That's Not Metal

The UK's biggest dedicated extreme music fest at Damnation Festival goes bigger than ever for its 20th anniversary with a bonkers two day line-up featuring Corrosion of Conformity, Napalm Death, Deafheaven, Perturbator, Anaal Nathrakh, Amenra, Warning, Wormrot, Castle Rat, and so many more to crack our skulls.Releases:Of Mice & Men - Another MiracleThe Devil Wears Prada - FlowersRise of the Northstar - CHAPTER 04: RED FALCON SUPER BATTLE! NEO PARIS WAR!!AVVT/PTTN - AVVT/PTTNLamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy1914 - Viribus UnitisBell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Vol. IIRagana & Drowse - Ash SouvenirVoidCeremony - AbditumChairmaker - Leviathan CarcassVower - A Storm Lined With Silver

It's that week in November where every big festival announces their lineup so we assess the bills of Download, Outbreak, 2000 Trees, & Slam Dunk 2026, Turnstile come through Ally Pally, and finally one of the UK's great rock bands Marmozets return with first new music in over 8 years.Releases:Drain - …Is Your FriendPupil Slicer - FleshworkAstronoid - StargodSet It Off - Set It OffAgnostic Front - Echoes In EternityCold Steel - Discipline & PunishThe Devil's Trade - Nincs Szennyezetlen SzépDrowned In Silver - MothersOmnium Gatherum - May the Bridges We Burn Light the WayNovembre - Words of IndigoCentinex - With Guts and GloryGlorious Depravity - Death Never SleepsDysentery - Dejection ChrysalisYellow Eyes - Confusion GateWaldgeflüster - Knochengesänge I & IIQrixkuor - The Womb of the WorldPrimordial - Live In New York CityRecollection - Vivid DreamsAlexisonfire - Copies of Old Masters Vol 1

For Halloween we take the time for some horror movie questions including our pitch for a 2025 Freddy vs Jason, discuss Dogma's fracturing and Megadeth choosing to cover Metallica on their final album, live trips to Common Thread and Igorrr with Imperial Triumphant, and there is a Hagar horror on the loose...Releases:Soulfly - ChamaMammoth - The EndDayseeker - Creature in the Black NightDownswing - And Everything Was DarkAction/Adventure - Ever AfterSpiritual Cramp - RudeThe Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God HerePsychonaut - World MakerAleksi Kii - VarjokuviaRolo Tomassi - In the Echo of All DreamsColdrain - OptimizeHeavensgate - A Heart is a Heavy BurdenMastiff - For All the Dead DreamsKrallice - No HopeCreeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of DeathAvatar - Don’t Go in the ForestDespised Icon - Shadow WorkSpite - NEW WORLD KILLERWitch Fever - FEVEREATENGumm - Beneath the WheelChat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth AgainPrimitive Man - ObservanceAnna von Hausswolff - IconoclastsBelieve In Nothing - RotBarren Path - GrievingGrave Ghoul - Gruesome and MacabreOne of Nine - Dawn of the Iron ShadowThron - VuriasOutlaw - Opus MortisRunemagick - Cycle of the Dying Sun (Dawn of Ashen Realms)Trivium - Struck DeadGoing Off - Kill List II

With autumn chill in the air we plunge into a stacked October reviews bunch of new AFI, Thrice, Miltarie Gun, Conjurer, Perturbator, Sanguisugabogg, Tribal Gaze, & Agriculture.AFI 24:01Thrice 47:28Militarie Gun 59:04Conjurer 1:11:12Perturbator 1:23:08Sanguisugabogg 1:33:37Tribal Gaze 1:44:21Agriculture 1:50:37

Perran and Mark catch up to talk about some of 2025's massive event tours with both Parkway Drive and Blood Incantation blazing trails to put on some of modern metal's most ambitious shows.Releases:All Time Low - Everyone’s Talking!Sabaton - LegendsBattle Beast - SteelboundMilitarie Gun - God Save the GunBiohazard - Divided We Fall84 Tigers - Nothing EndsCoroner - Dissonance TheoryTribal Gaze - Inveighing BrillianceInternal Bleeding - Settle All ScoresEvoken - MendaciumTombs - Feral DarknessAfsky - FælleskabWolvennest - ProcessionCzart - Czarty Polskie:Skull & Dawn: - The HarvestUnto Others - I Believe In Halloween IISpaced - No EscapeSunn O))) - Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & ReverentialCarach Angren - The Cult of Kariba

