Citing influences such as QOTSA, Tool, Helmet and Deftones, The Hyena Kill blend powerful music with dreamy vocals, the Manchester based band creating soundscapes that enthral and emote equally. They share similarities with Bristol band Sugar Horse, as the moments of ambient bliss blossom slowly and wrap themselves around you, for the intense, ferocious blasts to catch you at your most vulnerable.
Vulnerability being a core theme on Collapse the band's third full length record, inspired by or rather a response to the death of vocalist/guitarist Steven Dobb's father. Steven fell hard into old habits during a heavy grieving period, and cut himself off from everyone, including music but it's through the songs on this record that he managed to find some semblance of peace, a catharsis through musical recovery.
The eleven tracks bursting to life with the visceral Sly, that steamrolling heavy side of the band the initial grief of Dobb, that regret and devastation comes through on the Deftones heavy dirge Collapse The Sun, the whispered and shivering cleans mixing with aggressive roars. Sedatives carries an acoustic slow burn, close up vocals and lots of breathing room, featuring piano by Andy Preece (Under). It's also one of the songs where Lorna Blundell's vocals are just as important as her understated drumming, the synths glisten just below the surface from Charlie Seisay-Heald who also steers the bottom end throb with his bass, adding twinges on guitars alongside the synths on Rust and others.
The Hyena Kill open up their healing to some friends and colleagues as Jen Hingley of False Advertising adds extra vocals and lead guitar to Porcelain, Rust features additional vocals from Aisling Whiting (Sans Froid) while Jake Healey 'created' the ambient Crisis Actor with plenty of electronics. It's with Robb though who they anchor this album, with his vocals surrender into acceptance then soar into defiance, the harsh used sparingly to highlight pain or anguish, while his guitar playing balances technique and atmosphere on Monday Night Football which goes from melodic highs to distorted solos as the vocals are countered by the more ethereal delivery of Lorna.
Everything captured by Andy Hawkins, Alex Greaves, Dave Draper and Ash Tubb, making Collapse a triumph of healing and reconnection after a world shifting event. As The Flood closes the record with euphoric harmonic guitars and a slow deliberate beat, The Hyena Kill close this traumatic chapter on a high. Music so often is the answer and with Collapse, The Hyena Kill produce their most emotive and personal record yet, catharsis through sound in the best way possible. 9/10
Your Inland Empire – Your Inland Empire (Season Of Mist) [Spike]
This is not post-rock; it's a surgical autopsy of the modern soul conducted under harsh industrial lighting. Rising from the ashes of Crown, Your Inland Empire is less a band and more a hostile sonic entity, trading in the grim elegance of black metal for the mechanical, oppressive decay of Industrial Darkwave. This debut is a cold, calculated descent into the dark night of the soul, and it refuses to let you look away.
The sound is built on paradox. It’s an intersection of the human heart in turmoil and the cold, unfeeling precision of the machine. The production is clean, hyper-detailed, and utterly ruthless, channelling the heavy electronics and rhythmic claustrophobia of Godflesh and late Nine Inch Nails. Every drum beat is a breakneck, mechanical pulse, and every bass line is a heavy, rhythmic throb that underpins the album's entire sense of dread.
The core conflict is established immediately on tracks like Scars and the relentless Grinding. The music utilizes mechanical beats and spectral guitars to explore the dissolution of relationships and self, creating a bleak meditation on dissolution. Frontman Stéphane Azam's vocals are not screams; they are haunting, processed refrains, often clean, sometimes distorted that drift through the haze of static and industrial noise, embodying the isolation. When he sings of "falling apart in the void of my heart," the cold, rhythmic beat offers no sympathy, only continuation.
The album's greatest strength is its ability to build an atmosphere that is simultaneously seductive and threatening. Edge Of Perfection is the clearest example of this: a five-minute industrial metal explosion that blurs the thin line between total destruction and pure, addictive chaos. The cutting riffs are relentless, the rhythm is unforgiving, and the song perfectly conveys the wreckage of addiction and emotional dependency. This is high-stakes metal that walks the tightrope between pain and control.
Even the tracks that lean further into the industrial darkwave, like Silver Knife and Venom, retain a punishing metallic edge. Venom in particular lives up to its name, underscoring the record's central theme of toxicity with mid-tempo menace. The album is an essential, challenging listen that rejects easy genre labels. It’s a testament to the fact that you don't need a blast beat to achieve brutality; sometimes, all you need is a perfectly executed, claustrophobic groove that never lets up.
