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  • 2000trees Festival 2026 expand line-up with fresh band additions, comedy headliners, and interactive family programming

    The organizers behind Gloucestershire’s premier alternative gathering, 2000trees Festival, have expanded their massive 2026 billing with a wave of fresh musical additions, dedicated comedy stages, interactive kids’ programming, and vital charity partnerships. Held at Upcote Farm near Cheltenham from 8th to 11th July 2026, the multi-award-winning event has tracking to be its biggest-selling edition to … Continue reading 2000trees Festival 2026 expand line-up with fresh band additions, comedy headliners, and interactive family programming
  • Review: Hecate Enthroned – The Corpse Of A Titan, A Lament Long Buried (Rick Eaglestone)

    Hecate Enthroned – The Corpse Of A Titan, A Lament Long Buried (M-Theory Audio) [Rick Eaglestone]

    Seven years. Seven long years since Hecate Enthroned last graced us with new material, and the wait – as it turns out – has been entirely, emphatically worth it. The Corpse Of A Titan, A Lament Long Buried is the band’s seventh full-length, and on the strength of this record alone it stands as one of the finest things they have ever put their name to.

    Run through the entire discography and it is there, unwavering in its commitment to orchestral darkness intertwined with savage black metal fury. Those sweeping symphonic passages married to razor-sharp tremolo riffs and A commanding vocal presence – it makes no apology for its theatrical grandiosity, and why should it. This is the very essence of what made British symphonic black metal such a force in the late 90s.

    Once again produced by the band alongside Dan Abela, who also handled mixing and mastering, The Corpse Of A Titan sounds absolutely enormous. Every element breathes – the orchestrations are genuinely cinematic without overwhelming the metal foundation, and the guitars cut through with precision. The production serves the songs rather than drawing attention to itself, and that is exactly what you want from extreme metal of this calibre.

    Lyrically the album plants its flag firmly in ancient British myths and legends – Welsh folklore, Celtic spirits, peat bog sacrifice, sacred woodland – and the thematic consistency gives the whole record a genuine sense of place and purpose. As Dylan Hughes puts it, these are “huge, epic, hard-hitting songs carved in the traditional Hecate Enthroned way with a menacing veil delivered with a crisp punch.” He is not wrong.

    The album opens not with an assault but with an invitation. In Welsh mythology, the Adar Rhiannon are the birds of the goddess Rhiannon – creatures whose song holds power over the boundary between the living and the dead. Hecate Enthroned lean into that mythology here with layers of orchestral synths and low spoken word that draw you gradually inward rather than kicking down the door. It is atmospheric, it is deliberate, and it sets the tone for everything that follows without overstaying its welcome. Exactly what a great intro should do.

    The introduction dissolves directly into the album’s first full track, Spirits Stir Within Our Ancestors Tombs and the contrast is immediate. Joe Stamps throws himself into proceedings with a commanding, extended shriek that declares his intent before the riffs have even had a chance to settle. From there the track is a statement of purpose – thunderous, orchestrally rich, and driven by a rhythm section that provides the kind of foundation you can build a cathedral on. 

    Holmes behind the kit is relentless when the song demands it, and Dylan Hughes’ bass work anchors everything with real authority. The track’s mid-section briefly steps back into something more melodic – clean guitar tones and a moment of genuine atmospheric restraint – before the storm reconvenes. The lyrical theme runs through the record like a thread: the past is never truly buried, ancient voices echo through the living, and the dead leave marks that time cannot erase. One of the album’s clear highlights.

    Where the previous track charges at you, The Arcane Golem is more patient and more imposing for it. This is Hecate Enthroned operating at mid-tempo, which in their hands does not mean restrained – it means giving each element room to breathe and register properly. The guitar work from Nige Dennan and Andy Milnes is dense and deliberate, with Pete White’s keyboard arrangements weaving around the riffs rather than sitting on top of them. 

    Stamps prove just as effective at lower registers here as he is unleashing full-throated shrieks elsewhere, and the interplay between vocal styles keeps the track from ever feeling one-dimensional. Lyrically the song presents nature as something animate and intelligent, and the music matches that sense of something vast and alive.

