Happy New Year! We've already passed the seven-day point into 2026, which means we're technically behind on bringing you new music to sink your teeth into (Sorry. We'll admit, post-Christmas turkey comas may have been involved), but now we're back at it!
Much as we did last year, each month we'll be rounding up four brilliant new bands from across the metal, punk and rock spectrum to bring you some of the best and most exciting new music around.
We're kicking things off with a real diverse selection. Whether you're looking for new (or perhaps nu) sounds in deathcore from Autumn Lies Buried, fired-up political black metal from Finland in Svarta Havet, grungey Black Label Society side project Dark Chapel or bewitching psychedelic sludge with Witchrot, we've got you covered.
Below you'll find interviews with all the aforementioned bands, as well as a mega playlist with their latest records. Stick 'em on loud and prepare to discover some fantastic new bands.
Autumn Lies Buried
Like a deathcore version of the Ship Of Theseus, Autumn Lies Buried are a vessel with no original parts. A band of that name has been playing around Clarksville, Tennessee since 2006 and the current line-up has inherited that screamo-tinted handle.
“Everybody in the band shits on the name but I think I like it,” guitarist Perry Jones says with a laugh. “Maybe the imagery and songs will help with the emo part of it.”
They certainly should. Listening to the band’s recent EP, Mob Mentality, is akin to being bludgeoned by five large, angry men with blunt instruments for 15 minutes – which is pretty much the case. The guitars and rhythms are brutally heavy, while extraordinary vocalist Kaelin Wilkins veers between a bellicose roar and spitting rap interludes.
“Some people have described us as nu-deathcore with the hip hop influences,” Perry shrugs. “When Kaelin started to rap over songs I hated it, but we talked about it and decided not to change the structures of the songs. He raps over the riffs and it just works.”
The lyrical anger bubbling out of the slab-thick grooves is very real.
“Forty-five minutes from us is Nashville, and not too long ago, Nazis popped out of a U-Haul van, walking around the city,” Perry seethes. “We’re here to shout about it and other things that piss us off. Guillotine is a song about chopping politicians’ heads off. They don’t care about us. It’s all money-grabs, so yeah, we’re angry.”
With the band ready to release yet another EP in the looming Crowd Control that they promise will be even heavier, Autumn Lies Buried provide the perfect soundtrack for expressing righteous fury.
“When I look in the crowd and somebody’s getting decked in the face, that’s what I want to see,” laughs drummer Cole Hill. Brutal. Paul Travers
Mob Mentality is out now via Exitus Strategem.
Sounds Like: A neutron star collapsing on itself with a light dusting of hip hop
For Fans Of: Whitechapel, Heriot, Despised Icon
Listen To: Told Off With A Sawed Off
Svarta Havet
Svarta Havet's social media bio simply states “Pro-nature, anti-fascist.” The Finns - though three-quarters made up of Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, hence the lyrics in Swedish - uphold the Varsinais-Suomi region’s long lineage of loudly political anarcho-punk, having grown up around the DIY scene there. They meld that with black metal’s affinity for the natural world in an effort to emphasise the importance of those things working together.
“There are constant pushes in Finland for privatising the water supply or expanding the deforestation industry, and so there is a constant fight between preservation of natural habitats and species and then this lust for profit,” guitarist Joakim Stolpe explains, regarding the link between environmentalism and anti-capitalism their music emphasises.
“People think fascism is just what the Nazis did back when, but things like transphobia or rage stirred up against immigrants are attempts to keep people separated from each other to keep greater control over them. It’s also a way of keeping us separated from nature in order to keep greater control of nature as a resource. The face of modern fascism is trying to establish control over people and resources.”
Although undeniably political, album two Månen ska lysa din våg (‘The Moon Lights Your Way’) uses metal’s emotional canvas to explore complex empathetic concepts.
