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  • “As We Dance With Tears in The Rain” — Death Drifts Under the Skin in Traitrs’ Video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong”

    And I see your sadness
    Is it just like mine?

    We spend much of life rehearsing permanence. Calendars extend months ahead, plans multiply, and ordinary chores encourage the soothing fiction that tomorrow is already ours. Mortality remains manageable as long as it stays abstract, assigned to strangers or some distant version of ourselves. Grief breaks that arrangement. One absence can make every future date feel provisional, exposing distraction as one of the mind’s most useful shelters.

    “As We Dance With Tears in The Rain” — Death Drifts Under the Skin in Traitrs Video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong”

    That shelter is nearly universal. Work, desire, entertainment, ambition, and the small obligations of the day let us function while the knowledge of an ending waits at the edge of thought. When that knowledge presses forward, it carries a second fear with it: the possibility of losing every person, object, memory, and role through which we understand ourselves. Continuing to move after facing that fact can become its own form of courage.

    Toronto coldwave act TRAITRS confronts that contradiction in the new video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong,” released last November and later included on the band’s album POSSESSOR; the song begins with private anguish before reaching toward the possibility that another person’s grief may resemble our own.

    “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong is challenging The Psychology of Ignoring Death.”

    The recording begins beneath low, echoing synths, its measured dirge already gathering force. A disciplined drumbeat dances in the face of death, pulling the song forward as the guitars climb through serrated sweeps, widening melodies, and mounting sheets of effects. Shawn Tucker’s voice carries the cracked theatricality associated with Robert Smith and Brett Anderson while retaining its own bruised register, rising from a controlled ache toward the sound of a heart crying out against erasure. Each confession lands like a brick dropped onto a bare floor. The verses catalogue bodily harm through blunt images of starvation, wires, poison, and a fatal fall; the chorus turns outward, searching another person’s face for the same sorrow. There is a curious reversal within the arrangement: as the dirge-like synths grow heavier, the song seems to quicken, converting dread into momentum. Midway through, an organ-like phrase drives the track into a broader ascent before cascading vocals and guitars accumulate into a dense wall of sound, carrying the music to its greatest height precisely where the subject closes in on extinction.

     When the single first appeared, Tucker described the shared recognition at its center:

    “I felt that song connected me to everything and everyone, it is the one thing we all share and have in common,” Tucker said. “It is also a wake up call to live the life you want to live. We only have one chance at this so go dance in the rain.”

    Directed by Tucker and filmed in severe black and white, the video places Emmanuelle Vaughan inside a space without visible walls, floor, or horizon. She first appears at a distance beneath a narrow overhead light, nearly motionless, before the camera moves close to her collarbone, spine, hands, and face. An oil-dark coating begins to spread across her fingers, arms, back, and throat as her gestures become more expansive. Between these passages, Tucker performs at the microphone and guitar through smoke, coarse grain, and bands of video interference. Vaughan keeps dancing while her body is gradually claimed by the surrounding black, until the final movements yield to an empty frame.

    Tucker explains:

    “I find myself personally active in ignoring mortality. It’s inescapable and we use distraction as defence against it.

    We all crave purpose and everyday distractions. This is a psychological defense mechanism keeping our deepest fears at bay. Our fight for survival.

    Death has a way of playing with us, bringing up this deep sense of isolation and failure that we are all constantly running away from.

    Most people find the concept of being completely alone terrifying and painful. It’s stealing our tomorrows, it steals away everything.

    This album is incredibly personal for me because I’m still trying to make sense of a major loss in my own life. When I directed this, the goal was to visualize death as this unstoppable force—almost like a terminal illness creeping through the body. It doesn’t care who you are; it just destroys. But I didn’t want the video to just be bleak. It’s about our internal fight. I had wrapped the ‘Burn In Heaven’ video up a few months prior and was thinking about casting for I Was Ill and wanted to work with Emma again on this project as the lead and push her in a completely different approach. I also knew Emma knows exactly what I was looking for, and expected of her.

    In the video, she is aware death has come, but she still chooses to dance, finding this beautiful defiance right up until the black void completely takes over.

