Blog

  • XTINGUISH THE CODE: Bronx, New York Metallic Hardcore Outfit To Release The Conflict LP March 27th On Grey Matter Records; “Despair” And Preorders Posted

    photos by Joseph Maran Bronx-based metallic hardcore band XTINGUISH THE CODE presents their second album, The Conflict, set for release March 27th on Grey Matter Records. A band with NYHC running through their DNA, XTINGUISH […]

    The post XTINGUISH THE CODE: Bronx, New York Metallic Hardcore Outfit To Release The Conflict LP March 27th On Grey Matter Records; “Despair” And Preorders Posted appeared first on INFRARED MAGAZINE.

  • “We took a break and made some tea. Within 20 minutes Steve had written the words.” How Humble Pie made the ultimate whiplash boogie white boy blues

    With its monolithic riff and yelping lead vocal, the live version of Stone Cold Fever typifies Humble Pie, one of the best live blues-rock bands of their era
  • Seattle’s Ghost Fetish Returns With the Soft-Focus Synthpop Dream of “Someone”

    Seattle’s Ghost Fetish returns with Someone, a song that wears its longing lightly but leaves a lasting impression. There is something quietly spellbinding in the way it moves, balancing romantic ache with a calm, graceful restraint. Rather than pushing toward melodrama, the band lets the feeling gather slowly, giving Someone the soft, suspended glow of a memory that has not quite faded and a desire that has not quite found its words.

    The track carries traces of Kraftwerk’s clean-lined discipline, though here that sense of order is softened into something far more tender and dream-struck. Ghost Fetish takes those old components and lets them breathe, until the machinery feels less mechanical than intimate: analog tones churning gently like old machines lost inside a dream. The synths move in slow succession, warm and luminous, with a motorik pulse underneath, but they are framed with a pop instinct closer to New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies, where pleasure and panic can occupy the same room and stare each other down without blinking. There is also a melancholic whimsy in the song that recalls a Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me-era Cure deep cut or B-side, the whole thing seeming to drift slowly out of reach like a dream kissed by dawn light slipping through a windowsill.

    And Fenwick sings through the bubbling reverie as though he is trying to talk himself into composure while the room tilts around him. At moments, there is a large-hearted reach that suggests Arcade Fire; elsewhere, the emotional directness calls up Future Islands, that same willingness to sound wounded in full view of the crowd without sanding away the edge. It gives the song a bruised grandeur, a sense of desire turning over in its sleep and waking up with its fists clenched.

    Listen to Someone below and order the single here.

    As the latest preview of Sculpture, due June 11th, 2026, Someone feels like a promise that Ghost Fetish have sharpened their sense of drama without losing the nerve that made them worth watching in the first place. Grand confusion may be the condition of the age, but this lovely song finds a small clarity inside it: love, lust, fear, and need, all dressed in black and lit from below.

    Catch Ghost Fetish live:

    • 4/30/2026 – Seattle – Baba Yaga
    • 5/1/2026 – Portland – Coffin Club

    Follow Ghost Fetish:

    The post Seattle’s Ghost Fetish Returns With the Soft-Focus Synthpop Dream of “Someone” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

  • Friday Dies Dive Deep Into New Single “I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” and Upcoming Album The Sky is the Ocean – @thebeast

    Friday Dies Dive Deep Into New Single “ I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” and Upcoming Album The Sky is the Ocean

    There’s something refreshing about a band that doesn’t tiptoe around their message. Friday Dies have always leaned into honesty, grit, and raw perspective, and their latest single “ I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” proves they are still pushing forward with that same spirit.
    The track serves as the first glimpse into the band’s upcoming album The Sky is the Ocean , and according to the band, it stands apart from the rest of the material in a big way.
    A Song Built on Hard Truths

    For vocalist Shay Hazlewood , the song comes from deeply personal ground.
    She explains that the lyrics are rooted in real life experiences where systems and people who were supposed to provide support ultimately failed.
    Instead, she found that strangers with no obligation often proved more reliable than institutions meant to protect and guide.
    That stark reality is exactly what fueled the title and emotional core of the song.
    Why This Song Led the Charge

    Interestingly, “ I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” wasn’t the obvious pick at first. Guitarist Mark Friday says the track is somewhat of a “ stepchild” compared to the rest of the album.
    While most of the upcoming record leans more heavily into traditional metal roots, this particular song pushes outside those boundaries. That difference is exactly why it became the lead single. Once it started gaining momentum internally, the band decided to let it run with the spotlight.
    Blending Thrash, Melody, and Classic Influences

    Musically, the track showcases an interesting blend of elements.
    Mark intentionally set out to combine classic rock foundations with modern melodic sensibilities and even hints of Baroque- influenced structure. The result is something that still carries the aggression thrash fans expect while adding a more layered and thoughtful approach to the songwriting.
    Compared to earlier material, the band notes that the aggression is still there. The difference lies in how it is delivered.
    Earlier songs often relied on more overt vocal ferocity. On this track, the intensity comes through a steadier, more stoic cadence that gives the message room to breathe.
    Enter Shay Hazlewood

