Competition was not a colourful detail about the scene, it was the mechanism. A dozen bands inside twenty minutes of each other, watching each other every week, is how a style gets made in thirty months instead of ten years.
By Declan Rourke
11 November · 7 min read
Genre Histories
Ayreon in 1995, Avantasia in 2001, Aina and Avalon after them: the metal opera hands one story to a cast of hired singers, and the hand-over between voices is the music. What a cast can do t...
By Julien Vasseur
Explainers
Lorna Shore is symphonic deathcore with blackened elements: black metal leads from Psalms on, an orchestra pushed to the front from Immortal on, and a breakdown that has never once been cut.
By Jonah Pike
Explainers
DragonForce is power metal: the European melodic school with the tempo pushed to its limit, a clean high voice on top and an eight-bit colour in the leads that changes the sound, not the gen...
By Julien Vasseur
Eirik Solvang
Black Metal
The Black Metal Records Collectors Chase
Andrzej Sawicki
Blackened Death
Viking, Folk and Everything Else Death Metal Absorbed
Rafael Quintero
Death Metal
The Death Metal Records Collectors Chase
Gareth Llewellyn
Grindcore
The Underrated Sludge Metal Albums
Ilse Brandt
Doom Metal
What Doom Metal Actually Means
Declan Rourke
Heavy Metal
The Rivalries That Drove Thrash Metal
| Date | Band | Album | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Nov 2026 | Crescendium | DRAC | Full-length |
| 11 Nov 2026 | Canticum Diaboli | Compendium Horribilis | Full-length |
| 12 Nov 2026 | Asgrauw | Solips | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Artificial Brain | Antillia | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Iron Savior | Deathbringer | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Cro-Mags | The Age of Quarrel: 40 Years of Quarrel | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Cutterred Flesh | The Shapes of Hidden Malice | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Sinister | Lucid Nightmares | Full-length |
| 13 Nov 2026 | NervoChaos | Chaosmongers | Full-length |
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