Das Kulturzentrum BACKSTAGE MÜNCHEN ist mit seinen drei Indoor-Hallen und einer überdachten Open-Air-Bühne nicht zuletzt für Rock- und Metalheads ein beliebtes Anlaufziel in der bayerischen Landeshauptstadt.

Welche Bands und Künstler:innen sich für Januar und Februar 2026 angekündigt haben, haben wir im Folgenden zusammengefasst.

Tickets für die jeweiligen Shows gibt es u.a. über die offizielle Homepage der Location.

Backstage München – Konzerte im Januar 2026

02.01.2025 – ELLENDE, KARG, FIRTAN (Halle)
03.01.2025 – ZELTINGER BAND (Club)
12.01.2025 – PATRIARKH, ARKONA, HATE, HALLS OF OBLIVION, SANITY (Halle)
12.01.2025 – THE 502S, ROSE BETTS (Werk)
14.01.2025 – RAIN CITY DRIVE, HONEY REVENGE, BELMONT (Halle)
15.01.2025 – LIONHEART, MADBALL, GIDEON, SLOPE (Werk)
16.01.2025 – CASINO BLACKOUT, PETER AUS DER MOZARTSTRASSE (Club)
17.01.2025 – SCHREYNER (Club)
17.01.2025 – ZSK, ROGERS, RUMKICKS (Werk)
17.01.2025 – ZSK Kinderkonzert (Werk)
18.01.2025 – KNORKATOR (Werk)
19.01.2025 – TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET, DEE CRACKS (Club)
20.01.2025 – BEYOND THE BLACK, SETYOURSAILS, SERAINA TELLI (TonHalle)
22.01.2025 – TRANSMISSION – The Sound Of Joy Division (Club)
22.01.2025 – ERDLING, AEVERIUM (Halle)
23.01.2025 – BORN OF OSIRIS, WITHIN DESTRUCTION, AVERSIONS CROWN, LARCENIA ROE (Halle)
24.01.2025 – VAENTIS, ARTEMIS RISING, DISHONOR (Club)
24.01.2025 – MARATHONMANN, FORMEN (Halle)
24.01.2025 – TBS, CALLEJON, MITTEL ALTA (TonHalle)
24.01.2025 – DJANGO 3000 (Werk)
25.01.2025 – RESOLVE, WINDWAKER, ASHEN, TROPIC GOLD (Halle)
25.01.2025 – JULIA KAUTZ (Club)
26.01.2025 – MIKE MASSÉ (Club)
27.01.2025 – DEVIL MAY CARE, OCEANDVST (Club)
27.01.2025 – ENSIFERUM, FREEDOM CALL, DRAGONY (Werk)
27.01.2025 – PALEFACE SWISS, STICK TO YOUR GUNS, STATIC DRESS (TonHalle)
28.01.2025 – WARRIOR SOUL (Club)
28.01.2025 – NANOWAR OF STEEL, UUHAI (Halle)
29.01.2025 – MILITARIE GUN, SPITE HOUSE (Club)
29.01.2025 – SYLOSIS, REVOCATION, DISTANT, LIFE CYCLES (Halle)
30.01.2025 – ELWOOD STRAY, OUR MIRAGE, IMPVLSE (Halle)
31.01.2025 – LOS FASTIDIOS, LE IENE, MCBAIN, RICCOBELLIS (Club)
31.01.2025 – SYML, BER (Werk)
31.01.2025 – LORNA SHORE, WHITECHAPEL, SHADOW OF INTENT, HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH (Zenith)

Backstage München – Konzerte im Februar 2026

01.02.2025 – KORPIKLAANI, FINNTROLL, HEIDEVOLK, TROLLFEST, THE DEAD CREW OF OFFWOOD (Werk)
01.02.2025 – DANNY BRYANT (Club)
01.02.2025 – BURNING WITCHES, HAMMER KING (Halle)
03.02.2025 – JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR (Werk)
03.02.2025 – BASS DRUM OF DEATH (Halle)
05.02.2025 – OHRENFEINDT (Halle)
06.02.2025 – KOMA AMED (Werk)
06.02.2025 – CRYPTOPSY, 200 STAB WOUNDS, INFERI, CORPSE PILE (Halle)
06.02.2025 – GÖTZ WIDMANN (Club)
07.02.2025 – FIGHTER V, SNAKEBITE (Club)
07.02.2025 – IGORRR (Werk)
08.02.2025 – ONSLAUGHT, PERSECUTOR (Club)
09.02.2025 – MICHAEL MARCAGI (Werk)
10.02.2025 – ROMES (Club)
11.02.2025 – NAPALM DEATH, WHIPLASH, VARUKERS, DOPELORD (Werk)
12.02.2025 – FALSCHGELD (Club)
12.02.2025 – WIZO, NORMAHL (Werk)
13.02.2025 – Emergenza Bandcontest (Club)
13.02.2025 – WIZO, BUTTERWEGGE (Werk)
14.02.2025 – DYMYTRY PARADOX, SPACE OF VARIATIONS (Halle)
15.02.2025 – SHIMMER (Club)
16.02.2025 – WSTR, CF98 (Club)
19.02.2025 – AGNOSTIC FRONT, WISDOM IN CHAINS, RAW BRIGADE (Werk)
19.02.2025 – GLEN MATLOCK (Halle)
20.02.2025 – NITROGODS, DUST & BONES (Club)
20.02.2025 – OMNIUM GATHERUM, FALLUJAH, IN MOURNING (Halle)
21.02.2025 – HÄXENZIJRKELL, VORAGO, ANHEIM (Club)
21.02.2025 – SANGUISUGABOGG, FULCI, GATES TO HELL, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY (Halle)
21.02.2025 – ONE STEP CLOSER (A Tribute To LINKIN PARK) (Werk)
24.02.2025 – HOT MULLIGAN, DELTA SLEEP (Werk)
24.02.2025 – BUZZCOCKS (Halle)
25.02.2025 – LA DISPUTE, VS. SELF, PIJN (Werk)
26.02.2025 – STESY, KNG, CAUGHT IN A MIRROR (Club)
26.02.2025 – Symphonic Tribute To Metallica (Halle)
27.02.2025 – HECKSPOILER (Club)
27.02.2025 – SMITH/KOTZEN, KRIS BARRAS BAND (Werk)
27.02.2025 – DIORAMA, SKUPPIN (Halle)
28.02.2025 – WARKINGS, VISIONS OF ATLANTIS, INDUCTION (Werk)

Source: Vampster

For many, T.O.Y. will forever be associated with Evil’s Toy, but that was a long...

Source: Side Line

When founders Paul Jamrozy and Gray Cunnington formed Test Department in the early 80s, they...

