that prize wit over weight, leaving a quiet imprint that tends to surface at the edge of sleep, when the day loosens its grip and small ideas linger longest.

Follow West Wickhams:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Bandcamp
• Spotify
• Apple Music

The post “Up To The Old Tricks” — Psychedelic Noir Duo West Wickhams Share “Sakura” EP appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Australia, prepare to set your fazers to stun this September, with Welsh ragga metal legends SKINDRED primed to return to our shores for their biggest ever Australian headline tour! Opening proceedings on Tuesday 1 September in Perth, SKINDRED will head through Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, and close out on Sunday 6 September in Brisbane. Wielding […]

ALEX GRYCZANOWSKI | Go Venue Magazine

Lincoln, Nebraska, is an unlikely hotspot for live music.

For 21 years, Lincoln Exposed has taken over 14th and O Streets in Lincoln. With nice weather, no snow and bands that were incredible, many members of the community showed up to attend all four nights of the festival.

Lincoln Exposed is a four-day, five-venue music festival that happens every February around Valentine’s Day in Lincoln. Lincoln Exposed started on Feb. 11 and ended on Feb. 14. The venues participating in the festival included The Bourbon Theatre, Bodega’s Alley, Duffy’s Tavern, The Zoo Bar and 1867 Bar.

Over 100 Lincoln bands played at this years festival, and every night was jam-packed with entertaining, memorable performances. Some of the best performances this weekend, in performance and attendance, came from both fresh faces and veterans in the local scene.

One of the most stellar performances of the entire weekend came from alternative rock band Social Cinema at Bodega’s Alley on the final night of the festival. They’re simply electric and mastered their craft. Nothing holds lead singer Griffin Bush back from shredding the most entertaining solos on his guitar. Even when Bush entered the crowd during “Brown Paper Bags & Funny Faces,” the moshing did not interrupt his improvisational solo.

Lincoln Exposed was truly for hardcore and grunge lovers this year, as the heavier performances and lively crowds made the entire festival. JIBLETS brought some of the most insanely powerful, loopered heavy metal to the weekend, and are a young talent on the rise in Nebraska.

Other outstanding performances came from local indie rockers Joyrager, and grunge masterminds Jet Set and Phuzz, to name a few.

It’s clear that Lincoln Exposed has grown past its capacity and its potential has increased immensely because the venues were packed with crowds like sardines. This year was clearly the most attended that Lincoln Exposed has been in recent years. The talent draws the community in and the audience bonds over their love for local music.

Lincoln Exposed is a clear celebration of the community and it brings the city together. If you live in Lincoln, are from Nebraska or in town next year, this festival is a must-attend.

[See image gallery at www.govenuemagazine.com] All images © Alex Gryczanowski

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The post Annual Lincoln Exposed Succeeds Again, Nebraska’s Busiest Local Festival appeared first on Go Venue Magazine.

Greek mythology has long treated the witch as a warning label. Now, with Essaira’s latest single, she is given a microphone to celebrate her strangeness.

In 2023, as the planet lurched from heatwave to headline to horoscope, Essaira were busy building a small fortress of noise in Bologna, Italy. Climate dread, political absurdity, astrological drama…the usual end-of-days cocktail. Out of that stew came From the Guts of Essaira, written across 2023 and 2024 and recorded with Nico Pasquini: ten tracks that stake out psychic ground with the confidence of a three-headed guard dog.

Essaira describes their approach as “punkstrial.” The music runs on tension, synths are tightened to a wire, guitars land in sharp diagonals. Industrial rhythms advance, halt, reconfigure. The trio (Paola, Nico, and Gelo) shares the microphone as if it were contested property. Voices overlap, split, and return in altered form. No one claims centre stage for long. The result feels communal, even conspiratorial, as though the songs are plotting something just out of earshot.

The record’s theme circles power and survival. 2023 reawakened a global fight-or-flight reflex; Essaira chose fight, though not in the chest-beating sense. Their resistance is structural. Every passage has a purpose. Tension is allowed to stretch until it almost snaps, then recalibrated. The album accumulates mass, then pares it back. It advances through friction and release, through the ongoing negotiation between control and chaos.

At the heart sits Xirxe, Essaira’s revision of Circe. Xirxe celebrates weirdness, the monstrous feminine, the right to redraw the boundary lines. What tradition called “escape” reads instead as self-preservation, as authority is framed as disobedience. While dismantling the patriarchy is serious business, Essaira slips in a bit of sly humour in this fierce reclamation: Circe as project manager of her own island. Cerberus reimagined as a band mascot with strong opinions about labour conditions. Essaira leans into the theatricality without sacrificing bite. The monstrous becomes a mirror, then a tool.

If patriarchy and capitalism are the real beasts, the answer is strategic noise. Musically, Essaira draws from industrial abrasion, no wave abrasion, avant-garde sprawl – a lineage that brushes past Einstürzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle, through the confrontational edges of DNA and The Contortions, with occasional flashes of John Coltrane’s ecstatic reach. These references feel embedded rather than displayed, as Xirxe operates on its own internal logic.

