Pest Records is proud to announce the signing of Dutch Thrash/Death Metal band ANOMIC for the CD release of their new full-length album, The Spider’s Code, arriving on November 13, 2026. The album will also be available on all major streaming platforms on the same date.
Formed in Amsterdam in August 2023 by Dutch/Syrian guitarist and vocalist Raaf Atasi, ANOMIC deliver a merciless blend of Death and Thrash Metal, steeped in pessimism, apocalyptic fury, chaos and morbidity. Drawing inspiration from the likes of CORONER, MONSTROSITY, TESTAMENT, DEATH and BOLT THROWER, the band forge their own uncompromising sound, with Middle Eastern influences adding another dimension to their musical identity.
As a first glimpse into the album, check out the lyric video for “The Fatal Cure“:
Following their 2024 debut EP, Opacity, released by Wormholedeath Records, ANOMIC return with The Spider’s Code, their new full-length statement. All music and lyrics were written by Raaf Atasi, while the album was mixed and mastered by Yazan Ju.
The band’s lyrical universe explores existentialism, society, politics, insanity and morbidity, confronting the darker aspects of human existence through an abrasive and uncompromising musical approach.
ANOMIC have also built a formidable live presence, playing 25 shows in the first half of 2026, with a further 20 performances booked for the second half of the year to support the new release.
Pest Records will release The Spider’s Code on CD on November 13, 2026, with the album hitting streaming platforms worldwide on the same day.
German heavy psych rockers KANT are celebrating the release of their brand-new studio album,Echoes Of Unfortunate Times, out October 23, via Sound Of Liberation Records!
Marking the band’s third full-length release, the album sees the Aschaffenburg-based four-piece pushing their sound further than ever before, delivering eight tracks of heavy psychedelia, doom-laden riffs, and krautrock-inspired experimentation.
With Echoes Of Unfortunate Times,KANT sound more direct and uncompromising than ever, while embracing a newfound sense of musical freedom. Building on their heavy psychedelic foundations, the band explores darker, more contemporary territory without losing the raw energy and hypnotic grooves that have become central to their sound. The result is an album that feels both heavier and more adventurous than its predecessor, 2024’s Paranoia Pilgrimage.
At the heart of the record lies a theme that feels particularly relevant in today’s world: fear of the future. Rather than retreating into nostalgia, KANT confront the uncertainty, anxiety, and unease of the present head-on, channeling these emotions into eight powerful and deeply personal songs. As singer and guitarist Marius Seidel puts it, “the most honest and emotional album we have written so far.”
Since their formation, KANT have steadily carved out their own place in the heavy psychedelic rock scene. Drawing inspiration from the psychedelic and heavy rock sounds of the late ’60s and ’70s, while incorporating elements of doom, heavy metal, and experimental rock, the band continues to evolve with each release. On Echoes Of Unfortunate Times, they leave behind some of the occult atmosphere of their previous work in favor of a more immediate, emotionally charged, and forward-looking approach.
To celebrate the album’s arrival, KANT are getting ready to hit the road as part of their album release tour, bringing their new material to the stage alongside fan favorites. Find all upcoming dates listed below!
Echoes Of Unfortunate Times was written and performed by KANT and produced, mixed, and mastered by Patrick Stäudle, with artwork by Manuel Wesely.
Echoes Of Unfortunate Times Tracklist 1. Echoes Of Unfortunate Times 2. Black Widow 3. Am I In Trance? 4. Mischief Mountain 5. Avalanche 6. Digital Beam 7. When I Close My Eyes 8. Android Don’t Serve
Echoes Of Unfortunate Times Tour Dates: 06.11.26 (DE) Essen – Turock (Metal & Hell) 07.11.26 (DE) Nürnberg – MUZ (Sonus Obscura) 20.11.26 (DE) Übersee – Freiraum (Black Moon Festival) 21.11.26 (LI) Vaduz – C-Base 11.12.26 (DE) Mainz – Schon Schön 12.12.26 (DE) Siegen – Vortex Surfer (Freak Valley Xmas) 14.12.26 (DE) Bamberg – Live Club 15.12.26 (DE) Hannover – Café Glocksee 16.12.26 (DE) Berlin – Neue Zukunft 17.12.26 (DE) Bremen – Tower 18.12.26 (DE) Bielefeld – Forum (Support for Greenleaf) 19.12.26 (DE) Köln – Kantine
Tomorrow, on October 27, Norwegian artist Chris Wicked releases his interpretation of “Mother”. The restrained, hypnotic rendition completes a series of cover releases ahead of his forthcoming EP, “Black Horns & Black Hooves”.