    This is the moment on the record where Hecate Enthroned show the full range of what they are capable of, and it is genuinely impressive. Steed Of The Still Water opens with restraint – clean strings, a delicate melodic thread, and Stamps’ vocals pitched against something that sounds more like traditional folk music than black metal. 

    It is unexpected, and it works completely. From that quiet opening the track moves through several distinct phases: passages of full-tilt black metal aggression, a groove-oriented section with real rhythmic momentum, and a keyboard-led stretch that would not sound out of place on a film score. The thematic concern is human arrogance and the destruction that pride invites, and the compositional ambition mirrors the subject matter. If one track on this album is going to convert an uncommitted listener, my money is on this one.

    The pace shifts entirely here. Pwca – a shape-shifting trickster spirit from Celtic tradition – is the album’s most atmospheric and measured piece, built around piano, hushed guitar, and the kind of whispered spoken word delivery that belongs in folklore by firelight. Where the surrounding tracks push and drive, this one reflects and recedes. 

    The lyrical imagery deals with autumn, with seasons turning, with the earth drawing everything back into itself. Some listeners will find this too much of a gear change, and I understand that reaction, but for my money it is exactly the right compositional decision at the album’s midpoint. Give the listener a moment to surface before taking them back under.

    Released ahead of the album, and it still hits with full force in context. Deathless In The Dryad Glade opens with something ominous and slow – guitar and keys circling each other, the sense of something approaching – before erupting into some of the most ferocious playing on the record. 

    The concept here, as Stamps has described it, is being led astray by malevolent woodland spirits and the permanence of the transformation that follows – cosmic horror with a specifically British mythological flavour. The second half of the track opens up into something genuinely cinematic; all scale and darkness, and Stamps’ performance throughout is one of his best moments on the album.

    The album’s lead single, A Gallery Of Rotting Portraits is still one of the record’s finest moments. Dylan Hughes has explained the concept: the peat bogs of ancient Britain, bodies like Lindow Man preserved for centuries, used here as a metaphor for devotion stripped of its power – ritualised belief unearthed and found hollow. 

    The music translates that jarring disconnect into something that moves between blackened aggression, keyboard passages of real orchestral weight, and a gothic-tinged slower section that lands with real impact. Back-to-back with Deathless In The Dryad Glade, this is a stretch of the album that keeps the second half moving at full momentum. I have listened to this track more times than I can count since its release and it gives up new details every time.

    A sacred place where beauty and decay exist side by side, where the natural world marks its own slow rhythms against the permanence of stone – that is the thematic territory of The Boreal Monastery, and the music is equal to the image. This is one of the album’s longer tracks and earns every second of its runtime. The arrangement pulls between raw force and something more considered, and Hecate Enthroned navigate that balance with the kind of confidence that only comes from three decades of doing exactly this. A strong penultimate track.

    And the album closes as it should – on a grand, sweeping, fully committed note. Dennan and Milnes combine on riff work that hits with real physicality, while White’s keyboards give the track scope and the rhythm section drives it home. There is significant layering in the arrangement – Into A Vale Of Endless Snow is a track that rewards headphones and proper volume – and the way everything builds toward the closing passage feels genuinely earned rather than imposed. A monumental ending to a monumental record

    Is this going to convert anyone previously unmoved by symphonic black metal? Almost certainly not – and that is fine. This is a record made for the people who already understand why Hecate Enthroned matter, and for that audience it delivers in every possible way. 

    Joe Stamps continues to prove himself one of the finest vocalists currently working in this space, the rhythm section of Holmes and Hughes is ironclad throughout, and the twin guitar work of Dennan and Milnes strikes that perfect balance of melodic sophistication and raw aggression that has defined the band at their very best.

    The Corpse Of A Titan, A Lament Long Buried is not just a welcome return. It is a career statement. 9/10
  • Song Review: Teeth Marks “Tin Soldiers”

    Song Review: Teeth Marks “Tin Soldiers”

    Forming out of Columbus, Ohio in 2023, 5-piece act Teeth Marks released their latest album, "RAISE / WRECK / REBUILD / RAZE" in November of 2025, and today we are checking out "Tin Soldiers" from that album.

