Recorded in the heart of the Garden Route, this self-produced anthem delivers raw emotion and rebellious spirit.
South African hard rock powerhouse Betty’s Nuklear are back with their explosive new single, Beach Blood — a track that perfectly captures the band’s fearless energy and uncompromising attitude.
Formed in 2020, Betty’s Nuklear have built a loyal following across the Garden Route and beyond, known for their dynamic, timeless vocals, nostalgic shredding solos, and a hard-hitting rhythm section that keeps fans coming back for more. With Beach Blood, they channel that same intensity into a song that hits as hard emotionally as it does sonically.
Inspired by their hometown and the people who’ve supported them since day one, Beach Blood is both a love letter and a battle cry. “The music-hungry fans that we’ve acquired over the last five years have been there every step of the way — and always supported us, even when the venues did not,” the band shares.
At its core, Beach Blood is “an anthem to people who are tired of being spoon-fed nonsense by the world, and just want to feel something real — feel something better.” Robust, honest, strong, and daring, the song is a reminder of what Betty’s Nuklear stand for: raw truth and real connection.
The track was born in the band’s jam room, “We took that inspiration and beat that nail until the concept was born,” says vocalist Chad Abnett, who channels the emotion of the music into lyrics that reflect the genuine human experience. “It’s about deciphering the feelings of the song and personifying them in a way that’s real — something people can feel deep down.”
True to their DIY ethos, Beach Blood was recorded at the band’s own home studio in Hoekville, nestled deep in the valleys of the Garden Route. The process — powered by guitarist Darragh Concannon and his “beautiful mind,” as the band affectionately puts it — has evolved over time into a tight, collaborative effort. One-on-one tracking sessions capture every nuance of their sound, leading to a product that’s both polished and full of heart.
With Beach Blood, Betty’s Nuklear have crafted a bold statement — a rallying cry for authenticity in a world that often feels artificial. Join the movement. Join the Nuklear family.
History-making multiplatinum Australian alt-rock and punk / pop band 5 Seconds of Summer have released their sixth full-length studio album EVERYONE’S A STAR! available everywhere now via Republic Records.
Alongside today’s release, the band releases an official music video for stand out single “Telephone Busy,” directed by acclaimed director Frank Borin (Harry Styles, Zayn Malik) – watch HERE.
5 Seconds of Summer, made up of Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood, and Ashton Irwin, have grown from local high school friends into one of the most successful bands of the 21st century. Over the past fourteen years, the group has sold more than 18 million albums, moved six million tickets worldwide, generated over 10 billion streams, and earned three Billboard 200 #1 debuts, while collecting major accolades at the ARIA Awards, MTV EMAs, and MTV VMAs.
Recorded across 2024 and 2025 between Los Angeles and Nashville, EVERYONE’S A STAR! finds the band confidently stepping into a new era. Working with acclaimed producers and collaborators Jason Evigan (Maroon 5, Benson Boone, Papa Roach, Rüfüs Du Sol), Julian Bunetta and John Ryan (Sabrina Carpenter, Teddy Swims), the band’s new era is a reinvention without losing what’s made them one of the most loved bands of the last decade.
“We built this record from a really genuine place. We weren’t chasing a sound or a trend, we were chasing what felt exciting to us. Every track feels alive in a way that reminds us of why we started making music in the first place. EVERYONE’S A STAR! is the most ‘us’ we’ve ever sounded, and we’re so proud to share it with everyone who’s been part of this journey.” – 5 Seconds of Summer
Earlier this month, the band announced their ‘EVERYONE’S A STAR!’ world tour kicking off in March with a European and UK leg running through May, followed by U.S. dates from May to August including shows at New York City’s famed venue Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, with a second show at MSG added due to high demand. The tour will conclude in the band’s home country of Australia next fall. See here for all tour dates and on-sale information.
Alongside the tour announcement, the band released the high-energy single “Telephone Busy,” following the fan-favorite track “Boyband,” an ode to their fans and a playful nod to the label they’ve carried throughout their careers. Both singles followed the powerful lead track “NOT OK,” which was accompanied by an official music video directed by Hannah Lux Davis (Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne) – watch here!
To launch the new era, 5 Seconds of Summer surprised fans in Los Angeles with a pop-up performance that shut down Sunset Boulevard. Announced only hours before showtime, thousands of fans filled the streets to experience the beginning of the band’s next chapter. During the event, the band performed hits like “Youngblood,” “She Looks So Perfect,” and “Teeth,” alongside new songs from EVERYONE’S A STAR! including “NOT OK,” “Boyband,” “Telephone Busy,” “No.1 Obsession,” and the album’s explosive title track, “Everyone’s A Star!”