Source: Side Line

Dieses Jahr war musikalisch für mich persönlich einfach großartig.
Auf der anderen Seite, sind ziemlich viele Musiker gestorben, deren Tod mich berührt hat.
Die aktuellen Veröffentlichungen kommen in der Reihenfolge, in der sie bei mir aufgeschlagen sind. Dass muss nicht unbedingt mit den VÖs übereinstimmen.
Wer Spotify nutzt und Interesse hat, kann sich meine Jahresplaylist anhören:

PLAYLIST HIER

Veröffentlichungen 2025

Grave Digger – Bone Collector
ist direkt auf mein meist gehörtes Grave Digger Album seit lastfm geschossen
(Review hier)

Svrm – Скорбота
Killswitch Engage – This Consequence
Durchmarsch auf meistgehörtes Killswitch Album seit lastfm
(Review hier)Adalwolf – Wolfsland Pt.II
(Review hier)
I.L.L. Will und Marek Klippendichter – Dem Mensch Ein Mensch
geile Texte zu einem der besten deutschen Produzenten im Hip-Hop
Landmvrks – The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been
übertrifft den Vorgänger um einigesFatoni, Edgar Wasser, Juse Ju – BAWRS
superguter politischer deutscher Hip-HopParadise Slaves – With Hell In His Eyes
ist in die top10 lastfm alltime Alben geschnellt
(Review hier)
Putridity – Morbid Ataraxia
endlich wieder ein geiles Album der Italiener
Empillarist – Pale River, Ghost Reflection
Black Metal aus Chile, dieses Jahr gegründet und ein super Debüt hingelegt
Animal Man Machine – Burning The Nest Of Humanity
Black Metal aus Griechenland
Deftones – Private Music
1 Woche lang völlig überrascht fast nichts anderes gehört
ist in die alltime top10 lastfm Alben geschnellt
Paradise Lost – Ascension
völlig unbemerkt auf Platz 2 meiner lastfm Top-PL-Alben gezischt
Zwischenlichten – Leidgeboren
hat mich voll gepackt, mega Herbstscheibe
(Review hier)
Biohazard – Divided We Fall
die letztes Jahr noch für umöglich gehaltene Comabackscheibe
(Review hier)
Conjurer – Unself
Der Vorgänger gehörte zu meinen 2 Scheiben des Jahres 2022Thromos – Entkörperung
Black Metal aus Deutschland
(Review hier)
Ulver – Neverland

Verstorben in 2025:
Brian Wilson
(der musikalische Kopf hinter den Beach Boys)
Ozzy
Nisse
(Sänger von Sacramentum. Nahm sich das Leben, da er seine psychische Erkrankung nicht mehr ertragen hat.)
Brent Hinds
(ehemaliger Gitarrist von Mastodon. Starb bei einem Verkehrsunfall mit seinem Motorrad aufgrund überhöhter Geschwindigkeit.)
Tompa
Ace Frehley
Sam Rivers
(Bassist von Limp Bizkit)
Klaus Doldinger
(hat u.a. die Titelmelodie für den Tatort geschrieben.)

Und für mich am berührendsten, auch wenn ich es erst an Neujahr
erfahren habe ist der Tod von
Terry Reid
Der unglaublich gute Gitarrist und Sänger der, Ende der ´60er ablehnte Sänger der neu gegründeten Led Zeppelin zu werden, da er als Solokünstler im Vorprogramm der Rolling Stones gebucht war und im selben Jahr ablehnte bei Deep Purple einzusteigen.
1976 nahm er ein großartiges Album auf, „Seed Of Memory“, welches leider floppte.
Ich liebe diese Scheibe!
Der großartige Joe Bonnamassa ist auch großer Fan von ihm, er hat sogar eine von seinen Gitarren im Besitz!

Sommerscheibe 2025:
Drop It First – Fundamentals
Immer im Sommer brauche ich ein melodische
Gute-Laune-Scheibe aus dem Bereich
Punk/Hardcore!

Alben des Jahres

Dieses Jahre konnte ich mich wieder nicht auf ein Album beschränken
Was mich selbst völlig überrascht hat, alles kam aus dem
Metalcore/Nu Metal-Bereich
Und 2 der Bands habe ich dann auch dieses Jahr auf ihrer Tour erwischt

Deftones – Private Music
Landmvrks – The Darkest Place I´ve Ever Been
Paradise Slaves – With Hell In His Eyes
Killswitch Engage – This Consequence

Konzerte:

Napalm Death 07.02.2025 Zollhaus Leer
(Konzertbericht hier)

Eyehategod 30.05.2025 Amadeus Oldenburg

Cradle Of Filth 16.07.2025 Modernes Bremen
(Konzertbericht hier)

High Spirits 30.09.2025 Amadeus Oldenburg
(Konzertbericht hier)

Captain Planet 02.10.2025 Zollhaus Leer
(Konzertbericht hier)

Killswitch Engage 27.11.2025 Sporthalle Hamburg
(Konzertbericht hier)

Landmvrks 18.12.2025 Inselpark Arena Hamburg

Festivals:

Acherontic Arts (Raphael und ich waren am Samstag für Nagelfar da)

Party.San (Festivalbericht hier)

Streaming:

Sky:
White House Plumbers (lustige Serie über den Watergate Skandal mit Woddy Harrelson)
Kinder Des Zorns (Neuverfilmung der Kurzgeschichte von Stephen King)

Prime:
Die Farbe aus dem All (eine Verfilmung von 2020 der Geschichte von H.P.Lovecraft mit Nicolas Cage)
Reacher

Netflix:
Zero Day (Miniserie mit Robert De Niro / Terrorangriff auf USA)
American Primeval (6-teilige Serie im wilden Westen)
Die Glaskuppel (6-teilige schwedische Thrillerserie um Kindesentführung)
4 Blocks
Untamed
Monster: Die Geschichte von Ed Gein

arte Mediathek:
Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck
Everyone Is Fucking Crazy
World White Hate

Physisch:
Arlington Road
Alien
Aliens
Alien³
Alien: Ressurection
Prometheus – Dunkle Zeichen
Alien: Covenant
Alien Romulus

Podcast:
Becoming The Beatles – Die Hamburger Jahre
Iron East – Heavy Metal Im Osten
RadioWissen
11km
Secta

PS3:
Lego Batman 2 – DC Super Heroes
(habe Anfang des Jahres die 100% voll gemacht.)
Lego Marvel Super Heroes
(mit dem Kleinen Ende des Jahres begonnen)

Source: Amboss-Mag.de

Do you already know our new “Gothic Metal World” playlist on Spotify? It contains international highlights in the field of gothic metal such as Amaranth, Paradise Lost, Cradle of Filth, Type O Negative, Lacuna Coil, Lacrimosa and Samsas Traum. Let yourself be seduced by the dark, harmonious soundscape.

Source: Orkus

Grief arrives like a signal from deep space: ancient, delayed, undeniable. It tells us that something once luminous has moved and transformed beyond our immediate sight. In our solitude we imagine ourselves isolated points, adrift in the dark, yet every atom of us was forged in shared fires. Memory, love, and voice persist the way starlight does: long after the source has changed. The pain comes from the mismatch between what we feel and what is true. We sense connection, but cannot fully see it. Loneliness, then, is not proof of separation, but evidence of a bond too vast for our small perspective.

SRSQ (pronounced “seer skew”) returns with a ballad that moves at the speed of breath and bruise. Kennedy Ashlyn sings as if standing inside a familiar room, each phrase carried with care, each silence allowed its weight. Allen Daniel’s drums keep a patient watch, marking time while memory moves freely. At the center is Cash: Ashlyn’s best friend, gone since 2016, whose presence arrives as guidance as Ashlyn charts a course through turbulent waters. The song gathers loss by accretion: moments pressed together, love grown heavy, endurance learned the hard way. A remembered voice cuts through excess and despair, offering instruction simple enough to save a life.

