Blind Equation – A Funeral In Purgatory (Prosthetic Records) [Spike]
Chicago’s Blind Equation returns with A Funeral In Purgatory, a record that feels like it’s constantly on the edge of digital collapse. Equal parts cybergrind, emotional hardcore, and synth-drenched goth, this is an album that screams, weeps, and glitches its way through grief and inner torment.
This Eternal Curse sets the tone immediately. All fractured drums, pitched-up chiptune hysteria, and shrieked vocals tearing holes through a synth-scape. It’s fast, volatile, and emotionally feral. That tension doesn’t really let up across the record, but it does twist and mutate. Nothing and I Feels Like The End (featuring JOHNNASCUS) land like sonic panic attacks, saturated in distortion and despair, but still melodic enough to leave hooks behind.Flashback (with Strawberry Hospital) is the album’s emotional core, swapping chaos for eerie calm. It’s nostalgic, glitchy, and heart-wrenching, capturing the dissonance of memory and loss with disarming clarity. At the other end of the spectrum, tracks like A Funeral… and Incomplete bury you under static and digital detritus. Even the short interludes like ⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆✟⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ and Still serve more as haunted breathing spaces than proper relief.
The production is sharp and deliberate. The glitchy aggression is balanced by moments of real vulnerability, and McHenry’s willingness to lay himself bare emotionally and sonically gives the album serious weight. It’s not just chaos for its own sake; it’s chaos as a form of catharsis.
A Funeral In Purgatory isn’t easy listening, but it’s fiercely committed to its vision. In the crowded world of extreme electronic metal, Blind Equation stands apart — vulnerable, venomous, and very much alive. 8/10
Gods Of Tomorrow - Gods Of Tomorrow (Wormholedeath) [Matt Bladen]
International melodic metal band Gods Of Tomorrow look to do something like Wonders, or the countless supergroups on Frontiers do and combine all of their individual skills to create their own style of heavy metal inspired by Axel Rudi Pell, Kissin' Dynamite and countless Scandi melodic rock bands. They're also inspired by a number of Greek melodic metal bands such as Electrified.
Gods Of Tomorrow was actually founded by Electrified guitarist Konstantinos, taking the rhythm role here, he drives the riffs of track such as Dying For Your Love which takes the band more towards AOR, as does Devil's Daughter a track that's the first ballad on the record. Konstantinos takes the driving riffs, tracks such as Face The Truth and Dirt Of Society cranking out the big rock riffs.
Next to him, Konstantinos has got Thomy Gunn as his second half of the guitar duo, Gunn taking the leads as he shreds and solos showing off his skills as much as possible and that's exactly what he's there for The rhythm section of bassist Rainer Hemmelmann (bass) and drummer Cherubini (drums) get walking on the while Point Of No Return while they bring the throb to the slinky Girl From Tokyo.
Rounding out the band is vocalist Felipe Del Valle who pitches his voice right in that melodic rock sweet spot producing some brilliance on Sail Through The Seven Seas, getting a bit grittier with the title track and Fire And Ice. Gods Of Tomorrow, focus their skills on some anthemic music that is filled with hooks. A supergroup without ego and just good tunes. 7/10
International melodic metal band Gods Of Tomorrow look to do something like Wonders, or the countless supergroups on Frontiers do and combine all of their individual skills to create their own style of heavy metal inspired by Axel Rudi Pell, Kissin' Dynamite and countless Scandi melodic rock bands. They're also inspired by a number of Greek melodic metal bands such as Electrified.
Gods Of Tomorrow was actually founded by Electrified guitarist Konstantinos, taking the rhythm role here, he drives the riffs of track such as Dying For Your Love which takes the band more towards AOR, as does Devil's Daughter a track that's the first ballad on the record. Konstantinos takes the driving riffs, tracks such as Face The Truth and Dirt Of Society cranking out the big rock riffs.
Next to him, Konstantinos has got Thomy Gunn as his second half of the guitar duo, Gunn taking the leads as he shreds and solos showing off his skills as much as possible and that's exactly what he's there for The rhythm section of bassist Rainer Hemmelmann (bass) and drummer Cherubini (drums) get walking on the while Point Of No Return while they bring the throb to the slinky Girl From Tokyo.