Having put his own stamp on “Wicked Game” (Chris Isaak), “Utan Dina Andetag” (Kent) and “Enjoy the Silence” (Depeche Mode), the Bergen-based artist now turns to Danzig. “Mother” is the final cover in a series that has allowed Chris to explore songs with personal significance through his own musical approach.
— “Mother” is a song I listened to a lot growing up, and I’ve always loved it. The original is such a rock song, so I wanted to strip it back and do something very different — something more atmospheric and hypnotic, says Chris Wicked.
All four covers will feature on the forthcoming EP “Black Horns & Black Hooves”, alongside original material. The release also marks a shift towards a stronger focus on his own songwriting. Recording for his next album is already underway.
“Mother”was recorded with long time members Eskil Sæter and Marius Mathisen.
The single is accompanied by a black-and-white music video featuring Chris at the microphone in the studio, with brief appearances by Eskil and Marius. Its understated visual approach keeps the focus on the performance.
The release follows an intense period for the artist, who recently concluded the 20th anniversary celebration of Malice In Wonderland with the acclaimed single “Dying Breed.” In recent years, Chris Wicked has embraced an increasingly darker and more cinematic sound, drawing inspiration from artists such as Paradise Lost, The Sisters of Mercy and Depeche Mode.
RELEASE DETAILS
Artist: Chris Wicked Single: Mother Release date: October 27, 2026 From the forthcoming EP: Black Horns & Black Hooves Label: Raven Black Recordings Original artist: Danzig Written by: Glenn Danzig Bergen, Norway
CREDITS
Vocals: Chris Wicked Guitars: Eskil Sæter, Marius Mathisen Bass: Eskil Sæter Drums: Marius Mathisen Synths: Marius Mathisen Producer: Marius Mathisen Mixing: Terje Tjervaag Mastering: Hugo Alverstein
ABOUT
Chris Wicked is known as the frontman of Malice In Wonderland, a band that gained international attention during the 2000s with its blend of glam, goth and hard rock, where he toured the world and released several albums. His solo work explores a darker, more personal sound, bringing together gothic melancholy, cinematic atmosphere and alternative rock and metal.
His debut solo album, “Aleine”, was released in 2021 and featured guests including Gaahl (Gorgoroth), Hoest (Taake) and Niklas Kvarforth (Shining).
Finnish doomsters FIMIR return with “Old Master”, a brand-new single accompanied by an official music video, taken from their upcoming album Cosmic Heavy Doom, due November 27, 2026 via Argonauta Records on CD and digital formats.
Following the release of “Pain of the World”, FIMIR unveil another piece of their forthcoming sonic descent into occult darkness and cosmic dread. While the first single confronted human suffering against the vast indifference of the universe, “Old Master” turns its attention to a different kind of threat: humanity’s growing dependence on technology and the erosion of personal autonomy in an increasingly digital world.
“Old Master” also features Christoffer Clavebring of the band Acolytes of Moros, who appears in the accompanying music video.
The band explains the concept behind the new single:
“We have traded our souls for algorithms and our autonomy for the glow of the screen. To oppose this development, we wrote the song ‘Old Master’, which is the second single from our upcoming album Cosmic Heavy Doom. ‘Old Master’ is the sound of the breaking chains, a defiant reclamation of humanity against the tyranny and greed and the digital rot that tries to own our minds. It is time to remember the strength of the hands that built the world before we let them be shackled by it.”
With this new track, FIMIRexpand the thematic scope of Cosmic Heavy Doom, channelling contemporary anxieties into a dark and uncompromising vision. The album explores the weight of a crumbling reality through a monolithic doom metal soundscape steeped in occult dread, existential unease and cosmic horror.
As the band puts it:
“Prepare to descend into the abyss. With the second album Cosmic Heavy Doom, Fimir rips the veil of our crumbling reality, channelling the suffocating weight of global suffering into a monolithic soundscape of occult dread. This is not merely an album; it is a sonic omen, a grim prophecy of the dark ages that await us all. Witness the judgement, delivered by the otherworldly force of our long-time partner-in-doom, Argonauta Records!”
Spanning seven tracks and 43 minutes, Cosmic Heavy Doom moves from the brief opening invocation of “Necronaut” through the crushing weight of “Pain of the World” and “Old Master”, before descending into the expansive, 15-minute “Snakepipe Hollow”. The journey culminates with “The Eternal Cosmic Judgement And the Collapse of Stars”, closing the album on a vision of cosmic devastation.
