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“He needed to do something which was such a departure it would destroy everything that went before”

Let’s be real now, we are living in not so perfect world. Every time you swipe through your

Ville Valo reflects on 30 years of HIM and horny, doomed gothic romance

Posted on May 11th 2026, 12:20p.m.

One of my absolute favorite articles of clothing in my closet is a beat-up, slightly holey, faded black Darkthrone t-shirt from 1998, with the band logo on the front, and “True Norwegian Black Metal” printed across the back. I share this, for what I hope are obvious reasons, to explain what initially drew me to Twin Serpent’s sophomore record, True Norwegian Blackgrass. That, and it was floating in an exclusive area of the sump pit reserved for those nuggets Steel specifically says need a review. Four years removed from their Loyal Blood Records 2022 debut, Feels Like Heaven, North Of Hell, which garnered comparisons to Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Tom Waits, this “cute outsider band” from Trondheim has a new label, Svart Records, and on True Norwegian Blackgrass, Twin Serpent teases “12 songs about love, betrayal and black holes with country licks, rock ‘n roll kicks and heaps of punk attitude.” So, coif those multi-colored mohawks, strap on those bullet-belts and arm spikes, and pull those cowboy boots on as we take True Norwegian Blackgrass for a prairie ride.

True Norwegian Blackgrass is a punk-infused, crust-country bluesabilly-thon full of quirky energy. Ditching the corpse paint and blood baths, Twin Serpent’s aesthetic is born from deliberate artistic intent—just scope that cover art touted as “weird, rowdy, and just a little bit black metal.” Face paint? Pfffft! Full body snake paint and no fucks given come standard. Spirited from the start, album opener “Space Heater” glides in on a wave of Dick Dale-esque surf guitar before going full-on Dead Kennedys with oodles of punkish energy and roars from Timo Silvola and Hanna Fauske that would have Fenriz smiling. From there, however, True Norwegian Blackgrass traverses a more eclectic musical terrain without sacrificing its punk moxie. Silvola’s countrified banjo plucks and acoustic strumming bring Bridge City Sinners and The Goddamn Gallows to mind (“Stellar Suicide”), but can folk out too on tracks like “Kipu Kivi,” which also features him chanting in his native Finnish. Back-boning Twin Serpent’s “rock”ier side are Fauske’s driving bass lines, Tony Gonzalez’s electric riffs and leads, and the shifty, exactly-what-we-need-when-we-need-it drumming of Viktor Kristensen. Together, these three bring a bluesy, alt-rock flair that had me feeling everything from Violent Femmes (“Hundromshelvete”) and Days of the New (“Tusen Takk”), to The Cramps (“Radiophobia”). To say True Norwegian Blackgrass seems a scatterbrained stew of styles would be an understatement, but I’ll be damned if Twin Serpent doesn’t pull it off.

Twin Serpent write big hooks, stacking True Norwegian Blackgrass with memorable moments. Whimsical percussion, poppy bass lines, and fuzzy guitar work make “Ærlig Talt” an off-kilter, punky fun ditty, while the catchier-than-thou chorus of the hoe-down-ready “Freak Flag” is stickier than hell, and should inspire mass consumption of cheap beer. My favorite song, ballad “Ain’t Home No More,” features a great harmonic duet between Silvola and Fauske, sung over simple banjo and acoustic guitar before feathering in surging electric chords that, in a live setting, could easily trail off into a stellar jam section. “Holy Ghost,” another tavern-tier stand-out, features more of Silvola and Fauske’s vocal harmonizations and sports a chorus that will have you swaying on your bar stool, arm around your drinking buddy, belting it out while sloshing beer from your pint glass.

Twin Serpent’s versatility is their greatest strength. I imagine they’d fit in just as easily gigging at the local brew pub as they would a barn dance or even Chicago’s Riot Fest. Covering so many musical landscapes, an album like True Norwegian Blackgrass could have easily landed as an unfocused mess. But it’s the vocal interplay, harmonies, and trade-offs between Silvola and Fauske—reminiscent of early B-52’s—keeping things intact. As many different places as this record goes, it still manages to sound like Twin Serpent, and with twelve tracks spanning 37 minutes—most songs clocking in between two and three minutes each—it never loiters long enough to get boring or tiresome. Dubbed “the wizard technician,” Vebjørn Svanberg Numme harnesses all of the foursome’s idiosyncrasies and channels them through a production that perfectly captures everything that makes the Twin Serpent sound tick.

True Norwegian Blackgrass is a wonderful change-of-pace album you could totally spin when you don’t know what to listen to. Twin Serpent have added all the right ingredients to create a recipe loaded with eclectic energy and punk rock attitude. From note one, I was hooked and had more fun with True Norwegian Blackgrass than I’d ever guessed. I fully recommend you give it a try too.