    It was all shot in one day on location in a small studio warehouse in Hamilton, Ontario, that took 7 hours.”

    The visual idea draws from Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, particularly its limitless black chamber, where space loses every familiar coordinate and solitude becomes physical. Here, the setting turns mortality into an encroaching presence that can be seen on the body. Vaughan understands what has entered the room, yet her dance continues for as long as movement remains possible.

    “The void represented Ultimate Isolation perfectly and supports my visual theme of total isolation. There are no walls, no horizons, and no exit. The victims are entirely alone with their desires right before they are destroyed.”

    Tucker reduces the premise to one plain sentence: “None of us are getting out of here alive.” Within the song and video, that certainty becomes a reason to recognize another person’s sadness, inhabit the present, and dance while the body still answers.

    Watch the video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong” below:

    Formed in Toronto in 2015, TRAITRS began as a recording project before sessions with producer Josh Korody led to the 2016 debut Rites and Ritual. Butcher’s Coin followed in 2018, expanding the band’s audience across North America and Europe, while 2021’s Horses in the Abattoir brought another set of propulsive rhythms, angular guitars, and horror-informed electronics. Years of touring have carried TRAITRS through more than a dozen countries, including appearances at Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Castle Party, and Canadian Music Week, as well as shows with VNV Nation, Lebanon Hanover, She Past Away, Twin Tribes, and Ultra Sunn.

    POSSESSOR, released March 13, 2026, brings the band’s preoccupation with grief, alienation, and mortality into its most personal form to date. Recorded at Toronto’s Wychwood Studios with Josh Korody and mastered by Matt Colton, the album is available to stream here and order through Bandcamp here.

    TRAITRS 2026 U.S. Tour Dates:

    • September 29 — Dallas, TX — Club Dada — Tickets
    • September 30 — Austin, TX — Elysium
    • October 1 — Pomona, CA — Flyway — Tickets
    • October 6 — Las Vegas, NV — The Dive Bar — Tickets
    • October 8 — Fresno, CA — Fulton 55 — Tickets
    • October 9 — San José, CA — The Ritz — Tickets
    • October 10 — Sacramento, CA — The Starlet Room at Harlow’s — Tickets
    • October 13 — Raleigh, NC — The Pour House — Tickets
    • October 14 — Atlanta, GA — The Drunken Unicorn — Tickets
    • October 16 — Washington, DC — Pie Shop — Tickets

    Follow TRAITRS:

    TRAITRS POSSESSOR album artwork

    The post “As We Dance With Tears in The Rain” — Death Drifts Under the Skin in Traitrs’ Video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

  • MOTHER Shares Soaring New Track ‘MOTIONS’

    MOTHER is back with her second ever track ‘MOTIONS’, diving deeper into the curious and crushing universe they are building for themselves.


    ‘MOTIONS’ picks up where debut track ‘UNHOLY’ left off, but ups the ante when it comes to the beauty and brutality. Atmospherically stirring, fizzing with electronic energy and with plenty of metalcore bludgeoning through in for good measure, it’s modern metal at its most crisp and cathartic.

    If MOTHER continues down this path, we may be onto quite the future phenomenon.

    MOTHER had this to say about the tune:

    “’MOTIONS’ is about becoming conscious of the cycles we knowingly submit ourselves to – the relationships, behaviours and patterns that hurt us, but somehow still feel impossible to leave. Our nervous systems can mistake familiarity for safety, even when what’s familiar is a living hell. ‘Live in the pain and call it a spark’ — that strange way we can romanticise pain or mistake intensity for something meaningful because it’s what we know. There’s a conflict running through the lyrics between desperately wanting out and being terrified of what exists on the other side.

    And then added about the concept of the video:

    “The video takes that internal struggle and makes it physical. MOTHER is gradually bound by cables and pulled towards the television, as if her own nervous system is taking control of her body. The BDSM imagery plays into the contradiction at the centre of it too – submission, pain and the uncomfortable possibility of finding pleasure or comfort in something that is hurting you. But by the end, that power dynamic has inverted. MOTHER is no longer the submissive; she becomes the dominant presence inside this darker internal world, while versions of herself stare and sing back through the screens. I deliberately didn’t want to explain whether that transformation is good or bad. Are those the voices in her head? Has she finally broken the cycle, or just found a new position within it? Is she confronting the darkness, becoming it, or realising some part of her has wanted it all along? Maybe healing and becoming your own monster aren’t always as different as we’d like them to be.

