A have announced their long-awaited return with a brand new album, their first body of work since 2005’s ‘Teen Dance Ordinance’.
It’s going to be called ‘PRANG’ and will be released on May 22 via Cooking Vinyl.
Vocalist Jason Perry had this to say about their return and intentions with his record, stating, “By the end of ‘A’ in 2005, I felt like we didn’t have anything to say anymore. Now, I really do. We had to go and live a life. We’ve seen massive lows that we’ve helped each other through. This album is gratitude – gratitude for friendship, for still making music, for still being alive.”
The artwork looks like this:
Whilst the tracklisting is more like this:
1. Hello Sunshine 2. Walkover 3. Bring On The Likes 4. Shit Summer 5. All In 6. Techno Viking 7. Kings of Lowestoft 8. Comment Leaver 9. Back To The Shop 10. Lifeline
The band have also shared the first taste of the album, and it’s the opening track. That’s ‘Hello Sunshine’, an off-kilter, audacious and spiky piece of alt-rock reintroduction. Possessing all of the tongue-in-cheek cheekiness and grity intent of their roots, whilst still feeling thoroughly modern, it’s a perfect way for them to take a huge step back up to the plate.
Rock Sound have a variety of different exclusive variants of the record for you. Pick it up on purple cassette, hand-signed CD or exclusive signed vinyl from SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV
Orlando Metalcore band Dark Divine have surprise dropped their new single Midnight Masquerade, which will appear on the forthcoming album Undead Melody , out on 29 May 2026 via Thriller Records.
Midnight Masquerade centres on anonymity as both freedom and trap, slipping into versions of yourself built to impress, survive, or belong, until the mask becomes harder to remove. The band describe a heavier sound throughout, anchored by a melodic chorus.
Vocalist Anthony Martinez says the idea was sparked while on tour and listening to a podcast about elite secret-society parties. “The idea of desperation to be somebody… stuck in my head until it came time to hit the studio.” He adds the track is his homage to Hotel California through the lens of secret, Eyes Wide Shut-esque gatherings.
Dark Divine have built momentum through breakthrough track Halloweentown, spins on SiriusXM Octane, and support from many outlets including. The band have toured alongside Black Veil Brides, Ville Valo, Holding Absence, Crown The Empire, Blessthefall, Miss May I and Colorblind, and have appeared at festivals including Inkcarceration Festival and Apocalypse Fest.
Earlier this month, the band released the single Permanent. This is a song that “illustrates the comparison of a toxic relationship to a bad tattoo,” the band said. “The circumstances surrounding it in the beginning may have been positive, but over time, the memory becomes a permanent stain on not only the body but the mind as well.”
Billy Strings put a real name behind his stage name, William Lee Apostol, and brought his Michigan upbringing into a career that quickly became one of the biggest modern stories in bluegrass. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and he traces his musical foundation to his stepfather, Terry Barber, an amateur bluegrass musician he considers his father. Apostol’s biological father died of a heroin overdose when he was two, and the family later moved through Morehead, Kentucky, then Muir, Michigan. By his early teens, his parents were struggling with methamphetamine addiction, and Apostol left home at thirteen, later describing a
A Wilhelm Scream have turned to the dark side, and it suits them. The Massachusetts punks’ sixth outing, ‘Cheap Heat’ sees them taking on the role of the heel, playing the villain as a foil to the John Cenas of this world, but while they’re taking a step away from the raw personal lyrics which characterised 2022’s ‘Lose Your Delusion’, they also aren’t fully pulling on their metaphorical Luchador masks to write this record in character. The space they’re inhabiting now is that of the brash, proactive truth teller, taking on grifters and egotists with equal aplomb, and they’re having so much fun calling out all their haters that it’s easy to get swept in their righteous energy. For once, an album being very short is a blessing; ‘Cheap Heat’ packs a singular wallop without descending into ranting, and at under thirty minutes it’s the kind of record that’ll knock you down without making it personal.
