Extreme Metal
Meshuggah Announce New Album Immutable, Share Teaser Video: Watch
Meshuggah have announced their ninth studio album, Immutable, arriving April 1st. They also shared a short video teaser featuring a snippet of new music. While a Meshuggah album was expected this year, no formal details were available until now. The teaser clip posted on the Swedish extreme-metal band’s social media touts fiery artwork by Luminokaya and powerful chugging guitar grooves — a taste of what’s to come. “The title [Immutable] fits perfectly for where we are as a band,” guitarist Mårten Hagström remarked in the band’s Facebook post. “We’re older now. Most of us are in our 50s now, and we’ve settled into who we are. Even though we’ve been experimenting all along, I also think we’ve been the same since day one.” Advertisement Related Video He continued: “The way we approach things ...
Mining Metal: Top 10 Underground Metal Albums of 2021
Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence writers Joseph Schafer and Langdon Hickman. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. For the December edition, Joseph and Langdon pick their Top 10 Underground Metal Albums of 2021. We thought this year was going to be the mother lode — and it was. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, we predicted that many bands working on albums would hold onto them for a year, expecting the global crisis to end in time for a celebratory 2021 album drop and profitable summer/fall tour. Obviously, some of those predictions fell though, though we did get big summer festivals like Psycho Las Vegas returning, and ...
Meshuggah Reschedule 2022 US Tour Due to Health Issue Within Band
Swedish extreme metal veterans Meshuggah have pushed their early winter headlining 2022 US tour to the fall due to a health issue affecting one of the band members. As a result of the new itinerary, direct support act Converge will no longer be on the bill, but openers Torche will remain on board. Meshuggah’s US outing was set to kick off February 23rd and run through March 20th. Instead, it will launch September 16th in Worcester, Massachusetts, and wrap up October 16th in Atlanta, Georgia. Current ticket-holders will be admitted into the rescheduled gigs, while others can purchase tickets via Ticketmaster. In a Facebook post announcing the postponement, Meshuggah explained that one of their members is “undergoing medical treatment related to a skin condition on his hands.” The full state...
Top 30 Metal and Hard Rock Albums of 2021
Our 2021 Annual Report continues with our Top 30 Metal & Hard Rock Albums list. As the year winds down, stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles about the best music, film, and TV of 2021. You can find it all in one place here. After a rough 2020 that saw a global pandemic take over our lives and the concert industry shut down, 2021 was hopefully primed to be the year of the comeback. While live music has returned to a certain degree, it’s been a bumpy ride thus far, as bands deal with COVID outbreaks amidst their camps and fans enter venues with extra caution. One thing we can all still count on is new albums to get us through difficult times, and while 2021 may not have been super prolific as far as new releases, it still proved to be another strong year for the heaviest genre...
Napalm Death Announce New Mini-Album, Release “Narcissus” Single: Stream
Grindcore titans Napalm Death have announced a new mini-album called Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw of Throes, dropping February 11th via Century Media Records. The new record, which features eight tracks spanning 29 minutes, is a companion set to the veteran UK band’s stellar 2020 full-length effort, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism. Ahead of the release, Napalm Death have released the first single from the mini-album — the brutal and pummeling “Narcissus.” “You can certainly consider Resentment Is Always… as an extension of — or partner recording to — the Throes… album,” frontman Barney Greenway said of the set in a release. “We had long since wanted to put a mini-album out — in the spirit of the old days — and found we had enough quality tracks even after all the Thr...
Mining Metal: Abstracter, Conjureth, Fire-Toolz, Kowloon Walled City, Light of the Morning Star, The Silver, Sunless, Worm
Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence writers Joseph Schafer and Langdon Hickman. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. “Listen to them, children of the night, what music they make.” Even casual film buffs probably recognize that line, and not just because Tribulation titled an album after it. It was spoken by Bela Lugosi in the titular role of Dracula in the 1931 film. If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time, since it’s Halloween, and thanks to streaming it’s more readily available than probably any other film of its generation. But if you get a chance, watch the Spanish-language version, too. Moodier and more luxurious in its...