“I didn’t plan to get this candid about the creation of and meaning behind this song, but recent events in my personal life have compelled me to open up a bit and share some honesty behind the lyrics,” admits Ashlyn. “I wrote this song on the edge of a pretty dark place, a place where I lived for many years, and still find myself in from time to time. I was living alone for the first time in my life in the house that I grew up in, fresh out of a nearly eight-year relationship, drinking tequila and Gatorade and banging my head against writer’s block. I had just come out of a(nother) great wave of loss (and loss, and loss) and was stumbling around in the grey ache of grief — again. Grappling with existential loneliness — again. A feeling so familiar that it sometimes feels like I was forged in it. I went to pour myself another tall glass of mostly tequila, when I suddenly heard my best friend’s voice in my ear: “Drink water.” …hearing her voice so clearly brought me to my knees. But in that brief moment of lucidity, I was reminded that she is still with me and that we are never really alone.”

The song hits hard, particularly during the holidays, when feelings of grief well up with memories of their lives. The theme behind Born Alone, Die Alone, as the title suggests, is a heavy one – but not without hope. Perhaps everything we assume to understand about the inner workings of the cosmos is merely the tip of the iceberg.

“I believe that what makes the human experience particularly difficult is our limited awareness of how connected we truly are,” Ashlyn continues. “From our perspective of being a human on this earth, we can’t understand, but I think deep down we “know”? and that dissonance is what causes us so much grief and suffering. The illusion of alone-ness is the curse of the human condition. I continue to grapple with but no longer stand behind the final refrain of this song — “we are born alone, and we die alone.” I don’t think that we die alone; I believe we die from the illusion that we ever were. I hope this song and this message brings you comfort and peace, or at the very least, brief respite from the illusion of alone-ness.”

The song leaves a small but steady truth in the listener’s hands: that Cash remains in spirit through acts of kindness and care beyond the veil; that connection survives distance and death; that sometimes staying alive begins with listening closely and choosing water over oblivion.

Watch Born Alone, Die Alone below:



SRSQ is the singular vision of singer and musician Kennedy Ashlyn, an operatic post-punk siren whose work transforms private grief into shared reckoning. Emerging from a stormy sea of public tragedy with Unreality (2018), Ashlyn arrived fully formed: commanding, devotional, and unafraid of emotional magnitude. Cast ashore in Los Angeles, she learned to walk on dry land in her own two heels with Ever Crashing (2022), expanding SRSQ’s palette while solidifying a worldwide reputation as a “diva of depression.”

Now, Ashlyn is stripping away the opera gloves, taking full control of every facet of SRSQ. Shoegaze drifts into pop, drama meets directness, and the lines between artist, genre, and medium dissolve. Her work is shaped by lived loss, a guiding force that continues to surface in moments of clarity and care. Rather than accepting isolation as fate, SRSQ questions the illusion of aloneness, reaching beyond the underground toward connection, recognition, and relief.

“It’s pronounced SEER-skew, and she’ll make you cry…”

Listen to Born Alone, Die Alone below and order the single here.

Born Alone, Die Alone by SRSQ

Catch SRSQ live this winter:

Jan 16 The Holland Project Reno, NV

Jan 17 Cafe Colonial Sacramento, CA

Jan 18 Thee Stork Club Oakland, CA

Feb 14 Roxy Theatre West Hollywood, CA

Feb 15 Valley Bar Phoenix, AZ

Follow SRSQ:

Instagram
Bandcamp  

The post Dreampop Songstress SRSQ Dispels the Illusions that Separate us With Hopeful New Single “Born Alone, Die Alone” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Source: Post-Punk.com

  Electro/industrial metal artist Ben Blutzukker may not have released any new material in 2025, but he was hardly keeping quiet as he was crafting his latest album. Laut und Deutschlich will present 14 new tracks [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  U.K. electro/industrial artist Matt Hart concluded 2025 with the release of Tales From the Below, arriving one year-to-the-day since the second entry in the Below the Terra duology. The album delivers 17 remixes of tracks from the series [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  Out of Line Music has released the fifth single and music video from darkwave duo Ghostbells, titled “Immortal Lovers,” which sees Jessica Perry and Jim Finley traversing issues of addiction, obsession, survival, and collapse. The band explains the song to be “about being trapped in the cycle of what keeps you alive and what destroys you,” [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

Black hole swallows, I remain

Cross the wormhole, break the chain

Unknown, unseen by machines

First free future, death of dreams

In the opening days of a new year, Germany’s Caput Medusae (Tina Mar and Stefan Scott) release Schwarzschild as if sending a carefully calibrated signal into the dark, one that travels with the quiet authority of astronomy itself, attentive to forces that govern motion, closeness, and collapse. Drawn from the language of physics yet grounded in human intimacy, the song frames attraction as a gravitational problem, asking how near two bodies can move before distance disappears and inevitability takes over.

Schwarzschild advances with a controlled sense of motion, its low frequencies tracing steady orbital routes while synth lines shift, intersect, and settle into a tense equilibrium. Lyrically, the song takes its cue from the physical concept of the Schwarzschild radius—the point of no return in a black hole—and translates it into the dynamics of human relationships: how close can two people draw before everything collapses inward? Over this terrain, the vocal arrives as a focused transmission, reminiscent of HAL-9000: calm, deliberate, and alert to the danger implicit in proximity. As the arrangement unfolds, time and space seem to exchange properties; memory slackens, foresight loses its authority, and consequence becomes absolute. The event horizon is treated not as spectacle but as a condition of being—continuation remains possible, yet reversal has quietly vanished. Within this precise, highly controlled sound, echoes of Visage, Gary Numan, John Foxx, and Kraftwerk surface with measured clarity. At the same time, the lyricism approaches an Anne Clark level of poetry, patient and observant like a cosmologist monitoring encoded futures—until a single decision disrupts the structure, snaps continuity, and forces a release from the past.*

The accompanying video, directed by Designbaustelle, extends this meditation through stark black-and-white imagery that feels like a message received out of sequence, filtered through obsolete technologies that still hum with intent. Human faces hover in an uncanny valley state; familiar yet altered, suggesting a future imagined by earlier generations, where optimism and anxiety shared the same architectural plans. Op art disorients the eye, Brutalist forms impose order, and the overall effect carries the unsettling atmosphere of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a clasic Star Trek quest in progress –  a vision recognized by its nomination for the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2026.

Watch Schwarzschild below:

With Schwarzschild, Caput Medusae locate themselves at a precise point of convergence, where darkwave heritage meets contemporary electronic restraint and emotional inquiry is framed through cosmic scale. Like the universe it quietly references, the song suggests that meaning often reveals itself at the boundary where certainty fails, where forward motion continues, and where understanding begins precisely because there is no way back.

Caput Medusae are back with a brand new mini-album, arriving at the beginning of  2026, and for true fans and music lovers, the band has crafted a limited edition Digipak CD featuring an exclusive Black Hole design. This eye-catching collector’s piece is available exclusively for pre-order here.

