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As the year begins to transition into the sort of gloomy weather that proves a perfect companion to doom metal, this fall season isn’t quite cooperating. Rather than the gloom pervading the cover art’s beautiful painting by Larisa Brechun, the light is still keeping us. Only a few days before Mother of Graves’s latest take on ’90s-style death/doom, the temps around my parts hit 80°F. Does the good cheer this warmth brings hamper any enjoyment for the music Mother of Graves plays? Hardly. This mid-October release date has become a tradition for the Indiana quintet. Grymm enjoyed their debut over a pumpkin spice latte when they released Where the Shadows Adorn on October 14, 2022. When Carcharodon admired their “sweet, sweet sadboi vibes” in his TYMHM 2024 post, they had released The Periapt of Absence on October 18. Now releasing The Light That Keeps Us on October 16, the promo promises us that, yes, this is still your grandfather’s Mommy Graves.

Mother of Graves continues to hone what made many listeners fall in love with them on their last two records. They hop from an aggressive Paradise Lost-style of death/doom to a slower and thicker shade of My Dying Bride funeral doom with some Swallow the Sun and early Katatonia mixed in. Their transitions between these elements feel effortless thanks to impeccable mixing from Dan Swanö. Mother of Graves shines in their ability to craft evocative melodic doom. The eight-minute opener, “Wingless Soul,” contains a melody so catchy that it’ll stick like a well-loved lollipop that slipped from your hands and tangled itself in your beard hair. And speaking of Swanö, he has a brief part singing cleans on the opener, albeit a little awkwardly.¹ “Wingless Soul” displays a little bit of everything the band has to offer, from gentle piano to cleans to heavy doom to up-tempo death. While it’s a strong start, it’s not even the best thing on the album.

Nowhere does Mother of Graves better demonstrate the power of their songwriting prowess than on the final three songs of The Light That Keeps Us. “A Moonlit Tryst” begins like a piece from a Dolven record, complete with nighttime campfire sounds and acoustic guitars. The brutal, slow-moving doom that follows casts a mournful spell that’ll leave you feeling crushed in the most gentle way possible. When “The Beggar’s Allegory” begins with its beautiful gothic piano tune, it feels almost like more of the same thing. Yet the track dives into a speedier death/doom anchored by a killer melody, and there are moments on it where you can hear whispers of early Opeth. “The Endless Climb,” however, comes pretty close to SOTY material, with a terrific melodic lead, some violins, and a gentle classical piano bit, all coalescing into a conclusion that just may be the year’s most powerful.

Yet, The Light That Keeps Us falls just short of the greatness of The Periapt of Absence. It doesn’t as consistently weave its spell, as a few songs in the front half lack the impact of the rest. Mother of Graves also employs some spoken/whispered word bits throughout the record that pull listeners out of their doom-y trance. They rear their ugly head in the already lengthy “Wingless Soul” and also conclude “Through the Pale Shade” with a whimper. The worst section comes from “Eventide Angel,” though that tune at least ends in terrific, aggressive fashion. In a way, these are nitpicks, but they go to show that this album just isn’t as consistently great as its predecessor. With a more pared-back tempo, it’s also not as immediate, though it offers plenty of rewards on repeat spins.

Three records in, Mother of Graves continue to impress with their emotive compositions and incredible performances. Brandon Howe growls with strength and depth, evoking the image of a gentle giant—powerful yet sensitive. Coupled with Ben Sandman and Chris Morrison’s calculated riffs, which effortlessly carry the music from dense heaviness to melodic beauty to tenderness, Mother of Graves writes music that’s comforting in its familiarity yet rewarding in its depth. It wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up on many year-end lists, and maybe with repeat spins it could elevate itself onto mine. Whatever the case, I look forward to their next album to land October 13, 2028.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Profound Lore Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Site
Releases Worldwide: October 16th, 2026

The post Mother of Graves – The Light That Keeps Us Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Posted on October 15th 2026, 12:16pm

The abyss stares back.

