ASTRID by Irham Abdul Halim
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IN SHORTS #38 📱 Early February News RoundUp

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Photo: ASTRID by Irham Abdul Halim (@i.r.ham)

Blackened, shoegazin’ post metallers DEAFHEAVEN have begun recording their 4th full-length album in Oakland with producer and engineer Jack Shirley. Expect more details soon and a summer release via Epitaph Records’ Anti- label.

Louisville heavy metalcore / hardcore pack NINE EYES is streaming 2 new killer tracks ‘Sleep and His Half-Brother Death’ and ‘The Fall of Icarus’, both embracing the darkness and delivering a solid kick of energetic heat that will get you moving. Can’t wait to hear more from these guys.


New instrumental trio featuring members of FUGAZI called THE MESSTHETICS have announced their self-titled debut album, to be released on March 23rd via Dischord label! Check out their new song “Serpents Tongue” below and see their upcoming Spring dates HERE! The band features FUGAZI’s Brendan Canty and Joe Lally, and experimental jazz guitarist Anthony Pirog.

Brendan Canty and Joe Lally were the rhythm section of the band Fugazi from its inception in 1987 to its period of hiatus in 2002. This is the first band they’ve had together since then. Anthony Pirog is a jazz and experimental guitarist based in Washington, D.C. One half of the duo Janel & Anthony, he has emerged as a primary figure in the city’s out-music community.

The trio’s debut includes nine songs recorded at Canty’s practice space throughout 2017, live and mostly without overdubs. It’s a snapshot of a band dedicated to the live ideal, where structure gives birth to improvisation.


A number of women have come forward with sexual assault allegations against Zach Dear, vocalist of Milwaukee hardcore band STONE and guitarist of now defunct hardcore band EXPIRE. Lambgoat has it covered HERE.

Singapore screamo / emotive post haardcore act ASTRID are streaming their debut record Edward Mordrake, available now via Lithe Records.


Scotish powerviolence pack ENDLESS SWARM have teamed up with California’s FORGED for a new filthy split 7”. Listen below and grab it via Italy’s Here And Now Records, Toilet Teeth Records (South Africa), Knochentapes (Europe) and Good Times Records (Australia).


NYHC legends AGNOSTIC FRONT will be touring South East Asia and Japan this May. GO HERE for more details.

The very lovely looking and even better sounding LEMURIA record Recreational Hate is released today. If you haven’t heard it yet, we don’t want to spoil it for you, but it’s brilliant and you should definitely check it out!

Big Scary Monsters label commented:

Probably one of the best records you haven’t heard yet this year, the indie-rock trio deliver a delightful record that fizzes away with the vocal melodies of guitarist Sheena and drummer Alex. If you’re a fan of the likes of Hop Along, Rainer Maria and the like, we reckon this is going to be right up your street. Whether you’ve followed them for years, or are luckily discovering them for the first time, you’re in for a treat!


Pennsylvania hardcore band DON’T SLEEP (feat. Dave Smalley of Dag Nasty, ALL, Down By Law) are streaming a new song called “Bloody But Unbroken”, a b-side off of the group’s latest 7″, Bring The Light, released on vinyl through Reaper Records. Get more details and check out the song HERE.

Get your first listen of ‘No Discordance‘, the debut LP from HARKER now at Already Heard (UK/EU) and Punknews.org (USA).

NYC post hardcore influencers GLASSJAW have announced an exclusive London show on August 18th at the O2 Academy. Tickets go on sale today!

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM has announced a special series of shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of their second album, The 59 Sound. GO HERE to see the dates.

Fat Wreck Chords will release We Are The Champions Of The World — a 29-song, best-of album that chronicles THE LAWRENCE ARMS’ steady evolution over the past two decades. Available for pre-order, fans can expect extensive liner notes and commentary from the band, as well as a handpicked track-listing from their entire discography, which includes their releases on both Asian Man and Epitaph Records. As a special bonus, The Lawrence Arms unearthed five previously unreleased songs, taken from recording sessions that spawned the band’s classic 2006 Oh! Calcutta! These five songs have been in the vault for over a decade!

