That's Not Metal

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: Humanity
Cro-Mags - The Age of Quarrel: 40 Years of Quarrel
Silvertomb - The Interpretation of Nightmares
Breed 77 - VII
Reclus.e - The World Can’t Take Much More
Chastity - I Built This Prison Myself
Heaven In Her Arms - The End of Purification
Sinister - Lucid Nightmares
Wraith - Descent Into Darkness
Artificial Brain - Antillia
The Body & Cel Genesis - Whole Wide World
Rwake - Built From Stardust
Teenage 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 Company
thrown - Unwanted
Spanish Love Songs - Future Nausea
Oso Oso - An Exchange of Information
Deus Visages - Call It Goodbye
Steven Wilson - Requiem for a Village
Prong - Prong
Hatebreed - Fatal Paradox
Comeback Kid - Chosen Hell
Cosmic Joke - Suburban Decay
Carnifex - More Than Misery
Absolute Power - Needs Must When the Devil Drives
Cult of Luna - In the Shadow of Your Shadow
Coilguns - Everything We Love, We Destroy
Hypno5e - Trame Noire
Hannes Grossman - Worlds Beyond the Sun
Underdark - O Come Forth Annihilation
Saor - Caledonia
Konvent - Firesky
Wolvennest - In the Ruins
Midnight - 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 Dark
Polyphia - Be Not Afraid
Ghostemane - AM:FM
Stand Atlantic - GODBREATH
Forbidden - Forbidden
Fake Names - Punk Ruins
Kohti Tuhoa - Paratiisi
Mental Cruelty - Echoes of a Forlorn Land
Boss Keloid - Float & Aperture
Frontierer - Ultraviolet Paradise
Glorior Belli - Ave Marais
The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir - Songs from a Dying Empire
Single Print Index - Confessions
Get the Shot - Crucifixion Depiction
Niis - Play Niis
Leng Tch’e - Hammered Into Collapse
Sequestrum / Torture Rack - Split
Queens of the Stone Age - Perfecth
Nickelback - Everything Under the Sun
Ministry - Hate to Go - Take Out or Delivery
Master Boot Record - Computer Metal
Darkest Hour - Suffer Divine
Rev3rent - She Let the World Run Rampant
Half Me - Dogma
Demonstration of Power - In the Name of…
Xentrix - Allied with the Enemy
Cirith Ungol - All the Shadows
Enslaved - Mið
Satanic Planet - Dead Deities
Dream Unending - Certain Uncertainties
Black Royal - Abyssian
Sea Bastard - Cyclopian
Pantheist - Uncanny Times
Dungeon Serpent - Lamentations of the Shadowkingdoms
Genital Shame - Wellness Plan
Grotesqueries - 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 19:15
unpeople 44:38
New World Man 1:10:50
Wolves in the Throne Room 1:26:35
Noctule 1:42:04
Godflesh 1:55:22
Smoulder 2:14:09
Bombstrap 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 - Caspian
The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Howls from the Holographic Heart
Throes - The Colorless Light of Emptiness
John Zorn - Flatlands
Eivør - Tungl
Insomnium - Netherworlds
The Keening - Devotion
Master - Among the Seeds of Death
Mother of Graves - The Light That Keeps Us
Algor Mortis - The Art of Suffering
Shores of Null - Homesick
Lugubrious Garment - In the Wide Vale of Uncreated Night