Davies was fired from the band this past February in the wake of disturbing allegations.
The post Ex-Ingested Vocalist Josh Davies Issues Statement: “I Categorically Deny All Allegations That Have Been Circulated On Social Media” appeared first on Theprp.com.
In a world of twisted dreams
Nothing’s quite what it seems
For nearly a decade, Man + Machine has been stalking the edges of Hungary’s underground with a stack of cold machines, club instincts, and a taste for the beautiful mess where industrial abrasion, post-punk ache, and EBM discipline all meet in a locked room. Their latest EP, Birthmarks, feels like the point where that long evolution stops being merely stylistic and turns personal in a way that can’t be faked. This is a record shaped by fatherhood, by the bruising education of time, by the realization that some marks are not meant to be scrubbed clean because they have become part of the body, part of the story, part of the pulse under the skin.
Tangled Hearts opens the EP in a mood that pulls from the grave-lit grandeur of The Sisters of Mercy and the inward dusk of Clan of Xymox, with guitar and bass moving in tandem like twin weather systems rolling over the same ruined city. Man + Machine handles the vocals himself, and that matters because the song needs a voice that sounds implicated. There is yearning, but also fatigue: a sense of someone singing from inside the consequences of his own life. Lyrically, the track reaches for the faded thrill of youth and nocturnal romance, but it does so with the uneasy knowledge that those bright moments are already slipping into numbness. What lingers is the sense of a man still running after escape, still hoping another person or another night might help him outrun memory, even as he knows that certain losses and certain longings cannot be dissolved so easily. The track rises with real force, though it never shakes free of the weight dragging behind it, and that tension gives it shape.
Dream Machine widens the lens. Here, the EP slips into a cyberpunk fever, a place where people anesthetize themselves with synthetic desire and call the arrangement survival. The guest turn from Zsuzsi Radnóti gives the track an uncanny poise. Her delivery carries a cool, almost pop-adjacent clarity that makes the song’s dread hit harder, because everything sounds just polished enough to pass as pleasure. Underneath that surface, the lyrics circle a damaged world where illusion has become a form of refuge, and where surrendering to fantasy begins to feel like the last available mercy. The repeated plea is not simply to dream, but to be removed from pain, from disillusionment, from the ugliness of the waking state. Even the song’s questions about whether anyone can break free from this condition land with a kind of exhausted desperation, as though the fantasy is already swallowing the people who depend on it. It is an unusual combination, and a smart one.
Regrets comes stomping through the door in heavier boots, dragging in the steel-ribbed body language of Front Line Assembly, Nine Inch Nails, and Die Krupps. The percussion lands with blunt force, the bassline drives the track straight into your sternum, and the clanging industrial detail gives the whole thing the feeling of memory turned into machinery. Yet even here, amid the harder attack, Man + Machine keeps hold of the record’s emotional centre. This is not a tantrum set to sequencers. It is a reckoning, bitter and direct.
Hope starts blaring after the wreckage, and by then the EP has earned its tenderness. Turning toward wife and child, the song closes the circle without cheap uplift or borrowed grandeur. What comes through instead is a sober kind of devotion, the sound of a man recognizing that love is larger when it is tied to duty, fear, and the will to keep going anyway.
Listen to Birthmarks via Spotify, or below, and order here:
Co-produced again with Barnabás Horváth and expanded further by remixes from Sugar Rody and Munsinger, Birthmarks feels like the first crack in a larger wall. Out now on Crave Tapes, it catches Man + Machine in transition, still welded to the club, but looking at life with different eyes.
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The post “Plug Me In, Let Me Dream” — Hungarian Artist Man + Machine Forges EBM, Darkwave, and Post-Punk into “Birthmarks” EP appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
Mighty Swedish Modern Melodic Metallers, BATTLE BEAST head to Australia for the first time EVER this month, marking the first shows with NEW singer Marina La Torraca. Not only will the shows be their first Down Under, but the opening performance in Perth will also mark the debut shows with La Torraca out the front! […]
Finnish hard rock/metal titans Battle Beast touch down in Australia any minute now for their debut tour of this country. Not only are they primed for battle, the band is also welcoming powerhouse new vocalist Marina La Torraca to the fold. BATTLE BEAST are excited for this new chapter and look forward to bringing fresh […]THRAXAS!, WHISPERHEAD, NAUGRIM and T-REX AUTOPSY AT THE BAROQUE ROOM, KATOOMBA. FEBRUARY 28, 2026
For Katoomba’s dose of Thraxas!’s ‘Regional Rampage’ tour, an excited horde of metal fans had congregated at The Baroque Room, next to the historic Carrington Hotel. Sharing stories, beers and smokes while bathed in some of the last summer rays of late February, their energy built collective anticipation for the gritty, grim musicality that was soon to ensue. As is tradition.