Vulnerability being a core theme on Collapse the band's third full length record, inspired by or rather a response to the death of vocalist/guitarist Steven Dobb's father. Steven fell hard into old habits during a heavy grieving period, and cut himself off from everyone, including music but it's through the songs on this record that he managed to find some semblance of peace, a catharsis through musical recovery.
The eleven tracks bursting to life with the visceral Sly, that steamrolling heavy side of the band the initial grief of Dobb, that regret and devastation comes through on the Deftones heavy dirge Collapse The Sun, the whispered and shivering cleans mixing with aggressive roars. Sedatives carries an acoustic slow burn, close up vocals and lots of breathing room, featuring piano by Andy Preece (Under). It's also one of the songs where Lorna Blundell's vocals are just as important as her understated drumming, the synths glisten just below the surface from Charlie Seisay-Heald who also steers the bottom end throb with his bass, adding twinges on guitars alongside the synths on Rust and others.
The Hyena Kill open up their healing to some friends and colleagues as Jen Hingley of False Advertising adds extra vocals and lead guitar to Porcelain, Rust features additional vocals from Aisling Whiting (Sans Froid) while Jake Healey 'created' the ambient Crisis Actor with plenty of electronics. It's with Robb though who they anchor this album, with his vocals surrender into acceptance then soar into defiance, the harsh used sparingly to highlight pain or anguish, while his guitar playing balances technique and atmosphere on Monday Night Football which goes from melodic highs to distorted solos as the vocals are countered by the more ethereal delivery of Lorna.
Everything captured by Andy Hawkins, Alex Greaves, Dave Draper and Ash Tubb, making Collapse a triumph of healing and reconnection after a world shifting event. As The Flood closes the record with euphoric harmonic guitars and a slow deliberate beat, The Hyena Kill close this traumatic chapter on a high. Music so often is the answer and with Collapse, The Hyena Kill produce their most emotive and personal record yet, catharsis through sound in the best way possible. 9/10
Your Inland Empire – Your Inland Empire (Season Of Mist) [Spike]
This is not post-rock; it's a surgical autopsy of the modern soul conducted under harsh industrial lighting. Rising from the ashes of Crown, Your Inland Empire is less a band and more a hostile sonic entity, trading in the grim elegance of black metal for the mechanical, oppressive decay of Industrial Darkwave. This debut is a cold, calculated descent into the dark night of the soul, and it refuses to let you look away.
The sound is built on paradox. It’s an intersection of the human heart in turmoil and the cold, unfeeling precision of the machine. The production is clean, hyper-detailed, and utterly ruthless, channelling the heavy electronics and rhythmic claustrophobia of Godflesh and late Nine Inch Nails. Every drum beat is a breakneck, mechanical pulse, and every bass line is a heavy, rhythmic throb that underpins the album's entire sense of dread.
The core conflict is established immediately on tracks like Scars and the relentless Grinding. The music utilizes mechanical beats and spectral guitars to explore the dissolution of relationships and self, creating a bleak meditation on dissolution. Frontman Stéphane Azam's vocals are not screams; they are haunting, processed refrains, often clean, sometimes distorted that drift through the haze of static and industrial noise, embodying the isolation. When he sings of "falling apart in the void of my heart," the cold, rhythmic beat offers no sympathy, only continuation.
The album's greatest strength is its ability to build an atmosphere that is simultaneously seductive and threatening. Edge Of Perfection is the clearest example of this: a five-minute industrial metal explosion that blurs the thin line between total destruction and pure, addictive chaos. The cutting riffs are relentless, the rhythm is unforgiving, and the song perfectly conveys the wreckage of addiction and emotional dependency. This is high-stakes metal that walks the tightrope between pain and control.
Even the tracks that lean further into the industrial darkwave, like Silver Knife and Venom, retain a punishing metallic edge. Venom in particular lives up to its name, underscoring the record's central theme of toxicity with mid-tempo menace. The album is an essential, challenging listen that rejects easy genre labels. It’s a testament to the fact that you don't need a blast beat to achieve brutality; sometimes, all you need is a perfectly executed, claustrophobic groove that never lets up.