    “Tin Soldiers” begins with gentle guitar strumming before soon introducing thumping bass lines, groovy drum beats, and soft singing vocals. Teeth Marks quickly form a calm rock sound that is filled with melody before soon bursting into full rock action as the chorus brings to life soaring vocals, electrifying guitar chords, and much more upbeat pacing. Guitar leads pick up the pace as bending riffs bring a sense of dynamics that builds from the song’s first verse.

    Teeth Marks does an excellent job of creating a sense of contrast between the song’s calm beginning and its much more energetic feel by the end of the track. “Tin Soldiers” starts as a slow-building soft rock track before launching into an explosive hard rock chorus and never looking back.

    Fans of classic rock, hard rock, and metal will enjoy Teeth Marks catchy rock sound. You can stream “Tin Soldiers” available on all platforms now!


    Find Them Here: Spotify | Instagram


    Thanks for reading!

  • Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, & More Playing Tom Morello’s Power To The People Festival

    As Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 concert series continues to fall apart, one of his ideological foes is planning a big show just outside of Washington, DC with a much higher level of star-power. Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who just finished taking part in Bruce Springsteen’s protest-heavy Land Of Hope & Dreams tour, has announced plans for a one-off festival called Power To The People, set to take place Oct. 3, exactly one month ahead of the midterm elections, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

    The post Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, & More Playing Tom Morello’s Power To The People Festival appeared first on Stereogum.

  • Bloodstock Festival announce pillow fighting, scream tuition, line dancing, green initiatives, and updated line-ups for 2026

    The organizers behind Bloodstock Festival have unleashed a comprehensive update detailing the packed array of non-musical entertainment, gallery exhibitions, retail options, and eco-friendly schemes arriving at Catton Park, Derbyshire this August. Running from 6th to 9th August 2026, the landmark 25th-anniversary celebration has already completely sold out of weekend tickets, though limited day spaces remain … Continue reading Bloodstock Festival announce pillow fighting, scream tuition, line dancing, green initiatives, and updated line-ups for 2026
  • C+C Music Factory Rapper Fires Back At Trump Concert Critics In Seven-Minute Toilet Rant

    For months, we’ve been hearing about Donald Trump’s plans to celebrate the United States of America’s 250th birthday this summer in grandiose, self-glorifying fashion via a range of events under the banner of Freedom 250. Wednesday, we learned about a key piece of that programming: the Great American State Fair, a series of concerts on the National Mall. The performers list looked something like an I Love The ’90s Tour lineup, dotted with figures like Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, C+C Music Factory, Young MC, and Poison’s Bret Michaels.

    The post C+C Music Factory Rapper Fires Back At Trump Concert Critics In Seven-Minute Toilet Rant appeared first on Stereogum.

  • “It Was Like Being Blind Reaching Into A Dark Room:” Tom Gabriel Fischer On 20 Years of Celtic Frost’s ‘Monotheist’

    The digital age has deprived us of the sense that an album is an event. By the time a record is released, it’s been shared piecemeal via song premieres, lyric videos, and more. The day before the album comes out, there is often a full album stream. In some cases, there isn’t even a physical album. An album is just code floating inside a server farm.

    Celtic Frost’s comeback album, Monotheist, released on May 29, 2006, was one of the last album-release events I remember. There was tremendous anticipation for it; on release day, I went to Rasputin and purchased my digipak. Within twenty seconds of hearing the opening track, I knew the fabled band of my youth had righted the ship.

    Two decades later, Monotheist has taken its place as one of the “big four” Celtic Frost albums, alongside Morbid Tales, To Mega Therion and Into The Pandemonium. Unlike its more compact predecessors, Monotheist—which featured guitarist and chief songwriter Tom Gabriel Fischer, bassist Martin Eric Ain and drummer Franco Sesa—was sprawling, dense and often slow-paced. Monotheist also reached new generations. For listeners who came of age with Celtic Frost, Monotheist‘s emotional depth mirrored the challenges of adulthood. For younger listeners, the band’s renewed heaviness led them back to Frost’s formative work.

    Monotheist has aged incredibly well and is one of the rare albums that reveal more with dedicated listening over time. If there is anything bittersweet about it, it’s the loss of Ain, who fully embraced his role as a songwriter on the album. Although Celtic Frost split just two years after this album, Fischer and Ain remained in contact and sometimes talked about working together again. Fischer has continued the path of the 21st-century Frost with Triptykon, which recorded the Hall of Fame-certified Eparistera Daimones just two years after Celtic Frost’s final breakup.