Listen to Schwarzschild below and order the single here.

SCHWARZSCHILD [Album] by Caput Medusae

Follow Caput Medusae:

Spotify 
Instagram
Facebook
Bandcamp

The post German Dark Synthpop Duo Caput Medusae are Swallowed by a Black Hole in Video for “Schwarzschild” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Source: Post-Punk.com

Seit 2008 ist jetzt Thomas Ekelund mit seinem Projekt TREPANERINGSRITUALEN aktiv, mit dem ihm bzw. durch das Album „Perfection & Permanence“ 2014 bei Cold Spring der endgültige Durchbruch gelang und dem Genre Death Industrial wieder neues Leben einhauchte. Gemeint ist dabei natürlich nur der kalten Hauch des Todes, der wie einst so eisig durch die schwedischen Schlachthäuser von Cold Meat Industry wehte! Seit dem hat TREPANERINGSRITUALEN eine Menge Material veröffentlicht und sich ebenso Live einen sehr guten Namen gemacht. Die aktuelle EP „Diadem Of Fire“ schafft jetzt das Kunststück, die komplette Bandbreite des Projektes in nur knapp 12 Minuten abzubilden. Kraftvoll rumpelnde Rhythmen, dunkel grollender Gesang, rituelle Zeremonien und atmosphärischer Todes Ambient wahlweise verdichtet auf eine kleine 3“CD oder Vinyl-Single – das muss man erst mal so schlüssig hinbekommen, wie hier mit den 4 Tracks auf „Diadem Of Fire“ geschehen. Kurz und knackig, aber trotzdem irgendwie episch! Der Single-CD liegen zusätzlich ein Set aus 8 Postkarten bei und die schwarzen Vinyl-Single ist gleich in ein 48 Seiten dickes Hardcoverbuch mit Grafiken, Collagen und Illustrationen integriert. Das Ganze ist natürlich limitiert und hat alles seinen Preis, welcher jedoch absolut gerechtfertigt ist, zumal es zu beiden Varianten jeweils den Download mit dazu gibt. (Marco Fiebag)

Source: BLACK Onlinemagazin

  Mourning Candle ended 2025 on a high note with the release of the “Harbinger” single, with the Nashville darkwave duo calling it their most confrontational and heaviest effort. Vocalist Leslie I. Benson describes the song as “our poetic retaliation against injustice [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  Horror Scene is kicking off 2026 with the reveal of a new single and accompanying lyric video for “Yeah You,” with the Pennsylvania industrial/metal band calling it the next chapter in its evolution. Produced by regular collaborator Dan Malsch (Wicked Maraya), the song builds on the group’s signature blend of aggressive and dark atmospheres with a modern and polished metal edge [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  EPs and single releases can often be as significant and substantive as their longer form counterparts; whether they serve as a preview of what the full-length record has to offer, act as a companion with material not present on the fuller release, provide a home for some remixes, or simply deliver a standalone set. [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  2025 was a busy year for Seven Factor with the release of a pair of singles that led to the Room 101 EP, along with a reissue of 2013’s The Suicide Diaries, and a remix for Skumlove. Now, the industrialized black metal project has announced plans for a massive album spanning 52 tracks [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

  Kennedy Ashlyn – better known as SRSQ – has unveiled her latest single of darkened dreampop, marking her first release of new material in more than three years. True to its title, “Born Alone, Die Alone” presents the artist’s existential ruminations on loneliness [..]

Source: RE:GEN Mag

Und noch was aus dem letzten Jahr, das wir Euch wirklich nicht vorenthalten dürfen – gerade jetzt, wo 2026 schon wieder dabei ist, mit neuen Releases um...

Source: MedienKonverter

Wer bei neuer Elektronik sofort an Plug-ins, Presets und Streaming-Algorithmen denkt, sollte hier kurz innehalten. ‘Sōon’ fühlt sich eher an wie ein bewusst herbeigeführter Kurzschluss zwischen Hirn,...

Source: MedienKonverter

This EP, containing 16 individual tracks, is a reissue of “Seed EP3”, originally self-released in...

Source: Side Line

After releasing their debut album in 2024 on Young and Cold Records, the American project...

Source: Side Line

2025 felt like a century—yet it slipped away in a heartbeat. And when I try to retrace it month by month, it doesn’t play back like a neat timeline so much as a trail of vignettes, an oasis of music experiences amongst the desolation of each surreal news cycle. If you compare year-end lists across different sites, the overlap is thinner than usual—and I don’t think that’s a sign of fragmentation so much as abundance. There were simply too many releases worth defending, too many albums that demanded a second pass, then a third, then the kind of listening where you stop “reviewing” and start living inside them. In so many ways, it still feels like we’re in a golden age for the music we champion here.

Amidst all of that, I did have one certainty: my album of the year came from a place I never expected. If you had asked me five years ago whether AFI would land at the very top of my list—let alone that we’d be featuring them here—I would’ve said no without hesitation. Yes, there were tells: the post-punk pull of 2021’s Bodies, the darker contouring going back to 2013’s Burial. But Silver Bleeds the Black Sun isn’t a flirtation with the lineage—it’s a full-bodied commitment. It sounds like a band who spent their lives alone in the same darkened room as Bauhaus, Killing Joke, The Cure, and The Sisters of Mercy, absorbing the grammar, the tension, the romance, the bite—and then writing something with a spirit that shares a greenroom with its Goth forebears.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve stood next to Davey Havok at more than a few shows over the years—watching stalwarts like The Mission and The Chameleons, and then catching newer artists too, the same kind of names he’s been calling out lately in interviews. That context makes Silver Bleeds the Black Sun hit even harder: it feels like a record made by lifelong fans—who understand exactly where this music came from and who still have the nerve to make it feel dark, dangerous, and danceable.



I had another moment like that halfway across the world. I was in a record store in Tokyo when Suede’s Antidepressants stopped me in my tracks—one of those “rewind it, play it again” encounters where the room briefly disappears. Suede have been on a consistently strong run since 2013’s Bloodsports (with 2016’s Night Thoughts still towering for me), and Antidepressants felt like that rare thing: a band with nothing to prove still finding new angles to sound urgent.

Besides the many phenomenal releases on my list—including Bootblacks, Lebanon Hanover, Lathe of Heaven, and Silver Tears—I also want to take a moment to spotlight a few newer artists I’d strongly recommend, projects that feel genuinely forward-moving rather than content to circle familiar ground. Tiffadelic immediately stood out to me for their soulful vocals—often ghostly in tone—layered over icy synth sounds that feel unearthed rather than assembled, echoing coldwave and darkwave currents from France and Germany in the ’80s through the 2000s. It’s as goth as it gets, but without affectation: the real thing, rooted in atmosphere and emotional gravity. Moon 17—who were first introduced to me by Spike Hellis—create old-school industrial music that is complex and operates in a space that actively defies standard EBM tropes. Their music carries the same sense of experimentation and risk that defined the Wax Trax era, but without the camo-and-crew-cut baggage that calcified the genre through the ’90s and 2000s. Some tracks unfold with strikingly beautiful vocals, others erupt into screams, and the tension between those extremes is exactly what makes the project so compelling. And finally, a mea culpa: we missed the mark this year by overlooking The Sick Man of Europe. Their self-titled album—particularly the track and single “Obsolete”—lands with sharp, nervy precision that recalls peak Colin Newman–era Wire: taut, intelligent, and mesmerizing.