Amid the vibrant and growing ranks of old-school heavy metal revivalism, the Spanish scene has enjoyed a healthy share of the load thanks to the strides made by the likes of Witchtower, Iron Curtain, Rave In Fire, and a few others. Cut from the same New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal cloth with perhaps a greater helping of NWOBHM orthodoxy, Catalonian quintet Streamer has been on an impressive independent studio tear since their 2013 founding with their 2020 sophomore LP Light Of Death making some notable waves in the European underground despite the band’s touring efforts being hampered by the concurrent Covid 19 pandemic.

These efforts are poised to hit pay dirt with the arrival of their latest and third full length album Into The Void, buoyed by joining the massive roster of High Roller Records and bringing a correspondingly potent and refined metallic product to the table.

The aesthetic that emerges from this fold’s take on 80s-influenced heavy metal thunder is fairly unique, drawing heavily from the vintage punch and guitar-centric approach pioneered by Judas Priest and merging it with a more mystical quality. Obvious early 80s British heavy metal staples like Iron Maiden and Saxon are a heavy influence on the melodic contour and hard-edged character of each song on this 10 track opus, but the haunting atmosphere that their production exhibits and the theatrical quality that often leaps from the speakers between vocalist Edu Halen’s quasi-operatic showcase and strategic employment of atmospheric keyboards also points to a healthy Mercyful Fate/King Diamond presence in the mix. The end result is an album that walks a rather curious line between the sort of fun-loving 80s shtick one associates with Enforcer and Skull Fist and the more occult-like demeanor of Portrait and In Solitude.

In keeping with some of the earlier power metal bands from Europe that Streamer has also cited as influencing their sound, this anthology of metal from the good old days kicks off with a creepy ambient-turned-guitar-driven opening fanfare after the spirit of Judas Priest’s “The Hellion” dubbed “Almanzor”.

Bucking the trend of power metal bands to springboard off the introductory overture with a blazing speeder, “The Day That Barchinona Died” lands on more of an upper mid-tempo shuffling stride that sounds halfway between a homage to Maiden’s “Where Eagles Dare” and a quicker entry out of Cirith Ungol’s arsenal with a harrowing banshee-like display out of Edu’s soaring pipes. Keeping the classic metal influences going at a swift and riff happy pace, crusher entries like “Never Said Goodbye” and “Falling Again” usher in some impressive guitar displays out of axe men Esteban “Master” Sedano and Anhell0ty, both drawing heavily from the melodic template of Iron Maiden and the former also featuring some madcap riffing out of the Jake E. Lee playbook during his mid-80s stint with Ozzy Osbourne.

For every moment that things seem to be locked into a wholly orthodox emulation of one contingent of the traditional metal paradigm, this album effectively mixes things up and forges its own unique take on what the genre was 40 years ago. The more atmospherically dense and mysterious character of “No Turning Back” and its swifter cousin “Liar’s End” still possesses that driving feel that one expects, but comes with a healthy degree of twists and turns, not to mention coming off as darker than a standard Judas Priest banger despite being constructed from similar material.

Arguably the greatest left turn into all-out sonic evil with an epic edge is the maze of an anthem and appropriately named “Insane Word”, complete with a blistering Steve Harris-like display out of bassist Cristian Blade. On the other side of the coin, the straightforward banger “Rock All Around” lands closer to something Twisted Sister might have written and the speed-infused cruiser “Wanted Head” takes a curious interlude into the Old American West at a breakneck pace.

While Streamer isn’t exactly a newcomer to the scene and the sound they’ve constructed is mostly in line with where heavy metal revivalism has been centered since the early 2010s, they have all the elements of a rising star in a locale that has been somewhat underrepresented n the NWOTHM.

Into The Void is the sort of album that clearly doesn’t play things safe, yet the generally compact nature of their songwriting approach and the melodically consonant character that they’ve partly imported from the European power metal template makes for a highly accessible listening experience. Their target audience is predominantly among those whom like their metal cut from the 1982 through 1986 cloth, though given the wideness of the stylistic net that they’ve cast, it would be just as easy to see fans of the Eternal Champion and Slough Feg epic metal camp take to this as much as the broader retro metal craze that’s been streaming out of Northern Europe for the past 20 years.

