Blog

This August, Tasmania’s finest export, extreme metal pioneers, Psycroptic join like-minded-and-saxophone-wielding US progressive death wizards Rivers of Nihil for a co-headline tour that brings together two elite bands operating at the highest tier of modern death metal. For Psycroptic, the timing couldn’t be stronger. Off the back of relentless global touring alongside the likes of […]

Restrictions have been circling the same cold star since 2010, two brothers huddled in Minsk’s slab-sided sprawl, teaching their guitars to argue with each other like siblings who share a bedroom and a record collection. You can hear the years in that tension. Back when they were still hauling amps into Graffiti Club and baptizing themselves in cheap fog, the twin-guitar attack felt like rebar shoved through silk. By the time they hit Deathcave Festival in 2011, then the biggest old-school goth congregation in Eastern Europe, these brooding, Brutalist Belarusians were already sharpening their angles against drum machines, trading human swing for metallic insistence.

That history hums inside Our Own Lhasa, even as the project has retreated into the studio and swapped stage heat for careful construction. After 2015, the live chapter closed, and the brothers turned toward their day jobs, letting the band mutate into something more controlled, more deliberate. The friction of those early sets has been sanded into sleek lines of synth and drum programming, yet the pulse of post-punk still rattles the ribs.

The guitars arrive first, jangling with that familiar 1980s ache, nodding toward The Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division and The Cure without turning into cosplay. A thin, high line traces the melody while a lower figure keeps tugging at the hem of the song. The synths hover in wide arcs, lending the track a sense of altitude that contrasts with the emotional weight at its centre. There’s space in the track, but it isn’t empty; it feels like the echo in a room where someone has just moved out and left the outline of their furniture in dust.

The band says, “Our Own Lhasa symbolizes a shared dream we once had — one that is now out of reach.” That’s the thesis and the wound. The lyrics circle emotional disconnection and the slow recognition that some visions calcify into relics. You can hear the awakening in the vocal delivery, a steady climb toward acceptance that never tips into melodrama. The drum machine ticks forward with patient resolve, giving the song a spine that keeps it upright even when the chords sag with loss.

Restrictions have aged into their influences without being swallowed by them. Our Own Lhasa stands as a clear-eyed dispatch from two musicians who’ve traded youthful abrasion for focus, who understand that sometimes the most brutal realization is simply admitting the mountain you meant to climb has receded into myth.

Listen to Our Own Lhasa below and order the single here.

Follow Restrictions: 

• Instagram
• Bandcamp

The post A Dream Out of Reach — Belarusian Post-Punk Outfit Restrictions Share “Our Own Lhasa” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Sister .

The post Sister Sin drop lyric video for new single “Drive” first appeared on Sleaze Roxx.

A couple months ago, Sabrina Carpenter rebuked the White House for using her song “Juno” in a video promoting ICE. Now, Kesha is doing the same after the White House posted a military TikTok set to her 2010 hit “Blow” last month.

