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Constanța-based death metal band SCYTHE is excited to announce that their latest album “Boiled Alive,” released digitally on February 1st, will now see the light as CD version on June 19th via the Chinese label Awakening Records. Stream the full album on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rxDPwKfDhqg Pre-order the album  CD: https://awakeningrecordscn.bigcartel.com/product/scythe-boiled-alive-cd Digital: https://awakeningrecordscn.bandcamp.com/album/boiled-alive Romanian death metal dealers, SCYTHE, are steeped in OSDM influences in the vein of DEPRAVITY, […]

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Plus Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Messa, Monolord, REZN and more.

The post Angine De Poitrine, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Elder, Etc. Booked For 2026 ‘Levitation’ Festival appeared first on Theprp.com.

A legal saga that has sent shockwaves through the global metalcore community has reached a staggering conclusion. Jed Gordon, the former merchandise manager and long-time associate of Parkway Drive, has officially been sentenced following a guilty plea to sexual intercourse with a minor.

Despite the gravity of the charges and a harrowing victim impact statement detailing decades of trauma, the 45-year-old managed to escape a prison sentence. The ruling has reignited a firestorm of controversy surrounding the band’s inner circle and the accountability of those within the industry’s elite.

The Verdict: No Prison for the “Sixth Member”

A judge in New South Wales has handed Jed Gordon—brother of Parkway Drive drummer Ben Gordon—a three-year community corrections order and 300 hours of community service. Additionally, Gordon has been placed on the child protection register and issued a two-year apprehended domestic violence order.

The sentencing comes after Gordon admitted to multiple incidents of sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old victim between 2002 and 2003. According to court reports, Gordon was approximately 22 at the time. The court heard that Gordon would initiate contact via text message, and in one 2003 incident, he took the victim to a hospital to obtain a morning-after pill.

“The Abuse Hindered My Ability to Live”: The Victim’s Voice

The most devastating moment of the proceedings came via the victim impact statement. The survivor detailed how Gordon’s actions led to a lifetime of re-victimization, domestic violence, and an inability to care for herself or her children in the capacity they deserved.

“The sexual and emotional abuse that he subjected me to has hindered my ability to navigate romantic, platonic, family and professional relationships,” the statement read.

Despite the profound damage described, Judge Geoffrey Dunlevy cited Gordon’s “significant insight” and remorse—demonstrated in a recorded 2025 phone call with the victim—as a primary factor in the decision to grant a more lenient, non-custodial sentence.

We Also Recommend – The 13 Metalcore Albums That Defined The Genre (And Still Haven’t Been Topped)

Parkway Drive: The Distance and the Backlash

The band, who once considered Jed an integral part of their “Parkway family,” has spent the last year aggressively distancing themselves from the scandal. After facing intense backlash for an initial statement deemed “too soft” by fans, vocalist Winston McCall released a video statement earlier this year condemning Gordon’s “vile” behavior and throwing the band’s full support behind the survivor.

The group maintains they were unaware of the extent of Gordon’s crimes until legal proceedings began in 2025, at which point his contract for Australian online merch sales was immediately terminated.

Also – Metalcore Bands Ranked: The 13 That Actually Defined The Genre

FAQ: The Jed Gordon / Parkway Drive Scandal

What was Jed Gordon’s final sentence? Gordon received a three-year community corrections order, 300 hours of community service, and was placed on the child protection register. He will serve no jail time.

How is Jed Gordon related to Parkway Drive? He is the brother of the band’s drummer, Ben Gordon. He was employed by the band for years as their primary merch manager and was often referred to as the “sixth member” of the group.

When did Parkway Drive stop working with him? The band clarified that Jed Gordon stopped touring with them in 2017, but he remained an employee for their Australian webstore until his contract was terminated in March 2026.

STAY LOUD: Catch the full breakdown of the sentencing and the community’s reaction on the Loaded Radio Daily Podcast. Visit LoadedRadio.com or download our free app now.

TL;DR:

Jed Gordon, former staffer for Parkway Drive and brother of drummer Ben Gordon, has avoided jail time following a guilty plea for sexual intercourse with a minor. He was sentenced to community service and placed on the sex offender registry. The band has officially condemned his actions and terminated all ties.

Does the lack of prison time in this case send a dangerous message to the music industry, or was the “remorse” cited by the judge a valid reason for leniency? Let us know in the comments.

The post “A Dark Shadow”: Former Parkway Drive “Sixth Member” Escapes Jail Time in Shocking Sentencing appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Levitation Festival is slated for Sept. 10-13 in Austin, and now the full lineup is out. Some acts announced last month include Angine de Poitrine, Molchat Doma, Die Spitz, and Smerz, and today American Football and Bikini Kill were revealed as headliners.

The post Levitation Festival Announces Full 2026 Lineup With Bikini Kill, American Football, Angine de Poitrine, & More appeared first on Stereogum.

With Tales of Othertime, Stormkeep did something genuinely difficult: they released a debut full-length that felt fully formed, rooted in the mid-90s Swedish and Norwegian black metal tradition without being a mere replica of it, and built a fantasy world vivid enough that listeners actually wanted to return. The Denver quintet earned their reputation quickly, and with it came the weight of expectation. The Nocturnes of Iswylm, their second full-length, doesn’t attempt to repeat the formula. It deliberately dismantles it — and the result is the most conceptually ambitious record in the band’s catalog.

Where Tales of Othertime was expansive and scene-setting, rich with long-form atmospheric passages and the moral clarity of high fantasy, The Nocturnes of Iswylm is its photonegative. The world is the same, but the light has shifted. The Seer — the protagonist of the first album, an essentially good figure fighting against darkness — has now become the thing he was fighting. The album is set in the cave, the lowest point of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, where the protagonist must confront what they’ve become. That framing isn’t window dressing. It’s structurally embedded in every compositional decision the band made.