    One of the most noticeable shifts for the band is the presence of Shay Hazlewood on vocals.
    Mark admits he originally set out simply to find a female vocalist for the album. After discovering Shay, the collaboration came together quickly and naturally.
    What surprised him most was the depth of her lyric writing. Her perspectives and thematic ideas brought a dimension to the material that he hadn’t previously explored.
    That influence extended into the songwriting itself. Mark wrote the song specifically with Shay’s voice in mind, shaping the composition to match her tone and delivery.
    Studio Precision, Stage Chemistry

    While the band approached the studio sessions with a focused and almost “ nerdy” level of detail, the live dynamic tells a different story.
    According to Mark, the chemistry on stage is organic and constantly shifting. Each show and each song brings slightly different energy, creating a performance that evolves night after night.
    That unpredictability is exactly what keeps things exciting.
    The Meaning Behind The Sky is the Ocean

    The upcoming album title carries a much larger concept behind it.
    For Shay, The Sky is the Ocean represents what she describes as the false realities people are often fed through modern media and centralized narratives.
    Rather than delivering answers, the band wants listeners to ask questions.
    The lyrical themes lean heavily into occult imagery and philosophical exploration. The goal is not to dictate truth, but to encourage people to seek it themselves and recognize inconsistencies that often hide beneath the surface.
    Mark describes the album as a kind of journey through unfamiliar worlds, where each discovery pulls back another layer of the veil.
    From Four- Track Saturdays to a Grammy- Winning Studio

    The band’s evolution is also evident in the production process.
    Mark recalls that their earliest recordings were made in a duplex on a simple four- track recorder, all knocked out in a single Saturday.
    The new album, by contrast, was recorded at the Grammy- winning Trax 52 studio with a dedicated engineer and far more time to refine the material.
    That shift reflects the band’s growth without sacrificing the raw authenticity that fans have come to expect.
    Thrash Roots and Staying Authentic

    Through the years, Friday Dies have built a loyal cult following, something Mark attributes to authenticity.
    The music, the lyrics, and the live performances all stem from a genuine place rather than chasing trends.
    He also believes thrash metal has endured largely because it avoided the commercial pitfalls that affected many other genres. It remains largely written and performed by musicians who are passionate about the craft.
    Life on the Road

    Touring continues to be a major part of the band’s identity.
    The recent “ Protect Your Temple” run across the East Coast brought its share of challenges, but the fans stood out as the highlight.
    Unexpected moments also popped up along the way. One city that left an impression was Dayton, Ohio , which the band describes as a surprisingly charming stop on the route.
    When fans catch them live as new material rolls out, they can expect an energetic performance designed to pull the audience into the music and take them somewhere else for a while.
    A Film in Spirit

    If “ I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” were a movie, Shay imagines it somewhere in the realm of John Wick .
    Not because of the violence, but because of the attitude. Instead of revenge through force, the song represents calling out those who once held power and declaring that the fear they relied on no longer works.
    Old School Values

    When it comes to format preferences, the band keeps things classic.
    Vinyl wins.
    No hesitation.
    And if they had the chance to tour with one legendary thrash act from any era, Mark says the pick would be Coroner , the influential Swiss technical thrash pioneers.
    Looking Ahead

    So where does the band see themselves a year from now?
    The answer is simple and honest.
    Touring and making enough money to eat.
    It is the kind of grounded response that sums up the band’s outlook. No inflated promises, just the commitment to keep creating, keep playing, and keep connecting with people.
    For Mark, the long game is about staying relevant while reminding fans that real life still happens outside the digital world.
    Music, concerts, and shared experiences remain some of the best ways to reconnect with that reality.
    If The Sky is the Ocean succeeds in doing one thing, the band hopes it sends listeners home with more questions than answers, and maybe a little curiosity about what lies beneath the surface of the stories we are told every day.
    And if the first single is any indication, Friday Dies are ready to take listeners on that journey. 🤘
    Listen to “I’d Rather Trust a Stranger” now: https://open.spotify.com/track/7kOGWzbER426y5IXwgaREs
  • CANDLEMASS Announce First Ever Australian Tour

    For the first time ever, Swedish epic doom metal pioneers CANDLEMASS will bring their monumental sound to Australian shores this September and October for a long-awaited debut tour in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. Formed in Stockholm in 1985 by bassist and main songwriter Leif Edling, Candlemass stand as one of the true architects of epic […]
  • Bringing The Poison Down Under With SCOTT IAN From ANTHRAX

    Thrash metal titans ANTHRAX return to Australia later this month for four huge shows. Bold and uncompromising, ANTHRAX stands as one of the legendary Big Four of thrash, a band whose breakneck riffs and mosh-pit anthems have shaped heavy music for over four decades. On their 2026 Australian tour, ANTHRAX will ignite stages in Brisbane, […]
  • Seattle EBM Duo God Tongue Shares Corrosive Cyberpunk Video for “Grip”

    Seattle’s God Tongue comes writhing back into view with the official video for Grip, landing like somebody slipped a tab of acid into the circuitry of an old warehouse PA. This is a nasty little delight, the kind of track that feels like it was born under a strobe light in a room with bad wiring, suspicious stains, and one person in the corner who may or may not be a prophet. The band’s self-described “Acid Body Rave” tag sounds at first like the sort of phrase a group might invent after too much coffee and one treasured VHS copy of Liquid Sky, but here it actually fits. You hear it and think: yes, that is exactly the sickness we ordered.

