With ‘The Explorer’, CALLIDER (Stefan Lange) presents his second album, a sonic expedition that blends melodic death metal with literary depth and cultural reflection.
Today, CALLIDER releases the fourth new single for the song “Stars Shine True” (feat. Disarmonia Mundi), complete with a music video, from the upcoming new album “The Explorer”.
“The song ‘Stars Shine True’ tells the story of Polynesian navigators who relied on the stars without a compass or modern technology. It’s a metaphor for the loss of our connection to nature, and a reminder that even today, we must orient ourselves by our guiding stars: humanity, solidarity and moral principles,” reflects Stefan Lange. “It’s a fast and heavy melodic death metal song, interrupted by an atmospheric chorus. It’s characterised by intense, powerful drumming and a heavy emphasis on solos and lead guitars.”
Following the successful debut ‘Southern Stars’ (2023), Lange takes things a step further: rather than science fiction or Viking clichés, the focus here is on the search for universal values – a tribute to forgotten cultures, historical narratives and the question of what holds humanity together.
Musically, Lange breaks with genre conventions: wind instruments, oriental sounds (Makam music) and acoustic ballads meet classic metal riffs and varied vocals. The result is an accessible yet complex sound that delights even non-metal fans. The lyrics are political, philosophical and poetic – ranging from the unity of humanity (‘One Note’) to a critique of social division.
The artwork (a Polynesian catamaran following the stars) symbolises humanity’s journey: we navigate through crises – but what are our guiding stars? Humanity, solidarity, moral principles. ‘The Explorer’ is not an album to listen to in passing, but an invitation to reflect.
CALLIDER is: Vocals: Stefan Lange, Florian Stierstorfer, Marc Zeberer, Vanessa Marx Guitars: Ettore Rigotti, Kristopher Karla, Stefan Lange Bass: Ettore Rigotti, Stefan Lange Drums: Dominik Back Keyboards: Ettore Rigotti, Claus Bächer
Gåte are one of the most accomplished group of artists to come out of Norway. The band have topped the Norwegian charts, won a Norwegian Grammy and represented Norway in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. Now, they are expanding their groundbreaking mix of Nordic folk and modern rock on their critically-acclaimed new album Sigil.
“After being brutally robbed at Eurovision, Gåte have reemerged with a grander full-length to rekindle the sylvan aura they condensed and presented to over a hundred million people in just three minutes” Heavy Blog is Heavy writes about Sigil.
“Just like anybody who craves something bold and exciting will be right at home with Sigil as Gåte breathes invigorating fresh air and impetus into the world that truly needs it”, writes The Razors Edge.
Sigilwas released on September 25 on Season of Mist, and you can hear all 10 genre-blending songs by listening to the full album stream on the Season of Mist YouTube channel.
Across Sigil, Gåte expand on their groundbreaking mix of Nordic folklore and modern rock. Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa and hurdy-gurdy move alongside dark electronics, heavy guitar and Gunnhild Sundli’s transcendent vocals as the songs travel from enchantment and insatiable hunger through prophecy and mortality toward a closing sense of renewal.
Gåte’s upcoming fall tour will bring the band to nine cities across Norway, plus one date in Istanbul, Turkey. During this ten date run, they will perform new songs from Sigil, along with fan favorites from their celebrated discography.
Gåte Concerts 2026
October 23 – Trondheim, Norway @ Havet [TICKETS] October 30 – Drammen, Norway @ Union [TICKETS] October 31 – Oslo, Norway @ Sentrum Scene [TICKETS] November 5 – Haugesund, Norway @ Høvleriet [TICKETS] November 6 – Stavanger, Norway @ Folken [TICKETS] November 7 – Bergen, Norway @ Verftet [TICKETS] November 12 – Skien, Norway @ Parkbiografen [TICKETS] November 13 – Moss, Norway @ Verket Scene [TICKETS] November 14 – Hamar, Norway @ Festiviteten [TICKETS] November 21 – Istanbul, Turkey @ IF Performance [TICKETS]
Rooted in the intersection of Nordic folk tradition and contemporary rock, GÅTE have spent over two decades developing a sound that feels both ancient and fiercely present. Drawing on centuries-old ballads, oral traditions, and traditional vocal forms, the band transform these sources into music that is physical, emotionally direct and unmistakably their own.
Emerging in the early 2000s, GÅTE quickly became one of Norway’s most distinctive bands for their groundbreaking mix of Nordic folk tradition and modern rock. In 2002, their debut album, Jygri, entered at #1 on the Norwegian Albums chart and won them the Spellemann Award (Norwegian Grammy) for Best Newcomer.
“GÅTE have been drawing from traditional music and transforming it with modern means into something new right from their beginning”, Metal Hammer writes.
