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General Information

Personnel:

Ida Haukland – bass and vocals
Marius Bergesen – guitars
Tor Ole Byberg – guitars
Kenneth Tårneby – drums

Release Date: August 28, 2026
Record Label: Frontiers Music

Setting the Scene

Norwegian metal band Triosphere return with their fourth album, Oceans Above, Stars Below. With their last album released in 2014, Triosphere fans must have been burning to hear what the band has to offer after a twelve-year wait. Luckily, I wasn’t one of them, as I honestly hadn’t heard of the band before receiving the promo. That, however, has changed! Keep reading to find out why.

First Impression

With everything the world is going through, from wars and tragedies to diseases and ROBLOX, a blessing is long overdue. And, at least for metal fans, Oceans Above, Stars Below is the blessing we need. The first word that came to mind after my first listen was “perfect,” and that word stuck after the second and third. Every aspect of this album felt perfect. The guitars, the timing, the vocals, the song order, the cover art. It all felt perfect.

Similar Sounds

If you’re into any of these artists, this album should be on your radar.

Scarlet AuraUnleash The ArchersSinergy

Visual Vibes

The striking cover art shows a glowing hand reaching down from a fiery sky toward a bright crescent moon over dark, calm waters. The intriguing and elegant use of colors and shades makes the artwork even more captivating. This contrast reflects the music itself, which moves between soaring, atmospheric melodies and fast, hard-hitting passages.

Track on Repeat

“Shorelines”

If you want to know just how much I loved this song, take a look at the notes I take while listening to an album for a review. You’d see “Wow” and “Woah” repeated several times alongside my notes about the music and singing. The melodies, the heavy chorus, the changes in pace and heaviness, everything worked perfectly together.

In-depth Notes

Musical Shape 🎸

Here’s a spoiler: this album is getting a 10/10, and a huge part of the reason is the guitar solos. “Orpheus’ Bane,” “Lightning in a Bottle,” and “Monster’s Ball” feature my three favorites, but the album is packed with so many magnificent instrumental sections that you could easily lose count. And it’s not just the solos. Triosphere have found a wonderful formula that brings their classic heavy metal side together with their anthemic power metal side, and they make it work beautifully.

Vocal Performance 🎤

Just like the music, Ida Haukland’s vocals feel perfectly calibrated to match the sound the band is aiming for. The ballad “Encore,” however, gives us a completely different, much softer side of her voice, showing just how much control she has over her vocals. What really killed me, though, is how harsh and forceful she can get in the higher register, giving those high notes an incredible intensity.

Themes and Concepts 💭

Oceans Above, Stars Below explores personal transformation and the process of leaving past illusions behind. Triosphere reflect this journey through the music, moving from aggressive, heavy riffs that capture the struggle into soaring melodies that feel more uplifting and free.

Final Verdict

★★★★★★★★★★

The perfect album does not exist… Triosphere have delivered an album where everything feels right. Oceans Above, Stars Below is simply a phenomenal record.

Mood Meter

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Intensity

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Melancholy

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Darkness

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Emotional

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Serenity

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Energy

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Romance

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Joyfulness

Perfect For…

Working on Art – the kind of music that evokes creativity
Sitting in Nature – great themes to sit with in nature
Thinking in bed – Provides companionship after a long day
Long drives – but keep eyes on the road

Get the Album

Frontiers USA

Frontiers UK

Frontiers EU

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The post Album Review | Triosphere – “Oceans Above, Stars Below” first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.

Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp are two seasoned pop-industry songwriters who teamed up to form the retro art-pop duo Haute & Freddy, and they released their debut album Big Disgrace earlier this year. It’s really good! They’ve steadily accumulated buzz since the LP came out, and now they’ve followed it by dropping the bouncily operatic new synthpop jam “Touch Touch.” Also good! I can honestly picture a situation where this song become their “Good Luck, Babe!,” albeit probably on a smaller level. Here’s what Buzz says about the track:

The post Haute & Freddy – “Touch Touch” appeared first on Stereogum.

“My problem — and it’s a good problem — is that I’m bored,” Dahi tells me on a humid Manhattan afternoon. It’s mundane self-description and a modus operandi. 

The post Dahi Is Playing Catch With Himself appeared first on Stereogum.

Earlier this year, Angèle joined forces with Justice for “What You Want.” That song is going to appear on her new album Instinct, which she’s announcing today. Other guests include Caroline Polachek, SebastiAn, and Soulwax.

The post Angèle Announces New Album <em>Instinct</em> Feat. Caroline Polachek, Justice, & More appeared first on Stereogum.

Southern California deathcore titans Carnifex have announced their new album, More Than Misery, set for release on November 6th via Sumerian Records. The announcement comes with the album’s title track and its official music video.

Survival has always been the live wire running through vocalist Scott Ian Lewis’s lyrics. On earlier Carnifex records, he wrote while still locked inside the experiences he was trying to endure and process. More Than Misery changes that perspective. For the first time, Lewis is writing after the act of surviving.

