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DIY generated atmospheric Blackened Death Doom from Shrewsbury. Yep, sitting amidst the Tudor tea shops, the medieval market town appears a bit too sleepy to produce such filth. Alongside the River Severn, this link between Wales and England has brewed up something a little unseemly as Drowning Hour release The Pain Of Loss.

Drowning Hour – The Pain Of Loss

Release Date: 19 August 2026

Words: Paul Hutchings

Two big slabs of misery hold the centre of this four-track EP together. After the introduction, The Visitation, it is the slow, glacial pace of The Longing that takes the attention.

Now, there is nothing here that did not feature in the early ’90s. Think some early Opeth, Katatonia, Anathema, My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, and you are in the right ballpark. The riffs are crushing, lumbering, almost grinding to a halt whilst Kieran Scott, yes, him of Death Collector and Ashen Crown, roars his way across them.

Scott is joined by Kelly Gobold on clean, ethereal vocals, and she adds a nice contrast to what is a rather routine delivery. 

Yes, plenty of energy and enthusiasm went into this, and there is nothing wrong with the lumbering beast that is The Inheritance. It is, however, nothing new, though Scott’s bristling death growls are well suited to the devastating slumber that the songs induce.

These are no spring chickens after all. It is punishing, at times a wall of noise that brings a sludgy corrosion to the ears. It is downright nasty yet bristles with a pleasing melody that contrasts and confuses. Am I loving it? Well, I certainly am enjoying it, despite the brooding malevolence that festers in the darkness. Intimidation? Sinister threat? Probably both.

Two big numbers that rely on brute force, then, which echo the melancholy of the finale, The Farewell. This clearly eases out the story and closes the EP, and works fantastically well. Enchanting in its melancholic delivery, the contrast is stark.

It is this final switch that really pushes this EP into the upper echelons. The bruising death elements are of limited impact but throw in a shimmering vision with all the fragility of an ice sculpture, and I am gone. It captures the lot.

Huge potential then from Scott, Kelly Gobold, Craig Gobold (Rhythm Guitar, Bass, Drums and mix/master) and Dan Ashley (Lead Guitar). The Pain of Loss is well worth checking out.

Drowning Hour release The Pain of Loss on 19 August 2026. For more details, find them on Bandcamp.

The post Drowning Hour / The Pain Of Loss Turns Crushing Misery Into Melancholic Beauty first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

The Upsides return with Pretending It Fades, a compelling indie rock track that balances emotional weight with a more expansive, guitar-driven sound. Built around melodic hooks, a strong bass presence, and a memorable chorus, the song explores the aftermath of a breakup while looking beyond the obvious pain of loss. Rather than simply portraying heartbreak as something to overcome, the lyrics suggest that difficult relationships can reshape a person, leaving behind a different version of themselves. The New York City four-piece brings together jangly guitar influences, energetic rhythms, and a heavier edge that reflects their evolving sound. With Matt and Dan Fullam joined by Matt DaSilva and Hart Mechlin, The Upsides continue moving beyond their earlier guitar-pop roots toward a bigger, more ambitious alternative rock identity.

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Deux Visages is vocalist Daphney Hanono, guitarist Jack Chiu and bassist Tony Jouvin. Their emergence has been a whirlwind.

VENUS GRRLS are looking to make a huge stir with the release of a new EP, brimming with intrigue and intensity.

Titled ‘To Die As Lovers May’, it will be released on October 16 via Killabop.

The band had this to say about the release:

‘To Die as Lovers May’ is an exploration of death, love, and viscera. Drawing heavily on dark romanticism, it explores the beauty amongst the macabre and the vision that lives amidst the fog. Combining the melancholy of 90s grunge with haunting 80s goth, ‘To Die as Lovers May’ is an ode to the more peculiar and darker corners of the human experience, both in life and after death. With influences from 19th-century literature and twisting the tales of mythology, the story told is one of romance, decay, and acquiescence.”

The artwork looks like this:

Whilst the tracklisting is more like this:

1. Eve
2. Carmilla
3. Mother Knows
4. Evergreen
5. Wormfood

The EP will feature the already unleashed ‘Eve’, as well as the freshly unveiled ‘Mother Knows’.

