Kerrang!'s 50 Best Albums of 2019

As aggressive and intense as Slipknot looks and sounds, their approach to creating music is as tender and nurturing as a doe’s love for her fawn. For their sixth studio album, *We Are Not Your Kind*, the Iowans took their time—four years—working on their communication and brotherhood. Most of all, they responded with force to a world in crisis. Slipknot percussionist Clown (aka #6, government name Shawn Crahan) has noticed that fans (lovingly called “Maggots”) constantly praise 2001’s *Iowa*, but he encourages them to read the room. “I always have to stop and remind them of the temperature of the world at that time,” he told Apple Music. “And then they step back a little and realize that the world was upside down, and you needed music to get through. We feel that the world\'s like that again.” On this album, anti-authoritarian anthems (“Birth of the Cruel,” “A Liar’s Funeral”), martyrdom (“Unsainted”), and heady meditations (“Insert Coin,” “What’s Next”) are dropped into the band’s swirling circle pit of electronic-tinged thrash metal. Clown took Apple Music through *We Are Not Your Kind* track by track. “We gave the music and ourselves a deep breath,” he explained. “Everybody\'s all in.” **“Insert Coin”** “It\'s a way of saying, ‘I\'m here waiting for everybody else. And here they come.’ It\'s like being on a foothill overlooking the ocean, and just seeing everybody making their way through rough waters. It\'s an aligning. Insert the coin. Let\'s go.” **“Unsainted”** “The whole album has that theme where you look at a song, measure by measure, beat by beat. And you wonder just how much color, temperature, and love you can give it. And it was an amazing experience, and it fit perfectly. And it was the mentality of the album. When that song came about, years ago, I do remember hearing the guitar riff and the chorus. And I can remember just being like, ‘This is the first song on the album.’ It was just magical. This is new, this is us, this is where we\'re at.” **“Birth of the Cruel”** “That’s one of my favorites. It shifts. It\'s intense. It\'s driving. We\'ve had it for a while. Corey Taylor says, ‘I\'m overthrown/I\'m over your throne.’ These plays on words I just live for.” **“Death Because of Death”** “That\'s another example of what life is. It’s very atmospheric, making you question things. It\'s another little puzzle piece. It\'s like a snake that creeps up on you, and it\'s gone before you realize what you can do. They may be short, but it may be very venomous. And that may affect you in a way you didn\'t seek, if you give in to it.” **“Nero Forte”** “I challenge myself personally. I\'ve learned a lot from people that have been in this band. Just being out on the road, the peers that I\'ve been around, and the respect level that I have for these people, I recognize it\'s so beautiful. I wanted to take everything I\'ve learned to write a little cadence—the breakdown area that you hear was really important to me. And the chorus just blows me away. The falsetto—20 years in the gig and Corey Taylor’s singing falsetto. What’s better than that? Talk about evolution and still taking chances, and just loving music. It\'s like hitting the beach running for your life.” **“Critical Darling”** “This one draws a lot of reaction. The vocal melody is my favorite. I love his headspace. Corey\'s my favorite singer of all time because he\'s able to delve so deep into his own self and bring up this personal stuff that most people may not want to do for themselves. But he does it for himself and all of us. It\'s very different for us, but at the same time, it’s exactly us. I think it really helps the other colors of the album.” **“A Liar’s Funeral”** “These sorts of tunes can be very difficult for many different reasons. It starts off with a demeanor that you think you know what\'s going to happen, but you realize this is the heaviest you’ve heard Corey sing so far on the album. It gets to a place you find yourself still in the chair with a stare. And this is one of those songs that I battled personally for and the song got its due. Everything got dot-crossed, and here it is: ‘Burn, burn, burn, liar!’” **“Red Flag”** “That\'s your traditional Slipknot feeling right there. It\'s got a very thrash feel. It\'s fun, it swirls, and it’s not like ‘Get This (Or Die)’ or ‘Eeyore’ different. I believe it\'s much needed in the temperature and the ingredients of the album.” **“What’s Next”** “Intermission is a nice way of saying it. I mean, I\'ve never really thought of it that way, but maybe that\'s why it falls into the slot that it does. Innately, we don\'t have these ideas about how to get people back into the reality of the music, and not get caught up and giving their dog some water or something. This sort of vibe is so us and where we\'re at, and even where we’ve been from 1998 to here. So, yeah, ‘What\'s Next’ is like ginger—it\'s like resetting the palate, countered with a potentially condescending notion. It\'s a nice little trot.” **“Spiders”** “‘Spiders’ is an anomaly—the song everybody thinks they understand and has something to say about. We\'ve been talking about this quote that gets passed around: ‘It\'s easy to make something simple sound crazy, but it\'s almost impossible to make something crazy sound simple.’ Listening to ‘Spiders,’ it sounds simple, but it goes into some weird places. It’s a pivotal part of our career, because we\'re always searching ourselves. We\'re always gaining further and further as artists, because music\'s God to me. So I don\'t shame anything we make. In the end, it\'s got to have everybody and it\'s got to be Slipknot. And ‘Spiders’ is as Slipknot as it gets. ‘Spiders’ is coming for you.” **“Orphan”** “A very, very heavy, heavy song. ‘Orphan’ was the very first song that we had arranged and figured out early. And then we got away from it forever because everything else came in. Corey came in about a year and a half after some things were written, and ‘Orphan’ was one of those songs that he had been given to write lyrics to. I can\'t remember what it used to be called. He texted me and said that he was naming it ‘Orphan’—I knew it was going to be really heavy-duty personal. And just that word, orphan, creates a color in one\'s mind that is, for me, very gray, numb, just monotone and unable to move. I remember staring at my text. Then Greg Fidelman, the producer, looks over at me. I\'m like, \'This song\'s going to be called \"Orphan.\"\' We\'re all just like, ‘Whoaaaa.’ So it\'s a very deep song with a traditional sort of feeling for us.\" **“My Pain”** “‘My Pain’ has been around for a second. And again, it\'s all about communication. That is a very, very important song for the world, for individuals. We have songs like that: ‘’Til We Die,’ ‘Heartache and a Pair of Scissors,’ ‘Skin Ticket,’ ‘Prosthetics,’ ‘Danger - Keep Away.’ We have this otherworldly source that we go to. And I think this is one of those songs, but it\'s a little more focused into its own reality.” **“Not Long for This World”** “It draws heavy imagination. It paints pictures in my brain. It’s like we’re taking you to *Fantasia*—the Walt Disney movie. Mickey goes in to mess with the wizard’s wand, and he gets into these brooms while getting water. I’m 49, but as a kid, that was frightening. This song paints the end of the world not to be contrived. It’s very important in the steps of the album. You start on step one, and you work your way to the end, till you\'re at the top. You either jump or you go back down. You could say it\'s setting up ‘Solway Firth.’ I don\'t know if it\'s a concept, because everything we do is a concept. I could cite that everything from \'98 till now has been a concept, because art is heavy with us—in the music, in everything.” **“Solway Firth”** “When I heard Corey at the end say, ‘You want a real smile? I haven\'t smiled in years,’ I cried. I hurt. I hurt for me. I hurt for my family. I hurt for people around me. I 190% hurt for him. I hurt for whoever he was talking about. I hurt for everyone. And it was like: This will be the last song on the album. Nothing can follow that line. Anybody who\'s going through shit on this planet, that\'s a way of saying it, ending it, getting up, and changing your potential immediately. And there\'s this little false ending before it. So you\'re like whisked away for a moment, and then it\'s like, bam! You get the biggest smack in the face, and it\'s up to you to get up and believe that you have control to change your destiny.”

We could keep agonizing over why TOOL took so long to release *Fear Inoculum*, or to put their catalog onto streaming services, or all the ways the world has changed since the alt/prog-metal band’s last album came out in 2006. But we just spent 13 years doing all that. Instead, put on the best headphones you can find. It’s time to explore the 87 minutes of music we waited thousands of hours to hear. Whether or not this album is the “grand finale… swan song and epilogue” that Maynard James Keenan alludes to in “Descending,” the first thing to say is that *Fear Inoculum* will not disappoint. On their longest-ever album (despite only containing seven songs, broken up by three brief ambient interludes), TOOL refines and expands on their greatest strengths to create a meditative, intensely complex album that may, in terms of sheer musical skill, be their most impressive yet. Danny Carey’s extraordinarily creative and technical approach to rhythm takes center stage, from assaultive double pedaling to atmospheric tablas and electronic tinkering, heard best on “Chocolate Chip Trip,” a five-minute, multidimensional percussion solo. Guitarist Adam Jones unleashes more jams and solos than ever, particularly on the 15-minute opus “7empest,” which begins by sounding like the most traditionally TOOL song of the lot—but it sure doesn’t end that way. (Plus, Jones apparently wrote part of it in 21/16 time.) Justin Chancellor’s bass riffs are hypnotizing and powerful, unique in their ability to be both repetitive, even monotonous, and completely engulfing. Keenan’s lyrics—layered, poetic, often elegiac—are as fun to analyze and interpret as ever. And though the album is easily their most drawn-out and ambient, it’s also immensely heavy. The balance is calculated and sublime. So, what’s *Fear Inoculum* actually about? Keenan deliberately evades explanation, allowing the listener to find their own meaning. But in the most lyrically lucid moments, you’ll find reflections on life, growing up and facing your fear (he’s stated it could mean giving in to *or* becoming immune to it). There’s no pretending that 13 years haven’t passed—on “Invincible,” he sings: “Age old battle, mine/Weapon out and belly in/Tales told, battles won… Once invincible, now the armor’s wearing thin.” Still, there’s no sign of weakness, just acceptance and the kind of wisdom that comes with age. “We’re not buying your dubious state of serenity,” he knowingly roars on “7empest.” “Acting all surprised when you’re caught in the lie/It’s not unlike you… We know your nature.”

