We've got a reviews bag full of mavericks and outsiders making some big crazy choices and marching to their own drum with their records this month as we look at albums from Haywire, unpeople, New World Man, Wolves in the Throne Room, Noctule, Godflesh, Smoulder, & Bombstrap.Haywire 19:15unpeople 44:38New World Man 1:10:50Wolves in the Throne Room 1:26:35Noctule 1:42:04Godflesh 1:55:22Smoulder 2:14:09Bombstrap 2:33:25

There's big surprise releases from Deafheaven and Power Trip, major Nightwish and Judas Priest line-up shifts, a tremendous festival announcement from Fortress, live shows from Joyce Manor, Blaze Bayley, and Khemmis, but no one wants to talk about any of it because the world's up in arms about James Hetfield.Releases:Caspian - CaspianThe Number Twelve Looks Like You - Howls from the Holographic HeartThroes - The Colorless Light of EmptinessJohn Zorn - FlatlandsEivør - TunglInsomnium - NetherworldsThe Keening - DevotionMaster - Among the Seeds of DeathMother of Graves - The Light That Keeps UsAlgor Mortis - The Art of SufferingShores of Null - HomesickLugubrious Garment - In the Wide Vale of Uncreated Night

Nails tear through the UK, Trivium unveil their Eastern darkness-inspired new album, and Aerosmith plot their own Back to the Beginning style party.Releases:Slope - Same Kids. Just Louder.Greta van Fleet - Palace for the Peopleunpeople - we are unpeopleWage War - LandfallLeft to Suffer - Unwelcome GuestTwin Temple - Doomed LoversGraveyard - FeverMeryl Streek - Stories They Don’t Teach You At SchoolWolfbrigade - Howl From UndergroundRAM - AgainstSmoulder - Witch Wife in an Alien WorldAvrak - AvrakWerewolves - You’re Weak and You Know You’re WeakGoblin Cock - TraumanautNowhere2Run - Bloodrave II

We've arrived at our annual Damnation Festival preview Album Club pack as we pull out Cult of Luna's 21st century post-metal benchmark Somewhere Along the Highway, Walls of Jericho's 00s metallic hardcore smackdown The American Dream, the 2010s sludgy powerviolence of Weekend Nachos' Worthless (featuring "Pat Patterson" and "Troe Johman"), and The Berzerker's Aussie gabber death metal Dissimulate.

It's real highs and lows in the news for rock music this week, with incredibly exciting reveals from Disfear and Repugnant, the 2027 line-up announcements from Slam Dunk and ArcTanGent, but also the news of Enter Shikari's incoming hiatus and the mountain-moving loss of Venom's Cronos, the forefather of extreme metal without whom our world is unthinkable.Releases:Amon Amarth - The Allfather AwakensTwin Atlantic - Separation from the AnimalsImminence - Axis MundiEscape the Fate - The Last GoodbyeMiss May I - No Place for MeTo the Grave - LIBERATION FRONTHaywire 617 - I Don’t Wanna Say GoodbyeCyadine - Violence In MeasureBobbie Dazzle - Star PowerHaunt - Setting CourseAsomvel - Set Your World On FireHippotraktor - AnnihilistDissimulator - Artifice DissolvesDeconsekrated - The Inexorable Transcendence of DeathSpirit Possession - Cathedral SpeechXasthur - Open to MisinterpretationFrom First to Last - We Were Bleeding AnywayThe Crawling - What We Leave BehindSwans - Newly Sentient Being