After two studio albums, three EPs and one live album, GÅTE took a twelve-year hiatus before returning to critical acclaim and sold-out performances with 2017’s Svevn. Following their folk-leaning LP Nord in 2021, the band went on to represent Norway in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest with a contemporary re-imagining of “Ulveham”, a traditional Norwegian ballad. In 2025, they toured throughout Europe with Leprous.
Rather than treat tradition as a fixed reference, GÅTE approach it as a living force. Old material is not preserved for its own sake, but reworked and recontextualized, allowing it to resonate with contemporary urgency and relevance.
“Our music comes from a place where tradition is not something fixed, but something alive” the band says. “We draw from old sources because they still speak to us, and because they allow us to express something honest and human today.”
GÅTE have now completed their sixth studio album, which will be released on the band’s new label home Season of Mist. While the band has focused primarily on Norway in the past, signing with the international label reflects both the growing interest they have received from around the world and their desire to reach a wider audience.
During the fall of 2026, GÅTE will perform the album’s lead single “Sannsiger” and other new songs during a headline tour of Norway and one date in Istanbul, Turkey. Their concerts are well-known for being immersive and intense, balancing raw energy with a ritual-like focus that has earned them a glowing and growing reputation beyond the Nordic region.
Production Credits: Recorded at MagnuStudio; Øra Studio. Produced by Kristian Fanavoll Tvedt & Magnus Børmark. Mixed & Mastered by Jacob Hansen at Hansen Studios.
Guest Musicians: Kristian Fanavoll Tvedt — Synths, Programming, Sounds, Guitar, Backing Vocals Maria Franz — Guest Vocals on “Sannsiger” Olav Luksengård Mjelva — Hardanger Fiddle on “Bergteken”, “Oskorsreia”, “Strandvaskar”, “Songen”, “Aude” John Stenersen — Hurdy-Gurdy on “Mi Jord” Knut Anders Vestad — Concert Grand Piano on “Jostedalsrypa” Marit Aspås — Cello on “Jostedalsrypa” Sylvelin Sundli — Upright Piano on “Bòd frå djupet”
Cover Art: Martine Solstad Larsen (Sigil Artist); Martin Kvamme (Cover Art and Design).
Death metal band CARNATION return sharper, heavier, and more focused than ever. Today, they unveil their new single “Blackmouth”!
Blackmouth taps directly into the core of classic Death Metal while still feeling fresh within the context of the album. It brings together heavy, driving riffs, relentless blast beats, and a strong sense of groove, striking that balance between aggression and catchiness that defines the band’s sound.
Lyrically, Blackmouth explores the impact of constant criticism and negativity, especially in today’s hyperconnected world. This negativity is personified as vultures circling and preying on weakness, reflecting the often harsh and short-sighted nature of public judgment, particularly on social media. As the song progresses, the narrative comes full circle: the one being targeted at the beginning ultimately transforms into the very thing that was hunting them. This transformation underscores the idea of a never-ending cycle of negativity, making the track both confrontational and thought-provoking.
Album Release Show – 7 november, Zappa Antwerp
In honor of the new album, CARNATION is playing one exclusive release show in Flanders this year. This takes place on November 7, 2026, at Zappa Antwerp. Fans can expect an intense evening full of brutal riffs and unforgettable moments. This is the moment to experience the band in full glory once again. CARNATION IS BACK!
Blending raw aggression with sharper songwriting and a more defined visual identity, “Symphony In Flesh” captures CARNATION at a crucial point: back to their core, but evolved in every direction that matters.
The album will be out on October 16 and is available for pre-orderHERE
Tracklist: 01. Blackmouth 02. Flesh-Eating Frenzy 03. Symphony in Flesh 04. Kingdom of Dreams 05. Labyrinth of Silence 06. Towards Death 07. Twisted Visions 08. Boundless Pathways 09. Legacy of the Forefathers
From Richmond, Virginia, SHY, LOW have a reputation as one of the most compelling voices within the modern instrumental underground. Their music speaks to fans of post-rock’s emotional grandeur and post-metal’s crushing intensity alike, while simultaneously appealing to listeners drawn to experimental, atmospheric, and cinematic forms of heavy music. The band’s ability to merge these seemingly disparate qualities has resulted in a body of work that is immediately recognizable and continually evolving.
Today, SHY, LOW reveal their third single ‘Palmistry’, from forthcoming album Purity Spiral, to be released 16th October via Pelagic Records.
Thrives in the space between introspection and catharsis, where subtle details become as impactful as the heaviest climaxes, and listeners are taken on a journey that is as visceral as it is profound. SHY, LOWThere is a disciplined sense of purpose in their writing, an understanding that every note serves a larger arc.