It’s no longer possible to call Bring Me the Horizon a rock band. On their sixth album, the Sheffield four-piece draw on so many genres and ideas, they evade any attempt at categorization. “I’ve always thought there’s too many borders, too many bridges, that people don\'t cross in music,” frontman Oli Sykes tells Apple Music. “The real world has too much of that as it is. I guess that’s our crusade.” *amo*—Portuguese for “love”—stretches from bittersweet pop to electronic experimentalism, calling on an art-pop visionary, a legendary beatboxer, and an extreme-metal icon along the way. Here, Sykes breaks down their crusade, track by track. **i apologise if you feel something** “We knew it was almost impossible to give anyone a heads- up of what this album was going to sound like. It was important for that first track just to be like, ‘Forget whatever you think it’s going to sound like, because you\'re not going to be able to guess from anything we’ve shown you before.” **MANTRA** “At the end of the writing process, I had a bit of a meltdown. Even though we did have a lot of stuff, we didn\'t have that song where we were like, ‘This is what we\'re going to show the world first.’ ‘MANTRA’ was born out of that: \[It\'s\] not so different that people are alienated, but \[it\'s\] giving you a taste that it\'s not the same as the last record. It’s about the similarities between starting a relationship and starting a cult—how you can throw away your whole life for something and you have to put all belief and faith into this thing that might or might not be right for you.” **nihilist blues (feat. Grimes)** “We had no idea if Grimes would even be interested in doing a song with us. But she was really just gushing, like, ‘This is one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.’ I’ve always loved dance songs that had a dark edge—something almost primitive that triggers me. Getting it into our sound was really exciting.” **in the dark** “When we first started writing this, it sounded more like something we would have written on the last album. But it turned into this dark, poppy ballad that we all really loved. I love bittersweet, dark pop songs.” **wonderful life (feat. Dani Filth)** “I did all the lyrics and vocals in a day in the studio. I think it was the day The 1975 released ‘Give Yourself a Try\'—that inspired me to get up on the mic and just say stuff that came out. I dropped \[Cradle of Filth frontman\] Dani Filth a line on Instagram to see if he’d be interested in working on the song. He didn\'t believe it was me at first. I think he said something very quintessentially English, like ‘If this is indeed you, young man, then, yes, I would love to.’” **ouch** “It was one of those bittersweet realizations that you’re happy something\'s happened, but a lot of heartache or pain came with getting to that realization. I just wanted to present the lyrics in a way that wasn’t too dark, a way that feels low-key—and the jammy sound came from that.” **medicine** “‘ouch’ is a kind of prelude to this, quite linked to its vibe. It\'s that idea that you often don’t realize you’re in a toxic relationship until you\'re out the other side. It\'s not like a ‘f\*\*\* you’ song, it\'s just, ‘This is finally me having my say, and I\'m actually going to think about how it affected me and not how it affected you for once.’” **sugar honey ice & tea** “It sounds ridiculous, but just with the drums and everything, we approached it differently and ended up making something that felt quite fresh. It started off a lot more, dare I say, hip-hop- sounding, electro, and there’s elements in there that still remain. We kept a little bit of each version it went through.” **why you gotta kick me when I’m down?** “I was quite scolded by the way I was treated when I was going through hard times with my divorce and stuff that no one knew about. I was quite hurt by the way I was treated by people that I thought were there for me. The song’s saying, ‘I totally get it, it\'s fine, but stop pretending it’s coming from a place of love or care, because it’s not—it’s coming from a place of your own problems where you don\'t want someone to change or grow.’” **fresh bruises** “This was a very organic song, it came very naturally. It was one we just wanted to make—a song that wasn’t verse, chorus, verse, chorus, but more of an electronic vibe. The kind of music I listen to is like that, centered around a hook, and it has a drop and it has a buildup. Not in an EDM sense, but more like lo-fi electronic, avant-garde. It just felt cool to make something more jammy and free like that.” **mother tongue** “\[Love\] is really all this addresses—saying to someone, ‘There’s no need to play games, just be open about the way you feel and everything will be fine.’” **heavy metal (feat. Rahzel)** “Getting \[beatboxing legend\] Rahzel was \[keyboardist\] Jordan \[Fish\]’s idea, because we had this beat that almost sounded like there was beatboxing on it. We used to be this death-metal-sounding, crazy band, and now we play pop music—it’s something that pisses some people off. We’re so confident and proud of what we\'re doing, and at the same time, we’re human and we have our insecurities. This track is just a little in-joke that it can still ruin our day if some kid goes, ‘This is the biggest load of s\*\*\* I’ve ever heard. What happened to this band?’” **i don’t know what to say** “It’s about a friend that passed away from cancer. It’s me trying to figure out what to say in that situation and my regret that I didn\'t see him in his final few days—but also an explanation why. To do my best to talk about how speechless I am at his strength and his courage, and the way he took it all in stride. You’ll hear that story echoed from so many people who have lost people to cancer—they just become unrealistically strong and courageous.”

By now, Savannah, Georgia, metal band Baroness is down to one original member—singer/guitarist and album cover artist extraordinaire John Baizley—and based in Philadelphia. But the steady turnover during the past decade and a half hasn\'t made Baroness feel any less cohesive or consistent. Their fifth full-length album throws in a few stylistic changes (the post-rock interludes “Assault on East Falls” and “Sevens,” the hushed acoustic guitars comprising the first minute of “Tourniquet,” and “Blankets of Ash,” which is a little bit of each) but is as much of an endpoint for the band as it is a springboard. Baizley has said this will be the last Baroness album to be named after colors, an overarching concept that stretches back to 2007\'s *Red Album*. Whatever that portends, it won\'t be due to a lack of ideas. Frantic pulse-quickeners like “Throw Me an Anchor,” “Seasons,” and “Broken Halo” sit alongside the beat-heavy, atmospheric “I\'m Already Gone,” which Baizley himself has described as “Massive Attack meets TLC\'s \'Waterfalls.\'”

In their 25th year, German electro-industrial steamrollers Rammstein remain *der Goldstandard* for New German Hardness, with their mix of industrial sternness, techno hedonism, and metal aggression. Their seventh album lands somewhere between Faith No More and Franz Ferdinand, taut grooves meshing with bludgeoning riffs and disturbing stories. Lead single \"DEUTSCHLAND\" is scabrous, politically volatile doom-disco laying out conflicted feelings about living in their homeland, even tweaking the verse of the national anthem used in the country\'s fascist past. The rest follows the chug and bombast of albums like 2001\'s *Mutter* and 2009\'s *Liebe ist für alle da*: \"RADIO\" is like a heavy metal Kraftwerk, \"SEX\" is snaky glam-sludge, and \"PUPPE\" is a creeper with a coming-undone performance from lead singer Till Lindemann.

With their first two albums, FIDLAR cemented their reputation as a quintessential West Coast party band. By pulling influences from garage rock, hip-hop, and skate punk (FIDLAR’s Max and Elvis Kuehn are sons of T.S.O.L.’s Greg Kuehn), they’ve adapted their anarchic pastiche to fit their rage first/ask questions later mentality. But after too many hangovers, the band teased the benefits of mental acuity on 2015’s *Too*—and now, *Almost Free*. Themes of mortality and vulnerability come up often. The quartet measure the time lost to the bottle on “By Myself” (“I never knew it felt good to cry,” goes one line). “Kick” captures a junkie’s remorse. K.Flay joins the search for meaningful connection on “Called You Twice.” They even open their worldview on “Thought. Mouth.,” taking shots at both sides of the political divide. As their temperament matures, so does their sound. “Flake” takes cues from The Black Keys, while “Scam Likely” drops in Memphis-style horns with echoes of CCR. Meanwhile, rowdy throwbacks “Alcohol” and “Get Off My Rock” feel like the last vestiges of FIDLAR 1.0.

