Leadfeather release new single ‘The Answer‘,out now, new EP ‘Catch The Silvertrain‘ is out 23rd October. The band also release their exclusive Vinyl release ‘Super Deluxe‘ on 5th December, featuring both EPs ‘Roll The Dice‘ and ‘Catch The Silvertrain‘. “‘The Answer‘ is a sonic trip in the 70s heavy rock, spanning from acoustic guitars and sore […]
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Posted on August 28th 2026, 10:57am
I recall reviewing Exumer’s two previous releases, 2016’s Raging Tides and 2019’s Hostile Defiance and finding both high-quality Thrash Metal. Well, seven years later, the Germans have delivered the goods once more with their latest release, Death Mask Messiah, hitting every mark I would expect from an unsung outfit from the German Thrash movement.
Release Date: 28 August 2026
Words: Paul Hutchings
Born in the 1980s movement that saw the emergence of titans Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard, Exumer’s 1986 debut Possessed By Fire is rightly rated as a Thrash classic. After several stops and restarts, the band has been active since 2008, with original members Mem Von Stein and Ray Mensh still behind the wheel.
I have struggled with much Thrash Metal that has been released in recent years. A couple of the big boys have released average albums this year, with all eyes and ears focused on the soon-to-be-released Anthrax release.
Yet below the surface, bands such as Exumer have managed to retain a cutting edge that is absent in so many releases.
Death Mark Messiah really does not reinvent the wheel. What it does is bring a contemporary sound to a traditionally ’80s Thrash approach. The production is crisp without being over-polished, allowing the rawness to be retained. The songs here are visceral, sharp, and to the point. 42 minutes of locked-in Thrash Metal with a muscular edge works in my book.
There are hooks aplenty. Stein’s vocals have plenty of rasp and rage, catchy enough to get inside the ear and linger long enough to become earworms. It has an organic yet old-school feel that starts with the blistering title track and is relentless until the final bars of closing song Unchained Angel.
Two new members make their debut here. Bassist Alex Voss and drummer Jerome Reil hit the ground running, the engine room of the band solidly anchoring the riffs of Mensh and co-guitarist Marc Bräutigam.
It is an album that feels real. Yes, old-school with plenty of classic-style gang chants and formulaic patterns. But beneath it all, tracks such as Sin Bleeder, Eradication and Allocated Savagery do everything you need.
“When everything is done, and you hear the end result, you feel proud, because this is real music, done by real people,” Stein says. “No AI bullshit, no file sharing. It’s still real stuff.”
He is spot on. This is real music by real musicians.
Thematically, a deeper listen reveals that Exumer and lyricist Stein focus on the chaos of modern US politics and the 1993 Waco siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas, where 76 people, including 28 children, died.
“David Koresh was a false prophet and wore a death mask, manipulating and leading his followers to certain death,” Stein says. “However, the misinformation that the federal government used in the ’90s is the same playbook that is being used today and is the common denominator between leadership in the past and present.”
It is a sobering reflection of the world today and reinforces the fact that this genre is often more politically versed and astute than any other.
Exumer is one clever band. With slicing riffs and powerful songs that drive forward with real energy and venom, there is something reassuring to know that amidst the bullshit going on around us, at least one German band is still making a stand and doing it with a quality that is pleasing to all who truly love their Thrash.
Exumer release Death Mask Messiah on 28 August 2026. For more details, visit metalblade.com/exumer.
In 2021, Metallica brought together a head-spinningly diverse selection of artists to record reimagined cuts from the metal titans’ seminal, self-titled 1991 LP, AKA The Black Album. Titled The Metallica Blacklist, it saw everyone from Miley Cyrus and Elton John to Ghost, Rina Sawayama, Chase & Status and Kamasi Washington get involved. It wasn’t just seen as a celebration of 30 years of The Black Album itself, but a mark of how just widely respected and appreciated metal’s biggest band had become.
Now, just four albums in and two fewer decades into their career, Turnstile have managed to pull off the same trick. Last year’s Never Enough was widely regarded as an instant classic, a companion album to 2021’s Glow On that added yet more shades to the Baltimore crew’s versatile, increasingly pop-infused brand of arena punk. So far had they outgrown the US hardcore scene by the time of its release that even Charli XCX referenced them at the end of her Coachella headline set a couple of months prior.
Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be too surprised that the five-piece’s seemingly boundless ambition has led them to this: Never Enough: Versions, a project that unites Turnstile’s peers, heroes and pals from across the music spectrum for a series of refurbished versions of the songs from that record.
The guestlist here is quite remarkable: where else would you find Hayley Williams, Slayyyter and Four Tet rubbing shoulders with Elton John (him again!), Julien Baker and Dying Fetus? And, most importantly of all, it makes for a fascinating record full of genuinely brilliant moments.
