While joking about branding marital aids, Zakk Wylde reveals that his long-running marriage served as a big muse for the 'Engines of Demolition' album. Continue reading…

Frankie Fest is back for 2026, and if you’ve spent any time in this city’s clubs and secret canal barge parties, you already know what that means: a packed floor, a few blown speakers, somebody hanging perilously upside down, and a crowd that came to feel a little less alone.  Frankie Fest takes over Brooklyn’s House of Yes on Sunday, May 3rd, running from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM, pulling in NYC’s queer and allied underground.

The festival honors Frankie Maddox Rex, and there’s no polite way to say it: Frankie’s absence still stings. As co-founder and co-vocalist of The FMs, they were one of those figures who made things happen; the kind of person who could illuminate a room just by stepping into it. Since their passing in 2022, this gathering has taken on a strange dual charge: part remembrance, part release…with a lineup that barrels through alt-rock, punk, and performance art. Over the past few years, Frankie Fest has become a place where trans, non-binary, and queer artists claim their rightful space, where the line between stage and floor dissolves into joyful mayhem.

Headlining the 2026 festival is the legendary San Antonio indie-punk trio Girl In A Coma, marking a massive Brooklyn return following their recent reunion. Joining them at the top of the bill is genre-defying alt-pop dynamo Boy Jr., alongside explosive sets from local heavyweights UgLi, Cat Crash, Theophobia, and Villins.

Festival co-founders Miss Cherry Delight and The FMs will also take the stage, honoring the festival’s namesake.

To match the world-class spectacle of House of Yes, the musical lineup will be interwoven with continuous, boundary-pushing theatrical acts. The festival features a curated cast of spectacular burlesque, drag, and variety performers. Anchoring the night and transitioning the live rock showcase into a late-night dance party is DJ Goth Dad, the acclaimed DJ project of Dusty Gannon, frontman for the post-punk powerhouse Vision Video.

Get your tickets here!

The post Frankie Fest Returns: Brooklyn’s Queer Underground Gathers to Celebrate Frankie Rex appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Good Day Noir Family,
Citizen Smith introduce “Summer Magazine” with a crisp, open guitar riff that carries clarity and crunch.

Summer Magazine is Citizen Smith’s Single Out Now

 The tone immediately frames the track within a classic rock tradition.

The influence of The Rolling Stones is clear, serving as a reference point that shapes the track’s identity.

The atmosphere leans toward an uplifting mood that recalls television series inspired by the 60s and 70s. This visual association strengthens the listening experience, giving the song a cinematic quality rooted in nostalgia. In addition, the equalization favors higher frequencies, a distinctly British approach that sharpens the edges and keeps the mix bright and present.

The song’s appeal goes beyond stylistic references. The structure remains simple on the surface, but the dynamics reveal careful planning. The verses hold a steady pace, allowing the guitar line to breathe, while subtle shifts maintain engagement without overwhelming the listener. The track achieves a balance between accessibility and intention.

The chorus expands the arrangement in a way that feels natural rather than forced. The introduction of pads adds depth, opening a wider emotional space and signaling a transition into a more immersive section. Still, the band avoids excess, keeping the focus on the core elements that define the track.

Notably, the overall mood evokes a sense of movement and freedom. The song suggests long drives in a van, surrounded by friends, with no fixed destination. This imagery does not rely on nostalgia alone; it reflects a desire for spontaneity that resonates in the present. On the other hand, the band maintains a grounded approach, ensuring the track never drifts into abstraction.

Beyond that, the sound remains direct and sincere. There is no attempt to overcomplicate the arrangement or disguise its influences. Instead, Citizen Smith embrace a straightforward musical language that feels honest and necessary in the current landscape.

A focused and well-crafted piece, “Summer Magazine” highlights a band that understands how to channel classic inspiration into a fresh and engaging form.

Summer Magazine is Citizen Smith’s Single Out Now!

---

Timeless!

---

Citizen Smith, are a band hailing from Norwich, England, they are set to make waves in the music scene with their original single, “Summer Magazine.” This classic pop rock track, inspired by the theme of unattainable love, carries a feel-good summer vibe that is sure to resonate with listeners. Notably, the song is a personal homage to Citizen Smith’s singer Paul’s wife, who is featured on the front cover, adding an intimate touch to the release. With influences ranging from the Beatles to REM and Big Star, Citizen Smith’s music promises a blend of nostalgia and contemporary flair that sets them apart in the industry.

