Upcoming Metal Releases: 5/24/26 – 5/30/26
Monolord — Neverending | Relapse Records | Doom Metal | Sweden (Gothenburg)
Neverending, the newest burnt offering from highly regarded Swedish doomslayers Monolord, will soon be released via longstanding extreme music haven Relapse Records. The thunderous power trio hooked up with vaunted veteran producer and engineer Sylvia Massy to record their ambitious new material. Massy proposed an intriguing collaborative process, asking guitarist/vocalist Thomas Jager to send “everything we had–not just songs written for the album, but every stray riff and idea” the band had accumulated. After listening, the producer sent Monolord “a list of what she wanted to work on.” The result is an immense eight-song monolith viewed as a “focused but expansive” distillation of the group’s sound. “You Bastard” is a haunting, writhing vortex of acidic, bone-deep (purple) riffs and hazy, cosmic Sabbathian vocal insinuations. I try to avoid reflexive invocation of ye olde Iommic Life when bands operate in this register but the vocal nod to “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and overall aura make it damn near unavoidable here. Thick, jagged bass tones and gauzy borderline shoegaze vocals permeate “Oozing Wound.” The group shifts gears and moods entirely on “It’s Neverending,” a grinding, blown-out slab o’ sludge with guest growls from Grave’s Jorgen Sandstrom. Get ready for a doomy summer.
–Dennis J. Seese
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Trelldom — …by the word… | Prophecy Productions | Avant-garde Metal | Norway
From Colin Dempsey’s interview with Trelldom:
Gaahl performs conservatively on …by the word…, hushing and singing through cluttered sculptures. He occasionally commands the band, but oftentimes he operates as a companion and adversary to Kjetil Møster, whose saxophone is as much of a lead vocalist as Gaahl. The dynamic is rare in metal, focusing less on the texture and horsepower of the music and, instead, offering a subtle shift to standard rock roles.
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Elder — Through Zero | Blues Funeral Recordings | Progressive Rock | Germany (Berlin)
Gliding along soft guitar melodies and sweet vocals, Through Zero is an atmospheric journey into green and fruitful planets. Elder wrap themselves in lush production, allowing their progressive excursions to feel more emotional; more like the first steps beyond the unexplored. When the band isn’t exploding through expansive passages, they’re floating through hazy guitars and keyboards. There’s still bite within the thick bass, heavy drums, and the occasional dirtiness of a brutish guitar tone, but the band is taking another step away from stoner metal and toward heavy psych. Their grand movements feel more epic when painted with friendlier strokes.
–Aidan Sibley
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Maladie — The Dance of Tragedies | Apostasy Records | Avant-garde Black Metal | Germany (Ludwigshafen)
Maladie are veterans at making odd, off-kilter extreme metal at this point, and The Dance of Tragedies promises to be no different. The title track starts as a straightforward, high-energy song that bristles with punk rock energy. However, by the time it reaches the two-minute mark, it has mutated into something much stranger. An unsettling piano builds into blasting chords and twisted guitar riffing before collapsing back into a languid saxophone solo. So much is packed into the one song, and the rest of the album is likely to be as eventful.
–Kevin Zecchel
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The Fifth Alliance — Stenahoria | Tartarus Records | Doom Metal + Black Metal | Netherlands (Breda)
From Colin Dempsey’s track premiere of “The Fool on the Hill”:
The Fifth Alliance pivot between riveting atmospheric black metal and doom metal, the latter of which draws from a hallowed source. The contrast props the more gut-wrenching and stereotypically heavy segments as less bleak than the towering cleans, if only because the band isn’t afraid to bare their wounds. Stenahoria, as a whole, embodies that premise, but you’ll have to wait until May to hear it all.
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Siyahkal — Corrupt / فاسد | Static Shock Records | Hardcore Punk | Canada (Toronto, ON)
In 2025, Toronto hardcore band Siyahkal took plenty of vocal risks on their debut album, Days of Smoke and Ash / روزای دود و خاکستر. Gasps, coughs, and maniacal laughter burst out like the orders of a drill sergeant atop ferocious punk. Just over a year later, the group is back, devastated and angry, contextualizing Corrupt / فاسد as a reaction to the war against Iran and the repeated violence against its citizens. A scream of rebellion commences the record, and the constant d-beat pace orders listeners to run. Run to protection. Run to defend. Run to stop the aggressors. What once sounded like demands of war are now declarations to help those suffering, wrapped in hardcore that makes a revolutionary out of every listener.
–Aidan Sibley
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Funebrarum — Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence | Pulverised Records | Death Metal | United States
It’s fitting that this record begins with an epic symphonic intro titled “The Arrival” because Funebrarum fans have been eagerly awaiting this one for seven years. I’m happy to report that the formerly North Jersey—now North American—death metal wrecking crew does not disappoint with Beckoning The Void of Eternal Silence. Since the album was initially recorded in 2019, Funebrarum’s lineup has expanded beyond founding vocalist Daryl Kahan to include past and present members of Ascended Dead, Hulder, and Chthe’ilist. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Funebrarum’s third album delivers nearly 50 minutes of filthy, sepulchral gloom. You know those horror movies in which an earthquake unleashes some kind of long-dormant evil from beneath an ancient burial ground? Imagine that, but all the ghouls and zombies are headbanging—and putting what’s left of their lower backs into it.
–Alex Chan
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Galvanist — The Silence Between the Stars | Independent | Sludge Metal + Black Metal + Doom Metal | United States (Bozeman, MT)
Galvanist received a large write-up in our recent Fire in the Mountains preview, detailing how Montana’s geography shapes their lonely take on doom metal. Their second record, The Silence Between the Stars, takes them to darker places as they lean into black metal mysticism, mutating themselves into a sludgier–and harder hitting–outfit.
Editor’s note: If this blurb looks familiar, it’s because we were originally informed The Silence Between the Stars would release in March and included it in an Upcoming Metal Releases entry then.
–Colin Dempsey
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The masters of symphonic black metal are finally breaking their silence. Dimmu Borgir has officially announced their long-awaited new full-length album, Grand Serpent Rising, slated for release later this year via Nuclear Blast. Accompanying the announcement is the title track’s music video, a cinematic descent into the band’s signature blend of orchestral grandeur and extreme metal ferocity.
