The conservatory-trained Copenhagen musician Fine Glindvad Jensen used to lead the electro-pop group CHINAH, and she has made music with peers like Erika de Casier, Astrid Sonne and Iceage’s Elias Rønnenfelt. She and Dean Blunt appear to be working together in the mysterious project known as the Crying Nudes, though that’s unconfirmed. On her own, she makes beautifully expansive music as just Fine, and she’s got a new album on the way.
Celebrate the release of Motionless In White’s new album Decades with Metal Hammer! We’ve teamed up with the US metalcore hellraisers for a bundle containing our latest issue with an exclusive cover, plus a red double-vinyl copy of Decades not available from any other UK stockist. Pre-order yours now while stocks last!
Inside the new Hammer, singer and sole constant member Chris Motionless tells us everything about the new album. He also goes deep into his band’s 20-year-long climb to the top of their genre, which will hit new heights when they headline Bloodstock Open Air in Derbyshire next August.
“I ground myself to the bone for this record,” Chris tells us. “I was going into these toxic cycles of workaholism and just burnt myself out. It took a little bit of my passion away, because it felt like a job for the first time, so I definitely wanted to walk away and come back to it. That’s part of why it took so long.”
Elsewhere, we talk to Atlanta prog metal greats Mastodon about their latest album Marrow Deep: their first slice of new music since the departure of founding guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds and his death aged 51 last summer.
“I was immediately shocked and saddened,” says bassist/singer Troy Sanders. “But unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised. I don’t mean that in any distasteful manner, whatsoever. I’ve done everything I could as a friend and as a bandmate over the years. I don’t know what else I could’ve done, so I’m kind of forced to just let go.”
“I wasn’t surprised that it happened, but I was shocked,” adds guitarist Bill Kelliher. “I just didn’t think it was going to happen like that.”
We also go inside Ghost’s massive new concert movie, 2 Big To Rig. Tobias Forge tells us about how they captured the epic Skeletour stage show, the unfortunate incident that nearly derailed it, and his “extracurricular” future plans.
Meanwhile, seven years on from his throat cancer diagnosis, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine revisits his journey in an exclusive interview and an extract from his new book, In My Darkest Hour.
Green Lung take us on a tour of London’s graveyards and occult hotspots, Halestorm power couple Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger tackle your questions about love, keytars and… killer farts?! And Snot explain why they’re back in the studio, almost 30 years after the tragic death of frontman Lynn Strait.
Sleep Theory’s Cullen Moore shares his soulful playlist, Mudvayne/Hellyeah veteran Chad Gray delivers the lessons he learned from hanging out with a young Slipknot and meeting James Hetfield, and Godsmack give us the inside story of their blockbuster anthem, I Stand Alone. Plus, we meet Decessus, the Chilean death metal band led by a beauty queen.
All this, along with Eddfest, Metallica, Bring Me The Horizon, Sigh, Rory, System Of A Down, Acid Bath, Duff McKagan and much, much more.
(Andy Synn caps off another busy month here at NCS with four more albums you may have overlooked) Like I said last week, for the most part we prefer to focus our attention on bands who we think deserve more exposure or who simply aren’t as big as we think they should be, rather than […]
Alanis Morissette is coming off a triumphant weekend performing alongside Olivia Rodrigo at her Daisy Chain Fields festival, but not all is well in Morissette’s world. She just sued her former tour manager, accusing her of an extortion plot.
Michael Sweet was asked whether he’d ever play guitar in King Diamond’s band if the money was right. He said no, and explained exactly why. Then he was asked a different question — would Stryper tour with Mercyful Fate — and the answer flipped completely. His words: absolutely, 100%, 100%. The Christian metal band who wrote “To Hell With The Devil” and the man who has spent forty years as heavy metal’s foremost occult theatrician, on the same bill. And the reason Sweet is up for it comes down to five minutes in a corridor in Mexico.
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Scott Penfold covers the Michael Sweet interview on today’s Metal Breakdown Daily — the line he won’t cross, the one he’d happily cross tomorrow, and the backstage meeting that changed how he sees the man he’d been cast against for four decades. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and get it every weekday morning.
The line, and where it actually sits
Speaking to Scott Itter of Dr. Music, Sweet was asked whether he’d consider playing guitar in King Diamond’s band if the opportunity came and the numbers were right.
His answer was no, and his reasoning is more interesting than a flat refusal.
He said it’s nothing against King as a person. It’s that he doesn’t agree with anything spiritually in terms of what King sings about versus what Stryper sing — polar opposites. Joining that band would feel, to him, like betraying his faith and betraying what he stands for. He acknowledged some people won’t agree with that, and said that’s okay.