SWMRS’ CV includes a 20-minute soundtrack to a Saint Laurent runway show in Paris *and* a goal celebration theme for two-time MLS title winners the San Jose Earthquakes; it’s clear the Oakland punk-pop band (featuring drummer Joey Armstrong, son of Billie Joe) appeals to a wide constituency—fashionistas and soccer supporters included. For their second album, *Berkeley’s On Fire*, the quartet opens the floodgates of sound. Tracks like “Trashbag Baby,” “Too Much Coffee,” and “Lose Lose Lose” ring with cool ’80s post-punk and new wave. “April in Houston” and “Hellboy” show glimmers of their raucous punk-pop past. And while the band members are still in their early twenties, they address tough topics like gentrification and media distortion. The title track references the 2017 Berkeley protests following a gathering of white nationalists: “Too many motherfuckers confusing this freedom of speech with swastikas, like Milo Yiannopoulos.”

Never let it be said that successful bands have less at stake once they get two decades deep into their career—or at least never say it to Arizona emo pioneers Jimmy Eat World. “The standard that we\'ve set for ourselves now gets higher and higher every album we do,” frontman Jim Adkins tells Apple Music. “You\'re not only making an album, you\'re basically adding to your catalog. So anything we do has to be as good as the best thing we\'ve done so far. Otherwise, why are we doing it?” The simple answer, as evidenced by their 10th album, *Surviving*, is that they are extremely good at it—guitar-driven anthems that feel keenly suited to this moment in Adkins\' life. “It\'s like the time capsule of everything I\'ve been thinking about for the last couple of years,” he says, “which is basically the blocks that we put in our own way that keep us from really experiencing life in as meaningful a way as it can be.” Here he talks through a handful of key tracks that best show how Jimmy Eat World have managed to challenge themselves while still feeling true to everything they\'ve done and meant for over 25 years. **Surviving** “It\'s this tune that doesn\'t have a real discernible chorus to it. It\'s a good example of us being us, but also trying to push ourselves in a way, but also trying to work within some framework of restraint. There\'s usually a basic template or a basic parameter we give ourselves. The lines that we color within are something that feels like a traditional pop song, where sections of the tune are recognizable and it has an arc to it. And then we like to see how much we can get away with while it still resembles that. \'Surviving\' steps a little bit out—it has the arc that I think is interesting to write, but it doesn\'t have any of the interior or outline parts, like a normal pop song would. It\'s more of a crescendo, and it\'s more or less one riff the whole song. How little do you need to really fully communicate what you want to do, what you want to say?” **All the Way (Stay)** “One thing that we were thinking about for that—and for everything, really—the album should have less things doing more. If you listen to a Van Halen album, there\'s not a lot of overdubs—if any. It\'s just four dudes, each of them playing their own role, with the exception of maybe backup vocals. If you put a ton of loud things happening and it\'s just loud, loud, loud, loud, loud, it loses the effectiveness of the loudness. It doesn\'t sound louder anymore. It sounds like synth. When you start taking things away, then things feel heavier. So with \'All the Way (Stay),\' there\'s sections of the song where you\'re just listening to the snare drum decaying in the room. There\'s literally nothing happening for a section of that song—you\'re listening to air. But it makes what\'s happening around it, when that comes back in, a lot more heavy. There\'s a lot of musical devices that are counterintuitive, but when you employ them, it really makes a big effect. And in general, we wanted to take things away as a default position.” **555** “One of the reasons we wanted to work with \[producer\] Justin Meldal-Johnsen is because he just brings such a wide palette of musical influences and information. Way more than what we have. I have a very surface knowledge of MIDI and synth things, so I can explain to him what I want to try to get or I can lay down something that\'s a really rough amateur version of what I want and he just knows exactly what to do. It\'s hard to pin down one exact thing, other than maybe the synth sound in \'555\' would not be nearly as cool without Justin\'s knowledge.” **Criminal Energy** “It\'s just such a heavy guitar song. I mean, that\'s a part of what we do, for sure, but it\'s so borderline metal in a stoner way. I wouldn\'t say it\'s a risk and I wouldn\'t say it\'s totally out of character, but I feel like it\'s pushing our self-perception just enough into that arena of active rock that is not where we live all the time. So I know I\'m on the right track when I feel like, \'I don\'t know if I should do this.\' There\'s definitely a parameter that you need to work within and you need to set for yourself. You can\'t push your self-perception so far that it doesn\'t resemble you anymore.”

Korn\'s 13th album is one of the group’s most searing, the band\'s trademark ugly-beautiful stomp meeting the savage charge of more extreme strains of metal. Much of the credit can be given to vocalist/raw nerve Jonathan Davis: In the aftermath of his wife\'s death in August 2018, an artist already renowned for plumbing emotional depths pushes his throat and lungs to visceral extremes: wailing, panting, whispering, and roaring. Preview singles \"Cold\" and \"You\'ll Never Find Me\" set the template for their new direction: hard syncopation, basement-scraping riffs, radio-unfriendly growls. But there are also some phoenix-like songs (\"Can You Hear Me,\" \"Finally Free\") that juxtapose Davis\' wounded lyrics with anthemic hookwork. He screams in metalcore ferociousness, gurgles in death-metal-fried agony, soars in power ballad majesty, and leaves the sounds of crying on the recording. His band is both fierce and desolate, with bassist Fieldy finding new sludgy lows and drummer Ray Luzier driving everything with a savage precision.

The majestic French duo Alcest has been mixing shoegaze textures with grinding black metal and hypnotic post-rock since 2005, essentially inventing the so-called \"blackgaze\" of bands like Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, and Bosse-de-Nage. They\'ve kept things mostly uplifting over the course of five records, but their sixth, *Spiritual Instinct*, explores some darker emotions. \"We\'d been touring a lot for the previous record, and I think I started to have some kind of burnout,\" leader and songwriter Neige tells Apple Music. \"I was feeling really, really down and I thought I was losing touch with myself and the things that I like. One of them being spirituality. And when it was time to write a new album, all these feelings went into the music. That\'s pretty much the idea about this album: trying to find the balance between my two sides.\" In turn \"Sapphire\" is a piece of gleaming alt-metal that ends in screams. The title track moves from churning to triumphant. Apple Music talked to Neige, who broke down the album\'s six tracks. **Les jardins de minuit** “The midnight gardens. The Alcest realm—it\'s a very bright and green and springtime type of place. \'Les jardins de minuit\' is like the same place but at night and when all the doubts are rising, and melancholy and the sadness. It\'s the other side of the coin. These are the midnight gardens; it\'s the place where you just wander at night to try to find peace and reflect upon yourself. Musically, it\'s quite fast. I think it\'s one of our fastest tracks. It has almost like a small Nordic black metal thing in the riffs. Some very, very dreamy vocals, and some much more pissed-off ones, too.” **Protection** “It\'s the first song that I wrote for this album. When we were done touring for \[2016\'s\] *Kodama*, I came back home and wrote this song. It all came out at once. Almost like some kind of exorcism. It means that the emotion in the song is very, very genuine. It\'s basically a song about protecting yourself from your own demons. And a song about inner struggle.” **\"Sapphire** “It\'s more or less like a pop song—you know, intro, verse, bridge, chorus. I like to write these type of songs because our fans know me for writing very, very epic songs with different parts that don\'t repeat necessarily. It has almost this \'80s post-punk vibe. I think I was a little bit inspired by The Cure for the riffs. It doesn\'t have any lyrics, just some kind of improvised language that I have. It allows me to not be limited by the sounds and the meaning of an actual language. It\'s a great way to have a very spontaneous way to sing. You don\'t have to follow any text. You just sing the way you feel like singing.” **L\'île des morts** “It\'s some kind of a tribute to this painting by the symbolist painter Böcklin \[\"Isle of the Dead\"\]. And for me, this painting is a great metaphor of the big mystery around spirituality and the question \'What is going to happen when we die?\' In the painting, you see this island that looks a little bit like some kind of cemetery. Some kind of place lost in the middle of nowhere. And you are this tiny boat that is almost reaching the island but doesn\'t reach it. The painter, he has done five versions of this painting over the years. And the boat actually never reaches the island. And I think that\'s a great way to summarize what spirituality is: It\'s the risk maybe not to get any answers at the end of your quest. All the work, you have to do it by yourself.\" **Le miroir** “This one is very, very different from the others. It\'s a bit more like a soundtrack. It also could sound like something from the band Dead Can Dance. Very ritualistic and ancient.” **Spiritual Instinct** “Unfortunately, I\'ve lost one of my friends. And I wrote this song right after. I think it was the last song I wrote for this album. I wasn\'t thinking about him necessarily when I wrote the song. But I can\'t help believing that there is a connection between his death and the fact that I wrote this song. As a paradox, the end is quite bright, you know? It\'s not as dark as the beginning of the album. Since the album was overall quite dark, I wanted to end on a more uplifting note.”

