Blog

Time marches inexorably on, and so must we. We’re over halfway through September now and the massive tours are rolling through with regularity (hello Evanescence and Spiritbox!), bringing with them the knowledge there’s a tonne of new records to explore in the coming weeks. So, we’re cutting through the clutter and picking out some of the finest metal songs around right now.

Speaking of, the results of last week’s vote! The big news was, of course, that Slipknot were back with new music but we’ll admit even as big as they are, we were surprised to see them slip into the top three given the discourse around Arsenal. Goes to show, the haters are always louder than anyone else. Elsewhere, Miss May I took second place with Highbrow Thieves, but our overall winners for the week was Ando San and Hype Man / Triggas.

This week we’ve looked far and wide for exciting new sounds to bring to you, whether that’s the new offerings from Trivium and Godflesh, or emergent talent like Hulder and Sable Hills. As ever, we need you to let us know which songs excite you most, so don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll below – and have a great weekend.

Sable Hills – Homura (ft. Fuki)

Epic metalcore coming out of Japan, Sable Hills’ Homura kicks off with the kind of gorgeous, soaring solo you’d expect to hear in a power metal record. They’re not imbibing the cheese though; there’s something Trivium like in their adoption of classic metal tropes – including a healthy love for In Flames style melodeath – in a slick, modern package with some Japanese folk flourishes. Keep your eyes out for new album Homura, out November 13.

Trivium – Dead Inside Of Me

Speaking of Trivs, they’re back! Fresh off the back of announcing dates in 2027 with In Flames, the boys from Orlando have offered up Dead Inside Of Me. After the more trad-metal inclined energies of In The Court Of The Dragon and What The Dead Men Say, this feels like a conscious choice to change up their sound, going for something almost Machine Head like with lumbering, bassy verses and big breakout choruses.

Hulder – …And We Will Sing

Summer is well and truly dead and we’re ready for frosty Scandinavian forests to take us into Autumn. Granted, Hulder actually hail from Washington, but there’s an undeniable Scandi-influence on their brand of black metal, with …And We Will Sing going hard on pure frosty ferocity.

Evil Invaders – Dreamstate

We had a long summer, so why not get a jump start on Halloween too? Evil Invaders sound so steeped in 80s Satanic Panic we wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t so much form as get summoned from the Necronomicon. Slayer meets Mercyful Fate, it’s gloriously over-the-top and theatrically evil, all high pitched wails and galloping guitars.

Ignea – Prefab (ft. Combichrist)

Teaming up with 00s metal veterans Combichrist, Ignea are exploring the heavier ends of their sound on Prefab. The booming, apocalyptic tones are a stark contrast to some of the more melodic fare the Ukrainians have indulged in the past, though there’s still rays of light breaking through in the keytar work that adds a little bit of levity to the whole song. The group’s new album Monumental is due October 23.

Mental Cruelty – Frost

“I’m lost in the dark!” So goes the hopeless declaration right up top in Mental Cruelty’s Frost, a desolate and suitably frosty track that sounds like staggering on a death march through the tundra. Taken from new album Echoes of a Forlorn Land, the track does a great job of balancing the relentless heft with some soft, folky melodic sections that feel are like stumbling onto a roaring hearth after an eternity out in the cold.

Cabal – Hurt Me (ft. Justine Jones)

You can practically taste the sweat flying on Cabal’s Hurt Me. From riffs that switch up between bounding beats, sudden thrashy two-steps and a spine-worrying breakdown, to the snarling exchange of vocals between Andreas Bjulver and Employed To Serve’s Justine Jones, who guests on the track, it takes metalcore back into the dingy clubs it inhabited for decades before arena stardom plucked out the likes of BMTH or Architects. Both bands are touring the UK together in November, so we’d say its good odds this one will be roadtested before long.

Zilqy – Run

With a killer main beat and big, breakout pop metal choruses, Zilqy’s Run is at once something you could see fitting in with the likes of As Everything Unfolds or Luna Kills, while being undeniably Japanese in its melodic structure without ever sounding like anyone else. It’s a dramatic and powerful track, and comes from the band’s upcoming debut Birth Of Riot, due October 7.

Ministry – Singularity

“Your time on this planet has passed.” Ministry are getting a little ahead of themselves on Singularity, but not by much. The band’s final record Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery) is set for an October 30 release and this new single leans on the mechanised, end of the world bacchanalia that’s been their bread and butter for the past four decades. Just a shame the band seem to have opted for a cheap AI video to back it up.

Godflesh – Master And Slave

It’s not a great time to be an industrial metal superfan. Or at least, not one who is hoping for a bright future. Justin Broadrick‘s Godflesh are also gearing up for a big finale, though next week’s Decay album will actually be their penultimate. Master And Slave finds the group in typically apocalyptic, claustrophobic form, sounding much as you’d expect it would if you’d been sucked into a great machine and ground to dust and mulch by unyielding gears.

Vesseles – Eternally Within Us (Reclaimed)

Mining the vein of gothic, symphonically underpinned black metal, Vesseles might be a masked and mysterious band but there’s very little Sleep Token-ish about them. Instead what we get is something feral and crawling, grandiose in its use of strings and piano without ever feeling overblown or fully orchestral. The band’s debut Home (Reclaimed) isn’t due until March 26, 2027, but this will tide us over nicely in the meantime.