For fans of Candlemass, Trouble, Saint Vitus, Type O Negative, Tiamat and Cathedral, FIMIR deliver a dark convergence of classic doom heaviness, occult atmospheres and Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
FIMIR – Cosmic Heavy Doom
Release date: November 27, 2026 Label: Argonauta Records Formats: CD & Digital
Tracklist:
Necronaut (00:44)
Pain of the World (08:58)
Old Master (07:33)
Northern Book of the Dead (04:39)
Attack of a God (02:52)
Snakepipe Hollow (15:14)
The Eternal Cosmic Judgement And the Collapse of Stars (03:03)
Belgian razorgrind band Leng Tch’e are breaking a decade-long silence with the release of Hammered Into Collapse. Their new two song EP features the smashing title track, as well as its latest crushing single “Voided”.
Hammered into Collapseis out now on all digital streaming platforms via Season of Mist. Stream it here.
Listen toHammered Into Collapse:
Two decades in, Leng Tch’e still sound like a band settling a score with time itself. “Hammered Into Collapse” is built around the image of a parasite that has fed on its host for 20 years without ever being sated. “Voided” builds to an apocalyptic scale, filling with insanity until it’s devoured whole.
Hammered Into Collapse was recorded at Hearse Studio with engineer Lander Cluyse, mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit Recording Studio and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. Known for working with God’s Hate, Full and Hell and Vitriol, Young helps situate Leng Tche’s new EP within a current, heavier-leaning corner of the grind and death metal landscape.
Tracklist:
Hammered Into Collapse (02:11)
Voided (02:44) Full runtime: 04:55
Hammered into Collapse arrives as proof of life. The EP, led by its title track released September 24 ahead of the full two-song set on October 23, marks LENG TCH’E’s first new material since 2017’s Razorgrind, closing a gap of nearly a decade for the Belgian grindcore unit. Mixed by Taylor Young, whose recent credits include God’s Hate, Full of Hell and Vitriol, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, the record plants the band inside a contemporary, physically punishing strain of US extreme metal rather than simply picking up where they left off. Two tracks, under seven minutes combined, no ceremony: a band closing distance on its own catalogue after a long and, at times, uncertain silence.
The band’s roots go back to early 2001, when drummer Sven De Caluwé, later of Aborted, founded the project in Ghent alongside guitarist Glen Herman, vocalist Isaac Roelens and bassist Kevin Loosveld, initially under the name Anal Torture. The rechristening took its cue from the historical Chinese execution method of the same name, death by a thousand cuts, a fittingly literal image for a band built on attrition and incremental brutality rather than spectacle. Grindcore was the chassis, but hardcore, death metal and looser, stoner-adjacent detours were folded in almost immediately, and the resulting hybrid earned a name of its own: razorgrind.
That name stuck fast, though the lineup did not. Death by a Thousand Cuts, released in 2002 on the Italian label Spew barely a year after the band’s formation, established the template and generated enough underground noise that Willowtip picked up ManMadePredator for US release the following year. Personnel shuffled constantly through this period, guitarists and vocalists rotating in and out, but the songwriting held its shape, and by 2005 Leng Tch’e had signed to Relapse Records for The Process of Elimination, the album that took them past cult-underground status. Hooked riffing married to some of the fastest material the band had written yet caught the attention of the wider grind and death metal circuit, earning festival slots at Furyfest, Graspop, Summer Breeze and Maryland Deathfest alongside international touring runs.
Marasmus followed in 2007, thickening the death metal end of the band’s sound. That same year brought the rupture that would define the band’s next phase: De Caluwé’s departure left the lineup without a single founding member. Rather than folding, the reconstituted band pushed forward. Hypomanic (2010) continued the work of widening the band’s musical vocabulary and kept them on the road, with stops at Hellfest, Neurotic Deathfest, Motocultor and Metalfest, but seven years then passed before Razorgrind materialized in 2017. Named for the style the band had spent over a decade refining, it was received in grind circles as a genuine return to form, arguably the strongest record the band had made since losing its original architect, and confirmation that the post-2007 lineup had fully made the sound its own.
What came after was quiet, though not empty. The band never stopped playing live, a 2026 appearance at Gullegem Metal Fest confirmed as much, but no new recorded material surfaced for nearly nine years, an absence long even by a band whose entire career has been built on patience and gaps. The lineup that emerges on the other side of that silence is Serge Kasongo on vocals, Jan Hallaert on guitar, Olivier Coppens on drums and Nicolas Malfeyt on bass and backing vocals, a unit that has now spent longer together than any prior configuration of the band.
Hammered into Collapse was recorded at Hearse Studio with engineer Lander Cluyse, built around a single escalating idea: two decades of denial giving way, all at once, to what the lyrics call cerebral hijack. Serge Kasongo’s words track a narrator who spent a lifetime avoiding a reckoning only to find it arrives anyway, swallowing and digesting the wasted time in real time. “Voided” takes the same collapse and pushes it outward, past the individual and into something closer to apocalypse, spiralling from mental unravelling to total blackout, into the void. Where the title track stays claustrophobic and internal, “Voided” opens up until the personal and the cosmic blur together.
