That's Not Metal

We were fully back on the ground for this year's Damnation Festival (41:12) to see sets from Anaal Nathrakh, Electric Wizard, Enslaved, Akercocke, and many more of the best in underground and extreme. Bonus on Download and Grammys whinging.

Releases:
Tarja - Dark Christmas
Lonely the Brave - What We Do to Feel
Helmet - Left
MTVoid - Matter’s Knot, Pt. 1
Gama Bomb - Bats
MouthBreather - Self-Tape
Ex Everything - Slow Change Will Pull Us Apart
Shylamagoghnar - Convergence
Night Crowned - Tales
Vastum - Inward to Gethsemane
Left Cross - Upon Desecrated Altars
AGLO - Build Fear
Sodom - 1982
Triumph of Death - Resurrection of the Flesh

Spiritbox release their new Fear of Fear EP, and there are conundrums about the ethics of contriving "viral moments" at shows with Frozen Soul's Magic the Gathering pit and Blink-182 recreating the Denny's hardcore meme

Releases:
Green Lung - This Heathen Land
Dying Wish - Symptoms of Survival
Fuming Mouth - Last Day of Sun
Sugar Horse - Truth or Consequence, New Mexico
Spiritual Cramp - Spiritual Cramp
Sexless Marriage - This is Not Love
Morne - Engraved With Pain
All Get Out - All Get Out
Suffocation - Hymns from the Apocrypha
Krypta - Outo laakso
Mortuary Drape - Black Mirror
Watain - Die In Fire - Live In Hell
Strigoi - Bathed in a Black Sun
Insomnium - Songs of the Dusk
Spiritbox - The Fear of Fear

Green Day threaten us with a new album, there's the out of nowhere news of Mike Portnoy's return to Dream Theater, and Mortician become the unlikeliest social media stars of all time. We TOLD you.

Releases:
Within Temptation - Bleed Out
Myrkur - Spine
Boys Like Girls - Sunday at Foxwoods
Knuckle Puck - Losing What We Love
Go Ahead and Die - Unhealthy Mechanisms
Cirith Ungol - Dark Parade
SAVAGE - Glory Riders
Clowns - Endless
awakebutstillinbed - chaos take the wheel and i am a passenger
Afterbirth - In But Not Of
Marthe - Further In Evil
Worm / Dream Unending - Starpath
The Gaslight Anthem - History Books
Taking Back Sunday - 152
Wargasm - Venom
Poppy - Zig
In This Moment - Godmode
Year of the Knife - No Love Lost
END - The Sin of Human Frailty
Rile - Pessimist
NOBRO - Set Your Pussy Free
Autopsy - Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts
Wayfarer - American Gothic
Malokarpatan - Vertumnus Caesar
Endseeker - Global Worming
Dokken - Heaven Comes Down
Sorcerer - Reign of the Reaper
Legendry - Time Immortal Wept

This month we feast upon the new albums from Creeper, The Menzingers, Blink-182's nostalgic reunion, Svalbard, Kristin Hayter, Primordial, Maggot Heart... and Roger Waters redoing Dark Side of the Moon.

Creeper 26:20
The Menzingers 1:01:40
Blink-182 1:20:43
Roger Waters 1:41:29
Svalbard 1:58:50
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter 2:16:00
Primordial 2:37:29
Maggot Heart 3:03:44

Sam catches a double helping of Better Lovers, and Sick New World announces its lineup for 2024.

Releases:
Creeper - Sanguivore
The Menzingers - Some Of It Was True
Beartooth - The Surface
Crosses - Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.
Twin Temple - God is Dead
Årabrot - Of Darkness and Light
Free Throw - Lessons That We Swear to Keep
The Keening - Little Bird
Gévaudan - Umbra
Body Void - Atrocity Machine
Sulphur Aeon - Seven Crowns and Seven Seals
Krieg - Ruiner
Gruzja - Koniec Wakacji
Slidhr - White Hart!
Laster - Andermans Mijne
Sadistic Force - Midnight Assassin
Acid Blade - Shooting Star

This week we review two new albums from bands who have changed the modern sonic make-up of hardcore in Harm's Way's industrial brutality Common Suffering, and Code Orange's latest (divisive as always) piece of their ongoing conceptual evolution as they go up into The Above.

