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Featuring longtime favorites alongside new material from their upcoming album, ‘Dead Company’

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Spaniards Streamer have launched a video clip for “Rock All Around”, the first single from their forthcoming long player Into The Void.
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Wow. Wasn’t May just the other day? It seems like it to me! The fifth month of our Lord bestowed much quality material on us, and there were at least 4 key releases that garnered strong, fanboying support from the AMG peanut gallery located deep in the recesses of the Skull Pit. Funny thing about that gallery – they’re all tasteless hacks, but they’re OUR tasteless hacks, so we try to honor their likes.

Panopticon finally completed their massive Laurentian Trilogy with the release of Det hjemsøkte hjertet [out May 8th from Nordvis Productions (Bandcamp)], and the concluding installment has been received very positively by the metalsphere and elite intelligentsia alike. While we’re definitely not part of that elite metal intelligentsia ourselves, we have to agree with their positive buzz this time. This is a deeply introspective and nostalgic work of atmospheric folked blackness, written as a reflection of things remembered and things lost as the final curtain closes on a life. The material feels cathartic and delivers a long-building release. As Thus Spoke beautifully summed up, “A more perfect way to end things could not exist. My heart clings longingly to the place evoked by Det hjemsøkte hjertet‘s consuming atmosphere and touching humanity.” Moods 4 sale!¹

Runner(s) Up:

Draconian // In Somnolent Ruin [May 8th, 2026 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Sweden’s eternal Gothic doom crew Draconian have been at the crying game for a long, long time. Some of the names and faces have changed over the years, but the core sound and formula remains much the same. On eighth album In Somnolent Ruin, their doom edge is still sharp and ready to cut holes in your heart as only well-executed Goth-doom can. Unhurried and loaded down with bittersweet, exquisitely sad vocals from returning original singer Lisa Johansson, and anchored by the death roars of Anders Jacobsson, the Draconian experience still plucks heartstrings as it shakes the spinal cord. Perhaps most surprising is just how good the songwriting is across the entire album. It’s no surprise Kenstrosity spelled it out as “A love letter to Draconian’s storied past and a celebration of their modern era, refined to staggering excellence.” Taste the tears!

A Forest of Stars // Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface [May 8th, 2026 | Prophecy Productions | Bandcamp] — Britain’s avant-garde prog metal weirdos A Forest of Stars never did things the easy way. They blend genres with little regard to what should and shouldn’t go together, and somehow things usually work for them. With doom as a central tenet, the oddly named Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface unrolls a lengthy tapestry of sounds and styles for the patient listener. Long song lengths are kept lively by creative, dynamic writing and often unhinged vocal performances. A wild ride awaits the daring listener. As Grymm elegantly concluded, “A Forest of Stars, in a just world, should be heralded as purveyors of odd, eclectic metal. Here’s hoping that Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface is as much a jumping-on point for many of you as it was for me.” Get this Forest package!

 

The post Record(s) o’ the Month – May 2026 appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

This is the latest EP from Russian black/death metal band Thanatomass. Following on from 2023’s Hades, Thanatomass have now returned with the three-track EP The Rabid Dead. Across 20 minutes, Thanatomass deliver a scorching display of corrosive black/death nastiness. The EP opens with the title track’s furious barrage of monstrous riffs and screaming solos. The vocals are … Continue reading “Thanatomass – The Rabid Dead (Review)”

For the first time ever, Steve Hogarth, the unmistakable voice of Marillion and one of progressive rock’s most expressive vocalists, will perform in Australia, bringing his acclaimed solo show, H Natural, to audiences in Sydney and Melbourne this December.  Known simply as “h”, Steve has fronted Marillion for more than 37 years, helping shape one […]

[Cover Art by Jerry “Wyrmwalk” Hionis]

Damnation’s Veil, the sophomore effort from Maryland crossover thrashers Ninth Realm, has got me thinking a little bit about time travel. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of a particular album converting your brain into an inter-dimensional time machine that can journey to the battlefields of the distant past or the freshly terra-forming ecosystems of the far-flung future. Damanation’s Veil’s had just such an effect, transporting me all the way back to … about four months ago in Houston, Texas. That was when I took a fleeting break from the responsibilities of being a husband and dad to attend the Hell’s Heroes festival.