    Monotheist is where Fischer put the ghosts of the late ’80s to bed for good and opened a creative wellspring that shows no signs of abating. Fischer talked to us about Monotheist’s 20th anniversary and the backstory of one of the watershed metal albums of the early ’00s.

    You recently had the chance to perform the song “Welcome To Hell” with Mantas and Abaddon. Venom is the band that launched your entire career.

    That’s the reason I accepted the proposal. I get offers for guest vocals or collaborations all the time. But Venom shaped my entire life, especially the first album. I didn’t have to think about accepting this. Little Tom wouldn’t have believed it was happening 45 years ago. We bonded during rehearsal, so even though there was a lot of pressure to do the song justice, it was so much fun. Bulldozer from Interceptor [who handled bass and vocals] is phenomenal. He flew from America right to rehearsal; he’s in his 20s and tasked with playing this legendary music. You can’t replace Cronos, but he has the same kind of style and energy Cronos had in the early days.

    Can you believe it has been 20 years since Monotheist was released?

    I will be 63 this summer. At my age, you come across the sensation a lot. Triptykon has been together longer at this point than Celtic Frost. So the 20-year period is one of those mind-blowing experiences you have if you survive to become an old musician. The only reason I get to experience this is the grace of the audience. That’s the astonishing thing, and I’m grateful. For me personally, it [Monotheist] is extremely important. I am responsible for Celtic Frost’s great flaw: Cold Lake. But that’s also the reason I wanted to make up for it. We all needed to prove to ourselves that we could still sound like Celtic Frost.

    How did Celtic Frost decide to get back together in the early ’00s?

    In films, everything is black and white, but real life is more complex. Everything is the result of a thought process. Celtic Frost dissolved in April 1993, but we had already lost the plot years earlier. The latter incarnations of Celtic Frost had nothing to do with the early spirit. We knew this, but we still carried on. The band dissolved because the concept of Celtic Frost had run its course.

    Martin and I met throughout the ’90s and discussed our past, present, and influences. It helped us develop into adult musicians. In 1999, Noise Records asked me to oversee the Celtic Frost reissues, which I did in Berlin. I remastered the records and dug into my photo archive. It made me reevaluate Celtic Frost’s history. Martin was also involved. These steps helped us get close again musically and talk about how Celtic Frost should have continued. The final step was attending the Roxy Music reunion tour in 2000. I went to three concerts and was blown away by how good the songs sounded. I said to Martin: “If Roxy Music can do this, we could do it, too.” Martin agreed, so we began in 2001.

    Jozo Palkovitz

    In your time away, black metal became a huge global commodity. A lot of those bands cited Celtic Frost’s early work as a huge inspiration.

    I lived in America in the mid-1990s. I missed the birth of the second wave of black metal, whereas Martin followed it closely. I came back to Europe in the late ’90s and was blown away by what had happened to extreme metal. Journalists were asking me about my influence on the new black metal. I was half a world away from what was happening in Scandinavia. I had to catch up on the scene, while Martin experienced it in real time. He introduced me to many of the bands. The more extreme and underground, the better. He loved Mayhem, early Darkthrone, and fringe black-metal projects.

    Martin always seemed to provide Celtic Frost with an intellectual and stylistic backbone.

    Martin hardly wrote any music until Monotheist. He was active on an ideological platform, and I was active on a musical platform. But we never separated the two. Music was always connected to ideology for us. I can’t imagine any of the early Celtic Frost songs existing without both of us.

    What happened after you decided to bring the band back?

    We had such a bad experience with the recording industry in the ’80s. When we started talking about reforming the band 15 or so years later, we were far more experienced. We said the recording industry won’t enslave us. We decided to take full control and make all the decisions ourselves. We came up with the money ourselves. This gave us the freedom to take our time with Monotheist. The reunion started with all-night conversations about how we wanted to sound. We also talked a lot about earlier mistakes. We wanted to do it right and do the music justice.

    How soon after you reformed did you have songs or ideas?