EVERYONE’S A STAR! Tracklist: 1. Everyone’s A Star! 2. NOT OK 3. Telephone Busy 4. Boyband 5. No. 1 Obsession 6. I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep 7. istillfeelthesame 8. Ghost 9. Sick of Myself 10. Evolve 11. The Rocks 12. Jawbreaker
EVERYONE’S A STAR! TOUR NORTH AMERICA Fri May 29 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Arena Sun May 31 – Hershey, PA – Giant Center Tue Jun 02 – Hamilton, ON – TD Coliseum Wed Jun 03 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre Fri Jun 05 – Boston, MA – TD Garden Sun Jun 07 – Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank Arena Tue Jun 09 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Arena Thu Jun 11 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena Sat Jun 13 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden Sun Jun 14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden Tue Jun 16 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena Wed Jun 17 – Orlando, FL – Kia Center Fri Jun 19 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena Sun Jun 21 – Austin, TX – Moody Center Tue Jun 23 – Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena Fri Jun 26 – Glendale, AZ – Desert Diamond Arena Sat Jun 27 – Anaheim, CA – Honda Center Tue Jun 30 – Portland, OR – Moda Center Thu Jul 02 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena Sat Jul 04 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena Tue Jul 07 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center Thu Jul 09 – San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena Sat Jul 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Kia Forum Wed Jul 22 – Shakopee, MN – Mystic Lake Amphitheater Fri Jul 24 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre Sat Jul 25 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Music Center Mon Jul 27 – Cincinnati, OH – Riverbend Music Center Wed Jul 29 – Grand Rapids, MI – Acrisure Amphitheater Wed Aug 05 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage Thu Aug 06 – Clarkston, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre Sat Aug 08 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion Sun Aug 09 – Richmond, VA – Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront Wed Aug 12 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live Fri Aug 14 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek Sat Aug 15 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion Tue Aug 18 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP Thu Aug 20 – Kansas City, MO – TBA Sat Aug 22 – Denver, CO – Junkyard Wed Aug 26 – Salt Lake City, UT – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre Fri Aug 28 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre
ABOUT 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER Formed in Sydney, Australia in 2011, 5 Seconds of Summer have grown from local high school friends into one of the biggest bands of the 21st century. Across fourteen years, the multi-platinum group has sold over 18 million albums, moved more than six million tickets worldwide, generated over 10 billion streams, and achieved three Billboard 200 #1 debuts, while winning multiple accolades at the ARIA Awards, MTV EMAs, MTV VMAs, and beyond. Known for their genre-defying collaborations and globe-spanning tours, the quartet – Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood, and Ashton Irwin – continue to reinvent what a modern band can be.
With the release of their highly anticipated sixth album EVERYONE’S A STAR– their first under Republic Records – 5 Seconds of Summer usher in their most ambitious era yet, led by the explosive singleS “NOT OK,” “Boyband,” and now “Telephone Busy.”
Australian Heavy metal act Wicked Smile release their second single titled ‘Face Of The Wicked’ from their forthcoming sophomore album ‘When Night Falls’. This is the follow up to the band’s highly acclaimed debut album ‘Wait For The Night’ (2021).
Face Of The Wicked is a riff heavy, slower tempo track influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath & Dio. This single really showcases the powerhouse voice of vocalist Danny Cecati (ex Pegazus & Eyefear), as he takes his hat off to his mega influence Ronnie James Dio. Guitarist Stevie goes onto add, “our new album is the natural progression for us. We wear our influences on our sleeves and the new album is no different. If you’re a fan of Dio, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Savatage, Dokken, Icon & Skid Row, I think you’ll like what we’ve done on our new album! We’ve written a heavier album with classic metal roots, with a wide seamless range of slower old school influenced hits and full blown up-tempo metallic tracks with a hook!
Wicked Smile’s new album When Night Falls is now available for pre-order and will be released worldwide on February 6th.
*Distribution to stores will be going through: Bertus Distribution (Benelux), The Orchard (EU), Plastic Head (UK).
Wicked Smile will launch their new album LIVE with a tour of Japan in November 2025 with dates in Osaka, Nagoya & Tokyo. A tour of Europe/UK will follow in 2026, including a string of headline club shows and festival appearances.