Releases:
Svalbard - The Weight of the Mask
Of Mice & Men - Tether
Capra - Errors
Carnifex - Necromanteum
Citizen - Calling the Dogs
Prong - State of Emergency
Heavy Load - Riders of the Ancient Storm
Blodet - Death Mother
October Tide - The Cancer Pledge
Spider God - Blackened: Pink

Our September Album Club Pack is a Damnation Fest special as we look at four diverse records from heavy history being showcased at this event: Leprous' prog majesty Coal, Unearth's Oncoming Storm, Deadguy's deranged Fixation on a Coworker, and Akercocke's sexy suit Choronzon.

Album Club normally goes up at patreon.com/thatsnotmetal, but teaming up with Damnation Festival, this one's on us straight away. Enjoy!

Some weeks just get overrun by drama: Thy Art is Murder's quite unbelievable decision to replace the vocals on their album in a week has the extended discussion that such a subject warrants, Bloodstock complete their 2023 headliners, and there's an intriguing LiveNation merch cuts scheme. Simmering down, we talk Busted.

Releases:
Samurai Pizza Cats - You’re Hellcome
Heart of a Coward - This Place Brings Only Death
Guilt Trip - Severance
3TEETH - EndEx
KEN Mode - Void
Kill Devil Hill - Seas of Oblivion
Pkew Pkew Pkew - Siiick Days
Sincere Engineer - Cheap Grills
Profanatica - Crux Simplex
Final Gasp - Mourning Moon
Silence in the Snow - Ghost Eyes
Mourning - Hive of Resentment
Blood Command - World Domination
Code Orange - The Above
Harm’s Way - Common Suffering
Koyo - Would You Miss It?
Grove Street - The Path to Righteousness
Primordial - How It Ends
Maggot Heart - Hunger
Black Stone Cherry - Screamin’ At the Sky
Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex
Gunship - Unicorn
KK’s Priest - The Sinner Rides Again
Graveyard - 6
Asinhell - Impii Hora
Nervosa - Jailbreak
‘68 - Yes, and…
Filth is Eternal - Find Out
Ruin Lust - Dissimulant
Moonlight Sorcery - Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle
Woe - Legacies of Frailty
Iskandr - Spiritus Sylvestris
Wolves in the Throne Room - Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge

In the busiest month of the year TNM reviews Corey Taylor, Baroness, Sylosis, Blood Command, Kvelertak, Empire State Bastard, Cannibal Corpse, & Hexvessel, toast the achievements of the departing Dawn Ray'd, and ask... WHO did Stef Carpenter tell about the new Deftones album?!

Corey Taylor 38:00
Baroness 1:06:37
Sylosis 1:25:31
Blood Command 1:43:35
Kvelertak 2:06:11
Empire State Bastard 2:21:57
Cannibal Corpse 2:37:48
Hexvessel 2:55:27

Nickelback and Massacre both draw conversational lines in the sand, and While She Sleeps release a new track that goes full... something.

Releases:
30 Seconds to Mars - It’s the End of the World But It’s a Beautiful Day
Corey Taylor - CMF2
Baroness - Stone
Tesseract - War of Being
Ash - Race the Night
Danko Jones - Electric Sounds
Pain of Truth - Not Through Blood
Magnitude - Of Days Renewed…
Worriers - Trust Your Gut
Night Verses - Every Sound Has a Color in the Valley of Night
Explosions in the Sky - End
Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
Brujeria - Esto es Brujeria
Gridlink - Coronet Jupiter
Shining - Shining
Alkaloid - Numen
Fabricant - Drudge to the Thicket
Altarage - Worst Case Scenario
Blood Incantation - Luminescent Bridge
Mayhem - Daemonic Rites