    We decided to reform in 2001. There was music from the beginning. The demos started in 2002 and 2003. The early work was a process of searching. What direction should the album go in? Celtic Frost had many faces. We needed to determine what the face would be. The early demos were so experimental, and we tried pretty much anything. Having done Into the Pandemonium, we were completely open artistically. We recorded anything that came to mind to see what worked and what didn’t. The process was simple: record anything and focus on feeling. We needed to find what sounded like a Celtic Frost album. We worked on the album for five years.

    People who hear the Prototype demo online act like it’s an outlier, but Celtic Frost was always experimental to a fault.

    Prototype was recorded for Music for Nations, which had expressed early interest in the Celtic Frost reunion. We wanted them to hear what we were working on. There were 20 copies of the demo. When the Internet age came, the demo went public. That’s fine with me. But it was in no way meant to be a Celtic Frost album. It was just meant to show some ideas. The demo is very adventurous.

    As a result of that demo going public, we did get to hear Martin rapping.

    It [“Hip Hop Jugend”] is an odd track [laughs]. The best description I can think of for it is interesting. It was a typical Martin thing. I wasn’t involved in the song beyond some backing vocals. It was Martin expressing his frustration as someone who managed hipster clubs in Zurich. It was about people who just partied mindlessly, so he put it into a song. It was a parody of that scene. If you hear that song and don’t know his background, it wouldn’t make sense. But we never considered “Hip Hop Jugend” for a Celtic Frost album.

    Martin and I had an extremely deep relationship, like brothers. It was a complex relationship. The relationship resulted in these creative outbursts. Before Martin died, we talked about how we turned conflict into art and creativity.

    How did you finalize the material that ended up on Monotheist?

    Initially, it was like being blind, reaching into a dark room. Once we started playing and practicing several times a week, the process of radicalization began. When all the Marshalls were on, and we had live drums, the good songs started to show themselves. The ludicrous experiments went away, and the dark riffs manifested. We were overwhelmed by the radicalization. We focused on: what is the essence of who we are now? Month by month, the album became darker and heavier. The heavier it sounded in rehearsal, the darker it got.

    Martin became a songwriter and collaborator on Monotheist.

    I’d been waiting for this for years. I urged Martin to write music from the beginning in Hellhammer. He had phenomenal lyrics and ideas, but didn’t have finished songs. In the 90s, we went out for dinner, and he told me he always felt inferior and intimidated. I told him I was always waiting for him to write songs and believed in him. When we got back together in 2001, and he had some songs, I was happy the gate was finally open. Martin brought in some fragments for “Mesmerized” during Into The Pandemonium. With Monotheist, he came in with some finished songs. I love the song “Ain Elohim”—it’s extremely powerful. I only co-wrote a minority of it. We just made it a little better. Martin and I wrote “Synagoga Satanae.” It was 50/50. We could never have done that collaboration in the early days. It’s one of the most important songs in the band’s history

    I think it’s also one of the band’s heaviest songs.

    It sounds very heavy and is a dark, cumbersome song. It shows what the mature Celtic Frost was capable of. I wrote the skeleton of the song, and Martin took my riffs and wrote an equal amount of it. It’s a full collaboration.

    How did you know when the album was complete?

    After about five years, we condensed everything. We actually ended up with too much material. We decided to go to a proper studio in 2005, make the best recordings, combine them and shape them into an album.

    Jozo Palkovitz

    When Monotheist arrived, people were genuinely excited. The album’s release seemed like an event when such things were still possible. It was interesting to experience, remembering what the band’s early years were like.

    For most of the ’80s, we were an underground band. [For Monotheist] went out shopping for a licensing deal. We wanted a deal that did the album and Celtic Frost justice. We talked to several labels and their management to find a licensing deal. Century Media committed to a real publicity campaign. We felt Celtic Frost shouldn’t be remembered by Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis. We felt the band needed to have a statement for contemporary times. It was gratifying that the reviews and the audience felt the same way.

    Of course, we couldn’t plan it, and we were ready for any reaction. We were ready to face even hostility. People would like it or hate it. But then the dam burst, and everyone seemed to love it.

    The opening track “Progeny” is one of the most aggressive tracks on the album and draws listeners right in.