Hell’s Heroes was a blast. I got to witness a breathtakingly accomplished performance of Balls to the Wall by Udo Dirkschneider and his band of merry shredders. I locked arms with fellow travelers and reveled in a reputation salvaging performance by the recently much-maligned (at least in these corners) Eternal Champion. And, to the point of today’s topic, I was reminded that listening to heavy meal is, at least to me, a significantly physical experience. If you’ll allow me to set aside the ethics of moshing debate for a moment, I’d like to simply assert that every so often I really enjoy being in an environment of friendly, consensual violence. Given my day to day largely revolves around teaching toddlers about the finer points of active listening, sharing and thinking about our words before we say them out loud (and trying to practice those lessons myself through endless screen-mediated check-ins and loop-backs) no part of me can deny the salutatory effects of being hurled to the ground by a 300-lb Mexican dude wearing a Pleasure to Kill back patch.

Here was my medium responsible HH routine: embrace the fleeting and exquisite opportunity to sleep past 10 AM, wander the streets of Houston in search of a passable breakfast, then return to my hotel room and drink 4 Shiner Bocks as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t have to drop $10 for a domestic brew at the venue. And so anyway, the first few hours on the festival grounds after the bocks were go-time, dawg. Very few of my favorite bands hit the stage in these hours, but the most enduring memories of the festival revolved around trading forearms and shoulder-meat with my fellow weekend warriors during sets from Toxic Holocaust, Tankard and Whiplash. It’s all a bit of blur of getting knocked to the ground, picked back up, and hoisted ass over elbow into a sea of frantic and friendly arms only to be safely deposited right back down onto my own two feet. For a feller like me who has a golden retriever where his brain ought to go, it’s simply a 10/10 experience. But here’s where I have to kinda hand it to the anti-mosh contingent: as much as those post-Bock bashings are precious memories to me, the actual sound of the music is not a core part of those recollections.

So what’s up with all this yammering, then? What’s up is that Ninth Realm mostly makes the kind of muscular metalcore that I would very much enjoy getting my ass beat to, and then immediately forget.

This is hard hitting but po-faced stuff–the kind of no-nonsense battery that mostly serves to remind the

listener that nonsense is often where the beauty lives in this whole putting emotions to sound game. Track after track relies on a reliable but reliably predictable formula of 1-3-4 power chord thrashings, with fleeting melodies exactly doubled or harmonized at the fifth. Tough guy stuff, no time for goofs and gaffes on the track when there’s frowning to be done. “Damnation’s Veil” is a competently structured mid-paced bruiser built around a foreboding Phrygian scale riff that could certainly motivate a pack of goons to strut around in concentric circles.

“Cohorts of the Abyss” is another mover, conjuring Dismember’s conjuration of Autopsy.  You know what I’m hearing on these tracks? I’m hearing rehearsal room riffs arranged into tracks in Spartan fashion. Big sounding shit that absolutely bangs coming out of the amps or through the playback monitors, but starts to wither a bit under the scrutinizing ears of weary listeners looking for a little something/anything to make them say “hmmm.” And so yes, mostly, Damnation’s Veil is less a record of note than promotional material for a live experience.

But, ah! That mostly is load bearing. This one does have some shit it.

“Wyrd of Stideborne” is less stern metallic hardcore and more jaunty melodic metalcore with a some sugar tossed in the tea thanks to harmonized riffing atop homesick Scandi-style tremolo. “Twilight’s Blade” takes us to the NWOBHM zone; while much of Damnation’s Veil is built around stock and blocky down-picked riffs, here the horses get their chance to gallop and they’re runnin’ free, yeah. While I’ll bet this one was born in the jam room, it also carries the mark of some lonely hours in the woodshed getting tweaked until it was just right. “Beyond the Void” is your standout. There’s a chain-swinging bluesy breakdown here that, yes, will absolutely slit throats in a live setting and through your sensible motor vehicle’s sound system. Rather than just pushing aggression uber alles, here the boys ease up the gas, develop some interesting and catchy riffs, and set your ears up to really hear them. I’d take much, much more of this.

Ca. 2026, the metal critics job is less about telling you what you ought to listen to, and maybe more about giving you a few inklings about how you ought to listen to it. My “how” here is pretty simple; get off your ass for Damnation’s Veil. Throw some weight around to this album. Plug it in for when you need a little boost at the end of a run. Do you ever just go into your backyard and throw stuff? These be jams for huckin’ stuff; not sitting and thinkin’. And, by all means, if the opportunity arises to get cordially pummeled by your fellow man while Ninth Realm does their thing in the background, take it. 

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