That's Not Metal

2025's final reviews is a crazy bag of disco mania with Creeper's Sanguivore II, Pupil Slicer, Drain, Astronoid, Home Front, Lamp of Murmuur, and Master's Hammer, bid farewell to Svalbard on tour, a new single from Converge, and about half an hour before our record, doing cartwheels at the reunion of Black Breath. Creeper 31:51 Pupil Slicer 1:09:19 Drain 1:24:17 Astronoid 1:35:08 Home Front 1:47:29 Lamp of Murmuur 1:59:08 Master's Hammer 2:18:05

The UK's biggest dedicated extreme music fest at Damnation Festival goes bigger than ever for its 20th anniversary with a bonkers two day line-up featuring Corrosion of Conformity, Napalm Death, Deafheaven, Perturbator, Anaal Nathrakh, Amenra, Warning, Wormrot, Castle Rat, and so many more to crack our skulls. Releases: Of Mice & Men - Another Miracle The Devil Wears Prada - Flowers Rise of the Northstar - CHAPTER 04: RED FALCON SUPER BATTLE! NEO PARIS WAR!! AVVT/PTTN - AVVT/PTTN Lamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy 1914 - Viribus Unitis Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Vol. II Ragana & Drowse - Ash Souvenir VoidCeremony - Abditum Chairmaker - Leviathan Carcass Vower - A Storm Lined With Silver

It's that week in November where every big festival announces their lineup so we assess the bills of Download, Outbreak, 2000 Trees, & Slam Dunk 2026, Turnstile come through Ally Pally, and finally one of the UK's great rock bands Marmozets return with first new music in over 8 years. Releases: Drain - …Is Your Friend Pupil Slicer - Fleshwork Astronoid - Stargod Set It Off - Set It Off Agnostic Front - Echoes In Eternity Cold Steel - Discipline & Punish The Devil's Trade - Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép Drowned In Silver - Mothers Omnium Gatherum - May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way Novembre - Words of Indigo Centinex - With Guts and Glory Glorious Depravity - Death Never Sleeps Dysentery - Dejection Chrysalis Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate Waldgeflüster - Knochengesänge I & II Qrixkuor - The Womb of the World Primordial - Live In New York City Recollection - Vivid Dreams Alexisonfire - Copies of Old Masters Vol 1

For Halloween we take the time for some horror movie questions including our pitch for a 2025 Freddy vs Jason, discuss Dogma's fracturing and Megadeth choosing to cover Metallica on their final album, live trips to Common Thread and Igorrr with Imperial Triumphant, and there is a Hagar horror on the loose... Releases: Soulfly - Chama Mammoth - The End Dayseeker - Creature in the Black Night Downswing - And Everything Was Dark Action/Adventure - Ever After Spiritual Cramp - Rude The Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God Here Psychonaut - World Maker Aleksi Kii - Varjokuvia Rolo Tomassi - In the Echo of All Dreams Coldrain - Optimize Heavensgate - A Heart is a Heavy Burden Mastiff - For All the Dead Dreams Krallice - No Hope Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death Avatar - Don’t Go in the Forest Despised Icon - Shadow Work Spite - NEW WORLD KILLER Witch Fever - FEVEREATEN Gumm - Beneath the Wheel Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth Again Primitive Man - Observance Anna von Hausswolff - Iconoclasts Believe In Nothing - Rot Barren Path - Grieving Grave Ghoul - Gruesome and Macabre One of Nine - Dawn of the Iron Shadow Thron - Vurias Outlaw - Opus Mortis Runemagick - Cycle of the Dying Sun (Dawn of Ashen Realms) Trivium - Struck Dead Going Off - Kill List II

With autumn chill in the air we plunge into a stacked October reviews bunch of new AFI, Thrice, Miltarie Gun, Conjurer, Perturbator, Sanguisugabogg, Tribal Gaze, & Agriculture. AFI 24:01 Thrice 47:28 Militarie Gun 59:04 Conjurer 1:11:12 Perturbator 1:23:08 Sanguisugabogg 1:33:37 Tribal Gaze 1:44:21 Agriculture 1:50:37

Perran and Mark catch up to talk about some of 2025's massive event tours with both Parkway Drive and Blood Incantation blazing trails to put on some of modern metal's most ambitious shows. Releases: All Time Low - Everyone’s Talking! Sabaton - Legends Battle Beast - Steelbound Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun Biohazard - Divided We Fall 84 Tigers - Nothing Ends Coroner - Dissonance Theory Tribal Gaze - Inveighing Brilliance Internal Bleeding - Settle All Scores Evoken - Mendacium Tombs - Feral Darkness Afsky - Fælleskab Wolvennest - Procession Czart - Czarty Polskie :Skull & Dawn: - The Harvest Unto Others - I Believe In Halloween II Spaced - No Escape Sunn O))) - Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & Reverential Carach Angren - The Cult of Kariba