We're drowning in news with Oathbreaker and Rush both coming back, Alex Bent stepping out of Trivium, Bleeding Through & Darkest Hour hitting the UK, and a slew of new metal songs from Lamb of God, Ice Nine Kills, and Megadeth revealing their favourite game show.Releases:AFI - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…Thrice - Horizons/WestOrbit Culture - Death Above Life50 Lions - New RealityAuthor & Punisher - Nocturnal BirdingToday is the Day - Never Give InAgriculture - The Spiritual SoundWode - Uncrossing the KeysHooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of ObscurationImpure - The Devil Sees My DreamsEphemeral - Envisaged Human CollapseCathedral - Society’s Pact With SatanSuffering Hour - Impelling RebirthCorpse Pile - In the Beginning…Yellowcard - Better DaysPerturbator - Age of AquariusTestament - Para BellumDead Heat - Process of EliminationGreyhaven - Keep It QuietSoul Blind - Red Sky MourningGod Alone - The Beep TestSanguisugabogg - Hideous AftermathFrayle - Heretics & LullabiesTerjiz de Horde - Our Breath is Not Ours Alone

For this week's show Album Club returns with an eye once again on this year's Damnation Festival with Warning's monument of misery Watching from a Distance, Wormrot's early 10s grind detonation Dirge, Devil Sold His Soul's innovative post-metalcore A Fragile Hope, and Code's bizarro black metal genius on Resplendent Grotesque.

This week we top up our last reviews show with Biffy Clyro's first album in four years Futique and Dying Wish's bleaker kind of metalcore Flesh Stays Together, along with a trip to Brighton's D.I.E. Fest and discussion of Watain's three year plan of disbandment.Releases:Nine Inch Nails - TRON: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Paradise Lost - AscensionCastle Rat - The BestiaryMotion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful WorldGreywind - Severed Heart CityCardiacs - LSDTotal Wife - Come Back DownC4 - Payback’s a BitchIgorrr - AmenWerewolves - The Ugliest of AllNovembers Doom - Major ArcanaHeretoir - SolastalgiaAmnio - Psalms of ImmortalityFirmament - For Centuries AliveSecret World - Tomorrow is a Mystery to MeMissing Link - Miracle SmileThe Starting Line - Eternal YouthSprints - All That is OverDave Hause - …And the MermaidAmorphis - BorderlandRevocation - New Gods, New MastersVintersorg - Vattenkrafternas SpelMors Principium Est - Darkness InvisibleEsses - Pain at the Altar of JestPresident - King of TerrorsPeelingFlesh - PF Radio 2Elder - Liminality / Dream State ReturnTetragrammacide - Cyber-Tantric Paradigm of Radical Sri-Vidya

Lorna Shore, Fleshwater, Scorpion Milk, La Dispute, Modern Life is War, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, & Die Spitz albums get tackled, Jupiter and The Opposite of December get toured across the UK, but with another crushing blow to metal we also try to find words for one of the underground's truest heroes Tomas Lindberg. RIP King Tompa.Lorna Shore 42:50Fleshwater 1:06:56Scorpion Milk 1:21:44La Dispute 1:38:16Modern Life is War 1:52:16Der Weg Einer Freiheit 2:01:20Die Spitz 2:11:20

Turnover's 10 Years of Peripheral Vision tour hits the UK, Poppy, Amy Lee, & Courtney LaPlante put out "Lady Marmalade for goths", and System of a Down unveil one hell of a stadium run with a particular choice of opener.Releases:Lorna Shore - I Feel the Everblack Festering Within MeBetween the Buried and Me - The Blue NowhereSpinal Tap - The End ContinuesSilverstein - Pink MoonI See Stars - The WheelThe Rasmus - WeirdoThe Chameleons - Arctic MoonHo99o9 - Tomorrow We EscapeNot Enough Space - Weaponize Your RageSpite House - DesertionMaruja - Pain to PowerDer Weg Einer Freiheit - InnernYear of the Goat - AlucardaCrippling Alcoholism - CamgirlIntercourse - How I Fell in Love With the VoidSlomatics - AtomicultJo Quail - NotanBarrens - Corpse LightsHeruvim - MercatorCaesarean - Wretched Decrepitude