That's Not Metal

Anthrax's first single in ten years leads us to consider the thrash legends' creative relevancy in 2026, and Avenged Sevenfold going fully indepedent by buying back their rights brings reminiscing on ten years of their album The Stage.

Releases:
Marmozets - CO.WAR.DICE.
A - Prong
Dimmu Borgir - Grand Serpent Rising
XCOMM - Time to Burn
Armored Saint - Emotion Factory Reset
David Eugene Edwards - Mercurial Silence
Blindead 23 - Deuterium
Witching Hour - Descending.. Where Time Has Ceased to Exist
Lore - Psychotic Trance of the Black Nights
Gridiron - Lights Out
Bear - Anhedonia

Iron Maiden's brand new documentary Burning Ambition hits cinema screens, and there's new singles from Green Lung announcing their new album Necropolitan and from brat superstar Charli XCX making ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ck music.

Releases:
Periphery - A Pale White Dot
The All-American Rejects - Sandbox
Super Sometimes - Show the World What’s Underneath
Held. - Grey
Von Groove - Born to Rock
Pro-Pain - Stone Cold Anger
Acid Reign - Daze of the Week
Jungle Rot - Cruel Face of War
Nedgravd - Ascension
Akem Manah - Threnodies
Tyrannus - Mournhold

This week we make our way back to Incineration to once again kick off the festival season with a scorching of black and death metal as the likes of Dragged Into Sunlight, Of Feather and Bone, Tomb Mold and Scimitar rip it up across London stages.

Releases:
Black Veil Brides - Vindicate
Basement - WIRED
Koyo - Barely Here
Social Distortion - Born to Kill
The Flatliners - Cold World
Haggard Cat - The Pain That Orbits Life
Geoff Tate - Operation: Mindcrime III
Frozen Soul - No Place of Warmth
Ingested- Denigration
Darkthrone - Pre-Historic Metal
Panopticon - Det hjemsøkte hjertet
Yoth Iria - Gone with the Devil
A Forest of Stars - Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface
Draconian - In Somnolent Ruin
Forced Order - Undying Spirit
Crowquill - Erase The File
Scarab - Transmutation of Fate
Gadget - Coerced

Creeper's vampire extravaganza Sangui-Tour hits small venues in the UK for a full celebration of blooddrinking and leather.

Releases:
Foo Fighters - Your Favorite Toy
The Amity Affliction - House of Cards
Atreyu - The End is Not the End
Failure - Location Lost
Terror - Still Suffer
Roman Candle - Unadulterated
Armed for Apocalypse - The Earth is Breathing Beneath Me
Plini - An Unnameable Desire
Einar Solberg - Vox Occulta
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell - The Trouble With the Shovell
Demon Spell - Blessed Be the Dark
Six Feet Under - Next to Die
Scimitar - Scimitarium II
Cnoc An Tursa - A Cry for the Slain
Blood Countess - Imperatrix Sanguinis
Sepultura - The Cloud of Unknowing
Vomit Forth - In the Name of the Father
American Football - American Football (LP4)
Kneecap - Fenian
Sevendust - One
Cage Fight - Exuvia
Venom - Into Oblivion
Spell - Wretched Heart
Black Cilice - Votive Fire
Effluence - Anticholinergic Derangement
Infected Death - Invicta

Viral microtonal aliens, surprise drops, and defiant, powerful final bows rule the month with At the Gates, Enter Shikari, Corrosion of Conformity, Spirit Adrift, Angine de Poitrine, Portrayal of Guilt, Poison Ruïn, and Immolation. One last time: Go!

At the Gates 18:20
Enter Shikari 49:18
Corrosion of Conformity 1:18:23
Spirit Adrift 1:33:43
Angine de Poitrine 1:49:00
Portrayal of Guilt 2:14:02
Poison Ruïn 2:30:48
Immolation 2:51:47

We launch the polaris and get into one of our giddiest ever album clubs on Megadeth's delirious Rust In Peace, the suffocating global anger of Killing Joke 2003, the launchpad for second wave emo in Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary, and Gorguts returning to once again up the game for avant-garde death metal with Colored Sands.