Despite the efforts of local scenemakers such as hardcore promoter Young Nerve and our DIY underground scene, heavy events in the Blue Mountains are still quite scarce. In 2025, we received a visit from Black Rheno and a Metallica tribute show in March, before a night of Flaming Wrekage in October. As a result of this, certain participating fans are often inclined to throw down with wild abandon when the time finally comes.
Headbanging, stomping and slam-dancing their merry way through the night’s four sets, 20% of the crowd began their aggressive aerobics to the esoteric-yet-pummelling sounds of T-Rex Autopsy, who are based between the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and further afield. They delivered a tight, surprising set featuring a few choice cuts from their debut 2025 album, Cygnus Atratus (‘Black Swan’). In a head-spinning flurry of eclectic influences, they combined acoustic Middle Eastern elements amongst quick-changing breakdowns and thrash sections, to offer a savage set both serious and satirical – see ‘Heavy Metal Awesome Sandwich’ for proof. A few months after winning Good Things’ band heats in Sydney to perform at the TOOL-headlined festival, their tightness, energy and personality is still as fierce as ever.
Working to facilitate more events in the national metal scene with United Front Touring, recently working with Yob, Pallbearer and Conan, while honing his vocal chops as the towering frontman of Naugrim, Greg McManus is reminiscent of an outback Randy Blythe. Naugrim’s stadium-sized energy yearned to break free from the venue’s cosy confines, and was creatively anchored by a mix of melodeath sections harking back to the 90s Gothenburg sound of At The Gates, with groove sections fit Pantera and Lamb Of God fans. Towards the end of the set, they dedicated playing their latest single ‘Desolation’ to a recently departed friend, rebellious biker Jason McCallister, before rallying us to yell “FUCK CANCER”. Gaining a reputation as a supergroup loosely tied to the Lithgow area, Naugrims’ members have a combined track record of playing in death metal, doom and grindcore bands such as Carnal Viscera, Celestial Oath and Festering Drippage, along with the guitar-less death metal band 12-Gauge Rampage, who cast the late McCallister in two of their music videos.
The award for farthest-travelling band of the night may well go to Whisperhead from Dubbo, the second last band on the bill and the main interstate support for Thraxas! A new arrival to the live scene of the Blue Mountains, who run their own festival in their hometown – Whisperfest, now in
its fourth year – they quickly overcome any unfamiliarity with the mountains locals by launching into a set defined by bouncy, attitude-laden low-end, fast and venomous vocal delivery, sharp
riffs and percussive punch. It’s a darkly alternative approach of extremity, offering the pulsing syncopation of nu-metal with an industrial tinge, with deliberately ashen-faced frontman Nolan Furnell cresting atop the controlled chaos with vocal speed and occasional rapping echoing Iowa-era Corey Taylor. Fans of Slipknot, Deftones and Fear Factory would get a kick out of these guys. Folks living further out west can catch Whisperhead at Portland’s Ironfest on April 18, who will appear on the bill alongside Celestial Oath, Tap Hammer and Red Planet Repairs, performing some of their latest singles that have recently appeared on YouTube as formidable music videos.
The room is humid and thick with people, and the drinks are flowing. It’s time for the headliners. To quote the wisdom of Iron Maiden in 1992, to “be quick or be dead” is the approach that the venue’s two main groups of metal fans may have adapted by their showtime – hailing from Western Sydney and the Hawkesbury – the mighty Thraxas! While those who can still pound the ground are firing on all cylinders, potentially aided by a few crisp brews, others stand back to witness the onslaught of the headliners. After such an intense night of music, the last remaining ounces of energy left in some of us are thoroughly squeezed out by the crushing force of the dual drop-B guitars expertly exercised by vocalist Bull Woods and Aleks Radmanovich, a proud woman of shred, backed by drummer Izak Easterbrook and bassist Dan Andrews. Their performance is as pummelling as it is purifying, helping to reinforce the night’s reminders of why we fell in love with heavy, violent and deafening music in the first place. Formed around 2011 to release their first music online back in 2019, Thraxas! reveal traces of classic thrash acts like Exodus, Testament and ‘The Big Four’, peppered with seismic breakdowns, contorted into new angles in crowd favourites such as ‘Seven Sided Strike’, ‘Violent Vacation’ and ‘Blast Shadows’. The radioactive cartoon aesthetic of hard-partying thrashers like Municipal Waste and Gama Bomb is also reflected, through tracks such as their early single ‘Cthulhu Rising’. With a performance calibre this high, it’s no surprise to see Thraxas! becoming live favourites at Crowbar Sydney and The Gov, while supporting international acts like Alarum and Burning Witches and being added to the bill of Brisbane’s upcoming Shredfest, headlined by Mortal Sin. Then, with ears ringing and heads spinning, we get swept off the floor and turned loose into the darkness.