There are musicians who suffer for their art, and then there’s Stefan Babcock. The guitarist and lead screamer for Toronto pop-punk ragers PUP has often used his music as a bullhorn to address the physical and mental toll of being in a touring rock band. The band’s 2016 album *The Dream Is Over* was inspired by Babcock seeking treatment for his ravaged vocal cords and being told by a doctor he’d never be able to sing again. Now, with that scare behind him, he’s using the aptly titled *Morbid Stuff* to address a more insidious ailment: depression. “*The Dream Is Over* was riddled with anxiety and uncertainties, but I think I was expressing myself in a more immature way,” Babcock tells Apple Music. “I feel I’ve found the language to better express those things.” Certainly, *Morbid Stuff* pulls no punches: This is an album whose idea of an opening line is “I was bored as fuck/Sitting around and thinking all this morbid stuff/Like if anyone I slept with is dead.” But of course, this being PUP—a band that built their fervent fan base through their wonderfully absurd high-concept videos—they can’t help but make a little light of the darkest subject matter. “I’m pretty aware of the fact I’m making money off my own misery—what Phoebe Bridgers called ‘the commodification of depression,’” Babcock says. “It’s a weird thing to talk about mood disorders for a living. But my intention with this record was to explore the darker things with a bit of humor, and try to make people feel less alone while they listen to it.” To that end, Babcock often directs his most scathing one-liners at himself. On the instant shout-along anthem “Free at Last,” he issues a self-diagnosis that hits like a glass of cold water in the face: “Just because you’re sad again/It doesn’t make you special at all.” “The conversation around mental health that’s happening now is such a positive thing,” Babcock says, “but one of the small drawbacks is that people are now so sympathetic to it that some people who suffer from mood disorders—and I speak from experience here—tend to use it as a crutch. I can sometimes say something to my bandmates or my girlfriend that’s pretty shitty, and they’ll be like, ‘It’s okay, Stefan’s in a different headspace right now’—and that’s *not* okay. It’s important to remind myself and other people that being depressed and being an asshole are not mutually exclusive.” Complementing Babcock’s fearless lyricism is the band’s growing confidence to step outside of the circle pit: “Scorpion Hill” begins as a lonesome barstool serenade before kicking into a dusty cowpunk gallop, while the power-pop rave-up “Closure” simmers into a sweet psychedelic breakdown that nods to one of Babcock’s all-time favorite bands, Built to Spill. And the closing “City” is PUP’s most vulnerable statement to date, a pulverizing power ballad where Babcock takes stock of his conflicted relationship with Toronto, his lifelong home. “The beginning of ‘Scorpion Hill’ and ‘City’ are by far the most mellow, softest moments we’ve ever created as a band,” Babcock says. “And I think on the last two records, we never would’ve gone there—not because we didn’t want to, but just because we didn’t think people would accept PUP if PUP wasn’t always cranked up to 10. And this time, we felt a bit more confident to dial it back in certain parts when it felt right. I feel like we’ve grown a lot as a band and shed some of our inhibitions.”

On their second album since reforming in 2012, Swedish punk trailblazers Refused channel the visceral energy of their 1998 milestone *The Shape of Punk to Come* with scathing political commentary couched in metallic hardcore. *War Music* sees vocalist Dennis Lyxzén and his crew taking on capitalism, racism, and toxic masculinity, complete with overt references to Black Flag, Warzone, and the old-school Finnish metal band Oz. As Lyxzén tells Apple Music, Refused’s long-standing call for the overthrow—or at least abandonment—of what they call the “economy of death” hasn’t diminished over time. “A lot of our friends in the ’90s, they were super political and radical, but now they’re into academia,” he says. “They’re not out in the streets fighting. They’re fighting on a different stratosphere that doesn’t really mean that much. So it’s a call to arms. At one point on the album, it’s basically me just screaming ‘Rise up right now!’ for two minutes.” Here Lyxzén walks through all of *War Music*‘s war music. **Rev 001** “Well, first of all, the reference ‘Rev 001,’ it\'s of course to the Warzone *Lower East Side Crew* 7-inch, because it\'s the first Revelation Records release. And it\'s a pretty basic midtempo kind of banger that I think sets the tone for the record. It\'s about when there\'s blood on the streets, somebody\'s getting paid. It’s a call for a revolution or for social change, and I think it\'s a pretty damn nice track.” **Violent Reaction** “‘Violent Reaction’ is one of those songs where there\'s one guitar riff that\'s pretty amazing, and then there\'s like six different variations of it. It’s a very busy song—there\'s a lot of stuff that happens in three minutes. It deals with the rise of populism and the rise of politics without an agenda. When people are cornered and your choices are the poor choices that we have, then people are going to become a violent reaction to that. It’s up to you how you want to define that. But I think it\'s a great song, and there\'s a really unexpected twist at the end.” **I Wanna Watch the World Burn** “It\'s kind of an existential look at what we\'ve become when we live in a world that\'s not designed for us. Because no matter how much you are against capitalism or how much you are against the system, you are part of the system. You have the same dirt on your fingers, and you have the same sort of feeling of ‘this isn\'t right.’ I just want to burn that down and start over so we can have a new world that\'s actually more designed for us. The song is pretty catchy, too—when we wrote it, we thought it was kind of poppy, but in a way that ‘Summerholidays vs. Punkroutine’ on *The Shape of Punk to Come* was.” **Blood Red** “This was the first song that was written for this record. The working title was ‘The Case’ because it has a little bit of a Snapcase vibe to it. Kris and Dave were in Paris hanging with some friends of ours who have a studio, so they recorded an early demo version and sent it to me. And they had this French guy singing the chorus, because it was just a chorus at that point. I was like, ‘That guy sounds like me!’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, he has a hardcore band. They sound kind of like Refused.’ So if they ever need a replacement, they’ll have a French Dennis who can sing.” **Malfire** “I think this is my favorite track on the record. It’s a song about these geopolitical circumstances that force people to leave their homes, because their homes are being fucked and their countries are being fucked, and it\'s all tied into whatever power struggle that we don\'t even see going on. So these people escape and they go to Europe or they go to America, and people treat them like scum. Like everyone else, they just want a decent life, you know? And they can\'t live where they want to live, so they go somewhere else and we treat them like shit. They become victims over and over again, and none of it is their fault.” **Turn the Cross** “The title is a reference to the Finnish metal band Oz \[who have a song called “Turn the Cross Upside Down”\]. The song is about the right-wing populist movement, kind of like the neo-fascist movement. They\'re rising up everywhere. There’s a line that goes, ‘Your opinion is not a fact.’ These disenfranchised, alienated men—it’s usually men—they breed on fear. They\'re afraid to lose their privilege or they feel they\'ve lost privilege, and then they become angry and they attack whoever doesn\'t agree with them. And it’s an absolute thrasher of a song.” **Damaged III** “The title is a Black Flag reference, of course. A lot of our references—in our minds—are quite humorous, but then a lot of people don’t pick up on them because they assume we are dead-serious people. So this one is about toxic masculinity, but it’s also about how a lot of men don’t like the male role that’s being presented to them. David said, ‘I always thought that Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn’s relationship felt a bit toxic, so maybe this one should just be ‘Damaged III.’” **Death in Vännäs** “So this is a reference to the Thomas Mann novel and movie, but also the place where I grew up, which is pronounced ‘Venice.’ When I was a kid, there was a story in the news about a Japanese couple who were traveling across Europe by train. They were in Stockholm, and they went to the ticket counter and said they were going to Venice. But they ended up here, not in Italy. That must’ve sucked. So it’s a funny reference to that, but it’s also about growing up in a small community where the pressure to conform to the ascribed roles is usually a lot bigger than in a city where you can find your own little clique of like-minded people.” **The Infamous Left** “This is a pretty violent, thrashy sort of song. It reminds me a lot of something that could have been on \[1996’s\] *Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent* in the relentless riffing madness that we’ve got going on. It’s a song about looking at ourselves and our roles in the political discourse of the day. One huge issue with the left is that a lot of times they’re talking above people’s heads. They’re trying to be clever and academic and smart, but a lot of the people on the right don’t want that.” **Economy of Death** “This is a song that Mattias, our new guitar player, wrote some riffs for. It’s his first riff contribution. It has this propulsion to it, this almost primitive power—so primitive that at first I thought it was kind of dumb, like a throwaway song. But then we started playing it live, and the reaction of the crowd and the way it felt onstage, I was like, ‘Nope. This is not a throwaway song. This is an absolute beast.’ I think it’s a fantastic closer for the record, because we’re saying if we’re going to keep complying with the economy of death, we’re fucked. And that’s exactly what I’m screaming at the end: ‘You are so fucked.’”

Album Introduction by Ren Aldridge: Cut & Stitch is a patchwork of different sounds, ideas and feelings. It’s the most experimental record we’ve made so far, both musically and lyrically. Cutting and stitching is a process that can go on indefinitely - stitches are easily unpicked, new shapes can be cut, everything can be rearranged. We cut our patches off of old clothes and sew them onto something else. Continuity is an idea that underpins the record, from ‘the sound does not arrive’ to ‘we’re not finished, we never fucking will be.’ This follows on from the sentiment of our last EP, ‘The Future is Dark.’ Political change is a slow, complicated process that’s often only partly visible with hindsight. Making change is a constant collective process that never stops. Its probably impossible for us to see our place within it or to know what consequences our actions will have. It isn’t as simple or hopeless as straightforward victories and failures. Feminism has become more of an overall approach than an obvious topic, seeping into the way we think about everything from the environment to mental health. We’ve also started to think more about what feminism means for men, given that half of the band are men, and explore the perspective of a man struggling with expressing his emotions in ‘Talk in Tongues.’ The majority of the lyrics were written in the studio. I was having a difficult time, unsure about where to live after we finished the record, and burnt out from a tough year of personal and legal challenges. Something that I’ve reluctantly allowed feminism to teach me is that we have to tend to our own wounds, and that sometimes being vulnerable is just as radical as being angry - it certainly scares me a lot more. Rage on its own isn’t sustainable. We hope this is a more honest and human record.

