With the end of the year creeping closer and releases piling up faster than anyone can reasonably keep track of, here’s another round of underground damage worth your time. Hardcore, screamo, punk, metal, and all the weird offshoots that orbit those zones—there’s plenty landing right now. Dig into the roundup, jump through the links, and don’t skip the dedicated features we’re rolling out alongside these weekly hits.
⤵ Hardcore / Metalcore, ⤵ Screamo / Post Hardcore, ⤵ Post Rock / Post Metal / Experimental, ⤵ Punk Rock, ⤵ Rock, and ⤵ Metal.
⤵ Hardcore / Metalcore
Baltimore heavyweights STOUT mark a major milestone with the first-ever vinyl edition of their classic debut N.G.M.F., freshly remastered by Brad Boatright and finally given the weight its reputation has carried since 2002. The record captures the band at their rawest—Baltimore hardcore with that grim, doom-shadowed NYHC edge, all barked conviction and thick, punishing riff work that set the template for everything they’d do later. It’s harsher and more unfiltered than Sleep Bitch, closer to the band’s early live volatility, and its reissue arrives alongside a limited repress of that follow-up and a full merch drop tied to STOUT’s earliest iconography.
Melodic hardcore punks REGROWTH return with A Story Worth Listening To, a second full-length shaped by the pressure points of a generation watching the world tilt—war, climate breakdown, exploitation, and the slow erosion of hope. We have a new full feature about this high octane banger – check it out here.
Metallic Portland pack GUILT TRADITION drop Boiling Over, a five-song blast that runs on clenched-jaw hardcore and quick, ugly turns.
Belgian fastcore wrecking crew CHRONIC PISSED drop a six-track demo that barely cracks five minutes and still manages to swing like a brick: “Waste My Time,” “Brink Of Suicide,” “No Future,” “Rage Cut,” “Mindless,” “War All The Time.”
Pure 80s-leaning hardcore temper — shout until the throat gives, hit the snare like it owes you money, move on. The label calls it music “for anyone mad at the world”.
French chaotic hardcore trio BTK just pushed out a new video for “Lapidée,” the final strike from their Sauvagerie era. The clip matches the song’s whole vibe — raw, jagged, and unfiltered — closing the album cycle with the same scorched-earth intensity that’s kept the Lyon band buried deep in the underground’s nastier corners. Formed in 2010 and stripped to a drums-guitar-vocals core since 2015, they run death, crust, grind, and blackened hardcore through a triple-amp HM-2 grind that feels more like debris cloud than “tone.” The video’s up now, and the record is out on Breathe Plastic, Dahlia Noir, and The Hills Are Dead.
Dublin’s LOST TO LIFE drop No Peace For Me, a four-track burst of DHC built around blunt pacing, metallic bite, and that no-patience vocal approach that defines their sound. Recorded with Shaun Cadogan at Last Light Recordings and finished by Ben Jones, the EP moves from the stomp-first opener into rough, clipped hardcore that keeps everything lean—short tracks, heavy swings, and so much energy.
Wyoming beatdown bruiser SIX BELOW ZERO drops an eight-song slab called Violence Is Always the Answer, a solo project from Matthew “Axl” Brammer pulling from the same metallic hardcore DNA he’s pushed in Silence Before the Storm, Breath of Sindragosa, Agony by Default, and the rest of his orbit. The songs swing straight at the heavyweights he namechecks — Hatebreed, Throwdown, The Acacia Strain, Misery Signals, Earth Crisis — but stripped down to a one-man.
NELSON ST. return with Promo ’25, a three-track release that sharpens the Midlands trio’s groove-driven hardcore. Written between Bristol and home, the new material leans into upbeat rhythms and bright, TURNSTILE-influenced guitar work, keeping each track short and direct. Recorded by Boulty, the promo captures the band’s developing identity while hinting at a more defined direction ahead.
Tomb Tree Tapes has dropped THE SUNDER VEIL, the first new release from SINE NOMINE in a decade—a five-track barrage where sludge, mathcore, and noise-damaged hardcore grind against each other until the edges blur. The EP swings from the crushing density of “Default” to the uneasy melodic tension of “You Choose,” before closing with “Hush,” an eight-minute sprawl that folds the band’s expanded sonic ideas back into the venom of their early work.
This split from FORWARD TO EDEN and XEDENISGONEX hits exactly where blackened metalcore gets its teeth — sharp, ideological, and unapologetically rooted in that ’90s vegan straight-edge surge. FORWARD TO EDEN opens with melodic, old-school metalcore drive, leaning on long intros, spoken passages, and two early tracks rebuilt with cleaner force. XEDENISGONEX flips the mood instantly, dragging the whole release into a darker, more suffocating place: bleak tempos, black-metal abrasion, and that cold, relentless edge they’ve been pushing for years.
Greek punkviolence crew FATFACE just threw out their first EP Heavy Puncher, seven blasts tracked and mixed in Athens between September and October 2025. It’s straight Piraeus grit — fastcore swings, hardcore snap, and sludge grime smeared over everything, each track barely sticking around long enough to cool off. The whole set’s up on Bandcamp under a name-your-price tag if you want a quick hit of loud, ugly, no-frills damage.
POISON IVY’s debut Screams Unheard lands with the kind of direct, clenched-jaw energy you expect from a young vegan straight-edge band stepping into 90s-style metalcore. The Sofia crew lean into chug-driven riffs, sharp breakdowns, and that unmistakable Earth Crisis tension—tight, mid-tempo, built for impact.
Groovy hardcore outfit SLOPE have dropped their new single “Just Do You,” paired with an official video filmed and edited by Vidture with camera work by Vidture and Bishr Laham. The track was produced, mixed, and mastered by David Beule at Laundry Studios in Cologne, with drum recording handled by Luis Müller Wallraff, and arrives alongside a premiere event teased by the band with a simple invite to “grab your friends” and show up for the party.
HATE5SIX just pushed a heavy batch of new sets, covering everything from the Punks For Palestine 2025 shows to fresh tour footage and festival stuff. Recent uploads include BAYWAY, MAJORITY RULE, NO MAN, CLOAK/DAGGER, PORTRAYAL OF GUILT, PAGENINETYNINE, FOOLS GAME, and more, plus the Locked In A Vacancy reunion and Excel’s Big Frank Memorial.