Release Date: October 16, 2026
Record Label: High Roller Records
Genre: Heavy Metal

Musicians:

• Edu Halen / Lead Vocals
• Jordi Rodenas / Drums
• Esteban Cabezas / Guitars
• Cristian Blade / Bass and Backing Vocals
• Anhelloty / Guitars and Backing Vocals

Into The Void Tracklist:

1. Almanzor
2. The Day That Barchinona Died
3. No Turning Back
4. Never Said Goodbye
5. Falling Again
6. Rock All Around
7. Insane World
8. Wanted Head
9. Liar’s End
10. Into the Void

Order the album here.

The post STREAMER – Into The Void (Album Review) appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

Journeyman Records [Release date 23.10.26] Joanne Shaw Taylor is my favourite of all the current blues guitar slingers around. I think one of the reasons is her pop sensibility in her song writing. She packs as much punch in one … Continue reading →

The post Album review: JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR – The Trouble With Love appeared first on Get Ready to ROCK!.

Posted on October 15th 2026, 11:37am

On the left side all the damaged toys
They are all upside down when they look in a spoon
On the right side all the filthy minds
They sold their souls for the cheapest price

Desire has a nasty habit of dressing up our worst impulses as irresistible attractions. We pursue people who promise pleasure and deliver psychological wreckage, mistake emotional damage for depth, and occasionally discover that the object of our affection is every bit as disturbed as we are. Sex, after all, has always been an excellent advertisement for bad decisions. Somewhere between seduction and self-destruction lies the sordid little playground of Noir Addiction, whose new single, Foreplay, finds romance keeping company with alienation, disgust, and the peculiar absurdity of wanting someone you probably ought to avoid.

Released through 411 Music Group, Foreplay runs on a dense, insistent electronic beat that establishes its authority early and maintains a merciless momentum. The production has a physical, almost claustrophobic quality, drawing upon the industrial aggression of Nine Inch Nails, the seductive electronic sophistication of Depeche Mode, and the cold, mechanized sensuality of Gary Numan. The brooding theatricality of HIM and the psychological tension associated with A Perfect Circle inform its darker disposition. Beneath that rhythmic machinery, an atmosphere of sexual unease develops, giving the arrangement an unsettling psychological dimension.

The lyrics inhabit a society of damaged goods and compromised appetites. Their gothic-inflected, subversive sensibility further frames the song’s peculiar blend of erotic fascination and existential discomfort. As the song progresses, its sexual provocations take on an increasingly cynical cast. Desire becomes another means by which people exploit, disappoint, and misunderstand one another. The language grows colder, and the underlying philosophy more nihilistic. One imagines a singles bar populated entirely by people who have already read the terrible reviews of their prospective partners.

Interestingly, Foreplay predates Noir Addiction itself. Sonny Lanegan originally wrote the composition years before the band’s formation, and an earlier incarnation appeared in Marvel’s Iron Fist. Its subsequent resurrection suggests that certain musical ideas possess a stubborn capacity for reinvention, particularly when their subject matter concerns the less admirable tendencies of human behaviour.

With its relentless electronic foundation and appetite for emotional ugliness, Foreplay offers a persuasive portrait of modern intimacy as a transaction between damaged individuals. Noir Addiction locates the absurd comedy inside our compulsions, turning mutual disillusionment into something perversely pleasurable. Apparently, even the end of romantic idealism could use a decent beat.

Listen to Foreplay below and order the single here.

Foreplay is also available on Stream. Listen to the track via Spotify below:

Follow Noir Addiction:

• Website
• Bandcamp
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Spotify
• Apple Music

The post Noir Addiction Dive into the Darker Side of Attraction With the Industrial Onslaught of “Foreplay” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Mastodon – The Hollywood Palladium – October 10, 2026

Mastodon first appeared on my radar in 2009 after I read a review of Crack the Skye in Rolling Stone. Not known for handing out glowing reviews to purveyors of heavy music, RS tagged them as something to pay attention to: “Mastodon are the greatest metal band of their generation — no one else comes close.”.