This episode was originally published April 2025 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Bring Me the Horizon make the genuinely absurd announcement of Count Your Blessings 20th anniversary celebrations, Nine Inch Noize owns Coachella, and Evanescence lead the singles in their team-up with the Fish.

Releases:
Nine Inch Noize - Nine Inch Noize
Skindred - You Got This
.gif from god - Dissimulation
The Last Ten Seconds of Life - The Dead Ones
Prince Daddy & the Hyena - Hotwire Trip Switch
Hold My Own - Pay No Mind
Mat McNerney - The Bones of the Dead, or Three Turns Counterclockwise
Crippled Black Phoenix - Sceaduhelm
Leila Abdul-Rauf - Andros Insidium
Ordh - Blind In Abyssal Realms
Reeking Aura - On the Promise of the Moon
Pissrot - Absolute Form
Muerto - Eclipsed Realms
Nekrogoblikon - The Boiling Sea
Gout - Actual Bastard

Tracks from Warning, Holding Absence, Health and more head up the week's music, and we announce our first massive band special for 2026.

Releases:
Bilmuri - Kinda Hard
Lord of the Lost - Opvs Noir Vol. 3
Truckfighters - Masterflow
As Everything Unfolds - DID YOU ASK TO BE SET FREE?
Tigercub - Nets to Catch the Wave
Love Rarely - Pain Travels
Bodysnatcher - Hell is Here, Hell is Home
Metal Church - Dead to Rights
Spirit Adrift - Infinite Illumination
The Melvins with Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March
Immolation - Descent
Archspire - Too Fast to Die
Vomitory - Death Throes
Uada - Interwoven
Blush Puppy - Here You Dream
Melechesh - Sentinels of Shamash
Cissné - Awake Children Under the Moon
JK Flesh / Monrella - Shouting the Odds

A lot of heavy feelings this week sadly, with the losses of Bo Lueders, James Lollar of Gost, and Ross the Boss. Elsewhere the Kreator/Carcass/Exodus/Nails package lights up the UK, Damnation 2026 unveil all their headliners, Converge unveil a second album, and another messed up story comes out of the world of hardcore so... yeah, one of those weeks.

Releases:
Don Broco - Nightmare Tripping
Black Label Society - Engines of Demolition
Myrath - Wilderness of Mirrors
Moodring - death fetish
Chamber - this is goodbye…
A Winter’s Remorse - The Day Our Gods Abandoned Us
Concealer - This Room Could Be Heaven
Divine Chaos - Hate Reactor
Zerre - Rotting on a Golden Throne
The Twilight Sad - It’s the Long Goodbye
Tigers Jaw - Lost on You
Free Throw - Moments Before the Wind
Winterfylleth - The Unyielding Season
Këkht Aräkh - Morning Star
Cruel Force - Haneda
Cryptworm - Infectious Pathological Waste
Growth - Under the Under
Enslaved & Storm Weather Shanty Choir - Enslaved & Storm Weather Shanty Choir
Corrosion of Conformity - Good God / Baad Man
Sunn O))) - Sunn O)))
Poison Ruïn - Hymns From the Hills
Lantlôs - Nowhere In Between Forever
Knumears - Directions
Masca - Love Letters
LavaLove - Tan Lines
Nervosa - Slave Machine
Commitment - Fear Of
Jarboe - Sightings
Angine de Poitrine - Vol.II

TNM March reviews bag just catches the most brain-breaking, beautiful return as Neurosis emerge with a whole new album, alongside another return from Poison the Well, Lamb of God, Gaerea, Hellripper, Aggressive Perfector, Mallavora, & Sweet Pill.

Neurosis 11:30
Poison the Well 56:10
Lamb of God 1:17:13
Gaerea 1:39:08
Hellripper 1:59:30
Aggressive Perfector 2:15:00
Mallavora 2:25:00
Sweet Pill 2:31:51