That's Not Metal

Architects release a new single in collaboration with Jordan Fish, but there is also an elephant in the room we have to discuss. Elsewhere Bloodywood get a big movie moment, music from Century Media's new signing Sonja, and questions on negative review pushback and our favourite foot in mouth band moments. Releases: Blue Öyster Cult - Ghost Stories Castle Rat - Into the Realm Týr - Battle Ballads Riot V - Mean Streets Vulture - Sentinels Heavy Temple - Garden of Heathens Tarot - Glimpse of the Dawn Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties - In Lieu of Flowers Heavenly Blue - We Have the Answer Whores. - War. Love Sex Machine - Trve Necrot - Lifeless Birth Benighted - Ekbom Exist - Hijacking the Zeitgeist Replicant - Infinite Mortality Heresiarch - Edifice Northlane - Mirror’s Edge

We polish off March's releases with a bonus review ep covering While She Sleeps' continued bizarre choices of experimentation in Self Hell and Sum 41's parting note of a double album Heaven :x: Hell. Releases: Bob Vylan - Humble as the Sun Feeder - Black/Red Alpha Wolf - Half Living Things ERRA - Cure Filth - Southern Hostility Strung Out - Dead Rebellion Bayside - There are Worse Things Than Being Alive Cock Sparrer - Hand On Heart Korpiklaani - Rankarumpu Ingested - The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams Hour of Penance - Devotion Iron Monkey - Spleen & Goad Friends of Hell - God Damned You to Hell Destroyer of Light - Degradation Years Horndal - Head Hammer Man Attic - Return of the Witchfinder Witch Vomit - Funeral Sanctum Funeral Leech - The Illusion of Time Diabolic Oath - Oracular Hexations Locrian - End Terrain Austere - Beneath the Threshold The Good The Bad and the Zugly - Decade of Regression Dreamcar - Dream

Album Club toasts 20 years of AFI's goth punk masterpiece Sing the Sorrow, revisits one of the last big supergroups and the era it ended with Axewound's Vultures, and celebrates two underground punk and grind gems with Fall of Efrafa's Owsla and Genghis Tron's Dead Mountain Mouth. This episode was originally published March 2023 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

We scheme the best ways to survive being a member of Slipknot and FMK with baddiecore, as the Summer Slaughter is confirmed to return, and Botch's reunion/final shows hit the UK in mindblowing style. Releases: The Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes Night Verses - Every Sound Has a Color in the Valley of Night Crushed By Waves - More to Life Blanket - Ceremonia Restorations - Restorations Mastiff - Deprecipice BRAT - Social Grace Zombi - Direct Inject Hamferd - Men Guds hond er sterk Khold - Du dommes til Dod Brodequin - Harbinger of Woe Hideous Divinity - Unextinct Apparition - Disgraced Emanations from a Tranquil State Civerous - Maze Envy Aberration - Refracture Sylvaine - Eg Er Framand While She Sleeps - Self Hell Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell Boundaries - Death is Little More Wristmeetrazor - Degeneration Frail Body - Artificial Bouquet Vial - Burnout Teens In Trouble - What’s Mine Coffin Storm - Arcana Rising Mutiilation - Black Metal Cult Vorga - Beyond the Palest Star Verwoed - The Mother Verberis - The Apophatic Wilderness Darkestrah - Nomad Coffins - Sinister Oath Hate Force - Systems of Terror Septage - Septic Worship (Intolerant Spree of Infesting Forms)

That's Not Metal reviews for March are in absolute guitar heaven, and maybe hell, with Judas Priest, Bruce Dickinson, Midnight, Gouge Away, Chapel of Disease, & Dödsrit. Judas Priest 23:30 Bruce Dickinson 55:35 Midnight 1:24:56 Gouge Away 1:40:20 Chapel of Disease 1:58:20 Dödsrit 2:23:24

One of the biggest weeks for heavy touring in the UK peaks with a podcast-wide trip to Napalm Death's Campaign for Musical Destruction with Pig Destroyer, Primitive Man, and Wormrot, coming with sadly some sombre news from the PD camp. Releases: Kid Kapichi - There Goes the Neighbourhood Scott Stapp - Higher Power The Black Crowes - Happiness Bastards Gouge Away - Deep Sage Bleak - My Body is Not Where I Belong DragonForce - Warp Speed Warriors Savage Oath - Divine Battle Vltimas - Epic Aborted - Vault of Horrors Necrophobic - Into the Twilight Grey Udåd - Udåd O ZORN! - Vermillion Haze Greywind - Antidote Comeback Kid - Trouble

