Swedish hard rock powerhouse CREYE unveil today their new single and official video, “Only You”, taken from the upcoming new studio album, “IV Aftermath”, out on April 24, 2026, via Frontiers Music Srl.
The band said: “Only You” was written over a decade ago by Simon and Denny, but its destiny was clear from the very beginning. Now, with the final touch from Andreas, the song found its true home – taking our sound in an exciting new direction you haven’t heard before.”
Creye return with renewed energy and ambition on their brand-new album “IV Aftermath”, a record that marks a bold new chapter in the band’s evolution. With the introduction of charismatic new frontman Simon Böös and a partially refreshed line-up, Creye prove once again why they are considered one of the brightest stars in today’s melodic hard rock scene, delivering songs with a distinctly modern edge crafted arrangement.
The band stated: “IV Aftermath” pushes the legacy forward with purpose and determination – our most complete album yet, built on the same flame that started it all.”
Formed in Sweden and quickly gaining international attention for their impeccable songwriting and classic yet forward-looking melodic sound, Creye built a solid reputation with their early releases, blending arena-ready choruses, top class production and unmistakable Scandinavian flair. Over the years, the band has steadily refined their identity, earning respect from fans and critics alike within the melodic rock community.
At the core of Creye remains founding member and visionary Andreas Gullstrand, whose guitar work continues to define the band’s signature sound. On “IV Aftermath”, he is joined by Fredrik Joakimsson on rhythm guitars, Denny Karlsson on bass, and Vidar Savbrant on drums, forming a tight and powerful unit that delivers both finesse and impact. The arrival of Simon Böös on vocals adds a fresh dynamic, bringing passion, range that elevates the new material to even greater heights.
With “IV Aftermath”, Creye not only honor the legacy of classic melodic hard rock, but also reshape it for a contemporary audience through modern songwriting and refined, sophisticated arrangements. The album stands as a clear statement: Creye are not just back – they are stronger than ever, firmly established as a leading force in the modern hard rock landscape.
“IV Aftermath” Tracklist:
1. Something Missing 2. Bad Romance 3. Rust 4. Left in Silence 5. Don’t Talk About It 6. Through the Window 7. Only You 8. Glow 9. Aligned 10. The Last Night On Earth 11. Clay
Line Up: Simon Böös – Vocals Andreas Gullstrand – Lead Guitar Fredrik Joakimsson – Rhythm Guitar Denny Karlsson – Bass Vidar Savbrant – Drums
Decibel Books proudly presentsSodom: The Official Authorized Biography, the fully authorized biography of the German thrash legends Sodom, finally translated into English. Pre-orders are livenow with an expected ship date of late May/early June, but for an exclusive preview, fans can read the first excerpt online, which turns the clock back to 1984 and the recording of the band’s landmark In the Sign of Evil EP.
“A must-buy for Sodom fans and metal historians alike.”— Rock Hard
With ‘Sodom: The Official Authorized Biography,’ Dr. Holger Schmenk visits the deepest basement rehearsal rooms and scours the roughest pubs to unearth the unfiltered truth about Tom Angelripper and his ever-changing lineup of bandmates. From their wild early days of the ‘Witching Metal’ demo to their international breakthrough with ‘Agent Orange,‘ and right up to the present day, Schmenk tells the unvarnished story of a thrash metal legend that has gone through more guitarists than other bands have gone through amplifiers.
‘Sodom: The Official Authorized Biography’ tells the story of a miner’s son from Gelsenkirchen-Buer who rose from being a blue-collar underground laborer to an internationally acclaimed metal star, without ever forgetting his roots or compromising his integrity. Navigating four decades of metal history, ‘Sodom: The Official Authorized Biography’ features interviews with nearly every past and present member of the band, along with a supporting cast of the German thrash metal scene. Packed with over 200 rare and previously unreleased photos, this hardcover history is over 300 pages, beautifully designed, and fully translated into English.
PATRIARCHS IN BLACK have released a new single ‘Supertzar’, stream it below.
Another Black Sabbath cover? Hasn’t that been done enough? How about a deep track that few groups would be bold enough to even attempt? Almost like a Rock Opera? “Supertzar” combines heavy as hell guitars and drums with Angelic female vocals from Sarah Sovak. Type O Negative’s Johnny Kelly pounding the drums, Hades Dan Lorenzo on guitar and former Pale Horse Named Death member Eric J. Morgan on keys. Bill Ward listened and told Johnny he approved!
Dan Lorenzo says about the song: “When I wrote the song “Where You Think You’re Going” off the “Home” album with DMC, Johnny Kelly and I were talking about other hard rock songs that utilized female vocals. Johnny mentioned “Supertzar”. I hadn’t listened to that track in years and when I reexamined it I fell in love with it. Sarah Sovak and Eric J. Morgan really helped us bring the songs to life.”