The post Kesha Slams White House For Using Her Song In Military TikTok appeared first on Stereogum.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HETSHEADS NAMED BAND OF THE MONTH AFTER SHATTERING RECORD WITH 322,430 VOTES
Stockholm, Sweden — Swedish death metal legends HETSHEADS have been crowned Band of the Month for March 2026, amassing an astonishing 322,430 votes in a historic showing of fan support. Their only release, “…We Hail the Possessed,” has cemented its status as a cornerstone of early ’90s Swedish Death Metal and continues to captivate metal enthusiasts worldwide.
Originally emerging in 1991, HETSHEADS quickly distinguished themselves in the burgeoning Swedish death metal scene, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with cult acts such as GOD MACABRE, NIRVANA 2002, and UTUMNO. Though the band never recorded a full-length album and eventually shifted into more mainstream projects under the name BLACKSHINE, their 1991 demo and unreleased double EP, now compiled on “…We Hail the Possessed,” remain an essential document of the era.
The album’s journey has been as legendary as its music. Initially released by Repulse Records in 1994 and later licensed in Malaysia on cassette in 1995, the recordings have endured chaotic reissues, poor presentations, and long periods of scarcity. Today, under official license from Cherry Red, Xtreem Music has delivered the definitive edition — fully remastered on CD and 12” LP with original artwork, inserts, and silver printing, alongside strictly limited cassette and T-shirt editions.
“…We Hail the Possessed” showcases pure Swedish Death Metal at its finest, combining crushing riffs, feral vocals, and relentless aggression. Fans of ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER, GOD MACABRE, NIRVANA 2002, and WOMBBATH will find a rare gem that captures the raw intensity of the genre’s early ’90s peak. Notably, HETSHEADS’ vocalist went on to record the first album by NECROPHOBIC, further cementing the band’s influence in extreme metal history.
This recognition as Band of the Month highlights the enduring power of HETSHEADS’ music and the passionate community that continues to celebrate it decades later. With over 322,000 votes, fans have propelled this cult classic back into the spotlight, ensuring its place in the annals of Swedish death metal legend.
HETSHEADS is:
Vocalist – Former NECROPHOBIC member
Additional members – (original line-up details preserved in reissue booklet)
“…We Hail the Possessed” is available now on CD, vinyl, cassette, and limited T-shirt editions.
Support and explore HETSHEADS here: http://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com

Another month down, another fresh set of horrors, another bunch of killer metal and metal-adjacent albums to help keep us sane. We’ve rounded up the February releases we think are most worthy of the spotlight, and we’re here to share them with you. We reviewed the new Slaughterday album in full here, so it’s not eligible for this list, but we recommend that one too!

---

Converge – Love is Not Enough

Metallic hardcore from the US

Friends, a confession: as someone who has called Converge his favourite band for a good five or six years now, I felt a tiny hint of doubt when details of Love is Not Enough were announced. Ten tracks? Half an hour? For all that the metallic hardcore genre of which they are vaunted as progenitors so often benefits from brevity, Converge have long been capable of far more—of striking dynamics and bold experimentation and sweeping ten-minute epics. But friends, another confession: I am an idiot. Of course they can do it in half an hour. The savagery, the atmosphere, the emotional weight—all are present here and delivered in perfect sequence, from the paint-stripping opening run, through a moody interlude, into some more vintage Converge (“Force Meets Presence” is as raging a rager as anything the band have ever raged through), before concluding with a dynamic final trifecta that accounts for almost half the runtime. Ten or eleven albums in, depending on how you count 2021’s Bloodmoon: I, no-one does it like them.

– Ellis

---

The Recreant – The Code is V… Outlive the Code

Crossover thrash from the US

Following in a long line of bangers from Alicia Cordisco comes the debut from this new project, a pissed off and ultra-aggressive Molotov cocktail of crusty crossover thrash. We’ve covered Transgressive and Justicar here before, and I’m personally a huge fan of Unseen & Unfound, the titanic funeral doom album from Wraithstorm, but this will likely go down as my favorite Cordisco project once it’s sat with me for a few more weeks. The riffs are brash and crunchy, driving with burning vitriol for an unjust world the incisive lyrics, which are nothing short of scathing, delivered in arresting fashion in via the powerful lungs of Ruby Rockatansky. And the fucking bass licks! This is the good shit, folks.

– Kep

---

De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube – Rituel : Initiation

Atmospheric post-black metal from Switzerland

For the love of God, please don’t make me try to pronounce this band’s name, because I swear to you I will butcher it. But it should come as no surprise to anyone that we have another outstanding black metal record from one of the best record labels out there, Hypnotic Dirge. Just absolutely S-tier atmospheric black metal with a healthy dose of post-metal, these 11- and 12-minute songs are so exquisitely composed and performed that you will be absolutely sucked into each one, existing somewhere outside of both time and space. Yeah, there’s a four-minute song thrown in there for good measure, but I swear you won’t even notice how much shorter it is than the rest of the album. Seriously, it’s just downright unfair to launch such a killer record so early in the year. What was Hypnotic Dirge thinking?!

