ESCAPE TO THE ROOF return today with a new single titled “Back Again (edit)”, now available on all digital platforms via Volcano Records & Promotion.
The mysterious Italian progressive rock project, still keeping the identities of its members secret, delivers a powerful and layered track that blends experimental sounds with introspective atmospheres in a deep, emotional sonic journey.
“Back Again” tells the story of someone who steps away from the world, from societal norms and conventional logic, only to return with disillusionment and awareness. The protagonist is a “returner”, an outsider whose gaze now pierces through the illusion. There is no triumph in his return — only the burning clarity of truth. With sharp lyrics and a bold sonic texture, the song invites listeners into a mental space where music becomes thought, urgency, and revelation. This special edit version of the original long-form suite retains its essence while condensing its intensity into just under eight minutes. The result is a vivid experience where aggressive rock energy meets atmospheric and psychedelic detours, proving once again that Escape to the Roof are willing to go beyond genre boundaries to tell complex emotional and conceptual stories.
Listen to “Back Again (edit)” now on Spotify, Apple Music, and all major streaming platforms.
An intense, symbolic official video accompanies the single and is now available on YouTube:
Italian action rock outfit MAD DOGS has announced their upcoming new album “The Future Is Now”, set for release September 5 via Go Down Records. To fuel the anticipation, the band has unleashed their first single, “No More Lies“.
The high-energy track is accompanied by a visualizer video, which you can watch here:
MAD DOGS about the song: “No More Lies marks our comeback – a high-octane burst of proto-punk energy with a nod to the raw edge of Scandi rock ‘n’ roll. Its tightly wound verses build tension before erupting into an adrenaline-charged chorus that champions unapologetic self-confidence. Featuring a fiery organ performance by Nicola Bagnoli, the track delivers a full-blown ’70s-style explosion. This is pure, unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll – a rollercoaster ride you won’t forget!“
Tracklist:
The Future Is Now
Go Ahead (Don’t Give Up)
It’s Not Late Tonight
Stoker
Black Sheep
No Way To Come Back
Don’t Bend Over
Nothing To Lose
Be Your Number
No More Lies
Switch Up My Time
Set for release on September 5, MAD DOGS’ new album, “The Future Is Now”, is a high-voltage blast – a rock’n’roll manifesto forged from a raw fusion of Garage Rock, Action Rock, and Proto-punk. It’s a bold and intentional work where searing guitars, the thunderous rhythm section, and catchy melodies collide across eleven adrenaline-fueled tracks that channel the band’s unmistakable grit, passion, and defiant spirit. The cover art – a ‘cosmic valve’ vision that straddles retro-futurism and 60s pulp art – visually echoes the sonic detonation within. The Future Is Nowisn’t just a title; it’s a declaration – a rallying cry to live unapologetically, seize the moment, and shape your identity on your own terms.
“The Future Is Now” will be coming out via Go Down Records and is now available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION. Digital pre-save is availableHERE
Australian heavy rockers Emergency Rule have released a thunderous new live video for ‘The Hook’, taken from their acclaimed 2024 album ‘The King of Ithaca’—a record that earned rave reviews, including a perfect 10/10 from Metal Hammer Spain.
Filmed during the band’s first-ever tour of Japan in November 2024, the video captures the raw energy and power of Emergency Rule’s final show in Kobe at the iconic Blueport venue. The clip was directed, produced, and filmed by long-time creative collaborator Jason McNamara, who has worked closely with the band on multiple projects over the years.
The Japanese tour saw Emergency Rule perform six electrifying shows across the country, from Tokyo to Kobe, marking a major milestone in their international journey.
With momentum building, the band are now gearing up for a run of high-profile shows back home in Australia. Highlights include a set at Purgatory Festival at the soon-to-be-closed Crown & Anchor, support slots for both rock legends Electric Mary on their farewell tour at The Gov in Adelaide, and the Swedish party train that is Night Flight Orchestra. Followed by a national tour with Stoned Jesus (Ukraine), who are making their long-awaited Australian debut.