There were plenty of other releases I wanted to squeeze in, and a few that deserve their flowers even if they didn’t make it into my top list. The Chameleons’ Arctic Moon earns an honourable mention, as well as Pink Turns Blue’s Black Swan, and Corpus Delicti’s Liminal, also stayed in heavy rotation for me, each in their own way reminding me why this strain of music keeps surviving every trend cycle. And Jim E. Brown’s I Urinated on a Butterfly was one of the year’s strangest pleasures— hilarious, satirical, self-effacing, and impossible to forget once it gets its hooks in. I also want to nod to Frank’s picks—especially The Horrors and Martin Dupont, and a few more that were just shy of being in my top 25,

My favorite EP this year was, by far, the bold early ’90s dance-pop diversion, the Trouble EP by Nuovo Testamento, followed by Automelodi’s Chanson-synth gem, the Cavallo EP. And the Australian duo Sacred Hearts released my favorite single of the year with “Possession”. But as far as synth-pop goes, Madeline Goldstein and Ronnie Stone released, hands down, two of the best tracks of the year, with “My Own Design” and “BOUND 2 THE RHYTHM”.

Honorable mentions on the singles front: Death Bells had two great ones, including “Shiver.” And the new tracks featured on Ductape’s Echo Drama Deluxe were fantastic, as well as the latest singles released in advance of their next album, Faded Flowers. And while David Byrne’s Who Is This Sky? Wasn’t my favourite of his solo work, but “T-Shirt”—with long-time collaborator Brian Eno—hit with all the kind of sly, minimalist synth brilliance that could hope for.

One last housekeeping note: there’s no Andi Harriman list this year, as she’s been buried in authoring a book that’s due out soon. We’ll be shouting about it properly when the time comes. For now, here’s my list—one attempt to pin down a year full of great music that flourished while society collapsed.

Alex’s List:
1. AFI – Silver Bleeds the Black Sun

Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… by AFI

2. Suede – Antidepressants

3. Lathe of Heaven – Aurora

Aurora by Lathe of Heaven

4. Silver Tears – Silver Tears

Silver Tears by SILVER TEARS

5. Bootblacks – Paradise

Paradise by Bootblacks

6. Lebanon Hanover – Asylum Lullabies

Asylum Lullabies by Lebanon Hanover

7. Odonis Odonis – Odonis Odonis

Odonis Odonis by Odonis Odonis

8. Ash Code – Synthome

Synthome by Ash Code

9. Korine – A Flame In The Dark

A Flame In The Dark by Korine

10. Ritual Howls – Ruin

Ruin by Ritual Howls

11. Soft Vein – Through Blinds

THROUGH BLINDS by SOFT VEIN

12. Rosa Anschütz – Sabbatical

Sabbatical by Rosa Anschütz

13. Home Front – Watch It Die

Watch It Die by HOME FRONT

14. Mareux – Nonstop Romance

15. Ultra Sunn – The Beast In You

The Beast In You by ULTRA SUNN

16. Safe Mind – Cutting the Stone

Cutting the Stone by Safe Mind

17. The Discussion – All the Pretty Flowers

All the Pretty Flowers by THE DISCUSSION

18. Moon 17 – TX_1320

TX_1320 by Moon 17

19. Nyx Division – Midnight Lights

Midnight Lights by Nyx Division

20. Body Maintenance – Far From Here

Far From Here LP by Body Maintenance

21. Tiffadelic – Retrosynthesis Vol. I

Retrosynthesis Vol. I by Tiffadelic

22. Pixel Grip – Percepticide: The Death of Reality

Percepticide: The Death of Reality by Pixel Grip

23. The Sick Man of Europe – The Sick Man of Europe

The Sick Man Of Europe by The Sick Man Of Europe

24. Automatic – Is It Now?

Is It Now? by Automatic

25. Sextile – yes, please

yes, please. by Sextile

EPs

1. Nuovo Testamento – Trouble EP

Trouble by NUOVO TESTAMENTO

2. Automelodi – Cavallo EP

Cavallo EP by Automelodi

3. Claudia Kane & Metallic Lover – A New Way To Hurt EP

A NEW WAY TO HURT EP by METALLIC LOVER, Claudia Kane

4. The Names – Procrastination EP

Procrastination EP by THE NAMES

5. Closed Mouth – You Don’t Need a God EP

You Don’t Need A God by closed mouth

Singles

1. Sacred Hearts – Possession

Possession by Sacred Hearts

2. Madeline Goldstein – My Own Design

My Own Design by Madeline Goldstein

3. Ronnie Stone – B0UND 2 THE RHYTHM

B0UND 2 THE RHYTHM by Ronnie Stone

4. Traitrs – Burn In Heaven

5. House of Harm – Away Above

Away Above by House of Harm

Continue to the next page for Frank’s picks and our 2025 Playlist!

The post Post-Punk.com — The Best of 2025 appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

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Since its launch in 2022, Dresden’s Cold-Hearted Festival has rapidly evolved into a cornerstone of the European darkwave scene, selling out year after year and steadily expanding its reach. Returning in 2026, the festival once again solidifies its reputation as one of Europe’s premier gatherings for darkwave, coldwave, and post-punk devotees. This year, Cold Hearted Festival takes place on November 13th at Hamburg’s Markthalle, followed by November 14th at Dresden’s Alter Schlachthof.

Collectively, the bands on the bill span the full spectrum of darkwave, post-punk, and coldwave, from stark minimalism and synth-driven severity to guitar-led gothic urgency. Each act brings a distinct voice to the lineup, reinforcing Cold-Hearted Festival’s commitment to showcasing the breadth and vitality of the contemporary dark underground. It’s not just one of the coolest festivals in Europe…it’s ice-cold.

Leading the 2026 edition is Cold Cave, whose emotionally charged synth-pop and post-punk lineage has left a lasting mark on the modern darkwave canon. They’re joined by an international lineup including Kaelan Mikla, Gvllow, Ash Code, Qual, Haunt Me, Night In Athens, Darkways, Vioflesh, Skelesys, and Huir – a bill that reflects both the genre’s legacy and its restless forward momentum.

Cold Cave

Founded by Wesley Eisold, Cold Cave occupy a tense, singular space where synth-pop, post-punk, and darkwave converge under pressure rather than nostalgia. Stark electronics serve as emotional architecture, framing lyrics that oscillate between confession and confrontation. Drawing from industrial minimalism and romantic new wave in equal measure, their songs feel both inward-facing and immense. Renowned for live performances that favour release over spectacle, Cold Cave remain a vital, unflinching presence within the modern dark underground.

Passion Depression by Cold Cave

Kaelan Mikla

Icelandic trio Kaelan Mikla channel coldwave severity into something ritualistic and charged, where glacial synth lines, insistent bass, and incantatory vocals converge. Their songs move with a sense of repetition as invocation, drawing power from restraint rather than excess. Sung primarily in Icelandic, the music carries a stark, elemental weight: rooted in place yet unbound by it, earning the band a devoted following far beyond their homeland.

