Browsing Tag

Alternative Metal

LAKE ACACIA’s Post-Hardcore Industrial Juggernaut, Tear You Down, Fuels the Fire of Revolution

Posted on 4 May 2026

The prolific hit-making post-hardcore duo, LAKE ACACIA, has delivered some of their hardest, hypersonic blows to date in their latest single, Tear You Down.

If you weren’t already salivating for an insurrection before hitting play, expect your hunger for a revolution to grow ravenous as you’re adrenalised by the insurgent synthesis of metalcore, groove metal and industrial. Alternatively, if you’ve been complacent about the atrocious state of reality, anticipate being slapped into your senses by the riling earworm which lays out vocal hooks like landmines in the melodic breaks and through the lyrics which resonate with piercing clarity through the mechanised, cacophonous instrumentals.

Tear You Down makes Marilyn Manson’s Fight Song, and subsequently Faith No More’s Be Aggressive sound wilted; flimsy in the face of this future-forward riot of fortitude. The bass-driven heft hits with colossal force, while unrestrained drumming, synth layers, strings, electronics and percussive textures turn the track into a cinematic demolition site with a militant heartbeat. Towering vocals rich with harmony and emotion sit at the centre, proving how LAKE ACACIA can balance brute-force impact with atmosphere. As a two-piece operating far beyond genre lines, their sound has become monolithic; far too towering for arbitrary genre parameters to cage.

Tear You Down is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Born Pessimist Twisted ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dead’ into Clockwork Baroque Theatre and Berserk Metalcore Visceralism

Posted on 11 April 2026

If no one has coined the dark cabaret trap metal genre before the drop of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dead, the honour has to go to Born Pessimist. The opening sequence turns as if operated by clockwork mechanisms, instilled with baroque theatricality; as the track progresses, the shadows over the production become more all-consuming as Born Pessimist’s bars start to sharpen their candid sting.

That delivery unravels into a frantically urgent outpour of stark truths until the single descends into industrial metalcore catharsis, running with the same feverish force as a juggernaut in berserk mode. Following the crescendo of ferocious metal motifs, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dead digs into the melodiousness of neo-classical chamber trap, with the narrative driving the mix as you come face to face with mortality and reconcile with how death has nothing on the horror of life.

Across previous releases, from the industrial rap abrasion of Shock and Awe to the lo-fi acoustic desolation of This Sunless Space, Born Pessimist has kept pushing into harsher emotional terrain while widening the sonic frame. With Aluminum now in the works, this single lands like a vicious thesis statement for whatever comes next.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dead is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The juggernautess of Dark Feminine Metalcore ripped open scars in ‘Mother Dearest’

Posted on 7 January 2026

Sa’Lunara stands as the juggernautess of modern metalcore, and with Mother Dearest, she channels her ethereally occultist approach to vindication through expression with devastating clarity.

There’s no fury like a woman scorned by childhood trauma from maternal hands, and this single carries that truth like a sacred blade. Every line is raw with furore, whether delivered through scathed screams or diaphanous harmony, especially the incantatory line, “Watch me sing your silence into flame”, which crowns Sa’Lunara as a priestess of poetry rooted in lived pain.

This is the kind of single you listen to in complete reverence, attuned to the anguish spilling through its progressions as an act of artful trauma healing. For anyone diminished rather than raised by the person who brought them into the world only to punish them, Mother Dearest lands with brutal familiarity. The track visualises vulnerability and rage with unfiltered honesty, tracing the consequences of degradation inflicted by someone who shared their DNA only to deride it. The fortitude driving the single reads as fierce self-reclamation, heavy with purpose and ritual intent.

Sa’Lunara’s ascent through the alternative metal sphere reflects a vision sharpened by occult symbolism, ceremony, and the primal feminine. Her sound fuses modern metalcore weight with cinematic atmospheres that feel conjured rather than composed, and her growing community connects through recognition rather than spectacle. With Mother Dearest, she offers a space where fury and healing coexist, forged through expression rather than restraint. This single confirms her place as an artist whose work resonates as both confrontation and communion.

Mother Dearest is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

A Circle of Teeth exhumed industrial metal’s primal side in the cinematic volition of ‘Six Pale Fingers’

Posted on 29 November 2025
Primalistic by a Circle of Teeth

With beats that land like bloodied fists into the disquieting atmosphere instilled from the first note through droning oscillations of dark despondence, Six Pale Fingers exhibits how A Circle of Teeth knows there’s far more to industrial metal than caustically mechanised synthetics. The progressively blindsiding track slams through a myriad of stylistic twists, emanating the aggression of Static X, the storming rhythmic mercilessness of Mushroomhead, with how they ensure the lyrical cadence locks in perfect synergy with the beats, and the demonic snarl of Marilyn Manson. Yet through the sheer volition of the track, which isn’t short of cinematic panache, it’s clear the UK-based artist may have his influences, but his art is the result of his anger being uncaged.