Hyperblasts brings a report from London's Celestial Darkness Festival checking out rare bookings in the worlds of black, doom, & goth and sets from the likes of Primordial, Tribulation, & Ihsahn, and salute a formative band for TNM as Palm Reader announce their farewell. Releases: Judas Priest - Invincible Shield Sonata Arctica - Clear Cold Beyond Myrath - Karma Kill the Lights - Death Melodies Midnight - Hellish Expectations Gost - Prophecy Exhorder - Defectum Omnium Skeletal Remains - Fragments of the Ageless Slimelord - Chytridiomycosis Relinquished Merrimack - Of Gravity and Grace Isenordal - Requiem for Eirênê

The biggest piece of Slipknot drummer rumouring yet, some absolutely blistering tracks from Knocked Loose and Inter Arma, and probably the maddest band drama ever to unfold. We've all done it. Releases: Mick Mars - The Other Side of Mars Ace Frehley - 10,000 Volts Amigo the Devil - Yours Until the War is Over Amaranthe - The Catalyst Glitterer - Rationale Shoreline - To Figure Out Timelost - Drained Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of the Last Human Being The Body/Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven Traveler - Prequel to Madness Borknagar - Fall Stygian Crown - Funeral for a King Morta Skuld - Creation Undone Vircolac - Veneration Guiltless - Thorns Paledusk - PALEHELL Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project Zakk Sabbath - Doomed Forever Forever Doomed Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses New Years Day - Half Black Heart Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced Firewind - Stand United Suicidal Angels - Profane Prayer Haunt - Dreamers Sheer Mag - Playing Favorites Sentry - Sentry Messiah - Christus Hypercubus Devastator - Conjurers of Cruelty Saturnalia Temple - Paradigm Call Celestial Sword - Nocturnal Divinity Kontravoid - Detachment

February Album Clubs look at Fall Out Boy's initial send-off Folie a Deux, Kreator's proto-extreme masterpiece Pleasure to Kill, the oft brushed over Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent from Refused, and a decade of Beastmilk's last post-punk party at the end of the world Climax. This episode was originally published February 2023 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

February reviews on TNM pop the hell off with Chelsea Wolfe, Alkaline Trio, Ihsahn, Job for a Cowboy, Darkest Hour, Spectral Voice, Hulder & Slope, and reactions to the bamboozling news of Slayer's return and Ascendancy + The Poison tours. Chelsea Wolfe 57:00 Alkaline Trio 1:23:40 Ihsahn 1:39:18 Job for a Cowboy 2:01:12 Darkest Hour 2:19:57 Spectral Voice 2:35:21 Hulder 2:55:38 Slope 3:09:25

Hyperblasts checks out the new single from Pearl Jam, tours from Malevolence and The Menzingers, and very exciting headliner announcements from Outbreak and Damnation. Releases: Idles - Tangk Blackberry Smoke - Be Right Here Laura Jane Grace - Hole In My Head Ihsahn - Ihsahn Bokassa - All Out of Dreams Profiler - A Digital Nowhere Shooting Daggers - Love & Rage GVLLOW - Twin Flames The Obsessed - Gilded Sorrow Praise the Plague - Suffocating in the Current of Time Darkspace - Dark Space -II Pestilength - Solar Clorex

Kerry King is back on the scene with all of the details surrounding his first album since Slayer, as well as some spicy interview snippets, and there's huge tours on both sides of the Atlantic. The Grammys also exist. Releases: Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She Yellowcard + Hammock - A Hopeful Sign The Chisel - What a F*cking Nightmare The Pineapple Thief - It Leads to This The Last Ten Seconds of Life - No Name Graves Haystack - Doomsday Goes Away Morbid Saint - Swallowed By Hell Spectral Voice - Sparagmos Hulder - Verses In Oath Chapel of Disease - Echoes of Light Petrification - Sever Sacred Light Zwielicht - The Aphotic Embrace Theophonos - Ashes in the Huron River Hannes Grossmann - Echoes of Eternity