---

Find Citizen Smith Here:

Spotify
Facebook

---

Discover New Bands Click Here

---

Listen to more tunes on the Noir Playlist.

The post Summer Magazine is Citizen Smith’s Single Out Now appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.

To celebrate his years with Iron Maiden, veteran singer Blaze Bayley announced ‘Iron Maiden Anniversary Tour’ over Europe, where he will perform songs from 1995 The X Factor album, 1998 Virtual XI album, and other Maiden classics.
Read more…

Popular djent (or maybe not djent) band Periphery is back and they’re going to be releasing a new album pretty soon. But sooner than that, we’ll be getting a new track from ’em titled “Mr. God” this Thursday.

All of that information, as well as the album title A Pale White Dot was announced earlier today over on the band’s official Instagram page. When it’s released on May 15 via 3 Dot Recordings, it will be the band’s first new studio effort since 2023’s Periphery V: Djent is Not a Genre.

You can pre-save the single today on the digital music platform of your choice, but you’ll have to wait until the full album is announced to take advantage of any preorders that come up. All you gotta do is wait until Thursday for more details.

View this post on Instagram

The post Periphery Announce ‘A Pale White Dot’, Will Release New Single “Mr. God” Thursday appeared first on MetalSucks.

Montreal’s Douce Angoisse comes on like a bad idea dressed in couture: sleek, severe, and fully aware of the damage it might do. This independent French darkwave/coldwave project deals in raw, minimal pressure, where punk impulse meets cold electronic restraint across English, Spanish, and French. The result feels built for those late hours when desire, disgust, and dead-eyed detachment start wearing the same face.

The EP opens with Intro Xanax and Coffee, an instrumental that sets the table with real menace. It doesn’t waste time dressing the room. The track feels like fluorescent light on dirty tile, a synthetic crawl that prepares you for the damage to come, and it does so with enough tension to make even silence seem suspicious. From there, Can’t Get Away locks into the central trap of the whole record: the mind as a holding cell, the self as the one jailer who never clocks out. The beat keeps moving with bleak purpose while the atmosphere closes in, and that friction gives the song its sour charge.

Egoista carries a more poisonous kind of glamour. There’s vanity in it, with cracked lipstick and a cruel little grin, the kind that turns self-fixation into performance and performance into a slow emotional mugging. Repetition often works in the same mindset as obsession, and here that instinct lands hard. Dance to Death follows with a lurid, flesh-and-machine menace, pushing the EP deeper into its nocturnal descent. It’s the closest this release comes to pure seduction, though even then the seduction feels contaminated, like a kiss delivered with ulterior motives and perfect timing.

Xanax and Coffee takes the title’s miserable chemistry and runs with it beautifully. It sounds strung out, spiritually singed, and half in love with its own collapse, channeling the queasy push-pull between stimulation and sedation, between wanting oblivion and wanting one more hour before it arrives. Little Fucker, meanwhile, spits with a sharper tongue. It’s confrontational, bitter, and weirdly funny in the most poisoned sense, the kind of track that seems to enjoy drawing blood just to watch the expression on your face afterward.

Throughout the record, you can hear traces of classic artists like Front Line Assembly and Clock DVA, as well as contemporaries such as Lana Del Rabies, Rare DM, and Boy Harsher in the machinery, mood, and sense of erotic decay.  It feels personal in the ugliest, strongest sense: raw, repetitive, and alive with psychic abrasion. These are dystopian dance tracks for people who know the party and the breakdown sometimes happen in the same room, under the same red bulb, with the same body keeping time through both.

Listen to Xanax and Coffee below and order the EP here.

Follow Douce Angoisse:

• Instagram
• Bandcamp
• Spotify

The post Montreal’s Douce Leans into Desire and Dead-Eyed Detachment With “Xanax and Coffee” EP appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Though she did give a short performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics and appeared in a Sunday Night Football promo a few months later, Céline Dion hasn’t gone on tour in six years. In late 2022, just as post-pandemic live music was returning to some semblance of normalcy, the Québécois icon postponed and subsequently cancelled her world tour dates after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare and typically debilitating neurological condition. Today, which also happens to be her 58th birthday, Dion has announced an exciting health update and her big return to the stage.