This record doesn't comfort you; it shows you the beauty in your own impending collapse. 8/10
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough: Vol II (Profound Lore) [Spike]
True extremity isn't always about speed. Sometimes, it's about endurance, about making the listener feel the crush of geological time. This second volume of the Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin collaboration is not a record. it’s a 59-minute séance conducted in a collapsing cathedral, a stark examination of what happens when glacial Funeral Doom meets ghostly Dark Folk harmony.
Bell Witch founder Dylan Desmond and drummer Jesse Shreibman specialize in an immobility so profound it becomes violent. Their bass and drum unit establishes a low-end gravitational field that everything else must fight to escape. This volume is steeped in the folklore and mysticism of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, operating from the principle that contact between objects creates an inescapable, binding thread. This album is that thread, pulled tight and laced with tension across four massive compositions.
The entire endeavour is built on dynamic, internal conflict. Opener Waves Became The Sky is the perfect entry point. a disarmingly simple, twelve-minute funeral hymn filtered through the logic of transcendence. It is the sound of irrefutable melancholy that grows in scale until it becomes biblical. The power doesn't come from a riff drop, but from the hymn-like, harmonized vocals of Aerial Ruin’s Erik Moggridge, which float eerily and celestially above the immense, plodding pace of the bass. This fusion is not a mix; it's a cult-like reverence that forces you to question your scientific thinking and accept the inevitable despair.
The album dares to embrace long stretches of near-silence. On tracks like King Of The Wood, the music alternates between gloriously overblown, elegiac bass lines and long periods of ambient meditation. This creates an unsettling sense of desolation, where brittle notes just hang in the air like dust in a cathedral. This musical space is deliberate: it’s Bell Witch mapping new emotional coordinates, pushing beyond the limits of mere heaviness toward something far more unknowable and spiritual. The weight of the music is matched by the weight of the themes, which explore different aspects of worship and the examination of the connective threads that shape human mythology.
The album's complexity peaks on From Dominion Let Them Bleed. It starts with delicate, almost spectral acoustic textures that feel distinctly Aerial Ruin-centric, before the band finally, deliberately, opens the floodgates. When the distortion hits, it's monolithic, with riffs carrying an almost classic rock sensibility, yet always retaining that pervasive, ghost-ridden atmosphere. The sound is elaborate, demonstrating how a simple duo structure can be expanded into an orchestral piece of dread.
The final act, the crushing nineteen-minute epic The Told And The Leadened, summarizes the journey perfectly. It’s Bell Witch’s signature sound: turbulent, distorted, and immense. The momentum builds and then deliberately breaks open into a haunting folk interlude where Moggridge takes over with a quiet incantation. This pause is only a bridge, a necessary breath before the crushing, muscular, and turbulent finale returns. Stygian Bough: Vol II is a demanding investigation into the nature of damage and belief. If you have the patience, it's a necessary descent. 8/10
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough: Vol II (Profound Lore) [Spike]
True extremity isn't always about speed. Sometimes, it's about endurance, about making the listener feel the crush of geological time. This second volume of the Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin collaboration is not a record. it’s a 59-minute séance conducted in a collapsing cathedral, a stark examination of what happens when glacial Funeral Doom meets ghostly Dark Folk harmony.
Bell Witch founder Dylan Desmond and drummer Jesse Shreibman specialize in an immobility so profound it becomes violent. Their bass and drum unit establishes a low-end gravitational field that everything else must fight to escape. This volume is steeped in the folklore and mysticism of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, operating from the principle that contact between objects creates an inescapable, binding thread. This album is that thread, pulled tight and laced with tension across four massive compositions.
The entire endeavour is built on dynamic, internal conflict. Opener Waves Became The Sky is the perfect entry point. a disarmingly simple, twelve-minute funeral hymn filtered through the logic of transcendence. It is the sound of irrefutable melancholy that grows in scale until it becomes biblical. The power doesn't come from a riff drop, but from the hymn-like, harmonized vocals of Aerial Ruin’s Erik Moggridge, which float eerily and celestially above the immense, plodding pace of the bass. This fusion is not a mix; it's a cult-like reverence that forces you to question your scientific thinking and accept the inevitable despair.