LENG TCH’E HAVE EARNED THEIR SILENCES.
Nine years on from Razorgrind, the wait is over and the collapse has arrived. Turn it up.
Line-up:
Serge Kasongo — Vocals Jan Hallaert — Guitar Olivier Coppens — Drums Nicolas Malfeyt — Bass, Backing Vocals
Trailblazing metal collective METAL ALLEGIANCE, comprised of Mark Menghi, Alex Skolnick, Mike Portnoy and David Ellefson, has announced the next installment of their annual headline performance at Anaheim’s House of Blues on Thursday January 28, 2027. The evening is set to see METAL ALLEGIANCE joined by Fredrick Akesson (OPETH), Bobby Blitz (OVERKILL), John Bush (ARMORED SAINT), Marty Friedman, Todd La Torre (QUEENSRYCHE), Troy Sanders (MASTODON), Angel Vivaldi and more! The show’s opening support acts are MARTY FRIEDMAN BAND, WICKED and LOST LEGACY.
“It’s hard to believe we first launched this Anaheim tradition back in 2014 when Metal Allegiance was just getting off the ground. It’s been an incredible ride. Over a decade of thrashing Anaheim with original music, surprise guests, and epic jams—and somehow, every single year the energy just gets crazier. See you in the pit, SoCal!”– Mark Menghi
“It’s that time of year again! For over a decade now, the annual Metal Allegiance show in SoCal every January is always one of my favorite shows of the year! I look forward to hanging and jamming with all my metal brothers & sisters and everyone in attendance once again.”– Mike Portnoy
“And just like that, the annual Metal Allegiance Anaheim HOB blowout in January is upon us! For us and our audience, it’s always a great night of music with good friends, old and new, and a great way to kick off the year. 2026 was one of the most memorable MA hits yet. This year’s promises to be no exception, with some returning favorites and a few first timers coming into the fold to help kick off 2027 in style. See you there!”– Alex Skolnick
“This is always the best way to kick off the new year with a Metal Allegiance family reunion at the House of Blues Anaheim in January! Always eager to jam with new friends & guests as we ignite the new year with heavy metal fury!”– David Ellefson
“Can’t wait to throw down with some new faces and familiar faces at the classic Metal Allegiance jam in January at the Anaheim House of Blues! It’s always a smorgasbord of treats for the faithful. It’s an honor to hit the stage with some of the most talented dudes in the metal world. Come one come all!”– John Bush
“I am again looking forward to taking the stage with old friends, as well as new faces, this coming January with MA! Let’s get this epic, metal party started!!!!”– Bobby Blitz
“I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with so many friends and legends of metal! This will be my first time participating with Metal Allegiance, and I know it’s going to be an awesome time for everyone involved and everyone in attendance. See you there!”– Todd La Torre
“Looking forward to the Metal Allegiance show! And with my band coming from Japan to open the show it is gonna be a night to remember. MA is the unique show where you have a bunch of rock heroes who are living their dreams for a living, all together on the same stage, paying tribute to, and re-discovering the wonder of the music that first inspired them as kids. If heavy metal could ever be poignant, this is the show where it happens!”– Marty Friedman
“Fourteen years in and this event just keeps aging like fine wine. It’s a staple because it’s an annual rejoicing of what we love about music and the community we’re all fortunate to be a part of. The setlist this year is killer and getting to trade riffs with Alex and Marty, two guys I’ve admired for a very long time, while finally getting to throw down with Todd makes this one especially exciting for me. The guy’s voice is unreal… especially live! The show is worth a special trip if you’re coming from outside California, and a must-attend if you’re local”– Angel Vivaldi
About METAL ALLEGIANCE: Beginning as a celebration of the metal genre, METAL ALLEGIANCE has forged a legacy all their own while collaborating with metal’s most revered trailblazers. Formed by Mark Menghi (KING ULTRAMEGA) and comprised of core members David Ellefson (ex-MEGADETH), Mark Menghi (KING ULTRAMEGA), Alex Skolnick (TESTAMENT), and Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER), METAL ALLEGIANCE has released 2 albums of original music and an EP, and regularly performs live with fellow metal titans. The illustrious supergroup proves that legends never die, and can even reinvent themselves. Having recently signed to Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM), METAL ALLEGIANCE continues to carve new paths and make their mark on the modern metal scene.
METAL ALLEGIANCE lineup: David Ellefson Alex Skolnick Mark Menghi Mike Portnoy
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