September is upon us, and with it the ultimate three months of 2025! We have had a wholesome trickle of new releases in current months with the likes of Deftones, Turnstile and Babymetal all dropping new albums over the summer season, however we’re removed from achieved. There’s nonetheless new albums from Creeper, Avatar, Sabaton and extra to come back earlier than the tip of 2025, and that is to say nothing of emergent expertise.
Talking of! A lot as we did final month, we’re again with one other round-up of good new expertise from the world of rock, punk and metallic that it is best to take a look at. Whether or not it is the hardcore/dying metallic fusion of Kentucky’s Gates To Hell, shimmering synths of The Defect, Welsh riffers King Kraken, London-Hastings crossover thrashers Inhuman Nature or the nu metallic meets shoegaze of Cut up Chain, we have got a various choice so that you can get your ears round.
So stick ’em up, crank the amount up and have a improbable finish to the summer season!
Gates To Hell
Gates To Hell made fairly the impression with their self-titled debut in 2022. Their frenetic mixture of old-school dying metallic and stomping hardcore proved to be a potent mixture that elevated them from taking part in the small membership circuit of their native Kentucky to just lately supporting Kublai Khan on sold-out European and UK runs.
“We’ve been used to taking part in DIY reveals in entrance of about 50 folks, so to go from that to venues with over 1,000 capability was an insane step up,” explains guitarist and principal songwriter Seth Lewis. “We had been additionally the one dying metallic band on the line-up, so to see crowds going nuts and having fun with our music was superb.”
Their current additions – guitarist Eli Hanson and drummer Trey Garris (brother of Knocked Free frontman Bryan) – solidified Gates To Hell’s ranks, they usually’ve recorded a brand new album, Demise Comes To All: 20 minutes of unrelenting brutality designed to propel them into the highlight.
“This was the primary time we sat down as a band and had a drummer write and flesh out their very own elements, which we expect made an enormous distinction,” admits Seth. “With the ability to work with Randy LeBoeuf at Graphic Nature Audio additionally helped us really feel much more locked in.”
Impressed by myriad sources resembling Waking The Cadaver, Enemy Thoughts and Machine Head, Gates To Hell put on their influences on their collective sleeves.
“We might all the time meet up and go to reveals, so the hardcore scene turned very acquainted to us,” says Seth. “Eli introduced loads of concepts to the desk for the brand new album too, so meshing our kinds collectively assisted within the development of our sound. We would like folks to listen to us and assume, ‘Shit, this band goes exhausting!’” Dan McHugh
Demise Comes To All is out now by way of Nuclear Blast. Gates To Hell play Louder Than Life and New England Steel & Hardcore competition in September and tour the US from September 24. For the total record of dates, go to their official web site. The band additionally tour the UK with Sanguisugabogg, Celestial Sanctuary & Fulci in February 2026.
Sounds Like: An explosive mix of dying metallic and hardcore summoned straight from the Underworld
For Followers Of: Gatecreeper, Frozen Soul, Vomit Forth Pay attention To: Subsequent To Bleed
The Defect
Simply 18 months in the past, Moon McBee was a chef. Now, alongside her husband Jonny and drummer Brandon Funera (each members of electronicore outfit The Browning), she’s launched an album together with her industrial metallic band, The Defect, and toured the US.
Shaped final yr as Demise X Future – a reputation that’s been given to their debut album – The Defect had been born of Jonny’s want to separate The Browning’s heavier tracks from the extra melodic, synth-led music the band had dabbled in. As a debutant vocalist, Moon not solely needed to learn to sing, but additionally easy methods to turn out to be knowledgeable musician.
“Apart from singing within the automotive, I haven’t achieved shit,” Moon admits with amusing. “I really feel like true musicians hear music in layers they usually hear totally different points of the music, whereas the typical shopper – which is what I got here into this as – hears it as an entire, so I’ve been having to learn to hear totally different elements. It’s been type of loads.”
On the trio’s debut album, Demise X Future, shimmering synths dance and intermingle with Moon’s alluring vocals, solely to offer method to pounding riffs, guttural howls from Jonny and artillery-like drums. It’s an album of untamed extremes, undulating restlessly throughout 10 tracks. Songs like Damaged Minds and A Method Out are the yin to the yang of Immortal and Dreamwalker, highlighting The Defect’s skill to steadiness ethereal lightness with crushing darkness respectively.
However though the file was put collectively over the previous yr, The Defect aren’t taking it simpler now they’re established.
“I don’t know what number of beans I can spill but, however large issues are coming,” Moon teases. “Excursions and festivals, some out of US stuff… Folks can be joyful.” Jack Terry
Demise X Future is out now by way of Fixt.
Sounds Like: Androids dreaming of electrical sheep – with added neon
For Followers Of: The Browning, 9 Inch Nails, I See Stars
Pay attention To: Dreamwalker
King Kraken
“We used to rehearse in a music store, however we received kicked out for being too loud,” laughs King Kraken singer Mark Donoghue. “I believe that’s a promising signal.”
King Kraken usually are not a timid bunch. They’re a window-shaking, chest-thumping, riff-heavy metallic band and, for Mark, they’re a possibility to forge a brand new profession. He’s received many years of singing expertise, however apart from a quick stint in an obscure rap metallic group known as Blackfly, he’s primarily carried out in cowl bands. With King Kraken, he can play his personal songs and, this time, there’s not a turntable scratch or outsized pair of denims in sight.