WICKED SMILE – When Night Falls
1. When Night Falls (Video) 2. Back To Back We Stand 3. Face Of The Wicked (Video) 4. Rebel Souls 5. Never Surrender 6. Before The Rain 7. Walking The Wire 8. Night Time Riders 9. Heaven’s Falling Down (Crutch) 10. The Phoenix Will Rise 11. Scream ‘n’ Shout 12. Edge Of Madness (LP bonus track)
Bio: Wicked Smile are all about bringing back fist pumping, melodic heavy metal to the forefront. They released one of the albums of the year in 2021; a collection of ten ‘killer songs’, produced by Paul Laine (The Defiants/ex Danger Danger) and mastered by Bruno Ravel (The Defiants/Danger Danger).
Guitarist Stevie Janevski goes on to say, “we’re a five-piece kick ass heavy rock band and I think we made our presence known with the release of our debut album Wait For The Night”. Wicked Smile is fronted by charismatic vocal virtuoso Danny Cecati (ex Pegazus & Eyefear) with Stevie Janevski (ex Black Majesty & Cyclone Tracy) & Dave Graham (ex In Malice’s Wake) on guitars, Tom Nugara (Envenomed) on bass & Andrew Sharp (ex Pegazus) on drums.
Lyrically, the band explores current issues within society such as civil unrest, bullying and mental health. Songs like We Fall, Sign Of Times, Daze Of Delirium, Stronger, Last Goodbye & Don’t Wait For Me are all thought provoking and not the cliché lyrics that you’d expect for this style of heavy metal.
Wicked Smile has been overwhelmed by the positive response from the underground rock and metal community. Steve Price at ARfm radio called the band “kickass Australian rock with killer vocals”. Fans of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio, Savatage and Dokken should feel at home, with the band drawing major influence from seventies and eighties heavy rock and metal.
2023 saw Wicked Smile independently release an EP worldwide titled ‘Night Time Riders’ and touring the United Kingdom (for the second time in one year). Where they performed at renowned festivals such as Winter Storm, Hard Rock Hell & Planet Rockstock Festival. Alongside their festival appearances, Wicked Smile played 20 club shows over two UK tours in 2023 & 2024. The reception and atmosphere received by fans at Wicked Smile’s live shows are really second to none and up there with the big guns!
Wicked Smile have toured nationally with Skid Row & H.E.A.T. and have shared the stage with legendary acts such as Michael Schenker Group, FM, Slaughter, Uli John Roth, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Tyketto, Lynch Mob, Dream Evil, Graham Bonnet Band and many more on many stages worldwide!
Wicked Smile look forward to hit the ground running harder than ever with the release of their upcoming album ‘When Night Falls’. Launching their sophomore album in Japan with a tour in November of 2025, followed by a European tour in 2026, featuring festival and club shows.
Members:
Danny Cecati – Lead Vocals Stevie Janevski – Guitar Davey Graham – Guitar Tom Nugara – Bass Andrew Sharp – Drums
From the blaze of transformation and the silence of the wild, Valontuoja conjures“Tulesta Syntynyt” (Born of Fire) a melodic black metal odyssey through flame, fate, and solitude.
Rooted in the ouroboric cycle of death and rebirth, this album burns with the intensity of solar flares and the instinct of the hunt. Wolves howl beneath a collapsing sky as destiny tightens its grip, dragging the listener through a world where every step into the unknown is both burden and awakening.
Each track is a rite of passage an exploration of primal responsibility, of finding home in the heart of the wilderness, and embracing the cold clarity of solitude. Here, fire does not only destroy it refines, purifies, and reveals. “Tulesta Syntynyt” is the sound of becoming, where the self is tempered in isolation and reborn in the eternal blaze.
Valontuoja, meaning “Bringer of Light” in Finnish, is the one-man black metal entity forged in the icy depths of Helsinki by the Jal’zoroth. Formed in 2024, Valontuoja channels the primordial essence of black metal, weaving a sonic tapestry that is both ferocious and hauntingly melodic. Valontuoja’s soundscape is a maelstrom of raw, unyielding black metal fused with ethereal and melodic elements. Valontuoja conjures an atmosphere that is as brutal as it is beautiful, guiding listeners through the desolate realms of human despair and nature’s unforgiving majesty.
German filthmongers PUTRIDARIUM return with “Natvm Ad Mortem”, a brand new 7” EP set for release on January 16th, 2026 via Night Terrors Records.
Continuing their campaign of disgusting destruction, the band spews forth two new offerings of rancid, mud-caked death metal. The track “Death Metal Warriors” features a guest appearance by none other than Mike Perun of Cianide, further cementing the EP’s devotion to primitive, putrid heaviness.
The first single, “Schmerzfresser”, is available for streaming now, offering a taste of the festering decay to come.