Dropping three sequential album tracks in advance feels like they’re taking the idea of offering a slice of an album as a taster very literally, but A Wilhelm Scream’s in-your-face attitude is why we long them. ‘Midnight Ghost’ could easily have become shlock or cliche, but their speeding horror track, punctuated with sparky solos, is outrageous and fun in equal measure. Guitar-heavy ‘I Got Tunnel Vision’ takes down hustle culture and narcissism in a bouncy, bladed anti-love song, and for all the grit that ‘Let It Ride’ throws up, there’s a whole tale of brotherhood and optimism embedded deep in the lyrics.
‘The Scumbag Grift’ is when the tables turn. For all their posturing and playing at being bad guys, A Wilhelm Scream are still walking the path of the righteous, taking aim at those who take advantage of others in their furious, bombastic style. There were clues all along though, with even satirical opener ‘Somebody’s Gonna Die’ swiping at overly tough guys with a heck of a singalong chorus and lashings of pit potential. Even the “slowest” track, ‘Poison II’, still clambers through fields of thrash to lyrically confront death and triumph in growling, fiery style. For all the play-acting, A Wilhelm Scream are still resolutely being themselves with the kind of mighty tunes which slam into you at breakneck speed.
“I’ll stand in the fire,” screams Nuno Pereira as ‘Cheap Heat’ fades out, reminding us that while this album might be done, A Wilhelm Scream are absolutely not. The fact that these pioneers of melodic hardcore still seem to blend both halves of their descriptor without compromise over two decades is impressive, and the way they sustain the ferocity of their sound even more so. There’s no compromise, no matter what filter they’re putting over the concept behind the album, and they’re still striking the same blows they’re always aimed for. ‘Cheap Heat’ is a dense slice of hardcore glory from the masters of their art, and long may A Wilhelm Scream continue to shred their way through the world, putting our ears and stamina through the mill with every release.
A Wilhelm Scream have turned to the dark side, and it suits them. The Massachusetts punks’ sixth outing, ‘Cheap Heat’ sees them taking on the role of the heel, playing the villain as a foil to the John Cenas of this world, but while they’re taking a step away from the raw personal lyrics which characterised 2022’s ‘Lose Your Delusion’, they also aren’t fully pulling on their metaphorical Luchador masks to write this record in character. The space they’re inhabiting now is that of the brash, proactive truth teller, taking on grifters and egotists with equal aplomb, and they’re having so much fun calling out all their haters that it’s easy to get swept in their righteous energy. For once, an album being very short is a blessing; ‘Cheap Heat’ packs a singular wallop without descending into ranting, and at under thirty minutes it’s the kind of record that’ll knock you down without making it personal.
Dropping three sequential album tracks in advance feels like they’re taking the idea of offering a slice of an album as a taster very literally, but A Wilhelm Scream’s in-your-face attitude is why we long them. ‘Midnight Ghost’ could easily have become shlock or cliche, but their speeding horror track, punctuated with sparky solos, is outrageous and fun in equal measure. Guitar-heavy ‘I Got Tunnel Vision’ takes down hustle culture and narcissism in a bouncy, bladed anti-love song, and for all the grit that ‘Let It Ride’ throws up, there’s a whole tale of brotherhood and optimism embedded deep in the lyrics.
‘The Scumbag Grift’ is when the tables turn. For all their posturing and playing at being bad guys, A Wilhelm Scream are still walking the path of the righteous, taking aim at those who take advantage of others in their furious, bombastic style. There were clues all along though, with even satirical opener ‘Somebody’s Gonna Die’ swiping at overly tough guys with a heck of a singalong chorus and lashings of pit potential. Even the “slowest” track, ‘Poison II’, still clambers through fields of thrash to lyrically confront death and triumph in growling, fiery style. For all the play-acting, A Wilhelm Scream are still resolutely being themselves with the kind of mighty tunes which slam into you at breakneck speed.
“I’ll stand in the fire,” screams Nuno Pereira as ‘Cheap Heat’ fades out, reminding us that while this album might be done, A Wilhelm Scream are absolutely not. The fact that these pioneers of melodic hardcore still seem to blend both halves of their descriptor without compromise over two decades is impressive, and the way they sustain the ferocity of their sound even more so. There’s no compromise, no matter what filter they’re putting over the concept behind the album, and they’re still striking the same blows they’re always aimed for. ‘Cheap Heat’ is a dense slice of hardcore glory from the masters of their art, and long may A Wilhelm Scream continue to shred their way through the world, putting our ears and stamina through the mill with every release.