Then, fairly, he turned it around: he reckons King would probably say the same thing if Stryper asked him to come and sing for them. He might be wrong, but that’s his guess.
That’s a genuinely coherent position, and it’s worth noting how rarely you hear one stated that cleanly. He’s not condemning anyone. He’s describing where his own line is and extending the other man the courtesy of assuming he has one too.
And then came the second question. Would Stryper go out and tour with Mercyful Fate?
Absolutely. 100%, 100%.
Same two men. Same forty years of opposing iconography. Completely different answer — because playing on the same stage isn’t the same as putting your name to someone else’s message, and Sweet has never had a problem with the first one.
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Five minutes in a corridor in Mexico
The reason he’s this relaxed about it goes back to December 4, 2022, at Hell & Heaven Metal Fest.
Sweet walked into his dressing room and saw the name on the door next to his: Mercyful Fate.
And here’s the part that makes the story. He says he could have gone the other way entirely. He could have been a jerk about it. He could have mocked him, disrespected him, done any number of things — the way, in his account, plenty of dark metal bands have treated Stryper at festivals over the years. There’s a weird thing towards Stryper, he says, and he’s not wrong about that.
He didn’t. He said to himself, I’ve got to meet him. And he went and did it.
They talked for five, maybe six minutes. About the weather where King lives and the weather where Sweet lives. Regular stuff. In another telling: the weather, the birds, the bees.
Sweet’s description of the encounter is that King said “Michael, nice to meet you” first, was all smiles and completely gracious, and that the whole thing was the exact opposite of what he’d braced for. His words on that: you have this idea of what it’s going to be — good versus evil, is there going to be a war — and it’s the reverse. And that’s really the way life is nine times out of ten.
King’s wife Livia later wrote on Sweet’s Facebook page about how she’d wanted to meet him and the band, and how good it was that the two men had met.
What he took from it
Sweet has now told this story in at least four separate interviews across three years, and the version doesn’t change — which is part of why it lands.
His framing in the new one: he looks at King as a person just like himself. Everyone’s on this earth searching, everyone’s trying to figure it out. He says he really wanted to meet him, and that he came away having learned to respect him and everything he does, because he realised the man is just someone searching, same as him.
And this: he says King is a person he believes God loves just as much as anyone else — and that this applies to anybody.
In an earlier telling he put it more bluntly. All those perceptions were annihilated. He’d walked in expecting a man who probably wouldn’t like him, and instead got a good conversation with someone polite, cordial and genuinely interested. His conclusion: at the end of the day we’re all the same, all flesh and blood, all the same feelings and emotions.
Or, most economically: you’re Satanic, we’re Christian, but then when you break it down, we’re just people.
He says he hopes he gets the chance to hang out properly — dinner, a longer conversation. That’d be really cool.
Sweet has been open about the reaction, and it’s the funniest thing in the whole story.
Most people were positive. But some from his own camp came at him wanting to know whether he’d talked to King about the Lord. His response to that was, essentially, are you kidding me — the idea that he’d walk up to a man he’d just met and immediately open with a sermon.
And people from the other side freaked out too.
Which tells you that the two of them handled it better than either fanbase did, and that the supposed war has always been more interesting to the audience than to the men themselves.
Asked at the time whether a duet had come up, Sweet said it hadn’t — but that it’s something he would have talked about, and maybe it happens one day. That would be amazing.
On whether he’d be open to it: sure, of course. Though he added, with no embarrassment about it, that he prays about everything he does before committing — the same as he did with Sweet & Lynch, his ongoing project with George Lynch, who describes himself as a freethinking atheist.
Why Stryper have always done this
The willingness to share a stage isn’t new, and it’s cost Sweet as much inside the church as outside it.
Back in 2013 he explained why Stryper play clubs and tour with secular bands. His argument: a lot of Christians have given them enormous grief over the years for it, not understanding why they’d do it. But his position is that they’re called to go into the world and into the dark and bring the light — so why wouldn’t they? They play the places no Christian bands go, and they play with mainstream secular bands so they can reach those fans and talk to them.
He’s blunt that it’s cut them off from a lot of people in the church, who conclude they’re not really Christians. His response: okay, whatever.
That’s the context for the Mercyful Fate answer. It isn’t a new position or a softening. It’s forty-three years of consistency.
Worth noting the flip side too. Stryper’s third album, 1986’s To Hell With The Devil, made them the first contemporary Christian act to score a platinum album — and despite that, Sweet has said the band were never fully embraced by the metal and hard rock community either, largely because of the lyrics.
