Cloud Studies craft a beautifully melancholic dreamscape on Avenue, a slow-burning fusion of shoegaze warmth, folktronica textures, and introspective songwriting. Built around soft acoustic foundations, hazy guitars, and delicate synth atmospheres, the track drifts gently through themes of loss, change, and quiet renewal. There’s an understated emotional weight to the song that never overwhelms its sense of hope, allowing every shimmering layer to breathe naturally. Ethereal, reflective, and deeply human, Avenue captures the beauty of rebuilding — both emotionally and physically — with subtle grace and immersive atmosphere.
Aka Arjay rides with confidence and heart on Engine Roarin’, a melodic hip-hop anthem fueled by loyalty, ambition, and late-night momentum. Built around smooth West Coast-inspired production, uplifting hooks, and cinematic atmosphere, the track captures the feeling of moving forward with your people beside you. Aka Arjay’s melodic delivery brings warmth and optimism, while Mighty adds sharp lyrical grit and veteran presence that balances the song’s motivational energy perfectly. Reflective yet triumphant, Engine Roarin’ blends cruising-night vibes with emotional sincerity, creating a track that feels equally personal and anthemic.
LOV glide effortlessly through nostalgic early-2000s R&B textures on Can I?, a smooth and self-assured slow burner built around atmospheric grooves, hypnotic melodies, and understated emotional confidence. Blending sultry vocal layers with minimalist production and head-nodding rhythm, the track explores vulnerability not as weakness, but as a form of clarity and self-respect. LOV’s expressive phrasing and warm tone give the song an intimate late-night feel, balancing flirtation, independence, and emotional intuition with effortless cool.
Stylish, soulful, and deeply immersive, Can I? channels classic 00’s R&B energy while carving out a voice entirely its own.
Progressive Death Metal duo, Sallow Moth, will release new album, Hydrophilous Brood July 24 on Willowtip Records! Hydrophilous Brood takes place in Pamugara, a dimensional nest immersed in a lush world where organisms are rematerialized into new hybrid species after passing through a powerful portal, a highly unpredictable artifact known as the ‘Mossbane Lantern’. Each song has a thematic connection […]
I don’t know where you come from
My mind can’t tell it’s real
In love and spirituality, some visitations arrive as emotions before they drift into image: a pressure in the chest, a shiver of recognition, a memory wrapped in gauze and pulled gently back into the light. In From the Heavens, the collaborative single from Damascan Daydreams and Joseph Salazar, longing appears on the horizon like a storm system: luminous, unsettling, and impossible to ignore. The ethereal song moves through the space between earthly desire and celestial omen, tracing the fragile outline of a presence that feels at once intimate and out of reach.
That sense of spiritual visitation and romance is built into the track’s very texture. Here, Austin-based Damascan Daydreams, the project of Eman Tiba, joins forces with electronic musician, composer, and sound artist Joseph Salazar for a piece of soft, tender dream pop that glows with an otherworldly charge. Bass synth pulses rise beneath echoing claps, while tabla, tambourine, glockenspiel, and drum machine details shimmer at the edges like small points of light scattered across a darkening sky. Tiba’s vocals hover in a space where the theatrical ache of Kate Bush brushes against the spectral elegance of Alison Shaw of Cranes, giving the track its strange mixture of sweetness, urgency, and apparition-like grace.
Again and again, the song returns to the question “How do I know?” — how to know whether this presence is real, whether the sign can be trusted, whether a dream has stepped into waking life. From the Heavens circles around signs, dreams, voices, and the ache of recognition, capturing the sensation of encountering something so beautiful that the mind struggles to decide whether it has been touched by love, memory, or miracle. It is bubbly and rhythmic, yet haunted; warm as sunlight breaking through sleep, yet shadowed by the knowledge that any vision can vanish the moment one looks away.
The accompanying video, directed by Adam Mark Brown and Eman Tiba, sends that uncertainty into a vast, cinematic landscape. Filmed in the sand dunes of West Texas over two days, the visual unfolds amid an intense and unexpected thunderstorm, turning the desert into a liminal stage where natural forces and dream logic converge. A pale, veiled figure appears before a black wall of clouds, kneeling in the sand like an oracle caught between prayer and surrender. The dunes stretch outward in soft, lunar waves, while the sky gathers into something immense, almost sentient.
Across the video’s sun-bleached and storm-darkened frames, gauze becomes atmosphere, fabric becomes wings, and bodies seem to dissolve into wind. A figure in black moves across the dunes like a shadow at twilight; another is seen through a crystal sphere, refracted into a miniature world where heaven and earth fold into one another. At times, the camera lingers on ritual objects half-buried in the sand: a patterned drum, mallets, glockenspiel, scattered cloth, and fragments of light. They appear less like props than relics, instruments left behind after some private ceremony of sound and longing.
The video’s most striking images embrace contrast: the fragile human body against the violent scale of weather, a blonde apparition glowing beneath an iron sky, a black-clad figure collapsed in the sand, a dancer wrapped in sheer darkness as the desert wind lifts the fabric into ghostly shapes. The result is not a literal narrative, but a search for guidance inside a turbulent, shifting, surreal landscape. From the Heavens becomes a dreamlike journey through devotion, doubt, and the magnetic pull of something just beyond comprehension.