Following the release of V_WEIRD, published on February 20, 2026 via Karma Field Records, SOLO 1981 returns with “Saturday Night (Tonight) / Crazy Man”, a double track that brings the project’s most direct, physical, and visceral side to the forefront.
The single fits into the album’s journey by amplifying its most instinctive component: sharp guitars, electric energy, and an emotional tension that transforms into movement and release.
“Saturday Night (Tonight)” was born from the need to let go after difficult days, turning stress and accumulated thoughts into a moment of catharsis and rebirth.
“Crazy Man”, on the other hand, moves along more introspective lines, inviting the listener to get lost in their inner world—between solitude and a form of irregular clarity that can evolve into balance.
Accompanying the single is the official video for “Saturday Night (Tonight)”, directed by Stefano Giambastiani, visually translating the track’s energy and impact.
Recorded by Matteo Teani at Tana del Lupo (Lucca), mixed and mastered by Rosario Magazzino at Temple of Noise Studio, with the participation of Gianfranco Scarlino on bass and final backing vocals, the work maintains a strong independent identity.
International promotion is handled by the UK-based agency Kick Down The Doors PR, alongside overseas promotion by Wanikiya Records & Promotion.
With this new single, Solo 1981 confirms an artistic direction that blends rock drive, introspection, and expressive freedom.
American heavy metal icons, ARMORED SAINT, are back with their anticipated new full-length release, Emotion Factory Reset, set for release on May 22nd through Metal Blade Records.
Emotion Factory Reset, the lineup’s ninth studio album since 1984’s March Of The Saint, is a resurrection of sorts, a tearing down and a rebuilding in eleven songs of diverse musicality and lyrical themes. Produced, as were the previous four albums, by bassist Joey Vera and mixed by Jay Ruston (Anthrax, Stone Sour) the record finds the quintet challenging themselves. Songs like “Close To The Bone,” “Hit A Moonshot,” and “Every Man-Any Man” have ARMORED SAINT honoring their past as one of the most respected and recognizable bands in heavy music while making forward-thinking music rooted in the present.
“Each ARMORED SAINT record, to me, is like a new skin for the band, a different chapter. I don’t think we’ve ever repeated ourselves,” says Vera. “Every album has been pretty different from the previous one, a snapshot in time. In 2026, Emotion Factory Reset is where our heads are at.”
“When we start coming up with songs, I always say we can do whatever we want,” notes Bush. “Use all our influences through the years, diverse music that we listen to and love, and let that seep in and bring something new out of us. It leads to something more adventurous.”
Bush, one of music’s most respected vocalists, operates from a place of passion and presence in the studio and on stage. In fact, about 85% of his vocals from the last three ARMORED SAINT records are taken from the demo sessions, capturing the raw power. While Vera is a granular and detailed writer, like Bush, the bassist says, “I try not to overthink and be right where I’m at that time. I really don’t look over my shoulder much, like, ‘what did I do in the past? What’s going on in the next lane?’ Once the ball starts rolling, I just sit back and let it happen.”
The collaborative nature of Emotion Factory Reset led to the album title, a phrase from Phil Sandoval. “To me, ‘Emotion Factory Reset’ means to reset yourself back to clarity. Take a pause and breathe before you respond or react. You can’t control outside events, but you can control your mind,” the guitarist says. “How you interpret things is what hurts you, not the event itself.“
His brother, drummer Gonzo notes, “the world is going through a technological upswing/awakening. I look at our planet as the factory and in the most positive way we need to realign, reimagine, reset for our better selves.”
In advance of the record’s release, today the band presents the first single and album opener, “Close To The Bone.” Comments Bush, “The first track on the record sounds like vintage ARMORED SAINT. Yet vintage that comes out in 2026! How did we do that? The title of the record, Emotion Factory Reset appears as the first line of the bridge. Killer riffs, awesome rhythms and attacking vocals gets this train rolling. The title implies the human response to withdraw and keep things to yourself instead of being confrontational; Something I believe we all struggle with as humans. Do you just say, ‘aww, whatever man,’ or do you say, ‘hey, fuck you!’ Depends on the moment I guess.”
Adds Vera, “Musically, this song was inspired by my love and appreciation for metal that was coming out around the time of the NWOBHM, which is right when ARMORED SAINT was formed. As always, I try to reimagine my early influences by giving them a slight modern twist.”
Guitarist Jeff Duncan agrees, “I like to think that ARMORED SAINT doesn’t keep making the same album over and over. Emotion Factory Reset is another musical chapter for the band. When the five of us play together, we have a special chemistry and our first single ‘Close To The Bone’ demonstrates this perfectly; it’s musically sophisticated but still retains the ARMORED SAINT signature sound.”
