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Featuring stops in San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, Vancouver, and Seattle

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One of the greatest strengths of Hellfest is the weather, and, as with most things in life, your greatest strength can also be your weakness. It’s not a ‘weakness’ per se, but when you have temperatures forecast at 45 degrees, you know it’s going to cause problems. Due to the extreme heat, the French government … Continue reading Festival Review: Hellfest 2026 Day 4 – Clisson, France

Horror fans are quite protective of their monsters, and when a new story stumbles along their path claiming to reflect some of the most classic monsters of all time in a way we’ve never seen before, you can rest assured the skepticism hits harder than a bong at Burning Man. Shockingly, the show Penny Dreadful was able to break through my immense wall of skepticism and become one of the best gothic series I’ve ever watched. Not perfect, but do we really need perfection, or have we all just become too spoiled with content that we feel every detail and nuance needs an explanation? That might be the case depending on who you ask, as many viewers of this show have expressed their immense disdain towards its fast paced ending. Wrapping up storylines they felt deserved more time to be fleshed out, despite the creator’s words reflecting an opposition to that idea. Either way you approach the ending of the story, it is just that: a beautifully dark story told over the course of twenty seven episodes and three seasons.

The first season introduces characters we are all too familiar with in the horror universe, but introduced in ways that keep its intentions fresh and intriguing. I found the plot to be somewhat slow and sleepy during the first few episodes, but as time went on, and you’re introduced to more people, you start to find out little clues that piece together a puzzle that grows in size the more you put it together. While this might sound daunting for those like me who cannot stand shows where people say “You have to stick with it!“, I will vouch for the fact that the slow build is intentional, and the rest of the series contrasts it nicely. The pace of the story requires a steady hand at first in order to build trust and inquiry, something that rushing through up front would have destroyed early on, thus making such a fast paced ending all the more worthless and without merit.

One of my favorite aspects of this story was just how historically rich it was within the realm of gothic and horror history. The production was a living, breathing entity that lent itself beautifully to the direction of everyone involved. It left you feeling like this was an actual place in time where you were witnessing these events unfold, unlike a massive set piece on a Hollywood backlot. This, in turn, gave credence to the illusion of magic and monsters when they are revealed. Your morality has no quarrel with believing its legitimacy in such a realm rich with lush layers of darkness and despair. When the fantastical elements of the story reveal themselves, it’s done in a way that doesn’t leave you questioning if it’s plausible, but rather why it took so long to get there in the first place, and what the consequences of such actions will be.

Without diving deeper into detail in an attempt to avoid spoiling any of the numerous surprises that lurk around every corner of this show, I’ll simply end my recommendation by stating how much I appreciated the finality of this story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, all standing on a foundation of truly great storytelling that encompasses everything a fan of gothic horror could ask for. Yes, there are things that could have been done differently, but as is the case in any story. Like I said earlier, this might be a result of us being too greedy in an age where information is forced down our throats at a rapid pace. When a story like this comes along with such a deep lore and history, it’s only natural for us to want more. That’s precisely why I believe many fans of Penny Dreadful felt slighted in the end. It’s a story that lures you in, holds your attention, and casts you out into the darkness when it’s finished with you, much like the monsters of the show do at their own discretion, but at least here you still have your life. One that you can use to rewatch the show as many times as your black little heart desires.

The post The Gothic Horror Series That Transformed My Skepticism Into Surrender appeared first on Autumns Eyes.

Robbie Williams has been open about his struggles with substance abuse. The topic was explored in his 2023 Netflix docuseries, and he now boasts 25 years of sobriety. But a video has gone viral of a white substance falling from his face onto a microphone during a World Cup interview, and the British singer acknowledged the controversy.

The post Robbie Williams Addresses Viral Video Showing White Substance During His World Cup Interview appeared first on Stereogum.

Today, Italian death metallers Into Darkness stream the entirety of their  long-awaited debut album, Route to the Other Side, at Decibel magazine’s website. Set for international release on July 24th via  Dying Victims Productions, hear Into Darkness‘ Route to the Other Side in its entirety exclusively HERE. Italy’s Into Darkness have been a work in progress since their formation in 2011. Led by vocalist / guitarist Doomed […]

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Every fan has a list, and every list starts a war. The best metal frontmen aren’t just singers — they’re generals, ringmasters, preachers and lightning rods, the human voltage that turns a great band into a religion.