“UUuuuuuaargh, maniacs! We couldn’t leave your filthy auditory receptacles empty for too long, so here’s “Schmerzfresser,” a taste of what we’re cooking up for the next album. Expect nothing but twisted, rotting death metal the way it’s meant to be: ugly, raw, and crawling with decay. We couldn’t be more excited about how this 7” turned out: two perverted hymns for diseased minds! And as if that weren’t enough, the second track “Death Metal Warriors” features a very special guest: Mike Perun of the almighty CIANIDE! Our band wouldn’t be the same without the influence of those Chicago legends, so it’s an absolute honour to have him join us on this slab of filthy doom and death. Get ready to bang your head as doom as you can — Death Metal Warriors! Stay dead, stay ugly, stay Cianide! Eugh!”
Tracklist:
1. Schmerzfresser 2. Death Metal Warriors (feat. Mike Perun)
Artwork and illustrations by Tomáš Mitura (Sněť)
Excavated from a German cemetery in 2021, PUTRIDARIUM have since been offering disgusting and always-evolving old-school death metal, mixed with doom and crust elements. Sexual perversions and horror gore are the thematic nail in the coffin. A combination to make you bang your head like a troglodyte.
Three demos were exhumed between ’21 and ’22, followed by a recapitulatory compilation.
Two split releases later, their debut album took form under the name “Necrología del Sadismo: Excerpts from a Deranged Mind”, released in late 2024 in alliance with Headsplit Records and Night Terrors Records.
At the end of 2025, a new EP is ready to be released through Night Terrors Records – unearthing what is merely the next step in their relentless digging for the most disgusting riffs.
Fresh from the release of their debut album ‘The Mountains Are My Friends’, California Irish, the folk-rock actfronted by Cormac Neeson, have won the Single Of The Year Award at the Northern Irish Music Prize with their delicate single ‘Julie Ann‘.
After fighting off stiff competition for the title, the band scooped the prestigious award with their wonderfully warm, laid-back single, which evokes the spirit of the Laurel Canyon scene of the 1960s, and one that gained critical acclaim across the board, receiving substantial airplay worldwide.
Cormac states: “We are delighted with this award, and the fact that the people of the North of Ireland voted for our song just means the world to us. Peace Agus Love – and up the Cali Irish!”
CALIFORNIA IRISH is the new band featuring The Answer’s Cormac Neeson. The band tips its hat to the wonderfully melodic and free-spirited sound from 60s America, a sound that reaches back into a gentler, more empathetic time and their album ‘The Mountains Are My Friends‘ is out now.
Summoning the beguiling spirit of Laurel Canyon, employing analogue recording techniques, and recording songs in one or two takes to achieve something with a real human touch, California Irish are a seven piece group hailing from Belfast that working their own niche within the world of folk and Americana, and everything in between.
The brainchild of the group is lead singer and chief songwriter Cormac Neeson. The band were hand-picked by Neeson based on long standing friendships, as well as experiences with numerous musical projects within the thriving Belfast music scene.
Cormac states his reason for starting the band, and wanting to harness this fabulous sound: “This album is the opposite of boring AI generated no soul perfection. We recorded this album in a room together over four days allowing the music to breathe when it needed to, looking at each other for our cues and feeding off each other’s energy. It felt like a dream…but it’s the most real thing I’ve ever done in music. That Laurel Canyon sound of the late 60s, epitomised by the early Crosby Stills Nash and Young stuff, and the first few Joni Mitchell records, has always felt otherworldly and magical. On our album we’ve tried to access some of that beauty and create our own magic by combining brand new music with an old school recording process.”
The Laurel Canyon influence also extends to the band’s recording technique, adhering rigidly to the analogue 16 track recording method circa 1969; namely recording live straight to tape at the world famous Middle Farm Studios under the watchful eyes and ears of producer Pete Miles. The resulting sound of California Irish flies in the face of modern techniques that often lose the warmth of the original compositions. Instead, the group opted for a one off and unique shared human experience with musicians who feed off each other’s energy, and create compelling four-part vocal blends around one single microphone in a warm alt-folk celebration. The creative process in turn led to an album’s worth of songs titled ‘The Mountains Are My Friends’, out now.
The band: Cormac Neeson (vocals, acoustic guitar, psychedelic cowbell) Susy Coyle (vocals and percussion) Donal Scullion (acoustic, electric guitar, vocals) Chris Kelly (lap steel, mandolin, acoustic, electric guitar, vocals) James Doone (bass) Simon Templeton (piano, hammond, Wurlitzer) Conor McCauley (drums)
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 ) 