Finnish vegan-metal unit GRAY STATE have issued a three-song drop titled Gray State, featuring “Triumphal March,” “Pillars of Eternity,” and “26th.” The band framed the release around their ten-year anniversary, noting an upcoming 931FEST show on December 13 and fresh tapes and merch available at the event before leftovers hit online on December 15. What a banger!
Hardcore-leaning emo outfit I RECOVER and Tokyo punks DAIEI SPRAY have a joint split out now, a four-song 7″ first made for their Japan tour and officially landing in the West through STTW in Germany and Extinction Burst in the US. DAIEI SPRAY bring two sharp, restless cuts tracked by Kyosuke Shibata and mixed by Junta Hayashi, while I RECOVER answer with “What’s Left” and “Low Expectations,” recorded and mixed by Noah Ronneberger. Jack Shirley handled mastering across both sides, and the bands mark the release with a Cologne show on November 29 alongside Tethered, Wonderful World, and Placid.
UK punkcore outfit HOT FIENDS have dropped a two-track single titled Grave Rot, featuring the title cut and a second blast called “Gunk.” The release lands via Unibrow Villain Records.
Old-school hardcore crew SORE TEETH have put out their self-titled album Sore Teeth, landing with cuts like “Betrayer,” “Unite,” and “War.” The band describe themselves as Hampshire-based and “heavily influenced” by names from the New York hardcore orbit, calling the record “proper classic old-school hardcore” with “big Brooklyn style gang vocals” and a “Biohazard vibe.”
RYKERS share a deeply personal reflection behind their new track, written as a tribute to Kai Uwe — the former MANIACS drummer who became their tour mentor during the early ’90s runs with PITTBULL and SFA. Chris recalls him as the resourceful, fearless road companion who taught them how to survive on nothing, navigate Europe without phones, and turn chaos into home, a presence whose death still weighs heavily. The song also nods to Eric Woskowiak, another figure woven into the band’s history. It’s a remembrance piece rooted in gratitude, loss, and the sense that those formative years, once wild and innocent, now feel impossibly distant.
Hardcore crew LIONHEART have dropped new single “Roll Call,” the second taste of upcoming album Valley Of Death II, due January 9 via Arising Empire as a direct continuation of their 2019 record Valley Of Death. The new album again pulls in two guests, this time from A Day To Remember and Kublai Khan TX, and lands just as the Californians head back to their European stronghold, touring from Munster to Antwerp with Madball, Gideon and Slope between January 9 and 24.
Hard-nosed Australian hardcore outfit GRIM REALITY has dropped Crush Ya Bones, a six-track follow-up to April’s Lesson One and their second studio run after an eleven-year gap. The release sticks to what the band lays out as their core traits — grit, attitude, no mystery about the intent — basically a straight shot from Melbourne’s older hardcore lineage back into the present. Mixed and mastered by Glen Franklin, with artwork by Mick Lambrou and layout by Marcel Cuthbertson, it’s a lean return that doesn’t waste time explaining itself.
Hardcore outfit HAYWIRE ran into trouble at Eindhoven’s Revolution Calling fest when a stage-rusher got a little too handsy with frontman Austin Sparkman. Mid-song, the guy jumped up, wrapped an arm around Sparkman, then tried ripping the mic away to belt a line himself. Sparkman shrugged off the first grab, but once the fan started yanking and crowd-karaokeing, he cracked him with a punch and shoved him straight back into the pit. After that, he kept a much shorter leash on anyone else climbing up.
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No Idea Records have unearthed a crucial piece of extreme-music history with the new digital release of Assück’s Anticapital: Blindspot +3, now up in full. It’s the band at their sharpest: 27 tracks of surgical grindcore, anti-capitalist fury, and that unmistakable Florida intensity that shaped an entire generation of powerviolence and modern grind.
NASTY dropped their full HELLFEST 2025 set, filmed in the Warzone and premiered via Hellfest’s official channel.
⤵ Screamo / Post Hardcore
Raw emoviolent skramz, noise punk, melodic emo MySpace stuff, but also rockish 90s post hardcore.
Also, be sure to visit ⤵ Rock section, it’s full of post hardcore and emo infused sounds, too!
Noisy post-rock/screamo collective MEANDERGREEN trace their new record fallow and cancer, leaning on that live fragility — three long pieces tracked in their warehouse with mics scattered around the room, anchored by “bilal crying ii”. The digital version dropped August 28, 2025, weaving spoken memory, improvised passages, post-rock drift, and twinkly emo lines; physical editions land later via Self-Versed Records and Oliver Glenn Records, and this week we’re hosting this special feature highlighting this haunting offering.
YOUTH NOVEL return with “Blood in the Sand,” the third and final single before their upcoming album I Went Through This Experience Smiling arrives on January 17. The track carries their familiar strain of emotive hardcore—lyrical weight pressed into imagery of decay, rebuilding, and self-reckoning, pushed by dual vocals and sharp dynamic shifts. The writing moves between bodily collapse and quiet perseverance, framing the act of “building a home” from whatever remains as both burden and instinct.
Ferocious post-hardcore upstart MONDRARY have dropped their debut full-length, No Better Than Man, a ten-track blast built on clean-to-chaotic turns, jittery riffs, and those 90s-emo-leaning screams they proudly trace back to Saetia and Jerome’s Dream.
Metallic post-hardcore crew SURRENDER THE WEAPON have put out a new three-track EP that pulls together decades of New Jersey hardcore lineage without slipping into reruns. We posted a full feature with more details here.
Copenhagen screamo offshoot INERTIALS just dropped their debut LP Listen Between States, five tracks stretched across roughly half an hour and built on that old ’90s tension-release wiring they’ve twisted into their own shape. The band — with members tied to Fossils, Sixpence, New Money, Jimmy Justice, and Motorhate — spent years breaking ideas apart and stitching them back together, and the record carries that scraped-down, rebuilt feeling. It’s out now on green vinyl through a whole network of DIY labels from Shove to No Funeral, and streaming everywhere except Spotify.