You’ll be able to catch The Lawrence Arms live, as they’ll be touring in support of the album throughout 2018. Not only will they be hitting parts of the United States they haven’t been to in years — alongside Sincere Engineer and Red City Radio — they’ll also be heading back to Europe for some festival dates this summer. Don’t miss them!


Temporary Residence Records have issued their 2017 MYSTERY GRAB BOX, a mixed, unique assortment of FIVE (5) vinyl records released by the label for only $25 total! Every package will include at least one new 2017 vinyl release! Order via player below.


Melodic post hardcore act SENSES FAIL is celebrating the premiere of their brand new song “New Jersey Makes, The World Takes” today. Produced by Beau Burchell (Moose Blood, Saosin, Hands Like Houses), the 7th full-length album from Senses Fail, ‘If There Is Light, It Will Find You’, brings fans back to the band’s rock roots while also experimenting with brighter, melody-driven exteriors. ‘If There Is Light, It Will Find You’ is due out February 16th via Pure Noise Records.

On the track, singer Buddy Nielsen shares “Over the years I have lost a number of friends to drug addictions. This song addresses those losses and how I have tried to intervene in people’s addictions over the years. As someone who has battled addiction, I know that the change has to come from within. While support and resources are very important it is ultimately a decision that is on the person who is battling. So many of us in this country have a friend or loved one who has lost their battle and I thought it is important to highlight that struggle”.


Blackened crusty post metallers ANCST have premiered a new track called Dysthymia, taken from the forthcoming new album “Ghosts of the timeless Void”, out March 2nd, 2018 on Lifeforce Records.

‘Dysthymia’ proofs once more the diversity the listener can expect from the new effort, being it the most ‘unusual’ ANCST track to date.


The newest issue of rock/metal/punk online mag Stencil is up now! The number #47 features loads of interviews, reviews, and other features including MACHINE HEAD, BRIAN FALLON, KILLING JOKE, THE MENZINGERS, SENSES FAIL, HELL IS FOR HEROES, HARM’S WAY, and a lot lot more!Check it out below.


MAD TourBooking is covering this year’s Persistence Tour feat. HATEBREED, TERROR, POWER TRIP, MADBALL, and more in a series of short videos HERE.

The details of NOC WALPURGII 2018, one of Europe’s most important punk/hardcore events, had announced the details for this year’s edition, featuring KOHTI TUHOA (Helsinki, Finland), FINISTERRE (Köln), SIKSA (Gniezno, Poland), HAG (Malmö, Sweden), HYENAZ (Berlin), EAT MY FEAR (Berlin), CUNTROACHES (Berlin), SUBVERSE (Berlin), and loads of interesting workshops, netowrking, distros, etc. See the details at this location and save a date on April 30th. The veent will take place at Berlin’s Köpi/Koma F at Köpenickerstr. 137. GO HERE for more details.

Washington, DC-based metal quintet DARKEST HOUR has filmed an official video for the song “Enter Oblivion,” which hails from their eleventh LP, Godless Prophets & The Migrant Flora, released in 2017 through Southern Lord. The new video has been issued through an exclusive premiere at Noisey, as the band prepares to embark on a new run of tour dates on two continents.

Produced by Kurt Ballou (Converge) at his Godcity studo, Godless Prophets & The Migrant Flora continues to solidify the long-running DARKEST HOUR’s legacy as a major metal powerhouse. Raw, complex, melodic, yet cutting with razor blade precision, Godless Prophets & The Migrant Flora is a fierce album which shows the long-running band as lethal and ravenous as ever.

DARKEST HOUR has also announced another new tour in recent days, which sees them hitting Europe this Spring. The tour runs from April 5th and runs all the way through the 29th and sees them paired with Cephalic Carnage and Harlott supporting Havok. GO HERE to see the dates.


ROTTING SKY, a colossal and swarming chasm of obsidian black droney industrial black noise, is streaming a couple of tunes from his new re-release of 2014 record Sedation, detailed at this location.

T. Messing (guitarist of crust punk legends Nux Vomica) brings you this mind-shattering and incredibly introspective solo work, incarnated into one of the most accomplished, devastating, and visionary masterpieces to have been conceived within the realm of black metal and noise crossover genres in the last five-six years at least.