For this ranking, Loaded Radio weighed the whole job description: the voice, the stage command, the songwriting fingerprint, the influence on everyone who came after, and that unteachable ability to hold twenty thousand people in one fist. Thirteen made the cut. Number one will start arguments at every bar in the metal world — and we stand by it. This list focuses on metal’s frontmen; the genre’s great frontwomen have their own definitive ranking right here.

13. Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)

The rare frontman who fights a guitar duel with himself every night and wins. Mustaine built Megadeth out of spite and turned it into one of the Big Four, snarling through some of the most technical thrash ever written while playing lead. The voice is an acquired taste; the attitude is the genre’s purest distillation. Nobody in metal history has weaponized a chip on the shoulder more productively.

Check Out – 13 Shocking Facts About Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine: From Witchcraft to the Ultimate Revenge

12. Alice Cooper (Alice Cooper)

Before metal had an image, Vincent Furnier invented one. Guillotines, snakes, straitjackets — Alice Cooper wrote the shock-rock playbook that KISS, Marilyn Manson, Ghost and Slipknot have been photocopying for fifty years. Still touring, still in character, still the godfather of every theatrical frontman on this list.

11. Till Lindemann (Rammstein)

Proof that a frontman doesn’t need your language to own you. Lindemann commands stadiums through sheer physical menace, a subterranean baritone, and enough pyro to violate international treaties. Rammstein became one of the biggest live acts on Earth without compromising a syllable — that’s frontman power in its rawest form.

10. King Diamond (Mercyful Fate, King Diamond)

The falsetto that launched a thousand nightmares. King Diamond fused horror theater with genuinely virtuosic vocal control and made the corpse-painted storyteller a permanent metal archetype. Without the King, there’s no black metal aesthetic as we know it. Metallica covered Mercyful Fate for a reason.

Check This Out – King Diamond’s Wildest Stories You Probably Don’t Know

9. Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses)

The most dangerous frontman of his era — sometimes to the audience, often to his own band, always to the status quo. At his peak, Axl combined a five-octave siren with genuine menace and made Guns N’ Roses the biggest band on the planet. Chaos is part of the job description, and nobody ever made chaos more magnetic.

8. Phil Anselmo (Pantera)

Anselmo didn’t perform aggression — he embodied it. As Pantera’s voice, he dragged metal out of its spandex era by sheer force, trading melody for conviction and turning every show into a contact sport. An entire generation of extreme and groove metal vocalists exists downstream of “Vulgar Display Of Power.”

7. Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour)

The modern era’s defining frontman — and he did it twice, in two different bands, in two different registers. Behind the mask with Slipknot he’s a riot in human form; with Stone Sour he proved the pipes are among the best of his generation. Twenty-five years on, nobody currently active connects arena crowds to raw catharsis like Taylor.

6. Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead)

Lemmy didn’t front Motörhead so much as personify it: mic craned high, Rickenbacker at the hip, gravel voice preaching rock and roll as a way of life. He was the credibility standard for the entire genre — punks claimed him, thrashers worshipped him, and everybody knew he was cooler than them. He was Lemmy, and you’re not.

We Recommend – The Untouchable Legacy of Lemmy Kilmister: 13 Wild Facts About the Motörhead Legend

5. James Hetfield (Metallica)

The riff master who became the voice of the biggest metal band in history. Hetfield turned a rhythm guitarist’s snarl into one of the most imitated vocal styles ever, and his “yeah-EAH” bark is basically the genre’s punctuation mark. Fronting stadiums while playing the most precise downpicking on Earth — for forty-five years — is a workload no one else on this list carries.

4. Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath)

The Prince of Darkness was the first — the voice on the record that invented the genre, from a band whose catalog we’ve ranked from front to back. The late, eternally beloved Ozzy possessed the most instantly recognizable voice in metal and a childlike, unhinged joy on stage that half a century of imitators never captured. Every frontman on this list is, in some way, working in a building Ozzy built.

3. Rob Halford (Judas Priest)

They call him the Metal God, and the title isn’t hyperbole — it’s a job description. Halford invented the leather-and-studs uniform, the air-raid scream, and the whole visual identity of heavy metal, then spent five decades proving the voice was even bigger than the image. “Painkiller,” recorded when he was 39, remains the vocal performance every metal singer measures themselves against.