Danish synthpunk wrecking crew HIRAKI just pushed out a standalone single, “Pale Antics,” a blast of abrasive noise rock wired around losing control and sliding into the hole you dug yourself. The trio—long active in Denmark’s heavier underground—lean into their usual scorched electronics and nervous urgency, with Zeki Jindyl dropping EWI lines that make the track tilt even further off its axis. It’s all framed as a kind of self-inflicted collapse, equal parts rage and resignation, landing right in the space where their progressive, corrupted-data chaos usually lives. The single is out now via Pelagic Records.
Vancouver’s OFTEN WRONG return with “The Figs are Starting to Rot,” a basement-tracked cut that welds emo, post-hardcore, and spoken-word tension into one anxious spiral. The track circles themes of paralysis, isolation, and the fear of choosing the wrong life — pulled directly from Sylvia Plath’s fig-tree metaphor — and delivers them through Slint-like quiet-loud shifts, scraped guitars, and a shout that feels half-confession, half-collapse. It’s a snapshot of a young band sitting in uncertainty and turning that pressure into something sharp, immediate, and unvarnished.
See their full profile here.
ALBATROS return with Correct, a record that folds dark hardcore, crust-leaning grit, and sharp screamo tension into a set of eight tracks recorded at Le Pantoum and mastered by Greg Wilkinson. The material hits with dense, jagged energy—blown-out bass, abrasive guitar phrasing, and vocals that swing between sardonic bite and full collapse—while still carrying that odd, off-kilter character the band lean into through their titles, structures, and sudden stylistic detours.
Emotive post-hardcore solo project DEATH_ON_IMPACT has a new single, “Take Me: Silent,” arriving alongside a video and tied to the same heavy, inward-facing themes Rex has been circling since childhood. His upcoming album Oh Father, Why Here? is framed as the most detailed version yet of that struggle — “anger with god and christianity,” as he puts it, pulling in everything from SA and drug abuse to power trips, mental illness, and the long loop back to asking “why?” Influences stretch from Circa Survive and As Cities Burn to Soundgarden, Pantera, and even Johann Sebastian Bach,
Sophie’s Floorboard highlighted MASSA NERA’s new album The Emptiness Of All Things, released October 31 via Persistent Vision, and featured on IDIOTEQ here.
It’s the band’s third full-length and follows Derramar | Querer | Borrar from 2022. The blog notes that the record confronts the emotional and existential weight of the climate crisis through a mix of discordant abrasion, atmospheric melody, and the group’s most varied vocal approach so far. The album isn’t on streaming platforms, as the band removed their catalog in opposition to the corporate and defense-industry entanglements those services profit from.
THAWR drop a two-song blast of demonic, blackened screamo with Zone Bathyal/Refleksi, a release that leans into raw atmosphere and haunted tension. The Malaysian–Singaporean project pushes their sound into darker territory here: scorched vocals, cold tremolo lines, and a pacing that flickers between skramz chaos and something almost ritualistic.
MAPS AND FOILS close out 2025 with a new video for “Nulle part,” the first song they wrote for their May concept album of the same name. The track set the album’s entire direction — downtuned guitars, distorted bass, loose-but-hooky tension, and that blend of dissonant hardcore and soft, drifting melody the record keeps circling back to. We featured the band this week in this piece.
TROY THE BAND return with “Nothing,” a harsh, disorienting collision of blast-beat intensity, downtuned sludge weight, emoviolence and jagged noise-rock shifts, previewing their 2026 album “(des)”.
Go here to see out full feature.
⤵ Post Rock / Post Metal / Experimental
Explosive instrumental prog unit LONG DISTANCE CALLING roll out “Hazard,” the third preview from their upcoming Live at Lichtburg album — a charged-up take on the track first heard on How Do We Want To Live?. The recording comes from their sold-out 2024 show at Essen’s historic Lichtburg cinema, where 1,200 people watched the band stretch the song into something heavier, more physical, and way more cinematic than the studio cut.
The full live record drops December 5 via earMUSIC.
Berlin trio ZAHN have debuted “Solex,” the first single from their upcoming album Purpur, out February 20, 2026 via Crazysane Records. The track leans into a heavy, slow-moving pulse shaped by electronics and thick low-end, matching the video’s stark minimalism and sustained tension. Recorded with Peter Voigtmann and mixed/mastered by Magnus Lindberg, Purpur marks another expansion of the band’s electrified, experimentally minded rock sound. Two release shows are confirmed: February 20 in Hamburg (Betty) and February 21 in Berlin (Neue Zukunft).
AS TRUE AS THE SKY released the debut full-length The Shadows That Consume Us, a nine-track dive into heavy, atmospheric post-rock shaped by years of writing and five focused years of recording. The South African solo project moves between sparse ambient passages, thick post-metal layers, and a progressive edge, drawing from CASPIAN, IF THESE TREES COULD TALK, and CLOUDKICKER. Entirely self-composed and produced by Derik Nieman, the album circles themes of grief, anxiety, and the weight people carry, landing somewhere between introspective gloom and widescreen heaviness.
French post-rock group BRUIT ≤ will reissue their debut EP Monolith on January 9 via Pelagic Records. Fully self-produced and originally recorded at the very beginning of the band’s existence, the EP laid out the foundation of their sound: long-form structures shaped by industrial textures, metallic percussion, and slow-building melodic fragments. The reissue brings their early material back into circulation, accompanied by a behind-the-scenes documentary detailing the making of Monolith. Pre-orders are available now through Pelagic.
East London’s IAN shape their debut “Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!” into a mix of slow-burning post-metal weight and the dry humor of five friends who’ve known each other since the early-2000s DIY days. The record leans on long arcs, cello-led tension, and heavy, patient riffs shaped with producer Wayne Adams, landing somewhere between Godspeed-style drift and Cult of Luna-level heft.
We dove into the details of their craft here.
Swedish post-rock mainstay EF has marked the 20th anniversary of Give Me Beauty… Or Give Me Death! with a newly issued, full-album rework now streaming. The band runs through the entire sequence again — “Ett,” “Misinform the Uninformed,” “Hello Scotland,” all of it — giving their 2005 debut a fresh, high-resolution pass without rewriting its bones. Recorded and released as a straight anniversary edition, it’s essentially a long look back at where their Gothenburg story started and how those early pieces still hold shape two decades on.