BABYMETAL knows something about alternate universes. Since 2010, the Japanese band has carved a unique niche that embraces sugary J-pop and power metal. They are true rock ’n’ roll unicorns, with costumes, choreographed routines, and high-pitched vocals against a masked four-piece band thrashing out double bass drum rolls and squealing solos. Their third album swirls more music genres into the group’s kawaii metal, taking listeners on a wild excursion to infinity and beyond. “Sound-wise, we didn’t want to limit it to just metal but also wanted to explore different genres and widen the range of our music,” SU-METAL (Suzuka Nakamoto) tells Apple Music. “All the songs in the album are different, similar to the multitude of stars in the galaxy. The overall idea is that BABYMETAL is traveling on a spaceship to the metal galaxies.” And what a trip. The beatific “Shanti Shanti Shanti” uses Indian rhythm and melody. “IN THE NAME OF” has chorale movements, while “Oh! MAJINAI” traipses into Scandinavian folk featuring vocals from Sabaton’s burly singer Joakim Brodén. There are also nods to digital hardcore (“Distortion”) and hip-hop (“PA PA YA!!” featuring Thai rapper F.HERO). BABYMETAL remembers to pack flammable ground-and-pound on “Starlight,” “Night Night Burn!” and the ambitious power-metal closer, “Arkadia.” SU-METAL and MOAMETAL (Moa Kikuchi) took Apple Music through *METAL GALAXY*’s points of interest, track by track. **FUTURE METAL** SU-METAL: “This song is the album’s opening track, and only a computer was used instead of instruments. We would love for the listener to imagine himself/herself about to board a spaceship ready to travel the METAL GALAXY.” **DA DA DANCE** MOAMETAL: “This dance-metal song is a mixture of future music sounds crossed with Japanese ’90s dance music. The guitar is played by Tak Matsumoto, who is a very famous guitarist from the Japanese band B’z.” **Elevator Girl** SU-METAL: “Just like an elevator moving up and down, this song expresses the emotional ups and downs teenagers go through as they mature. Sound-wise, there are elements of jazz as well as a metallic riff and rhythm combined within the song. Because there are two versions (Japanese and English) of the song, we hope that fans enjoy both versions.” **Shanti Shanti Shanti** MOAMETAL: “Because this third album portrays an odyssey to the different metal stars, we wanted to also include Asian sound essences into the album, as if the listener has visited this territory while on their journey.” **Oh! MAJINAI** SU-METAL: “This song is inspired by Scandinavian folk metal, so we asked Joakim Brodén from Sabaton to appear as a guest vocalist. He and his band Sabaton joined BABYMETAL for BABYMETAL’s Japan shows in fall of 2018.” **Brand New Day** MOAMETAL: “Sound-wise, this song was a new approach for BABYMETAL. Polyphia appeared as guest guitarists in the song and we feel that their sound has made the song even better.” **Night Night Burn!** SU-METAL: “This song has actually existed for approximately the same period as ‘Megitsune,’ so it’s been around for a long time. Sound-wise, there are elements of Latin music, which has added more energy into the song.” **IN THE NAME OF** MOAMETAL: “This song also is an opener, and if ‘FUTURE METAL’ represents the light side, ‘IN THE NAME OF’ represents the dark side. With a tribal sound base and with a heavy rhythm, the song introduces the beginning of the dark side to the listener.” **Distortion** SU-METAL: “‘Distortion’ is a song that illustrates a human with a two-faced personality who exists in dystopia. We wanted to find someone whose voice would best represent the opposite of SU-METAL’s character. Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz was perfect for this role as her vocals/growls are amazing and we are so lucky to have her involved in this song.” **PA PA YA!!** MOAMETAL: “‘PA PA YA!!’ has a tropical/Asian sound element because we wanted to create a party-metal song. To add more of an Asian essence, we had Thai rapper F.HERO collaborate with us.” **Kagerou** SU-METAL: “This track shows a different aspect of BABYMETAL as the song has both a heavy and midtempo sound. The song and choreography are different than what we’re used to, so we definitely explored a new territory for this song.” **Starlight** MOAMETAL: “Elements of djent and a melodious heavy sound are combined in this track. When you hear the track, it’s as if SU-METAL’s powerful vocals shine light on an eternal path.” **Shine** MOAMETAL: “The acoustic guitar and the choir in the intro and outro are the highlights of the track. The song portrays life and depicts the ups and downs we all experience through life.” **Arkadia** SU-METAL: “This song concludes the album and portrays a new departure. It’s a cross between a fast-paced rhythm with a melodious sound.”

To put it mildly, San Diego-based artist Kristin Hayter’s second album under the Lingua Ignota name is not for the faint of heart. (Her first, it’s maybe worth noting, is called *All Bitches Die*.) A dark communion of neoclassical strings, industrial atmospherics, and Hayter’s classically trained vibrato, *Caligula* is an arresting meditation on abuse, recovery, and revenge. The opening “Faithful Servant Friend of Christ” sets the album’s tone early, showcasing both Hayter’s stirring vocal range and the complex religious themes that underpin most songs. On the funereal “Do You Doubt Me Traitor,” she sharpens her lyrics into weapons, even enlisting the Devil himself as an ally in her personal war against her abuser and herself (“I don’t eat/I don’t sleep/I let it consume me/How do I break you/Before you break me?”). This is not an uplifting journey through trauma to peace, however—the strangled wails and purgative screams of “Butcher of the World” and “Day of Tears and Mourning” speak to a catharsis without resolution or relief, only riddance. It’s an exhilarating, intense, apocalyptic jeremiad told with disarming honesty and starkness.

“CALIGULA”, the new album from LINGUA IGNOTA set for release on July 19th on CD/2xLP/Digital through Profound Lore Records, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter’s vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond anything preceding it and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre. Succeeding her self-released 2017 “All Bitches Die” opus (re-released by Profound Lore Records in 2018), “CALIGULA” sees Hayter design her most ambitious work to date, displaying the full force of her talent as a vocalist, composer, and storyteller. Vast in scope and multivalent in its influences, with delivery nothing short of demonic, “CALIGULA” is an outsider’s opera; magnificent, hideous, and raw. Eschewing and disavowing genre altogether, Hayter builds her own world. Here she fully embodies the moniker Lingua Ignota, from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning “unknown language” — this music has no home, any precedent or comparison could only be uneasily given, and there is nothing else like it in our contemporary realm. LINGUA IGNOTA has always taken a radical, unflinching approach to themes of violence and vengeance, and “CALIGULA” builds on the transformation of the survivor at the core of this narrative. “CALIGULA” embraces the darkness that closes in, sharpens itself with the cruelty it has been subjected to, betrays as it has been betrayed. It is wrath unleashed, scathing, a caustic blood-letting: “Let them hate me so long as they fear me,” Hayter snarls in a voice that ricochets from chilling raw power to agonizing vulnerability. Whilst “CALIGULA” is unapologetically personal and critically self-aware, there are broader themes explored; the decadence, corruption, depravity and senseless violence of emperor Caligula is well documented and yet still permeates today. Brimming with references and sly jabs, Hayter’s sardonic commentary on abuse of power and invalidation is deftly woven. Working closely with Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Hayter strips away much of the industrial and electronic elements of her previous work, approaching instead the corporeal intensity and intimate menace of her notorious live performances, achieved with unconventional recording techniques and sound sources, as well as a full arsenal of live instrumentation and collaborators including harsh noise master Sam McKinlay (THE RITA), visceral drummer Lee Buford (The Body) and frenetic percussionist Ted Byrnes (Cackle Car, Wood & Metal), with guest vocals from Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform), and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities). “CALIGULA” is a massive work, a multi-layered epic that gives voice and space to that which has been silenced and cut out.

