Summer Of Hate – Blood & Honey (Tee Pee Records)
I’ve been sat here nursing a lukewarm brew and thinking about how rare it is to find a record that actually understands the "shimmer" as well as it understands the "shove." Summer Of Hate have emerged from Porto not with just another noisy shoegaze record, but with a masterclass of modern shoegaze.
Now my colleague and co-writer at Musipedia of Metal, Rich Piva, will attest that my love of this genre is strong, The Jesus And Mary Chain remain my favourite band of all time and there are elements in this album that beautifully reflect that sound. It’s that specific, Technicolour pop sensibility, a sort of timbral revivalism that nerds out on C86 history, that makes Blood & Honey feel like a secret you’ve just been let in on.
Stunning. That’s the only word for Laura Calado’s performance here.
Her vocals provide this ethereal, crystalline anchor amidst the chaos, particularly on the title track Blood & Honey. There’s a certain "Voice of the Beehive" sweetness to her delivery that fits the "Honey" aspect of this record to a tee; it’s that late-80s indie-pop clarity that acts as a velvet glove for the sonic iron fist. It isn't just "ethereal drifting" for the sake of it, it’s a calculated, melodic counterpoint to the subterranean weight.
Seven tracks that don't just "fuzz out," but weave together a global musical lexicon most Western bands wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
The "Blood" side is where the technical complexity really shows its teeth. We aren't just talking about a couple of distorted guitars; this is a sophisticated collision of Sufi drones, dabke rhythms, and Phrygian scales. El Saif, featuring the brilliant Thomas Attar, is a fever dream of Middle Eastern friction that rubs up against a punk energy that feels dangerously close to a riot. It’s not "world music" in that polite, Sunday-supplement sense, it’s a chaotic, danceable friction that uses raga-inflected swells and Indian scales to expand the very language of psychedelia.
I’ve always reckoned that the best music should make you want to move and hide simultaneously.
Ashura and Mayura follow suit, but the production layers are the real star. It’s a dense, impressionistic wash of sound, drone, swells, and noisy textures that move with a tectonic weight while maintaining a curiously "epic" core. Then the weather shifts toward the "Honey" side. Joy and Alem bring in that Britpop jangle and slowcore atmosphere, mashing together twee and post-punk in a way that feels like a warm blanket on a cold Tuesday in Manchester.
Perhaps it’s a bit much to take in in one go? Maybe.
But by the time we reach the closer, The Gospel (According to Summer Of Hate), the lore is complete. It’s a beautiful, sprawling mess of 60s pastiche and slowcore atmosphere that somehow manages to look straight into the future while keeping one eye on the NME archives. It’s the sound of a collective, not just a "band" who have realized that you can plant something beautiful even in the most caustic, politically charged soil. It’s honest. It’s layered. And it’s beautiful. 9/10
Lord Elephant – UltraSoul (Heavy Psych Sounds)Naming your band Lord Elephant is an act of total sonic transparency. It tells the listener exactly what to expect: something massive, tusked, and capable of flattening your living room without a second thought. This Florence-based trio has spent the last decade perfecting a brand of Tuscan sludge that feels less like a series of songs and more like a tectonic shift occurring in real-time. Their 2022 debut,
Cosmic Awakening, was a decent enough bit of sedated, hazy wandering, but
UltraSoul is where the ship finally hits the shore with a proper, bone-shaking impact.
It’s an instrumental experience that succeeds by being visceral rather than cerebral. There’s a "straight-faced" quality to the authorship here, a refusal to hide behind the usual "trippy" irony that plagues the stoner-doom scene. Instead, they’ve braced their sound with a heavy blues tangent and a level of pro-level focus that makes their previous work look like a warm-up.
The experience begins with the extended lead-in of
Electric Dunes, a shimmering, atmospheric preamble that builds the tension before the hammer drops on
Gigantia. This is the record’s heavy-set heart, a mid-paced monolith of 90s-style desert rock and prog-sludge that feels like Black Sabbath being reimagined by a crew who’ve been investigating cheap whisky in a basement. The riffs are girded by layers of filth, the pedalboard feels like it’s being pushed to the point of a mechanical breakdown, and the result is an opening movement that demands total submission.
I’ve always reckoned that for an instrumental band to hold your attention for forty minutes, they need to create a climate, not just a collection of riffs.
Smoke Tower serves as a perfect representative of how these pieces fit together, it flits between prog-rock snaking and a sludge-metal informed heft that keeps the listener from ever getting too comfortable. Then you hit
Black River Blues, an admirable, fuzz-drenched ode to bottom-shelf bourbon. It’s got that "road-tested" swagger, a rhythmic strut that sounds like it was honed in the back of a damp van somewhere between Rome and Berlin.
Astral and
MindNight are sprawling, eight-to-nine-minute monsters that climb and descend through mountains of spaced-out motion.
MindNight, in particular, is the clear standout, a heavy, ominous piece of doomed motioning that eventually gives way to a prog-tinged jam in its middle third. It’s the kind of sound that fills the room with a sense of impending catastrophe, yet manages to stay melodic enough to keep you from reaching for the "off" switch.
The production is undeniably "pro", that clinical, high-fidelity sheen that allows the busy, multi-layered action to breathe and it highlights the sheer quality of the craft. By the time the final roar of the title track fades, you realize that Lord Elephant hasn't just made a "stoner" record. They’ve made a document of survival that prioritizes "vibe-oozing" momentum over empty technicality. It’s a mixture of sludge, psych, and 70s vintage rock that finally feels like the band has found their own unique, crushing voice.