Instrumental post-rock project MEZMER has returned with the new EP Flood, 1937, a four-track set arriving just weeks after we featured the single “Heaven.” Built around pieces written and produced by Jonathan Sherer, the release follows the path he outlined earlier this fall — a grayscale, memory-blurred world where the music “speaks for itself” without vocals or explanation. The EP folds together “Flood, 1937,” “Heaven,” “Eternal Bloom,” and “Melodrama,” landing as a concise extension of the vision he’s been sketching out ahead of December’s Melodrama rollout.
⤵ Punk Rock
Punk, Pop Punk, Folk Punk, raw, fast, melodic, and more.
Greek street-punk bruiser BULLDOG drop a tight three-track EP, Match Record, via Spain’s Tough Ain’t Enough — all pointed straight at terrace culture and taking aim at modern football. “Hooligans,” “Vazoun Fotia Tis Kiriakes,” and “Derby” hit the usual Oi! angles without pretending otherwise, built for chants, smoke, and elbow-room energy.
Legendary punk band NOFX will release “A to H” on December 5th, the first installment in their upcoming triple album project titled “A to Z”, a special album series packed with rarities, demos, and never-before-heard tracks from the band’s storied career. The artwork design comes from legendary artist SHAG.
Anarcho-punk chaos engine LEFTÖVER CRACK are heading into one of their busiest runs in years, stacking a Midwest/Texas tour with World’s Scariest Police Chases and a New Year East Coast run with Pobreska. At the same time they’re in the studio finishing a new single for early 2026, the first shot from their next LP Abandon the Precincts.
They’re also rolling out a wave of reissues through their own Recidivist Bible Camp imprint — everything except the old Mediocre Generica record — plus a pile of side projects, books, and even action figures. Classic LOC energy: ska one second, crust and doom the next, all tied to their long history at C-Squat.
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Long Island punk crew HALF DIZZY drop another cut from their long-brewing LP Yard Sale, the record finally landing December 12 via Punkerton Records after years of half-written songs, held-over ideas, and last-minute studio fixes. They tracked it with Pete Steinkopf at Little Eden, leaning straight into the raw, lived-in vibe they’re chasing — sad songs, fight songs, party songs, all in one busted scrapbook. The band call it “the best, most punk as fuck album we possibly could,” and the themes track: isolation, growing up too fast, losing people, hanging onto whatever joy sticks.
West Coast-leaning punk wreckers BETA VOIDS just dropped their debut EP Scrape It Off, a jittery blast of 80s California attitude warped through no-wave chaos and basement-level trash rock. Fronted by Mandy Grant and Carrie Beveridge, the band runs dual vocals, jagged guitars, and a feral sax line into something raw and crooked, like a lost Suburbia scene tracked in a damp Astoria basement. Tracks like “Brain Malfunction,” “Baby’s In Detox,” and “M-O-T-H-E-R” hit with that wired, half-smirking energy — frantic, messy, and totally unbothered — the kind of punk that sounds recorded in a van doing eighty with the doors barely shut. The EP is out now via Hovercraft Records.
NERDLINGER return after a seven-year stretch with Growing Up Is Getting Old, a record that sticks to their fast, melodic ’90s punk backbone while widening the emotional frame. The album treats adulthood as a mess of panic, nostalgia, and dumb luck, delivered through quick tempos, bright hooks, and lyrics that balance self-deprecation with real weight. The band leans into bigger arrangements and sharper production without losing the scrappy edge that defined their earlier work, turning these fifteen tracks into a loud, tightly paced snapshot of trying to stay upright while everything around you shifts.
German post-punk rockers SUSPECTRE has a two-track single out now via Sabotage Records, pairing the tense, punk-bitten “Fight Fight Fire” with the looser, garage-leaning “Yuppie Yeah.” The A-side swings straight at online trench warfare — troll swarms, cheap takes, political drive-bys — basically the churn of an X feed on a bad day. Flip it over and they’re skewering finance-bro posturing with something more upbeat and ’70s-tilted. Two cuts, two moods, same sharp edge.
Detroit punk/garage hybrid THE IDIOT KIDS have dropped Instants, a nine-track set built entirely by Jon-Mikal Bartee, who wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered the whole thing at home — with a few drum parts knocked out in a family basement. The record comes off like a gut-first project, the kind you don’t overthink: short blasts (“Bulldozer,” “Pastor’s Kid”), mid-tempo bruisers, and a couple longer swings to close it out.
Old-school punk crew DFL have dropped the Watch Your Step EP, a five-song burst produced and mixed by Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise. The release hits via SBÄM Records and includes quick-strike cuts like “Tour Talk” and “Fuck It,” with Dragge also appearing on a couple of tracks.
Melodic punk outfit SWALLOW’S ROSE have shared a new two-track single, Strength In You, pairing the title song with “The End.” The release ties into the rollout for their upcoming album The Beginning, a record built around themes of uncertainty, self-searching, and the push for something steadier. Both tracks arrive via Uncle M Music as the band gear up for the album’s March 2026 release.
⤵ Rock
Alternative, Indie Rock, Hard Rock, Emo, Noise Rock, Post Punk, Grunge, Shoegaze and more
We Were Having Such a Nice Day lands like itoldyouiwouldeatyou taking stock of the world’s mess while still trying to will something kinder into existence. The EP leans into their usual mix of emo, electronics, and small-scale orchestral tension, but the writing feels sharper — songs about collective grief and brittle hope, stretched between Joey Ashworth’s soft resolve and the band’s restless arrangements. It’s intimate, a little chaotic, and quietly political in the way their best work is: holding onto the idea that connection, even when everything is fraying, is still worth fighting for.
BUZZCOCKS return with “Queen of the Scene,” a preview of Attitude Adjustment, written by Steve Diggle and landing with the kind of clipped, melodic bite that defined their late-era resurgence. It’s a straight shot of tuneful punk—lean, sly, and self-assured—built around Diggle’s tight riffs and the band’s instinct for keeping things concise without sanding down the attitude. Released November 28th via Cherry Red, it sets up the upcoming album as a confident continuation rather than a nostalgia trip.
