grindcore maniacs Barren Path are streaming two new unrelenting, frenzied songs

This band Barren Path is implementing a scorched-earth policy of grindcore songwriting, with 12 songs with something like an average length of one minute, give or take. In other words, this is the sound of perfection. Press play, and the barrage races out of the gate and continues in the same fashion for the duration, keeping the music at fast as humanly possible, with screaming and growling all over the place, from the left and the right, from behind and from front, up and down the line, and blasting like a horde of lunatics. The only problem is that this recording is too short. Besides that critique, there is nothing that I find to complain about, just fun, blast and fast. Wonderful.

Barren Path

Grieving

Willowtip Records

31 October 2025

ABOUT THIS GRINDCORE: After completing the final objective and rising from the ashes of the recently self-immolated GRIDLINK, Takafumi Matsubara and Bryan Fajardo now set mission coordinates towards BARREN PATH. Recruiting Maruta/Shock Withdrawal vocalist Mitchell Luna and re-enlisting grindcore commandos Mauro Cordoba and Rory Kobzina from the Coronet Juniper sessions, this operation requires relinquishing high tech weaponry. Only use of rudimentary blades, precision blast strikes, and amplified guttural attacks is allowed. BARREN PATH elevate the flailing savagery of their genre through mincing, precise volleys of melodic and dissonant passages that rip and tear like a swarm of shurikens. By turns cruelly effective and strangely vulnerable, Grieving is a statement release by a new standard-bearer in grindcore. This is music for a vicious, unforgiving world.

Grieving by Barren Path

prog metal guitarist Jim Matheos goes weird - Tuesday the Sky

I have something very different to tell you about. This project is called Tuesday the Sky and it is from long-running progressive heavy metal band Fates Warning (U.S.) head honcho Jim Matheos, who has written tons of music and so many albums. He is known for progressive heavy metal and hard rock. However, Mr. Matheos, ever the curious guitarist, here goes down a path that is not expected of him. I'm no expert, but I think this would be called post-rock or prog post-rock. It is mostly mellow instrumental guitar, but it sounds like the music that you might hear at a yoga studio (I would think) or at the dentist office while you wait or something like meditation music. It is not rock and roll. It's not any form of hard rock. Really, I don't know what this is. This album is being released by Metal Blade Records because Jim Matheos over the decades has made good money for Metal Blade Records, and I'm sure that Mr. Matheos is friends with the bosses at the record label.

If this were a new artist that came up to Metal Blade Records and wanted to be signed by them, there is no way a company known for metal music would release this album. It is Metal Blade Records humoring Jim Matheos and letting him do something strange and very different.

Now, if you are ready for something mellow, very mellow, something light, something soft, then go ahead and explore.

Just be ready. Do not expect metal music at all. This is Jim Matheos doing a little something something, kind of showing us that he listens to post-rock and stuff, and this is his way of getting it out of his system.

Tuesday the Sky

Indoor Enthusiast

Metal Blade Records

24 October 2025

ABOUT THE ALBUM: Indoor Enthusiast, the third record from Tuesday the Sky, the instrumental-driven project from guitarist Jim Matheos, arrives October 24, 2025. With 11 songs of pure Matheos playing and passion, it features Dutch drummer Dennis Leeflang on “The Nearest Exit May be Behind You,” “Bend Toward Light” and “Set Fire to the Stars.” Tuesday the Sky has been described as a “beautifully weird solo project” by Sonic Perspectives, while Dead Rhetoric dubbed it a “kaleidoscope of atmospheric songs.”

Matheos, famed for his work with progressive metal giants Fates Warning, alongside projects such as OSI and his collaboration with John Arch, Arch/Matheos, planted the seeds of Tuesday the Sky around 2016. The impetus came from a Fates Warning bonus track that Matheos felt didn’t fit for the band. He kept writing in that vein, and the result was Tuesday the Sky. The initial offering was 2017's Drift, a record that drew influence from the likes of Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Boards Of Canada and Explosions In The Sky.

The second Tuesday the Sky album was 2021’s The Blurred Horizon, a mixture of ambient, electronica, post-rock and more. The Blurred Horizon is perhaps best described as a beautiful record, having a natural grace to it. The closing track "Everything Is Free" is a cover of a Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and the only song with vocals, supplied by Tim Bowness.

Indoor Enthusiast is entirely instrumental, produced and mixed by Matheos, and mastered by Jacob Hansen. The guitarist’s TTS work begins differently than writing for his other bands. As Matheos has previously noted, “A lot of it starts with sounds, interesting sound that catches my attention, so I have lots of different effects and amps up in the studio. Often that’ll lead to different chords, progressions, or melodies.” Fates Warning however, generally kicks off with a riff chorus, melody lines. With everything he writes, from Indoor Enthusiast to Fates Warning music, Matheos asks, “’As a listener, does this interest me?’ I usually just go with my gut instinct. If it’s interesting to me, then there’s going to be someone else out there who’s going to find it interesting as well.”

