Blog

One year after the release of Face The End record, Italian thrashers Game Over are back at work, located in Domination Studio where Simone Mularoni and Simone Bertozzi are recording guitars for their next music output.
Read more…

Samurai warriors Sabbat (JPN) are pleased to announce that they will return to the ‘old continent’ in October for ‘Black Fire Over Europe’ tour.
Read more…

Defiled have never been easy to classify, and that’s precisely the point. Active since 1992 — death metal’s formative era — the Tokyo quartet are neither nostalgists nor revisionists. They do not trade in genre signifiers as aesthetic cosplay. Over nine full-lengths, founding guitarist Yusuke Sumita and his band of warriors have carved out something genuinely singular: a strain of death metal that is technically rigorous without being sterile, rooted in the underground without being beholden to it. Altered State is their latest argument that this approach still has room to surprise — though it’s a more complicated argument than the band’s own framing suggests.

The recent run has been remarkable. Infinite Regress (2020), The Highest Level (2023), and Horror Beyond Horror (2024) formed a three-album hot streak that drew serious attention — Decibel handed that last record an 8/10 and called the band’s output “peak ability, creativity and volatility.” Altered State arrives on the heels of that momentum, and Sumita has cited George Orwell’s 1984 as the lyrical framework. That’s an accurate but incomplete description. “Dazed in Blindness” opens the record with an inventory of Orwellian control mechanisms — doublespeak, propaganda, “stealth manipulation” — and “Zombified” delivers some of the album’s most visceral imagery in explicitly 1984 terms: brainwashed masses in invisible cages, a ragtag mob on the march, rulers who “don’t see or care.” “Necro-Force” distills the Party’s logic to its most brutal reduction: comply and die / death after compliance. These tracks understand Orwell not as a reference point but as a usable grammar for rage.

But “Obsession” operates in an entirely different register. Do what Thou wilt — Aleister Crowley’s central tenet, lifted verbatim — anchors a track about occultists gathering for rites, thelemic force, and psychic flame. “Metamorphosis of Evil” draws on morality play tradition, cataloguing the antagonist, the evil seducer, and the satirical moralist as stock figures running through allegorical metamorphoses. Neither track has anything to do with Orwell. The album’s conceptual layer is, in fact, bifurcated: one half dystopian political horror, one half occult metaphysics. Whether that duality is intentional synthesis or simply two strands that never fully merge is a question Altered State raises without answering.

The production, handled in-house — Sumita producing, Shinichiro Hamada and Keisuke Hamada engineering at Studio Zot in Tokyo, with mixing and mastering by Kenji Kikuchi at Studio Nest in Chiba — is deliberately muted, favoring the midrange and low end over any polished sheen. It’s a choice that gives the record an organic weight, pressing the music through dense earth rather than broadcasting it through clean air. On the album’s strongest tracks, that density feels earned. On its weaker ones, it obscures rather than intensifies.

Opener “Dazed in Blindness” establishes the template: fast-moving riffs, Shinichiro Hamada’s ferocious vocal delivery, Keisuke Hamada’s drumming hitting every metric shift with the precision of someone three decades deep in this craft. “Obsession” is where the album gets genuinely strange — its riff shapeshifts and warps around itself without resolving, a musical analog to the occult practice it’s describing. “Portal,” the lead single, earns that designation: a relatively traditional death metal opening gives way to a series of tempo shifts that feel like the ground dropping out, the band’s technical control most visible precisely because the structure seems on the verge of collapse.

The closing trio — “Prophecies,” “Demolition,” and “Apocalyptic End” — functions as a unified final statement. “Prophecies” is the album’s darkest and most foreboding stretch, its central declaration — prophecies left out a key piece of the puzzle — landing with the weight of something irreversible. “Demolition” snaps back with blunt-force riffing and a lyrical arc of total surrender: sovereignty deprived / dignity dissolved. “Apocalyptic End” closes things on a note of conspiratorial dread — dark forces, pyramidal power, the calcification of the pineal gland — with the dexterous meter-shifting the band has made a signature. As an endgame, it works.

What doesn’t fully work is the album’s midsection. At fourteen tracks, Altered State runs longer than it needs to. The muted production that gives “Obsession” its disorienting weight becomes a liability across tracks like “Zombified” and “Metamorphosis of Evil,” where individual identities erode into textural sameness. Sumita has acknowledged the record may not reveal itself immediately, and that’s fair — but there’s a meaningful distinction between “intentionally challenging” and “insufficiently differentiated,” and Altered State occasionally strays into the latter.

Altered State is not Defiled‘s most fully realized statement — the bloated runtime and blurred midsection see to that. But when this band is operating at their most disorienting and precise, as on “Obsession,” “Portal,” and the closing sequence, they remain unlike anything else working in this space. Nine albums deep, that’s no small claim.

Defiled still sound like a band with something to prove. In 2026, that alone sets them apart.

“Altered State” Track-listing:

1. Dazed in Blindness
2. Altered State
3. Obsession
4. Portal
5. Necro-Force
6. The Degradation
7. Genocidal State
8. Metamorphosis of Evil
9. The Ultra Death
10. Zombified
11. Lunatics
12. Prophecies
13. Demolition
14. Apocalyptic End

Defiled Lineup:

• Shinichiro Hamada – Vocals, Guitar
• Yusuke Sumita – Guitar
• Takachika Nakajima – Bass
• Keisuke Hamada – Drums

Follow Defiled

Website : http://www.defiled.info/

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/defiled

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/defiledjapan

Bandcamp : https://defiledjapan.bandcamp.com

Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/defiled

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@defiled

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6KDc0SB4ero6zAgrafjVrt

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/defiled/72867298

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/artists/B001GJ407S/defiled

The post DEFILED’s Altered State Is a Precise, Disorienting Strike from Japan’s Death Metal Underground appeared first on Antihero Magazine.