SAY ANYTHING has suddenly dropped a run of stray singles — Moran, You Could Feel Really Cool, Nardo, Both, Say Anything Is…A Well-Known Cottage, and No Man — a loose stream of raw, unfiltered sketches that feel more like Bemis thinking out loud than a planned release cycle. Fans are split between concern and curiosity, but the throughline is familiar: SAY ANYTHING has long operated as Bemis’ personal outlet, and these new tracks land exactly like that — fragments, impulses, and late-night confessions arriving without context.
German indie experimenters THE NOTWIST are back with News From Planet Zombie, landing March 13, 2026 via Morr Music, and they’ve kicked things off with a supercharged new single, “X-Ray.” The record was cut live in Munich with their expanded lineup, locking into that familiar mix of melancholy, warmth, and oddball pop instincts while letting some rough edges breathe. Guests drop in on taishōgoto, harmonium, clarinet, trombone, and vocals, and the album folds in two covers — Neil Young’s “Red Sun” and Lovers’ “How The Story Ends” — as part of its bigger, slightly surreal meditation on a world that feels like a bad B-movie. EU dates run through late 2025 and spring 2026.
Bremen duo motte have released their debut EP, a five-track collection shaped across several years of university live sessions and recorded with shifting line-ups of friends. The band handled every part of the process themselves, from tracking and mixing to a fully DIY cassette edition limited to 25 copies.
The release stands out for its linocut artwork by vocalist Mona Thaden — a hand-carved piece inspired by emotional self-portraiture, Japanese wave iconography, and the appeal of imperfect, analog formats in an increasingly digital era. Guitarist Max Steppat expanded that aesthetic into a cassette J-card design influenced by classic vinyl typography and the radio-play tapes both members grew up with. Now performing as a trio and writing new material, motte present the EP as a document of the years when forming a band was difficult but the need to make music persisted.
French dark-shoegaze project UN-TER have released “Autoreverse,” a new single built from washed-out guitars, dual vocals, and the project’s first fully collaborative session. “Autoreverse” ties its blurred, Slowdive-leaning atmosphere to lyrics drawn from tape-warping car-stereo failures and the fractured logic of doom-scrolling, pairing degraded analog memories with modern digital habits. We posted a full feature about the band this week. You can check it out at this location.
Alt-emo collective CHIEFLAND have released a new single, “Crashing Out,” created in collaboration with HIMITZU and WATCH ME RISE. The track came out of a “blind date” compilation where the band wrote the song before knowing who the guests would be, and they later called the matchup a perfect fit. It lands via Uncle M Music ahead of CHIEFLAND’s December run through Hamburg, Köln, Hannover, and Frankfurt.
Petey USA drops The Yips (A Case Of), a three-song add-on that tightens everything he and Chris Walla were already doing on the album — electronic heartland emo with that shaky, earnest delivery he leans into so naturally. The new tracks keep the same wide-open, slightly fried energy: big synth glow, big rust-belt guitar haze, big feelings he’s trying to sort through without pretending he has the answers. It’s Petey doing the Petey thing — part Springsteen circuit, part Midwest emo confessional, part digital shimmer — just a little looser and more self-aware.
A sweaty, living-room snapshot of ALEXISONFIRE is getting an official release, with the band dropping House of Strombo (LIVE in Toronto, ON 2019) on November 28 to line up with Record Store Day Black Friday.
Captured during a packed 2019 session for George Stroumboulopoulos’ House of Strombo series, the set shows the band ripping through fan-favorites in a room way too small for that kind of volume — the kind of night where bodies steam up the windows and everyone sings like they’re trying to peel the paint.
Singer-songwriter CITY AND COLOUR also dropped Sometimes Lullaby, a full-album set of soft-focus lullaby versions of songs from Sometimes, arranged and recorded with Erik Hughes. It’s built for listeners who want the edges taken off the day, streaming now with vinyl available through Dine Alone.
Iconic alt-rock giants THE SMASHING PUMPKINS opened their operatic Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness 30th-anniversary run in Chicago, kicking off seven nights at the Lyric Opera House with a 60-piece orchestra and chorus reworking 17 cuts from the 1995 double album. Billy Corgan and the band leaned into the scale of the room — “Tonight, Tonight,” “1979,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “Porcelina,” all reshaped under conductor James Lowe — turning the set into a full, cinematic retelling rather than a nostalgia lap.
The run continues through November 30, landing alongside the new deluxe reissue of Mellon Collie, which arrived the same day and folds in unreleased 1996 tour audio, fresh liner notes, tarot cards, and artwork.
Jangly indie-rock mover BODAGGIT drop a new EP called Tease Horse, a quick-hit collection pushed out through Transcendental Revolution and built on the same harmony-stacked guitars and power-pop leanings they’ve been sharpening in the Lexington DIY scene.
It’s a tighter, more immediate version of what they’ve already been doing — melodic riffs, clean hooks, and that classic-leaning indie tone somewhere between Superchunk and early Weezer. Short, punchy, no weird detours. Just a band tightening the screws on a sound they already know how to carry.
Gothenburg’s melancholic pop-leaning post-punk crew MAKTHAVERSKAN has a new single, “Pity Party,” out now — a sharp, frustrated cut built on frayed communication and the slow collapse of a relationship. The track moves between accusation and resignation, lines like “In my mind / your war / lies” giving it a stripped, weary center. Recorded and mixed by Olle Björk and mastered by Anders Lagerfors, it’s a straight, unvarnished release that lets the tension sit where it lands.
BRUTUS mark the end of the Unison Life era with Live in Brussels, a full document of the third night of their three-show run at Ancienne Belgique in November 2024. Captured by their longtime crew and mixed with the same precision that carried them through nearly 200 shows across 20+ countries, the release stitches together 92 minutes of their heaviest, most vulnerable moments on stage. It’s the band closing a chapter on the road by preserving the exact intensity of those sold-out nights—no extras, just the raw, high-stakes version of BRUTUS that lived on tour for three years.
