Festival season is upon us! The US might've got a head-start with Sonic Temple, but with Mystic kicking off in Europe the first week of June and the likes of Download and Hellfest following shortly after, we're well and truly into the season of new discoveries.
Much as we do every month, we've searched far and wide to find you the most exciting new bands around to take us into June. This time, that means nostalgic heavygaze from Love Is Noise, spiky nu gen punk from Bex, sparkling goth metal from Poltergeist and infernal black metal courtesy of Ruim (a band that features Mayhem's Blasphemer).
You can listen to the latest releases from each band in our mega playlist below, or head further down to read all about these exciting new bands and what they're all about. Happy listening!
Love Is Noise
“The most metal thing you can do is get away from your comfort zone,” declares Love Is Noise mastermind Cam Humphrey. “Heaviness in metal doesn’t have to signify distorted guitars and heavy drums. To just do the complete opposite of what everyone thinks you’re going to do, I think that’s metal as fuck.”
A varied mix of influences has made the UK band’s debut album, To Live In A Different Way, an equally nostalgic and fresh listen. Making nods to Deftones, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine and Smashing Pumpkins, it combines thick, woozy shoegaze with face-melting post-metal and huge, immediate hooks. The result is a captivating record that scored a near-perfect 9/10 in these very pages.
“We just wanted be fluid with our music and just do whatever we wanted to do,” Cam says.
Following the collapse of Cam’s previous band, Lotus Eater, he started work on Love Is Noise immediately. After meeting guitarist Tom Mellon on Instagram, the pair began writing material, recording To Live In A Different Way at The Ranch Production House in Southampton.
Although Cam and Tom have since parted ways, making Love Is Noise Cam’s solo project, things have continued to snowball. The band’s album release show in London sold out, Letlive and Fever 333 mainman Jason Aalon Butler has announced he’s a fan, and Cam’s vision is only getting more ambitious.
Take the band’s brilliant recent single, It Hurts To Know You’re There, for instance – a soaring rock anthem with a huge guitar solo, which sounds like Loathe covering Coldplay. “I think it’ll be one of our biggest songs,” Cam enthuses. “Hopefully one day we can play it in an arena.” Dannii Leivers
To Live In A Different Way is out now via Century Media. The band play headline shows in August and September: for the full list of dates visit their official website.
Sounds Like: A dreamy and brutal trip back to the 90s
For Fans Of: Loathe, Deftones, Ride
Listen To: It Hurts To Know You’re There
Ruim
The infamous 1990s Norwegian black metal scene might have kicked off a fresh wave of Satanic panic, but there are deities other than the mighty Baphomet who demand reverence. Accordingly, Rune Eriksen, aka Blasphemer – the black metal legend formerly of Mayhem – has cast a brutal aural invocation in tribute to the ‘lefthand path’ of Brazilian folk religion Umbanda, with his new band, Ruïm.
Rune was initiated into Umbanda in 2013 at a house in Portugal, where he lives, and witnessed a cleansing ritual involving serpents. Fascinated, he returned to the house frequently over the following eight years, and eventually took those teachings and alchemised them into Ruïm’s debut album, Black Royal Spiritism.
“It was about becoming a medium for these living and breathing energies that surround you,” he explains.
Also inspired by unused, 1998-era Mayhem riffs that Rune discovered on previously-lost demo tapes, the end result is a thrilling journey through dark terrain that, with buzzsaw riffing, eerily dissonant clean interludes and relentless, pummelling blastbeats from drummer César Vesvre, conjures a muggy, claustrophobic atmosphere that leaves you gasping for air. The oppressive atmosphere is no coincidence: work started in the pandemic, under lockdown.
“It was a very intense period,” Rune acknowledges. “But in its own peculiar way, it helped elevate the feelings I wanted to convey.”
Black Royal Spiritism was recorded in three rounds in France and, during the final sessions, Rune recalls waking up feeling as if he’d lost his mind.
“Dealing with these kinds of energies demands self-mastery,” he warns. By the time album closer O Sino Da Igreja bursts into its soaring guitars and ritualistic incantation roared in Portuguese, the listener is feeling just as depleted.
