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Los Angeles-based black metal act Abhoria has released a brand-new single titled “Ambition and Delusion”. The new single is taken from the band’s forthcoming new album The Gateway, due out in 2027 via Black Lion Records.
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FRAUGHT are building their next album in three instalments. The Dublin blackened death metal band will open that sequence with Pillar I: Ashes Of Verdant Collapse, a two-track EP arriving on 7 November 2026 through new label home Apocalyptic Witchcraft. The trilogy’s first chapter confronts ecological destruction and the assumptions that allow humanity to treat […]

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British technical deathcore outfit Infant Annihilator have confirmed they will release their long-awaited fourth studio album on December 1st.
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Swedish speed metal cosmonauts Armory are back with their fourth album! Set for release via Dying Victims Productions (LP, CD, digital) and Jawbreaker Records (tape) on the 23rd of October.

A rapid tom fill kicks us right into melodic speeding riffs and soaring leads with some excellent drum work and raunchy bass lines. The onslaught of total metal armageddon from space has made its presence known from the onset. Haunting vocals cut gloriously through with pure 80s mania enshrouding every aspect of the band. There is a remarkable technicality that is more in the vein of Voivod mixing with the Scanner-esque speed metal, a perfect blend for Sci-Fi metal warriors! The singer’s natural vibrato adds to the otherworldly effect of the music while the musicianship never relents, always tight and yet wild. When solos appear they are appropriately shred-focussed without detracting from the riffs or structure of the song. Things are off to a very impressive start.

One thing that can be lacking in a lot of modern heavy/speed metal bands is dynamics. Armory has not fallen into this lethal trap that many of their contemporaries do. Their slower, spooky sections intertwine marvellously with the all-out hammering assaults. Perhaps reading from the gospel of Mercyful Fate as well as the more obvious Helstar-reminiscent approach, this combination is total ecstasy for the old-school heavy metal rocker! Does the future depicted in animations like Heavy Metal sound like a forgotten treasure of metal’s glory days? If it does, this record perfectly represents what that might entail. Another thing I really admire is that a lot of bands in this vein lack that visual angle of the music painting a picture that their forebears had perfected. Armory manages to take us to the worlds and adventures that their lyrics portray in a truly imaginative manner.

Having these tight, melody-fuelled and technical approaches to songs can sometimes cause a loss of grit but Armory’s savage delivery ensures that classic boisterous nature is not lost in the making of their rampage through the stars. Right until the end this record will hold you in its grasp. Whether offering warp-speed constellations of speed metal mania or a melodious gander through the astral planes, be assured that not a second is wasted. This is definitely one of the cooler records in the genre that I have heard this year and one that possessed both stronger musicianship and songwriting but also more memorability than many others. Be ready to face the future and conquer unknown worlds with the most powerful of sonic accompaniments to your quest. This is a laser-focussed effort of red-hot speed metal excellence.

Armory are such a cool band. I’ve enjoyed every release from them and their development has been both impressive and natural. Playing a wide array of shows, the underground activities of their members and of course their refinement as studio artists have all come into play here. “Echoes of the Astrolith” is the soundtrack to a cosmic ride through the outer realms. Blistering, memorable and hard as nails. This is proper speed metal the archaic way with a futuristic theme. This approach is pretty unique and definitely worth playing at maximum volume. Hear Armory’s frequencies of terror!

The cassette recorder behind BLOOD AND SUN’s earliest demo has become the foundation of their third album. For Aion’s Light, Luke Tromiczak returned to the same Tascam 414 four-track, writing and recording the songs in the order listeners now hear them. Released on 16 October 2026 through Nordvis, the nine-track album is available on CD, […]

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Not a bad track record for a catalog of over 200 songs. Continue reading…

We look back at the epic festival — and imagine who could play Desert Trip 2. Continue reading…

Photos by Stephen Schmidt

Monday night in Heaven at the Masquerade started off like any weeknight show, a little calmer and less attended than the weekends, but still with a school-night excitement. We trickled in early, shuffled around, and settled in to the tune of the pre-show music. The theme seemed to be jazz: big band, fusion, and swing. I could tell we were surrounded by adventurous listeners by how at home everyone seemed. Many tapped their feet or danced alone, some even boogied with a partner. We were off to a good start.

Violent Magic Orchestra (VMO), hailing from Osaka, Japan, kicked off the night with an explosive noise that at first I thought was equipment malfunctioning. Their set featured black-metal-flecked techno with both ethereal and guttural vocals, corpse paint, a jester-like spiked headpiece, and a flashlight that lead singer ザスター (Xasthur in Japanese Katakana script) shone into the crowd like a spotlight. Members ゴルゴロス (Gorgoroth) and メイヘム (Mayhem) both jumped into the crowd to rile up mosh pits (Do you see the naming pattern here, black metal aficionados?).

As an avid concertgoer, sometimes it feels like you’ve seen it all, and then you see a band like this. Their stage presence was completely original and captivating, and their music was both danceable and headbangable. By the end of the set, VMO had won the rest of the crowd and me over, with many flocking to their merch stand.