Stjörnuljós by Kælan Mikla

Gvllow

Hailing from California, Gvllow operate at the intersection of darkwave, EBM, and industrial, favoring impact over adornment. Distorted basslines drive the songs forward with blunt force, while commanding vocals cut through with confrontational intent. The result is music built for physical response: tense, unrelenting, and direct, translating with equal potency from record to stage.

Waste Away by GVLLOW

Ash Code

Italian trio Ash Code approach modern darkwave with a measured poise, fusing sleek, club-driven rhythms with a cool undercurrent of melancholy. Their tracks move with controlled momentum, where emotional restraint sharpens rather than dulls the impact. It’s music built for the dancefloor but shadowed by introspection, securing Ash Code a place among the most quietly compelling voices in the contemporary darkwave scene.

Synthome by Ash Code

Qual

The solo project of William Maybelline (Lebanon Hanover), Qual strips electronic music down to its most severe impulses. Drawing from EBM, industrial, and minimal synth, the project favours abrasion over comfort, repetition over release. The result is an uncompromising, confrontational body of work brought to life through performances that feel less like shows than sustained exercises in intensity.

Love Zone by Qual

Haunt Me

Haunt Me distill shadowed synth-pop and post-punk into tightly coiled, emotionally charged forms. Minimalist electronics and hushed vocals work in service of mood rather than excess, circling themes of isolation and unease. The songs unfold slowly, inwardly, steeped in nocturnal introspection, capturing the low-grade anxiety and quiet tension that sit at the core of contemporary darkwave.

Watch You Bleed by Haunt Me

Night In Athens

UK-based Night In Athens fuses classic post-punk tension with glinting synth textures, shaping songs that feel simultaneously cinematic and inward-facing. Atmosphere does the heavy lifting here: lines stretch, pulse, and recede, pulling the listener into a space of late-night reflection and low-level restlessness. It’s music that unfolds in half-light, sustained by mood and momentum.

WITHR (feat. Skelesys) by Night in Athens

Darkways

Spanish act Darkways works within coldwave and post-punk traditions while refining them through a contemporary electronic lens. Melody is never allowed to soften the blow; severity is held in careful balance with propulsion. The result is music that remains dark yet resolutely danceable, its melancholic pull sharpened by precision, rather than excess.

Eternidad by Darkways

Building on a track record of sold-out editions and a lineup that spans the breadth of darkwave and post-punk, Cold-Hearted Festival 2026 asserts itself as a key convergence point for the scene—drawing devotees from across Europe and well beyond.

Purchase tickets here.

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The post Cold-Hearted Festival 2026 Announced With Cold Cave, Kaelan Mikla, Ash Code, Qual, Night in Athens, and More! appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

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Within the intimate realm of industrial and Experimental music, Russian mixer, mastering engineer, and composer...

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Hendrick Grothe is now ready to present his seventh full-length album, in which he constructs...

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Jean-Marc Lederman released a special album this year. Some may think it is just another...

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Ten years after their formation, and already five years after their impressive debut album “Love...

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Assemblage 23’s Tom Shear is one of those artists who needs no introduction. Since his...

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Perry Bamonte, guitarist and keyboardist for the English rock band The Cure, has died at...

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This is already the second album released by the French-Swiss band Raskolnikov in 2025. Some...

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This is already the second album released by the French-Swiss band Raskolnikov in 2025. Some...

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“Fanal” is the first new album by Das Ich in almost 20 years. Bruno Kramm...

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“Solve Et Coagula“, the second EP by European witch house project nøwhere, is out now...

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A cold shimmer runs through Lilii Mar’s latest release, like Shinjuku neon on December snow—guitars cutting an angular swath, and vocals drifting in with a baroque sense of drama, swelling like a thundercloud. “White Glow” is the second single from the Tokyo-based artist Lilii Mar a.k.a. masa, the founding member and composer of Sex Virgin Killer, now pushing their solo work deeper into depths of gothic rock, post-punk, darkwave, cold wave, and neo-psychedelia.

masa’s story stretches back well before this single: The band Sex Virgin Killer first took shape in Tokyo in 2006, built around masa’s vocals and guitar. In recent years, that world has been re-energized—new releases, new momentum—and the project’s DIY ethos sharpened further through the artist’s own imprint, lilii sound loom. That same spirit runs through Lilii Mar’s solo work: small-run physical editions that feel hand-tended, with a sound that’s grown colder, cleaner, and more nocturnal.

The title track moves on icy minor-chord shapes and angular guitar lines brushed with haunting reverb, tracing a dark melody up and down the spine of classic gothic rock. masa’s vocal delivery glides above it—rich, dramatic, and occasionally widening into something ghostly and bellowing—giving the song a devotional intensity without losing its pulse. On “Angel (Heaven Version)”—a more effects-laden reworking of Lilii Mar’s debut single, and originally featured on The Ancient Wall (Compilation Supporting Gaza) by Psychic Eye—a dancey dream-pop jangle and snare-forward beat carry a sighing surge of guitar drone, while distant vocals land like a sermon delivered through winds of a tempest. The EP closes with “White Glow (More Wave Version)”, alongside a Bandcamp-exclusive bonus (track 4).

White Glow will also arrive as a limited-edition cassette of 50 copies on December 25, 2025 via lilii sound loom (lilii-014). The cassette edition features three tracks across two sides.

Listen to White Glow below and order the cassette here.

White Glow by Lilii Mar

Follow Lilii Mar:

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Bandcamp

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Anja Huwe has announced a long-awaited return to North America in March 2026—bringing a live set that draws from her solo work while reaching back into the fierce lineage of Xmal Deutschland, one of the most enigmatic and influential names to emerge from Germany’s early-’80s post-punk movement

For longtime devotees, the news lands with extra weight: Xmal Deutschland did not tour North America often. Their stateside appearances in the mid-1980s were brief but mythic—most famously their 1984 stop at New York’s Danceteria, followed by a final West Coast run in December of 1985 (San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens and Los Angeles’ The Palace). Decades later, Huwe’s 2026 dates finally reopen that transatlantic thread.

Among the bands to have graced 4AD’s revered orbit, few burned with the same unplaceable intensity as Xmal Deutschland. Formed in Hamburg in 1981 by a group of self-taught upstarts, they arrived with a voracious, unyielding drive—an aesthetic of flamboyant hair and kohl-rimmed eyes that mirrored the dual nature of their sound: relentless energy tempered by a strange finesse. Though they emerged from the broader Neue Deutsche Welle moment—sharing a lineage with DAF and Einstürzende Neubauten—they resisted easy classification, sidestepping “goth” or “gothic rock” in favor of a sharper, more accurate term: post-punk.

Their ascent crystallized in 1982 with the release of the “Incubus Succubus” single, and that same year a pivotal London performance opening for the Cocteau Twins pulled them into an eager avant-garde audience. Soon after, their relocation to London and subsequent embrace by 4AD set the fuse. The first two albums—1983’s Fetisch and 1984’s Tocsin—arrived like twin impact events, reshaping the contours of the international post-punk scene with a cold clarity that still cuts through today.