Sum 41’s 2016 release, *13 Voices*, saw singer/guitarist Deryck Whibley reckoning with the infamous drinking habit that nearly killed him. With that out of his system, he approached the band’s seventh album, *Order in Decline*, from a renewed position of strength. Inspired and energized by the unwavering fan support he experienced on the band’s comeback tour, Whibley went on a writing frenzy while still out on the road. “It got to the point where when I got home from the *13 Voices* tour cycle, I just had all these ideas and started putting them together,” Whibley tells Apple Music. “All of a sudden, I was like, ‘Holy shit—do I have a new album already? I guess I do!” But while looking for lyrical inspiration, Whibley found himself wrestling with a destructive force more formidable than alcoholism: the polarizing political landscape of post-Trump America. (And he’s not just being an armchair Canadian critic—the Ajax, Ontario, native now calls Los Angeles home for part of the year.) Sum 41 isn’t known for being a particularly topical band, and Whibley is quick to note that *Order in Decline* “doesn’t include any lines about immigration policy.” But it’s impossible to ignore the unsettled undercurrent that courses through the album. The band\'s playful pop-punk has always been counterbalanced by a sincere appreciation for \'80s metal, which is all the more pronounced now that they\'ve settled into the triple-guitar formation (featuring Whibley and original foil Dave “Brownsound” Baksh alongside the latter’s onetime replacement, Tom Thacker) introduced on *13 Voices*. Free of the band’s characteristic snark and smirk, *Order in Decline* is Sum 41’s hardest and angriest record to date, marked by thrashing diatribes like “Out for Blood” and the wholly unsubtle “45 (A Matter of Time),” where Whibley tells a certain sitting president that “a number is all you are to me.” But as Whibley explains, he’s not so much expressing his anger at the current administration—he’s more expressing his frustration with a world that has gotten so messed up that even a band like Sum 41 is compelled to write political songs. “The world does seem in disarray, but I’ve always used music as an escape from that,” Whibley says. “I’ve always felt like, ‘I don’t want to talk about all this shit!’ But as I was writing the words to ‘45,’ it was the first moment where I thought: ‘Now this fuckin’ asshole is taking over my music? That’s not supposed to happen!’ So I tried to change the words and go somewhere else, and now the song just feels like I could be talking about anybody. If it wasn’t called ‘45,’ maybe you wouldn’t even know who it’s about.” More than providing a window into Whibley’s current state of mind, *Order in Decline* is also a testament to Sum 41’s ongoing evolution and maturation. Twenty years after they signed their first record deal, the band barely resembles the fun-lovin’ brats responsible for Warped Tour generation classics like “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep.” They continue to stretch their musical parameters in unexpected directions: “Catching Fire”—a song Whibley claims has been bouncing around his head for 10 years—is a stirring breakup ballad from the U2/Coldplay school of arm-swaying arena anthems. And with the acoustic-to-symphonic serenade “Never There,” Sum 41 effectively comes up with its own “Wonderwall.” But while such changes of pace may take some old-school fans by surprise, no one is more surprised by their appearance here than Whibley himself. “I didn’t write ‘Never There’ for this album,” he reveals. “I didn’t think that would ever see the light of day. I played it for our manager and said, ‘I’ve got this song, I don’t know what to do with it—do you know anyone we could give this to?’ And he was like, ‘Why would we give this away?’ I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t sound like a Sum 41 song to me, especially for this record, which is much heavier—this song is not a heavy song.’ And he said, ‘This *is* a heavy song, just in a completely different way.’”

“I think on *California*, we really had an idea of what we wanted that record to sound like and it was going back to the foundation of what blink-182 is all about,” bassist Mark Hoppus tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “\[*NINE*\] is everything that blink-182 should be in 2019.” How one reads “2019” in this particular context is a question of sonics and songwriting just as much as social mores. The world has changed a lot in the three years since the kings of pop-punk reunited—with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba in place of founding guitarist Tom DeLonge—for *California*, a wild, wheelie-popping return to form that, by definition, returned to everything that made them unlikely pop stars at the turn of the century: adolescent nursery rhymes taken to almost diabolical lengths, with lines like “There’s something about you that I can’t quite put my finger in,” as heard on the vintage 30-second outburst “Brohemian Rhapsody.” By design, *NINE* finds the trio not only dispatching with dick jokes entirely, but fully embracing modern electronics and textures—as well as beats that drummer Travis Barker had originally intended for other artists. The result resembles the pop and alt-rock of the current moment more than anything they’ve recorded until now, be it in the titanic guitar swells of “Happy Days,” the skittering rhythm of “Black Rain,” or the saturated tones of “Blame It on My Youth.” On the towering “I Really Wish I Hated You,” Hoppus even makes a subtle attempt at rapping, without any wink or trace of irony. To get to this point creatively, he says it was about letting go, “just trying to write great songs and not worrying about ‘Is this the quintessential blink guitar-heavy distorted sound?’ If you plug your guitar into a computer and it sounds great, then run with it.”

Debut album from Norway's Spielbergs.

CEREMONY make their Relapse Records debut with their highly ambitious new album, 'In the Spirit World Now'! The album sees CEREMONY at the height of their creative output, as the always-evolving Rohnert Park quintet take various influences from post punk and rock to create one of the summer's most compelling and infectious records. "In the Spirit World Now" is full of layered sonic fury and anxiety, each song building up to a point and then descending down through a militant, catchy hook. “Turn Away the Bad Thing” sets the tone, guitars climbing around the driving bass line, as Ross Farrar sings, “It’s getting harder for me to be alright/Eyes adjusting to the dark/The momentum of all these last resorts built inside of me.” Songs like “Presaging the End” and “Calming Water” feel romantic and distressed, while “Further I Was” and “Years of Love” are driven by Farrar’s rebellious energy as he repeats the hook with a deadpan realness. “Years of love can be forgotten/In the hatred of a day.” But the true stand-out is the title track, “In the Spirit World Now”, a haunting pop gem with a sticky chorus and lead synth riff that plants itself in your head as Farrar chants the track’s name over and over like a mantra. “In the Spirit World Now" is a sort of nebulous and ectoplasmic place where things may not be quite what they seem,” he says. “It means sh*t is about to get weird.” The album marks a milestone for this Northern California punk outfit who have stayed true to themselves as songwriters throughout massive sonic growth throughout their storied career.

On their eighth studio album, Sunn O))) wanted to take their signature drone metal back to its most minimalist form. During the past decade, the Stephen O’Malley- and Greg Anderson-led unit ventured into a series of collaborations—with artists ranging from Norwegian experimental collective Ulver to the late singer/composer/producer Scott Walker—before releasing 2015’s *Kannon*, which incorporated death-metal growls into their guitar assaults. For *Life Metal*, the band hired studio veteran Steve Albini—whose recordings distill a band\'s bare essence—to capture their expansive, amplified noise live to tape. “Troubled Air” is mired in their typically impenetrable feedback, though a gleaming pipe organ (arranged by Australian composer Anthony Pateras) faintly clears the darkness toward the song’s end. The lumbering “Between Sleipnir’s Breaths”—inspired by the creature from Norse mythology—plays like an orchestral piece, contrasting trenchant dissonance with Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s ghostly vocals. Simplicity is at the core of these four lengthy tracks, but those unexpected elements—and O’Malley and Anderson\'s broader palette of sounds in general—add a newfound depth to the band\'s arsenal.