Watch ARMORED SAINT‘s video for “Close To The Bone,” directed by My Good Eye: Music Visuals:
ARMORED SAINT‘s Emotion Factory Reset was recorded across several studios including 606 Studios, Secret Hand Studios, Skullseven Studios, Constantine Studios, and Bridge Recording, engineered by Oliver Roman, Bill Metoyer, Joey Vera, and Jason Constantine, and features cover art by DDKing.
The record will be released on CD digipack (w/ 20-page booklet) and digital formats as well as vinyl in various color variants.
Emotion Factory Reset Track Listing: 01. Close to the Bone 02. Every Man-Any Man 03. Not on Your Life 04. Hit a Moonshot 05. Buckeye 06. Compromise 07. It’s a Buzzkill 08. Throwing Caution to the Wind 09. Ladders and Slides 10. Bottom Feeder 11. Epilogue
Additionally, a special European edition of the CD digipak includes the bonus track “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison),” only available digitally until now!
A special European edition of the single gatefold LP comes w/ insert and DL card + 7″ vinyl “One Chain (Don’t Make No Prison),” (only available digitally until now!) w/ an etching on the B-side, a poster, and slipmat.
Catch ARMORED SAINT live throughout the Spring and Summer months with more dates to be announced in the weeks to come.
ARMORED SAINT Live: 4/19/2026 Rainbow Bar & Grill – West Hollywood, CA w/ L.A. Guns, Pentagram, Alien Ant Farm, Boy Hits Car 5/17/2026 San Luis Metal Fest – San Luis Potosí, MX 5/22/2026 Rock Hard Festival – Gelsenkirchen, DE 6/06/2026 Milwaukee Metalfest @ The Rave/Eagles Club – Milwaukee, WI 7/30/2026 Pumpehuset – Copenhagen, DK w/ Metal Church 7/31/2026 Skogsrojet Festival – Rejmyre, SE 8/01/2026 Pustervik – Gothenburg, SE w/ Testament, Metal Church 8/02/2026 Mejeriet – Lund, SE w/ Testament, Metal Church 8/05/2026 Brutal Assault – Jaroměř, CZ 8/07/2026 Alcatraz Festival – Dessel, BE 8/08/2026 Poppodium Boerderij – Zoetermeer, NL *ARMORED SAINT headlining show 8/09/2026 Keep It True Legions – Geiselwind, DE 8/11/2026 Progresja – Warsaw, PL w/ Savatage, Nevermore 8/12/2026 Collosseum – Kosice, SK w/ Vio-Lence 8/13/2026 Klub Studio – Krakow, PL w/ Testament, Metal Church 8/29/2026 Stonedead Festival – Newark, UK
ARMORED SAINT: John Bush – Vocals Joey Vera – Bass Jeff Duncan – Guitars Gonzo Sandoval – Drums Phil Sandoval – Guitars
Zürich’s FUELED BY FEAR have released their reinterpretation of A-HA’s 1985 classic hit song ‘Take On Me’, unveiling another emotional layer hidden beneath the surface. The track is taken from the band’s new EP “Ordinary Evil” (released on January 31st 2026), produced by Oscar Nilsson (The Halo Effect, The Haunted), bringing the characteristic Gothenburg metal sound to perfection at Bohus Studio. His extremely broad and uncompromisingly hard production gives Fueled By Fear their final edge – like the missing puzzle piece of their sound.
Watch the official video here:
Daniel Zopfi (Guitar) on ‘Take On Me’: “We grew up with “Take On Me” by A-HA. it’s one of those songs that everyone knows, but we always felt there was another emotional layer hidden beneath the surface. With our version, we wanted to bring out the darker side of that feeling . the tension, the urgency, and the sense of stepping into the unknown. The video reflects that idea: being pulled between worlds, between safety and risk. It’s not just nostalgia. it’s about what that song feels like today, through our lens. We didn’t want to copy the original we wanted to reinterpret it in a way that feels honest to who we are as a band!”
Mauro Galasso (Drums) adds: “The idea to cover “Take On Me” came up about four years ago, and at first, I honestly thought: what the hell? Turning an 80s pop classic into a metalcore / melodic death metal track just didn’t seem to make sense. At least not to me. That changed the moment I actually heard it. Once the arrangement came together, everything clicked. For the video, we leaned into that contrast. We embraced the 80s aesthetic, added a bit of parody, and mixed it with our heavier sound. It’s a tribute, but definitely not a traditional one. We shot the entire video in a single day in a small location, keeping things raw and simple, focusing on vibe over perfection. What started as a random idea turned into something we didn’t see coming. And probably not what you expect when you hear “Take On Me.”
