** Metal ** The Thread! II

[Demoniac]

Haiduk - Cyclone

 

[Zantera]

I've been getting into Death in the last month or so, taking my time slowly working my way through their discography. What a phenomenal band. I'm only at Individual Thought Patterns (so still got 2 of the albums with the strongest hype around them left) and this band already feels like one of my favorite metal bands.

 

[Gee]

I've been getting into Death in the last month or so, taking my time slowly working my way through their discography. What a phenomenal band. I'm only at Individual Thought Patterns (so still got 2 of the albums with the strongest hype around them left) and this band already feels like one of my favorite metal bands.

Better late than never! Chuck was such a talented musician. You're left with their two best albums in my opinion (TSoP being my favourite).



Spirit Crusher embodies what I love in metal. A Moment of Clarity and Voice of the Soul are also amazing songs.

If you can, go see a live show of Death to All which is a tribute band featuring former members. Max Phelps does a fantastic job on vocals... It's like hearing Chuck with some modern touches.

I got to see them live in May. They did two nights in Montréal and they played SBG in its entirety and other songs from their early years on first night. Second night they played TSoP in its entirety including songs from the latter years of the band. Amazing experience!

 

[Zantera]

They have been on my "need to check out"-list for probably a decade but for some reason I just never got around to it. But 2024 has been a good year for deep diving discographies so I finally got around to it. And I've loved every album so far! Even picked up every album on vinyl except for Symbolic which seems a lot harder to find sadly.

 

[Gee]

They have been on my "need to check out"-list for probably a decade but for some reason I just never got around to it. But 2024 has been a good year for deep diving discographies so I finally got around to it. And I've loved every album so far! Even picked up every album on vinyl except for Symbolic which seems a lot harder to find sadly.

Nice. I started collecting vinyl records since last summer and one of my first records I bought was the "Best of Death" record with a nice blue/white/black splatter design.

For Symbolic, the album is sadly out of print and the rights belong to Roadrunner Records because Relapse Records couldn't buy it with the rest of the Death catalog for some reason. Relapse frequently re-release Death albums, fortunately. I've got the 2024 re-reissues with the foiled/metallic jacket so I'm assuming you also got those?

And feel free to post your collection over here:

The Return of Vinyl: Turntables and Analog Audio

Welp, time to add vinyls among my other expensive hobbies... I got too excited for the Mondo The Batman score and realized later I just got the regular edition which comes with solid colors for the LPs instead of the actual exclusive splatter ones. Now I just need to find a decent turntable...

forums.superherohype.com

 

[Gee]

@Zantera Listened to Julie Christmas' new album yet? CoL's Johannes Persson collaborated on it.

 

[Zantera]

@Zantera Listened to Julie Christmas' new album yet? CoL's Johannes Persson collaborated on it.

Yeah its probably among my favorite metal albums this year! I need to check out her earlier stuff.

 

[Zantera]

Opeth brought the growls back!!!!

 

[Gee]

Blood Incantation's new album is an AOTY contender. Space death metal with Pink Floyd vibes.

Two 20-minute songs, both separated in three parts ("tablets").

 

[Gee]

Two new black metal album releases. Pretty good stuff.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

A melodic symphonic metal band with a great singer, Ad Infinitum is from Switzerland, and their singer Melissa Bonny sings/growls in English. Each of their albums loosely follows a concept. As far as metal bands go, their sound is on the less intense side and probably more accessible to a wider audience of rock fans who like having hooks, guitar solos, simplistic structure, and singing in their music.

Ad Infinitum - Chapter I - Monarchy (2020)
Concept inspired by France under King Louis XIV


(legal full album playlist)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★★
1. Infected Monarchy	6. Fire and Ice [video]
2. Marching on Versailles [video]	7. Live Before You Die
3. Maleficent	8. Revenge
4. See You in Hell [video]	9. Demons
5. I Am the Storm [video]	10. Tell Me Why

Ad Infinitum - Chapter II - Legacy (2021)
Concept inspired by Vlad the Impaler / Dracula


(legal full album playlist)


(live performance video is mislabeled; this is 'Your Enemy')

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★★
1. Reinvented	7. Animals [video]
2. Unstoppable [video]	8. Into the Night
3. Inferno [video]	9. Son of Wallachia
4. Your Enemy	10. My Justice, Your Pain
5. Afterlife (feat. Nils Molin) [video]	11. Haunted
6. Breathe	12. Lullaby

Ad Infinitum - Chapter III - Downfall (2023)
Concept inspired by ancient Egyptian history and mythology


(legal full album playlist)


