Hyperblasts: Hetfield Woes, Deafheaven WOAHs

We're back at the UK's biggest extreme music fest at Damnation where 2026 sees multiple headline-tier bands being splashed across the bills with sets from Cult of Luna, Satyricon, Crowbar, Triptykon, Carcass, along with left field choices from Igorrr to The Berzerker.Releases:Walls of Jericho - System Error: HumanityCro-Mags - The Age of Quarrel: 40 Years of QuarrelSilvertomb - The Interpretation of NightmaresBreed 77 - VIIReclus.e - The World Can’t Take Much MoreChastity - I Built This Prison MyselfHeaven In Her Arms - The End of PurificationSinister - Lucid NightmaresWraith - Descent Into DarknessArtificial Brain - AntilliaThe Body & Cel Genesis - Whole Wide WorldRwake - Built From StardustTeenage Wrist - A Different Shine

We take a trip on All Hallow's Eve to Korn's mega arena UK tour with Architects and Youth Code, plus look through the week's big fest announcements including the return of Reuben at 2000 Trees.Releases:Royal Blood - Dead Companythrown - UnwantedSpanish Love Songs - Future NauseaOso Oso - An Exchange of InformationDeus Visages - Call It GoodbyeSteven Wilson - Requiem for a VillageProng - ProngHatebreed - Fatal ParadoxComeback Kid - Chosen HellCosmic Joke - Suburban DecayCarnifex - More Than MiseryAbsolute Power - Needs Must When the Devil DrivesCult of Luna - In the Shadow of Your ShadowCoilguns - Everything We Love, We DestroyHypno5e - Trame NoireHannes Grossman - Worlds Beyond the SunUnderdark - O Come Forth AnnihilationSaor - CaledoniaKonvent - FireskyWolvennest - In the RuinsMidnight - Satanic Attack Live!

It's an episode of massive events for hardcore as we discuss Turnstile's massive Washington Monument benefit show, Single Print Index's new EP drop, plus the unlikely Spiritbox to Neurosis connection to have emerged this week, and one of the most absurdly large release dumps of the year.Releases:Tony Iommi - From the DarkPolyphia - Be Not AfraidGhostemane - AM:FMStand Atlantic - GODBREATHForbidden - ForbiddenFake Names - Punk RuinsKohti Tuhoa - ParatiisiMental Cruelty - Echoes of a Forlorn LandBoss Keloid - Float & ApertureFrontierer - Ultraviolet ParadiseGlorior Belli - Ave MaraisThe Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir - Songs from a Dying EmpireSingle Print Index - ConfessionsGet the Shot - Crucifixion DepictionNiis - Play NiisLeng Tch’e - Hammered Into CollapseSequestrum / Torture Rack - SplitQueens of the Stone Age - PerfecthNickelback - Everything Under the SunMinistry - Hate to Go - Take Out or DeliveryMaster Boot Record - Computer MetalDarkest Hour - Suffer DivineRev3rent - She Let the World Run RampantHalf Me - DogmaDemonstration of Power - In the Name of…Xentrix - Allied with the EnemyCirith Ungol - All the ShadowsEnslaved - MiðSatanic Planet - Dead DeitiesDream Unending - Certain UncertaintiesBlack Royal - AbyssianSea Bastard - CyclopianPantheist - Uncanny TimesDungeon Serpent - Lamentations of the ShadowkingdomsGenital Shame - Wellness PlanGrotesqueries - Nightmare Delirium

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