See now.
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Breakdown is Kingfisher’s Single Out Now
Hypnotic!
Breakdown is Kingfisher’s Single Out Now
The post Breakdown is Kingfisher’s Single Out Now appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.
Wages Of Sin stands above the rest for its balance of melody, aggression, and long-term impact on the genre.
Arch Enemy’s catalog doesn’t move in a straight line—it fractures into distinct identities depending on the era. Some albums built the blueprint, others expanded the audience, and a few simply don’t hit the same way anymore. This ranking focuses on what still carries weight now, not what used to.
Right now, that conversation matters more than usual. With Alissa White-Gluz no longer fronting the band and new vocalist Lauren Hart stepping in, Arch Enemy is entering another shift—and that always forces a re-evaluation of what actually defines them.
Having followed every phase of this band, one thing is clear: most rankings lean too heavily on loyalty to a specific era instead of looking at the full picture.
Three things decided this order: how consistent the album is from front to back, how much it impacted the band’s trajectory, and how well it holds up without needing context to carry it.
This is where most lists lose credibility.

Re-recording early material with a stronger vocal performance should have elevated these songs, but instead it flattens what made them interesting. The raw unpredictability of the original recordings is replaced with precision, and in doing so, some of the character disappears.
It’s a solid listen, but it doesn’t add anything new to the catalog. That matters when everything else here is original work.

There’s tension here, but it never fully resolves. The songwriting feels caught between ideas, and while the band is clearly evolving, it hasn’t locked into its identity yet.
Moments hit, but the album as a whole doesn’t carry the same consistency as what came after.

This is where the formula starts to show. Everything sounds professional, tight, and deliberate—but also predictable.
It doesn’t fall apart, it just doesn’t push forward. That lack of urgency is what holds it back.

This is where fans will start pushing back.
Technically, it’s strong. Production is massive, performances are sharp, and the band sounds fully in control. But it leans heavily on a formula that’s already been established.
It’s not a weak album—it just doesn’t challenge anything.

This is where scale enters the picture. The band starts writing bigger, more anthemic material, and it works—but it also shifts the balance.
Some of the raw edge gets smoothed out in favor of accessibility. It’s effective, but it changes the feel.

This is where things start locking in.
The melodic framework becomes clearer, the aggression tightens, and the band begins to sound like itself. It’s still early, but the foundation is unmistakable.

This is one of the strongest modern-era records because it doesn’t feel forced.
The songwriting is tight, the pacing is consistent, and the band sounds comfortable without sounding complacent. It doesn’t reinvent anything, but it executes at a high level.

This is where things open up.
The band experiments more, introduces new textures, and expands the vocal range. It doesn’t all land perfectly, but the ambition is clear—and that counts.

Raw, unfiltered, and essential.
The production is rough, but the ideas are fully formed. You can hear the identity taking shape in real time, and that energy carries the album even when it gets uneven.

This is where everything tightens again.
After experimenting with scale and accessibility, the band refocuses on aggression. The result is one of their most direct, hard-hitting records.
It doesn’t waste time, and that’s why it lands this high.

This is the moment that could have gone wrong—and didn’t.
A vocalist change at this level usually disrupts momentum. Instead, this album re-establishes it immediately. The songwriting is confident, the hooks are strong, and the band sounds fully re-centered.
This is where the modern era truly begins.

This is the most consistent and aggressive version of the Angela Gossow era.
Everything is tightened, focused, and deliberate. There’s no excess, no filler, and no drift. It’s a complete statement from start to finish.
This is where the band sounds locked in.

This is where everything changes—and everything works.
It introduces a new voice, sharpens the songwriting, and defines the balance between melody and aggression that the band would carry forward.
More importantly, it holds up without qualification. It doesn’t rely on legacy or context—it still hits with the same force.
This is the album that defines Arch Enemy.
There’s a real argument for Rise Of The Tyrant at number one. Some will push War Eternal higher because of what it represents.
That’s the split.
Different eras, different priorities—but only one album holds all of it together.
So the question becomes simple:
Is Wages Of Sin still the peak—or has another era quietly taken that spot?

