It's all about vaporwave prog, French oi, and choo choo train black metal as a whip round the underground picks up Basement, Frozen Soul, Haggard Cat, Fire-Toolz, Prisonnier du temps, A Forest of Stars, Panopticon, and Scimitar for the month's most blistering records.Basement 15:40Frozen Soul 33:44Haggard Cat 51:10Fire-Toolz 1:05:09Prisonnier du temps 1:15:41A Forest of Stars 1:25:27Panopticon 1:47:30Scimitar 2:02:45

Anthrax's first single in ten years leads us to consider the thrash legends' creative relevancy in 2026, and Avenged Sevenfold going fully indepedent by buying back their rights brings reminiscing on ten years of their album The Stage.Releases:Marmozets - CO.WAR.DICE.A - ProngDimmu Borgir - Grand Serpent RisingXCOMM - Time to BurnArmored Saint - Emotion Factory ResetDavid Eugene Edwards - Mercurial SilenceBlindead 23 - DeuteriumWitching Hour - Descending.. Where Time Has Ceased to ExistLore - Psychotic Trance of the Black NightsGridiron - Lights OutBear - Anhedonia

Iron Maiden's brand new documentary Burning Ambition hits cinema screens, and there's new singles from Green Lung announcing their new album Necropolitan and from brat superstar Charli XCX making ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ck music.Releases:Periphery - A Pale White DotThe All-American Rejects - SandboxSuper Sometimes - Show the World What’s UnderneathHeld. - GreyVon Groove - Born to RockPro-Pain - Stone Cold AngerAcid Reign - Daze of the WeekJungle Rot - Cruel Face of WarNedgravd - AscensionAkem Manah - ThrenodiesTyrannus - Mournhold

This week we make our way back to Incineration to once again kick off the festival season with a scorching of black and death metal as the likes of Dragged Into Sunlight, Of Feather and Bone, Tomb Mold and Scimitar rip it up across London stages.Releases:Black Veil Brides - VindicateBasement - WIREDKoyo - Barely HereSocial Distortion - Born to KillThe Flatliners - Cold WorldHaggard Cat - The Pain That Orbits LifeGeoff Tate - Operation: Mindcrime IIIFrozen Soul - No Place of WarmthIngested- DenigrationDarkthrone - Pre-Historic MetalPanopticon - Det hjemsøkte hjertetYoth Iria - Gone with the DevilA Forest of Stars - Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile InterfaceDraconian - In Somnolent RuinForced Order - Undying SpiritCrowquill - Erase The FileScarab - Transmutation of FateGadget - Coerced

Creeper's vampire extravaganza Sangui-Tour hits small venues in the UK for a full celebration of blooddrinking and leather.Releases:Foo Fighters - Your Favorite ToyThe Amity Affliction - House of CardsAtreyu - The End is Not the EndFailure - Location LostTerror - Still SufferRoman Candle - UnadulteratedArmed for Apocalypse - The Earth is Breathing Beneath MePlini - An Unnameable DesireEinar Solberg - Vox OccultaAdmiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell - The Trouble With the ShovellDemon Spell - Blessed Be the DarkSix Feet Under - Next to DieScimitar - Scimitarium IICnoc An Tursa - A Cry for the SlainBlood Countess - Imperatrix SanguinisSepultura - The Cloud of UnknowingVomit Forth - In the Name of the FatherAmerican Football - American Football (LP4)Kneecap - FenianSevendust - OneCage Fight - ExuviaVenom - Into OblivionSpell - Wretched HeartBlack Cilice - Votive FireEffluence - Anticholinergic DerangementInfected Death - Invicta

Viral microtonal aliens, surprise drops, and defiant, powerful final bows rule the month with At the Gates, Enter Shikari, Corrosion of Conformity, Spirit Adrift, Angine de Poitrine, Portrayal of Guilt, Poison Ruïn, and Immolation. One last time: Go!At the Gates 18:20Enter Shikari 49:18Corrosion of Conformity 1:18:23Spirit Adrift 1:33:43Angine de Poitrine 1:49:00Portrayal of Guilt 2:14:02Poison Ruïn 2:30:48Immolation 2:51:47

We launch the polaris and get into one of our giddiest ever album clubs on Megadeth's delirious Rust In Peace, the suffocating global anger of Killing Joke 2003, the launchpad for second wave emo in Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary, and Gorguts returning to once again up the game for avant-garde death metal with Colored Sands.This episode was originally published April 2025 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Bring Me the Horizon make the genuinely absurd announcement of Count Your Blessings 20th anniversary celebrations, Nine Inch Noize owns Coachella, and Evanescence lead the singles in their team-up with the Fish.Releases:Nine Inch Noize - Nine Inch NoizeSkindred - You Got This.gif from god - DissimulationThe Last Ten Seconds of Life - The Dead OnesPrince Daddy & the Hyena - Hotwire Trip SwitchHold My Own - Pay No MindMat McNerney - The Bones of the Dead, or Three Turns CounterclockwiseCrippled Black Phoenix - SceaduhelmLeila Abdul-Rauf - Andros InsidiumOrdh - Blind In Abyssal RealmsReeking Aura - On the Promise of the MoonPissrot - Absolute FormMuerto - Eclipsed RealmsNekrogoblikon - The Boiling SeaGout - Actual Bastard

Tracks from Warning, Holding Absence, Health and more head up the week's music, and we announce our first massive band special for 2026.Releases:Bilmuri - Kinda HardLord of the Lost - Opvs Noir Vol. 3Truckfighters - MasterflowAs Everything Unfolds - DID YOU ASK TO BE SET FREE?Tigercub - Nets to Catch the WaveLove Rarely - Pain TravelsBodysnatcher - Hell is Here, Hell is HomeMetal Church - Dead to RightsSpirit Adrift - Infinite IlluminationThe Melvins with Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death MarchImmolation - DescentArchspire - Too Fast to DieVomitory - Death ThroesUada - InterwovenBlush Puppy - Here You DreamMelechesh - Sentinels of ShamashCissné - Awake Children Under the MoonJK Flesh / Monrella - Shouting the Odds

A lot of heavy feelings this week sadly, with the losses of Bo Lueders, James Lollar of Gost, and Ross the Boss. Elsewhere the Kreator/Carcass/Exodus/Nails package lights up the UK, Damnation 2026 unveil all their headliners, Converge unveil a second album, and another messed up story comes out of the world of hardcore so... yeah, one of those weeks.Releases:Don Broco - Nightmare TrippingBlack Label Society - Engines of DemolitionMyrath - Wilderness of MirrorsMoodring - death fetishChamber - this is goodbye…A Winter’s Remorse - The Day Our Gods Abandoned UsConcealer - This Room Could Be HeavenDivine Chaos - Hate ReactorZerre - Rotting on a Golden ThroneThe Twilight Sad - It’s the Long GoodbyeTigers Jaw - Lost on YouFree Throw - Moments Before the WindWinterfylleth - The Unyielding SeasonKëkht Aräkh - Morning StarCruel Force - HanedaCryptworm - Infectious Pathological WasteGrowth - Under the UnderEnslaved & Storm Weather Shanty Choir - Enslaved & Storm Weather Shanty ChoirCorrosion of Conformity - Good God / Baad ManSunn O))) - Sunn O)))Poison Ruïn - Hymns From the HillsLantlôs - Nowhere In Between ForeverKnumears - DirectionsMasca - Love LettersLavaLove - Tan LinesNervosa - Slave MachineCommitment - Fear OfJarboe - SightingsAngine de Poitrine - Vol.II