Tuomas Saukkonen‘s brainchild Wolfheart easily grabs people’s attention whenever new music comes out. The Finnish master of blending the melancholy and coldness of his country into a mix of melodeath, black and doom metal steps it up several notches every time, even when you think things can’t get any better. They already surprised big time in a good way about a month ago with the single ‘Ancestor‘ that featured no one less than mr. Jesse Leach (Killswitch Engage) on guest vocals.

Last week we got another single served up with ‘The King’. And while it again features a signature Wolfheart sound, in comes the surprise when we suddenly see the latest addition to the wolfpack, Vagelis Karzis, takes up part of the lead vocals with some epic cleans! Somehow it brings the music to another dimension that could at some points be comparable to outputs from bands like Borknagar. While still heavy as hell, there is a level of sophistication seeping in that simply rules. More of this please!

Their new album ‘King of the North‘ is set for release on September 16, 2022 via Napalm Records.

Back to the single and video, if you don’t want spoilers and haven’t seen the video yet, we highly recommend you to check out the video NOW, before you continue reading. Because we cannot say too much about this single and its video without spoiling the unexpected twist in the song. 

***SPOILERS START HERE*** You checked out the video and song? Then you know that this was Electric Callboy meets Schlager music meets We Spread The Bread With Butter. An extremely short song that goes from sugar sweet singing in almost the poppiest sound we’ve heard the band before they simply rip your face off with one of the heaviest bits we’ve heard from this line-up at this point. With that Electric Callboy really chooses for a different song structure and they experiment more with some new sounds compared to their previous – immensely successful – releases. We’ve seen a bunch of comments demanding Electric Callboy to start every show of theirs with ‘HURRIKAN‘ from now on and we wholeheartedly agree. Let’s see that Schlagercore carnage happen! 

Electric Callboy‘s new album ‘TEKKNO‘ will be out on September 9 2022 via Century Media Records.

The Finnish rock band Luna Kills is one of those projects that once you hear them or, even better, see them live, you know they are meant for greatness and bigger stages. Their brand of rock is a cool blend of influences from the past (more specific the alt-/indie rock from the late nineties), a fresh and modern touch and the right amount of sprinkling of both angst and geek. In 2021, they released an absolute killer of an album with ‘not to be bitter, but it helps’, which was a statement in itself where the band forged a new path for themselves.

Now they released the brand new track ‘BULLET‘ which again more than delivers. Inspired by geek culture through video game theme music like Mick Gordon’s DOOM soundtrack, David Lynch’s dreamlike narrative and the Evil Within horror game both in sound as in visuals, it’s quite the treat. The opening riff pounds like a signature Muse track, the drum beats bite through that in a significant yet never annoying way and Lotta‘s vocals are as usual impressive, to say the least. The timbre of her voice can easily rival with some of the class acts in the kind of bluesy, vintage rock in the veins of Blues Pills and the lot, but matched with the nineties’ alt-rock vibes, they’ve created something truly special and unique. The way ‘BULLET‘ is written and flows up and down with a soaring chorus that could be in any commercially successful pop song that gets reined back in with that damn tasty guitar riff. And just when you think that you know what the song is bringing to the table, 2 minutes in they hit you with a simply nasty industrial sound as somewhat of a break in the middle of the song before continuing.

This is a band you don’t want to sleep on and should be played and booked everywhere. Remember Luna Kills!

It probably won’t come as a big surprise that quite regularly there will be some Finnish and/or Belgian bands popping up since we have our headquarters around there. The rather new outfit Aeveris is one comprised of musicians from several top Belgian bands and has been impressing us with every move they made recently. Their previous singles ‘Segregating The Wicked’ (featuring an always solid Svencho DC from Aborted and Coffin Feeder with some smashing guest vocals) and ‘Center-Point’ really got our head banging and their try-out show at our venue Asgaard was a blast.

By wearing their influences on their sleeves, they produce a very New Wave of American Heavy Metal sound, one that almost automatically makes your head bob around to the grooves. With metal greats like Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage, Slipknot, At The Gates and Trivium being cited as some of their influences, that really is no surprise. There are, however, not a whole lot of European bands that are reaching this level of bangability. Now last week they threw the title-track of their upcoming debut album ‘White Elephant‘ at us and what an explosive track it is yet again! As soon as the song kicks in, you’ll find yourself nodding along and the vocals have that balance between screaming your lungs out and singing heartfelt melodies just right. Add to that the music video that feels like extremely high production for an independent band that has only just left the starting blocks (no wonder with filming and editing by the hands of Jens De Vos who has worked previously for names like Arch Enemy, Sabaton, Jinjer, Electric Callboy and Epica to name a few).

Aeveris is a project that we expect to have an exponential rise in the ranks of metal music, so you better keep an eye on them so you don’t miss out on that debut album that should be coming soon!

After only having released animated videos and such with their single releases and with ‘Satan’s Loss of a Son’ a debut album (released via Season of Mist) that we deemed as one of the most intense releases of 2021 (see the article here), we can finally see Bastarður in full action! ‘Viral Tumor’, the opening track of said album, gets an official video showing the band consisting of Sólstafir‘s vocalist/guitarist Aðalbjörn Tryggvason and Birgir Jónsson, plus for instance Skálmöld‘s Thrainn for this rehearsal room gig setting. It’s really a video style and gig setting that perfectly fits with the crust punk nature of Bastarður, wearing Aðalbjörn‘s influences going from Napalm Death and Terrorizer to Motörhead and Disfear very open on his sleeves. It’s the kind of raw video and music that just grabs you by the neck and takes you on quite the ride!