We're drowning in news with Oathbreaker and Rush both coming back, Alex Bent stepping out of Trivium, Bleeding Through & Darkest Hour hitting the UK, and a slew of new metal songs from Lamb of God, Ice Nine Kills, and Megadeth revealing their favourite game show. Releases: AFI - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… Thrice - Horizons/West Orbit Culture - Death Above Life 50 Lions - New Reality Author & Punisher - Nocturnal Birding Today is the Day - Never Give In Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound Wode - Uncrossing the Keys Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration Impure - The Devil Sees My Dreams Ephemeral - Envisaged Human Collapse Cathedral - Society’s Pact With Satan Suffering Hour - Impelling Rebirth Corpse Pile - In the Beginning… Yellowcard - Better Days Perturbator - Age of Aquarius Testament - Para Bellum Dead Heat - Process of Elimination Greyhaven - Keep It Quiet Soul Blind - Red Sky Mourning God Alone - The Beep Test Sanguisugabogg - Hideous Aftermath Frayle - Heretics & Lullabies Terjiz de Horde - Our Breath is Not Ours Alone

For this week's show Album Club returns with an eye once again on this year's Damnation Festival with Warning's monument of misery Watching from a Distance, Wormrot's early 10s grind detonation Dirge, Devil Sold His Soul's innovative post-metalcore A Fragile Hope, and Code's bizarro black metal genius on Resplendent Grotesque.

This week we top up our last reviews show with Biffy Clyro's first album in four years Futique and Dying Wish's bleaker kind of metalcore Flesh Stays Together, along with a trip to Brighton's D.I.E. Fest and discussion of Watain's three year plan of disbandment. Releases: Nine Inch Nails - TRON: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Paradise Lost - Ascension Castle Rat - The Bestiary Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World Greywind - Severed Heart City Cardiacs - LSD Total Wife - Come Back Down C4 - Payback’s a Bitch Igorrr - Amen Werewolves - The Ugliest of All Novembers Doom - Major Arcana Heretoir - Solastalgia Amnio - Psalms of Immortality Firmament - For Centuries Alive Secret World - Tomorrow is a Mystery to Me Missing Link - Miracle Smile The Starting Line - Eternal Youth Sprints - All That is Over Dave Hause - …And the Mermaid Amorphis - Borderland Revocation - New Gods, New Masters Vintersorg - Vattenkrafternas Spel Mors Principium Est - Darkness Invisible Esses - Pain at the Altar of Jest President - King of Terrors PeelingFlesh - PF Radio 2 Elder - Liminality / Dream State Return Tetragrammacide - Cyber-Tantric Paradigm of Radical Sri-Vidya

Lorna Shore, Fleshwater, Scorpion Milk, La Dispute, Modern Life is War, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, & Die Spitz albums get tackled, Jupiter and The Opposite of December get toured across the UK, but with another crushing blow to metal we also try to find words for one of the underground's truest heroes Tomas Lindberg. RIP King Tompa. Lorna Shore 42:50 Fleshwater 1:06:56 Scorpion Milk 1:21:44 La Dispute 1:38:16 Modern Life is War 1:52:16 Der Weg Einer Freiheit 2:01:20 Die Spitz 2:11:20

Turnover's 10 Years of Peripheral Vision tour hits the UK, Poppy, Amy Lee, & Courtney LaPlante put out "Lady Marmalade for goths", and System of a Down unveil one hell of a stadium run with a particular choice of opener. Releases: Lorna Shore - I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me Between the Buried and Me - The Blue Nowhere Spinal Tap - The End Continues Silverstein - Pink Moon I See Stars - The Wheel The Rasmus - Weirdo The Chameleons - Arctic Moon Ho99o9 - Tomorrow We Escape Not Enough Space - Weaponize Your Rage Spite House - Desertion Maruja - Pain to Power Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Innern Year of the Goat - Alucarda Crippling Alcoholism - Camgirl Intercourse - How I Fell in Love With the Void Slomatics - Atomicult Jo Quail - Notan Barrens - Corpse Lights Heruvim - Mercator Caesarean - Wretched Decrepitude

It's our birthday! This week That's Not Metal turns 10, and to celebrate this crazy crazy milestone, we get misty-eyed dialling it back to the first ever episodes of TNM to look at the albums that launched this podcast and track our decade through these bands. Thank you for 10 years of support - you've not let us down, so we're still here. To TNM, and to you. Releases: Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party The Hives - The Hives Forever Forever The Hives Nova Twins - Parasites & Butterflies End It - Wrong Side of Heaven Helloween - Giants & Monsters Slow Crush - Thirst Adur - We Fail to Love Ourselves In Mourning - The Immortal Månegarm - Edsvuren Void - Forbidden Morals Deathhammer - Crimson Dawn Proscription - Desolate Divine Torso - Annihilation Day Death Goals - Survival Is An Act Of Defiance withpaperwings - Six Thousand Days Fleshwater - 2000: In Search of the Endless Sky Tallah - Primeval: Obsession // Detachment blessthefall - Gallows La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car Modern Life is War - Life on the Moon Still In Love - Recovery Language Glenn Hughes - Chosen Dark Angel - Extinction Level Event Primal Fear - Domination Green Carnation - A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia Faetooth - Labyrinthine