An atmospheric, riff-heavy, seductive slice of enrapturing rock and roll, it is a track inspired by the legend that Frankenstein author Mary Shelley once had sex on top of her mother’s grave.

Vocalist GK had this to say about it, explaining, “There’s a lot of discourse and nuances to whether this truly happened, but the alleged event really struck me visually and immediately inspired me to narrate it lyrically. Toying with some imagery in her iconic novel, Frankenstein, I wanted there to be a double entendre within the lyricism. Her written character, Victor Frankenstein, brought flesh to life, and I liked the idea of passion and sex also metaphorically bringing flesh to life, too.”

Whilst guitarist Eliza Lee had this to say about the instrumental:

“I got to channel some of my inner 70s rock god by bowing the guitar on the bridge, “ she says of one of the more ethereal moments in the track. “I’ve always loved the haunting effect you can get with a violin bow that I don’t really think you can replicate with gadgetry, it felt like the right move for the graveyard ambience of the song.”

The band will also be heading out on a headline tour to see out the year in style. Here are the dates:

OCTOBER

28 – GLASGOW Audio
29 – NEWCASTLE Cluny 2
30 – STOCKTON Georgian Theatre 
31 – NOTTINGHAM Bodega

NOVEMBER

02 – BRISTOL Exchange
03 – CARDIFF Clwb Ifor Bach
04 – LONDON The Lower Third
06 – LIVERPOOL 02 Academy 2
07 – LEEDS Belgrave Music Hall

The post VENUS GRRRLS Announce New EP ‘To Die As Lovers May’ appeared first on Rock Sound.

Melodic Hard Rockers Crusader return with new single ‘Breaking Out‘, having left everyone speechless in 2025 with their EP ‘In For The Kill‘. Now there’s some news and updates from the British band: “To thank you for your support and to celebrate the imminent vinyl & merch release for ‘In For The Kill‘ we’re releasing […]

The post Crusader Release New Single ‘Breaking Out’ appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.

Interview by Ali Williams If you call yourself a true-blue supporter of the Australian heavy music landscape, then the name Segression shouldn’t just ring a bell—it should trigger absolute, unadulterated audio warfare in your eardrums. For three decades, these Wollongong legends have stood as one of the country’s most relentless and enduring metal forces, a […]

Frank Beard, the longtime drummer of ZZ Top and the foundation behind some of rock’s most recognisable songs, has died at the age of 77 at his ranch in Richmond, Texas. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator,” Billy Gibbons said, “and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top.”

Born Frank Lee Beard in Frankston, Texas, on 11 June 1949 and raised in Irving, Beard began playing drums as a teenager. Beard played with bassist Dusty Hill in groups including The Cellar Dwellers, The Warlocks and American Blues.

In late 1969, Beard joined Billy Gibbons and recommended Hill for the bass position, completing a lineup that would remain together for more than half a century.

A rhythmic chemistry can be heard throughout ZZ Top’s songs, from the raw blues rock of the band’s early records to the polished, technologically adventurous sound that made them global stars during the ’80s, when the band achieved international success with Eliminator in 1983.

Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs all became major hits, helped by a series of videos that made ZZ Top fixtures of the MTV era.

Frank Beard brought the disciplined beat that allowed a little old band from Texas to become one of rock’s most enduring institutions. He is survived by his wife Debbie Meredith and his three children.

Frank Beard – 11 June 1949 – 17 August 2026

The post Frank Beard, ZZ Top Drummer, Dies Aged 77 first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

Amsterdam 5-piece, The Klittens, are releasing their long-awaited debut album, Have a Heart, combining their love of pop music with a dark sensibility

Woe is me, woe is you
Woe consumes both us two

Heartbreak has a cruel invertibility: the person who opens the wound can remain the person we most want to close it. After love breaks, desire divides against itself. One half wishes for a return, for the old tenderness to be restored and the damage somehow withdrawn; the other wants the absent lover to wake inside the same pain, because understanding can feel incomplete until it is physical. Reconciliation and retribution begin to share a border. “Come back” and “suffer as I have” become rival versions of the same plea: see what happened to me.