– Kirk

---

Speglas – Endarkenment, Being & Death

Blackened progressive death metal from Sweden

Look, if you’ve been around the site for a few years then you know how I feel about Speglas (and Morbus Chron, and Sweven, both of whom are closely related to this project). Isak Koskinen Rosemarin and his bandmates write death-adjacent metal that carries so much pain and love and life and melancholy, so many colors and shapes and ideas. It’s thoughtful, beautifully-produced music, written with intelligence both musical and emotional. This, their first full-length, delivers entirely on the notions introduced by their two EPs: it’s the definition of polished melancholy, with flashes of fire and stretches of searing longing, both heartwrenching and cerebral, with impeccable mixing to boot. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

– Kep

---

Lead Injector – Witching Attack

Blackened thrash from Germany

I know what you’re thinking. “Is that a witch shooting a skeleton point blank in the face on the album cover?” Yes, it is. And you know what? That’s a pretty apt portrayal of what this record is going to do to your expectations. For a band entering its fourth year, this trio of newcomers packs more punch into their riffs than some veterans have in their entire careers. Not a second of this entire record is wasted—not one single moment—and if you’re not moshing along by the time you get to “Evil Executioner”, check your pulse because I’m pretty sure you’re dead.

– Kirk

---

Final Gasp – New Day Symptoms

Deathrock/hardcore from the US

Whipping up a triumphant concoction of hardcore, deathrock, and good old fashioned horns up heavy metal, Boston’s Final Gasp are one of those rare and special bands with a sound that feels unique but not just for the sake of being unique—i.e. not at the expense of actual track. The most obvious FFO that comes to mind for me is something like Twitching Tongues, but it’s definitely not just that—think more mood, less mosh, and a bit more drive and urgency that carries it through a highly replayable half-hour runtime. Something for the stage-divers, the battle jacket-wearers, and the goth baddies all at once. Sorry for saying goth baddies.

– Ellis

---

Weedpecker – V

Heavy psych from Poland

I will absolutely talk ad nauseum about my love of stoner rock. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve done it here more than once. But I will also absolutely admit that there is a lot of stale-ass, boring stoner rock out there. Like…A LOT. It’s really, really hard to come up with weed references that haven’t been re-“hashed,” but there are also plenty of bands keeping the genre not only alive but thriving. In spite of their very silly name (c’mon, admit it; it’s pretty silly), Weedpecker expertly walk the tightrope betwixt stoner rock, psychedelic rock, and space rock, blending cosmic synths that soothe the mind with incendiary stoner riffs that will transport you to worlds unseen. And while their album titling game likely leaves much to desire (at least Weezer uses a color scheme), it doesn’t take long to realize that naming their records is a mere afterthought as the contents therein are blissfully transcendent. So sit back, relax, and crank it to 11 as you close your eyes for what is sure to be one helluva trip, man.

– Kirk

---

Ennui – Qroba

Funeral doom from Georgia

This Georgian quintet are on album number five here but haven’t appeared on my radar until the last few months. If Qroba is any indication, I’ve got some catching up to do, because it’s a stellar record. Following in the footsteps of the funeral doom greats like Skepticism, it’s pretty straightforward in terms of structure and style, but that’s a good thing. The songs on Qroba are stately, deliberate affairs, enormous in scale and sound, and the production is top-notch. The moment where opener “Antinatalism” transitioned from its opening passage to its first vocals, as a new guitar line emerged from the thick chords and bell-like tones and frontman David Unsaved‘s stygian growls rumbled forth, I knew this was an album I was going to fall in love with. If funeral doom is your bag, know this is as high-quality an effort as I’ve heard in the last few years.

– Kep

---

Giallo – Tenebrarum

Hardcore from the US

Convulse Records have definitely become one of those labels that’s worth checking out everything they release—especially because they don’t absolutely bombard you like some others do—and they’re on a fair hot streak already this year what with this and the Head Crack EP before it and World I Hate waiting in the wings for next week. This one from Giallo is an absolute ripper—basically a load of sub-two-minute ragers played fast and mean and gnarly with a couple of creepy ambient bits courtesy of Terror Cell Unit casting a haunting atmosphere over the whole thing in a way that fittingly evokes some sort of killer stalking an unsuspecting victim before they go full slasher on them. They slow things down for the closer too, all dark and doomy and stompy with maniacal sax and vocals that sound like they might literally be someone hacking up phlegm. Sick, in both senses of the word.