“Everything was heartfelt, with emotion and conviction,” Rune explains. “It was a kind of exorcism.” Tamlin Magee
Black Royal Spiritism is out now via Peaceville. Ruim play Fortress Festival this weekend.
Sounds Like: Crushingly intense second-wave black metal born from esoteric ritual
For Fans Of: Mayhem, Blut Aus Nord, Abduction Listen To: O Sino Da Igreja
Poltergeist
With his blond hair, Harry Potter glasses and cheerful demeanour, Poltergeist’s Kalen Baker doesn’t scream ‘goth metal princeling’. Suddenly, the door swings open behind him seemingly of its own accord, and the temperature in the room drops by several degrees. Supernatural? No. It’s just his black cat creeping into the room.
“This is Mayhem,” says Kalen, as the furry familiar settles into his lap. “I have another one, named Abba. I’m keeping it Scandinavian.”
He may resemble a refugee from a University Challenge team, but the Calgary native has made a crepuscular classic with Poltergeist’s debut album, Nachtmusik. Its vintage keyboards and dry ice-shrouded guitars are a period-perfect homage to the goth and post-punk of the early 80s.
“That musical aesthetic is timeless,” says Kalen, who grew up listening to his dad’s old Cure and Smiths records. “It’s as cold and bleak as black metal, but also kind of poppy and dancey.”
He formed his first band, trad metal revivalists Whyte Diamond, when he was a teenager, but Pøltergeist – also featuring guitarist Jacob Ponton, bassist Ben Wytham and drummer Amy Moore – drink from a darker well.
“In the end, everything dies,” intones Kalen on the pulsing Burning Sword, though reality creeps in on the sneakily catchy Children Of The Dark, which tangentially addresses the hardships of modern 20-something life.
“I’d moved back to Calgary, I was staying in a temporary place that was way more expensive than I could afford, I was just fucking working all day to live,” he says, exasperatedly.
He’s a great pitchman for the “really vibrant” Calgary scene – he’s certainly not the only goth in the village. “Loads of 18-year-olds who were into grindcore and death metal are getting into it,” he explains. Now all he has to do is find the image to match his music.
“I just don’t have the look,” he says with a ‘what-can-you-do?’ shrug. “I’m really bad at dressing up.” Dave Everley
Nachtmusik is out now via Bad Omen.
Sounds Like: Goth disco night at the local haunted house
For Fans Of: The Cure, The Mission, Unto Others Listen To: Cold In September
Bex
When she's not writing scathingly honest alt metal tracks, 22-year-old Bex runs a 500-member community WhatsApp group and helms her own fashion brand. But as founder, vocalist and bassist of her namesake nu gen punk band, she’s not merely staying busy. She’s got her sights on revolution – and doing something entirely fresh.
“There’s been so many bands,” she bemoans jokingly. “So many girls that make music; the whole riot grrrl movement. We can’t do it again, it’s happened. It’s time to go and do something new!”
Her teenage years were soundtracked by All Time Low and Creeper, but these days Bex draws on influences as diverse as The Pretty Reckless, Vivienne Westwood and Sabrina Carpenter.
“You have to like such a broad range of things to create something that’s entirely you and unique,” she admits.
These colourful influences shine through on punky songs like Taste Better, with its video featuring corsets and torn donuts, while Slave 2 The Grind is like a No Doubt ballad shocked by 10,000 volts. Bex doesn’t feel confined to one style and promises more diversity to follow.
“We shouldn’t write songs to fit into genres,” she insists.
Having supported electro-punk duo Wargasm and sludgy post-punk four-piece Witch Fever, she’s in good company as a young woman pushing boundaries in the modern alternative landscape. She gushes over how lucky she is to have found her community – one that is as likely to throw a party as kick off a massive moshpit.
“I don’t care if you’re 70 or 12, I don’t care if you’re wearing a skirt or jeans – one of my gigs was a pyjama party!” she says. “If you enjoy the sound and you’re having a good time with your friends, you’re welcome to come. You don’t have to fit in. We’re a misfits box for the misfits!” Madison Collier
Bex's latest single, Crybaby, is out now via Scum. Bex plays Download Festival in June.
Sounds Like: If the animated defiance of old-school punk gorged itself on a double helping of bass
For Fans Of:Nova Twins, Wargasm, Witch Fever Listen To: Sum Kinda Syko