That perspective gives the album title its deliberate double meaning. Heard one way, “more than misery” suggests something even worse waiting beyond the darkness. Here, it becomes an assertion that a person’s life is larger than the misery it contains.

The title track brings that idea into brutal focus. Its lyrics descend through burning obsession, isolation and self-loathing, caught in the pull of poison and a cycle of suffering that feels impossible to break. Then the grip loosens. The face fades, the mask tears away and the song arrives at the album’s hard-won thesis: life will always be more than misery.

Speaking on the album and its title track, Lewis shares: “More Than Misery is about what happens when suffering becomes more than something you endure; it becomes what changes you. This is Carnifex at our most honest and unapologetically brutal”.

Musically, Carnifex approached More Than Misery with the goal of combining their original 2005 musicality with the tools now available in 2026. The album brings together the physical directness of first-wave deathcore, the band’s death-metal foundations, the symphonic atmosphere developed across their later records, and the decision to focus on guitars remaining the primary musical voice, with orchestration used to deepen their impact. Every song was built with the live room in mind, from pit and circle-pit movement to whether the five musicians could carry each part convincingly onstage.

The record was tracked in Tennessee with Zach Householder of Whitechapel and mixed by Jeff Dunne, bringing an entirely new production team into the band’s creative process.

More Than Misery is Carnifex‘s first full-length album for Sumerian Records. Pre-order it here. The partnership was introduced in May with the release of “Roses & Rotting Corpses”, opening a campaign that now reveals its emotional and musical centre.

Twenty-one years after helping shape deathcore’s first wave, Carnifex have made a record that turns survival from a recurring subject into a changed point of view. More Than Misery carries the darkness that has always defined the band, now with the clarity of five musicians who know exactly what survived it.

Carnifex will spend the months surrounding the album’s release on the road across North America, the UK and Europe. The band will first join All Shall Perish for The Price of Existence 20th anniversary tour before a run of headline dates, an appearance at Furnace Fest and a 20-date European co-headline tour with Despised Icon and Suffocation. The European run crosses the November 6th release of More Than Misery, with Carnifex performing in Sheffield, UK on release day. For the full list of upcoming tour dates and further information, check here.

Formed in Fallbrook, California, in 2005 by vocalist Scott Ian Lewis and drummer Shawn Cameron, Carnifex emerged from the collision of death metal, black metal, metalcore, and the physical energy of Southern California’s all-ages hardcore scene. Their early music helped establish the language of deathcore’s first wave, while nine studio albums and twenty-one years of relentless touring have made them one of the genre’s most durable forces.

Across albums including Dead in My Arms, Hell Chose Me, Die Without Hope, Slow Death, World War X, and Necromanteum, Carnifex have expanded their sound through blackened atmosphere, symphonic scale, and an increasingly prominent melodic and lead-guitar presence. Through deathcore’s initial rise, years of backlash and its current resurgence, the band have remained committed to the music they helped shape.

That durability is rooted in the way Carnifex operates. Scott Ian Lewis, Shawn Cameron, Cory Arford, Neal Tiemann, and Fred Calderon function as five equal band members with two decades of friendship behind them. Their relationship with listeners has endured just as long, with fans and band members moving through adulthood together and repeatedly showing one another that neither side is alone.

On More Than Misery, Carnifex brings twenty-one years of hard-earned live instinct to a record written from the far side of survival, built to hit with the same force when they step onstage.

The post CARNIFEX Announces New Album “More Than Misery” & Shares Official Music Video For Title Track appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

Brotherly love.

The post Ladrones’ “Pa Mis Carnales” Music Video Debuts Alongside Their New Album “Arriba La L” appeared first on Theprp.com.

Guitarist Eric Steckel has released the official music video for “Axe to Grind,” the fourth single from his forthcoming studio album, Sandstorm.

The new album is set for release September 11 via OPEN/SPV Recordings and features 10 tracks. “Axe to Grind” arrives as one of the album’s heavier guitar-driven cuts, playing directly into Steckel’s blend of blues and hard rock.

Steckel says the song’s title was an idea he had wanted to explore for some time.

“I always had this idea, you know, in the back of my mind of doing a song with this title because it’s just a great play on words and you guys know I love my distorted guitars. So there’s kind of a triple meaning almost, you know, with this. And so this was a cool song to write, a really fun song to record. Hope you guys can relate to it and feel it.”

“Axe to Grind” follows previously released material from Sandstorm, including “When It Rains, It Pours,” “Back to Life” and “She’s A Golddigger.”

Sandstorm will be released September 11. “Axe to Grind” is available now on streaming platforms, with the official music video also out now.

The post Eric Steckel reveals “Axe to Grind” music video appeared first on Blues Rock Review.

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The post Album review: STEVE HACKETT & STEVE ROTHERY – The Roaring Waves appeared first on Get Ready to ROCK!.