(live performance of Eternal Rains)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★★
1. Eternal Rains [video]	7. Ravenous
2. Upside Down [video]	8. Under the Burning Skies
3. Seth [video]	9. Architect of Paradise
4. From the Ashes [video]	10. The Serpent's Downfall
5. Somewhere Better [video]	11. New Dawn
6. The Underworld	12. Legends (feat. Chrigel Glanzmann) [video]

Ad Infinitum - Abyss (2024)
Press release:

KNAC.COM - News - AD INFINITUM Set For New Album 'Abyss'

(legal full album playlist)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★★
1. My Halo [video 2]	6. Surrender [video 3]
2. Follow Me Down [video 4]	7. Anthem for the Broken [video 5]
3. Outer Space [video 1]	8. The one you'll hold on to
4. Aftermath [video]	9. Parasite
5. Euphoria	10. Dead End

The first five videos for Abyss are loosely connected and are meant to be watched in a particular order.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

I wished I liked more of Spiritbox's songs but these here are the more catchy and mainstream tracks in their catalog. They’re pretty much in the same wheelhouse as Deftones, mixing clean vocals with harsh ones at various times.


track 11 on Eternal Blue (2021)


(live performance of Circle With Me)


track 1 on Rotoscope (2022) single


track 2 on The Fear of Fear (2023) [EP]

Their new album comes out next year:


track 3 on Tsunami Sea (2025)

 

[Demoniac]

One man death metal live

 

[Silvermoth]

I went to my first metal concert last night and it was so brilliant. My ears are still ringing haha. Ana was my fave but the main act was The Eternal who were incredible, I’m still humming their songs

 

[Link]

Epica has a new record incoming in April. This new song is more energetic than most of their stuff, I like the drive of it.

 

[Gee]

I went to my first metal concert last night and it was so brilliant. My ears are still ringing haha. Ana was my fave but the main act was The Eternal who were incredible, I’m still humming their songs

Nice. Hopefully more metal shows coming your way. Also, you should wear earplugs. Tinnitus is no joke...

My first show of the year will be next week: Apocalyptica and Nita Strauss as opening act.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Boomers and Silent Gens and people who think they are very religious are the big holdouts though their share of the population has declined from the time of Black Sabbath to now.

 

[Gee]

Early AOTY contender. So good.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Some new ditties from the upcoming albums (Ghost - Skeletá, Volbeat - God of Angels Trust) and recently released albums (Lacuna Coil - Sleepless Empire).

Not a Ghost fan yet (they might never escape the KISS comparisons) but the polished sound on this 'exorcism' video is pretty good:


Sounds like Volbeat is trying to return a bit to their early era sound on this one (music video about a serial killer):

---

Lacuna Coil - Sleepless Empire (2025)

Sleepless Empire captures, through our eyes, the chaos of a generation trapped in a digital world that never stops, where social media consumes identity and every day pushes us one step closer to becoming soulless zombies. We find ourselves in between, having witnessed a full analogic world and the modern one, confronting the evolution and searching for a true meaning of it all. Throughout every song, the journey is an undercurrent of rebellion, a desperate cry to reclaim oneself in an era that seems to have lost its sense of time and reality.

Enjoy Cristina Scabbia's vocals:


(legal full album playlist)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★☆
1. The Siege	7. In Nomine Patris
2. Oxygen [video]	8. Sleepless Empire
3. Scarecrow	9. Sleep Paralysis
4. Gravity [video]	10. In The Meantime (feat. Ash Costello) [video]
5. I Wish You Were Dead [video]	11. Never Dawn
6. Hosting the Shadow (feat. Randy Blythe)

Having heard both, I’m liking the new Lacuna Coil album Sleepless Empire (★★★★☆) more than Spiritbox’s Tsunami Sea (★★★☆☆). The issue for me is that the ‘high points’ on Tsunami Sea aren’t as high as on their previous album Eternal Blue (★★★★☆) and EPs and there’s not as many of them. SE also feels a little more experimental and diverse for that band than what Spiritbox’s TS is doing by just doubling down on Courtney LaPlante’s angry vocals with meandering instrumentation. I was hoping the experimental EPs after Eternal Blue would inform the direction of their second album but they don’t.

 

[Gee]

I will be seeing Lacuna Coil in April during the Machine Head tour. In Flames will also be there as openers and they're the main reason I will be at the show (even though they haven't made an album I like in the past 20 years or so).

I'll dig back into LC's discography before the show. I listened to their old stuff when they were gothic metal and haven't listened to anything since their change to a more alternative metal/rock sound.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

French metalcore band Novelists got a new singer (again) within the past couple of years. Of course, with major lineup changes in any band, existing fans are divided over it. New front lady Camille Contreras helps contribute more of a Hayley Williams (Paramore) styling to the clean vocals as they are steered in slightly more of a Spiritbox direction. She previously appeared as guest vocals on the band’s 2020 album and track C’est la Vie.