With a bit of luck and a lot of perseverance, future collective momentum will hopefully keep redefining NSW metal from a cult-like genre to one with more social acceptance. That being said, the semi-outlaw reputation of some of its bands and fans maintains its appeal as an extreme music genre that is comfortable in the shadows, constantly building force like a dormant volcano.
When will it rampage the region again?
SŁOŃ, DROWNED IN SILVER and DIVING STOVE also confirmed for Szczecin’s debut edition
Szczecin, Poland; 26 February 2026: Hells Bells Festival has unveiled thrash metal royalty Frank Blackfire as the spearhead of its latest line-up announcement. The legendary guitarist, renowned for his work with Sodom and Kreator, will arrive in Szczecin with a set specifically curated from the cult thrash metal anthems he helped create. Festival attendees can expect a trip through the history of Teutonic thrash, featuring tracks from iconic albums such as Persecution Mania, Agent Orange and Coma of Souls.
The festival also welcomes Słoń, a pioneer of horrorcore/death rap in Poland and the head of Brain Dead Familia. Słoń has built a reputation for live shows that rival any metal concert in intensity. With a performance style that ignites walls of death and mosh pits in the audience, his presence on the Łasztownia waterfront bridges the gap between extreme rap and the metal underground.
The atmosphere will shift toward the mystical with the addition of Drowned In Silver. Despite their recent debut album Mothers, via the respected Pagan Records, the band consists of seasoned veterans from across the black metal and experimental scenes. Their music provides a unique balance between occult rock and trance-like expression: dark, heavy and deeply immersive.
Rounding out the announcement is Diving Stove, a fresh force that has taken the Polish scene by storm. Known for their wild and unpredictable live performances, the band’s most recent release is their stellar thrash masterpiece, Atavism.
These new additions join previously confirmed acts: Dirkschneider (All-Accept set), Grave Digger, Possessed, NunSlaughter, The Materia, Pretensje, Cockney Rejects, Vader, Discharge, Furia, Dezerter, Belzebong, The Stubs, Dola, Hamulec and Seks W Czasach Wojny.
Tickets: https://hellsbells.pl/
Hells Bells Festival will take place in the heart of Szczecin, Poland, on 26-27 June 2026. The venue is the scenic Plac Gryfitów on Łasztownia, a historic island district in Szczecin known for its iconic “Craneosaurs” (historic port cranes) and stunning views of the Oder River.
Early bird weekend tickets have sold out but general weekend tickets are still available via the official festival website. One-day tickets will be available in mid-March following the conclusion of the band announcements. This will also be the moment when festival prices increase, so attendees are encouraged to purchase their passes today to secure the current rate. Discounted options, including the Youth Pass (ages 13-18) and Family Pass (adult with child under 13), remain available.
Secure your entry now: https://hellsbells.pl/
Source: 3nation
Last year, Sudan Archives returned with her latest record The BPM, which we named one of the best albums of 2025. Now, Brittney Parks is back with a cover of Sade’s 1992 song “Cherish The Day” for SiriusXMU.
The post Watch Sudan Archives Cover Sade For XMU appeared first on Stereogum.
Glass Mansions return with a glowing burst of emotion and energy on their latest pop-rock single, “Sunsetting”. The track captures that beautiful, fleeting moment between light and darkness and turns it into an anthem filled with soaring melodies and heartfelt intensity.
Glass Mansions blend shimmering pop sensibilities with driving rock instrumentation, creating a sound that feels both expansive and intimate. The vocals carry a sense of reflection and urgency, gliding over layered guitars and a steady beat that builds as the song progresses to keep it engaging. There’s a bittersweet warmth in the songwriting, capturing themes of change, nostalgia, and a feeling that you can never quite get rid of to make it relatable for the masses.
The chorus is especially powerful, bursting with raw energy that is big time and make everything felt that much more to make it undeniable. With “Sunsetting,” Glass Mansions deliver a vibrant pop-rock experience that is captivating and connects in every way to give a true experience of music that checks all the boxes to make you want to keep coming back for more.
Check out Glass Mansions “Sunsetting” bellow and follow them on Instagram. Stay Global my Friends!
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On March 6, 1975, a record came on the scene that showed the evolution of a great musician’s sound and style.
The post 51 Years Ago Today, This Legendary Musician Changed His Sound appeared first on Audio Ink Radio.