Is their ability to balance enormity with restraint. Their music unfolds patiently, allowing tension to accumulate through layers of texture, melody, and dynamics. Moments of delicate clarity often coexist with overwhelming weight, creating a sense of organic motion. At the core of the band’s sound lies an acute understanding of contrast. From shimmering, expansive passages to towering walls of distortion, the rhythm section provides both propulsion and atmosphere, becoming integral narrative voices that shape the emotion. SHY, LOW What distinguishes to move effortlessly between fragile moments of introspection and towering passages of intensity. Whether constructing intricate layers of harmony or driving songs toward explosive climaxes, there is a deep understanding of pacing, atmosphere, and the power of restraint. Momentum is at the heart of this album, through intricate rhythmic detail, and explosive bursts of energy, drums become the anchor and catalyst, supporting the band’s expansive arrangements while pushing them toward moments of cathartic release. Purity SpiralLuminous melodies, driving heaviness, layered textures, and carefully controlled tension allows use immersive repetition and tectonic weight to build tension through evolving patterns. While often associated with post-rock and post-metal, their music reaches beyond the familiar boundaries of either genre, drawing equally from cinematic atmosphere, crushing heaviness, ambient minimalism, and the emotional sweep of modern instrumental composition.
SHY, LOW continue their trajectory of artistic expansion and their fascination with movement, tension, and transformation, embracing a sound that is meticulously crafted and noticeably heavier; with devastating results. Building vast emotional landscapes through dynamic contrasts, layered textures, and patient, cinematic evolution, SHY, LOW With ‘Purity Spiral‘.
Belgian razorgrind band Leng Tch’e are releasing their first single in nearly a decade. “Hammered into Collapse” sets the tone for their upcoming two-song EP, which includes another new song in “Voided”.
The two-song EPHammered into Collapsecomes out on all digital platforms October 23, 2026 via Season of Mist.
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, a slow reckoning with wasted time that tightens into a repeated, mechanical refrain: mind turning black, cerebral and neural hijack.
“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 single 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
Lee Ritenour has revealed the latest track, ‘Cravo E Canela,’ taken from his forthcoming album, Live At Ronnie Scotts, which will be released on 23 October via The Players Club / Artone Music Group, and will be available on LP, CD and digitally.
Talking about the song he says, ““That’s a fantastic Milton Nascimento tune that’s been around for quite a few years. We did it on the Brasil album with David Grusin, and we’ve been doing it live for some time with this particular band, with Munir on bass/vocals and Tatiana on vocals. And y’know, Wes is half-Brazilian, so he’s got that feel on the drums, and then Giorgi on piano. And then, of course, it has my guitar chops on it. Even though we recorded it just a couple of years ago for the Brasil album, it felt like it definitely had a place on this record.”
When Ritenour takes the stage, all bets are off. For almost 60 years, the Grammy-winning LA guitarist has chased his muse through a kaleidoscope of genres, conjured alchemy alongside the scene’s greatest players, shed his creative skin whenever it got too comfortable, and walked the high wire each night as the crowd held its breath.
So when it came to catching the sparks on his latest live album, the 74-year-old naturally turned to the fabled London club that shares his rebel ethos. He has already released ‘Is It You’ from the record. “This one has definitely evolved. There’s some videos out there of people recreating the ’80s version, and they do it very well. But I’ve taken a different approach with the tune, because it was such a big hit, but it was never an easy tune to play live – it was always challenging for everybody. So when you hear this version from this band, it completely has its own flavour. The reason being that the two singers on it are both Brazilians, Munir Hossn, the bass player, and Tatiana Parra, the female singer.”
Performing a total of eight shows at the iconic Soho club in March 2026 – with a fresh setlist each time – was the only way this prolific artist could hope to represent every side of his career. Across his 50-strong back catalogue, Ritenour has shapeshifted from ’70s fusion hotshot to ’80s chart-crossover star, from the honorary ambassador for Brazilian jazz to one quarter of ’90s supergroup Fourplay – and beyond. Every song feels fresh and alive, thanks to the bandleader’s bold arrangements and the rip-it-up energy of a young band featuring Giorgi Mikadze (keys), Munir Hossn (vocals/bass), Grégoire Maret (harmonica), Tatiana Parra (vocals) and Ritenour’s son, Wes, driving the shows from his drum stool.
“I’ve had the chance to play every kind of music with every kind of artist,” reflects Ritenour, “and that’s the way Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club is set up too. Obviously, since 1959, it’s seen the history of jazz, from Wes Montgomery, Miles Davis and Nina Simone, to Jeff Beck and Jamie Cullum. But also rock, soul, blues, you name it – it’s all been through there.”
“I have a history at Ronnie’s, going back to the ’70s. It’s such an iconic room, and the audience is so sophisticated. If you don’t deliver, it’s probably not good. But this band has been playing together consistently for the last few years, so we came into Ronnie’s already very glued, and the audience felt it from the very first song.”
Track Listing: 1. Cravo E Canela 2. L.A. By Bike 3. For the Palms 4. Captain Fingers 5. A Little Bumpin’ 6. Meu Samba Torto 7. Lay It Down 8. Is It You? 9. Waltz for Carmen 10. Stone Flower 11. Pearl 12. The Village
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