Emergency Rules upcoming shows: May 31st – Purgatory Festival – Crown & Anchor, Adelaide June 1st – Supporting Night Flight Orchestra – The Gov, Adelaide June 21st – Supporting Electric Mary – The Gov, Adelaide October 1st – Supporting Stoned Jesus – The Baso, Canberra October 2nd – Supporting Stoned Jesus – The Underground, Sydney October 3rd – Supporting Stoned Jesus – Soapbox Berr, Brisbane October 4th – Supporting Stoned Jesus – The Leadbeater, Melbourne
Emerging from the pulsating heart of the Aussie rock scene, Emergency Rule has shattered genre boundaries, forging a unique sound that weaves together rock, stoner, and metal influences into a sonic tapestry of raw power and innovation.
Finnish dark rock duo Graveyard Angel released a new single Poisonous Smile via Inverse Records. The single comes out accompanied with a black and white video, which, together with the song lyrics tell the story of a destructive relationship, one, that wounds you deeper every day you stay.
Mika “Alde” Ahlqvist – or rather his alter ego “Ground” has composed the music and played all the instruments. Writing the lyrics and singing all vocals and backing vocals has been Ana‘s responsibility. Ana is already known to some from her other band “LAB“.
“We are not gloomy personalities, but for some reason we share a taste for a bit darker and harder music. Rough and punchy riffs combined with disturbing stories is what makes us tick. This pretty much defines the music style of Graveyard Angel: dark, tough and delightfully disturbed.”
“Making the video for “Poisonous Smile” was a very different process from the making of our earlier debut video. This time, instead of using AI, the video has been filmed, and set decoration done in a completely traditional way. We not only created ideas of how the video could be, but also got our own hands literally dirty with the set decoration, “ Ana smiles. The group of people making the video was, though professional, very small. “Alde and I got to participate in some assisting roles as well, which was very interesting and so much fun! ” Ana says.
The video for “Poisonous Smile” was directed and filmed by Jani “Viski” Viskari. The lighting was done by Anu Lehtonen, the leading male role played by Roni Tohmo and editing was done by Zizi Fandango.
-Songwriter – Mika ´Álde´Ahlqvist -Lyrics – Ana Anna Leppälä -Music recorder by – Mika ´Álde´Ahlqvist at Brutalrecords -Vocals recorded-mixed and master by Pekka ´Splendid´Laine at East Sound Studios -ISRC: FIRH12500001 -Single cover: Ana Anna Leppälä -Cover layout: Mika Ahlqvist
Season of Mist is proud to announce the release of the expansive seventh album from …and Oceans. While they’ve always ebbed and flowed between different extremes, The Regeneration Itinerary surges onto the scene as the symphonic black metal band’s most expansive experiment yet. Both darkly cinematic and shockingly cerebral, the album is a lesson in contrasts – between chaos and order, dissolution and regeneration.
The Regeneration Itinerary is released today, Friday, May 23 on Season of Mist, and you can hear all 10 unpredictable songs by listening to the full album stream on the Season of Mist YouTube channel.
Thirty years into their ebullient career, …and Oceans have now assembled a body of work that absorbs the band’s entire lineage. The Regeneration Itinerary synthesizes the Finnish band’s disparate identities into a two-sided whole. From the trance-inducing intensity of opener and lead single “Inertiae” and maze-like riffs of “Prophetical Mercury Implement” to the sharper death metal edge of “Förnyelse i Tre Akter”, the album is a dance with duality: body and spirit, destruction and rebirth, copper and mercury.
Vocalist Mathias Lillmåns draws inspiration from alchemical symbolism and the interplay between light and shadow. Guitarists Timo Kontio and Teemu Saari, bassist Pyry Hanski, keyboardist Antti Simonen, and drummer Kauko Kuusisalo flesh out his visions with layered textures and a frenetic precision that’s anchored by both the visceral production of Juho Räihä and the finishing touch of Tore Stjerna’s mix and master at Necromorbus Studio.