A bruised-and-beloved rock behemoth OASIS capped their Live ’25 run this week with a massive Sao Paulo show, closing a reunion tour that swung from Cardiff blowouts to emotional Manchester nights and a packed Wembley stand. The final stop hit harder than planned, with the band saluting the passing of Stone Roses bassist Mani, a longtime friend whose shadow hung over the South American dates. In their postshow note, they called the tour “the most damaging pop cultural force in recent British history” finding its way into a new generation, a pretty on-brand bit of swagger before adding that everything now goes on pause.
London-based songwriter ALEX B KURBIS has a new album out, All Of These Weird Dreams Combined, built around a set of self-imposed rules that shape both the flow and the lyrics. He wrote the songs in strict sequence — minus one late addition to balance the structure — which gives the record a strange, lived-through progression, with three title tracks placed as bookends and midpoint. The music swings between frantic, riffy bursts and quieter stretches, pulling from familiar influences like Last Days Of April and The Appleseed Cast but landing somewhere distinctly his.
Polish alt-rock/post-metal outfit ŹRENICE just rolled out “Endymion,” the first single from their upcoming debut Śnienie, due March 2026 via Via Nocturna. Formed in 2022 after the end of their previous project and completed in 2024 with vocalist Kamila, the band folds together alternative rock, metal, post-rock, black and sludge touches, plus a bit of folk-tinged mysticism. “Endymion” leans into depression and the slow work of finding purpose again, pairing raw, emotional vocals with an instrumental build that mirrors breaking down and inching forward. The track is streaming everywhere, with the video premiering on 666MrDoom.
NME reports that PLACEBO are preparing a “significant” celebration for the 30th anniversary of their 1996 self-titled debut. Brian Molko confirmed the plan during an interview with Belgium’s VRT Radio 1, saying the band will “definitely be doing something quite significant” next year to mark three decades of the album. No details have been announced yet, but the confirmation suggests a dedicated project or event tied directly to the record, which originally reached Number Five on the UK albums chart and produced singles like “Nancy Boy,” “Teenage Angst,” and “36 Degrees.”
Loose-cut experimental outfit GNU has a new six-track set, EP2, now out and built from material “written pre-singularity 2019–2023.” It’s a mix of indie edges, math-rock twists, and post-hardcore reflexes, handled by Francisco Carvalho, Pedro Pereira, and António Belo, with João Pires producing and André Isidro on the mix.
Spanish stoner-rock band Mientras las abejas duermen have shared “Los hijos perdidos de Umrica,” the second single from their upcoming debut LP, set for release early next year. The album will be issued digitally via Estudio Mazmorra and later on vinyl through Kozmik Artifactz. The new track arrives paired with an additional cut, “Cruz del Tajo,” forming a two-song single available on streaming platforms. Both pieces were recorded and mixed by Rafa Camisón at El Bisonte Estudio and mastered by Mario G. Alberni at Kadifornia Mastering. A full video for “Los hijos perdidos de Umrica” is online now.
Bright-edged pop-punk rockers KISS THE SCIENTIST has a three-track Happy Holidays EP out now, stitching together two covers and a stripped live cut.
They open with their own swing-punk take on Andy Williams’ “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year,” picked because it carried the right mix of nostalgia and energy for them. The One Direction tune “Diana” follows, a choice shaped by TikTok attention that pushed them into doing a full-band version. It closes on a solo garage recording of “I Gave You $10 to Buy Pringles but You Didn’t Give Me Change Back,” a loose acoustic run meant as a thank-you to listeners who’ve kept the song alive for months.
NYC emo-indie pop outfit STRAWBERRY BLONDE have a new three-song single, Human Condition, streaming now, pulling together “Human Condition,” “Quiet Inside,” and “Enemy” as they head toward their debut full-length No Past to Live In. The tracks come from a stretch that followed lineup changes and a 2024 reconvening, with “Quiet Inside” originally written during the Somebody Hold Me sessions and later reworked with new bassist Joseph Ravioli. Recorded at Hilda Music Co. and mastered by Billy Mannino, the material sits in their usual space — introspective, melodic, a little bruised — and marks the next step after years of EPs and a long hiatus.
UK math-splattered post-hardcore rockers BLIGHT TOWN have a new single out called “World Speed Ravine,” a three-minute jolt they’re framing like a late-night TV broadcast — “airing now on all carriers,” as they put it.
French indie rock outfit PRETTY INSIDE has a new single and video, “Skin,” the third preview from their upcoming album Ever Gonna Heal. The track opens like a worn-out grunge ballad before bursting into louder, rougher territory, circling a metaphor about skin breaking down alongside mental health under pollution, stray microaggressions, and the usual background static of modern life. The black-and-white clip — directed by Léo Filsjean, Alice Zapatta, Vincent Gato, and Alexis Deux-Seize — follows a character chasing his own reflection through a warped urban maze, the city looking as scraped-up as his headspace. It’s a pretty stark pairing, and it lands exactly where the song points.
Legendary alt-rock unit RADIOHEAD have set a new attendance record at The O2 in London after wrapping four sold-out shows, each topping the previous night and ending with a peak of 22,355 people. The run also raised money for the Live Trust, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Samaritans, with volunteers collecting donations on site and the band pledging to match funds directed to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Back-to-basics rock’n’roll unit HERITAGE have dropped their debut LP Blood and Tears, a twelve-track set built around vocalist Jason Wood alongside Nate Wilson, Mark McCoy, Jeff Jelen, and Ian Jacyszyn. The record arrives with a stark description of modern life as a “glowing wasteland” and frames the album as a pushback against that collapse, recorded and mixed between New York City and Sugar Hill, Georgia by Jacyszyn and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios.
Indie-emo outfit FORTY SEVEN TEETH have rolled out their new single “Dogs in the Park,” a three-minute cut arriving via Heckin’ and Raggin’ Records. The band call it the second single from their upcoming album Fakers, noting on Instagram that it’s “coming early next year” with more details to follow.
Aggro-rock hybridists ERALISE have dropped “Brand New Generation,” their first international collab, pulling in DROPOUT KINGS with vocal turns from Adam Ramey and Black Cat Bill. The band thank both guests for “putting their soul in it,” a line that hits harder knowing Ramey’s passing and the weight it carries, and the Mattia Castiglia–shot video leans into the same push-forward spirit ERALISE talk about in their own bio. For fans of Linkin Park.