The band’s formative line-up—Caro May, Rita Simonsen, Manuela Rickers, Fiona Sangster, and Anja Huwe—embodied punk’s audacious break from traditional mores: they ventured into music without the trappings of prior experience, simply because the moment demanded it. A twist of fate during the recording of the early single “Schwarze Welt” pushed Huwe—initially the bass player—into the role of lead vocalist. “The only condition from my side [was that] I will never perform onstage,” she later recalled. “Two months later, they made me without ever telling me up front. I had no choice.”

From there, Xmal Deutschland’s arc spanned four albums—two with 4AD, followed by 1987’s Viva, which expanded their reach and achieved further international success, and 1989’s Devils, released after a key line-up shift. While the band’s image was often framed by media fascination—an “all-female” ensemble later playfully amended with the arrival of Wolfgang Ellerbrock, jokingly dubbed the “token male”—Huwe has always emphasized the deeper force at work: a self-contained circle of friends, fiercely committed to their own unconventional way of being. “We were like paradise birds,” she once said. “We were enough for ourselves.”

Following Xmal Deutschland’s distinguished run and split in the early 1990s, Huwe shifted her creative focus toward visual art and painting, stepping away from the musical stage even as the legend refused to fade. “Since the split… I have been haunted by the ‘Legend of Xmal Deutschland’ and never-ending requests from all over the world, all of which I always turned down,” she admitted—until recent years finally made her refusals yield to return.

Photo by Nastya Platinova
And a flurry of archival restoration and renewed activity has anchored that return. Sacred Bones helped bring essential material back into circulation with Early Singles (1981–1982), expanded with bonus tracks, while 4AD commemorated the band’s defining era with Gift: The 4AD Years—an Abbey Road–remastered collection spanning Fetisch, Tocsin, and related EP material. With a limited vinyl reissue of Devils now back in the conversation and more still on the horizon, Anja Huwe and Xmal Deutschland’s story continues with a new generation of fans.

Codes, Huwe’s first solo album released via Sacred Bones, arrived as the other half of that restoration: a modern work shaped by her long friendship with Mona Mur and sharpened by the return of Manuela Rickers’ guitar presence on the album. Built over months of meticulous collaboration, the record carries the same steely emotional directness that defined Xmal Deutschland—now refracted through a deliberate architecture of poetry, pressure, and survival.

At the center stands Huwe—an artist of distinction whose voice remains as direct and commanding as it was in the early days, whether cutting through the razor angles of the Xmal catalogue or moving through the more deliberate modern framework of her solo LP. The 2026 dates offer a rare chance to experience that continuum live, on this side of the Atlantic, with decades of context finally in place.

North American Tour Dates (2026)

March 18, 2026 — New York, NY — Le Poisson Rouge — Tickets
March 19, 2026 — Montréal, QC — Théâtre Fairmount — Tickets
March 21, 2026 — Chicago, IL — Epiphany Center for the Arts — Tickets
March 22, 2026 — San Francisco, CA — Great American Music Hall — Tickets
March 25, 2026 — Los Angeles, CA — 1720 — Tickets
March 28, 2026 — Mexico City, MX — Mesones72 — Tickets
March 29, 2026 — San José, Costa Rica — Amon Solar — Tickets

Follow Anja Huwe:

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Electro-industrial artist Staytus steps into charged territory with her new single The God, The Artist, & The Creator. The track circles worship, desire, and authorship, treating creation as a physical and spiritual act; belief pressed against skin, faith spoken through want. Her voice glides with purpose, cool one moment, confrontational the next, guiding the song’s slow-burn intensity.

Produced by Grammy-winning, multi-platinum producer Mikal Blue at Revolver Recording Studio in Thousand Oaks, California, the track pairs tensile electronics with a sense of exposed resolve. Jeff Friedl’s percussion pushes forward with measured force, anchoring the song’s heat and motion. Guitar textures from Patrick “Embryo” Tapu arrive warped and abrasive, their waveshaper edges cutting the air, while Anthony Laurie of Thredge adds dimensional accents that widen the frame without overcrowding it. There’s a lineage running through the track that recalls Lydia Lunch’s scorched authority, Liz Phair’s unguarded candor, and Courtney Love’s volatile poise; voices that claimed autonomy through exposure rather than polish. Staytus channels that same raw authorship, placing desire on the altar without apology or disguise.

“This song is about creation in every sense – the divine, the artistic, and the physical,” says Staytus. “It’s about surrendering to something greater than yourself, whether that’s love, lust, inspiration, or faith. I wanted it to feel like a prayer whispered in the dark and a confession of desire at the same time.”

Lyrically, the song dwells in volatile intimacy, healing alongside hunger, secrecy beside exposure. Sex becomes ritual. Affection turns feral. Power passes back and forth in a charged exchange where devotion risks erasure, yet insists on presence. The chorus hits with blunt insistence, transforming obsession into declaration.

The accompanying visualizer reinforces this duality, with Staytus performing while shifting between Madonna-whore archetypes: the bad girl, the good girl, the creator, suggesting a fluid divinity where identity multiplies and authority is self-assigned.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of creators and creation—the god behind the art, the art behind the god,” adds Staytus. “This track is my way of exploring that relationship, where belief, desire, and obsession coexist.”

Watch the video for “The God, The Artist, & The Creator” below:

With collaborators that include Sean Beavan and Matt McJunkins, Staytus continues to carve a space where industrial weight meets emotional exposure…music that treats desire as doctrine and creation as confession.

Listen to God, The Artist, & The Creator below.

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The silence is empty, where love used to be

Now you never check up if I’m drowning at sea

Or if I have an attack, or my vision goes black

Cuz you don’t care anymore

Fidelity is a vow made in motion, a promise that only survives through attention. When loyalty decays, it rarely shatters all at once; it thins, frays, forgets to ask simple questions. Neglect is the hollowed-out shell of love, echoing with the memories of devotion. From that absence, fury grows. Anger becomes the body’s last proof that devotion existed, that something vital was withdrawn without consent.

Emotion, in the new video for Marie Ann Hedonia and Casey Desmond‘s Fuck Your Feelings (Salt In The Wound), is treated as something spatial; an energy that inhabits rooms after the people vanish. Heartbreak is not dramatized but left behind, settling into empty sanctuaries and overgrown spaces where vows once had weight. The setting does much of the speaking: an abandoned church as a monument to fidelity neglected, beauty persisting where care has receded.

The track treats loyalty as an active practice rather than a sentimental idea. Marie’s Eurorack-driven production coils with industrial tension: precise, unyielding, while Casey’s vocal cuts cleanly through it, expressive and exposed, confrontational without posturing. An arpeggio climbs and snaps into a steel-edged rhythm, all chrome and compression. This is synth-pop stripped of nostalgia, built for rupture. Hedonia sets a sleek, controlled frame; Desmond tears into it, her melodies slicing through the gloss with deliberate force, leaving the surface scored. Anger rises from the refusal to pretend devotion never existed, while grief hardens into something sharper and more insistent.

Visually, the film resists easy catharsis. The performances unfold like private rituals rather than spectacles, surrounded by decay that feels lived-in rather than curated. Burning florals and vacant interiors echo the song’s core contradiction: destruction occurring alongside creation. This is more of a reckoning than a redemption arc; context deepens the work without softening it.