What is the best Arch Enemy album?
Wages Of Sin is widely considered the band’s strongest release due to its impact and consistency.
What album introduced Alissa White-Gluz?
War Eternal (2014) marked the beginning of that era.
Did Arch Enemy change singers again?
Yes. The band has entered a new phase following Alissa White-Gluz’s departure, introducing new vocalist Lauren Hart and signaling another shift.
What is the heaviest Arch Enemy album?
Rise Of The Tyrant is often considered their most aggressive and consistent release.
Arch Enemy formed in Sweden in 1995 under guitarist Michael Amott and quickly became one of the defining bands in melodic death metal. Known for combining technical precision with aggressive songwriting, the band has evolved across multiple vocal eras—from Johan Liiva to Angela Gossow to Alissa White-Gluz, and now into a new phase with Lauren Hart.
The post All 13 Arch Enemy Albums Ranked From Weakest To Absolute Peak appeared first on Loaded Radio.
Evolution. It’s one of those principles that seems to undergird just about every aspect of existence in this universe. As students of our most favorite of genres, we often speak about the “evolution of heavy metal” and how it has birthed a plethora of subgenres of varying degrees of viability. While some of these subgenres carry enough useful traits to become long-lasting pillars in the monument of heavy metal, others seem to serve the role of transitional forms or “missing links” between more well-known styles. Case in point: speed metal. Often seen as a momentary stop on metal’s journey from traditional to thrash, relatively few bands have built a career on speed alone. Acts who start with speed metal (many early thrash bands and power metal bands, especially) often incorporate other elements or transition to something else entirely. While this may be the general trend in metal’s history, Germany’s Cruel Force says, “Fuck that.”
Formed back in the late aughts as a blackened thrash/speed metal band, Cruel Force regrouped after a long hiatus, reinventing themselves as a pure and simple speed metal band with 2023’s Dawn of the Axe, an album that impressed me enough to earn a spot on my list of honorable mentions for that year. Well, if that was the dawn of the axe, 2026’s Haneda is the reign of the axe, an axe that has been meticulously honed and polished to the point of being as beautiful as it is lethal. I’d suggest doing a proper warmup before pressing play on the embedded “Whips-A-Swinging,” because severe neck damage is all but inevitable.
In fact, Haneda should have come with a warning from the surgeon general stating something like, “May cause permanent stank face. May cause carpal tunnel syndrome secondary to excessive involuntary air guitar. May cause the user to run through walls, laugh maniacally at inappropriate times, or punch strangers in the face. Do not use while operating motor vehicles, as dangerous and irreversible acceleration has occurred. User may also feel the urge to destroy said vehicle with their bare hands, Street Fighter style.” And that’s just my experience with the record these maniacs have produced. Guitarist Slaughter absolutely lives up to his name, slaying all before him with unbelievable rhythm skills and classic metal leads, while Spider’s fingers crawl across his bass fretboard in an effort to keep up. Carnivore feasts, delivering a timeless, thrashy vocal performance that suits the music oh so well, but MVP honors go to drummer GG Alex, whose incessant fills have managed to become a hallmark of Cruel Force’s sound.