Recommended – Judas Priest Albums Ranked: Why ‘Painkiller’ Is The Greatest Metal Album Ever Made

2. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)

The Air Raid Siren is metal’s greatest athlete: an operatic voice that fills stadiums without breaking stride, sprinting a stage the size of a football pitch, in his sixties, while literally piloting the band’s plane between shows. As the voice of Iron Maiden — the crown jewel of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal — Dickinson defines what a metal frontman is supposed to sound like. Only one man keeps him from the top spot.

Check Out – Iron Maiden Albums Ranked: All 17 Studio Albums, Worst To Best

1. Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio)

The greatest voice heavy metal has ever produced — and the only frontman in history to lead three legendary bands and define all three. Rainbow’s medieval majesty, Black Sabbath’s second golden age, and DIO’s self-titled empire all ran on the same impossible instrument: a small man with a colossal voice who sang every note like a prophecy. He gave metal its anthem vocabulary, its dragons and rainbows — and its very hand signal, popularizing the devil horns that every crowd on Earth now throws. Frontmen perform metal. Dio was metal. Rest in power, Ronnie — the top spot was never really a contest.

Honorable Mentions

The hardest part of any list is the door it closes. David Lee Roth practically invented the party-rock frontman. Jonathan Davis gave a generation its voice of anguish. Randy Blythe, M. Shadows, Chuck Billy, Geoff Tate, Eric Adams and Saxon’s iron-lunged Biff Byford could all headline a lesser list — and on another Tuesday, one of them might crack this one.

Think we got it wrong? Good. That’s the point of a list.

TL;DR

• Ronnie James Dio tops Loaded Radio’s ranking of the greatest metal frontmen of all time, ahead of Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford
• The top five is completed by Ozzy Osbourne and James Hetfield
• Rankings weigh voice, stage command, songwriting influence, and impact on the generations that followed
• The list spans every era, from Alice Cooper’s shock-rock blueprint to Corey Taylor’s modern dominance
• Metal’s greatest frontwomen are ranked in a dedicated companion list on Loaded Radio

FAQ

Who’s too low? Who got robbed? Drop your own top five in the comments below, and follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.

The post The 13 Greatest Frontmen In Heavy Metal History, Ranked appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Chicago progressive instrumental metal trio Coyote Man showcase a broad musical palette on their upcoming second full-length, Prosthetic Memories, but on new single, “Zealotry,” they abandon subtlety for sheer force. This is a four-minute-plus roiling bulldozer of a track that uses melody sparingly and mostly just rides a couple of relentless circular riffs. These dudes—Augie Portugal (guitar/keys), Ian Wheeler (drums/percussion), and Rene Rodriguez (bass)—have been playing together for decades (only since 2015 in Coyote Man, though), so despite the lack of vocals here, their obvious chemistry delivers a well-constructed song filled with angsty tension. Who needs vocals to convey emotion?

Prosthetic Memories was recorded in the summer of 2025 at Iron Hand Audio in Chicago. Mixing and mastering was done by Dan Klein. It’s set for release on CD, LP, and digitally on August 14. Place your preorder here.

The band described the intention behind the new single like this:

“‘Zealotry’ reflects the increasingly polarized world we inhabit, where conviction can harden into fanaticism and individuals become consumed by an endless stream of amplified opinions. Through its powerful instrumentation and dark atmosphere, the track captures the tension, division, and emotional weight of modern discourse.”

The post Track Premiere: Coyote Man – “Zealotry” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Today, French black metallers Hanternoz premiere the new track “La Lessive des Trépassés” at the Atmospheric Black Metal Albums YouTube channel. The track is the second to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated third album, A Hed an Noz, a Noz, a Noz, set for international release on August 7th via Antiq. Hear Hanternoz‘s “La Lessive des Trépassés” in its entirety exclusively HERE. This album presents you six […]

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Norwegian black metal band Northern Krig have released their new single, “Return of the Elfking.” The track was recorded and mixed at Icelandic Fire Records by Jan Reichel, while mastering was handled by Totenklang Studios. Northern Krig were formed in Oslo in 2021 by Morfran, Erik Lund, Mikkel Stein and Jonar Gunnarson following the demise […]

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Veilburner are back with their ninth album and it’s every bit as wild and weird as you would imagine. They’re evolved on this one as they always do but only sufficiently so as to retain their trademark sound and yet take their sound ahead. Two of their songs are streaming on Bandcamp AT THIS LINK. “In less than […]

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