On reflection, we might've been a bit hasty calling for the end of summer. After an especially wet and muddy Wacken Open Air 2025, and with more festivals like Bloodstock, ArcTanGent and Reading/Leeds still to come, we're thinking we don't mind too much if the sun sticks around just a little while longer.
But anyway, onwards with the results of last week's vote! German power metallers Primal Fear took an admirable third place position, but were themselves beaten by heavy metal legends Spinal Tap and their all-new rendition of Stonehenge, featuring Elton John. But the overall winners - by some way - were rising melodeath heroes Orbit Culture, whose Hydra proved an unkillable beast. Top notch.
This week we've got a hefty selection for you, with big names like Trivium, Papa Roach and AFI mingling with the likes of Belphegor, Despised Icon and Creeper. As ever, we need you to let us know which songs excite you most, so don't forget to cast your vote in the poll below - and have a fantastic weekend!
Trivium - Bury Me With My Screams
20 years since their legendary debut at Download Festival in the UK, Trivium are returning to headline Bloodstock Festival for the second time. Although they've been kept pretty busy this year with celebrations of breakthrough album Ascendancy, that hasn't stopped the Floridians from putting together new material in the form of EP Struck Dead, which will arrive October 31. Lead single Bury Me With My Screams feels decidedly indebted to their Ascendancy era material without sounding dated or like a rehash, capturing some of the force and fury that made them so formidable when they first arose.
Babymetal - My Queen (ft. Spiritbox)
Babymetal's Metal Forth is finally with us! It might've been delayed a few times, but Babymetal's fifth full-length has kept the excitement up with the promise of a host of guest stars. We've already had Electric Callboy, Slaughter To Prevail, Poppy and Bloodywood, so new single My Queen sees them team-up with Spiritbox for a thumping track that blends in Babymetal's usual sense of anthemia to create something powerful and unique. Now we just need to see all these bands on a single bill...
Belphegor - Sanctus Diaboli Confidimus
Proprietors of infernal blackened death metal for over 30 years, Austria's Belphegor have maintained their roots in the underground even as they aspired to greater heights. That much is evident on Sanctus Diaboli Confidimus, the first taste of new material since 2022's The Devils. It's an imperious track that invokes some of the grandeur of symphonic black metal without ever actually incorporating strings or orchestral elements - though a choir do pop up in the song's latter half - speaking to the sheer ambition of a band who've managed to go top 10 in their home country without sacrificing the sheer extremity at their core.
AFI - Behind The Clock
AFI have always delighted in drastic transformations. Even so, Silver Bleeds The Black Sun... their eighth album, seems to be really pushing the boat out even for them. The punkier affectations of earlier material are almost entirely gone on new single Behind The Clock, a track that feels much more at home with 80s goth originators and modern post-punk revivalists like Grave Pleasures than even the bands they helped inspire like Creeper. It's a gorgeous and cinematic track that has us eager to hear what lies in store on October 3.
Despised Icon - Over My Dead Body
With deathcore continuing to ascend to new heights, sometimes it's good to have a reminder of the genre's salt-of-the-earth roots. Enter Canadians Despised Icon, whose latest single Over My Dead Body takes the base elements of hardcore and death metal and mashes them together in a furious, thrilling hybrid that shows you don't always need massive symphonics and production flourishes to make a track that feels essential. Taken from new album Shadow Work, due October 31, it's brutish brutality at its finest.
Battle Beast - Here We Are
From one extreme to another. Finland's Battle Beast delight in the OTT excesses of power metal, but on new single Here We Are they also find a strong throughline in cheesy, bombastic AOR. Taken from new album Steelbound, due October 17, it's old school melodic metal in its purest form, vocalist Noora Louhimo evoking the likes of Lita Ford or Doro Pesch with a powerful voice riding high atop galloping guitars. It's not often you'll find something that can give Night Flight Orchestra a run for their money, so for that alone it's worth a spin.
Creeper - Blood Magick (It's A Ritual)
Speaking of gloriously OTT cheese, Creeper are at it again. After their vampiric rock opera Sanguivore took top spot in Hammer's critics poll in 2023, the UK goth-punks have returned to the well to offer up a sequel in the form of Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death, with an oh-so-appropriate release date of Halloween. New single Blood Magick (It's A Ritual) is pure 80s rock cheese, employing brooding, Danzig-esque vocals alongside an almost gospel melody that speaks to the larger-than-life power the band harnessed on the original Sanguivore. Fuck it, we're all in.
Frayle - Summertime Sadness
Metal covers of pop tunes are about as old as the genre itself, but there's something especially fitting about doom metallers Frayle taking on Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness. Put it down to Rey's inherent melancholia, but Frayle's rendition doesn't feel a million miles removed from what the pop star did on the original, adding a heftier low-end that is oh-so-satisfying and makes great use of Gwyn Strang's ethereal vocal. Coming with the announcement the band have new album Heretics & Lullabies coming on October 10, it's plenty of reasons to get excited about this rising force.
Agenbite Misery - Bellwether And Swine
If you're looking for something more familiar and fuzzy with doomy overtones, you'd do well to check out Agenbite Misery's Bellwether And Swine. Granted, it doesn't linger too long in the doom pools before exploding with a black metal like frenzied intensity, but the band's melding of extreme metal styles certainly taps into the fatalistic darkness of doom. A first taste of their debut album Remorse Of Conscience, expected early next year, it's a gorgeously bleak and powerful opening statement - and earns bonus points for being an adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses. Talk about an ambitious start.
Pinkshift - Don’t Fight
Deftonescore meets thumping, pounding alt. metal on Pinkshift's latest single Don't Fight. Floating, weightless melodies suddenly give way to full-force assaults on the senses as the Maryland band explode with an almost emo/post-hardcore sense of raw-nerve anguish that makes the whole thing feel incendiary. New album Earthkeeper is out in just a few weeks on August 29, and is well worth keeping an eye on.
Death Goals - Even A Worm Can Turn
Noisy and belligerent, Death Goals latest single Even A Worm Can Turn flies by in under 90 seconds, swinging from manic, headache inducing wails of guitars to a brutish, slobbering breakdown that sounds like it's setting off car alarms. Taken from new EP Survival Is An Act Of Defiance, due August 29.
Aviana - Evermore
Metalcore is an impossibly broad church in 2025, able to accommodate arena-baiting acts like Architects of Parkway Drive just as much as the more visceral, furious elements. Gothenburg's Avaiana certainly lean more towards the latter on new single Evermore, but there's still a melodic sensibility nestled in amdist the explosive blast-beats and snarls that hints to wider commercial ambitions.
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