Mastodon

4000 screaming fans packed The Hollywood Palladium on Saturday for a night of prog-metal bliss. Mastodon was in town with The Poisonous Weapons Tour to promote their month-old 9th album, Marrow Deep. They hit the stage at 9:00pm, but first, Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train” blared out of the PA system in its entirety, resulting in a group singalong accompanied with multiple air guitars in the crowd playing along and soloing with Randy Rhoads. It was quite a way to kick off the main event, and everyone in the audience was smiling before Mastodon even took the stage.

The walk-on song selection might have something to do with drummer Brann Dailor, who by all claims has an unnatural affinity with Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads, to the point of having claimed (tongue in cheek?) to be Randy Rhoads reincarnated. Brann was born on the same day (March 19) that Randy died in a plane crash, however, the math is a little fuzzy, with Brann being seven years old when the fatal tragedy occurred…regardless, it was a fun way to begin the show and an amusing story.

Mastodon had amazing visuals that went with each song, and played throughout the show on a large screen behind them, as well as on the front of the drum riser, which was also an extended screen – sort of a Las Vegas Sphere experience for the rest of us that can’t make the trip or afford the tickets. The drum riser was as tall as anything I’ve ever seen, making it hard to see (and photograph) what Brann was up to behind his kit, but he sounded amazing. It had a lower riser on either side – stage left to accommodate João Nogueira’s keyboard set-up, and an elevated stage right spot for Troy Sanders to come and sing from when he got tired of holding down center stage. Guitarist Bill Kelliher killed it as always, and hearing his audible interaction with guitarist Nick Johnson was exhilarating – this was the first time I’d seen Mastodon without Brent Hinds who left 18 months ago, only to die in a motorcycle accident a short while later, and it was good to hear and see that they landed the right guy to fill his shoes.

Mastodon played songs from 8 albums, including 5 from the newest offering, Marrow Deep. In my experience, when an established band plays songs off a new album, fans use it as an excuse to go to the bar or use the bathroom. That wasn’t the case on Saturday – the new material fit perfectly with the old, and fans took advantage of the opportunity to see the songs for the first time.

John Baizley of Baroness joined the band on stage during the second portion to play along, a move that began during a pre-tour warm-up-show in Atlanta where he joined the band for a couple of songs…only to have it go so well he was invited to join the upcoming tour.

There are 7 more dates on The Poisonous Weapons Tour before Mastodon wrap things up with the Sick New World Texas festival in late October. They sounded incredible, and are definitely worth catching if they come to your town.

Mastodon are:

• Troy Sanders – Vocals/Bass
• Brann Dailor – Drums/Vocals
• Bill Kelliher – Guitar
• Nick Johnston – Guitar
• João Nogueira – Keyboard
• John Baizley – Guest Vocals/Guitar

Setlist:

1. Barbarians Blood
2. March of the Fire Ants
3. Crystal Skull
4. Black Tongue
5. Megalodon
6. In the Ruins
7. More Than I Could Chew
8. Your Ghost Again
9. Mother Puncher
10. Steambreather
11. Poisonous Weapons
12. Snakes for Dinner
13. Curl of the Burl
14. Oblivion
15. The Czar
16. Sultan's Curse
17. Colony of Birchmen
18. Blood and Thunder

Deafheaven

My first impression of Deafheaven as I was taking photos from the pit was that they were by far the loudest band I’d ever heard. Halfway through my time in the photo pit, I discovered that I’d forgotten to put my earplugs back in after Alcrest’s set – Deafheaven were still incredibly loud, but the earplugs definitely made a difference.

The Bay Area group formed in 2010, and are known for pioneering blackgaze – a combination of blast beats, shoegaze sensibilities, and black metal vocals. Speaking of vocals, I’d be interested to hear vocalist George Clarke’s normal talking voice – his singing voice is extreme, and it is hard to image how the human body is able to generate such sounds. In talking with another photographer after their set, he said his wife had just described George’s voice as reminiscent of a pterodactyl (for reference, she had also compared death metal vocals to the Cookie Monster, so take her review however you will)…I’ve never heard a pterodactyl, but what I can confirm is that George’s voice is powerful, utterly distinctive, and fits the music perfectly.