These are the recent singles with the accompanying videos. Think I like Coda the most. The other two are quite good listens too. The new album CODA (★★★★☆) was released in May 2025.

NOVELISTS - CODA (2025)


(legal full album playlist)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★☆
1. Say My Name [video]	6. Adam and Eve
2. Coda [video]	7. Sleepless Nights
3. All For Nothing [video]	8. 78 rue...
4. Maldición de la Bruja	9. CRC
5. In Heaven	10. K.O.

Novelists concert w/ old and new material (March 28, 2025)

1. 00:36 : Lost cause
2. 04:37 : Terrorist
3. 08:27 : Do you really wanna know?
4. 12:37 : Prisoner
5. 16:58 : Heretic
6. 20:30 : Coda
7. 25:21 : Say my name
8. 29:37 : All for Nothing
9. 34:32 : Smoke Signals
10. 38:28 : Turn it up

---

A band I discovered last year that should have more attention is electronic/metalcore band Ankor, whose members hail from Spain, the drummer is from Greece, and frontwoman Jessie Williams from the U.K.. Their most recent album Shoganai (★★★★★) is a top to bottom total banger. The only thing I don’t like about is the lame album cover art lol.

Ankor - Shoganai (2024)

tracklist	my rating: ★★★★★
1. The World Is a Cruel Place… and It Is Also Very Beautiful	5. Stereo [Chapter 4]
2. Darkbeat [Chapter 1]	6. Venom [Chapter 5]
3. Prisoner [Chapter 2]	7. Embers [Chapter 6]
4. Oblivion [Chapter 3]	8. Shoganai [Chapter 7]

The videos for Shoganai are connected and are meant to be watched in order.

Ankor are the Catalonia-based metalcore band you need to know

In a conversation with The Pretty Cult, Ankor frontwoman Jessie Williams discusses the band’s multicultural background, recent breakout success, love of Japanese culture, and more.

www.theprettycult.com

I understand that around the time of the release of your breakout single "Prisoner," the band's sound and overall aesthetic began to evolve into a new form. What prompted this, and what do you want this modern era of the band to represent musically, visually, and thematically?

Williams: With this new era, we decided to release every song as a chapter within a story and a video for every song. Not many people these days listen to a full album, so we wanted to give each song its importance. Every song talks about different mental illnesses or stages of grief. This process has been working quite well for us because it allows people to listen to every song, get hooked on the story, and want to know what will happen next. I think people are paying more attention to our lyrics, their meaning, and what we want to say.

2022 proved to be a pivotal year and moment for the band. Your single "Prisoner" went viral and racked up millions of streams and views across every platform. Did you anticipate the song would be received this well, and how validating did it feel to have your hard work pay off in such a way?

Williams: I knew that we had something special because I really do enjoy what we do and I am our biggest fan. However, I didn't expect to go this way, to be honest. When we released the video, we were on a plane coming home from Disneyland Paris, and when we landed, it had way more views than we were used to. In the following weeks, it kept growing, and we're very happy.

 

[ENCK]

CABAL Amazing band

ANGELMAKER Also amazing

 

[Gee]

Pretty good, though I don't think it's as good as their debut. The tech death sound they've incorporated in this album doesn't gel well with the prog black I reckon. I will give it another listen.



I like blackgaze, but I can't seem to enjoy Deafheaven stuff. Their latest album is probably the best I've enjoyed from them so far. This too I will give another listen along their full discography.

 

[Gee]

Pretty good doom band with amazing female vocals. Many influences including jazz and blues.



Potential doom AOTY. I highly recommend The Dress song.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Making waves: SPIRITBOX's COURTNEY LAPLANTE is not holding back anymore

The singer's star is rising, and she ****ing deserves it

www.revolvermag.com

Surviving On Defiance: Poppy Interviewed | Features | Clash Magazine Music News, Reviews & Interviews

The Massachusetts-born artist may have first emerged as a perennially-online pop force almost a decade ago, but it's in metal that she's fortified her

www.clashmusic.com

Ghost Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 With ‘Skeletá’

Ghost's new album 'Skeleta' is the hard rock band's first No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

www.billboard.com

How Did Ghost Score Its First No. 1 Album on the Billboard 200 With ‘Skeletá’?

This week's Five Burning Questions looks at Ghost's 'Skeletá' album, its first to top Billboard's marquee albums chart.

www.billboard.com