Rejected by parts of the church for playing metal, and by parts of metal for the faith. Which is, when you think about it, a fairly lonely place to have spent four decades — and it explains why a five-minute corridor conversation with a man everyone assumed was his enemy meant as much as it clearly did.
On paper it’s absurd. In practice, it’s the kind of bill that sells out.
Both bands come from the same moment — Stryper formed in La Mirada, California in 1983 as Roxx Regime; Mercyful Fate formed in Copenhagen in 1981. Both built their identity on theatre as much as riffs: the yellow and black stripes and Bibles thrown into the crowd on one side, the corpse paint and the microphone made of bones on the other.
And both have spent their careers being underestimated by people who never got past the presentation. Mercyful Fate’s Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath are foundational records that shaped the first wave of black metal and were covered at length by Metallica. Stryper wrote genuinely great hard rock songs that a lot of people refused to hear on principle.
Two acts with elaborate visual identities, enormous back catalogues and audiences who have never once been in the same room. That’s a promoter’s dream, and the novelty would sell the first thousand tickets before either band played a note.
Nobody’s announced anything. This is a frontman answering a hypothetical. But it’s the kind of hypothetical that occasionally becomes a poster, and if you’d told anyone in 1986 that it was even a possibility they’d have laughed you out of the room.
TL;DR
What Sweet said no to: joining King Diamond’s band as a guitarist. He said it would feel like betraying his faith, given how far apart the two acts are spiritually — while acknowledging King would likely say the same about singing for Stryper.
What he said yes to: Stryper touring with Mercyful Fate or King Diamond. His words: “Absolutely. 100%, 100%.”
Why: the two men met backstage at Hell & Heaven Metal Fest in Mexico on December 4, 2022, after Sweet spotted Mercyful Fate’s name on the dressing room next to his and decided to introduce himself.
What happened: a five or six minute conversation about the weather. Sweet says every preconception he had was annihilated, and King’s wife Livia later messaged him about how glad she was they’d met.
His conclusion: “You’re Satanic. We’re Christian. But then when you break it down, we’re just people.”
The reaction: people in both camps were upset. Sweet was asked by his own side whether he’d talked to King about the Lord.
Nothing is announced. This is a frontman answering a hypothetical, not a tour.
FAQ
Would Michael Sweet join King Diamond’s band?
No. Speaking to Dr. Music in September 2026, the Stryper frontman said he would safely say no, explaining that it’s nothing against King Diamond personally but that he doesn’t agree with anything spiritually in terms of what King sings about versus what Stryper sing. He said it would feel like betraying his faith, and added that he expects King would say the same if asked to sing for Stryper.
Would Stryper tour with Mercyful Fate?
According to Michael Sweet, absolutely. Asked directly whether Stryper would tour and play with Mercyful Fate or King Diamond, he answered: “Absolutely. 100%, 100%.” No such tour has been announced.
When did Michael Sweet meet King Diamond?
On December 4, 2022, backstage at Hell & Heaven Metal Fest in Mexico, where both bands were performing. Sweet noticed Mercyful Fate’s name on the dressing room beside his and arranged an introduction. The two spoke for around five or six minutes about ordinary subjects including the weather.
What is King Diamond’s real name?
Kim Bendix Petersen, born June 14, 1956 in Hvidovre, Denmark. Michael Sweet refers to him as Kim when recounting their meeting. He is the vocalist and lyricist for both Mercyful Fate and his own band King Diamond.
Why does Stryper tour with non-Christian bands?
Sweet has explained that Stryper have always played clubs and shared bills with secular acts deliberately, arguing that Christians are called to go into the world rather than avoid it, and that playing to those audiences is the point of what the band does. He has acknowledged the approach has drawn criticism from within the church for decades.
Forty years of being cast as opposites, and it took five minutes in a corridor to undo it. Would you buy a ticket to Stryper and Mercyful Fate on the same bill? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
On Saturday night, the Kia Center, Orlando’s largest indoor arena, turned into the site of what appeared to be an impromptu Nazi rally. The venue hosted a kickboxing card from the MMA promoter Duel: Arena, and one of the matches was a fight between Paul Miller, a far-right white supremacist influencer who spent time in federal prison on gun charges, and Ben Azoulay, a Jewish Israeli fighter. During the event, Miller supporters held up a Nazi flag, threw Nazi salutes, got into brawls, and screamed in the face of a female security guard after she confiscated the flag.