Sweeping, tactile strokes. Threads of light and iridescent color pervading an inky blackness. A sense of continual but ever-shifting movement, like water. You might think these descriptive passages were written in service to Sidera‘s album art but no, sir, sorry, sir. The means and methods of visual artists, of course, differ considerably from that of musicians, but the results can be incredibly similar. Case in point – Miserere Luminis practice a form of black metal that is as impressionistic in sound as it is in its facade, and in this manner it continues the precedent set by Ordalie.
Let me ask you something – what is it that you really expect out of black metal, excluding a list of the genre’s foundational constituents? Before you raise your hand, I’ll clue you into the fact that there’s quite likely not a single, simple answer you could give that applies to this album. Atmospheric black metal, especially, seems to be a pretty cut and dry affair as far as what is presented, and to that point Sidera is a bit easier to corner, but Miserere Luminis tend to sail against even that microgenre’s prevailing winds. No extended passages of longing tremolo, no blastbeats set to 50% of maximum violence. Let’s just say I wouldn’t bring this up to a guy in a Walknut shirt. Where does that leave us?
Release date: March 6, 2026. Label: Debemur Morti Productions.
The best two (well, the only two) reference points my mind kept returning to were a couple of very different beasts – Gorguts’ winding opus Pleiades’ Dust and the legendary Om by Negură Bunget. Not exactly Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, that pair, but take the queasy momentum and spiking violence of later-day Gorguts, filter it through the (S)piritual (B)lack (D)imension that is Om and it’s just about swingin’ time. A dash of the icy, monolithic grandeur of, perhaps, Cult of Luna, and now everyone’s tapping in unison.
Opener “Les fleurs de l’exil” glides in on tentative orchestral strings before a brief clean guitar break. Then? The most outright hammering riff/section of the whole album. The heaviness is notably upped from their last outing; I don’t think a single Ordalie riff pounced like this one does. The song continues to swing, even blast (!), until roughly the midway point when the band settles into an uncharacteristically rockin’ (and characteristically lengthy) groove. Drummer Icare really shines here. He is the timekeeper, as expected, but also the maestro. It is his action and reaction that push and pull the other band members, even the string section, to reach heights of feeling that their rather earthbound parts wouldn’t be able to soar to otherwise. All in all, this song is an interesting sidestep for Miserere Luminis. The pieces that make up their sound are present, but they’re deployed so differently that it was initially shocking, at moments even off-putting. It reads like a business decision, that the band needed to flavor their product with some more addicting additives. I’ve since warmed up to it, and thankfully the second track gets back to business in a more familiar way.
Fans expecting a second Ordalie need look no further – “De cris & de cendres” is your huckleberry, and it’s not surprising why it was chosen as the lead single. Everything that I need from these plucky Canucks is here – delicate guitar parts both clean and harsh, impassioned howls (also from our pal Icare!), propulsive and tasty drumwork and an overall mood of a desperate, strained rage and heartache. Is this black metal? In spirit, absolutely. Yet, the itch it scratches is not the same as the one assuaged by, let’s say, In the NightsideEclipse. I’d put Sidera in the same pile as maybe a Shape of Despair album or The Gathering Wilderness (to again use two laughably disparate examples) in the sense that I’d spin them to firmly lodge myself between a rock and a dour place for 50-something minutes. THAT is why I’m not going to get into the minute details of the rest of the album – after you’ve heard tracks 1 and 2, you’re well on your way to understanding the rest.
Sidera does not function as a collection of riffs arranged to get you from A to B, then C to D, etc, and if that is a disappointing prospect, I get it! I, too, desire sick collections of riffs that pile forward until their natural ending point. Miserere Luminis simply do not write that way; these songs (and album, as a whole) act as free-flowing compositions. Every so often the band will drop into an intentional “we are a heavy metal band and this section is a heavy metal band section”, but these act more as billboards, large and attention-grabbing landmarks along the journey elsewhere, popping up out of the periphery and becoming massive before, just as quickly, zooming past into the rearview.