Frantic garage-pop troublemaker TACOBLASTER resurface with “Toxic Surfer,” the first hit from their next LP Digital Fun-Zone! coming in January via Flippin’ Freaks, Howlin’ Banana, and Les Disques Du Paradis. The Bordeaux trio skip the warmup and dive straight into lo-fi surf punk wired with cheap-circuit electronics and fuzzed-out garage rock, all racing like it’s trying to outrun the tide. Vocals collide, echoes scatter, drums get buried, and the whole thing flashes shades of Wavves, Fidlar, and The Traditionals without pretending it’s anything other than a sunburned sprint to the beach.
⤵ Metal
Alt Metal, Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Thrash, Sludge, Nu Metal, Grindcore, and more.
Chaotic, experimental black-metal bruisers CZERNINA has the full Oszukać Listopad record streaming now, a batch tracked with Blood Run Lodge and mixed by Haldor Grunberg at Satanic Audio. Eight cuts, all sharp edges and bleak pacing, led by the title track that the band frames as a spill of private battles — “życie w depresji, rezygnacji… wielka niewiadoma jaką bywa kolejny dzień.” It’s personal, stripped of any safe distance, more like someone thinking out loud at the wrong hour of the night.
Blackened heavyweights BEHEMOTH and DIMMU BORGIR have announced the In League With Satan co-headlining European tour for October 2026, joined by DARK FUNERAL as openers. DIMMU BORGIR call it a return to a “proper European tour” with a new show and a fresh chapter, while BEHEMOTH’s Nergal frames the package as “historic… biblical.” Dates run from Zurich on October 9 through Copenhagen on October 30.
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UK metal disruptors SYLOSIS just confirmed album number seven, The New Flesh, landing February 20, 2026 via Nuclear Blast and introduced by a video for the title track. The band frames this one as a reset — a locked-in lineup, songs written with the road in mind, and a sharper, live-wired aggression after two years of nonstop touring. The tracklist runs eleven cuts, including “Beneath The Surface,” “Lacerations,” and the more reflective “Everywhere At Once,” which Josh Middleton has tied back to a rough meltdown on tour. They’re setting the tone with long, heavy swings straight out of the gate, then rolling right into a winter EU/UK run with Revocation, Distant, and Life Cycles.
Vendetta Records has issued FRAGMENTS OF PAIN, the debut EP from ULTIMA NECAT, a Dresden-based project steeped in a bleak intersection of death metal, black metal, and psychedelic dread. First released digitally and on cassette in early 2025, the material now arrives on vinyl, carrying the same suffocating haze that defines the band’s sound—feral screams twisted through warped, otherworldly atmospheres, ritualistic chants, and a kind of terminal bleakness that leans toward the end-of-time imagery embedded in their writing.
Brooding doom/sludge unit GHOLD have a new full-length, “Bludgeoning Simulations,” built in a remote Welsh studio with Wayne Adams and shaped by years of personal drift and long-distance writing. The record swings from piano-stab openings to lumbering heaviness, field recordings, ambient loops, slide guitar, even flute, all stitched into six tracks the band call “a culmination and a sort of tribute” to everything they’ve done.
We dropped a full feature about their influences here.
Blackgaze gods DEAFHEAVEN are rolling out a new mini-documentary, The Vast Sterling Purple, premiering tonight on Veeps and built from footage shot while the band toured smaller, often-skipped markets with Harm’s Way and I Promised The World. Sean Stout and Liam Stewart followed them through college towns and suburbs, places where Clarke says “you never know what the reaction is going to be,” but where the band leaned into the idea of bringing the full show to people who rarely get it. Clarke also points out that some of their material is written with live rooms in mind, shaped by years of experimenting without a clear blueprint. The film catches that version of the band — comfortable, direct, and pulling hard from the personal places that have always driven Clarke’s writing.
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Bay Area metal vets MACHINE HEAD just laid out a spring 2026 European run under the “An Evening With…” banner — no openers, just three hours of bouncy riffs, chaos, deep cuts and whatever else Robb Flynn decides to drag out of the vault. Flynn framed the tour around that moment when the crowd drowns out the PA, calling the shows a kind of back-and-forth communion rather than a standard set. Dates stretch from Copenhagen to London with stops across Germany, Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the U.K., following a busy period of lineup shifts and the 2025 album Unatoned.
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Long-running metalcore unit AUGUST BURNS RED have finished tracking their tenth full-length, wrapping a two-month studio stretch with producer Grant McFarland. Jake Luhrs marked the final day by posting about “grinding” vocals with McFarland and Brent Rambler and calling the new album “a hitter,” though no release date is set yet. He hints that a rollout could start once he’s done learning material for CBR, closing the update with a simple promise: Album 10 is on the way.
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Swedish melodeath mainstays IN FLAMES are stacking a huge 2026 in Europe — a festival-heavy run anchored by their own Göteborg Brinner event and packed with club dates alongside names like Napalm Death, Kittie, Unearth, Gaerea, and Bleed From Within. Anders Fridén is already hyping the summer, talking about the atmosphere of European festival season and hinting that “maybe” new music could surface while they’re out. The routing stretches from Poland and Austria to Spain, Turkey, and back home to Sweden, mixing big open-air slots like Wacken and Summer Breeze with smaller rooms where the band promise “intimate and special shows.”
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Finnish melodeath unit TORCH US just dropped a new three-track EP, To Non-Existence, a follow-up to last year’s Derailed. The songs run on dark grooves, haunted riffs, and a pretty merciless rhythmic punch, with the band describing it as a kind of straight-line march toward an inevitable end. Formed in Turku in 2022, they pull together raw aggression and melodic bleakness in that old-school, rough-edged way — nothing fancy, just sharp guitars and a voice cutting through the mix. The EP is up now across all streaming platforms.