That double wish supplies the emotional engine of DECEITS’ latest single, One Day You’ll Hurt As Much As Me. Released on March 25th, the song is the Los Angeles duo’s first official release with Get Better Records. It now receives a brilliantly shot video directed by Raquel Rojas, who gives its divided feelings a physical route through memory, childhood, and the disappearing view from a train window.

A thick, melodic bass figure takes the first step, with Francisco Saenz’s drums answering in a cymbal splash before a dance-minded hi-hat locks the song into motion. Above them, a sustained guitar riff trembles around its melody. Kevin Moreno sings with a Robert Smith-like romantic ache, drawing out the opening supplications before compressing the repeated phrase about silent suffering into a quick, addictive cadence. The Cure resemblance lives in the emotional pitch, while DECEITS propel the song with the rapid, bass-led momentum of faster Cure songs such as “Primary,” allowing grief to pass through the body rather than remain fixed as a confessional dirge. Among the duo’s recordings to date, it ranks as one of their strongest: romantic post-punk with real velocity and a chorus made for a crowded room.

Moreno’s lyrics keep the song’s lover in incompatible roles: desired comforter, departing betrayer, and imagined fellow sufferer. He asks for closeness and a cure, then for abandonment and emotional erasure, as though every available exit must be tested. “Woe is me, woe is you” is the song’s plainest and most revealing line, making misery reciprocal before the title turns that symmetry into a future verdict. The wish carries spite, but also a bruised faith in recognition: someday, perhaps, the other person will feel enough to understand.

The video’s director Raquel Rojas gives that emotional bargain a coastal route. Moreno and Saenz ride an Amtrak car visited—or perhaps accompanied—by Gustavo Alexander Moreno and Logan Martínez as their childhood counterparts. Present-day close-ups dissolve into grainy footage of the children on station platforms and at the beach, building in the sand and racing beside the water as the train follows the Pacific. The carriage becomes a place where youth and adulthood can share seats without quite seeing one another.

Performance scenes place the duo inside a chain-link pedestrian overpass and beside the tracks, with the bright coast visible beyond the enclosure. Past and present seem briefly reversible, yet the edits never grant them a clean reunion; each age slips over the other like damaged film. Travel supplies movement without escape. By the closing views from the window, the landscape is retreating too quickly to hold, leaving the video’s central question unresolved: were those earlier days genuinely easier, or has distance made them kinder than they were?

Watch the video for “One Day You’ll Hurt As Much As Me” below:

Since forming in 2021, longtime friends Moreno (vocals and instruments) and Saenz (drums and percussion) have built DECEITS from the ground up. The duo self-released its catalog, accumulated millions of streams, sold out tours, and produced vinyl pressings that disappeared almost as soon as they became available. The partnership with Get Better Records marks a significant turn in that history while preserving the fiercely independent spirit that brought them this far.

DECEITS draw upon the color, rhythm, and emotional directness of the Spanish-language music they grew up with, shaping a warmer and more kinetic form of post-punk. Their all-analog live setup and punk beginnings lend each set a degree of instability: arrangements breathe, tempos flex, and no two performances land exactly the same way. That combination of romantic intensity and physical force has earned the band an international following throughout the dark alternative underground.

The duo has appeared on bills with She Past Away, She Wants Revenge, New Order, and Anka Huwe of Xmal Deutschland. On November 14th, DECEITS will perform at Darker Waves Festival in Huntington Beach alongside Morrissey, The Smashing Pumpkins, Simple Minds, Gary Numan, The Psychedelic Furs, The Damned, and more.

Listen to “One Day You’ll Hurt As Much As Me” below and order the single through here.

Follow DECEITS:

• Website
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• Facebook
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Bandcamp
• TikTok

The post “We Suffer Oh So Silently” — Los Angeles Romantic Post-Punk Duo Deceits Share Video for “One Day You’ll Hurt As Much As Me” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

After saying To Hell With You and taking off down Satan’s Highway, Melbourne metal vocalist Kat Wilder returns with her third solo single, Running Wild. Delivering another slab full of downpicking fury, twisting riffs and soaring vocals, Running Wild is pure unadulterated heavy metal. Kat says she has “never fit in with mainstream society and […]