The prospect of 42 minutes of speed metal probably doesn’t sound all that special or exciting, but in Cruel Force’s capable hands, Haneda has managed to transcend the genre’s ham-fisted, beer-guzzling stereotype to create something truly special. The compositions are incredible, ranging from 4-minute rippers like “Whips-A-Swinging,” “Savage Gods,” “Sword of Iron,” and “Black Talon,” stretching into more complex work like “Warlords” or the album’s instrumental centerpiece “Crystal Skull,” and finishing in grand fashion with the epic, 9-minute, Song o’ the Year-frontrunning title track. Every song features wild, yet somehow graceful transitions and killer grooves, and the production is simply beautiful, proving that an album can sound authentically old and brutal while simultaneously feeling cultured and refined. I’m honestly still in shock from how hard this album hit me; what on first listen felt like just a really good speed metal album has revealed itself to be utterly excellent.
To finish my musings on evolution, Haneda sounds like a handful of speed metal bands become isolated on an island that drifted away from mainland Metal millions of years ago (let’s call this island ‘Metalgascar’) and whose progeny have spent the intervening time adapting and mutating without any other external musical influence. Where mainland Metal achieved heaviness through ever more extreme vocalization, down-tuning, and genre bastardization, Metalgascar developed its heaviness through ever-increasing speed and compositional quality. Far from being some hunched-over figure towards the beginning of heavy metal’s March of Progress, speed metal, in the form of Cruel Force, has achieved its final form, becoming Homo deus, the Übermensch, the Gigachad, or as the kids say these days, “he’s him” (or “she’s her,” or “they’re them,” if you prefer). This fantastic record will undoubtedly be on my year-end list (if not atop it), because I doubt that 2026 can produce something that’s more quintessentially metal.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Shadow Kingdom Records
Websites: cruelforce.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/cruelforce
Releases Worldwide: March 27th, 2026
The post Cruel Force – Haneda Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
Lady Liberty is Kelsie Kimberlin’s Single Out Now
Awakening
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Have You Seen The Rain? is Radio Psychosis’ Single Out Now
Have You Seen The Rain? is Radio Psychosis’ Single Out Now
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– March 27th, 2026 –
Metal, Melody and Mortality on This Incisive Cut from Forthcoming Album “Wretched Heart”
New single out March 27th, 2026 | Album released May 1st, 2026
Photo by: Caitlin Delaplace
More than half a century into its life, what exactly is heavy metal? Is it a kind of belief system? Is it something to be observed as a relic, or an exhibit in a museum? Or is it, to paraphrase Christopher Lee’s Due de Richeleau in The Devil Rides Out “A living force, which can strike at any moment of the night“? For Vancouver’s SPELL, that question has never been more vital.
The latest single, “Take My Life“, offers one of the most revealing entry points into their new chapter. Released on March 27th, 2026, the track stands as perhaps the starkest embodiment of the album’s central tension – where classic heavy metal confidence collides with profound existential weight. Driven by a swaggering, mid-paced pulse and steeped in the spirit of vintage ’80s metal, the song delivers a chorus built for raised fists and midnight exorcisms alike. Yet beneath its strut lies something far more disquieting. As vocalist and bassist Cam Mesmer explains, “‘Take My Life’ is about an intimate encounter with death, and the power dynamics at play. Where I’ve had to make a decisive move, and been fearful, but others have given me confidence.”
This is a track that captures SPELL at their most direct, dynamic and disarmingly honest. As both a standalone statement and a key moment within Wretched Heart, it signals a band not only at the height of their powers but actively redefining what those powers can be. Stream a music video for “Take My Life“, directed by James Barry and Sean Edwards for Ramble Films, at this location.
Take My Life is released March 27th, 2026. WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO HERE!
Vancouver based hypnotic heavy metal outfit Spell, will release its new LP, ‘Wretched Heart‘, on May 1 via Bad Omen Records. A shadow-drenched journey through desperation, passion and defiance, ‘Wretched Heart‘ sees Spell transform heavy metal into something urgent and human – gothic, cinematic and hypnotic. Not only Spell‘s strongest record to date but also a thunderous celebration of eccentricity which stalks its nocturnal realm with both savage finesse and beguiling charm. ‘Wretched Heart‘ is the follow-up to Spell‘s 2022 LP, ‘Tragic Magic‘, an album hailed as a celebration of “the mystique and darkness within hard rock and heavy metal“.
Pre-order/stream Wretched Heart HERE.
Available on CD, Single LP (spined LP with insert) in Solid Purple, Transparent Red & Blue Marbled, and Red & Black Smoke, and digitally.
‘Wretched Heart‘, in all its gory glory, embodies a very vital paradox – a record made by true believers who yearn for catharsis beyond. The oxymoron of anthems forged from steel, yet with a very human heart. Even the most cynical bystander will likely struggle not to be bewitched.
Track listing:
01.) Dark Inertia
02.) Lilac (stream VIDEO)
03.) Take My Life (stream VIDEO)
04.) Unquiet Graces
05.) Oubliette
06.) Iron Teeth
07.) Exquisite Corpse
08.) Savage Scourge
09.) In Duress
10.) Wretched Heart
Spell is Cam Mesmer (vocals, bass, rhythm guitar, synthesizers), Al Lester, (vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums), Jeff Black (lead guitar, backing vocals), and Gabriel Tenebrae, (lead guitar, synthesizers). Follow Spell on Facebook and Instagram.
“Tipping their caps to a range of classic hard rock influences like Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush and even old-school Mercyful Fate, Spell captures a dreary, overcast and lo-fi vibe” – Exclaim!
“If this band was a van, they would be the raddest, most pimped out airbrushed 70′s van with plush interior and a BOOMING system. SPELL is a perfect name for them, because their songs are jamming heavy metal magic.” – Cvlt Nation
“If you like your throwback metal loaded with 70s occult magic, this may cast a spell over you.” – Angry Metal Guy
Greetings, Decibel readers!
It’s a great week for fans of death and thrash metal, especially if you’re looking for bands who carry on the spirit of the 1980s while still screaming with their own voice.
Enjoy!
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Well, it’s hard to go wrong with a name like that. This is the British outfit’s second album on Dying Victims Productions, a match custom-made in hell. A thrilling blend of Mercyful Fate, Venom, Exciter, and other flavors of 1980s extremity. There’s a subtle hint of early-80s street punk in there as well, if you listen close enough.
Stream: Apple Music
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Mind-blasting avant-garde mastery. When it comes to experimental and off-kilter death metal, Andrea Bruzzone is the man to trust. Think of Esoctrilihum but with the sonic insanity curve bent more toward Cynic, Nocturnus and latter-era Death.
—
Meanwhile, if you just want some unrelenting, cavernous darkness — the debut album from Denmark’s Foetorem embodies all manner of devouring death. Themes of festering decay clash with thought-provoking, introspective music sections that contrast the standard blasts of fury. Gore that makes you think.
Stream: Apple Music
—
Hellripper is more than just another blackened-speed metal band. Over the course of the last decade, James McBain has established his unholy music machine as one of the most compelling and exciting names in modern metal. On Coronach, James ups the ante ever further with more interesting riff-work, more challenging compositions, and more reasons to hail eternal darkness!
Stream: Apple Music
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Floridian thrashy death metal courtesy of the always reliably Redefining Darkness Records. This is the band’s third album, and a followup to 2022’s Watch You Burn.
Stream: Apple Music
The post Five For Friday: March 27, 2026 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
Metalcore outfit August Burns Red announced the impending release of their newly announced album Season Of Surrender, coming out on June 5. It’s the band’s first full-length release since returning to Fearless Records last month.
Boasting 11 brand new tracks, the album also includes the previously released song “Behemoth”. Today’s announcement brought a second track to light — “The Nameless”. That particular track you can check out below.
Bassist Dustin Davidson spoke about the new track, calling it a “hard-hitting, heavy bruiser that doesn’t let up for one moment.”
“[‘The Nameless’] combines classic ABR elements with dark moody technical rhythms, and fast paced vocals to keep the intensity up for the full three minutes of the track. To me it showcases our roots of where we’ve come from, and the future path of where we’re heading.”
While Davidson addressed the song’s vibes, vocalist Jake Luhrs explained the lyrical content found within the track and what it means.
“Lyrically, ‘The Nameless’ is a song about not wasting your life away for the sake of acceptance and comfortability. Sometimes it takes detaching from what you’ve been told, or from the beliefs you are no longer aligned with, in order to face your own weaknesses. In doing so you can break free to live a life you are proud of.”
Season Of Surrender will be released on June 5 via Fearless Records, but you can preorder your copy today.
Later this year, August Burns Red will head out on tour with The Amity Affliction, Boundaries, and Heavensgate. You can check out the full list of tour dates below and get your tickets today.
SEASON OF SURRENDER TRACK LISTING:
“Legions” [Feat. Mike Hranica]
“The Nameless”
“Behemoth”
“Den of Thieves”
“Sonic Salvation” [Feat. Jamie Hails]
“Cerebral Malfunction” [Feat. Make Them Suffer]
“Tear of the Clouds”
“Whispers Like Splinters”
“S.O.S.”
“New Horizons”
“Forged by Failure”