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Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: Svart Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026

The post Twin Serpent – True Norwegian Blackgrass Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Pop-punk newcomer N4T! has recruited With Confidence‘s Jayden Seeley for an anthemic new single.

Tapping into the joyous energy of the mid-2000s scene, ‘BRAINDEAD!’ has the kind of chorus that’s made to be belted out at the top of your voice in a sweaty venue.

Written, recorded and produced in Los Angeles with Jayden, N4T! has spoken abut the meaning behind the track:

“BRAINDEAD! is about being stuck in something that’s slowly messing with your head where one day everything feels fine, and the next it completely unravels. It’s chaotic, unpredictable, and a little destructive.”

Check it out below.

Speaking on working with Jayden, they have shared:

“Recording ‘BRAINDEAD!’ in Los Angeles with Jayden was such a fun process! The energy in the studio was super easy and natural, and having Gus Scripelitti on live drums gave it that extra punch.”

It’s not the first time N4T! has worked with one of our favourites either.

Check out their collaboration with Sleeping With Sirens’ Kellin Quinn on ‘Burning Bridges’ below.

And their collab with We The Kings on ‘4 Leaf Clover’ here.

The post N4T! Teams Up With Jayden Seeley On Anthemic Single ‘BRAINDEAD!’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

Posted on May 11th 2026, 12:00p.m.

See the Alissa White Gluz-led Dragonforce play their first show at Welcome To Rockville 2026

Devon-based Hard Rock Heavyweights Kris Barras Band have announced their first UK tour in almost two years, with the Monsters We Made Tour set to hit venues across the UK this October. The tour follows the release of the band’s upcoming album Monsters We Made, due on 14 August 2026 via Earache Records.

Fans who pre-order the album before midnight on Tuesday 12 May will receive an exclusive early pre-sale link for tour tickets.

Joining Kris Barras Band on the road are special guests 10 Years, the Knoxville, Tennessee melodic Alternative Metal outfit known for dominating US Rock radio for decades. The band recently toured with Mammoth and are also appearing alongside Black Stone Cherry before heading to the UK dates.

Speaking about the tour, Kris Barras said: “We are absolutely honoured to have 10 Years out with us on this run, great band, amazing songs, you are all in for a treat.”

Kris Barras Band enjoyed major success with their 2024 album Halo Effect, which reached the UK Top 5 alongside Beyoncé and Linkin Park while topping the official UK Rock/Metal, Independent and Download charts.

The new album Monsters We Made sees the band return to a more anthem-driven hard rock sound filled with huge riffs, soaring choruses and powerful guitar solos. The album was produced by guitarist and keyboardist Josiah Manning, with the current line-up completed by bassist Frazer Kerslake and drummer Billy Hammett.

Following recent European tour dates with Adrian Smith and Ritchie Kotzen, Kris Barras has fully recovered from vocal issues suffered earlier this year and says he is now “singing better than ever.”

The post Kris Barras Band Announce UK Headline Tour first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

[Artwork by Caroline Harrison]

“Nonsense” opens with a slow fade-in of distorted guitars and seismic drums — the chaos before the swarm. It’s a trick of the trade, the extreme metal equivalent of a camera operator calling out “speed” before the tail slate clacks down. But for Gadget, it might as well be the sound of a band being roused from a deep slumber. “Nonsense” kicks off the EP Coerced, which is the Swedish grind band’s first new release in nearly five years. So, naturally, during those 30-odd seconds of build-up, you think, OK, does Gadget still have it? And then the quintet literally blasts off, sounding like SpaceX’s Starship trying to take off from inside a garden shed. Guitarists Rikard Olsson and Kristofer Jankarls furiously slash with that classically corroded Swedish guitar tone; bassist Fredrik Nygren and drummer William Blackmon feverishly shovel rhythmic coal into the engines to keep the tempo at full steam; and singer Emilia Henriksson fiercely screams with a caustic roar that would greatly concern an otolaryngologist. Oh yeah, Gadget still has it. You’re just left wondering where it put it for the last half-decade.

“We are totally and completely hopeless keeping things in motion between our periods of playing live, and thus one of the least prolific bands on the planet,” Blackmon told Good Guys Go Grind in a 2023 interview. You don’t say. You can say, however, that when Gadget shows up, it has been worth the wait. Its 2006 sophomore outing, The Funeral March, is a gem of ’00s grind. What makes it stand out is how much ground the band covers in songs that rarely exceed two minutes. It’s not just an orthodox grind recitation of a FETO fable with a lack of personality papered over by more blasts. No, the band uses the versatility of Swedegrind riffs to explore fury from many angles, expanding the format’s range. Gadget always had a voice, and that voice is well-equipped to tell stories.