Rebirth is never static. This itinerary is ever-evolving.
Cover Art: Adrien Bousson
Tracklist: 1. Inertiae (4:30) [WATCH] 2. Förnyelse i Tre Akter (5:07) [WATCH] 3. Chromium Lungs, Bronze Optics (4:29) 4. The Form and the Formless (3:32) 5. Prophetical Mercury Implement (6:57) [WATCH] 6. The Fire in Which We Burn (3:04) 7. The Ways of Sulphur (4:17) 8. I Am Coin, I Am Two (4:25) 9. Towards the Absence of Light (4:49) 10. The Terminal Filter (5:22) 11. Copper Blood, Titanium Scars (Bonus Track) (4:14) 12. The Discord Static (Bonus Track) (3:35) Full runtime: 54:22
Chaos chameleons. Nocturnal shapeshifters. The skyward trajectory of idiosyncratic Finnish extremists …and Oceans has been serpentine and sublime.
Since rising in 1995 from the ashes of death metal outfit Festerday, the group’s esoteric take on extreme music has seem them draw on a gamut on contrasting elements, ranging from black and death metal to classical, industrial and EBM, forever questing through various line-up changes, defying expectations while remaining wholly true to themselves.
“We’ve never been tied to one particular genre,” explains founding member, guitarist Timo Kontio. “As a band, we are driven to explore, to traverse unfamiliar landscapes, while always preserving our core sound. It’s about striking a balance. There’s the constant need in this band for renewal and ambition, but never at a cost to our identity.”
The group’s earliest albums, The Dynamic Gallery of Thoughts (1998) and The Symmetry of I: The Circle of O (1999), combined bombastic synth-driven salvos, blisteringly raw guitars, piercing banshee shrieks and ornate gothic arrangements in eviscerating wrath-fuelled blasts, while several celestial passages and near-dungeon synth segues already demonstrated the band’s need to mix things up.
A more seismic shift came in the mutant forms of A.M.G.O.D. (2001) and Cypher (2002), which saw …and Oceans transmogrify into a crushing cybernetic colossus, bulldozing into dystopian anti-futures with batteries of scalding techno beats and chugging palm-muted malevolence.
Accompanied by frontman Kena Strömsholm’s android syntax, the band’s dark heart now pumped corrosive hydraulic fluids around digital membranes, its symphonic black metal supercharged by martial industrial rhythms and infectious melo-death grooves.
The metamorphosis intensified with an interim rebrand as …and Oceans disbanded and its members reassembled under the name Havoc Unit in 2005, a vehicle for further mechanised contagions and noise worship, issuing their sole full-length, h.IV+ (Hoarse Industrial Viremia), in 2008.
But throughout these detours the mournful essence of …and Oceans’ singular universe endured, gathered together by a lamenting thread, a dolefulness unique to the Finnish scene, borne emphatically in the impassioned guitars of Kontio and his axe-wielding brother-in-arms, Teemu Saari. “Melancholia is everywhere, it’s in all the music that I make, especially my lead work,” elaborates Kontio. “It’s a key factor, distinctive to the whole …and Oceans catalogue.”
The band’s insatiable thirst for reinvention would subsequently find sustenance in its 90s roots, recasting the symphonic pomp of the past in the ardent furnace of experience and experimentation. Reconvening under the …and Oceans banner in 2017, the resulting brace of albums – Cosmic World Mother (2020) and As in Gardens, So in Tombs (2023) – redefined the group once more with ornate epics brimful of deliciously grim Karelian melodies and the chimerical atmospheres of keyboardist Antti Simonen, while new vocalist Mathias Lillmåns, replacing the departing Strömsholm, reinforced ties to black metal’s second wave with his devastatingly toxic rasp.
