Already this year, Weedeater have hit the old dusty trail with their Season of Mist labelmates Bask before joining Napalm Death and Melvins for a savage imperial death march. But the Cape Fear legends have plenty more sludge in the tank. The band are rolling up 2025 with a fresh strand of headlining shows, plus dates with Acid Bath, High on Fire and Baroness in honor of the The Red Album and Blue Record.
This December, death metal juggernauts CRYPTOPSY return to Japan—and they’re not coming alone. Joining them for two exclusive Tokyo dates is the country’s own DEFILED, bringing their chaotic and cerebral brand of old-school death metal to the stage at Shibuya WWW X, Tokyo.
Deströyer 666 continue to take no prisoners. K.K. and his roving gang of black thrash bullies have been hammering the European festival circuit this summer. Now, the band are announcing their return to the U.S. for a blistering run of dates leading up to Metal Threat. They’ll be joined by Ares Kingdom and Adorior.
After more than a decade since their last classic entry, Gorguts are finally returning to the studio. As they prepare to record the full-length follow-up to the critically acclaimed Colored Sands, the Canadian pioneers of technical dissonance are sharpening their axes by celebrating two of death metal’s biggest landmarks. This fall, the band are touring North America with Death to All in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of Spiritual Healing and the 30th anniversary of Symbolic.
Over the past 20 odd years, Hooded Menace have stood not as a bridge but a pillar between two different realms of underground metal. The cultishly beloved band’s upcoming seventh album is still bound by a morbid obsession with classic horrors. But on Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration, Finland’s stewards of death-doom remain far from stuck in their ways. Lead single “Portrait Without a Face” cranks up the neon-soaked nightmares while digging out a grave new surprise from under their long-sleeve. Watch the classic horror video for “Portrait Without a Face” on the Season of Mist YouTube channel.
Had Green Carnation never returned from hiatus during the mid-2000s, the Norwegian band would’ve been remembered for completing one of the most ambitious individual epics in metal’s archives. But with their upcoming new album, the progressive metal auteurs are setting sail on a three-part journey that’s two decades in the making. A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia is the first in a trilogy of albums that promises to take new and lifelong fans to the highest tops and darkest of inner rooms.
German black metal collective DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT reveal a drum playthrough for “Eos”, the devastating lead single from their new studio album Innern, to be released via Season of Mist on September 12. Captured in a single take, the video showcases drummer Tobias Schuler’s intricate and commanding performance—seamlessly navigating the track’s wide dynamic range, from tribal rhythmic meditations to relentless blast-beat-driven climaxes.
Whether charging through deadly technical whirlwinds or blackened ice storms, Ragnar Sverrisson has quickly established himself as a leading drummer for extreme metal. The Reykjavík native burst onto the scene with the brutal Beneath and has performed live with symphonic stars Carach Angren. When he’s not on tour with Abyssal, Sverrisson splits time between the tech-death band and Icelandic Music Award nominees Ophidian I and his blackened death metal duo Helfró.
For the past 15 years, Faber Horbach has traced our connection with the sun through the music of Sowulo, but his upcoming concept album journeys into darkness. Written while grieving the loss of both his father and stepfather, the new single from NIHT is a mythopoetic lament. Looking to Norse cosmology, “Sōl ond Māni” explores the loss of both light and life by using a broken instrument to give death a voice.
After topping best of 2024 lists and breaking onto the Billboard charts, this year, Defeated Sanity have been slamming Europe and Latin America in support of their latest offering of brutally innovative, technical death metal. Now, as they prepare to level the stage next weekend at Brutal Assault, at long last, the band are announcing that they’re bringing Chronicles of Lunacy to the U.S.
Before appearing out of the Canadian woodwork back in 2011, Beyond Creation had already undergone multiple permutations. But with the band’s full-length debut, the Montréal four-piece quickly revealed themselves as the next evolution in technical death metal. With microscopic precision, The Aura splices together classic brutality and prog’s insatiable curiosity with a refreshing knack for melody. The resulting triple helix has been encoded in the genre’s DNA ever since.
Backed by their defiant new album, Mawiza continue to serve as a guiding force for indigenous metal. By integrating tribal rhythms and ancient instruments into modern groove metal, these modern day Mapuche warriors have won the respect of the Chilean Grammys and scene elders like Mercyful Fate, Mastodon, Slipknot and Gojira. Now, ÜL is winning them new fans all across the globe.
In 2006, fresh off bursting onto the scene with their dark and fiery debut, Abysmal Dawn hit the road for the very first time alongside Krisiun. Now, almost two decades later, the LA band are reuniting with the Brazilian death metal devourers in honor of Conquerors of Armageddon.
Whether climbing to doomy peaks or bouldering through a radio-friendly banger, over the course of the past decade and a half, Stoned Jesus have left a mark on the world of rock as true trailblazers. “Five albums in, the band have grown well beyond their monolithic roots”, wrote Doom Charts, who named their last album one of the 2023’s best.
While they’ve shared bills with fellow Southern trailblazers, after 12 years, Bask still sound like they belong to their very own time and place. On their upcoming fourth album, the Asheville natives take their signature style of Heavy Americana to a whole new dimension. But as laid bare by its latest single, to reach The Turning, the band had to go through one hell of a trip.
Like smoke from a shaman’s pipe, Mawiza have risen as a guiding force for indigenous metal. Integrating tribal rhythms and ancient instruments into groove metal has won these modern day Mapuche warriors respect from the Chilean Grammys and scene elders like Mercyful Fate, Mastodon, Slipknot and Gojira. Now, with their third album and first for Season of Mist, the band are summoning a towering defense of their ancestral land.
Not every underground icon lives long enough to lord above death metal’s crypt three decades into their career. But Cryptopsy are proving once again why they’re the most vile band of them all. A year after winning their first JUNO Award, the brutal Canadians have graced the cover of Decibel, snatched Metal Injection‘s Artist of the Month honor and cracked the Billboard charts with their critically-acclaimed new album An Insatiable Violence.
Over the course of the past 16 years, Stoned Jesus have risen as true trailblazers. Whether it’s a radio-friendly banger or a 13-minute classic, frontman Igor Sydorenko has explored lush valleys of folk, proggy expanses, bouldering alternative rock and peaks of headbanging doom. Now, after a sneak peak at Hellfest, Sydorenko and his new bandmates are embarking on a three-part quest that will take their heavy progressive rock all the way to the sun, moon and back.