96k/24bit AAD master

“What’s your mantra? What’s your look? Do you have a manifesto? What are you trying to say?” Yonaka frontwoman Theresa Jarvis is running Apple Music through the questions a fledgling (and hotly tipped) band faces. After emerging in 2016 with a glorious racket built on bulletproof riffs and Jarvis\' skyscraping vocals, the Brighton four-piece took some time to figure out the big stuff. Spin on three years and we have answers. “We want the music to help people stick up for themselves,” she says. “Life can be suffocating. I’d like people to feel inspired to ask for help if they need it, and then fucking go and get what you want. The album title has a bit of a double meaning in that way.” Here, Jarvis offers up a track-by-track guide to her band’s self-produced debut album. **“Bad Company”** “Quick fact: The track listing here is not actually the one we wanted. We were asked to send it through, then gave it an hour and listened to it again before moving it all around. But we were told it was too late as it had gone to printing! So, this is the original sequence. ‘Bad Company’ was first in both versions, though. It’s a very precious song. We open live sets with it now, and it creates a good vibe where you feel like there’s urgency there—but there’s also a release, too.” **“Lose Our Heads”** “I had been a bit on the fence about this song, while everyone else was telling me what a big tune it was. But now it’s one of my favorites. It’s about how this generation live their lives through social media rather than actually experiencing real life. People should be going out falling in love, getting into fights, and having their hearts broken. I’m guilty of it, too. I’m forever living through other people’s lives on Instagram.” **“Awake”** “This one used to be called ‘Ignorance’ and is the second song we ever wrote. We revamped it with new production and it just sounds so fresh now. It’s very cool to have one of the first things we ever wrote together on our debut album. Nothing else from the earliest days felt quite right, but this one still stays with us.” **“Guilty (For Your Love)”** “We’ve started doing this song acoustically live, as our set is very in-your-face the whole time. It’s nice to be able to show off a different side to us for three minutes. I’m so proud of us for writing a song this gorgeous.” **“Rockstar”** “So much fun to play live. It’s proper euphoric—and it’s ambitious. It conjures these old-school David Bowie otherworldly rock-star dreams for me. We had a little bit of trouble with the song, actually. I had the pre-chorus, which felt very cool, but then we couldn’t work out if I was going to sing across the chorus. We finally settled on the ‘Wo-op’ you hear now, which was quite hard for me because I’m usually constantly singing on our songs. I’m greedy. I always want to be singing.” **“Creature”** “This is about love, but in the way you don’t hear about love. When you’re younger, you only ever get told about the romance, the fairy tales, the holding hands. But that’s not it. Love is the part where you stay with someone when they’re in their lowest moments and all their demons are out. And that person stays with you and still loves you.” **“Don’t Wait ’Til Tomorrow”** “My favorite song on the album. It best distills the message we’re trying to get out there. When I was going through rough times with anxiety, I found it really helpful knowing someone else was going through the same thing. That might sound quite selfish, but it brought me comfort as I suddenly realized I wasn’t going to shrivel up and die right here on my own because I’m the only one who’s ever felt like this. I just think it’s important for people to know they’re not alone, and you should always speak up at any time. Get it off your chest. Reach out to someone.” **“Punch Bag”** “This song is all thanks to my brother’s terrible ex-girlfriend. I was on the phone to him whilst trying to write lyrics, and he was going out with this girl who was horrible—really manipulative. I was telling him sisterly things about how he deserved better and that he was being used as her punch bag. I quickly got off the phone and it came tumbling out. Thank you, next, as Ariana would say.” **“Fired Up”** “The fans seem to really love this song. It was an easy one to write, but very hard to record. I developed a very bad habit of writing really high songs for myself and then telling myself I can’t do it. But I do get it. Eventually.” **“Wake Up”** “This is basically a mash-up of all the various things that happen in my dreams. The boys in the band are utterly fed up of me insisting I recount all the crazy things I dream about. I’ve murdered so many different people in my sleep. I get very upset and think I’m going to jail and that I’ve ruined the band. You have no idea how relieved I am when I wake up. I also dream a lot about being best mates with gorillas, so God knows, to be honest.” **“The Cure”** “The middle eight is literally me having a panic attack, but in lyrics. It was the last song we wrote for the album, and it fits perfectly as the closer. Everyone’s always looking for a cure for something, aren’t they? For me, it was trying to be free of anxiety. Despite the subject matter, I feel like it’s an easy one to listen to. Our songs aren’t always ones you’d put on at any time—they’re probably ones you’d listen to to get a bit raged, or revved up. Whereas I think this is one that you can listen to in the car, calmly. It felt like a nice sound to round off the album with.”

When Jesse Leach uncorks his first full-bodied roar on “Unleashed,” the leadoff track on Killswitch Engage’s eighth album, you can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. The singer’s first real test since undergoing throat surgery in 2018, *Atonement* is a bracing tour de force for one of metalcore’s most durable and influential acts. Huge riffs buttress soaring choruses on the uplifting “Us Against the World,” the muscular rocker “I Can’t Be the Only One,” and the confessional “I Am Broken Too,” a reflective acknowledgment of Leach’s struggles with depression and a showcase for his polished croon. Supplemented by a few pinch hitters (Testament’s Chuck Billy lends his growl to “The Crownless King,” while former KsE vocalist Howard Jones trades verses with Leach on “The Signal Fire”) and the barrage of sound from guitarists Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel, *Atonement* somehow feels like a glorious return to form for a band that never lost its edge.

Building on twenty years of creating some of the most epic, emotive and inventive heavy music unleashed on the world, there is no denying that Cult Of Luna's A Dawn To Fear is a monster of a record. An album comprised of eight tracks running seventy-nine minutes, it embodies everything the band's faithful have come to expect from them while covering new ground. "We knew exactly the album we wanted to make, and that was the antithesis of everything we've done before," says vocalist/guitarist and lead songwriter Johannes Persson. "For pretty much every album there's been a very concrete theme. We've known from the start the kind of story we wanted to tell, and I didn't want that to be the case. I've seen a lot of subtle changes and patterns in my own behavior and my own thinking the last couple of years, and I wanted this to be a completely spontaneous process. I just wanted to see what came out of me, and 'A Dawn To Fear' is the result of that." From the ominous drone and hammering drums that herald the start of opener "The Silent Man" through to the collapsing crescendo of "The Fall" that ends the record, there is not a moment wasted. Since their inception, they have had a peerless capacity for being able to shift effortlessly between moods, switching from aching melancholy to sinister in an instant before bringing the sky crashing down with pulverizing riffs a moment later, doing so in a natural and unforced way and always achieving maximum impact. Their capacity for doing so has only grown greater over time, but that does not necessarily mean that songs always come together easily. "It took a very long time to write the record, but it also felt very fast, because for me, writing a song can take anything from one day to maybe a year. There's one song on there, 'Nightwalkers', which took forever to write. The main riff was written and I tried a lot of different ways of tying it together, and it took a lot of different versions to finally complete it." Persson's tactic is to keep writing every day, to push through moments when he finds himself stuck, and he admits a great deal of what he comes up with goes nowhere, while some songs came together very fast. It's a technique that works for him, and he is philosophical about it. "You need to go through that and that's hard work, and you need to drag that long rope because sooner or later there's going to be something at the end. If you don't write, you've stopped pulling that rope." He also states that once the rest of the band get involved, the whole process shifts gear. Now living far from each other, they do not have the opportunity to be in the same room very often, so they make the hours they spend together count. "We're a collective, and when I say that I mean that the band's sound is the sound of us as individual members doing what we naturally do. Having the guys in the band come in with input, we create an actual song from the ideas I've come up with very quickly because I'm lucky enough to play with a lot of talented people. There's a lot of varied instrumentation on the record and everything you hear on there is played by someone in the band, there are no guest musicians involved." Admitting he is perhaps still too close to the record to objectively describe the sound of A Dawn To Fear, Persson believes that it has a more organic feel to it, largely achieved through the use of organs and other acoustic instruments in place of electronic keyboards, and that it is perhaps a more melancholic collection. It is also arguably heavier than their last full-length, 2013's Vertikal and their 2016 collaboration with Julie Christmas, Mariner, both in terms of the sheer density of the music and its tone. Rather than discuss the subject matter of the songs, Persson prefers to leave them open to interpretation, and like the music, lyric-writing takes a great deal of application. "Sometimes it takes a long time for me to write lyrics - it takes a very long time - but then there was one song I needed lyrics for when we were going to do a demo version, and I wrote them in an hour or so and knew exactly what I wanted to write about. But most of it, it's things that come to me and it forms an idea and gets its own rhythm. Usually I evaluate what I need for a song that's otherwise written and write to fit that need. I've done that on some songs here, but I've allowed myself to go wherever my mind takes me." When it came to tracking the album, the band opted to work at Ocean Sound Recordings in Norway, which, as the name suggests, is located right by the coast, far from the nearest town. For eleven days the band lived at the studio, and enjoyed the process of constructing the record. "We all produced it like we always do, and I will say I don't think we've ever had this relaxed an atmosphere in the band. We've grown, and everybody is okay with their different roles. We had two different stations so we could record bass in one room and guitar in another room simultaneously. Then Andreas could take a break and Kristian could record keyboards in that room, and I'd track vocals in the other. It was very organic and nice, and I had some quality time with my friends, and I'm really glad that we did that. I can't recommend that studio enough if you want to have a very special experience." With the finished product running to the length of a double CD, there was some discussion of cutting a track, but this did not get far. "We sat down and looked at that song list and we couldn't. It would make it easier for us and everyone involved to cut one song, making it no problem when it comes to LPs and CDs, but we just couldn't see the album any other way. These songs are the songs that make sense. If we cut this song or that song, it would screw up the whole dynamic of the record." The band will of course be touring A Dawn To Fear, though they have never had a punishing touring regimen and have no intention to change the way they operate at this point. "We're not a band who will be out there for months and months and months, that's not what we have been and not what we are going to be. I don't want to tour the passion away, and I think one of the reasons we've been able to do this for such a long time is that we haven't toured that much. The day where I think touring isn't fun or playing live isn't fun will be the day I stop writing music, and right now I just want to continue writing good music and being friends with these guys."

After gaining notoriety with their 2014 cover of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” I Prevail made it clear early on that they’re not your typical metalcore band. This follow-up to 2016\'s debut LP *Lifelines* pushes the extremes of their sound further, often within the same song: Witness “DOA,” an amalgam of crushing riffing, pop production techniques, and wild synths. “Goodbye” floats on skittering electronic beats, and “Rise Above It” incorporates dubstep and guest vocals from Ohio hip-hop artist Justin Stone, contrasting with the thundering riffing, brutal metalcore breakdowns, and tortured vocals of co-vocalist Eric Vanlerberghe in “Bow Down.” *TRAUMA* is aptly named given that Brian Burkheiser, who handles all the “clean” vocals, was diagnosed with a vocal polyp in 2017 and contemplated leaving the band before mounting a full recovery from surgery. The episode compounded his existing battles with depression, as essayed in songs such as “Low” (“Even when I’m high I still feel low”) and “Breaking Down,” which concludes with Burkheiser whispering, “I don’t really like myself.”