Indoor Enthusiast by Tuesday The Sky

burped-death metal? really? Dead and Dripping

Fan of weird death metal,

Two songs are streaming on Bandcamp from this burped-vocals death metal project.

I cannot recommend this music to any metal fan whatsoever because it has rather weak vocals that ruin the rest of the ok-death metal basic musicianship. The vocals really are burped-whispered, and it sounds stupid, to say the least. This style of vocals is done in honor of an old Finnish band called Demilich from the 1990s. The vocals of that old Finnish band are also weak and stupid. I do not like "safe" growling: This is the type of lazy growling that sounds like the vocalist is trying not hurt himself. He's being "safe" and "careful." I like death metal vocals like on Death's Scream Bloody Gore in which you know that vocalist has, indeed, hurt himself and is about to pass out from how much work he has done. In contrast, these burped vocals are soft, weak and lazy, and this vocalist could easily record 10 to 20 songs every single day because he is basically whispering.

On the other hand, Demilich's album has 30 reviewers on Metal Archives (it's probably all the members of Demilich, their siblings, cousins and friends writing the reviews) that like it. Or, rather, that claim that they like it.

You best believe this Dead and Dripping is going to find an audience! It already has found an audience. There are death metal fans who think this vocal style is awesome, apparently. Get ready for Dead and Dripping to start filling up the arenas and stadiums of your city. This band is going to be huge, huge, I tell you.

Dead and Dripping

Nefarious Scintillations

Transcending Obscurity Records

28 November 2025

ABOUT THIS ONE-MAN PROJECT: Dead And Dripping is back with another album of mind-warping, reality-deconstructing music. One-man crew Evan Daniele, who was already playing everything on the albums so far, has gone ahead and even created the artwork for this album that manages to replicate the intricate nature of the music along with some kind of hallucinogenic quality that it induces. The music is often slower, deliberate, as if to create a hypnotic effect aided by use of repetition, and with that the songs can go on for as long as nine minutes without seeming cumbersome as is almost always the case with the brutal death metal subgenre where lengthy songs go. Dead And Dripping is doing something novel in this space which begs to be heard with all its quirks including the Demilich-esque croaks to go with music sounding just as surreal and twisted. It's an album that is painstakingly composed with thought and effort put into every single aspect of it and with all of it done in a refreshingly organic manner. "Nefarious Scintillations" is a tour-de-force for the style and a testament to the dedication and prowess of one-man bands.

Nefarious Scintillations by DEAD AND DRIPPING

Wretched - Decay (Official Video)

Below you will find the informative official information about WRETCHED, an American melodic technical deathcore death metal band from the state of North Carolina, and their brand new album titled Decay that comes out this week. I have been enjoying the melodic yet heavy brutal sound of the album. Check out this video and see if you understand what this is all about. You're in for a treat!

Wretched

Decay

Metal Blade Records

17 October 2025

With Decay, the decade-long wait for new Wretched music is finally over, the dozen songs worth every moment of anticipation. The first LP since 2014's Cannibal, Decay sees the boundary-pushing lineup breaking past defined walls of their four previous releases. "We've had a lot of time to grow and reflect in the time between our last album and Decay," says drummer Marshall Wieczorek. "Wretched is doing what Wretched always does, and that's exploring our environment and leaving room for ourselves to try different things. To sum things up, the new album is DYNAMIC. We go here, we go there, we go everywhere. There is no shortage of groove, heaviness, speed, melodicism, prettiness, and sadness."

For the last two years, Charlotte, North Carolina's lauded metal monsters worked on the songs that would populate Decay. The result is a conceptual masterpiece that blends haunting melodies with progressive complexity. This fifth album, which is a prequel to 2010's Beyond the Gate, delves into existential themes, D&D-inspired mythology, and personal loss.

"Decay is 100% a concept album," confirms vocalist Billy Powers. "Beyond the Gate had an element this record shares, the talisman. I always knew there was more story there and was very excited to join up with the guys again to put that in motion. The first track I wrote was "The Golden Tide." I had no idea where I was going to take story in connection to BTG until I typed the first line of the song. 'They began in the dark.' After that, the lyrics poured out of my mind and by the end of it I realized that this story takes place many years before the content of BTG."

The LP's title track (and first single) contains the album's main character, Malus, along with a character from BTG named Elturiel, a djinn bound to any creation to come from Xzorian. "In the song, 'decay' refers to Malus' decaying existence, the feeling of loss, and helplessness/lack of control he has to influence anything outside of the darkness in which he has been cast."

In broader terms, decay refers to many elements of the album's story: "The decay of good intention, the loss of loved ones, the influence time and choices has upon our bodies and minds and the decay of the world around us due to the choices of those with ultimate power." Powers found that he'd also subconsciously written certain lines reflecting personal experiences of loss and deception, often influenced by writerly favorites including JRR Tolkien and Michael Crichton as well as countless comic book creators, such as Robert Kirkman and Jonathan Hickman. Decay world even sees Power using Latin words/phrases in the lyrics to "show that in this story languages can span across an incredible amount of time, space, even crossing dimensions."