– Ellis

---

Serpent Gates – The Veil of Darkness

Heavy metal from Finland

I’m far from an expert in good ol’ heavy metal, as my listening tastes generally skew heavier and harsher. That being said, I know a good thing when I hear it, period, and a good thing this album is. It’s got riffs for days, hooks on hooks, the production rocks, and vocalist Antony Parviainen puts on an absolute show. Lively start to finish with little resembling a ballad, lyrics that feel just the right amount of evil and just the right amount of fun; this is a perfectly delightful package of nine songs and an interlude across 41 minutes. The Veil of Darkness caught me by complete surprise and is likely to be an album I listen to a lot this year.

– Kep

---

Killing Pace – HCPM

Metallic hardcore from the US

If the neanderthal skull on the cover of the debut full-length from Killing Pace gives you a fair clue as to the bludgeoning contained within, the fact that said skull also has spikes and fangs explains the rest. HCPM—shorthand for ‘Hardcore Punk Metal’, which in turn is essentially kinda longhand for metallic hardcore—is that real psycho shit: a gnarly fusion of hardcore and death metal and grind and powerviolence a la NAILS or END or SCARAB (whose vocalist Tyler Mullen fittingly shows up for a guest spot on closer “Resist/Desensitize”). The whole thing tears by in less than 18 minutes, with the atmospheric and vaguely industrial instrumental “Predation” proving as close as it gets to respite while still being the sorta thing you could imagine people throwing a few limbs about to. Sorry to do the whole “calling it here now” thing but if I’m not writing about this one in December then we’re probably all dead, which I don’t think Killing Pace would mind tbh.

– Ellis

---

Hermano – Clisson, France

Stoner rock from the US

I always find it kinda funny the way so many metalheads either write off or ignore stoner rock. Like, yeah, sure, it’s not as heavy as doom, death, or black metal, and it’s certainly not as “extreme” as most of its many cousins, but the scene is incredibly rich with both history and fans. One such example is Hermano, one of the many groups that was born in the wake of Kyuss’s demise, spearheaded by Kyuss’s own John Garcia. As prolific as his former bandmates Josh Homme and Brant Bjork though not as oft-mentioned, what we have here is the second release from Garcia’s long-running band on my favorite stoner and doom label, Ripple Music, capturing the band’s performance at Hellfest back in 2016. I got my hands on the reissue of Hermano’s debut, which was a solid piece of desert rock, but this live set is absolutely incendiary. I don’t care if you like stoner rock, you need to listen to this album at least once. It’s REALLY fucking good.

– Kirk

The post February Release Spotlight appeared first on Noob Heavy.

Alt-rock legends The Superjesus are set to bring their seminal sophomore album Jet Age across the country for a special 25 year anniversary tour in June, playing the record in full as well as a selection of their greatest hits. The band have been busy over the last year, releasing their self titled fourth studio […]

Last year, Chemical unveiled their eponymous debut EP, establishing themselves as a reliable source for cockeyed, unpredictable tunes. Today the Philly band is back with the sufficiently sinister song “She She.” “She She” is as off-kilter as possible. The lyrics are littered with haunting lines like, “25-year-old child soldier/ What you gonna do / Are…

The post Chemical – “She She” appeared first on Stereogum.

UK progressive death metal outfit CRYPTIC SHIFT released their Overspace & Supertime full-length on February 27 through Metal Blade Records. While not commonly known as an extraterrestrial hotspot, Leeds faced an encounter of another kind in 2015 when vocalist/guitarist Alexander Bradley and drummer Ryan Sheperson set out to accomplish a project embodying their joint passion […]

Out March 6, 2026 Via Gore House Productions Words by: Liam Hedges Reborn in Blight is the sophomore release of Russian Brutal Death outfit Insect Inside. Made up of ex-members of Traumatomy; Bogan Pisavnin (bass) and band founder Daniel Sementsov (drums), Insect Inside include several notable features on this release, with Cephaltripsy, Defeated Sanity and […]