    We were open to change until we finished mixing the album. We wanted to listen to some final mixes. “Progeny” was an early candidate [for the opening song] because of its energy. It just happened by intuition. One thing I’ve heard in the past 20 years is that the album is too modern. But what does Celtic Frost sound like? Every album sounds different. It’s very much Celtic Frost, and as usual, it’s a reinvention of Celtic Frost.

    The Monotheist tour dwarfed anything from the band’s formative years.

    It was the biggest Celtic Frost tour ever—125 concerts around the world. It was overwhelming and beautiful to see how the audience welcomed us back. It was a dream come true. We wanted to give the audience a full program and took great care with the set lists so they heard songs that hadn’t been played for like 16 years.

    I imagine it’s tough to think of the album’s anniversary since Martin’s passing.

    That’s the bittersweet component of it. I am satisfied with Monotheist as a musician. I don’t feel I missed much musically with Triptykon. But I would have loved nothing more than to do those records with Martin Ain. It will never be the same without him. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t passed? We were still talking about writing music again. Victor [Santura, guitarist for Triptykon] and I always talked about involving Martin in some capacity. That’s a blank spot that can’t be filled. I miss Martin every day. No matter how big the audience is, I always think I should be doing this with Martin.

    A whole younger generation discovered Celtic Frost through Monotheist.

    There are people my age when I was in Hellhammer who discovered the band through Monotheist. Martin and I didn’t want to make something designed just for our generation. We hoped the album might provide a bridge, and astonishingly, it did. At the Venom gig, someone told me that Monotheist was their gateway to Celtic Frost.

    The post “It Was Like Being Blind Reaching Into A Dark Room:” Tom Gabriel Fischer On 20 Years of Celtic Frost’s ‘Monotheist’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

  • Moonlight Mile – Northern Lights

    Socrates said, “to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom”, and Ben Franklin said, “there are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” Between them they underscore the fact that self-awareness is a difficult journey, and not one that everybody chooses to take. Kentucky-based singer/songwriter Jonathan Pennington, who goes by […]
  • Pvrgatorii Administer “Profane Rites for Cursed Times” (EP Premiere)

    Mysterious Catalonian black metal/death punk operatives Pvrgatorii have been in the shadows cultivating a poisonous new strain of their patented “Black Metal ov Death.” The forbidden fruit harvested via this unholy labor is available in all its terrible potency on Profane Rites for Cursed Times, the duo’s new EP on Night Terrors Records, which we’re premiering today. Equally informed by modern hardcore’s urgency and black metal’s aggression, Pvrgatorri create “sinister, malevolent” atmospheres. Perhaps the most effective way they conjure malevolence on Profane Rites… is through Darth Dvnkel’s bizarre and overwhelming vocals. On “Hermetik Axis,” layers of disturbing exhortations hover over relentless blasts and trebly guitar tornados as Dvnkel’s profane “black spell” recitations coalesce into mushroom clouds. A random sample dissolves into pummeling obsidian-hued crust punk on “The Key to Thee Temple,” wherein the guerilla war vocal incantations swirl amidst bloodthirsty riffs and blasts. The cyclone of gurgles and death grunts resurfaces once more during “Dystopian Flesh Arise,” a midtempo Motörhead gallop that morphs into a circle-pit igniting D-beat (down). “A Broken Seal for Final Capitalism” sees Dvnkel’s ominous vocal panopticon assert its dominance over a blackened thrash metal feeding frenzy. Recorded by L’Ombra, the entity also responsible for the EP’s pulverizing “war drums,” the production is brilliant, not only in its uncanny vocal manipulations, but its overall menace. The first 50 orders of Profane Rites for Cursed Times come with a 16-page zine that “offers a broader insight into the ethos that fuels their work,” and it’s recommended you pick that up too.

    The band comments:

    In these moments when trve evil gets stronger everyday through growing inequality and rising fascism, we have casted with all our energy at thee core ov our dvngeon these four sonik sigils ov annihilation. Physical, spiritual and intellectual concentrated, as a humble way to break a thin threat of black light in a world doomed to dark capitalistik chaos. Lets ignite thee metal torch, and make it burn -as fast, so slow- for these Profane Rites for Cvrsed Times.


    Profane Rites for Cvrsed Times releases May 29 via Night Terrors Records.