(In this latest of Daniel Barkasi’s monthly album reviews for NCS he focuses on records released in February 2026.) With the snow thawing in our area – a much different tale for many in the northeast US – leaving the house has become much more of a normal feat, without the risk of slipping on […]
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After weeks of hints and interviews of “well, we’re looking into it”, it seems we’ve finally gotten some solid confirmation that Ozzfest will be returning in some capacity in the somewhat near future. That information is courtesy of a recent episode of The Osbournes podcast, where matriarch and Ozzy’s widow Sharon Osbourne shared details about the festival’s resurgence.
According to Sharon, Ozzfest will indeed be back next year, though in a limited capacity to start. The show will first launch as a two-day event at Villa Park in Birmingham, U.K. You may recall that that was the location where Ozzy and Black Sabbath’s farewell show took place last July. Then following that event, Ozzfest will head across the pond to North America for just one two-day event. No traveling Ozzfest — yet.
Sharon said the she and the organizers opted to do things this way to make sure they weren’t overcommitting to something that wouldn’t do well. She said next year’s Ozzfests will serve as a sort of litmus test to see what type of demand organizers can expect for a traveling festival.
“We wanna do two days in Aston Villa and then come to America. And we wanna hear from everyone where we should go in America. And also we’ve gotta find a lot of young, new talent, because that’s what Ozzy would want…And then see how it does. And then if people want it, we’ll be there [in the] following years.”
It’s good to see a focus on younger bands with Ozzfest in the future. That being said, later in the same interview Sharon was asked who she could see playing Ozzfest and she said she could “see Rob Halford there”. So maybe Judas Priest could be a headliner? It’s way too early to tell but that would make sense at least.
At the end of the day, Sharon said she was excited to get the festival off the ground and running, since it was something she and Ozzy had discussed before his passing, which she discussed during her recent appearance at MIDEM 2026 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.
“There was no plans to stop it. Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it.’”
The post Sharon Osbourne Confirms Ozzfest 2027 Coming to Birmingham and One North American City appeared first on MetalSucks.
Ten years ago, Justice Tripp made the fateful decision not to sing a great hardcore song. Tripp was up onstage with has band Angel Du$t at Washington, DC’s St. Stephen’s Church, a local institution that’s been hosting punk shows for decades. (Fugazi’s second show was at St. Stephen’s in 1987.) That night, Angel Du$t were playing the record-release show for Turnstile’s Move Thru Me EP. Some members of Turnstile were in Angel Du$t at the time; others were moshing and stagediving for them. It was beautiful even before the grand finale, and the grand finale is something that I never get tired of watching.
The post Angel Du$t Are One Of The Best Rock Bands In The World appeared first on Stereogum.
I don’t have much of a preamble this time around, but I’ve finally made my way through my backlog (not including my still-formidable Bandcamp wishlist). This means that all of this installment’s picks are relatively recent, with a stray few that had been sitting on my hard drive since autumn. In any case, enjoy my latest name-your-price finds, and, as usual, be sure to support the artists by buying some tunes or merch!
–Alex Chan
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Dungeon Keeper – Dungeon Metal Masters (October 31, 2025)
I was not surprised to find that this came out last Halloween. Dungeon Keeper’s scuzzy and punky take on black metal is brimming with spite and spit in equal measure. Dungeon Metal Masters will take you right back to the 90s for some filthy second-wave goodness, without all that pesky murder and fascism. It’s important to make that distinction these days, but don’t just take it from me! The band says it right there on their Bandcamp page—“Dungeon Metal against Nazi Scum”—and if you don’t like that message…well, into the dungeon with you.
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The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir, Isleptonthemoon, and Wounds of Recollection – All Things Which Came Before (November 28, 2025)
This split (or perhaps split-personality) EP features three tracks from three separate yet connected black metal entities: The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir, Isleptonthemoon, and Wounds of Recollection. All are the work of solo musician Annos, and between the three monikers, the man has something like 18 releases under his belt. TBMBMC is characterized by riffy atmospheric black metal while the other two projects hew closer to blackgaze, leaning into emo/screamo and post-rock to varying degrees. Considering that this EP is my first taste of Annos’ work, I already know that this is going to be a hell of a rabbit hole.
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Recvrse – Suffer & Remember (January 29, 2026)
A friend recommended this to me a few weeks ago, and it hit like a brick to the skull. Recvrse play blistering, confrontational hardcore that has no time for pleasantries or compromise. Dual vocalists bark out polemics like “LET THE PEOPLE DIE OR THREAD THE NEEDLE’S EYE […] IF ISAIAH WAS RIGHT ARE YOU FASTING OUT OF SPITE?” as blast beats and huge, crusty riffs explode like molotov cocktails. It would be a disservice to say that Suffer & Remember is a fitting soundtrack for 2026 thus far, as the album’s themes—and righteous fury—extend far beyond the current year.
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Nightmarer – Hell Interface (January 30, 2026)
What, pray tell, is a Nightmarer? A machine that produces nightmares? In what furnace was its brain? And what eldritch dials and levers cover the surface of its Hell interface (or is it a Hell interface of the mind)? I’ll be damned if I know, but it’s clear that this brief follow-up to 2023’s Deformity Adrift is an unnerving descent into madness helmed by a capable crew of noisemakers. The lineup is leaner and meaner this time around, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that the band has lost their edge. All-in-one guitarist and bassist Simon Hawemann summons storm clouds of dissonance to suit Paul Seidel’s tectonic, percussive assault. Christian Kolf from Valborg and Owl joins on vocals, supplementing John Collett’s golem-like growls with his own gravelly shouts.