With their second album, Arizona death metal squad Gatecreeper would like to coin a phrase: Stadium death metal. “Our goal has always been to write catchy songs,” Gatecreeper vocalist and co-songwriter Chase Mason tells Apple Music. Like its 2016 predecessor, *Sonoran Depravation*, *Deserted* sees Mason taking lyrical inspiration from the blast-furnace temperatures and arid landscape of the band’s home state while indulging in some handy double meanings. Musically, he and guitarist and co-songwriter Eric Wagner take cues from Swedish death metal masters like Entombed and Dismember while incorporating unlikely sludge and funeral doom influences. Here Mason takes us track by track through *Deserted*. **Deserted** “I wrote this song with the purpose of it being the intro track. It’s got a D-beat-type chorus on it, which is something we\'ve never done before; usually we\'re doing verses faster and then the chorus slows down a little bit. This is the opposite. And there’s a riff on there I was jokingly calling ‘the Papa Roach riff’—for some reason, it reminds me of their song ‘Last Resort.’ And for the first time in any Gatecreeper song, it has two guitar solos trading off. Nate \[Garrett\] does a solo and then Eric does a solo. The lyrics and title are pretty literal—about the end of mankind and apocalyptic sorts of themes.” **Puncture Wounds** “This is a song that started out as an Eric song and then it kind of became a collaboration. It has a cool dive-bomb intro, a very Slayer sort of thing. I wanted to try to incorporate some Freddy Madball into the vocal performance, so it’s a hardcore-influenced chorus. And then the second half is very Dismember *Massive Killing Capacity* with a super Iron Maiden harmonized lead, which I think is cool. When we were writing it, we thought, ‘This is the circle pit song.’ Lyrically, it’s a more of a traditional horror/violence Cannibal Corpse kind of thing. It’s basically just about stabbing somebody.” **From the Ashes** “This is another mostly-Eric banger. It’s definitely more melodic for us. I know it’s influenced by Amon Amarth and bands like that, so we went full melodic on a lot of the parts—way more than we usually do. For the lyrics, it’s sort of motivational: It’s about overcoming difficulties, getting rid of things that are holding you back and facing your fears head-on. So I think that’s something people could relate to.” **Ruthless** “For this one, I tried to write the most simple song that I could. Riff-wise, I wanted to use as few frets as possible and see what I came up with. So it’s super Obituary- and Celtic Frost-influenced. There’s also some different kind of Motörhead double-bass beats on there. The part at the end is like the push-pit part, where people are going to take their shirts off and push each other around. It’s fun to write songs with that in mind. Lyrically, I’d say this is the dirt-doer’s anthem. It’s about committing crimes, basically—just not giving a fuck and doing what you want.” **Everlasting** “This was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. The stuff I write tends to be kind of more murky, atonal death metal stuff, so this one was definitely influenced by that—and a lot of Finnish death metal. I do this kind of black-metal yell in the middle of the song, which is something I’ve never done before. I just tried it in the studio and everyone was like, ‘Yeah, we gotta keep that!’ And then it has a part at the end that’s like a New York death metal slam part. The lyrics are about a higher power or some sort of supreme force—something that’s bigger than me and you—but it’s intentionally vague.” **Barbaric Pleasures** “This is an Eric song. It’s very catchy, very Carcass/Dismember-influenced. To me, it’s almost kind of poppy-sounding at times while still being death metal. It has a kind of groove to it, and I think it\'s a really cool song. On our last album, I did a death metal love song, ‘Rotting as One,’ so I wanted to keep that theme going lyrically. But this isn’t necessarily a love song—the lyrics are just about fucking, I guess. It’s a very horny song. It’s like a cool, obscene version of a love song.” **Sweltering Madness** “We initially released this song as a single \[in 2017\], and then re-recorded it for this record. It’s not too much different than the original, but I think the vocals are a little bit different—not lyrically, but performance-wise, because I think I’ve improved since the last time we recorded it. Lyrically, it has a typical Gatecreeper heat and desert sort of theme. It’s about having the heat boil your brains to the point where you go insane and lose control. It’s kind of a desert anthem.” **Boiled Over** “Eric mostly wrote this one, but we collaborated on it and it’s definitely got a Bolt Thrower influence. It just sounds like a tank rolling towards you. Then, in the bridge part, it kinda sounds like Crowbar. We wanted to incorporate that into the death metal formula, which I don’t think a lot of bands are doing. This song could also be interpreted as having a desert theme, but what I was really going for in the lyrics was more of the idea of being angry or resentful and letting it boil over until you explode—or like a fire inside that eventually burns you to death.” **In Chains** “This is another song that Eric came up with the idea for, but then we collaborated. I want to say it almost has some Six Feet Under or Jungle Rot influence, as far as the verses. The chorus has some cool melodies, but it’s not *too* melodic. Vocally, I tried to do the Cannibal Corpse, more traditional death metal sort of style. And then Eric actually helped me write some of the lyrics. He sent me an article about that sex cult that the girl from *Smallville* was in—NXIVM, I think it’s called. So the song is about this idea about the leader of a sex cult branding the members and having them almost as slaves.” **Absence of Light** “Eric came up with the first riff for this, and I thought it sounded really sad. I’d been wanting to do a slower death/doom sort of song to end the record—the same way we did on the last one. So I took what he had and wrote the rest of it. It’s basically funeral doom, but in the Gatecreeper style. It’s slower than what we usually do, and there’s a part in there with a three-part guitar harmony, which we’ve never done before. There’s also a little bit of keyboards in there that Nate played. The lyrics I think are on par with the music—I just wrote about depression and suicide. I thought it was fitting to have the album end with a funeral.”

GATECREEPER return with their highly anticipated new album Deserted. The new album, a furious mix of snarling guitars and driving, rhythmic pummeling takes death metal from its 80's Floridian roots and 90's Swedish expansion straight into the here and now. In fact, the vanguard of death metal in 2019 can be found under Arizona’s searing sun. That’s where GATECREEPER members—Chase Mason, guitarist Eric Wagner, bassist Sean Mears, drummer Matt Arrebollo and guitarist Nate Garrett—make their homes. Of course, the band nodded to their scorching home state with the title of their 2016 full-length debut, Sonoran Depravation. The theme continues on Deserted, which boasts songs like “Sweltering Madness,” “Boiled Over” and the double-meaning title track. You can hear the results on “From The Ashes,” a crushing cut primed for the European festival circuit. Over on side two, “Boiled Over” fuses classic BOLT THROWER with the pulverizing power grooves of sludge titans CROWBAR. Album closer “Absence Of Light” upholds GATECREEPER's tradition of finishing their records with a deathly doom dirge. Deserted was recorded at Homewrecker Studios in Tucson, where GATECREEPER co-produced the album with engineer Ryan Bram. CONVERGE guitarist Kurt Ballou handled the mix at Godcity in Salem, MA, and Brad Boatright mastered the album at Audiosiege in Portland, OR. Deserted’s hallucinatory cover art was created by Brad Moore (TOMB MOLD, MORPHEUS DESCENDS, and more.)

Back when he was fronting alt-rock demigods Jane’s Addiction, Perry Farrell’s dreadlocks, tattoos, and nose ring couldn’t distract you from the fact that he possessed the soul of an old-school circus ringmaster. And for his first solo release in 18 years, Farrell has built himself the sideshow of his wildest fantasies, in both the musical and literal senses. Featuring an all-star guest list that includes Foo Fighter Taylor Hawkins, Dhani Harrison, and The Cars’ Elliot Easton, *Kind Heaven* isn’t so much an album as a soundtrack preview of the interactive experience Farrell is launching in Las Vegas in 2020. Fittingly, listening to the album feels like wandering through discrete rooms with radically different decor but equally deviant delights: Where the joyful jangle of “(red, white, and blue) Cheerfulness” outfits *Kind Heaven* with its own Monkees-esque opening jingle, Farrell soon lures you into smoky jazz-bar (“Snakes Have Many Hips”) and sleazy EDM (“Spend the Body,” a libidinous duet with his wife Etty). But as much as *Kind Heaven* seeks to transport you to alternate realities, it doesn’t ignore the one we’re living in: The metallic groover “Pirate Punk Politician” and the string-swept spiritual “Let’s All Pray for This World” find Farrell responding to the times with rage and hope, respectively.

RELEASE DATE: 1st February 2019

15 years into their career, TORCHE have established themselves as a cornerstone of American heavy rock. Their highly anticipated new album, Admission, sees the band expanding on the themes and songwriting prowess that have always reverberated with music fans throughout their critically acclaimed discography. Everything about Admission feels like an elevation. TORCHE's guitar work is loaded with powerful, refreshing riffing and an array of profound textures, proving to be more versatile and crushing than ever before. The band's unforgettable vocal harmonies are met with hook-driven, pop sensibilities that propel the music to new heights. Track such as "Slide", "Times Missing", and the monumental title track see TORCHE hone in on these very elements to create one of 2019's most captivating albums. Admission is a triumph, as it launches TORCHE forward into the next chapter of their already inimitable career.