Deafheaven is a great live band and visually interesting. George paced the stage with a fiery intensity, while Ian Waters struck rock star poses and jumped off the band’s risers. Kerry McCoy tore it up on guitar, while Daniel Tracy (drums) and Chris Johnson (bass) expertly provided the beat and low-end. These guys were great, and the audience really responded to their show.

Deafheaven are:

• George Clarke – Vocals
• Kerry McCoy – Guitar
• Daniel Tracy – Drums
• Ian Waters – Guitar
• Chris Johnson – Bass

Alcest

French band Alcest’s Instagram page only lists their name and a one-word quote – “Music from another world.” Since forming in 2000, they are credited with creating the blackgaze genre, and were the perfect way to kick off an exceptional night of live music.

The Palladium has a large stage – both side to side and front to back, and it appears oversized for the size of the venue. Despite the ample acreage, all four members of Alcest were pushed right up against the lip of the stage side by side. This unique setup seemed to stem more from band preference than lack of space on stage. Winterhalter’s drum kit was pushed up against the edge of the stage to the point that I could have reached out and grabbed one of his sticks mid-set if I’d been so inclined – at times I held my camera over the top of his bass drum to push my wide-angle lens close to him and what he was doing.

The position of drums and amps left little room for stage antics, so Neige and the rest of Alcest leaned into their songs and musicianship – both of which won over the packed Palladium crowd. They played a tight set filled with songs that really got the people moving despite the early 7:00pm start time.

Alcest are:

• Neige – Vocals/Guitar
• Winterhalter – Drums
• Zero – Guitar
• Indria Saray – Bass

Brooks Robinson Photographer & Writer

Brooks Robinson is an LA-based concert photographer, and 30+ year freelance camera operator for film, television, and music videos. He has photographed some of the largest film/TV projects in history, and hundreds of music videos in MTV's heyday.

YouTube Music is adding a small AI badge beneath song titles so listeners can see when a recording was largely generated by artificial intelligence. It sounds like something the platform should have done ages ago, especially now that AI tools can produce complete songs with convincing vocals in minutes.

The change, announced on October 14, 2026, places the label directly on the music player. Tap it, and a panel explains that the recording was altered or generated using AI.

I like the idea, but I would not celebrate just yet. YouTube already had AI disclosure labels. They were small, easy to miss and heavily dependent on creators reporting their own use of the technology. The company has improved their visibility over time, but identifying AI music remains a much harder job than putting a badge on the screen.

According to the official YouTube announcement, the new labels target songs created primarily with generative AI, including recordings where software generated both the composition and vocals.

The rollout has started on YouTube Music, with plans to bring the same labels to the main YouTube app. The company has not provided an exact date for that expansion.

YouTube Already Had AI Labels, So What Is Actually New?

YouTube introduced its altered and synthetic content disclosure system in 2024. Creators uploading realistic AI-generated material were expected to identify it, and viewers could find the disclosure in the video description.

In May 2026, YouTube admitted that the labels needed to be easier to find. It moved them directly beneath regular videos and placed them over Shorts. The company also began introducing automatic detection for certain kinds of realistic AI content.

For music listeners, however, the experience remained rather limited. A disclosure attached to a video description is not particularly helpful when someone is simply listening to songs through a music player.

The latest update addresses that problem.

As 9to5Google reported, the new badge sits beneath the song title, near the artist information on the Now Playing screen. Selecting it opens a panel called “How this was made.”

The panel includes a “Made with AI” disclosure explaining that artificial intelligence was used to alter or generate the audio.

It is still a fairly small badge, so I would not call it impossible to miss. At least listeners no longer have to open a description to find the information during normal playback.

The Labels Still Depend on Information That Can Be Wrong

Here is the part I find less reassuring. YouTube says it will work with music partners and use its own detection systems to identify AI-generated recordings.

Music distributors can classify tracks using three categories.

• Fully Gen AI for recordings created entirely through generative AI.
• Partly Gen AI for recordings containing a combination of AI-generated material and human contributions.
• No Gen AI for recordings without generative AI involvement.

The categories were detailed in TechCrunch coverage of the announcement. Conventional pitch correction, including Auto-Tune, falls into the No Gen AI category.

