Smoulder just dropped the second single from their forthcoming album Violent Creed of Vengeance, “Victims of Fate.” The album is the follow-up to their 2019 debut Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, Michael Whelan (Cirith Ungol, Obituary, Sepultura) once again handled the cover art. The image depicts a theme of vengeance against the patriarchy and the evil powers that be. According to the press release: “Whelan’s artwork helped shape the album’s theme of vengeance, particularly Sarah Ann’s very pointed lyrics about taking revenge on misogynists and rapists, their enablers and the in ..read more

Thy Art Is Murder just released another track from their new split, six-song mini album The Aggression Sessions, “Until There Is No Longer.” The Aggression Sessions also features Fit For An Autopsy and Malevolence, and the release will be available digitally on April 7 and on CD and vinyl July 21, all through Nuclear Blast. This is a follow-up to the bands’ previous collaboration, The Depression Sessions. Preorder or presave the album here. About the release, Thy Art Is Murder and Fit For An Autopsy say: “Before we had even completed work on The Depression Sessions we knew a lifelong f ..read more

Paradise Lost announced the official addition of a new drummer yesterday, Guido Zima. Their former drummer Waltteri Väyrynen announced he was leaving the band in 2022. Guitarist and keyboardist Greg Mackintosh says about the new addition: “We welcome Guido as Paradise Lost’s new drummer. He cut his teeth with us on our European tour at the end of 2022. Guido did such a good job that we have decided to make him our new drummer, and he will be playing on all upcoming PL shows and working on new material with us for our next album due out next year.” The band will play several ..read more

Doom legends Acid King just dropped their new album Beyond Vision, out now on Blues Funeral Recordings. They also announced they’ll be touring on the record this summer. After a long hiatus, Acid King are back with a record that’s a bit different from their previous, straightforward desert-rock doom. It still has elements of that for sure, but Beyond Vision is much more psychedelic and introspective, even bordering on being a concept album. On the album’s concept, vocalist and guitarist Lori S. explains: “The band was never really that psychedelic, but this is definitely more trippy because ..read more

Man, you guys really really cared about what Nikki Sixx and Carmine Appice had to say about each other this week, didn’t you?! This past week has been crazy and thanks to today’s huge slate of releases, we’ve got a fuck ton of metal to listen to. Rather than spend too much time rehashing those releases, why don’t you tell us in the comments what you’re listening to? We want to know! As always, you can check out this week’s iteration of the Top Tracks of the Week Playlist, as well as the top ten stories of the week. You can always check out the rest of the site to see what else you missed, nat ..read more

After announcing earlier this month that legendary ex-Slayer and current Testament/Mr. Bungle drummer Dave Lombardo would be joining up with Biffy Clyro members Simon Nell and Mike Vennart in Empire State Bastard, a self-proclaimed grindcore band, the band have dropped their first song, “Harvest,” and it rips pretty damn hard. “Harvest” is very extreme, mixing face-ripping grind with prog and avant-garde eccentricities, which makes sense when considering how Empire State Bastard came to life. From the PR wire: “The concept for Empire State Bastard emerged when Neil and Vennart would spend dow ..read more

After asserting rapid domination over the noise rock and sludge scenes last year with the release of their album God’s Country, Chat Pile will release a new split, Brothers in Christ, alongside fellow noise rockers Nerver, who have previously toured with Chat Pile. Grab your earplugs, because Chat Pile just dropped “Cut” from their side of the split. On the new single, Chat Pile understand dynamics, namely “loud” and “wall of sound.” Bassist Austin Tackett gave his perspective on the writing process for Brothers in Christ. “These tracks were written and recorded after we tracked ‘God’s Count ..read more

Canadian outlet The Metal Voice recently interviewed Steel Panther singer Michael Starr about a variety of topics, including the band’s experience with cancel culture and how Starr felt about it. He started off by naming a time that he felt fan pushback toward Steel Panther’s Pussy Melter pedal actually benefited the band. No, not really. The only push back we got was for a plug-in that Satchel designed called the ‘Pussy Melter’ and it was on the TC electronics website and a girl guitar player saw it and she got extremely offended by it. She wrote the company and (the company) took the plug ..read more

Sometimes two things just go together, like peanut butter and chocolate or Creeping Death and George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. The Cannibal Corpse vocalist lent his vocals to “Intestinal Wrap,” the first track from Creeping Death’s new album, Boundless Domain, which is scheduled for a June 16 release via MNRK Heavy. The song is loaded with groovy death metal riffs, which gives Corpsegrinder the perfect canvas to work with alongside Creeping Death vocalist Reese Alavi. The record, which was produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, is heavy as bricks and “Intestinal Wrap” is a gre ..read more

Having just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, country legend Dolly Parton’s decided she’s going to fit the part and put out a rock record titled Rock Star later this year. And it’s cool because it sounds like she’s pulling some big names from our neck of the woods in for guest spots, including the Metal God himself Rob Halford (who may or may not have fanboyed out when they met briefly). Yet it turns out in between his war of words with Carmine Appice, Mötley Crüe‘s Nikki Sixx revealed via Twitter that he was also guesting on Parton’s rock record, stating that he played bass ..read more