The brand new King Kraken album, March Of The Gods, showcases this superbly. It’s a group of anthems steeped in heavy metallic custom however beefed up with trendy manufacturing. King Kraken have roots in stoner metallic however possess a vitality that their extra bleary-eyed contemporaries lack.
There are bowel-loosening basslines, chunky energy chords, and sufficient swagger to make this an important gymnasium soundtrack for traditional metallic devotees. There’s a stunning quantity of variation within the lyrics, too. Berserker is an efficient outdated Vikings-on-a-rampage rabble-rouser, however on the different finish of the spectrum there’s Hero, a tearjerking tribute to Mark’s father.
King Kraken have an emotional depth that stems from the information that life gained’t final eternally.
“The older you get, you go to much less christenings and extra funerals,” Mark admits.
However this fatalistic outlook has a constructive facet. Recognising that point was passing, he realised he wished to throw his power into King Kraken and, lastly, on the tender age of 52, it’s all coming collectively.
“Should you instructed 20-year-old-me, ‘You’re going to play Stone Useless, you’re going to play Bloodstock…’ I might have mentioned, ‘You’re joking!’ It is a dream, and it’s completely insane. Tim Bolitho-Jones
March Of The Gods is out now. King Kraken assist Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons in Pontypridd and Narbeth in October.
Sounds Like: Axe-swinging, riff-heavy, large refrain thunder metallic
For Followers Of: Clutch, Grand Magus, Metallica
Pay attention To: Berserker
Inhuman Nature
A denim-clad, Snake Plissken-like street warrior slays the Grim Reaper with an enormous sword amid a Streets of Rage-style city riot on the quilt of Higher Than Demise, the second album from UK thrashers Inhuman Nature.
It’s truthful to say the band’s tongues are planted firmly in-cheek. However like thrash forebears Nuclear Assault, the London-Hastings five-piece have critical undertones too, with themes on the ferocious 30-minute file masking animal rights, Palestine, and the fascist risk.
“Should you don’t chortle, you’ll cry,” says vocalist Chris Barling. On toeing that line between social ills and outrageous thrashing, Chris is eager to level out their music is enjoyable: “Servants of Annihilation — it is silly!” He says “I wished to write down a dumb-but-good track that is similar to: ‘Fuck yeah, we’re on tour.’”
Balancing mosh-friendly beer-soaked zeal with intricate musicianship and social consciousness, IN comply with within the stomping boot-steps of bands like Energy Journey and Drain. Whereas crossover often hews within the path of high-energy hardcore or throwback thrash, Inhuman Nature dump their many influences – from dying to D-beat – in your head like a vat of acid.
They’ve been round since 2017 and launched their self-titled debut in 2019, however discovered themselves saved from the studio for practically 5 years due to tour affords with everybody from NY legends Cro-Mags to sludge pioneers Crowbar.
“It’s served us in the long term,” says bassist Daragh Markham. “Once we received to the studio, we had been so tight with one another, the influences actually coalesced – we’re assured and forceful now.”
Forceful is about proper. Album opener, Daybreak Of Inhuman Man, blasts out the gate with high-tempo violence. But each pitch and vibes shift instantly on Possessed To Die, with occasional squealing guitars and a lick that’s pure 80s Testomony. It’s chaotic, apocalyptic arse-kicking from starting to finish, worthy of the death-smashing mutant on the quilt. Tamlin Magee
Higher Than Demise is out now by way of Church Street
Sounds Like: A Submit-Armageddon pint-spilling circle pit
For Followers Of: Energy Journey, Morbid Saint, Nuclear Assault
Pay attention To: Possessed to Die
![Inhuman Nature - Possessed To Die [Official stream] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/LTsTfGZnA0s/maxresdefault.jpg)
Cut up Chain
Bristolian ‘nu gaze’ quintet Cut up Chain shaped in 2023, when bassist Tom Davies was getting sober and located that he had way more free time on his palms than he was comfy with.
“Bert [Martinez-Cowles, vocalist] being the mate that he’s, determined he was going to assist me via it,” Tom remembers. “Bert and I had been simply watching skate movies, listening to music, and we determined to write down a Superheaven track for enjoyable. We wrote the 2 demos for Get Inside and Future and thought, ‘Fuck, that is really actually good!’”
Lyrically, their songs are deeply private. “I’m Not Dying To Be Right here is about coping with household, and being at such a poisonous and horrible level,” Bert says. “The purpose of the track is that I’m not going to place myself via a lot to remain on this household… Do what it is advisable do to not be in dangerous locations.”
With its hazy bounce, I’m Not Dying… can be proper at dwelling on the Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater soundtrack, whereas Future injects extra nu metallic into washes of guitar. With their shimmering guitars and laconic vocals, Cut up Chain’s most blatant affect is undeniably Deftones, however there’s a definite grunge affect underpinning their music, and a canopy of Sort O Unfavorable’s I Don’t Wanna Be Me reveals a love for wider cultural touchpoints of the 90s.
Following their preliminary clutch of singles, they’ve inked a cope with Epitaph Data for his or her debut album Motionblur, a file they describe as a “coming of age story”. Beginning as a means to assist a good friend keep sober, Cut up Chain have grown right into a ardour venture and homage to the end-of-the-century music and tradition they love. Will Marshall
Motionblur is out now by way of Epitaph. Cut up Chain tour the US with Thrown and 156/Silence from September 23 and assist Landmvrks at The Roundhouse in London on December 7. For the total record of upcoming tour dates, go to their official web site.
Sounds Like: Booting up the PlayStation and being sucked into Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater
For Followers Of: Superheaven, Deftones, Detest
Pay attention To: I’m Not Dying To Be Right here