    God Tongue have built their whole deal around an ugly-beautiful collision of EBM muscle, acid corrosion, minimal-wave chill, and the sort of B-movie sleaze that used to drift through midnight cable. Grip tightens that recipe into a mean machine. The bassline stomps in with a cold-blooded purpose, the drum programming snaps like a trap being tested for your ankle, and the synths smear themselves across the track in warped streaks. The song’s general menace comes with a side helping of a wicked sense of play, the feeling that the band knows exactly how deliciously absurd this zone can get when you lean into it with enough conviction and enough damaged equipment.

    The video, shot by Vancouver filmmaker Daniel Brand, understands the assignment and then scribbles in the margins. It is lo-fi, grainy, weird, and gloriously glitched, like somebody found a floppy disk in the gutter marked DO NOT OPEN and naturally opened it in the middle of a dark club. There are flashes of mysterious data, a masked fiend serving…milkshakes? And a general mood of A Clockwork Orange-meets-cyberpunk depravity that brings to mind Hackers after a nervous breakdown and Strange Days after one too many energy drinks. The imagery has that degraded, diseased glamour that makes you want to laugh and recoil at the same time, which is usually a good sign.

    Watch Grip below:

    Grip lurches, lunges, and locks in. God Tongue are not aiming for polish; they want impact, pressure, and a little psychic damage on the side. Bless them for that. In a world overflowing with tidy little tracks that behave themselves, Grip shows up with its shirt half-buttoned, its pupils blown wide, and a grin that suggests very poor intentions.

    Listen to Grip below and order the album LIMINAL here.

    Follow God Tongue:

    The post Seattle EBM Duo God Tongue Shares Corrosive Cyberpunk Video for “Grip” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

  • Liverpool Post-Punk Duo So, Reverie Capture the Bittersweet Ache of Lovelorn Devotion in Video for “Runaway”

    So, Reverie arrives out of Liverpool with a compelling, authentic backstory. You can hear it in the grain of their music: two young lifers, Andy Power and Cain Garcia, learning how to stay standing through the usual artistic bruisings, then turning that bond into a duo that knows how to move with purpose. Their latest single, Runaway, feels born from exactly that sort of hard-earned closeness, where instinct travels fast, and one small riff passed across a soundcheck can become the engine for something bigger, brighter, and slightly bruised.

    What grabs you first is the lift of their jangle-pop melody, that quicksilver guitar riff that came from Power pulling himself out of standard tuning and into strange territory inspired by Billy Corgan’s methods. You can almost feel the room where it clicked, the moment Garcia latched onto it, the week between discovery and development, the drum machine experiment giving way to live drums when the pair realized the song needed muscle and motion rather than mechanical neatness. That choice gives Runaway a pulse and push; the sense of a song being chased by its own momentum.

    There is a marvellous emotional split at the center, which Power describes perfectly: “After we wrote the instrumental, I really wanted the lyrics to feel bittersweet in contrast to how joyous the melodies were as that juxtaposition between sadness and happiness within music is something that has always fascinated me.” The tune glides in with a kind of open-armed rush, while the words carry the ache of loving someone who will never return the same devotion; of knowing the scales are broken and offering your heart to them anyway.

    Power goes even deeper: “It’s one of the first songs I’ve written where I’ve actually spoken from the point of view of someone else instead of myself; seeing people you hold dearly to you falling out of love is really difficult and I think it’s something a lot of people can relate to. Whether it’s happening to you or you’re the one witnessing it unfold with others, it all still hurts.”

    That perspective gives the song a wider field of feeling, less diary-entry than shared scars.

    The Video8 clip directed by Laurie Clapson suits it beautifully, folding Liverpool’s streets and familiar corners into the song’s wistful weather. So, Reverie may wear traces of post-punk, dreampop, jangle-pop, and shoegaze in their bloodstream (via The Smiths, The Cure, and The Ocean Blue), but Runaway feels less like genre exercise than two friends finding the shape of their own language. For a duo still building toward their debut EP, this is one hell of a calling card.

    Watch Runaway below:

    Listen to Runaway via Spotify below:

    Follow So, Reverie

    The post Liverpool Post-Punk Duo So, Reverie Capture the Bittersweet Ache of Lovelorn Devotion in Video for “Runaway” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.