Slayyyter’s rambunctious reimagining of Birds borrows many of the motifs that made her outstanding latest album Worst Girl In America such a hit to produce a simmering electroclash banger; Dying Fetus, meanwhile, choose to trade the song’s buzzing hardcore riffs for scything death metal, to wonderfully brutal effect.
Floating Points mashes Sole into pulsating hard house, while Baltimore hardcore mob Angel Du$t take their version of Sunshower on a delirious journey that stops off at scuzzy punk, eerie ambient electro and doom metal. It’s a far cry from Four Tet’s funky edm redub of Look Out For Me or Blood Orange’s beautifully wistful, flute-powered Light Design, but no less enjoyable for it.
Other highlights? Elton John’s twinkly piano and echoey vocals lend Seein’ Stars a surprisingly surreal bent; Dan Deacon’s take on Dreaming swaps out the mariachi hardcore of the original and replaces it with flittering, euphoric drum ‘n’ bass, while Brandon Woody’s version opts for smooth jazz and woozy saxophone. A.G. Cook grinds Dull through a gritty industrial filter; Hayley Williams brings some gorgeous, slow-burn soul to Ceiling.
Not everything works. Porches’ strained croons and damp acoustic dabblings on Never Enough open the album on a bit of a bum note, Chanel Beads’ pondering take on Dull embraces its namesake and you can’t help but feel the closing Time Is Happening would have been better if Julien Baker had just left Mustafa to it. But these are mere nitpicks on what is undoubtedly one of the boldest and most interesting musical projects of 2026. This is Turnstile’s world now; we’re just living in it.
coldrain have shared another track set to appear on their upcoming album ‘OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE’, and pulled in The Used’s Bert McCracken to help them out.
The song is titled ‘Poison’, and it is as catchy a piece of modern rock as you’re ever going to hear. Flickers of drama, soaring melodies and plenty of hearty intent, it’s perfect matched to the way that Bert writes and performs music, so he slots into the fold like its second nature.
The result is a banger, to say the least.
Vocalist Masato had this to say about the collab:
“’Poison’ is a song about love and desire—about how something, or someone, you love can become so addictive that it’s easy to lose yourself in it. Trying to find the right dosage of that love—enough to satisfy you without letting it consume you—feels like one of the most human struggles there is.
“The song also features killer vocals from the one and only Bert McCracken of The Used, one of our all-time favourite singers. His signature voice brings a rawness and emotional intensity to the track that makes ‘Poison’ feel like a timeless emo masterpiece.”
‘OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE’ will be released on September 25 via Century Media Records.
Here is previous offering ‘EX-HUMANITY’:
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Girlschool will release Nothin’ To Lose (Live In Reading 1981) on 25 September, with the title track available now as the first single. The album captures the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal icons at the 1981 Reading Festival, where they became the first female rock band to headline the event. More than four decades later, they remain the only one.
The historic performance almost began in disarray. The band’s hired pink Cadillac, reportedly once owned by actress Jayne Mansfield, arrived at the venue damaged after a collision. A roadie then restrung Kelly Johnson’s guitar with two D strings, while the band’s flashing neon backdrop was sabotaged by another act on the bill.
Kim McAuliffe said Johnson’s ability meant the guitar problem made little difference.
“The thing with Kelly is, she was such a genius and natural player, you could put anything in front of her and she could play it,” McAuliffe said. “She had an instinct. I used to watch her onstage sometimes, and I was quite amazed by her. She was such an incredible presence on stage.
“The roadie could probably have handed her a guitar with four strings and she’d still have been brilliant. I don’t think having two strings the same would have bothered her at all.”
Nothin’ To Lose (Live In Reading 1981) will be the first of five archive Girlschool live albums scheduled for release over the coming months. It will be available on CD, digital formats and red-and-white spatter vinyl.
The set is dominated by material from Hit And Run, opening with C’mon Let’s Go, The Hunter and (I’m Your) Victim. Songs from the debut album Demolition also feature, before the performance closes with Race With The Devil and Yeah Right.
McAuliffe recalled attending Reading Festival as a fan only a few years earlier. “I’d been there a couple of years before, standing on the other side in the mud, with this big plastic bag thing over me and knee deep in mud,” she said. “So happy to be there, grinning away, having the time of my life. Little did I know I’d actually be headlining a couple of years later. It was absolutely nuts.”
The band’s pyrotechnics were reportedly audible seven miles away. Future Flash, the song during which they were fired, did not make the recording.
The album is available to pre-order on CD and vinyl or pre-save digitally.