Next up was Secret Chiefs 3, a band I was really excited to see being a fan of Trey Spruance’s work with Mr. Bungle. Secret Chiefs 3 was a project he started in the mid-nineties as a more cerebral foil to the irreverent music Mr. Bungle was putting out at the time. In this set, however, you could hear some of the same surf rock, jazz, metal, and Middle Eastern influences that you’d hear in Bungle’s studio albums. Spruance himself was setting up before the show and tuning all of his instruments, one of which I believed to be a çağlama (a hybrid of the Turkish bağlama and an electric guitar), another an electric guitar with microtonal frets for those in-between notes that characterize the band’s style. He came back wearing a hoodie which concealed his face in a monastic fashion, perhaps a nod to the band’s obscure philosophical origins.

The Middle Eastern influence was tangible in the intricate microtonal shredding and unconventional time signatures. The song structures defied the typical Western verse-chorus formula and at times felt like a friendly joke on the audience: one song seemed about to end several times, even prompting applause, before the crowd caught on. Even so, there was an undeniable groove that you couldn’t help but (try to) dance to. These guys were masters of building tension and excitement in a way that felt surprisingly palatable, blending microtonal scales, metal grooves, and proggy synth in a jazz-like delivery.

Although many of us came for French musician Gautier Serre, who performs under the alias Igorrr, there was such an appreciation and respect for the bands thus far that I felt an air of peace in the room, as if to say, “take as long as you need to get set up, guys – we’re good out here!” Suddenly, some bubbles emerged from the dark fog of the stage and the crowd started cheering. Igorrr opened with “Daemoni,” the first song on their newest album Amen, which sets the perfect tone for both the album and the live show. The song opens with a heartbeat that leads into a droning chant before breaking into an intense onslaught of metal guitars and massive drums.

Out came our fearless bandleader, Gautier Serre, lit up with eerie red lights, along with harsh vocalist JB Le Bail, his skin painted ink-black with a gold stripe bisecting his face, wearing a hooded cape and archaic adornments. Gerda Iguchi brought the operatic vocals for the night, dancing around the stage in goddess-like garb, with completely black eyes and, at times, a horned mask, like some sort of heavy metal priestess. Gerda and JB were the perfect vessels for Serre’s artistic vision, marrying angelic, sometimes playful opera with both guttural and screeching harsh vocals, each with a mystical, enthralling stage presence. In the studio recordings, Serre adds a splintering effect to the vocals, and I was happy to hear it masterfully recreated live.

“Nervous Waltz” was celebrated by the crowd; you could see actual waltzing in the mosh pit during the Baroque-sounding passages, quickly breaking into moshing when the metal returned. Then came the highly awaited (for me, anyway) “Blastbeat Falafel,” the song that reignited my interest in this band when singles from Amen were first coming out. It combined Secret Chiefs-esque riffing from both guitarist Martyn Clément and Serre himself with JB’s signature in-your-face screams and, as the title suggests, blast beats courtesy of Rémi Serafino. And, true to form, one single, solitary strike of a cowbell.

As the show went on, there were moments of just Serre in the spotlight on stage, like during the chaotic electronic mishmash known as “ADHD.” We got to hear more of the unorthodox instrumentation that sets this group apart, including the Baroque-reminiscent harpsichord, wobbly dubstep effects, and even a few little toots from a recorder played by Serre. We were even lucky enough to get an encore which included the first Igorrr song I ever heard, “Camel Dancefloor,” another frenetic, Middle Eastern-tinged tune with heavy metal chugs, more wobbles, blast beats, and extreme vocals to bring it all home.

One remarkable thing about this entire show, all three bands, was the pacing. There was not a single dull moment – from start to finish it was captivating and full of motion and sonic atmosphere. There was a distinct lack of on-stage banter, no “we’re gonna play a song called…” – they just got up there and played. They still made the crowd laugh at times just by way of not taking themselves too seriously and creating these unexpected musical moments. And even for a Monday night, the crowd brought the energy; folks were hanging on every note just like I was. I might be biased as a lover of strange music, but I have very little critique of this show. My only teeny tiny wish was that Trey would have joined Igorrr on stage for “Blastbeat Falafel,” as in the YouTube video of the studio recording that came across my proverbial desk so many months ago and spurred this fixation on the band. Aside from that, if you get the chance to see any of these bands, whether on this tour or in the future, you would be insane to pass it up. But then again, you have to be a little bit insane to enjoy this music in the first place.

The post CONCERT REVIEW: IGORRR, SECRET CHIEFS 3 & VIOLENT MAGIC ORCHESTRA Bring Avant-Garde Chaos To Atlanta’s Masquerade appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

MOTHER OF GRAVES’ third album, The Light That Keeps Us, has arrived through Profound Lore Records. Released on 16 October 2026, the Indianapolis death/doom quintet’s eight-track record is available to hear in full following its advance streaming premiere. A familiar collaborator takes on an additional role this time. Dan Swanö, who has regularly mastered the […]

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