That's Not Metal

The biggest metal weekend of all time maybe arrives, with our impressions of Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning and Ozzy's retirement party, plus trips to the return of Slayer in the UK.

Releases:
Split Chain - motionblur
Calva Louise - Edge of the Abyss
dead7 - Love What You Can While You’ve Still Got Something Left to Love
Ward XVI - ID3NTITY
Born of Osiris - Through Shadows
Margarita Witch Cult - Strung Out In Hell
Floating - Hesitating Lights

It's a rock show extravaganza as we chat about one of the highest profile weeks for live heavy music in the UK ever with Deftones, Linkin Park, King Diamond, and Iron Maiden, as well as a sobering discussion of the fallout of Bob Vylan's appearance at Glastonbury and removal from Radar Festival.

Releases:
Higher Power - There’s Love In This World If You Want It
Pig Pen - Mental Madness
Dropkick Murphys - For the People
Wytch Hazel - V: Lamentations
We Lost the Sea - A Single Flower
Stygian - Dreadlands
Gaupa - Fyr

Outbreak returns in 2025 in a different guise, with a new site in London for a different kind of mass hardcore experience with sets from Turnstile, Sunny Day Real Estate, Speed, Model/Actriz, plus bonus appearances from Deafheaven and God's Hate.

Releases:
Cryptopsy - An Insatiable Violence
Helms Deep - Chasing the Dragon
Haggus - Destination Extinction
Witherer - Shadow Without a Horizon
Upon Stone - End Time Lightning
Valdrin - Apex Violator
Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services
Heaven Shall Burn - Heimat
Sodom - The Arsonist
Blood Vulture - Die Close
Johan Langquist - The Castle - Johan Langquist - The Castle
King Witch - III
Fer de Lance - Fires on the Mountainside
Killing of a Sacred Deer - A Visage of a Mangled Body
Greet Death - Die In Love
All Men Unto Me - Requiem
Inhuman Condition - Mind Trap
Lord Belial - Unholy Trinity
Shining - Divided You’ll Stand and United You’ll Fall
Cosmic Joke - Forced Perspective
Botch - 061524
Bruce Springsteen - Tracks II: The Lost Albums

A glut of huge hardcore storms TNM reviews with albums from Turnstile, Malevolence, Stray from the Path, Kaonashi, Deadguy (& Hexvessel, not very hardcore), and Nine Inch Nails kick off their incredible Peel It Back arena production.

Turnstile 34:18
Malevolence 1:18:45
Stray from the Path 1:39:00
Kaonashi 1:57:44
Deadguy 2:18:16
Hexvessel 2:35:50

TNM returns from a week off with a cross continent double fest report as we hit up Yorkshire's Fortress and Poland's Mystic Festival, seeing every band under the sun from Agalloch to Ulcerate, W.A.S.P. to King Diamond, Bullet to Beherit.

Releases:
Turnstile - Never Enough
Volbeat - God of Angels Trust
Kaonashi - I Want to Go Home
Orthodox - A Door Left Open
View From the Soyuz - Ubiquitous
Katatonia - Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State
King Parrot - A Young Persons Guide To
Gruesome - Silent Echoes
Gaahl’s Wyrd - Braiding the Stories
Autumn Nostalgie - Metanoia
Austere - The Stillness of Dissolution
Dimscûa - Dust Eater
Buckcherry - Roar Like Thunder
Fallujah - Xenotaph
Hexvessel - Nocturne
Dolven - In My Grave…Silence
letlive. - The Blackest Beautiful Revisited
Sigh - I Saw the World’s End - Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV
The Cure - Mixes of a Lost World
Queens of the Stone Age - Alive in the Catacombs
Metallica - Load (Remastered)

A bumper Album Club dissection as Mötley Crüe go horribly wrong on Generation Swine. Crossfaith's electronicore captures a moment on Zion, Have Heart's melodic hardcore landmark Songs to Scream at the Sun, and Suffocation invent/perfect brutal death metal with Effigy of the Forgotten. Brandon. We love you.

