That's Not Metal

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 15:40
Frozen Soul 33:44
Haggard Cat 51:10
Fire-Toolz 1:05:09
Prisonnier du temps 1:15:41
A Forest of Stars 1:25:27
Panopticon 1:47:30
Scimitar 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 - Prong
Dimmu Borgir - Grand Serpent Rising
XCOMM - Time to Burn
Armored Saint - Emotion Factory Reset
David Eugene Edwards - Mercurial Silence
Blindead 23 - Deuterium
Witching Hour - Descending.. Where Time Has Ceased to Exist
Lore - Psychotic Trance of the Black Nights
Gridiron - Lights Out
Bear - 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 Dot
The All-American Rejects - Sandbox
Super Sometimes - Show the World What’s Underneath
Held. - Grey
Von Groove - Born to Rock
Pro-Pain - Stone Cold Anger
Acid Reign - Daze of the Week
Jungle Rot - Cruel Face of War
Nedgravd - Ascension
Akem Manah - Threnodies
Tyrannus - 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 - Vindicate
Basement - WIRED
Koyo - Barely Here
Social Distortion - Born to Kill
The Flatliners - Cold World
Haggard Cat - The Pain That Orbits Life
Geoff Tate - Operation: Mindcrime III
Frozen Soul - No Place of Warmth
Ingested- Denigration
Darkthrone - Pre-Historic Metal
Panopticon - Det hjemsøkte hjertet
Yoth Iria - Gone with the Devil
A Forest of Stars - Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface
Draconian - In Somnolent Ruin
Forced Order - Undying Spirit
Crowquill - Erase The File
Scarab - Transmutation of Fate
Gadget - 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 Toy
The Amity Affliction - House of Cards
Atreyu - The End is Not the End
Failure - Location Lost
Terror - Still Suffer
Roman Candle - Unadulterated
Armed for Apocalypse - The Earth is Breathing Beneath Me
Plini - An Unnameable Desire
Einar Solberg - Vox Occulta
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell - The Trouble With the Shovell
Demon Spell - Blessed Be the Dark
Six Feet Under - Next to Die
Scimitar - Scimitarium II
Cnoc An Tursa - A Cry for the Slain
Blood Countess - Imperatrix Sanguinis
Sepultura - The Cloud of Unknowing
Vomit Forth - In the Name of the Father
American Football - American Football (LP4)
Kneecap - Fenian
Sevendust - One
Cage Fight - Exuvia
Venom - Into Oblivion
Spell - Wretched Heart
Black Cilice - Votive Fire
Effluence - Anticholinergic Derangement
Infected Death - Invicta