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Ominess – Ominess (January 31, 2026)
Transylvanian Recordings describes Ominess’ self-titled debut as “Gothic Bruja Doom Metal,” and y’know what? That pretty much nails it, and it’s better than the pun I had in mind*. However, if you must know more, this witch’s brew is thick with sludgy, downtuned riffing and laced with vocals that shapeshift between sultry incantations, demonic roars, and blood-curdling screams. It’s genuinely unnerving at times, but all the more alluring for it.
* “Witches’ Broom Metal” because it’s like a witch’s brew, but witches also fly on brooms, and broom rhymes with doom…
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letterstoyou – …maybe someday became today (February 1, 2026)
Annos isn’t the only multi-project Bandcamp phenom in this article! That’s right folks: there is a new Damián Antón Ojeda pseudonym out there, and the joke here is that it’s not even that “new.” Ojeda has been quietly releasing material as letterstoyou for the better part of the last year, and I just found out about it. Can someone do me a favor and keep a running list of everything the guy puts out?
Let’s back up a bit. Ojeda is the relentlessly prolific musician behind Sadness, Trhä, life, and roughly a dozen others scattered throughout the black metal, shoegaze, emo, and electronic corners of Bandcamp. The vast majority of his work is, at the very least, pretty good, but the sheer amount of material is daunting. Between the “big three” aforementioned projects, Ojeda racked up over 20 releases in 2025 alone.
So, where does letterstoyou fit into the larger Ojedo-verse? Well, this latest EP is on the emo/screamo side of the spectrum, placing it closer to his work in life, but it leans further into the guitar harmonies and huge breakdowns that you might find in early-aughts metalcore. Think Ampere meets Killswitch Engage and you’ll be partway there. Even if none of the proper nouns I’ve name-dropped in this section ring a bell for you, ...maybe someday is as good a place to start as any.
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Belgian post-metal/heavy shoegazers Slow Crush are back today with a pair of new singles called “Que Du Noir” and “Hallowed,” their first pieces of new music since releasing their album Thirst last spring. “Que Du Noir” is massive and cacophonous, though Isa Holliday’s smooth-gliding vocal melodies keep the track sounding graceful amid all the intensity;…
The post Slow Crush – “Que Du Noir” & “Hallowed” appeared first on Stereogum.
A few interesting facts about the Russian area/province known as Chelyabinsk Oblast:
*The region, located in the southern Ural Mountains, has been home to top-secret nuclear research since the ‘40s. There was a serious nuclear accident northwest of Chelyabinsk City in 1957 which led to evacuations, fatalities and the province being closed to all foreigners for 25 years.
*A 1994 documentary by Polish-American director Sławomir Grünberg titled Chelyabinsk: The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet chronicled the region’s environmental history as well as more recent unsafe dumping of radioactive waste in local rivers and lakes. Russians are probably still pissed about foreigners being allowed in the area.
*In February 2013, a 10,000 tonne meteoroid passed over the southern Urals and exploded in a meteor air burst over the area. Fifteen hundred people were reported injured and 3000 buildings in six cities across the region were damaged by the explosion and impact.
*Chelyabinsk Oblast is home to more than 3700 lakes covering an area over 820 square miles. That Chelyabinsk City’s basketball team is called BC Chelbasket Chelyabinsk and not the Lakers is a serious injustice.
I don’t purport to know what life is like in Russia these days. I especially don’t know what life is like in Russia for a death metal band, but against what are likely some hearty odds Chelyabinsk quartet Insect Inside are set to release their second album, Reborn in Blight, tomorrow courtesy of Gore House Productions, a label based in Los Angeles, a city with far fewer than 3700 lakes whose local hoops team is nicknamed the Lakers. If you like your death metal rough, tough and inspirational enough to make you want to go out and punch cops, and you’re a fan of Devourment, Internal Bleeding, Cryptopsy, Stabbing and Defeated Sanity (whose Josh Welshman makes a guest appearance) why not take the below stream of the album for a whirl? When asked about their latest work, the band replied: “We hope that we will be able to please our music fans with this new album. We managed to create a symbiosis of groove-based slamming and dark brutal death metal. The lyrics are about the domination of the insectoid race.”
The post Album Premiere: Getting Brutally Slammed By Russia’s Insect Inside appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
The time has come for swords, steel and glory with the relentless black metal assault of Fire Magic. Hailing from Virginia, the band brings a unique and triumphant energy to their sound, blending the grandeur of classic heavy metal with raw black metal excellence — with perhaps the slightest echo of folk-metal (think the early Helheimalbums).
What you get is an expert-level execution of melody and a relentless wave of aggression in equal measure. That kind of thing goes down well at Decibel, so we’re very pleased to present the album in full here today. From the epic “Break Them Against the Mountains” to the contemplative “Imperishable Flame,” Memories of Fire promises a varied but consistent black metal experience.
Memories of Fire comes out tomorrow via Stygian Black Hand. You can find preorder information at the label’s Bandcamp page.
The post Full Album Stream: Fire Magic – <i>Memories of Fire</i> appeared first on Decibel Magazine.