Watch the video for From the Heavens below:
Damascan Daydreams is Eman Tiba, a singer and songwriter crafting dreamy dark pop with electronic undertones. Born in Damascus, Syria, and raised in Dublin, Ohio, Tiba began songwriting at a young age, singing in a school choir while playing keyboard and tabla. Now based in Austin, Texas, she released her debut, Haunted Home, in 2021, followed by the EP Hidden World in 2023 and Archangel in August 2024, which featured Oddmanrush.
Joseph Salazar is an electronic musician, composer, and sound artist whose work explores surreal sonic landscapes through synthesis, rhythm, and texture. Inspired by the mystery of consciousness, concepts of infinity, and theories on the nature of reality, Salazar’s compositions blend hypnotic sequences, evolving atmospheres, and melancholic, euphoric melodies. His work as a composer includes contributions to video games such as Halo Infinite and Where the Heart Leads, as well as short films and multimedia projects.
Damascan Daydreams & Joseph Salazar’s collaborative single From The Heavens is out now. Order here.
Hailing from Berlin, Germany, Belligerence is a young metal force. The trio — Johan, Richard and Carlos — formed in 2022 and launched an EP called “Eschaton Foretold”, which showcased their talent. With their next EP, “Liturgies of the Vile Ones”, the band is taking the next step. Belligerence’s sound is inspired by bands like… Continue Reading →
WASHINGTON, D.C. – American heavy metal powerhouse A Sound of Thunder has officially announced its upcoming new full-length album, The Golden Hourglass, with a fan-powered crowdfunding campaign launching May 19 onBackerKit.
The band describes The Golden Hourglass as “a melodic heavy metal album to raise your spirits and empower you to keep hope alive through adversity,” blending soaring vocals, epic storytelling, and emotionally charged songwriting into what the group calls its most ambitious and personal work to date.
Written during one of the most difficult periods in the band’s history, The Golden Hourglass explores themes of resilience, perseverance, and finding hope in dark times. The album tells the story of the Izena, an advanced civilization facing world ending catastrophe, while simultaneously reflecting the band’s own struggles and rebirth.
“This album is an expression of all of our feelings throughout the past few years,” shared vocalist Nina Osegueda. “There’s a little fear, some anxiety about what’s to come, but ultimately there’s a lot of hope for the future.”
The Golden Hourglass will be the first full-length album to feature drummer Justin Finger, whose technical precision and explosive energy helped inspire what the band considers its strongest material yet. (A Sound of Thunder)
Artist Steve Stone, best known for his work on Iron Maiden’sBrave New World and Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, provides the album’s sweeping exterior and interior gatefold cover art featuring the band’s signature hourglass symbol. The album will present the cover art without title or logos to enhance its impact.
The campaign marks the band’s transition from Kickstarter toBackerKit, continuing the fully independent, fan-funded model that has sustained A Sound of Thunder for more than 15 years.
The crowdfunding campaign will feature a wide range of exclusive collector rewards, including splatter and colored vinyl editions, variant cassettes, CDs, apparel, enamel pins, embroidered patches, signed memorabilia, executive producer credits, and other limited-edition items created exclusively for supporters.
Fans can preview music from the album and pre-order now:
About A Sound of Thunder: Founded in Washington, D.C., A Sound of Thunder has built an international following through its blend of traditional heavy metal, power metal, and hard rock. Known for its independent spirit, dynamic live performances, and ambitious concept releases, the band has spent more than a decade cultivating a fiercely loyal fanbase known as the Legion of Thunder.
Photos by: Lucinda Scott Words by: Mitchell Patrick Thursday night was absolutely packed for the Texas alt-metal heavyweights Catch Your Breath inside 170 Russell; it was buzzing from the very beginning, with fans eager to witness a stellar lineup that also featured Adelaide’s Heartline and local champions Outloved. It promised to be a masterclass in […]
Brisbane’s premier heavy music and dark arts event, the Dead of Winter Festival, is officially rising from the ashes. Dubbed The Resurrection, the festival is locked in for Saturday, 27 June 2026, marking its first return since 2019. Originally launched in 2009, the iconic gathering was forced into a multi-year hiatus following the pandemic. For […]
Photos by: Lucinda Scott Words by: Mitchell Patrick Thursday night was absolutely packed for the Texas alt-metal heavyweights Catch Your Breath inside 170 Russell; it was buzzing from the very beginning, with fans eager to witness a stellar lineup that also featured Adelaide’s Heartline and local champions Outloved. It promised to be a masterclass in […]
Brisbane’s premier heavy music and dark arts event, the Dead of Winter Festival, is officially rising from the ashes. Dubbed The Resurrection, the festival is locked in for Saturday, 27 June 2026, marking its first return since 2019. Originally launched in 2009, the iconic gathering was forced into a multi-year hiatus following the pandemic. For […]