South Carolina blackened death metal veterans Lecherous Nocturne return today with “Metempsychosis,” their first new music since 2018’s Occultaclysmic.
Formed in Greenville in 1997, the band have spent nearly three decades operating at the particularly hostile intersection of technical death metal, black metal and outright brutality. “Metempsychosis” picks up that thread without sounding particularly interested in easing anyone back into the fold.
The song takes its title from the ancient concept of a soul passing from one body into another. Or, in guitarist Ethan Lane’s preferred formulation:
“me·tem·psy·cho·sis (mi temp′si kō′sis, -tem′-; met′əm sī-) n., pl. -ses (-sēz) [LL. < Gr. metempsychōsis < metempsychoun < meta, over (see META-) + empsychoun, to put a soul into < en, IN + psychē, soul, life: see PSYCHE] the supposed passing of the soul at death into another body, either human or animal; transmigration.”
Lecherous Nocturne work that idea directly into the composition. Lane explains that a secondary musical theme is buried beneath the opening riff, then continually reappears through different time signatures, harmonies and variations before culminating in one of the band’s rarely employed guitar solos. From there, the theme effectively dies and returns once more—harmonically inverted—as the track reaches its conclusion.
Which is a fairly cerebral architecture for something that, in practice, spends most of its runtime trying to cave your skull in.
Vocalist Zack Jeter calls “Metempsychosis” “one of the darker offerings from the new album” and “a prime example of the kind of brooding ferocity you can expect from the full release.”
Featuring members with ties to fellow South Carolina death metal institution Nile, Lecherous Nocturne remain as technically vicious as their pedigree suggests. If “Metempsychosis” represents the beginning of the band’s next incarnation, it’s an appropriately violent rebirth.
Check out the video for “Metempsychosis” below. The single is out September 2 via Arson Theory and will be available across streaming platforms.
San Francisco deathgrinders Cartilage have never exactly been known for practicing restraint, but on third full-length Operating Altar, the Bay Area gore merchants have found a way to make their particular pathology even more elaborate. Rather than assembling another collection of individual incisions, the band conceived the record as one sprawling deathgrind operation—a concept album chronicling medical nightmares, malpractice and a surgeon whose Hippocratic oath appears to have been misplaced somewhere near the bone saw.
Due September 11 through Everlasting Spew Records, Operating Altar follows Matthew Krolmark, a medical student beginning his final year at St. Petersen’s University Hospital. After his physician mother insists that he shadow acclaimed new surgeon Dr. Warwick Locke, Krolmark witnesses increasingly horrific deaths and incidents of malpractice before uncovering the hospital’s history of torture and human experimentation—and realizing that history may be repeating itself.
Appropriately, Cartilage treat the record less like a conventional sequence of songs than one extended descent into St. Petersen’s.
“With this album, we sought to compose one large piece instead of simply a collection of songs,” guitarist Mike Flory tells Decibel. “We’ve combined more influences from the likes of both brutal death metal and classic heavy metal, yet we pushed ourselves to faster tempos that we’ve never done before. Operating Altar is uniquely formulated to leave your ears bleeding with pleasure—our Maggot O-Pus, if you will!”
Recorded and mixed by Scott Evans (Neurosis, Exhumed, Autopsy) and mastered by Leon del Muerte, Operating Altar expands Cartilage’s usual Carcass/Impetigo-informed deathgrind attack without cleaning any of the viscera from it. Blast beats, surgical riffs, theatrical dialogue and vocalist Mark Wallace and guitarist/vocalist Ria Flory’s competing gutturals and shrieks turn the album’s hospital setting into something considerably less concerned with healing than dissection.
Cartilage will take Operating Altar on the road beginning September 15, joining Washington, D.C. deathgrinders Goetia for most of a Western U.S. run before wrapping with Cartilage-only dates in Seattle and Portland.
“We’re elated to finally unleash the sonic spectacle of insidious surgeries known as Operating Altar, featuring nine malicious tracks that combine to tell a tale of unfathomable terror,” the band tells Decibel. “Listen if you dare!”
9/15 — San Diego, CA @ Tower Bar
9/16 — Tijuana, MX @ Republica De Hops
9/17 — Los Angeles, CA @ Slipper Clutch
9/18 — Fresno, CA @ Summer Fox Brewery
9/19 — San Francisco, CA @ Mabuhay Gardens
9/20 — Eureka, CA @ Savage Henry’s
9/22 — Olympia, WA @ The Crypt
9/23 — Spokane, WA @ Big Dipper
9/24 — Seattle, WA @ Central Saloon *
9/25 — Portland, OR @ High Water Mark *
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