If this sounds heady, Wretched are glad to expand and explain for fans, with Decay's liner notes offering a more fully realized journey. "The story tells you everything you need to know about what happens before and after each song, so the listener can choose to listen to the album again in story order to gain the full story experience of the album," Wretched explain.

The music "contributes to the story and helps paint an image, in the same way music and movies go together," Wieczorek furthers. To that end, the visually evocative "Radiance" is Decay's second single, described by guitarist Steven Funderburk as a "solid head-banging ripper of a song that has heavy groove riffing as well as a very mournful yet epic melody on the back half, which is something we're known for doing."

Sonically, Decay may be Wretched's most pristine-sounding recording, but it's still raw with a live feeling in the performances. The band didn't track the parts until they sounded like a computer. You hear Steven pick through the strings and fret the instrument, Andrew shines on bass with a potent musicality and movement, his parts as much a part of the sound and structure of the songs as the guitar. Vocally, Powers went as raw as humanly possible, pushing himself and the instrumentals to their furthest for an uncompromisingly powerful performance on every track.

The twelfth and final song on Decay is "Golden Skyway," which is a bit of a wildcard, rife with uplifting energy. Funderburk is drawn to guitar-driven melody from bands like Iron Maiden and Dissection, and that approach is used on "Golden Skyway. "I've wanted to do the key change / modulation move on every record, but it just didn't work out for whatever reason," he recalls. "But 'Golden Skyway' finally opened that door for us. I'm a huge fan of the 80's in general and that was a stamp all over music from that era so it was rad finally doing that." 'Golden Skyway' felt like the proper final track with its triumphant-sounding melody and groove giving listeners an uplifting end to an often-dark musical journey.

When Wretched emerged from North Carolina, in 2005 as a formidable force on the metal scene, their blending of melodic, death, technical and progressive metal captured ears immediately. With their 2025 debut album on Metal Blade, the band is officially back in full force with a tidal wave of music to lift up both old and new fans. "The world is such a wild place that can be hard to navigate. Many people have so many hardships in life. I wanted to create an escape for the listener with the hopes that they will be entertained, get lost in the music/lyrics and forget about everything else going on, if just for a little while."

Billy Powers: Vocals

Steven Funderburk: Guitar

Andrew Grevey: Bass

Marshall Wieczorek: Drums

https://www.facebook.com/wretchednc

Wretched - Decay (Official Video)

An Abstract Illusion "No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons" - Official Video

An Abstract Illusion

The Sleeping City

Willowtip Records

17 October 2025

Alright, so The Sleeping City is the third full album from AN ABSTRACT ILLUSION. Now, these folks got their own way of doing things. They blend that progressive death metal and black metal, throwing in some arpeggiating synths and drones, along with these huge, wide-open soundscapes that kind of take you back to themm sci-fi movie soundtracks. It is a real trip, like you are wandering through some old futuristic town. This here album is heavy and atmospheric, like it is reaching into the darker parts of your mind. They are talking about human feelings and suffering, digging into those tough emotions, like taking a long walk through your own head, with all its twists and turns. And that sleeping city? Well, it is old and worn down, but still mighty grand in its own way. It is like one of those big, forgotten landmarks that is seen better days, but still stands tall, waiting for you to come and see what is left behind. So, if you are up for a heavy listen with a whole lot of atmosphere and some deep thinking thrown in, this album's got you covered.

The band comments on the forthcoming album:

“When we compose an album we don't want it to just be a collection of random songs, we want a holistic theme coursing through the album's veins. When writing The Sleeping City we wanted to explore what the soundtrack to a dystopian sci-fi film, such as Blade Runner or Terminator, would sound like if it were written by a death metal band.

For The Sleeping City, we took inspiration from acts such as Depeche Mode, My Bloody Valentine, Kite, Ólafur Arnalds and Boards of Canada, pushing us to expand and refine our sound palette. Going from the long-song format of Woe, it was a fun challenge to once again write self-contained songs with a clear beginning and end.

During the creation of this album we worked with a great team of collaborators. Produced by the band’s own Karl Westerlund, The Sleeping City was once again mixed and mastered by Robin Leijon. Drums were recorded and produced by Jakob Herrmann (Devin Townsend, Evergrey, VOLA, Vildhjärta) at the legendary Top Floor Studios in Gothenburg, who has captured some of our all-time favorite drum tones. The gorgeous artwork, a homage to early black metal's painted artworks, was done by Alex Eckman-Lawn (Horrendous, Afterbirth, Woe, Nero Di Marte). We also worked with amazing musicians who provided us with beautiful strings and vocals.

With The Sleeping City we truly feel we’ve elevated our craft beyond anything we’ve done before and can’t wait for its release. Thank you all for your continued support!”

An Abstract Illusion "No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons" - Official Video

The Sleeping City by An Abstract Illusion

https://www.facebook.com/anabstractillusion