This episode was originally published May 2024 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Sam is lured back to the UK's pop punk home for Slam Dunk 2025 and has to think long and hard about Electric Callboy, and we doff our caps to Svalbard's decision to drop the curtain on a decade plus career as one of the UK's favourite heavy bands.

Releases:
Skunk Anansie - The Painful Truth
Midnight - Steel, Rust and Disgust
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - I’m Done With Self Care, It’s Time for Others’ Harm
Home Is Where - Hunting Season
Witchcraft - Idag
Witchrot - Soul Cellar
Year of No Light - Les Maitres Fous
Hellcrash - Inferno Crematorio
Sexmag - Sexorczym
Chepang - Jhyappa
Ossuary - Abhorrent Worship
…And Oceans - The Regeneration Itinerary
Magus Lord - In the Company of Champions
House of Protection - Outrun You All
MSPAINT - No Separation
Crowquill - Crowquill
Swans - Birthing
Garbage - Let All That We Imagine Be the Light
Stray from the Path - Clockworked
Desolated - Finding Peace
The Haunted - Songs of Last Resort
Rivers of Nihil - Rivers of Nihil
Vildhjarta - Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar
KUSANAGI - Paramnesia
Planning for Burial - It’s Closeness, It’s Easy
Cwfen - Sorrows
Grin - Acid Gods
Coltsblood - Obscured Into Nebulous Dusk
Trivax - The Great Satan
Svartsyn - Vortex of the Destroyer
Obsidian Tongue - Eclipsing Worlds of Scorn
Lord Vigo - Walk the Shadows
Vader - Humanihility
Wormrot - TNT

In a month that saw two no. 1 metal albums, we go through 2025's biggest reviews gauntlet with Ghost, Machine Head, Behemoth, PUP, The Callous Daoboys, Model/Actriz, Age of Apocalypse, & Sijjin.

Ghost 30:52
Machine Head 1:17:32
Behemoth 1:42:36
PUP 2:06:43
The Callous Daoboys 2:21:42
Model/Actriz 2:47:50
Age of Apocalypse 3:00:55
Sijjin 3:14:07

We rummage through the wreckage as Trivium and Bullet for My Valentine's Poisoned Ascendancy tour comes to a sudden stop with fingers generally being pointed at one party, and we ask big questions like: are four-sided longsleeves good?

Releases:
Bury Tomorrow - Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience
Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven
Novelists - Coda
Pridian - Venetian Dark
Hundredth - Faded Splendor
Arm’s Length - There’s a Whole World Out There
Death Before Dishonor - Nowhere Bound
Pelican - Flickering Resonance
Steve von Till - Alone in a World of Wounds
Ondfødt - Dimsvall
Blood Monolith - The Calling of Fire
Antropomorphia - Devoid of Light
Cadaver Shrine - Into the Horrible Depths
Drouth - The Teeth of Time
Full of Hell - Broken Sword, Rotten Shield
Youth Code - Yours, With Malice

TNM's 2025 festival summer begins with Incineration descending upon Camden for extreme metal sets from the likes of Lamp of Murmuur, Blackbraid, Spectral Wound, Blood Incantation debuting Absolute Elsewhere in the UK, & a mountain-moving Celtic Frost performance by Triptykon. Ough.

Releases:
Sijjin - Helljjin Combat
PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs?
Propagandhi - At Peace
Press Club - To All The Ones That I Love
Bleed - Bleed
Model/Actriz - Pirouette
Knives - Glitter
Your Spirit Dies - My Gnawing Pains Will Never Rest
Paradise Slaves - With Hell In His Eyes
Slung - In Waves
Snooze - I Know How You Will Die
Shearling - Motherfucker, I am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”...
Dispyt - Från Melankoli till Meningslöshet
Hate - Bellum Regiis
Froglord - Metamorphosis
Sleep Token - Even In Arcadia
Behemoth - The Shit ov God
Tetrarch - The Ugly Side of Me
McClusky - The World is Still Here and So Are We
Peter Murphy - Silver Shade
Death SS - The Entity
Ghost Bath - Rose Thorn Necklace
Svarta Havet - Månen ska lysa din väg
Jade - Mysteries of a Flowery Dream
Candlemass - Black Star
Harms Way - Other World