Mauro Galasso (Drums) on “Ordinary Evil”: “The title Ordinary Evil is inspired by Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem and her idea of the banality of evil. The realization that evil often doesn’t appear as an obvious monster, but emerges through conformity, thoughtlessness, and the abdication of personal responsibility. These thoughts feel disturbingly relevant today. Authoritarian tendencies, power figures, and oversimplification show how quickly history repeats itself when people stop thinking for themselves and find resistance too exhausting. This confrontation also shaped our work on the EP. During the creative process, we completely questioned ourselves musically and personally. What defines us? Where do we want to go? It was a process that forced us to let go of the familiar and approach things differently. There were moments when it would have been easier to give up rather than face this confrontation. This is exactly where Ordinary Evil comes in: Don’t give up. Keep going. Face the repetitions, defend your own path, and don’t let indifference win. It’s worth staying committed. Creatively, humanly, defiantly. Ordinary Evil is our statement for that”
Manuel Elber (Guitar) continues: “Imagine making a dough, only to discover that you don’t like the texture. You put it back into the fridge. The next day you add a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and after processing, your dough still sucks, but not so much to scrap it. So you put it back in the fridge, thinking about what to change. Then you try to learn all the insights a baker learns in a crash course. You add your dangerous half-assed knowledge you gained and surprisingly it starts to feel better. You keep going, learn, each time adding more to the dough and finally you have a bake-worthy consistency, so far from where you started, that it seems like magic. For context: “Ordinary Evil” took about four years to come to life. Scrapped more times than I can count. Cost us blood, sweat and tears, caused literal breakdowns, frequent questioning of the reason why we do this. But it shaped us as musicians, as a family, as a team. The amount of things we learned, technical, recording-wise, in persistence, in constructive criticism, is something no one can take from us. And as for all endeavours this heap of maniacs is tackling: it’s always evolving, always changing, following the heart with an open mind. This one, we’re especially proud of!”
Daniel Zopfi (Guitar) adds: “Ordinary Evil was written out of frustration, anger, and watching the same systems fail us over and over again. It’s about how cruelty gets normalized, how power hides behind routine, and how people learn to live with injustice as long as it’s quiet enough. This EP isn’t subtle and it’s not meant to be comfortable. It’s confrontational by necessity. These songs come from a place of distrust toward empty promises, authority without accountability, and a world that keeps demanding silence and obedience. It’s loud, raw, and uncompromising, fueled by everything we’re done ignoring: the hypocrisy, the violence beneath the surface, and our own complicity in letting it happen. This is us calling it out, refusing to soften the message, and turning that anger into sound exactly as we feel it right now.”
On the EP artwork Mauro Galasso shared: “The cover of Ordinary Evil visually captures the central idea of the EP: Hannah Arendt’s realization that evil often doesn’t appear as an obvious monster, but hides behind an ordinary facade. The ancient bust, whose surface crumbles to reveal a demonic face, is deliberately chosen. Ancient busts are a core element of my visual language as an artist, but here an additional layer emerged: They represent history and human patterns that repeat themselves. The monumental decays and releases what has been repressed. We had various approaches that were either conceptually too complex or didn’t properly convey the message. When I returned to my own visual language, it became clear: The rawness, the epic quality, and the bold impact of this visual language reflect exactly the musical identity we developed with this EP. The series was planned from the beginning. With each release, the facade crumbles further until the true face is fully visible at the end. A visual evolution that runs parallel to the EP. That my own style represents the band best has confirmed me as a graphic designer and as the drummer of Fueled By Fear: We have taken the right creative path.”
With their new EP, Fueled By Fear deliver their most mature and uncompromising work to date. The five tracks move between dark groove steamrollers and melodically dense anthems – harder, more powerful, and more forceful than all previous productions. The band has sharpened their sound: hardness meets groove, tempo meets aggression, while melodic passages merge with modern pressure. The result is songs with enormous chorus quality and real singalong potential – dark, but irresistibly catchy.
BIO: FUELED BY FEAR from Zurich have been combining the intensity of metalcore with the melodic depth of melodic death metal since 2011. The band manages to merge melodic passages with grooving rhythms into a sound that can both strike brutally and touch emotionally. Support performances for In Flames, Sepultura, and even Pantera underscore their international relevance. Their debut “Two By Eight” reached #5 on the Swedish rock charts and #22 in Switzerland. Fueled By Fear stands for authentic metal without filters!
For Fans Of: Heaven Shall Burn, In Flames, Caliban, Darkest Hour, At the Gates, The Haunted, Bleed From Within
Line-up: Vocals: Marco Böhlen Guitar: Manuel Elber Guitar: Daniel Zopfi Bass: Josh De Souza Drums: Mauro Galasso
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 