Originally released in 2014 as a limited run of 100 tapes by now defunct tape label Grimoire Cassette Cvlture – Sedation was one of the tail end releases for the label, with the cassette being released close to the label’s final demise and as such going nearly completely unnoticed, as all available copies soon vanished from the public eye with the label shutting down its online store and online operations. Sentient Ruin however did not fail to notice this astonishing album, and it eventually took us a good three years to track down Messing and bring him on board for a proper (re)release.

Today we are honored and excited to have accomplished this very heartfelt mission, as we bring you the ultimate and final release of Sedation, re-mastered, and re-packaged with spectacularly wretched new artwork done for the project by noise/industrial visionary artist Anderson Cook, and further enhanced by a much needed and absolutely glorious vinyl release.

An unforgettable sonic flailing suspended between the realms of extreme metal, drone and noise music, that will delight fans of atmospheric experimental extreme bands like Sutekh Hexen, Locrian, Wraiths, Thisquietarmy, Pyramids, BLSPHM, Darkspace, etc.


NYC ambient prog / post hardcore tinged rockers HOLD FAST HOPE just released a new single, “Fade”, available now on iTunes, Spotify, Bandcamp & more. The track comes from the band’s debut 4-track EP at VuDu Studios (Glassjaw, Gates, Hail The Sun) in Port Jefferson, NY with Dom Nastasi & Mike Watts. It is set to be released in Spring 2018 on Downport Records.


Russian feminist punk rockers PUSSY RIOT will be doing a string of American shows in March, April, and May. GO HERE to see the official word and the full schedule.

As Sweden’s deadly BROKEN CROSS releases its Militant Misanthrope LP this week, the entire album has been uncaged through an advance stream at Revolver Magazine. Recorded at Studio Underjord in Norrköping, Sweden (Vanhelgd, Year Of The Goat, GriftegĂ„rd), and mastered by Joel Grind (Toxic Holocaust), Militant Misanthrope is completed with drawings by Dwid Hellion (Integrity), which are inspired by 1980s/90s anime and werewolf folklore. Revolver Magazine refers to Militant Misanthrope as, “a punishing, politically-inspired suite sporting a heretofore unseen level of discipline, not to mention serious polish…”

Militant Misanthrope will see release this Friday, February 2nd, on LP through the band’s own Apocalyptic Visions label, on cassette via Judas Chair Collective, and on CD through Psychic Rebellion


Chicago pop punk rock trio THIS OBSESSION have signed with Wiretap Records and will release their new album, “A Confrontational Effort,” on March 16. A track off the album (“Deep Water”) is now streaming on Youtube.


Check out a brand new song from hardcore pack BERTHOLD CITY called “This World on Fire,” streaming now on No Echo! This song appears on a flexi that is included with issue 1 of Pressure Drop Fanzine which also includes unreleased tracks from World Be Free, Zero Tolerance, Initiate, and more! Available now from WAR Records!


Female fronted garage punk act from Istanbul REPTILIANS FROM ANDROMEDA have released a new video for their song “Blue moonlight”. Released on Super Blue Moon eclipse, the driving, yet post punk distressing track comes from the band’s new album “Dialogues For Monkeys”, released by Prof Sny Records on January 22nd.

Texas death metallers MAMMOTH GRINDER have released a new video for their new vicious, grinding track Locust’s Nest

Underground extreme metal trio MAMMOTH GRINDER return after five long years with their fourth full-length Cosmic Crypt, a non-stop, meteoric force of aggression and mayhem. Self-recorded by the band at Trax East in South River, NJ, mixed by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Sepultura, Inquisition) and mastered by Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind, Cosmic Crypt is an 11 track slab of primitive, punk-inflected death metal. Frontman Chris Ulsh (Power Trip, Impalers) recruited Mark Bronzino (Iron Reagan) and Ryan Parrish (Iron Reagan, ex-Darkest Hour) to take MAMMOTH GRINDER to new heights of misanthropic rage and blazing songcraft! Features stunning cover art from the legendary Joe Petagno (Motorhead, Autopsy, Angelcorpse, Pink Floyd).


