Upcoming Metal Releases: 3/29/26 – 4/4/26
Lantlôs — Nowhere in Between Forever | Prophecy Productions | Post Metal + Shoegaze | Germany (Rheda, North Rhine-Westphalia)
With their 2021 album, Wildhund, Lantlôs basically removed all black metal traces from their music. It was a dreamy, pastoral, shoegazing, post metal album. Nowhere in Between Forever continues down that shoegaze/post metal road while also feeling oddly closer to their earlier work in some ways. It’s surreal and slightly unsettling underneath the pleasant vibes.
–Kevin Zecchel
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Green Carnation — A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis | Season of Mist | Progressive Metal | Norway (Kristiansand, Agder)
Green Carnation do not lack ambition, recording and releasing a trilogy of albums centred around Shakespeare’s forlorn character Ophelia within a 12-month span. Sanguis is a more varied album than the first part, The Shores of Melancholia, released this past September. The band’s dark, sweeping brand of sad prog metal is fully bloomed here, braiding together moments of aching intimacy and fiery grandeur. For example, the closing ballad “Lunar Tale” feels akin to Anathema at their most emotionally impactful, whereas the song immediately preceding it, “Fire in Ice”, is a heavy, driving prog doom metal track.
–Kevin Zecchel
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Gallowgate — Nightmares Abound in Flesh and Mist | Independent | Black Metal | United States
I propose that we start describing black metal recording/production fidelity in the same terms that we use to categorize the “doneness” of food. Gallowgate’s debut EP isn’t as raw as, say, Axis of Light’s L’appel du vide (which I am deliberately choosing as a point of comparison because the two bands share a guitarist), but one could say that Nightmares Abound in Flesh and Mist is on the rarer end of the spectrum. The vocals have a nice sear to them, the triumphant yet crackly guitar riffs are dripping with melody, and the mid-tempo drums keep everything grounded, filling out the mix with a healthy amount of organic room reverb. Unless you like your black metal so well done that it’s practically grey, you will definitely want to dig into this one.
–Alex Chan
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Sun Don’t Shine — From Birth to Death | Corpse Paint Records | Hard Rock | United States (New York City + New Orleans)
From Birth to Death is the first full-length offering from Sun Don’t Shine, a promising new project featuring current and former members of iconic bands such as Type O Negative, Down and Crowbar. This road-worn, battle-tested group of hard rock lifers seek to create an equilibrium, according to vocalist/guitarist Kenny Hickey, between “both light and dark, dynamic and unpredictable” through the music they make together. The template is to operate somewhere between the twin poles of The Beatles and Black Sabbath, two major Sun Don’t Shine influences. The Beatles influence is perhaps most apparent and effectively rendered in “Coming Down,” where Hickey’s melodic vocals soar over a set of crushing Kirk Windstein riffs. Imagine Crowbar covering a track off of Rubber Soul. Windstein also stands out on “Cryptomnesia,” a sludge pop beast akin, at times, to major label era-Soundgarden. You can also hear a nod to Alice in Chains in the slithery vocal lines of the churning, raw boned psych rock offering “The Promise Song.” The Sabbathian side of the ledger is perhaps best represented by “Power to Live,” a gloomy dirge about the sorry state of humanity in 2026.
–Dennis Seese
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Banshee Moon — The Winged Man | Independent | Black Metal |
When three of four band members contribute keyboards to an album, you know you’re in for some spooky goodness. Banshee Moon’s spin on symphonic black metal brilliantly takes a subgenre typically associated with high fantasy, lycanthropy, and/or vampirism and instead applies it to the cryptids of North America. Just under a year after releasing their Jersey Devil-themed first EP, the paranormal investigators in Banshee Moon return with a tribute to the infamous Mothman of the Appalachians. From the opening synth-organ drones of “The Prophecy,” you can almost picture huge wings silhouetted against the glow of the harvest moon. But then terror takes hold as the track swings into a haunting waltz, swirling above the mountain towns where locals weave tall tales around the fire. What’s the over-under on Banshee Moon’s jackalope EP releasing before the end of the year?
–Alex Chan
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Sunn O))) — Sunn O))) | Sub Pop Records | Drone Metal + Avant-garde | United States (Seattle, WA)
Avant-garde amp worshippers Sunn O))) are back with their first batch of new material since 2019’s Pyroclasts. The self-titled release, the band’s debut for the legendary American indie label Sub Pop, sees them come full circle in a variety of critical ways. Interestingly, this will be the first of their 10 studio albums where core members Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson play all the instruments. Sunn O))) has been virtually synonymous with collaboration throughout their career, with everyone from Atilla Csihar to Scott Walker and a myriad of other sonic mavericks, maniacs, and misfits playing vital roles in the creation of their expansive discography.
Perhaps more importantly, O’Malley and Anderson returned to their roots, literally and spiritually, by recording in their native Pacific Northwest. Sunn O))) was laid down at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington with producer Brad Wood. The studio’s location in a forest 25 miles outside of Seattle “would prove crucial to the recording process,” according to O’Malley. Immersion in the lush Cascadian landscape and a renewed sense of comfort and purpose allowed new music to flow organically from the veteran duo. The Pacific Northwest’s primal influence on the record is further emphasized by O’Malley’s decision to enlist British writer Robert Macfarlane to write Sunn O)))’s liner notes, as Macfarlane is renowned for his “works concerning landscape and the multifaceted relationship between humanity and nature.”
Field recordings, taken from the woods around Bear Creek, are subtly interspersed throughout the album, adding a new texture to Sunn O)))’s sonic palette while further establishing the sense of place so pivotal to the recording. Those ambient sounds share space with the duo’s punishing, all-encompassing, all-conquering guitar tone on “Glory Black,” which dissolves into a miasma of dripping water and pristine piano before culminating in an avalanche of megalithic riffs. According to Wood, due to extensive reamping and other studio wizardry, some songs feature up to and beyond a staggering “130 guitar tracks.” The epic 14+ minute tsunami “Butch’s Guns” is a prime example of this stunning maximalist approach.
–Dennis Seese
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