Watch below:

Created during a period of profound transformation: new life, new records, unstable ground, the collaboration between the two artists becomes an assertion of movement forward without erasure. It is about what remains when loyalty thins, when love empties the room, and when anger becomes the last honest language left standing.

“Fuck Your Feelings (Salt in the Wound)” is featured on the Solar Eclipse EP.

Listen below, and order here.

Solar Eclipse by Marie Ann Hedonia

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The post Burning Flowers and Fractured Faces — Marie Ann Hedonia Collaborates with Casey Desmond in Video for “FYF (Salt in the Wound)” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

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Mexico’s Ernie.fr steps forward with Nocturne Stereo, a debut that lands like a late-night radio broadcast that grabs you by the hand as the veil between the hour and dreaming blue. Five tracks form its chill-inducing spine, each one steeped in the fog of bilingual devotion: English and Spanish entwined with the ease of two lovers whispering secrets across a flickering streetlamp. The record draws its voltage from the roots of Mexico’s escena oscura, but its pulse stretches across continents: the skeletal tension of late-’70s post-punk, Europe’s coldwave ache, and the granite minimalism once prized in the Soviet underground.

Ernie.fr moves with an instinctive sense of atmosphere: guitars curve like smoke drifting through abandoned corridors; synth tones shimmer like distant signals on a dying radio band. The production walks a narrow, soulful tightrope, neither too polished nor too coarse, leaving every phrase suspended between devotion and decay. There’s a sense of ritual; a feeling of songs carved from dim clubs, border towns, and the atmosphere of Mexico City after midnight.

Vestido Negro opens the door with a slow, romantic tremor, its guitar lines circling like a secret vow. Smoke & Mirrors pushes deeper, its cadence steady and cool, carrying a whispered unease. Lose You to the Night swells with melancholic yearning, its reverb-drenched edges drifting like steam from a cracked sidewalk grate. City of Angels drifts between continents, its bilingual phrasing forming a bridge between distance and desire. Purple Haze closes the suite with a strangely serene glide, as if tracing the final silhouette of a half-remembered love.

Influences echo throughout the album: Joy Division’s tensile restraint, Siouxsie’s theatrical poise, Public Image Ltd’s fevered minimalism, The Cure’s bright-edged gloom, alongside the modern pulse of Mareux, French Police, Lebanon Hanover, Twin Tribes, and Molchat Doma. Nocturne Stereo thrives less in homage and more in its own quiet voltage, however – a record steeped in gothic romanticism, speaking fluently across borders, hearts, and histories.

Listen to Nocturne Stereo below:

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Wer hätte vor 30 Jahren gedacht, dass sich ein kleines Festival zu einer festen Größe im Kalender eines jeden Metalheads mausern würde? So geschehen mit dem RockHarz, das seit 2009 in Ballenstedt im malerischen Harz stattfindet. Eure Chance bei diesem historischen Ereignis solltet Ihr unbedingt wahrnehmen, da das Publikum eine einzigartige familiäre Atmosphäre erschafft. Neben …

Source: Dark News

Liebe Amphi Familie, als „Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark“ – kurz OMD – 2018 das Amphi Festival im Sturm eroberten, waren sich alle in der Hoffnung einig, dass Andy McCluskey und Paul Humphreys in nicht allzu ferner Zukunft nach Köln zurückkehren und uns vielleicht sogar noch einen größeren Besuch abstatten würden. Ihr Lieben, die Sensation […]

Source: DunkelWelle

Nach langem Warten kann das 20. Jubiläum des Castle Rock Festival nun endlich stattfinden! Am 01. und 02. Juli ist es soweit!Eigentlich wäre das 20 Jährige Jubiläum dieses wundervollen Festivals schon im Jahre 2019 gewesen. Die Sanierung des Innenhofes des Schloss Broichs, in Mülheim an der Ruhr, machte diesem Vorhaben allerdings einen Strich durch die …

Source: Dark News

—ENGLISH VERSION BELOW—   XVI. AMPHI FESTIVAL 2020   & 26.07.2020 – KÖLN TANZBRUNNEN -PRESSEMELDUNG-   DAS LINE-UP IST KOMPLETT!   Liebe Amphi Fans, es ist vollbracht! Mit Stolz dürfen wir euch heute jene vier Namen verraten, mit denen wir das 2020er Amphi Line-Up komplettieren. Eine ganze Reihe Bands aus dem bisherigen Programm spielen […]

Source: DunkelWelle

Am 12.Oktober 2019 wird Mannheim beben. NEW EVIL MUSIC, ein Veranstalter, der sich auf Metal Konzerte im Rhein-Main-Neckar Gebiet spezialisiert hat, feiert sein 15-jähriges betehen. Aus diesem Grund stellt NEW EVIL MUSIC im Oktober ein einmaliges Indoor-Festival auf die Beine. Spielort wird der MS CONNEXION COMPLEX in Mannheim sein. Dort werden auf zwei Bühnen insgesamt […]

Source: DunkelWelle

Ihr habt danach gefragt und nun wird es geschehen – MONO INC. – Symphonic Live, aufgenommen in Leipzig auf der Symphonic Tour 2019, wird am 24.05.2019 erscheinen! Das bisher erfolgreichste Album MONO INC.s, „Welcome To Hell“, lieferte den Fans eine 2. CD mit, auf der die Songs der ersten CD klassisch, mit Piano und wenigen […]

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Seit ihrer Gründung in 2009 haben es HEART OF A COWARD weit gebracht – mit höchstem Lob der Fans und Presse zugleich und ihren unzählig getourten Kilometer im Gepäck. Definiert durch ihre schiere Power und Härte werden HEART OF A COWARD für ihre rasanten live Shows und mächtigen Auftritte treu in der britischen Metal Szene […]

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Review Tomas Tulpe – In der Kantine gab es Bohnen Vor ein paar Tagen flatterte Tomas Tulpes neues Album „In der Kantine gab es Bohnen“ auf meinen Desktop. Tomas Wer? Tulpe. Tomas Tulpe. Wer ist das überhaupt? Tomas ist geheimnisumwittert. Man kennt ihn als elektronische Bühnenwurst, als Rampensau, als Entertainer, der sich für keinen Auftritt […]

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Nach „Laudanum“ und „A Black Symphony“ veröffentlichte FLORIAN GREY am 30.06.17 die dritte Single, incl. Demoversion und dazu gehörigem Video aus seinem aktuellen Album „GONE“ in physischer und digitaler Form. „The End“ ist ein atmosphärisches Stück, welches ein sensibles Thema behandelt. Er beginnt ruhig, nahezu zerbrechlich und steigert sich dabei dann von Strophe zu Strophe. […]

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Ungekürzt, unzensiert und unglaublich lustig: Das Hörbuch zu ‚Pommes! Porno! Popstar!‘ von Purwien & Kowa erscheint am 25.08.2017, überall wo es was auf die Ohren gibt. Zeitgleich wird die zugehörige Musik-CD ‚Zwei‘ von Purwien & Kowa veröffentlicht, quasi der Soundtrack zum Hörbuch. Kein Hit, zwei Musiker, drei Probleme. Millionen haben ihre Platten nicht gekauft, Hunderttausende […]

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