    The post MOTHER Shares Soaring New Track ‘MOTIONS’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

  • Oakland Metal Sounds Like Greg Wilkinson

    If you’ve loved a metal or punk record made in Oakland, California at any point in the past 20 years, there’s a good chance Greg Wilkinson recorded it. Hell, he probably played on it, too. The prolific engineer and proprietor of Earhammer Studios is also an insatiable musician, with bands past and present spanning just about every down-and-dirty subgenre there is. 

    The post Oakland Metal Sounds Like Greg Wilkinson appeared first on Stereogum.

  • Ousted Slipknot Turntablist Sid Wilson Resurfaces in the Studio with Surprising Collaborator

    sid-wilson-2026-no-mask

    Sid Wilson is working again. On Thursday, August 27 — three weeks after Slipknot confirmed they had parted ways with him after twenty-nine years — the turntablist appeared in a social media post co-shared with Atlanta rapper Rome Fortune, the two of them together in a studio. The caption was two words: “V0mit Face.” That’s the name of the record label Wilson founded in October 2025, ten months before any of this happened, and it suggests the pairing is more than a session drop-in.

    🎧 STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY NOW:

    Scott Penfold covers the Sid Wilson studio photo on today’s Metal Breakdown Daily — who Rome Fortune actually is, what the caption points at, and why the timing of the label launch is the most interesting thing about the whole story. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and get it every weekday morning.

    What we actually have

    Let’s be precise, because this is a photograph rather than an announcement.

    A post went up on Thursday, co-shared by Wilson and Rome Fortune. It shows the two of them in a studio. The caption reads “V0mit Face.”

    That’s the lot. No release date, no track title, no confirmed signing. What it strongly implies — and what ThePRP flagged in reporting it — is that Rome Fortune may have aligned with Vomit Face Records.

    Given the caption is literally the label’s name, that’s a reasonable read. But nobody has said it, and we’re not going to say it for them.

    🤘 LIVE & LOUD: Stream the World’s Hardest Radio Station 24/7

    Who is Rome Fortune

    This is the part worth knowing, because “rapper” undersells it considerably and most metal coverage will leave it there.

    Rome Fortune is an Atlanta artist who’s spent over a decade operating on the experimental fringe of hip-hop rather than in its mainstream. He emerged in the early 2010s and became known as much for his sonic restlessness as for his look — the blue beard being the visual most people remember.

    The collaborators are the tell. He’s worked with Four Tet, the British electronic producer, and with Toro y Moi. He’s put out material with OG Maco. His records tend to sit somewhere between rap, ambient electronics and something harder to file.

    In other words: he’s exactly the kind of artist a turntablist with thirty years in extreme music and a stated interest in outsiders would want on his label.

    Which makes this pairing considerably less surprising than the headline suggests, once you know both parties.

    Sid Wilson of Slipknot

    The timing is the actual story

    Here’s what I keep coming back to.

    Wilson launched Vomit Face Records in October 2025. That’s ten months before Slipknot removed him.

    He wasn’t scrambling to build a landing pad after losing his job. He’d already built one, while still in the biggest band of his career, apparently just because he wanted to.

    And his own description of what the label is for reads very differently now than it did last autumn. He framed it as tearing down walls, for artists who don’t fit in and never wanted to — rebels in motion who unapologetically stand out. Celebrating imperfection, people making real art out of the mess, in a world that rewards fake. Somewhere the sound, the hard work and the spirit collide, and nobody tells you how to look or how to feel.

    Ten months ago that was a mission statement for a side venture. Today it’s a description of the man’s own situation.

    The roster listed eight artists besides Wilson himself at launch. Possibly nine now.

    We Also Recommend – Slipknot Albums Ranked: Every Masked Masterpiece From Worst to Best

    Where things stand with Slipknot

    The short version, since the full picture is covered elsewhere on the site.