8/10
Sweatmaster – More! (Svart Records)
It’s been sixteen years since Sweatmaster last bothered to dig up a knife, and frankly, most of us had assumed they’d settled into a quiet life of sauna-sitting and ignoring the rest of the world. But More!, their fifth outing and first since 2010 arrives with the kind of "wham bam" efficiency that makes you wonder why they ever stopped.
Hailing from Turku, this trio has always understood that garage rock isn't about the vintage gear you own; it’s about the aggressive, raw-boned intent you bring to the rehearsal room. Signed to the ever-reliable Svart Records, they’ve emerged with a fourteen-track package that’s been stripped of any studio-mandated polish until it’s nothing but bone and wire.
The record hits the floor with
Dirty Water, but it’s the lead single
Destroyer that really defines the comeback. It’s a 2-minute, 37-second electric jolt that doesn't bother with a build-up because it’s already at the finish line. Sasu Mykkänen’s vocals have that passionate, unpolished edge that acts as the anchor for Mikko Luukko’s guitar—which taps at the rhythm with a frantic, motorik energy before Matti Kallio’s drum fills drag you under. It’s the "electric triangle" in its purest form.
Fourteen tracks. No fluff. No "spreading themselves too thin."
Scream Out Loud For Love and
Police Bastard (a title that suggests they haven't lost their edge in middle age) are masterclasses in straightforward, vocal-driven rock and roll. The band’s strategy was to get to the "heart of the matter," and you can hear it in the way
Hole In The Ground and
We Take All refuse to offer a hook without also offering a bruise. It’s the kind of music that would work perfectly in a dive bar at 1 AM, where the amps are rattling and the sweat is hitting the cymbals.
I’ve always reckoned that the best rock records should feel like they’re being played live right in front of you, and
More! manages that precarious trick.
The middle stretch,
Eazy, the curiously titled
Sping That Never Ends, and
Sad Song Man shows that while they’ve stuck to their original energy, the intervening years have brought a few darker, "new tones" into the mix. It’s not a radical departure, but there’s a grit here that feels earned rather than just manufactured.
Chevy Van, Tail Down, and
Leather keep the momentum at a heart-attack pace, leading into the final, feedback-saturated strut of
All Right, All Night.
This isn't an album that’s been "polished to death." It’s raw, it’s electric, and it’s a necessary reminder that Finnish efficiency is best applied to the concept of the Riff. Sweatmaster hasn't just returned; they’ve reminded us that they were the aristocrats of this sound for a reason. If you’ve still got a pulse, you’ll want more.
8/10
Shields – Death & Connection (Long Branch Records)
There’s a specific kind of silence that follows a disaster, the sort where you can practically hear the dust settling on the wreckage. For Shields, that silence has lasted since 2018, and it’s a heavy thing to carry. Death & Connection isn't a "comeback" designed to please a label or tick a genre box; it’s a visceral necessity. It’s the sound of a band realising that the only way to deal with a five-year absence is to scream into the void until the void screams back.
The record opens with This Is Not A Dream, and it’s a proper psychological jolt. It starts almost as a poem with crystal-clear vocals that feel almost fragile before the floor drops out and everything fades into a caustic distortion. It retains that raw, rhythmic urgency of The King Blues, but the rage has been dialled up to an uncomfortably high level, draped over a haunting piano and a wash of swirling, atmospheric guitars. It’s a cinematic, pained introduction that doesn't just invite you in; it drags you through the door and punches you in the face.
That poetic haze is immediately shattered by Abuser. This is where the metalcore engine really starts to smoke. It’s a jarring, physical transition that sets the album's core internal conflict: a white-hot rage that is constantly being dragged back down by the gravity of loss. It’s not just a collection of riffs; it’s a documented struggle to punch through a grief-induced fog. Tracks like Kill and Parasites hammer this home with a frantic, heart-attack pulse that reminds me of early Architects, that moment before they traded the raw, bruised-rib honesty for stadium-sized polish.
The record thrives on its collaborative friction. Lacerate, featuring Harvey Freeman from Graphic Nature, is a masterclass in noise-rock instability. It feels like a riot taking place in a very small cupboard. Then you get the mid-album emotional toll, Womb and Brother's Lament. It’s a rhythmic, stuttering ache. The kind of sound you make when the words have finally failed and all that's left is the physical weight of the silence. It doesn't just describe the hole in the room, it measures the depth of it.
These aren't "pretty" metalcore tracks with tidy resolutions. They’re snot-and-tears catharsis. Even when the subterranean weight of Wolfskin (bolstered by Taylor Barber’s US-style brutality) threatens to rattle your teeth out of your gums, it’s balanced by the self-flagellation of Loser and the atmospheric stretches of Red & Green.
The heart of the record is the title track, Death & Connection, featuring Jonathan Finney. It’s a slow-building monolith, a study in tension that eventually gives way to a feedback-saturated roar toward the sky. It’s the sound of survival. By the time the final melodic sigh of Miss Me arrives, you realize this isn't an album about "fixing" anything, music doesn't have that kind of magic. It’s just an honest, unmasked account of what it’s like to still be standing when everyone expected you to fall.
It’s architectural, it’s pained, and it’s arguably the most honest bit of self-therapy I’ve heard. 9/10