American/Canadian vegan straightedge outfit SECT – comprised of members of Cursed, Left For Dead, Catharsis, Undying, Earth Crisis, The Path Of Resistance, Day Of Suffering, Racetraitor, and more – will perform three shows across California this weekend in support of their second LP, No Cure For Death, which is out now through Southern Lord.

With the latest installment of live actions supporting the new album, SECT will hit California on a three-day show run this weekend, February 2nd through 4th. The band will play Berkeley on Friday, Los Angeles on Saturday, and Fullerton on Sunday, joined by DIE YOUNG on all three shows. GO HERE to see the flyer.


Budapest, Hungary based atmospheric alt rockers SVNSEAS just released their debut album “If Only Things Could Be A Little Different” on Feb 1, 2018) and they are streaming a new music video for their new track “Comatose”. The record brings a solid dose of sensuous, yet dynamic grooves, multi-style fusion of influences and a good deal of goood old emotive feel in the vein of FURTHER SEEMS FOREVER’s post hardcore to rock transition. Beautifully recorded, the album can be grabbed at this spot. GO HERE to see their upcoming dates.

British extreme / grinding metal act ANAAL NATHRAKH are working on their 10th record, a follow-up to 2016’s The Whole of the Law. GO HERE to see a teaser pic.

GOATWHORE will take to the seas this week on the 2018 edition of the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise alongside Cannibal Corpse, Exhumed, Enslaved, Meshuggah and so many more. The voyage comes in advance of the band’s month-long European tour with Sepultura, Obscura, and Fit For An Autopsy. GO HERE to see more details.

Kerrang praised UK melodic alt rock act DREAM STATE have released a new new video/single “In This Hell”.

From vocalist CJ Gilpin: “‘In This Hell’ is the representation of the transitional period we experience when we want to make a change in ourselves, and change isn’t always easy. We wanted to write a song that conveyed the chaos of the mind, and the storm before the calm that follows on from ‘White Lies'”.


Greek punk rockers DESPITE EVERYTHING are teasing their upcoming European tour. GO HERE to see a cool poster.

SPANISH LOVE SONGS have just released a music video for their new song “Joana, In Five Acts”!. The song comes off of their recently announced new album Schmaltz, set to be released on March 30th on A-F Records (US) and Uncle M Records (UK/Europe). Substream Magazine says Schmaltz is “some of the most beautiful and personal storytelling to come from the genre,” saying, “from the first notes of the record, you feel completely absorbed into the universe that’s created by the constantly winding story that’s being laid out in front of us.” Pre-orders for the album are available now on via A-F Records and Uncle M Records.

Richmond, VA’s United Blood Fest and Worcester, MA’s 20th annual New England Metal & Hardcore Fest have announced the details of this year’s editions. GO HERE for more details.

Royal Mountain Records’ experimental rockers EVERETT BIRD are gearing up to release their debut LP and they just unveiled their first single called “Bucket of Dark Meat”! People Person (out Feb. 23) is the first album from the Montreal based band and was recorded with Jace Lasek (Wolf Parade, Besnard Lakes, Suuns). The LP blends rhythmic guitar with whimsical vocals and washed out psychedelic overtones, andis really worth a check!

The band commented:

“Bucket of Dark Meat” was the first song we wrote for the album. The song is about the feeling of anxiety a person gets when it seems like everyone is being more productive than you. On the other end, the song is about suppressing that feeling with things that make you happy.


Melodic post hardcore / metalcore band BLESSTHEFALL have inked a deal with Rise Records and will release their new record Hard Feelings on March 23rd. Check out their new track Melodramatic below.

RADIOHEAD’s Thom Yorke has contributed new music to a new short film from fashion label rag & bone. GO HERE for more details.

Death metal veterans OBITUARY are teaming up with PALLBEARER, DUST BOLT, and SKELETONWITCH for a 2018 US tour. See the details HERE or HERE.

New York death metal pioneers SUFFOCATION and Guitar World team up to premiere a new playthrough for the song ‘Return To The Abyss’, featuring guitarists Terrance Hobbs and Charles Errigo. The track comes off their latest release …Of The Dark Light. Check out the clip, here.
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