The story on Coerced is more immediate. Nowadays, Gadget is punkier than its younger self, which favored a near-death/grind sharpness. It’s not that things are looser, necessarily: the band still plays with controlled frenzy. But Coerced accentuates more of the core of grindcore, particularly the sonic bulldozer quality of a band like Breach. A couple of factors might be responsible. First, Olsson, who alongside Gadget plays in the hardcore bands Diskonto and the severely underappreciated Parasit, handles the music writing this go-around. Second, Henriksson, who is making her studio debut as a full-fledged member of Gadget after guesting on the 2021 Retaliation split and handling live vocals for a few years, hails from the raging Radium Grrrls, which is no stranger to punk pugnacity. (Johan Lundmark, who sang on the 2020 version of Gadget’s “Funerary Rites,” pops up again on the update.) Perhaps that’s why Coerced more readily embraces a more direct approach. Heck, some songs even flirt with the d-beatish direction of fellow Swedish Assault partakers, Disfear.

I think this punk path could be misinterpreted as a spin in the Wayback Machine, a regression, helping Gadget to choose a livelier sound befitting the flesh-and-blood warmth of vinyl over the fastidiousness of past albums that found a good home on CD. However, I think Coerced‘s punkiness is a natural evolution that has followed Gadget’s staff to where they are in their lives. How do you maintain grind fury beyond your forties, when “rage, rage against the dying of the light” turns into “rage, rage we have a parent-teacher conference on Thursday”? There’s still plenty to be pissed about — lord knows this modern world supplies enough ammo. But clearly, the calculus is different because other aspects of life, and aging generally, become part of the equation. On a personal level, I find Coerced moving because it mirrors where I am as an old, decrepit powerlifter, staring down the inevitability of having to pursue a simpler routine to preserve my longevity. My drive hasn’t changed, but I am forced to reckon with the degradation of my body — I can’t escape time, and I can’t live in the past when there’s a present that needs me. In that light, it’s admirable, then, that five people have found a way to come together and make new music, stoking the same fires of aggression while saying, “You know, maybe we can be a little less technical so these songs can be released in this lifetime?” The act of doing becomes more resonant when so much of life pulls you toward something else; you feel that you’re not totally and completely hopeless keeping things in motion.

And, you know, Gadget, a really good grind band, is really good as a punk band if that’s the shift it wants to make. After an extended expedition into noise, which we’ll get into in a second, the requisite slomo grind closer kicks in, and it’s the best song of the eight-song set. “Violently Silent” is sludgy hardcore with a mid-pace pummel that gives a band like Norna a run for its money. It’s additionally powered by a killer groove that, forgive the deep cut, might remind the right listener of Swarm of the Lotus. Conceptually, it’s kind of like taking a beat to slow down, examine the things in front of you while chaos swirls around you in your continually expanding worldview, and thinking, Man, I’m even more pissed off about this than I thought. To drive that home, it sure doesn’t hurt that Henriksson lets loose the vocal hit to beat of 2026: “UHHHHHGH.” I feel that in the very depths of my frustrated soul. And I feel Gadget’s life force in general — where it is, where it wants to be. That’s Coerced‘s story, then, and, as always, Gadget does a great job telling it.

***

OK, two observations before we go. First, the noise track, “False Pulse”: What are we doing here? The five-and-a-half-minute excursion eats up a third of Coerced‘s running time, and doesn’t have the courtesy to close the record, leaving you to ponder your life decisions before finally giving way to “Violently Silent.” Like the dork I am, I listen to a lot of stuff falling under the noise umbrella, so that’s my Reddit-ass “longtime [profession] here” bona fides. Accordingly, I can tell you that, in a vacuum, “False Pulse” isn’t bad as far as those things go. Heck, it would even fit in OK on a death industrial album. But that’s the point: Coerced is not a death industrial album. For a noise or ambient passage to work on a metal album, it has to be great because it needs to justify its existence to people who don’t care about noise, and five minutes is a lot to justify. In a related realm, the power electronics that the powerviolence band No Faith employ excel because they’re short — palette cleansers by blowtorch. “False Pulse,” by comparison, is dead wax.

Second, we have an early frontrunner for album art of the year. Caroline Harrison once again threads the needle between the gorgeous and the grotesque. Many reads are possible: A bevy of open sores weep while vines sprout from others; the decomposition of the body, and a reminder that there’s life after death, it’s just not ours — we will return to the loam. Perhaps it’s also the wounds we suffer over the course of a life, where some stay fresh, and we can make them far worse by digging into them, but experience can grow from others. Fits Coerced well. Anyway, it’s as phantasmagorically evocative as ever. It’ll look great on a wall if you never want to have normal people over again.

The post Gadget – Coerced Review appeared first on Last Rites.