"His feel and tone make his saxophone playing unmistakable," said David Gilmour. Continue reading…

The Finland’s Soulgrind have shared a brand new song, “Jylhä Metsämies”, from their upcoming full-length opus Ad Pulchram Mortem.
Read more…

Norwegian black metal band Sworn has shared details on their newly announced fifth studio record. Entitled called Null Crowned The Infinite, it will land in stores on September 4th, 2026. Mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren. First single, the title track, will be out June 5th.
Read more…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MULCIBER Featured By Necromance Following Release Of Crushing New Single “Ashes Of Gehenna”
Cleveland, Ohio death metal destroyers Mulciber continue building momentum toward their upcoming full-length album Of Insidious Essence with a major feature from Spanish extreme metal outlet Necromance, spotlighting the band’s latest single and video “Ashes Of Gehenna.”
Originally released on March 13, 2026, “Ashes Of Gehenna” serves as the first devastating taste of Of Insidious Essence , due out later this year. Necromance praised the band’s savage fusion of early 2000s death metal brutality, modern precision, and old-school riff worship, shining a light on MULCIBER’s unrelenting approach to extreme music.
Forged during the chaos of the 2020 global pandemic, MULCIBER emerged from Cleveland’s underground with a mission to combine multiple eras of death metal into one punishing sonic assault. The band delivers a crushing blend of blast-driven aggression, monstrous riffs, and abyssal vocal fury that hits with both nostalgic brutality and modern intensity.
The current lineup features underground metal veterans Aaron Gall (ex-EMBALMER, ex-LIMBSPLITTER), Dan Gates (ex-TON, VICAR BLOOD, MUTUAL HOSTILITY), alongside Ian Lanney and Bill Long. Following the release of their 2022 EP Misery Of One through Redefining Darkness Records , the band has continued sharpening its sound into something even more vicious and unforgiving.
Drawing influence from legendary acts such as Morbid Angel , Suffocation , Aborted , Blood Red Throne , Vile , and Aeon , MULCIBER’s sound channels the relentless aggression of classic death metal while maintaining a razor-sharp modern edge.
“Ashes Of Gehenna” was produced by Tony Tipton, while the official music video was created by Chris Walter Visuals. The track showcases the band’s most extreme material to date and sets the stage for what promises to be a devastating full-length release with Of Insidious Essence .
With international media support growing and anticipation building around the upcoming album, MULCIBER are proving they are more than ready to carve their name deeper into the modern death metal underground.
Check out the Necromance feature here:
https://necromance.eu/mulciber-estrenan-el-video-de-ashes-of-gehenna-y-anuncian-su-nuevo-album-of-insidious-essence/

 Connect: 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mulciber
Website: www.Mulciberohio.com
Contact: mulciberohio@gmail.com

To promote their upcoming next studio album Still, German pagan black metal horde Finsterforst put out a music video for the first single “Stille Nacht”.
Read more…

Avatar are thrilled to announce a headline tour across Europe in late 2026. The Danish death metal band Neckbreakker will serves as support on all dates.
Read more…

According to Danish newspaper Sjaellandske Nyheder, Rasmus Stavnsborg, 53, from Solrød, Denmark, is the owner of what is believed to be the world’s largest collection of Iron Maiden memorabilia. More than 10,000 items dedicated to the legendary British heavy metal band are spread across six rooms of his villa in Solrød Strand — floor to ceiling with memorabilia, pinball machines, a homemade Iron Maiden bar, drums, incense sticks, and countless other objects, all featuring the band’s iconic mascot, Eddie.

Stavnsborg first dreamed of creating his own version of a Hard Rock Café as a child after visiting the famous restaurant chain — only his would be devoted entirely to Iron Maiden. The collection originally occupied a 100-square-meter basement in the family’s former home in Karlslunde. Around 12 years ago, it outgrew the space, prompting Stavnsborg, his partner, and daughter to move to Solrød Strand, where the collection grew from around 5,000 items to more than 10,000.

Among the most unusual items is a cigarette butt once smoked by former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno. Stavnsborg and his friends retrieved it after meeting Di’Anno at a bar. “He asked what on Earth we were doing and what we were going to use it for. We just said we were going to clone him one day when he died, and then he shook his head and said we were some strange idiots,” Stavnsborg recalls. Di’Anno died in 2024.

The stories behind the objects are as important to Stavnsborg as the objects themselves. “If I just wanted to buy things to plaster the place with Iron Maiden stuff, that would be the easiest thing in the world. But I like that things have a story, whether it’s personal or connected to the band,” he says. “A hunter hangs dead animals on the walls. I hang Iron Maiden things on the walls that I’ve hunted around the world.”

Stavnsborg has attended more than 300 Iron Maiden concerts since first seeing the band at Copenhagen’s KB Hallen in 1988. During the band’s 2006 “A Matter of Life and Death” tour, his dedication earned him an official “Super Fan Pass” granting him free admission to every concert on the tour. “I was completely overwhelmed. It’s an insane recognition to get from a band,” he says.

Stavnsborg appears in the new documentary Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, which premiered in early May and explores the band’s history and the devotion of fans around the world. His plans this year include shows in Sweden, Denmark, Paris, London, Los Angeles, Peru, and Ecuador, with a hike to Machu Picchu also on the itinerary. “We experience the world together, and it brings us closer together as a family,” he says.

The post Danish IRON MAIDEN Super-Fan RASMUS STAVNSBORG Has Attended Over 300 Concerts & Amassed A 10,000-Item Collection Across Six Rooms appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.