Brennan Wedl has been on the rise since we named her an Artist To Watch in 2024. Earlier this year, the Nashville singer-songwriter signed to ANTI- and opened for Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman’s tour. More recently, she was announced as the opener for Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy’s upcoming tour. Now, she’s announcing her eponymous debut album, which is produced by Katie Crutchfield and Brad Cook.
Album Review: Nunslaughter – Satanic Chaos Legions
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Regardless of anything else you might accuse Nunslaughter of, one thing they definitely aren’t doing is fucking about. Their brand of abundantly thrashy black/death has been pulverising neck vertebrae since the late 80’s, and at this point they’ve clearly decided that no amount of subtlety or nuance will ever substitute just kicking the shit out of you. This isn’t music intended to prompt deep intellectual engagement. They’re not trying to get you to use your brain – they’re trying to kick it clean out your skull.
It would be reductive and pithy to say that Nunslaughter recycle too many Slayer riffs, but it also wouldn’t be wholly inaccurate. You’ll know whether you’ll like this just by asking yourself whether you like Nunslaughter. I find that it’s often passion that carries stuff like this, a need to feel that the band believe in it for you yourself to believe in it. To that end, “Satanic Chaos Legions” and “Jesus Fucking Dies” launch out the starting blocks bristling with deeply unethical weaponry at breakneck speeds, red froth billowing between the yellowed fangs of raw OSDM riffs, percussion like a fusillade and vocalist Don of the Dead yelling like he never liked his vocal chords anyway. It’s music for people who think that “innocent bystander” is shorthand for “someone who should’ve gotten the fuck out the way”, with tracks like “Lucifer the Light” skydiving in at you with an apoplectic storm of Repulsion riffs and a relentless kick-snare beat that feels less like drumming and more like your eardrums are being fracked. They know when to herald the end times too – observe with trembling “Heavenless”, the crumbling death-doom of Asphyx pouring from it in putrid runnels.
This isn’t exactly long form music; no tracks stretch over four minutes with a good chunk being below two. Berserker energy seizes much of it, clamping jump leads to it’s adrenaline glands and firing a million volts through them a minute. Feverish grindcore zeal from “Die Your Own Death” floors the accelerator on an Abrams tank and mulches the congregation below its treads. Yet always comes that dogged sense of dejá fu – the feeling that you’ve had your arse kicked like this before. Yes, it’s speedy and aggressive, but even by its own standards some tracks feel to be much more honed than their comrades do. “Listen to the Lies” is very short and substantially a sample – it’s vicious, but so is everything else, and it feels somewhat throwaway by comparison.
Some of the more hardcore influenced songs leave me a little on the cold side – could be more of a personal thing (it almost definitely is) but uniformly the more death/thrash a track was the greater I liked it. So momentary incidences of filler and genre stylistic choices that I’m not as warm to did leash my enthusiasm a bit – perhaps they’ll count less against it for you though. I do still feel that the band could do with spreading their charred wings a little – they play things about as safe as an album that feels to be force-feeding you bleach ever can – and the occasional switch up in say, time signature or lobbing in a couple more solos would be welcome. A few more toys in the torture chamber, y’know? But equally…I mean it’s fuckin’ Nunslaughter man. Every time I start to criticise them I get the unnerving sense that Satan stands at my shoulder, shaking his head and dreaming up inventive new torments to visit upon my hapless form as revenge for my being a wuss.
Again, it comes down to something I said earlier: You’ll know whether you’ll like this just by asking yourself whether you like Nunslaughter. I first got into them on their “Angelic Dread” album in 2014 – and I like this new one for much the same reasons that I like that one. The flipside contention that they’ve not really changed or evolved since then would be mean even if there would be a kernel of truth to it, but there’s no arguing with the results – Nunslaughter are doing this with the fire and venom lesser bands can only dream of. Each chord smacks into you like an axeblow, cleaving ravines through the milling corpse-pyre smog. It is metal as all fuck, and if Black, Death or Thrash stir any degree of fondness in you, then you should shoot this into your earholes immediately.
Yes, Nate Amos released Holo Boy in December and Box For Buddy, Box For Star (Super Deluxe) in April. Yes, his band Water From Your Eyes has been touring with Hayley Williams for the past few months. But the indie rocker simply finds time to make new music. We sort of knew it was coming when, last month, he signed to Matador and announced a fall tour. But it’s still quite staggering. The Singer In My Band arrives this fall, and today we have the amazing lead single “Billy Came Back.”
TIL THE END’s self-titled Lifeforce Records debut album will be released on September 11th and is up now for preorder/ presave.