With Ordalie, Miserere Luminis showed us their hand and it was strong. Sidera is ostensibly a leveling up in all categories and, despite any misgivings I harbor about it, if pressed I would agree. The production is impeccable and beautifully captures the layering of the guitars and strings above a crystal-clear drum kit. The song-writing has added in some new, welcome tricks. From a slight distance, the totality of the art is grand, set forth in lively detail, but upon closer inspection the structure gets washy. Brushstrokes bleed into one another. The eye passes over the individual parts, the mind is not captivated by the whole.
What do you really expect out of a black metal album review, excluding 26 different synonyms for “dark”? There will be future days that I come back to this album and am fully immersed, I know it. Miserere Luminis have it in them to craft material that can do just that. Interpret these passages as you may but my confidence is not shaken. There’s something in the water in Montreal that amplifies the locals’ ability to create killer heavy metal.
Beartooth are back with the start of a new era, and the first taste is a push to start living your life whatever way you want.
It’s titled ‘Free’ and finds Caleb Shomo in an even more comfortable and confident place than we previously saw him on ‘The Surface’.
A track that demonstrates his insatiable knack for penning arena-ready pop choruses, whilst pushing his voice into new frontiers never previously recorded, it’s a sign of what happens when you edge even closer to complete internal peace and clarity. There’s still space for some bludgeoning, though, with lashings of metalcore battery and throat-shredding intensity, but the core of this track centres around the idea of not being tied down to who you used to be, or what people expect you to be.
It’s infinitely inspiring, especially for those who have followed Caleb’s journey over the last 20 years. To see him and his art be so bold and brash is a joy to behold.
Caleb had this to say about the song, explaining, “‘Free’ is the start of the next chapter of my music and my life. The emotional roller coaster that is living can be very complicated at times. In one day, you can equally experience pure fear and pure joy. This song shows a glimpse of what is to come from the next Beartooth album, which is the most honest depiction of my soul I will most likely ever make.”
The track is also the band’s first release under Fearless Records, which they have also just announced their signing to.
Caleb had this to add about the new collaboration, stating, “Fearless has empowered me as an artist like nothing I’ve ever experienced. They all truly love what they do, and it shows in the work. They go about their business with humility and a hunger for joy. At the end of the day, they care about the music and supporting the people involved. Their ability to spread that support to artists and listeners alike is truly beautiful, and I couldn’t be more proud to sign a deal with Fearless.”
Whilst Fearless Records’ President Andy Serrao added, “Fearless Records is proud to have Beartooth on the roster. We’ve been watching their growth as fans for many years, and now, we are excited to be partners. “Free” is the perfect start to this next chapter.”
The band are currently on tour across the US, where they have already debuted the new track, supporting Bad Omens alongside PRESIDENT. The upcoming dates look like this.
FEBRUARY
28 – DETROIT Little Caesars Arena
MARCH
02 – MINNEAPOLIS Target Center 04 – ROSEMONT Allstate Arena 06 – TORONTO Scotiabank Arena 08 – LAVAL Place Bell 10 – NEWARK Prudential Center 11 – BOSTON TD Garden 13 – PHILADELPHIA Xfinity Mobile Arena 14 – BALTIMORE CFG Bank Arena 16 – RALEIGH Lenovo Center 17 – NASHVILLE Bridgestone Arena 19 – DALLAS American Airlines Center 20 – SAN ANTONIO Frost Bank Center 22 – OKLAHOMA Paycom Center 24 – GLENDALE Desert Diamond Arena 2Y – INGLEWOOD Kia Forum 27 – OAKWOOD Oakland Arena
The singer-songwriter scene has thrived in recent years, with many artists releasingoutstanding pieces of work. However, not many of them are capable of delivering profoundly emotional pieces of work where each vocal harmony, strum over the strings, and delicate rhythmic patterns tackle the heart and soul. Surely, those songs are good, but somehow, each one […]
The singer-songwriter scene has thrived in recent years, with many artists releasingoutstanding pieces of work. However, not many of them are capable of delivering profoundly emotional pieces of work where each vocal harmony, strum over the strings, and delicate rhythmic patterns tackle the heart and soul. Surely, those songs are good, but somehow, each one […]