The thematic pivot to vampyric darkness is the album’s most significant departure, and Stormkeep are too self-aware to let it slide into genre posturing. Their Nathaarian — the band’s term for their particular strain of fantasy vampire — isn’t glamorized. The reference points run closer to Nosferatu and the original Hammer films than to Anne Rice’s velvet-curtained decadence: a creature consumed by a desire that destroys rather than seduces, barely in control of its own nature. It’s a portrait of addiction wearing medieval armor. The lyric from “Imperious Sanguine Eroticism” — “Oh Succubus / Spirit of Saturnalia / Cursed Forever / In Waltz with Serpent’s Grip” — captures the dynamic precisely: the erotic pull is immediately subsumed by entrapment. In “Carnal Tapestries of Nailtorn Flesh,” the narrator’s declaration — “This carnal temptation will control me no longer” — reads less like triumph than desperate assertion. The horror on The Nocturnes of Iswylm is internal. The Seer knows what he’s becoming. He simply cannot stop it.

That conceptual weight gives the album a psychological coherence that most symphonic black metal records don’t attempt, let alone achieve. The band stripped out interludes entirely this time — a deliberate choice that transforms the listening experience into an unbroken descent. There is no room to surface. The riff language has expanded well beyond the G minor / D minor axis of Tales of Othertime, with minor seconds and tritones pushing the harmonic vocabulary into more genuinely unsettling territory. The symphonic elements, rather than merely decorating the riffs, now build architecture around them — a distinction that matters, and one made possible by the decision to replace synthesized orchestration with live strings. Violinist, violist, and cellist Andrea Morgan brings a warmth and organic unpredictability to the arrangements that no keyboard patch can replicate.

The production team signals that Stormkeep were playing in serious company. Michael Zech — whose résumé spans Secrets of the Moon, Dark Fortress, and The Ruins of Beverast — understands how to give atmospheric black metal both mass and definition. Mastering by Arthur Rizk, whose work with Blood Incantation and Worm demonstrates fluency in the underground’s more demanding audiophile flank, ensures the record holds up under close listening. The result is a record that breathes even as it tightens around the listener’s throat.

“The Taste of Immortal Blood” establishes these parameters immediately, the symphonics and tremolo runs interlocking with a precision the debut didn’t always maintain at pace. “Imperious Sanguine Eroticism” demonstrates the sharpened songwriting economy — key modulations that earn their place, clean vocal passages handled this time entirely by Otheyn Vermithrax rather than a guest, which is the right call given how personal the lyrical register has become. “Ballad of a Fallen Star” draws from the goth-adjacent atmosphere of Fields of the Nephilim and Dead Can Dance, and in context functions not as a deviation but as the emotional fulcrum the album’s second half needed.

The Nocturnes of Iswylm isn’t Tales of Othertime II, and it’s a stronger statement for refusing to be. The Seer has become the villain, and the album is the richer for it — Stormkeep‘s most fully realized work to date.

“Stormkeep have descended into the cave and returned with something that earns every shadow it casts.”

STORMKEEP is:
Otheyn Vermithrax: Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums
Apokteino: Guitar
Nebula Husk: Bass
Lord Dahthar: Keyboards

Find Stormkeep Online at:
https://tr.ee/vesperian_stormkeep

US web shop: https://metalblade.indiemerch.com/collections/stormkeep

The post STORMKEEP Embrace the Darkness Within on The Nocturnes of Iswylm – Album Review appeared first on Antihero Magazine.

Toronto death metallers Apogean’s newest single “Daughter of the Oak” is now available on all streaming/digital platforms. Featuring Laura C. Bates (Völur) — who also contributed violin and choir arrangements to several other tracks — this blackened death number comes as the second preview from the band’s upcoming full-length, Waste Where Life Begins, set for release physically (CD, vinyl) and digitally on July […]

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All Releases Now Available on Bandcamp ­ CRIMSON GLORY Crimson Glory and BraveWords Records announce a free listening party on Bandcamp to celebrate the new album […]

The post BraveWords Records Announce New Releases from CRIMSON GLORY, ALCATRAZZ and BANGALORE CHOIR appeared first on Metal-Rules.com.

Stryper have released a new single titled “I’m Alright (I’m Okay)”, continuing the veteran band’s long-running mix of melodic heavy metal and faith-based themes.

Decades into their career, Stryper are still leaning into the sound that helped establish them in the metal scene while adding modern production touches that fit where the band is today.

Frontman Michael Sweet spoke about the new track, saying: “This one is for the old school metal heads. It’s a little 1985 mixed with a little 1991, with a little 2026 sprinkled on top. It has all the qualities that you’ve come to expect from Stryper, yet it also blends in perfectly with the times we live in. It’s a battle cry to stand strong and persevere no matter what, while believing that you will be alright, you will be okay!”

The single arrives alongside an official lyric video and gives fans another taste of the band’s classic approach built around sharp guitar work, strong melodies, and uplifting lyrical themes.

Following the release of “I’m Alright (I’m Okay)”, Stryper are preparing to head back on tour beginning June 5 in Anaheim, California at the Grove of Anaheim.

The post STRYPER Shares Lyric Video For Newest Single “I’m Alright (I’m Okay)” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

We're talking both solo and with the Heartbreakers here. Continue reading…

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to admit that you’ve encountered some lizard people in your life. Maybe they’re not actual lizards, cold-blooded with detachable tails, but simply greasy, soul-sucking humans. That’s what Band To Watch alums Man/Woman/Chainsaw warn us about on their new single “Goddamn, Lizard Man!” The proggy PSA, the latest…

The post Man/Woman/Chainsaw – “Goddamn, Lizard Man!” appeared first on Stereogum.