Now, 30 years on from their auspicious birth, …and Oceans have unveiled their most accomplished statement yet. A flamboyant distillation of the group’s grand nocturnal art, The Regeneration Itinerary assimilates all their hopes, dreams and influences into an uncompromising document of ravenous intent, with inebriating stylistic hybrids such as ‘Inertiae’ and ‘The Form and the Formless’ seamlessly fusing the heady onrush of symphonic black metal to the bludgeoning pulse of Simonen’s trance-dance hypnosis.
“The new album can be seen as a synthesis of our entire back catalogue,” suggests Lillmåns. “But there are new levels of extremity, too, ones that we’ve never reached before. These songs simply demanded harsher vocals. The riffs commanded it, and who am I to disobey?”
“This is our most experimental album since our comeback,” states Kontio. “It might be considered a continuation of the music we made in the 90s, but the sound has ripened and developed as our individual tastes have broadened, our inspirations subconsciously feeding into the band’s sound, necessitating change. From the very start, this band has encouraged progression and growth.”
Representing an intrepid summation of …and Oceans’ extraordinary journey, their continuing evolution, The Regeneration Itinerary locates the band’s dramatic thaumaturgical blends within a conceptual framework of opposites (and opposition).
“The Regeneration Itinerary explores the interplay between darkness and light, chaos and order, spiritual and material realms, with each song embodying an experience for the mind and body, navigating a passage to the present moment,” explains Lillmåns.
“The album works like a guide,” he continues. “Teaching us that not everything can be defined as simply being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘light’ or ‘dark’, ‘copper’ or mercury’, underscoring the perpetual dance of dualities in the human experience.”
Line-up: Mathias Lillmåns – Vocals Teemu Saari – Guitar Timo Kontio – Guitar Pyry Hanski – Bass Antti Simonen – Keyboards Kauko Kuusisalo – Drums
Production Credits: Recorded at Inka Studio / SoundSpiral Audio, Orimattila, Finland. Producer & Engineered by Juho Räihä. Mixed & Mastered by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio, Söderfors, Sweden.
Memphis heshers Namazu return with ‘ICE 800′ – the thunderous title track from their upcoming EP – dropping 30th May via Golden Robot Records, and available to pre-save now. A savage cocktail of pummeling drums, guttural basslines, and razor-edged riffs, ‘ICE 800’ hits like a warm tallboy on a midnight highway. Gritty, unapologetic, and oozing attitude, this is the perfect track for a late-night drive, accompanied by your favorite malt liquor and choice of smokes. Put on your finest tank top, tear up the road in cutoff Dickies, and let Namazu provide the soundtrack to your summer chaos.
As the title track from their new EP, ‘ICE 800’ sets the tone for what’s to come – a no-frills, high-octane dose of raw, unfiltered power. For fans of heavy riffs and dirt-under-the-nails rock energy, this one’s essential listening.
ICE 800 is the upcoming EP by Memphis heshers NAMAZU to be released later this year. Recorded and mixed by Alan Burchum (Deadbird, Korroded, Autolith) and Mastered by Ryan Boesch (Fu Manchu, Whores, Foo Fighters, Norma Jean), the EP is 15 blistering minutes of pure riffage, taking their cues from the three blacks—Black Sabbath, Black Flag, and the Man in Black. NAMAZU deliver five songs of heavy riffs and shout along choruses.
Pre-save/order the single ‘ICE 800’HEREand get ready for Namazu to burn rubber and light fuses!
Severin Allgood – Vocals, guitar Samuel Hendricks – Drums Adrian Lewis – Bass Eric Fortenbery – Guitar, backing vocals
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
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Visionary artist KIMMO KUUSNIEMI's ANCIENT STREAMING ASSEMBLY (ASA) have released “Aurora Nuclearis”, a powerful 12-minute audiovisual experience, dedicated to the Late Keyboardist Esa Kotilainen. - Click image to watch the video
Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 