Mining Metal: Alchemy of Flesh, Diskord, Filth Is Eternal, Hooded Menace, Oxygen Destroyer, Qrixkuor, Sculptured, Wormwitch
Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence writers Joseph Schafer and Langdon Hickman. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. I’d hoped to be done with obituaries for a while after last month’s one-two punch of Metal Church’s Mike Howe and Slipknot’s Joey Jordison. No such luck. As I’m writing this, the metal world received news that Eric Wagner, vocalist of The Skull and former singer for Trouble had passed away from complications related to COVID-19. He was 62 years old. Advertisement Related Video Wagner had a singular voice and lyrical approach. He used his warbling upper register without apology, channeling the rough-around-the edges t...
Tiny Toddler Storms the Stage at Extreme Metal Festival: Watch
A tiny toddler took over the stage at the 2021 Obscene Extreme metal festival in the Czech Republic last month, seemingly unfazed and even pleased by the musical brutality that was being delivered behind him. The little tough guy thankfully sported some ear protection while stomping across the stage as the Czech band Force of Hell rocked a crushing song during their July 17th set on Day 2 of the three-day extravaganza at Battlefield Trutnov. At one point, the youngster took a seat at the front of the stage as long-haired metalheads were headbanging at the barricade in front of him. Later on, he went right up to a speaker and embraced it, soaking in its booming vibrations. Advertisement Related Video Last month, we reported that a New Zealand mom had named her three kids Metallica, Slayer, ...
Mining Metal: Dungeon Serpent, Hellish Form, Lantlos, Mesa, Midwife, Mordred, Night Crowned, Sallow Moth
As I write this introduction, I’ve just found out about the passing of Mike Howe, vocalist of the criminally underrated band Metal Church. He was 55 years old — too young. The last time I memorialized a musician in this column, it was Entombed vocalist L.G. Petrov. Howe’s story differs from Petrov’s in two critical ways. First, because Petrov’s passing was unfortunate but expected, whereas Howe’s was surprising. Second, while Petrov and Entombed had gone their separate ways, the band had achieved notoriety commensurate with their artistic output. In contrast, Howe had been an active member of Metal Church at the time of his death. Despite 40 years of existence, the band isn’t as well known as they deserve to be. Metal Church was one of the Seattle-area ’80s heavy metal bands that, alongsid...
Meshuggah Announce 2022 US Tour with Converge and Torche
Swedish metal veterans Meshuggah have announced a 2022 US tour with support from Converge and Torche. The 19-date outing will launch in late February. Meshuggah have been going strong for nearly 35 years, having formed in 1987, and are pioneers of extreme tech-metal. The entire tour lineup is impressive and intriguing, with Converge being one of the early architects of metalcore, and Torche earning acclaim over the past 15 years for their eclectic mix of sludge and melody. The tour kicks off February 23rd in Silver Spring, Maryland, and runs through a March 20th show in Atlanta. Related Video A press release announcing the tour also revealed that Meshuggah recently entered Sweetspot Studios in Sweden to record their ninth album, the follow-up to their 2016 album The Violent Sleep of Reason...
Mining Metal: Take Over and Destroy, Avtotheism, Boss Keloid, Code, Pharaoh, Siderean, Witch Cross, Witch Vomit
Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence writers Joseph Schafer and Langdon Hickman. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many anticipated that a year or more without touring would prompt musicians to create a surplus of material to be released afterward. Now that America’s becoming increasingly vaccinated, that prediction looks to be panning out. Not only are there a slew of spectacular releases on the horizon (and I don’t just mean Carcass, though their new song “Kelly’s Meat Emporium” is a must-listen), but many of them come from bands that never broke up but also haven’t been particularly active, eith...
Mayhem Unveil New Song “Voces Ab Alta”: Stream
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-06-03T13:59:44+00:00“>June 3, 2021 | 9:59am ET Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem have shared a new single called “Voces Ab Alta”. It’s one of three original songs from the band’s seven-track Atavistic Black Disorder / Kommando EP, out July 9th. “Voces Ab Alta” hails from the recordings sessions for 2019’s masterful Daemon album, but has gone unreleased until now. A theatrical, suffocating ripper in line with the songs from that LP, the track is sure to rally the black metal hordes. The desolation conjured by the band is also portrayed in the accompanying animated visualizer, created by artist Costin Chioreanu (Ghost, Opeth). The two other originals on the upcoming EP (“Black Glas...