That separation is sensible. A musician recording vocals and correcting a few notes has done something very different from generating an entire singer through a text prompt.

But the new system has an obvious weakness. If an uploader incorrectly declares that a recording contains no generative AI, YouTube must either identify the mistake itself or rely on someone else to raise the issue.

The company says it has detection tools, although it has not published an accuracy rate for identifying AI-generated music under the new system.

False positives are another concern. In August, YouTube updated its disclosure controls so creators could correct certain automatically applied labels through YouTube Studio. Some labels remain permanent, particularly when verified metadata or YouTube AI tools establish how the content was generated.

A badge therefore should not be treated as a perfect test of musical authenticity. It tells us how YouTube has classified a recording, not that the platform has independently verified every element of its production.

AI Music Has Already Become Harder to Recognize by Ear

A few years ago, many AI songs were amusing because the mistakes were so obvious. Voices broke apart, pronunciations sounded strange and instruments sometimes produced unnatural transitions.

Current systems are far more convincing. Someone can generate a polished country ballad, a metal track or a pop recording with synthetic vocals without ever entering a studio.

The result can sound convincing enough that listeners have no immediate reason to question the recording.

I previously explored some of the stranger examples in our article about popular songs created using AI. The collection includes synthetic performances that imitate recognizable singers and bands, showing how convincingly software can reproduce elements of an established musical style.

The concern is no longer limited to people making novelty covers for entertainment. AI-generated tracks are appearing on commercial streaming services alongside recordings made by working musicians.

And the scale is getting difficult to ignore.

Other Streaming Services Are Going Further Than YouTube

YouTube is not the only company trying to identify synthetic music. Spotify, Deezer, Tidal and Apple Music have been developing their own approaches.

Deezer reported receiving nearly 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks per day in July 2026. It has been labeling detected AI music and excluding fully generated tracks from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists.

Deezer has also announced plans to let listeners filter AI-generated music out of their experience.

YouTube is currently taking a less restrictive approach. It is providing disclosures without announcing a comparable option to remove AI music from recommendations.

That leaves listeners with a familiar problem. They may know a song was generated by AI, but they still have limited control over how much synthetic music appears in their feeds.

For someone interested in discovering new bands, a clear label is useful. A setting that allows them to exclude fully generated recordings would be considerably more useful.

Musicians Have Reasons to Welcome the Change and Question It

For independent musicians, accurate AI labels could help audiences identify recordings made by real performers. A guitarist recording at home should not have to compete for attention with thousands of automated tracks whose origins are hidden.

At the same time, treating every use of AI as equivalent would be unfair to artists who use the technology for specific creative tasks.

Grimes provides an interesting example. She has openly experimented with synthetic vocals and allowed other creators to work with AI-generated versions of her voice under licensing arrangements.

We previously examined her approach in our article about Grimes and AI-assisted music production, including her interest in combining human performances with digital processing.

Her work demonstrates why identifying a recording simply as AI-generated does not always explain how the music was actually made.

A song created entirely from prompts is one thing. A track written and performed by musicians, with a synthetic backing vocal added during production, is another.

YouTube has classifications for both situations, but the information displayed to listeners remains fairly basic. A more detailed explanation of the AI contribution would help people make their own judgments.

Listeners Still Cannot Assume an Unlabeled Song Was Made by Humans

The new YouTube Music labels are a welcome improvement, especially after two years of disclosures that were not always easy to find.

But the company has not demonstrated that its detection tools can catch every AI-generated recording, and the October announcement does not promise that every song involving generative AI will carry a visible badge.

The focus is on music made primarily using generative AI. Smaller AI contributions may fall under separate classifications without necessarily receiving the same prominent warning.

There is also no announced option for YouTube Music subscribers to block fully generated songs from their recommendations.

For now, the new labels provide information that should already have been readily available. I would rather see a clear disclosure than continue guessing how a recording was produced, but I would also like YouTube to show exactly what was generated and give listeners control over the music they are recommended.

The real test will come when listeners encounter suspicious tracks without badges, or when genuine musicians find their recordings incorrectly labeled. YouTube has made the disclosure easier to see. It still has to prove how accurately it can identify the music.