AUGUST BURNS RED + THE AMITY AFFLICTION ON TOUR:
WITH BOUNDARIES + HEAVENSGATE:
4/10 — Worcester, MA — The Palladium*
4/11 — New Haven, CT — College Street Music Hall*
4/12 — Pittsburgh, PA — Stage AE
4/14 — Charlotte, NC — The Fillmore
4/15 — Atlanta, GA — Tabernacle
4/16 — Orlando, FL — House of Blues
4/18 — New Orleans, LA — The Fillmore
4/19 — Dallas, TX — The Bomb Factory
4/21 — Houston, TX — House of Blues
4/22 — San Antonio, TX — Vibes Event Center (Outdoors)
4/24 — Phoenix, AZ — The Marquee
4/25 — San Diego, CA — Soma
4/26 — Anaheim, CA — House of Blues
4/28 — Sacramento, CA — Channel 24
4/29 — Garden City, ID — Revolution Concert House
5/1 — Salt Lake City, UT — The Union Event Center
5/2 — Denver, CO — The Fillmore
5/3 — Omaha, NE — The Astro Theater
5/5 — Minneapolis, MN — The Fillmore
5/6 — Milwaukee, WI — The Rave
5/8 — Chicago, IL — Riviera Theatre
5/9 — Royal Oak, MI — Royal Oak Music Theatre
5/10 — Toronto, ON — History
5/12 — Montreal, QC — Mtelus
5/13 — Brooklyn, NY — Brooklyn Paramount
5/15 — Baltimore, MD — Nevermore Hall
5/16 — Columbus, OH — Sonic Temple**
5/17 — Philadelphia, PA — The Fillmore
*With Dreamwake, no Heavensgate
**Festival Date (ABR + TAA Only)

The post August Burns Red Announce New Album ‘Season of Surrender’, “The Nameless’ Streaming Now appeared first on MetalSucks.