The album dares to embrace long stretches of near-silence. On tracks like King Of The Wood, the music alternates between gloriously overblown, elegiac bass lines and long periods of ambient meditation. This creates an unsettling sense of desolation, where brittle notes just hang in the air like dust in a cathedral. This musical space is deliberate: it’s Bell Witch mapping new emotional coordinates, pushing beyond the limits of mere heaviness toward something far more unknowable and spiritual. The weight of the music is matched by the weight of the themes, which explore different aspects of worship and the examination of the connective threads that shape human mythology.
The album's complexity peaks on From Dominion Let Them Bleed. It starts with delicate, almost spectral acoustic textures that feel distinctly Aerial Ruin-centric, before the band finally, deliberately, opens the floodgates. When the distortion hits, it's monolithic, with riffs carrying an almost classic rock sensibility, yet always retaining that pervasive, ghost-ridden atmosphere. The sound is elaborate, demonstrating how a simple duo structure can be expanded into an orchestral piece of dread.
The final act, the crushing nineteen-minute epic The Told And The Leadened, summarizes the journey perfectly. It’s Bell Witch’s signature sound: turbulent, distorted, and immense. The momentum builds and then deliberately breaks open into a haunting folk interlude where Moggridge takes over with a quiet incantation. This pause is only a bridge, a necessary breath before the crushing, muscular, and turbulent finale returns. Stygian Bough: Vol II is a demanding investigation into the nature of damage and belief. If you have the patience, it's a necessary descent. 8/10
Gnasch - The Legend Of Johnny Gnasch (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]
Bristol sludge trio Gnasch have been gathering plenty of fans for their disgusting music since forming in 2022. They have been particularly prolific in that time, not only playing shows but releasing three previous EP's, two of which were included in Cvlt Nations top 10 slughe releases of the year.
All the music is played by Gnasch, born out of the darkest pits of Bristols music scene, the three members have all served time in other bands but with Gnasch they decided to make the dirtiest, filthiest, malformed music they can. There's no NOLA groove here, this fourth release, their first full length has no nods to stoner or doom, just ear piercing dissonance, bowel loosening bass, angular guitars, slow percussive beatings and anguished vocals.
With the bass driven industrial claustrophobia of Erase, or the guttural dirge of Decline, there's a disturbing gothic interlude on Hemlock and even some post-punk at the beginning of Leecher, but every track oozes with malevolence and malice. The use of guest vocals, with the exception of Misled, give Gnasch the ability to explore all sorts of extreme pathways with Jörgen Sandström of Entombed combining with Richard Annerhall and Robin Westlund of Repuked on the black n roll of Alcohellic.
Annerhall appears on Decline with Charlie Fell of Lord Mantis, Fell taking the lead on Hemlock while Nicklas Rudolfsson (Runemagick), Charlie Davis (Elephant Tree) and Erik Sahlström (General Surgery) all interpret these songs in their own way adding to the sludge-laden filth of The Legend Of Johnny Gnasch. 8/10
Bristol sludge trio Gnasch have been gathering plenty of fans for their disgusting music since forming in 2022. They have been particularly prolific in that time, not only playing shows but releasing three previous EP's, two of which were included in Cvlt Nations top 10 slughe releases of the year.
All the music is played by Gnasch, born out of the darkest pits of Bristols music scene, the three members have all served time in other bands but with Gnasch they decided to make the dirtiest, filthiest, malformed music they can. There's no NOLA groove here, this fourth release, their first full length has no nods to stoner or doom, just ear piercing dissonance, bowel loosening bass, angular guitars, slow percussive beatings and anguished vocals.
With the bass driven industrial claustrophobia of Erase, or the guttural dirge of Decline, there's a disturbing gothic interlude on Hemlock and even some post-punk at the beginning of Leecher, but every track oozes with malevolence and malice. The use of guest vocals, with the exception of Misled, give Gnasch the ability to explore all sorts of extreme pathways with Jörgen Sandström of Entombed combining with Richard Annerhall and Robin Westlund of Repuked on the black n roll of Alcohellic.
Annerhall appears on Decline with Charlie Fell of Lord Mantis, Fell taking the lead on Hemlock while Nicklas Rudolfsson (Runemagick), Charlie Davis (Elephant Tree) and Erik Sahlström (General Surgery) all interpret these songs in their own way adding to the sludge-laden filth of The Legend Of Johnny Gnasch. 8/10
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