The post Céline Dion Announces First Shows In Six Years appeared first on Stereogum.

Lately, I’ve been listening to quite a bit of depressing music. Between Meadowlands, Qroba, and Exequiae, the themes of melancholy, death, and despair have been having quite the run ’round these parts. So it figures my review of the day is Embrace the Death—why turn away from a theme that’s doing well? This is the sophomore full-length release from U.S.-based Mother Crone, over a decade after their debut Awakening, and, if my research is accurate, with a completely different lineup. The topic of the day is clear, and Mother Crone approach it with a blend of doom, stoner, progressive, and groove metal. It’s always exciting to see what a band can do with a refreshed vision, lineup, and style, and apparently, grim topics are strong performers these days. How do Mother Crone compare to their contemporaries?

That my depend on how we define “contemporaries;” while Mother Crone share subject matter with the aforementioned groups, stylistically they have more in common with their own stated influences, Pink Floyd, Pantera, and Alcest (among others). As mentioned earlier, the sound on Embrace the Death is fairly well-rooted in stoner metal, with elements of doom, progressive, and groove naturally creeping in to fit the topic. Guitarists Edoardo Curatolo and Joe Frothingham (also vocals) oscillate between light, introspective play and a burlier, more aggressive approach, and Frothingham’s singing is the same. A lot of the album’s stoner and doom metal leanings actually owe to bassist Preston Wilson and drummer Charlier Romano, whose slower, grimier playing grounds the music in a progressive sort of styling. Together, the result is something at times aggressive, at times introspective, and always atmospheric in some way.

But the best parts of “Embrace the Death” are unquestionably the album’s quieter moments, where Mother Crone embraces the doom and the atmosphere fully. The title track is the best example; here, Frothingham takes a break from what my father would affectionately call shouting in tune to do his best Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) impression and guide the listener through a somber acceptance of the inevitable. The plaintive guitars, soft singing, and rumbling bass give way to subtle, beautiful melodies that grow organically. Not that the heavier moments are not welcome ones—”Fever Stone” is a more traditional, groove-led rocker that demonstrates a nearly opposite side of Mother Crone’s sound, the one that channels Pantera more than Opeth or Alcest. “Eye of Providence” is the middle track for the sound, best blending riffs, atmosphere, and heaviness. In all, Mother Crone don’t really sound like any of their influences, but bring forth something in the odd space between them all, something surprisingly affecting, sometimes heavy, sometimes airy, and often both at once.

Another thing I can say about Embrace the Death is that it is a fairly front-loaded album. In particular, the trio of “Fever Stone,” “Embrace the Death,” and “Unto the Dawn” is a powerful one-two-three hit of Mother Crone’s sound, from burly, melodic aggression to more plaintive, introspective atmospheres. Towards the end of Embrace the Death, however, I think Mother Crone loses sight of their strengths. “Inner Keep” in particular is an example of a song that could have used more editing than it received, clocking in at eleven minutes without making the impression I think it means to. “Celestial Light” is a beautiful closer for the album, but tonally feels a bit out of place. Perhaps if more of Embrace the Death leaned towards its title track sound it would fit better, but as is, it feels like the two extremes of the Mother Crone sound are more in competition with each other than blending into a unified listening experience. It’s all good music, but as a full album, I think there’s too much back and forth between aggressive and plaintive music to feel as “complete” as it could have felt.

Still, there is a clear journey through Embrace the Death, and, despite its grim title and concept, it’s a fun and reasonably thought-provoking listen. Mother Crone was not on my radar before now, but I’ll be paying attention to them for certain in the future. At best, this sophomore is a beautiful, compelling, and contemplative work of atmospheric metal; and otherwise, it is “only” good. Hopefully this new lineup sticks around for a bit—I’ll be looking forward to album three for sure.

---

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Self-release
Websites: mothercrone.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/mothercronemusic
Releases Worldwide: March 4th, 2026

The post Mother Crone – Embrace the Death Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

One of which will see them playing with Earth Crisis.

The post Strife Announce A Trio Of East Coast Shows appeared first on Theprp.com.

In this week's Chuck's Fight Club, we're asking you to pick the better guitar great – AC/DC's Angus Young or Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi. Continue reading…