“The first track, Göm Dig [meaning ‘Hide Yourself’] is inspired by stories I heard when the war started in Ukraine about people fleeing the country who just let their horses free in the forest,” vocalist Lotta Green explains. “That touched me so much that I tried to write thinking about a human conflict like that, from the point of view of another being who is affected, trying to escape until this war is over that they have nothing to do with.” Perran Helyes
Månen ska lysa din våg is out now via Prosthetic.
Sounds Like: A raging blackened torrent washing away a row of logging machines
For Fans Of: Oathbreaker, Svalbard, Downfall Of Gaia Listen To: Göm Dig
Dark Chapel
If you're a guitarist looking to start taking on frontman duties, there aren’t many better mentors to help you make that transition than Zakk Wylde. But while most don’t have Zakk on speed dial, Dario Lorina had something of an edge, having played guitar in Black Label Society since 2014.
“He’s been so supportive since day one,” Dario says. “When I first thought about putting the band together, he’d sit on the back of the bus with me and give me ideas, band names, those kinds of conversations.”
Dark Chapel might have had plenty of advice from a high-profile source, but the band are definitely Dario’s baby. He’s been working on songs with a bunch of “phenomenal musicians” from his native Las Vegas for the last few years, resulting in their debut album, Spirit In The Glass.
It’s a great listen too. Taking the smoky, Southern-fried, classic heavy metal of his day job and giving it a more melodic, slightly grunge tinge, particularly on the Alice In Chains-esque Dark Waters and piano ballad Dead Weight, Dario’s voice sits somewhere between Ozzy and Chris Cornell. Not bad for a guy who had never fronted a band before.
“I was always told that if you learn guitar, you have to learn to sing while you’re doing it,” he says. “So, it’s not totally new, I’ve done backing vocals and harmonies before, but this is a little different.”
The first person to hear the record? You guessed it. “Yeah, I sent Zakk the record before we put it out,” say Dario. “He dug it so much that he let us open when we did a few of the Zakk Sabbath shows.”
We point out, he could be to Zakk, what Zakk was to Ozzy. “I mean, it’s certainly nice to be part of that lineage,” Dario replies. “If we could have half the career that BLS have had I’d be delighted. I’m just gonna keep doing my thing.” Stephen Hill
Spirit In The Glass is out now via MNRK Heavy.
Sounds Like: Black Sabbath if they’d been raised in Tennessee
For Fans Of: Alice In Chains, Alter Bridge, Black Label Society
Listen To: We Are Remade
Witchrot
For Toronto psychedelic sludge quintet Witchrot, a cancelled tour with Maryland doom metallers The Obsessed was the accidental catalyst for their second album, Soul Cellar.
“If The Obsessed were able to get over the [Canadian] border, we probably wouldn’t have made this album,” guitarist and co-founder Peter Turik says with a smirk.
“We had a free week where we were like, ‘We have some material, maybe we should start fucking around with it?” adds new keyboardist Patrick Sherrard.
Soul Cellar sees Witchrot delving further into the smoke-filled catacombs of their doom-meets-sludge-meets-gaze sound established on 2021’s Hollow. Peter’s foundation-cracking guitar tone mixes with Patrick’s mind-altering keys, all tied together by the soulful, seductive timbre of vocalist Lea Reto.
“Lea could sing the fucking alphabet and it’d sound amazing,” smiles drummer Myles Deck.
The album sees Witchrot growing comfortable in their own putrid skin. They’ve come a long way from a hilarious viral 2018 break-up post, where Peter called out their then-guitarist Ky Ull for sleeping with his girlfriend, before nonchalantly ending the post with the (fake) news that their drummer had died.
With the Canadians taking a massive step up on this record, they hope to draw listeners in, one resin-coated riff at a time.
“I want them to sit their parents down in front of the stereo, turn it up full blast and say, ‘This is who I am now!’ and crank Soul Cellar front to back,” says Myles. Jon Garcia
Soul Cellar is out now.
Sounds Like: Tripping on acid in a graveyard
For Fans Of: Electric Wizard, Windhand, Crowbar
Listen To: Tombstoned
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