That's Not Metal

We pore over the first Wacken announcement looking for festival clues for 2024, debate the worth of rock's various one hit wonders, and learn some mad stats about AC/DC's setlists.Releases:The Hives - The Death of Randy FitzsimmonsUrne - A Feast on SorrowCaskets - ReflectionsKataklysm - GoliathWerewolves - My Enemies Look and Sound Like MeSlugchild - Wounds Untold

Wacken caps its attendees early, Marmozets tease a return, Skindred announce their first Wembley show, and we poke the bands sitting on albums for too long. The return of Toolwatch?Releases:Teenage Wrist - Still LoveSkindred - SmileMammoth WVH - Mammoth IIHumanity’s Last Breath - AshenAn Autumn for Crippled Children - Closure

TNM's Barbenheimer musical double bill moments, Roger Waters re-records Dark Side of the Moon like a mumbling lunatic, and as the aliens are confirmed here we pick our albums to try to communicate with them.Releases:Greta van Fleet - StarcatcherAs December Falls - Join the ClubJames and the Cold Gun - James and the Cold GunOxbow - Love’s HolidayMizmor - ProsaicAgriculture - AgricultureThe Zenith Passage - DatalysiumYellowcard - Childhood EyesMutoid Man - MutantsThe Sun’s Journey Through the Night - WordlessSevendust - Truth KillerUncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Slaughter On First Avenue

We spotlight a bunch of underground acts and fresh faces as we review new albums from Blackbraid, Mutoid Man, Torture Rack, Outer Heaven, Calligram, The Sun's Journey Through the Night, Temple of Angels, and Home is Where.Apologies for the lower quality microphone recording as Elliot calls in, we'll be back to full capacity in no time.Blackbraid 32:21Mutoid Man 48:00Torture Rack 56:20Outer Heaven 1:05:06Calligram 1:13:14The Sun’s Journey Through the Night 1:20:53Temple of Angels 1:29:59Home is Where 1:40:55

The Ghost Inside make a stylistic shift and there's new album announcements from everybody, but it's all about the potential activity going on in the Creed camp as we wait with arms wide open.Releases:Voyager - Fearless In LoveEvile - The UnknownCavalera Conspiracy - Morbid Visions / Bestial DevastationEleine - We Shall RemainTemple of Angels - Endless PursuitCalligram - Position | MomentumChamber - A Love to Kill ForEnd Reign - The Way of All Flesh is DecayDeitus - Irreversible

Paramore add to the Taylor Swift ticket buying crisis, Lil Uzi Vert drops collabs with Bring Me the Horizon and Babymetal on unsuspecting hip-hop listeners, and Iron Maiden's Future Past tour hits the UK.Releases:Will Haven - VIIBlackbraid - Blackbraid IIFen - Monuments to AbsenceAstral Tomb - Total Spiritual DeathBloodbound - Tales from the NorthThe Raven Age - Blood OmenBetter Lovers - God Made Me An Animal

We return to Outbreak Fest to see how the UK's biggest hardcore fest with sets from Code Orange, Converge & more integrates huge hip-hop acts into its bill for one of the now most innovative and genre-experimental weekends in the heavy music calendar.Releases:King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic ApocalypseRoyal Thunder - Rebuilding the MountainCreeping Death - Boundless DomainSunami - SunamiVulture Industries - Ghosts from the PastHome is Where - The WhalerSaturnus - The Storm WithinThy Catafalque - AlföldSwans - The BeggarTrophy Eyes - Suicide and SunshineMental Cruelty - ZwielichtMilitarie Gun - Life Under the GunBurner - It All Returns to NothingTsjuder - HelvegrXasthur - Inevitably DarkEbony Pendant - Ebony PendantWilt - HuginnLoma Prieta - LastStatic Abyss - Aborted From RealityCoffin Mulch - Spectral IntercessionGrotesqueries - Vile CrematoryKhanate - To Be CruelDivide and Dissolve - Systemic

We close the year's Album Club packs with the last time Tom DeLonge returned to Blink-182 with Neighborhoods, the returning Heck's Instructions, Anaal Nathrakh releasing the most venomous metal record ever made The Codex Necro, and remembering the time Christopher Lee made heavy metal records about Charlemagne and shed the blood of the Saxon men.This episode was originally published November 2022 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Avenged Sevenfold make the most daring and unhinged album of their generation, in a review episode colossus with new works from Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Rancid, Pupil Slicer, Vexed, Godflesh, & PONY.Avenged Sevenfold 9:21Foo Fighters 1:14:53Queens of the Stone Age 1:37:15Rancid 1:59:05Pupil Slicer 2:09:30Vexed 2:27:49Godflesh 2:39:32PONY 2:54:09

Fresh off one of the biggest weekends in UK rock festival history: the 20th anniversary Download Festival review, the full experience four day event featuring headlining sets from Slipknot, two unique Metallica sets, and a long-awaited graduation for Bring Me the Horizon.