The video for Xirxe, directed by Paola Paganotto, heightens the fever. A haphazard montage of eerie memories and jagged half-truths unfolds in quick succession. Grotesque figures drift in and out of frame. Faces distort. The edit spins. It is dizzying, unsettling, and oddly magnetic. The monsters are not subtle. They represent systems and tropes: patriarchy, capitalism, the familiar pantheon of everyday villains…yet the tone never sinks into lecture mode. There’s a wink amid the dread, as if to say: yes, the world is absurd; we might as well dance around the bonfire while dismantling it.

Watch Xirxe below:

From the Guts of Essaira claims space in body and time by refusing passivity. It asks for sustained attention. It favours immersion over distraction. In a culture that scrolls, Essaira insists on staying put. Burning what no longer serves them, they build anew, breathing in unison, three heads alert at the gate, guarding the present with a crooked grin.

Listen to XIRXE below and order From The Guts of Essaira (out now via Raw Culture) here.

Follow Essaira:

• Instagram
• Bandcamp

The post Italian Trio Essaira Share Video for Hymn to the Weird and Monstrous Feminine, “Xirxe” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

🔥 Who Will Rise as This Week’s Champion on the MDR Battle Of The Bands? 🔥
And who will dominate next month as Band of the Month on Metal Devastation Radio?
Last month’s winners, BROKEN TRINITY, crushed the competition with a staggering 46,705 VOTES , claiming the title of Band of the Month on Metal Devastation Radio! You can check them out HERE !
This is the weekly championship edition of the Band Of The Month – Battle Of The Bands that we host every month on MDR!
How does it work?
Every Monday, we launch a new poll featuring bands that submit music each week on metaldevastationradio.com. Voting runs until Friday at 9PM EST .
Each Friday night , at the start of The Zach Moonshine Show , I’ll be spinning the Top Six weekly winners , and announcing the #1 band of the week live on air — getting thousands of listens on Mixcloud !
At the end of the month , all weekly votes are added up, and the band with the highest total votes becomes our Band of the Month !
Winning Band of the Month gets:
A featured post on our Facebook page, reaching thousands of fans
A front-page spotlight on metaldevastationradio.com , which pulls in hundreds of thousands of views every month
A free PR email blast from Metal Devastation PR, hitting 40,000+ contacts including labels, zines, stations, and more
Airplay every hour during general rotation
Tons of social media shares and exposure across our network
If you want the world to know who your band is, this is the easiest way to make it happen!
💥 Want in on the next battle?
Comment below with your band name and we’ll add you to next week’s poll — or email me at zach@metaldevastationradio.com with “Battle Submission” in the subject line.
Bands can compete as many times as they want , and if you enter multiple weeks in the same month, your votes combine toward the Band of the Month title!
👇 Click on the bands below to vote as many times as you like, or add your own! Poll closes Friday, February 20th at 9PM EST ! 👇






Who Will Rise as This Week’s Champion on the MDR Battle Of The Bands?? 02/16/26 – 02/20/26

Oni .

The post Oni Logan recalls most of his demo vocals being used for Lynch Mob’s album ‘Wicked Sensation’ first appeared on Sleaze Roxx.

Death Metal legends CRYPTOPSY to headline The Decibel Magazine North American 2026 Tour!

Support comes from Bay Area death metal warriors Necrot, Italian horror band Fulci and D.C. deathgrind band Blood Monolith.

For show info & tickets:

https://www.bandsintown.com/a/2941-cryptopsy

The Decibel Magazine Tour 2026 dates:

April 30 – Worcester, MA • Palladium Upstairs
May 1 – Brooklyn, NY • Brooklyn Monarch
May 2 – Baltimore, MD • Baltimore Soundstage
May 3 – Philadelphia, PA • Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest – Philly 2026
May 5 – Atlanta, GA • Masquerade (Hell)
May 7 – Houston, TX • White Oak Music Hall
May 8 – Dallas, TX • The Studio
May 9 – Austin, TX • Come and Take It Live
May 12 – Los Angeles, CA • The Regent
May 13 – San Diego, CA • Brick By Brick
May 14 – Berkeley, CA • Cornerstone
May 16 – Portland, OR • Hawthorne Theater
May 17 – Seattle, WA • El Corazon
May 20 – Denver, CO • Oriental Theater
May 22 – Minneapolis, MN • Fine Line Music Cafe
May 23 – Chicago, IL • Bottom Lounge
May 24 – Detroit, MI • Crofoot Ballroom
May 25 – Cleveland, OH • The Grog Shop
May 26 – Pittsburgh, PA • Preserving Underground
May 27 – Toronto, ON • Lee’s
May 28 – Montreal, QC • Fairmount Theatre

LONG LIVE CRYPTOPSY.