Maltese death-metal hammer BOUND TO PREVAIL are lining up their debut full-length Enthroned in Torment for January 7, 2026 via Lethal Scissor Records. The record leans hard into that early-2000s brutality, pulling from the technical bite of Suffocation, Monstrosity, Beheaded, Hour Of Penance, and Inveracity, but tightening it with modern clarity so every riff lands clean and mean. The band frames the whole thing as a dive into the tension between malevolence and benevolence, draped in crushing drums, razor guitars, and vocals that don’t bother with subtlety.
Season of Mist just rolled out news of PONTE DEL DIAVOLO’s new album De Venom Natura, a live-wired dive into nature’s poisons and all the weird seductions that come with them. The band spells it out as an “alchemical meditation” where dual basses grind under haunted vocals, guitars flare like incense, and the whole thing hits with that primal, slightly unsteady energy they wanted to keep intact by recording live. Produced by Danilo Battocchio and mastered by Magnus Lindberg, the record moves like a fever dream — part rot, part revelation — carrying the same atmosphere they push onstage.
Vicious metalcore beast LOSS BECOMES just dropped a video for “Home,” a thrashy swing that softens only long enough to sneak in those big melodic hooks. The clip keeps things simple — the band in Adidas track suits, locked into their own hive-mind groove — while Anthony Copozzi digs into the lyric’s headspace, asking, “Will I ever come back home?” and laying out the whole tangle of growing up, feeling lost, and trying to sort out whether you still belong where you once felt safe. There’s even a bit of slapstick baked in, with Brian Tsao taking a spill on set and, apparently, nobody checking on him. The band has a holiday hit-and-run in Amityville in December and a March run with Bore lined up.
PHAETON have released a new playthrough video for “Augmented,” supporting their latest full-length Neurogenesis, out October 24 via INB Music. The track reflects the album’s core theme of humanity pushing toward cybernetic augmentation while facing the darker implications of that evolution. Neurogenesis marks the band’s move toward tighter, more direct compositions without dropping the technical precision they’re known for. The album also features a guest appearance from Derek Sherinian on “Isochron” and artwork by Matt Semenok. It is available now on digital platforms, with vinyl editions arriving later in the year.
Spain’s INFRAHUMANO return with Depths of Suffering, a nine-track dive into the kind of death metal that still smells like cave rot and burnt ozone—ripping through the lineage of Morbid Angel, early Cryptopsy, Drawn & Quartered, Autopsy and Immolation without sanding off the edges. Recorded and mixed at La Cumbre Studios and mastered by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer, the album moves between cavernous churn, frantic blasts, and those toxic mid-tempo lurches that make the whole thing feel hostile in the right way.
Groove-leaning grindcore unit GAMO GRIND has its debut EP Jiudo Chetana up for streaming in partial form, six tracks already live ahead of the full December 15 release on Lower Class Kids Records. The note from the label frames the project as rising “through the ashes of Godawari,” turning that backdrop into tight, blast-heavy pieces built for speed and abrasion. Short runtimes, no wasted motion — just a straight run of grind shaped by Nepal’s own scene gravity.
ANTI-SAPIEN are back with “At the Mercy of the Merciless,” the lead single and title track from their upcoming EP due January 16 via Terminus Hate City. The new song pulls them into a slower, heavier lane — mid-tempo death-crust riffs, a grim swing, and lyrics locked on algorithmic manipulation, economic pressure, and the numbness that comes with living inside endless digital noise. The band’s always been direct, but this one feels especially sharpened.
Metalcore upstarts BURIED IN LIES are lining up their new album Finding Beauty In Pain for a December 10 release, a seven-track push that pulls metalcore’s usual muscle into territory shaped by shoegaze, visual kei, hardcore, and a bit of nu-metal drag. Formed in Colorado in 2022 and last heard on a self-titled EP in 2024, the band folds a personal hit into the record’s core after vocalist Tyler Trejo’s grandfather fought for his life in the hospital, giving the material its emotional spine. They’ve already logged stage time with Tallah, Enox, and A Skylit Drive.
Anti-fascist black-metal project LUCERNE HAMMER has the new full-length Vermilion Pyre streaming now, a seven-track set written and recorded by theironmountain and released through Fiadh Productions. The record folds in small outside touches — a Northernlion sample on the title track, a Lust Hag solo on “Be Still,” even a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem — but keeps its focus on everyday pressure and resistance, framed here as work made “in solidarity with workers everywhere.” It’s a lean, defiant run, wrapped in Schuler’s Became Mad artwork and delivered without ceremony.
French dark-prog veterans THE OLD DEAD TREE have a new London Sessions EP out now, tracked live at Abbey Road and arriving barely a year after their return full-length Second Thoughts. The lead cut “Feel Alive Again” leans toward big, stage-built rock while keeping their shadowy backbone intact, with the lineup captured in real time and later shaped by François-Maxime Boutault and Tony Lindgren. Four songs, no frills — just a seasoned band showing what two decades of mileage actually sounds like.
Dark-rock artist DARIA ARKOVA has released a new single, “What I’m Not,” a five-minute collaboration with Rachel Aspe of CAGE FIGHT. The track pulls together Arkova’s shadowy, melancholic style with Aspe’s harsher edge, a pairing she describes as born between London and France after being struck by Aspe’s voice and asking her to join the song she’s “the more proud of.” The accompanying video was filmed partly at Les Dominicains de Haute Alsace and marks their first duet.
Modern-metal unit HARBINGER have rolled out their new single “A Thousand Faces,” marking their next chapter with Prime Collective. The track grew from a riff into what the band call a snapshot of everything they chase in heavy music — groove, blast beats, atmosphere, and a sharp political edge — with bassist Kris Aarre tying its theme to The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the idea of humanity circling its own mistakes. Shot live at their anniversary show Downstairs at The Dome, the video captures the band in full swing as they push into this new era.
Previous roundups:
- Nov 14-21
- Nov 7-14
- Nov 1-7
- Oct 24-31
- Oct 17-24
- Oct 10-17
- Oct 3-10
- Sept 26 – Oct 3
- Sept 19-26
- Sept 12-19
- Sept 5-12
- August 14 – September 5
- August 8-14
- August 1-8
- July 25 – August 1
- July 23-25
- July 21-23
- July 19-21
- July 16-18
- July 12-15
- July 9-11
- July 5-9
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