    TMZ reported Wilson’s removal on July 31. Jim Root initially told fans not to believe everything they read, then walked that back once the dust settled. On August 14 Slipknot confirmed the split in a one-sentence statement they deleted the same day. Two days later, Wilson acknowledged it himself by changing his Instagram bio to read “@slipknot 1997 – 2026.”

    No reason has ever been given by either party. That remains true today.

    What’s notable is what Wilson hasn’t done in the four weeks since. No statement. No interview. No airing of grievances, no subtweeting, no version of events. He changed a bio, posted a couple of videos of himself DJing at home, and now he’s in a studio with a rapper.

    That’s a fairly dignified way to handle losing a twenty-nine-year job in public.

    For where the band stands now, our current Slipknot lineup breakdown has been updated, and the full history of every departure puts this one in context.

    Check This Out – The 13 Most Brutal Slipknot Songs Ever Recorded (Ranked)

    The career people forget he had

    Worth restating, because “the DJ from Slipknot” flattens thirty years of work.

    Wilson has been releasing music as DJ Starscream since 1996 — before Slipknot’s debut album. He has a separate catalogue under SID, guest appearances across other artists’ records going back two decades, and genuine standing in the turntablist world that has nothing to do with a mask or a number.

    Inside Slipknot he was more musically embedded than the role suggested, too — one quarter of the core behind Look Outside Your Window, the experimental side record with Corey Taylor, Clown and Root that finally came out this year after more than a decade in limbo.

    His work as #0 was the texture underneath everything: the samples, the scratching, the atmosphere and dread that made that band’s records feel bigger than the sum of their riffs.

    None of that skill went anywhere when the statement went up.

    TL;DR

    • What happened: Sid Wilson appeared in a studio photo with Atlanta rapper Rome Fortune on August 27, 2026, co-shared by both and captioned “V0mit Face.”
    • What that points to: Vomit Face Records, the label Wilson founded in October 2025. It suggests Rome Fortune may have joined the roster, though nothing has been announced.
    • Who Rome Fortune is: an experimental Atlanta rapper active since the early 2010s, with collaborations including Four Tet and Toro y Moi.
    • The timing: Wilson launched the label ten months before Slipknot removed him — he wasn’t building a landing pad after the fact.
    • What he still hasn’t done: publicly explained or commented on his Slipknot exit. No reason has been given by either party.
    • His other work: he has released music as DJ Starscream since 1996, predating Slipknot’s debut album.

    FAQ

    Is Sid Wilson making new music?

    It appears so. On August 27, 2026 he appeared in a studio photograph co-shared with rapper Rome Fortune, captioned with the name of his own label, Vomit Face Records. No release, project or signing has been formally announced.

    What is Vomit Face Records?

    Sid Wilson’s independent record label, launched in October 2025 — ten months before his departure from Slipknot. He has described it as being for artists who don’t fit in and never wanted to, celebrating imperfection and people making real art out of the mess. It listed eight artists besides Wilson at launch.

    Who is Rome Fortune?

    An Atlanta rapper who has worked on the experimental edge of hip-hop since the early 2010s, known for blending rap with ambient and electronic production. His collaborators have included Four Tet and Toro y Moi.

    Why did Sid Wilson leave Slipknot?

    No reason has been given by either Wilson or the band. Slipknot’s statement, posted and then deleted on August 14, 2026, said only that they would no longer be associated with him effective immediately. TMZ reported that the decision followed dissatisfaction with his behaviour toward bandmates, but that has not been confirmed by anyone involved.

    What has Sid Wilson said about leaving Slipknot?

    Almost nothing. His only acknowledgement came on August 16, when he changed his Instagram bio to read “@slipknot 1997 – 2026.” He has not issued a statement, given an interview or publicly discussed the circumstances.

    Twenty-nine years ended in a sentence, and four weeks later he’s in a studio building something of his own. What do you want to hear from him next? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.

    The post Ousted Slipknot Turntablist Sid Wilson Resurfaces in the Studio with Surprising Collaborator appeared first on Loaded Radio.

  • AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARD LESSONS — “GANGRENE”

    (written by Islander) On September 5th KingSide Records will release a new EP by the Danish metallic hardcore band Hard Lessons. It’s a six-track attack named Influx of Betrayal. One song from the EP (“Insufferable“) has already launched, and today Hard Lessons are releasing a second one, and we’re premiering a video for it just […]

    The post AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HARD LESSONS — “GANGRENE” appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.

  • Gladys Knight Shares Statement After Onstage Behavior Sparks Concern

    The eternal soul legend Gladys Knight started her career in the late ’50s, and she continues to tour regularly at the age of 82. In recent months, though there have been reports of her giving troubling performances, missing cues and wandering around the stage as if she’s lost. It doesn’t happen every night, and she seems firmly in control at many of her shows. But a recent Reddit thread raised concerns that Knight is “in cognitive decline,” that she’s being exploited by the people around her.

    The post Gladys Knight Shares Statement After Onstage Behavior Sparks Concern appeared first on Stereogum.

  • Andrew W.K. Shares Surprise New Album Temptation To Exist

    We don’t hear much from Andrew W.K. these days. In 2021, just before he released his album God Is Partying, the hard-partying mystery man announced his engagement to actress Kat Dennings, whom he married in 2023. It’s been all silent on the musical front over the past half-decade, but that changes today with the surprise release of a surprising new album.

    The post Andrew W.K. Shares Surprise New Album <em>Temptation To Exist</em> appeared first on Stereogum.

  • Watch Foghat Play a ‘Fool for the City’ Deep Cut: Video Premiere

    It's the first taste of their upcoming triple live album 'Live & Loud Across the U.S.A.' Continue reading…
  • Brian May and Billy Gibbons hook up on posthumous Steve Cropper single My Angels Are Calling

    Watching The Tide, the posthumous album by late guitar great Steve Cropper, is out today. Amongst its dozen tracks is My Angels Are Calling, a poignant number co-written and sung by Queen guitarist Brian May – featuring a solo from ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons – and a video for the song has been released today.

    “We were all incredibly sad at Steve’s passing, and I was already collaborating with Steve and his band on a track for this album,” says May. “The backing track, which Jon Tiven, producer of the album and a very old friend of mine, sent me, includes Steve Cropper’s unmistakable riff in a style which has influenced us all massively over the years.

    “As soon as Steve was gone, I could hear something different in my head – a tribute to Cropper himself. The way I saw it, I wanted to try to step into his mind at the moment when he knew it was time to move on. So in the track I’m attempting to speak with his voice, and I felt that spiritually he would find a way of bringing his usual optimism into play.

    “In the song, the angels are calling, and it seems to me that, along with being grateful for his wonderful life, he would imagine heaven to be something like going back to sitting on the dock of the bay, a moment in time that he shared with Otis Redding, creating that immortal hit, Dock Of The Bay. Having Billy Gibbons play a spectacular solo for me is the final wonderful bonus to this experience. The whole band did a terrific job, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”

    “Brian is singing from Steve’s point of view,” says songwriter/producer Jon Tiven, who oversaw the project. “Looking back over his life and his road. It’s very powerful.”

    Cropper, the legendary guitarist with Booker T. & the MG’s, the Blues Brothers, and many more, passed away on December 3 last year, aged 84. He had been working on Watching The Tide, the follow-up to 2024’s Friendlytown, in the months prior to his death, and had completed 10 of its 11 tracks with Tiven. The album features several guest players in addition to May and Gibbons, including Ronnie Wood and Eric Clapton, who delivered a transcendent solo on the first single from the album, Ticket First.

    “I told Eric, ‘Man, you just turned that song inside-out – I think we’re gonna have to give you a writer’s credit,” says Tiven. “And Eric said, ‘Well, anything to get my name next to Steve Cropper’s…’”

    Watching The Tide – named in tribute to Dock Of The Bay – is out today.

  • Interview with Shere Khan

    Shere Khan is a Finnish rock band that we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing during Tuska Festival. We asked them about women in metal, life as an artist and more.

    The post Interview with Shere Khan first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.