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
Fast, bright, and irresistibly catchy – NIGHTHAWK present their second single, “Angel Of Mine”, a high-energy rocker bursting with melodic finesse and groove. Driven by sharp clean guitars in the verses and crowned by a standout keyboard solo, the track showcases the band’s mastery of crafting tight, memorable songs that stick with you long after the last note fades.
Dynamic and uplifting, “Angel Of Mine” brings together all the elements that define Nighthawk’s sound: polished musicianship, infectious hooks, and an undeniable feel-good vibe. A true highlight from their forthcoming album “Six Three O”, this is melodic rock at its most vibrant and engaging.
Join the premiering here:
Following two acclaimed studio albums and recording sessions in iconic locations like Abbey Road, Nighthawk return in 2025 with a bold new chapter. Their latest album, “Six Three O”, was captured at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales – where classics by Queen and Oasis were once born – and once again brings together a stellar lineup of Swedish rock powerhouses.
Led by Robert Majd (Captain Black Beard, Metalite) on guitars, Nighthawk features Björn Strid (Soilwork, The Night Flight Orchestra) on vocals, John Lönnmyr (The Night Flight Orchestra) on keyboards, Rasmus Ehrnborn (Soilwork, The Night Flight Orchestra) on bass, and Magnus Ulfstedt (Black Paisley) on drums. The album was produced by Sverker Widgren (Portal, October Tide), continuing the trusted collaboration that shaped their previous release “Prowler” (2024).
From the soaring melodies of “Home Tonight” – built around a long-held riff that finally found its moment – to the energetic pulse of “Angel of Mine”, “Six Three O” is an album that combines musical finesse with heartfelt expression. On “Can’t Say Goodbye”, the band’s chemistry shines through as Björn spontaneously crafted a pre-chorus that elevates the track on the spot. Meanwhile, “Too Good for You” delivers a tight, no-frills blast of classic rock’n’roll, driven by fiery performances from all involved.
What started as a creative outlet has grown into a fully realized band, uniting some of Sweden’s finest rock musicians under one banner. After “Midnight Hunter” (2021) and “Prowler” (2024), “Six Three O” cements Nighthawk’s reputation as one of the most compelling melodic rock bands of the moment – honoring the past while forging ahead with passion and power.
“Six Three O” will be released on LP (black vinyl limited to 100 copies, green vinyl limited to 200), CD and digital on 01.08.2025 via Mighty Music.
Lineup: Robert Majd – guitar Björn Strid – vocals John Lönnmyr – keyboards Magnus Ulfstedt – drums Rasmus Ehrnborn – bass
Sony Music Vision, in association with Sony Music Entertainment UK and Epic Records, today announced the production of The Ballad of Judas Priest, a new documentary about legendary GRAMMY-winning English heavy metal band Judas Priest and their epic journey to the top of rock and roll.
Co-directed by documentary filmmaker Sam Dunn and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello in his directorial debut, the documentary will celebrate the legendary band’s lasting impact on music and culture with their influence reaching far beyond metal. Featuring unforgettable anthems and pop culture staples like “Breaking the Law” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” The Ballad of Judas Priest will capture the passion, resilience and enduring legacy of a band whose music and story continue to inspire generations.
Rising from humble, working-class roots in Birmingham, UK, to become global rock legends, Judas Priest didn’t just help shape heavy metal culture – they forged it. Widely credited as being one of the pioneers of the Heavy Metal genre in the 1970s, Judas Priest has sold more than 50 million records and released 19 studio albums for their legion of dedicated fans around the world. In 2022, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With their 2024 album “Invincible Shield,” the band became the first heavy metal band to release studio albums 50 years apart. The album drew widespread acclaim, receiving a GRAMMY nomination for Best Metal Performance. This fall, they will be joined by Alice Cooper for a co-headlining tour across 22 North American cities.
Judas Priest said, “We have lived and breathed metal for over five decades, and finally in this documentary we are summoning our congregation to officially witness our lives uncensored, in a never-before-seen way…the cassock comes off, revealing Priest in all its metal glory!”
“While some may know Judas Priest for their huge hits that have shaped the heavy metal genre, there is so much more to their story,” co-directors Morello and Dunn said. “Tracing their incredible 50-year journey, this film will capture how Judas Priest both defined the sound and look of metal, but also made it a more inclusive place along the way. We are grateful to the band for allowing us such intimate, unfiltered access to their lives and look forward to bringing this film to the metal masses around the world.”
The documentary is a production of Banger Films and directed by Sam Dunn and Tom Morello. Producers include Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. It is executive produced by Tom Morello, Rick Krim, Sheila Stepanek, and Jayne Andrews. Tom Mackay, Krista Wegener and Abby Davis serve as executive producers for Sony Music Vision. Sylvia Rhone is executive producer for Epic Records. The film is presented and distributed by Sony Music Vision.
About Sony Music Vision At Sony Music Vision, we bring film and television storytelling to life for our industry-leading creative talent and iconic music catalog around the world. We pair world class filmmakers with groundbreaking and legendary artists to create, finance, produce and distribute powerful content that features unique access to our archives and vast portfolio of music. A full-service content studio, we collaborate globally across the Sony entertainment companies to engage audiences with premium film and TV projects, including documentary and narrative feature films, as well as television specials and unscripted and scripted series.
Chief Shock Video
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
Ads
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 ) 