Waterlines – GSiant Killers

Metalcore mixed with EDM is nothing new, lest we forget that Enter Shikari’s Sorry You’re Not A Winner blew up 20 years ago now. Even so, the number of bands who’ve found ways to properly incorporate it into their music beyond a tentative smattering of bleeps and bloops remains surprisingly low, making Waterlines still one of the standouts in the art. Rather than going down the fun, eurodance cheese route of Electric Callboy, Giant Killers takes a BMTH/Architects style hook and underpins it with some buzzing electro that at one point goes full Skrillex.

In just four years, Spiritbox have gone from playing the 800-capacity O2 Academy in Islington to headlining the UK’s biggest arena. Granted, Manchester’s Co-Op Live isn’t being used to its full capacity – curtains cover the upper decks and the room is maybe half-open, but the Canadians have managed to speedrun a progression that took Sleep Token six years – seven if we’re talking full arena tours – Ghost nine years and Bring Me The Horizon a decade.

It’s also their first real test as potential torchbearers for metal’s future. With a supporting line-up of hot, rising acts, Spiritbox have at least avoided the pipeline of dragging out legacy bands to bolster bigger tours. You’d need to get in early if you hoped to see openers Dying Wish, but as the clock ticks towards 8pm Jinjer are greeted by a full floor.

Back in 2019, the Ukrainians seemingly couldn’t play anywhere without being greeted by big SOLD OUT signs across the board, so their jump up to arena-sized stages has been a long time coming. But their biggest obstacle comes in translating their technical, acrobatic prog metal to bigger rooms. Perennial arrives with all the ferocity and violence of a Great White ram-raiding a seal, while Call Me A Symbol offers an apocalyptic death metal bluster. But there’s also a distinct lack of big hooks, and impressive as Tatiana Shmayluk’s range is – her voice rapidly switching between off-kilter melodies and throaty snarls – there’s few moments for the crowd to roar along in rapturous release.

With limited production, Jinjer are still adjusting to the space they’re playing. The rest of the band’s all-black ensemble means they often seem to disappear into the background and while it sets a stark contrast against Tatiana’s all-silver get-up that lends her the air of a rampaging crusader, it means they also feel lacking in presence. Still, the set picks up nicely in its second half, I Speak Astronomy earning an excitable pit, while Judgement & Punishment chucks up some careening force. But it’s still breakthrough single Pisces that feels like the centrepiece of the set, its swinging dynamics bringing to mind the impressive sonic dexterity of Opeth.

From their incendiary Download Festival debut to the massive Alexandra Palace gig that tied a bow on their Eternal Blue era, it’s been obvious Spiritbox are eyeing up the upper echelons of the metal world. The Tsunami Sea tour could well be the crucial stepping stone to getting them to the top. It’s not a flawless transition, mind.

Silhouetted behind a giant curtain, there’s a nice sense of drama to how Spiritbox arrive to the stage, Courtney’s shimmying form projected as a colossal figure before the curtain drops and they kick out an impressively furious one-two of Fata Morgana and Black Rainbow. Intense as those tracks are, it feels like the band only fully arrive with Perfect Soul, the pay-off of having a big anthem helping to boost the energy in the room, Keep Sweet keeping that joyous spirit going and Soft Spine is introduced with an almighty roar of “You all deserve each other!”, streamers blasted out over the crowd as the riff drops.

It’s not quite Parkway Drive or Sabaton, but things like that, the shimmering light show and a bubble machine that sprays for Tsunami Sea add nice little touches to the set that show Spiritbox are thinking about how they want to enhance their live shows.

By their own admission, the biggest obstacle is working out their sequencing. These shows feel almost like a send-off for Tsunami Sea to clear the path for what comes next. While it’s definitely great to hear so much of the album – eight of the record’s eleven tracks – it feels like some obvious massive tunes from their debut – Hurt You, Secret Garden – could’ve served the big room well.

It becomes most obvious towards the end of the set. Introducing the next track, Courtney acknowledges that Holy Roller was the song that changed everything for Spiritbox. But rather than being the big finish, it and Circle With Me arrive as something of a premature climax – a powerful one-two, but also an all-too early peak with four more songs to go. We spot a few bodies making a tactical early exit – it is a school night, after all – and while there’s seldom a good spot for a drum solo in the set, the fact it comes so late in the game just adds to the weird, post-orgasmic lull.

There’s still a couple of highlights. Crystal Roses goes full trance to the point we’re half-expecting Maxi Jazz (RIP) to drop a bar, and new single Mourning yields some Deftones-like crashing waves. But its obvious that Spiritbox need something bigger to really bring everything back home again.

In many ways though, that’s a great problem to have: anecdotally, Metallica wrote The Black Album after realising the more complex arrangements of Justice For All didn’t work in the massive rooms they were playing, and Ghost came up with Square Hammer to give them a big, orgiastic conclusion. If this is what Spiritbox can do without that big, all-conquering anthem, just imagine what they’ll do next.