There are surprising pivots towards our world from the pop sphere this time from Miley Cyrus and Chvrches alongside new singles from Bullet for My Valentine & several others, live trips to see Electric Wizard & more, there's a mindblowing milestone for Judas Priest's Ian Hill, a bizarre multi-pronged bust-up with Frankie Palmeri at the centre, and sadly another passing of a punk and hardcore legend with the loss of New Found Glory's Chad Gilbert.Releases:Holding Absence - Modern Life is LonelyEmma Ruth Rundle - These Killing TimesBoy Harsher - Get MeanThe Eternal - Obscured HorizonsRemote Viewing - State ViolenceEarly Moods - Ready for the GraveKrallice - Scour OrderRunemagick - After Chaos: Nocturnal VigilCH’AHOM - Anthropic Rites of SublimationCombust / Blow Your Brains Out / Imposter - United NationsTom Morello - Everyone Gets Everything They WantColdrain - OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMIZEEurope - Come This MadnessKeo - Put a Smile On For MePain of Truth - Pain of TruthSplit Dogs - Nice N’ RoughBurner - No One is Coming to Save UsCloven Hoof - Never a Prophet in Your Own LandBloodstain - BloodstainGod Mother - KöttvärldCrown of Magnetar - The Hollowing of GodfleshGodflesh - DecayProtomartyr - Hotel UsonaBrat - ManslayerThe Ocean - SolarisEthereal Tomb - Living to Dream AgainNoctule - Extinguish Thy FlameIskald - Curse of the MindAborym - MetachaosKrolok - Hričov  – Súľov – LietavaMassteron - Second in the SpheresProfanation - Ultra-Noise WarfareScorpion Milk - Flesh Mask for Skulls

September gets us all sludgy as reviews pore over new Mastodon, Green Lung, Anthrax, Chat Pile, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Sleep, Devil Master, & Wrong Man, Evanescence playing the UK's biggest arena, and Tony Iommi being the boss yet again.Mastodon 38:10Green Lung 1:22:40Anthrax 1:48:34Chat Pile 2:07:25Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats 2:26:18Sleep 2:42:26Devil Master 2:52:30Wrong Man 3:10:13

First and foremost, we try to speak to the awful loss of Every Time I Die legend Andy Williams. From there we tackle new singles from Slipknot and Spiritbox, the hallucinatory hellscape stories related to Muse's Meta troubles and Breaking Benjamin's modder feud tirades, and put our tin foil hats to theorise that SURELY the Gallows teasing can't just be for vinyl reissues...Releases:Green Lung - NecropolitanBrian Fallon - Not Bad for New JerseyThe Meffs - BusinessWrong Man - Here’s That FeelingKilling of a Sacred Deer - Encephalic AngelsHarlott - ExsequiisDreadnought - Wars of Spirit // Wards of LightArchgoat - Nightbringer, LightbringerFluisteraars - Jacht der MysterienEpitaphe - III

This week we look back on a historic moment of live music for our podcast in our combined Big Goth Weekend with a run of shows from The Cure, Outbreak/All Points East with an epochal headlining set from Deftones, and our AFI watch finally being brought to an end with their first UK headline shows in 16 years.Releases:Mastodon - Marrow DeepBeartooth - Pure EcstasyIn This Moment - WitchDinosaur Jr. - There NearKamelot - Dark AsylumFlotsam and Jetsam - Rats in the TempleExumer - Death Mask MessiahNinth Realm - Damnation’s VeilRussian Circles - NineKulk - Choosing to DieRat Cage - Not Asking for MuchStatic Abyss - The Dying HuntGorod - The Ember GoneEpicardiectomy - Dismal Landscapes of Voluptuous Pustular CadaverosisTurn of Phrase - Out in the Water President - Blood of Your EmpireShowing Teeth - A Fate Worse Than LonelinessGradience - AnomalyAirbourne - AirbourneAudrey Horne - Achilles156/Silence - From a DistanceJudiciary - Stalagmite AngelsMovements - Happier NowSleep - HempispheresChat Pile - Who Loves the SunArab Strap - Half-Told TalesSigh - Goh-kaDevil Master - Bloody DreamsGreen Carnation - A Dark Poem, Part III: The Messiah ComplexTales of Perdition - The Theatre of ExistenceBehemoth - I, Scvlptor

Rivers Cuomo's QR code woes, some goth-pop flourish and questioning what even is an album lead the way for TNM reviews this time with Weezer's Gold Album, Chelsea Wolfe, Electric Callboy, Living Weapon, The Night Eternal, and Zorn going under the magnifying glass.Weezer 30:05Chelsea Wolfe 1:07:20Electric Callboy 1:34:27Living Weapon 1:58:41The Night Eternal 2:14:36Zorn 2:25:33