New single Until the End up now on all digital platforms.
With their widely acclaimed debut EP Dark Kings, TIL THE END made an impressive entrance into the melodic death metal community last year, immediately winning over a broad audience. With the release of their first full‑length album, the band now takes the next major step. The self‑titled record on LIFEFORCE RECORDS is a clear statement: an expression of confidence, artistic determination, and an unwavering focus on what matters most – the music. And the music speaks for itself.
The line‑up of the group, founded in 2023, brings together four musicians firmly rooted in the international scene: vocalist Antony Hämäläinen (Nightrage, Armageddon), guitarist Kostas Sotos (Mystic Prophecy, Crystal Tears), drummer Márton Veress (Orgy, Armageddon), and bassist/rhythm guitarist Nic Svensson (Slaves For Scores, Swede Studios). TIL THE END is their shared vehicle to pay tribute to the legendary Gothenburg sound while simultaneously pushing it forward with modern energy and a contemporary artistic vision.
01. Form the Beginning (Genesis) 02. Lava 03. Dismal Paradise 04. These Little Voices 05. I’m Falling Apart 06. Awakening 07. Hybrid Fragments 08. Cemetery Trees 09. Higher and Beyond 10. Until the End
Album Artwork by Gustavo Sazes (Soilwork, Nightrage, Firewind, etc.)
My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James always seems to have something going on. Next month, for example, James will take part in a three-day musical salute to director Wes Anderson at the Hollywood Bowl. (The previously announced event The Music From The Films Of Wes Anderson event also includes people like Bill Murray, Beck, Jackson Browne, and Spoon’s Britt Daniel, and it goes down July 10-12.) In the midst of his many engagements, James hasn’t found the time to drop a solo album in a while. That’s about to change.
New York City rock-and-roll quartet BODEGA announce their fourth full-length album All Inside Aquarium for an October 9th release via Chrysalis Records.
Meet the Lisbon-born, London-based singer-songwriter Natacha Simões, who’s been releasing poignant, pretty indie rock tunes inspired by Alex G, Duster, and the like under the name Maripool for a few years. Today, she’s announcing her debut album Rotten Luck, out this summer. The cool lead single “Crossing” out now.
The band originally formed at Dulwich College in the late 1960s and featured future Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera alongside Bill MacCormick (bass), Dave Jarrett (keyboards) and Charles Hayward (drums). Manzanera reconvened the line-up in 1975 during a break in Roxy Music’s touring schedule to record their debut album, Mainstream, which also featured contributions from Brian Eno and Ian MacCormick (also known as NME Assistant Editor Ian MacDonald). The album was recorded at the same time as Manzanera’s own solo album, Diamond Head, which also featured songs that featured on Mainstream.
A year later, 801, a one-off project band featuring Manzanera, Eno, MacCormick, Simon Phillips, Francis Monkman (Curved Air) and Lloyd Watson, performed Quiet Sun material at their own live shows and featured on their 1976 live release, 801 Live.
“Listening back to this album, 51 years later — and especially hearing the analogue tapes — I was quite amazed by how good it sounds,” says Manzenra of the upcoming remixed and remastered Deluxe edition. “It’s a testament to Charles, Dave and Bill’s musical prowess, and to the detailed work we had put in between 1970 and 1971, before I joined Roxy. It had been six years since we had played together, and in the space of two weeks we recorded these eight tracks — surreptitiously, mostly as first takes, certainly with very few overdubs. At Basing Street Studios, the Island Records base, we recaptured the volatility and excitement of what we had set out to be as a band, and this new set of mixes shines a light on Quiet Sun once again.”
The new edition has been remixed and remastered and will be released as a two-disc media book with a 60-page book with a Blu-Ray disc containing a Dolby Atmos 5.1 mix, a new Abbey Road remastered version of the original mix from the original analogue ¼ inch tapes and a new 2026 mix, while a second disc features a stereo CD with the new 2026 mix.
The album will also be available as a gatefold single-disc vinyl release with the new 2026 mix using the original 24-track analogue tapes. and it will also be found on all major streaming services.
James Brandon Lewis gives the impression of being wise beyond his years, but he’s got just as many questions as anybody else. The son of a minister, he grew up in Buffalo, NY, and attended Howard University. After graduation in 2006, he moved to Colorado, where he spent several years as a gospel musician. In 2010, he began attending CalArts, studying with Wadada Leo Smith, Charlie Haden and others, and releasing an independent album, Moments. After receiving his MFA, he moved to New York and began working with Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Gerald Cleaver, among others. He released Divine Travels in 2014, and hasn’t stopped moving since.