Rounding out the band is vocalist Felipe Del Valle who pitches his voice right in that melodic rock sweet spot producing some brilliance on Sail Through The Seven Seas, getting a bit grittier with the title track and Fire And Ice. Gods Of Tomorrow, focus their skills on some anthemic music that is filled with hooks. A supergroup without ego and just good tunes. 7/10
Sorceröt – Rotten Magick (Naturmacht Productions) [Spike]
With Rotten Magick, Ohio’s Sorceröt unleash a snarling, myth-soaked slab of blackened death metal that’s as ritualistic as it is relentless. Across eight tracks and just over 36 minutes, they conjure something grimy yet atmospheric like being dragged through the mud at a sacrificial altar under a blood moon.
It opens with Nightmare Cauldron, which doesn’t so much introduce the album as it does slam a cursed tome onto the table. Guitars swarm like locusts, drums thunder with a tribal pulse, and the vocals land somewhere between invocation and exorcism. It doesn’t chase your attention, it grabs it by the throat.
Elsewhere, tracks like In The Cedar Forest Of Humbaba stretch into more epic terrain without losing that suffocating menace. The use of myth gives the album a weird, ancient energy, while Sorcerer Of Red Death brings things back to more frantic, caustic territory. This is two minutes of twisted fury.
Lost In The Realm Of Frost slows things into a frozen haze, the kind of atmospheric drag that makes you feel trapped in some cursed tundra. And then there’s The Rats Dance At Ravengard, which is just filthy, a pestilent, grinding groove track that sounds like it was recorded inside a crumbling tomb. Closer Dragonriders Ascend ends the record with a triumphant, almost cinematic feel, like the curtain’s falling on some grim fantasy epic. It’s the most melodic track here but still soaked in menace. There are no happy endings here, just survival. The production balances murk and muscle: raw enough to feel authentic, tight enough not to lose detail. And for an album rooted in death and decay, it never loses momentum.
Rotten Magick is a ritual in eight parts, gnarled, grim, and oddly transportive. It's not trying to reinvent the genre, but it’s fully committed to its craft: a soundtrack for summoning something that probably shouldn’t be summoned. 8/10
Lost In The Realm Of Frost slows things into a frozen haze, the kind of atmospheric drag that makes you feel trapped in some cursed tundra. And then there’s The Rats Dance At Ravengard, which is just filthy, a pestilent, grinding groove track that sounds like it was recorded inside a crumbling tomb. Closer Dragonriders Ascend ends the record with a triumphant, almost cinematic feel, like the curtain’s falling on some grim fantasy epic. It’s the most melodic track here but still soaked in menace. There are no happy endings here, just survival. The production balances murk and muscle: raw enough to feel authentic, tight enough not to lose detail. And for an album rooted in death and decay, it never loses momentum.
Rotten Magick is a ritual in eight parts, gnarled, grim, and oddly transportive. It's not trying to reinvent the genre, but it’s fully committed to its craft: a soundtrack for summoning something that probably shouldn’t be summoned. 8/10
Tallboy - House Of Glass (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
The UK alt-metal sound has become some of a genre all of itself, there are now many bands favouring that style of metalcore/post-hardcore that comes with a hefty dose of electronics. Tallboy have plenty of this going on with their debut EP House Of Glass, Insomnia takes a breakbeat backing and puts it against some speedy riffs that shift numerous times with a frenzied ferocity.
The UK alt-metal sound has become some of a genre all of itself, there are now many bands favouring that style of metalcore/post-hardcore that comes with a hefty dose of electronics. Tallboy have plenty of this going on with their debut EP House Of Glass, Insomnia takes a breakbeat backing and puts it against some speedy riffs that shift numerous times with a frenzied ferocity.
The Cumbrian five piece employ mathcore, metalcore and those synths/samples to make a noise that’s rapid and severe, balancing right on the cutting edge as they shift from big choruses to breakdowns, the vocals having a broad range of growls, screams and cleans that remind me of A7X M. Shadows on Snake.
What you get out of this EP depends on how much you enjoy this style of music, fans will lap it up as a bristling new entry into the modern alt-metal scene however if it’s unlikely to win you over if you’re not already on board that particular train. 6/10
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