In our end of summer reviews we give the verdict on new albums from Deftones, Dinosaur Pile-Up, The World is a Beautiful Place & I'm No Longer Afraid to Die, Pool Kids, Malthusian, Faced Out, and brave a trip into the Knightclub with Feuerschwanz. Deftones 24:30 Dinosaur Pile-Up 1:1:29 The World is a Beautiful Place & I'm No Longer Afraid to Die 1:14:36 Feuerschwanz 1:29:53 Pool Kids 1:48:13 Malthusian 1:56:18 Faced Out: 2:14:25

End of summer Album Clubs are the sleaze and scandal of W.A.S.P.'s debut, The Distillers' perfect punk rock Sing Sing Death House, Japandroid's celebrated Celebration Rock, and Watain split black metal opinion on The Wild Hunt. This episode was originally published August 2024 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Sam reports from a hardcore fireworks show underneath a bridge in London, there's tracks from Joyce Manor, Conjurer, and Gaerea's continued surprising swerves into pop black metal, and we respond to the awful news of Brent Hinds' death. Hearts Alive, forever. Releases: Rise Against - Ricochet Joey Valance & Brae - HYPERYOUTH Justice for the Damned - Stay Relentless Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done Kerosene Heights - Blame It On The Weather Unleashed - Fire Upon Your Lands Baest - Colossal Castrator - Coronation of the Grotesque Panopticon - Laurentian Blue Panopticon - Songs of Hiraeth Phosphorus - Frail Grasp of Broken Hands Fell Omen - Caelid Dog Summer Firestarter - Still Holding On… Cult of Luna - Beyond III, IV, V Deftones - Private Music Pendulum - Inertia Three Days Grace - Alienation We Came as Romans - All is Beautiful… Because We’re Doomed Hot Mulligan - The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still Dinosaur Pile-Up - I’ve Felt Better The World is a Beautiful Place & I’m No Longer Afraid to Die - Dreams of Being Dust really big really clever - …huh? Faced Out - At Eternity’s Edge Feuerschwanz - Knightclub Burning Witches - Inquisition Signs of the Swarm - To Rid Myself of Truth Arcadea - The Exodus of Gravity Malevich - Under a Gilded Sun Desaster - Kill All Idols Innumerable Forms - Pain Effulgence Zetra - Believe Fates Messenger - Eternal War

TNM returns to a monster edition of Bloodstock Festival where Trivium, Machine Head, Gojira, Mastodon, Emperor, Nailbomb, Ministry, & more bring heavy metal to the fields of England once again.

There's gothy new AFI and even more dramatically new Davey Havok facial hair as we wonder who is really under there, and pay our respects to the sadly passed Erik Wunder behind the revolutionary USBM outlaws Cobalt. Releases: Babymetal - Metal Forth Halestorm - Everest Good Charlotte - Motel Du Cap Lord of the Lost - Opvs Noir Vol. 1 As December Falls - Everything’s On Fire But I’m Fine Firstborne - Lucky Attack Attack! - Attack Attack! II Blackbraid - Blackbraid III Sinsaenum - In Devastation Asunojokei - Think of You Malthusian - The Summoning Bell Crypt Sermon - Saturnian Apprentices Aversions Crown - A Voice From the Outer Dark

Musical drum stools strikes again, Dying Wish and Fleshwater set new records for the autumn, and the Poisoned Ascendancy shadiness raises its sassy head once again. Releases: Alice Cooper - The Revenge of Alice Cooper Post Animal - Iron Scalp - Not Worthy of Human Compassion Kontusion - Insatiable Lust for Death Nuovo Testamento - Trouble Fit for a King - Lonely God The Armed - The Future is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed Fox Lake - New World Heat Hammer - Trapped Hedonist - Scapulimancy Kayo Dot - Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason Car Bomb - Tiles Whisper Dreams Saphir Levi - Follow Your Shadow

We shake up the reviews with looks at plenty of smaller newcomer bands with TNM fave The Dirty Nil plus Blood Vulture, Psycho-Frame, Blind Equation, Crown of Anguish, Stangarigel, & Nuvolascura, and of course we do our best this week to speak to the seismic passing of the Prince of Darkness, heavy metal's hugest figure, Ozzy Osbourne. The Dirty Nil 46:49 Blood Vulture 1:04:23 Psycho-Frame 1:20:14 Blind Equation 1:32:06 Crown of Anguish 1:45:16 Stangarigel 1:55:58 Nuvolascura 2:05:20

TNM makes a long overdue return to 2000 Trees Festival to see Alexisonfire, Coheed and Cambria, the return of letlive., a massively contested slot from Kneecap, plenty more from punk rock spectrum, and in the same episode somehow, we face the great Profanatica jar controversy. Releases: Bring Me the Horizon - Lo-files Daron Malakian and Scars On Broadway - Addicted to the Violence Bush - I Beat Loneliness Zac Farro - Operator Laura Jane Grace In The Trauma Tropes - Adventure Club Panic Shack - Panic Shack Blind Equation - A Funeral In Purgatory Stomach - Low Demon Ba’al - The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here Entrails - Grip of Ancient Evil Abigail Williams - A Void Within Existence Haunter / Cape of Bats - Black Magick Metal Punk