A mega edition of Hyperblasts finds TNM conducting a critical reflection on the legacy of YMAS with the news of their impending farewell, a moment you either feared would come or never come. There's also crazy new music in the form of Kaonashi's new EP, and some crazy choices in the form of Download's stage splits. Releases: Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes - Dark Rainbow Alkaline Trio - Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs The Infernal Sea - Hellfenlic Olhava - Sacrifice Unsouling - Vampiric Spiritual Drain Knoll - As Spoken Eye Flys - Eye Flys Junta - Junta Death Killer - Total Destruction of the Entire Universe Mountain Caller - Chronicle II: Hypergenesis GUHTS - Regeneration Slower - Slower Caligula’s Horse - Charcoal Grace Madder Mortem - Old Eyes, New Heart Vitriol - Suffer & Become Cognizance - Phantazein Whitechapel - Live in the Valley Dream State - Still Dreaming Kaonashi - The 3 Faces of Beauty: A Violent Misinterpretation of Morgan Montgomery Militarie Gun - Life Under the Sun Jesu - Hard to Reach Enterprise Earth - Death: An Anthology Being as an Ocean - Death Can Wait Reconciler - Art for Our Sake meth. - Shame Utopia - Shame Bipolar Architecture - Metaphysicize Myrath - Karma Striker - Overpower Necrowretch - Swords of Dajjal Dwarrowdelf - The Fallen Leaves Stages of Decomposition - Raptures of Psychopathy Ghoul - Noxious Concoctions Persefone - Lingua Ignota: Part I

One of the most farcical yet often great review gauntlets opens TNM 2024, with efforts from Green Day, Neck Deep, Saxon, Lucifer, Upon Stone, Rough Justice... and Lord of the Lost's 90 minute cover album. Green Day 3:35 Neck Deep 34:19 Lord of the Lost 52:08 Saxon 1:18:19 Lucifer 1:41:15 Upon Stone 1:55:35 Rough Justice 2:13:36

New Year Hyperblasts continue with an in-depth report from Bring Me the Horizon's Nex Gen tour with Bad Omens, Cassyette, and Static Dress, representing a state of the address at the start of 2024. Releases: Green Day - Saviors Neck Deep - Neck Deep Saxon - Hell, Fire and Damnation Upon Stone - Dead Mother Moon Lord Dying - Clandestine Transcendence Slift - Ilion Kontact - Full Contact Master - Saints Dispelled Resin Tomb - Cerebral Purgatory Vemod - The Deepening Sexual Perverts - Sex Maniac…Forever Heavy Sentence - Warriors of Madness

That's Not Metal is back for the first episode of 2024 covering the big news from the beginning of the year, announcement straight away of the year's first special, plus a big thank you. Releases: Peyton Parrish - Soul Sprints - Letter to Self Gray State - Under the Wheels of Progress Haywire 617 - Conditioned for Demolition Rejoice - All of Heaven’s Luck Cancer Christ - God is Violence Svdestada - Candela Casey - How to Disappear Rough Justice - Faith In Vain Ryujin - Ryujin Neal Morse - The Restoration - Joseph: Part Two Alluvial - Death is but a Door Lifesick - Love and Other Lies Extinction A.D. - Ruthless Intent Escuela Grind - DDEEAATTHHMMEETTAALL

Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the house... The TNM Awards hit back crowning the heroes and villains, menaces and marvels of 2023: Most Improved Band Song of the Year Worst Song of the Year Hero of the Year Villain of the Year Best New Band Biggest Disappointment Gig of the Year EP of the Year Artwork of the Year Movie of the Year Comeback of the Year Surprise of the Year Outstanding Achievement Worst Band of the Year Unsung Heroes Story of the Year Band of the Year

The second load of That's Not Metal Albums of the Year come from Mark and Sam, and crucially in a year of some of the most divisive albums we announce the results of the listener AOTY poll.

The end of the year at TNM is nigh; it's time to cut the ribbon and begin crowning our top 20 albums, as Perran and Elliot start off with all of the great musical colour and invention that has graced our ears in 2023.

News show close for 2023 with acknowledgement of the passing of Killing Joke's Geordie Walker, before turning to more new music from ex-Black Peaks members and Video Nasties, and some very exciting Glenn Danzig news. Releases: Future Static - Liminality Cruciamentum - Obsidian Refractions Valdrin - Throne of the Lunar Soul Midnight Odyssey - Biolume Part 3 - A Fullmoon Madness Kvelgeyst - Blut, Milch und Thranen Gnaw Their Tongues - The Cessation of Suffering Panopticon - The Rime of Memory Mouth Culture - Mishaps of My Mid Twenties Full of Hell & Nothing - When No Birds Sang Bjorko - Heartrot Varathon - The Crimson Temple Going Off - Kill List Health - Rat Wars