As a centrepiece of the Primalistic EP, Six Pale Fingers unleashed something raw and unfiltered; a work forged in human fury, not digital detachment. The soundscape breathes with distortion and tension, exuding a sense of defiant physicality. It’s industrial metal stripped to its sinew, built from real flesh and blood rather than code and circuitry.

A Circle of Teeth made a deliberate move away from AI-generated artwork to reclaim the tangible by reworking the mixes, the masters, and the visual aesthetic to birth Primalistic as something authentic and alive. The result is a body of work that growls with conviction, refusing sterility while exalting chaos as its purest form of expression.

Six Pale Fingers is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alex Haines summoned cinematic wrath and melodic metal tension in Look Up

Posted on 26 October 2025

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and melodic metal hath no cinematic intensity like Alex Haines’ discography. While the NYC-based singer-songwriter is renowned for the visceralism in her vocals and her instrumental arrangements alike, her 2021 album The Instrumental Sessions proves her music still hits just as hard when her voice retreats to let the sonic architecture speak for itself.

The standout single, Look Up – Instrumental Version, explores the murky intersection between blockbuster scores and the moody, unreckonable tension of melodic metal. It delivers a soundtrack that doesn’t drag you along for the ride, but submerges you in it. The opulence of the crescendos engulfs the senses in a luxuriantly raw sense of reckoning, while the Skunk Anansie-style hooks and the tide of grungy, dark distortion keep the piece anchored in emotional intuition. It kicks with catharsis, without having to utter a word.

Where some instrumental tracks feel like placeholders for what’s missing, Look Up makes no such compromise. The conviction radiates through the composition, from the piano lines that shimmer with wounded elegance to the weight of the growling guitars crashing beneath them. There’s no breathing room, only release.

After experimenting with bands and deciding to self-produce, Alex Haines has crafted a sonic world entirely of her own making. Her orchestrations draw from classical techniques, metal fundamentals, and emotional exorcism, all while hinting at what her upcoming EP The Rain on Your Parade, may unleash.

Look Up – Instrumental Version is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Re:O Mechanised Japancore with Gnarled Industrial Groove Metal in ‘Crimson Desire’

Posted on 13 August 2025

Re:O found the intersection between Bjork in her Army of Me era, Atari Teenage Riot and Static X in their latest mechanised juggernaut, Crimson Desire. Instead of hearing cogs grind in the instrumentals, you’re drenched in cataclysmic cascades of gnarled industrial groove metal pinched with hypersonic hooks that deliver the kind of escapism only possible when your synapses are scorched by searing hot machinations of electro-metal annihilation.

With one of the most magnetic breakdowns in metal since Machine Head dropped Game Over, the track twists your system into knots as you follow the whirling dervish of sheer momentum. Tying it all together are vocals sweet and euphonic enough to counter the rancour, yet ferociously affecting enough to ensure the intensity is never diluted. Every harmony cuts through with razor-sharp precision.

Formed in 2020 by vocalist, synth player and multi-instrumentalist Rio Suyama, the Japanese-British outfit has earned acclaim for their Japancore concoction of metalcore, industrial metal, J-Pop and dark pop. After reforming in 2023 with James Wright, Jon Roberts, James Stevens and later Alex Carli, they’ve stormed stages internationally and caught the attention of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Introducing Oxfordshire. With releases like Stains on My Soul, Ronin and The Haunted, Re:O has become a formidable force, but Crimson Desire pushes them into an even darker, more unflinching arena.

Crimson Desire is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Liverpool’s Smiling Jackals bared their teeth to unleash the symphonically cerebral allegory, Monster

Posted on 9 August 2025

With their sophomore single, Monster, Liverpool’s Smiling Jackals pulled no punches while stitching a cerebral thematic weight to a sonic storm that sways between precision and abandon. The track carries the fever of something ancient and unrelenting, the kind of menace that stalks from the shadowed corners of the mind. Fear, envy, and jealousy writhe in the lyrics, personified and made tangible by the force of the instrumentation.

Post-rock and metal converge in a way that feels ritualistic, yet wild with intent, like a pact signed in blood between melody and chaos. Guitars snarl, percussion crashes like war drums, and the arrangements surge with the majesty of something orchestral while remaining jagged enough to tear through complacency. In the eye of the storm, there’s an unshakable melodic grip, a sense that even as the walls close in, the music offers its own brand of salvation.

Inspired by Jacques Callot’s Invidia, the single’s artwork underscores the arcane nature of the piece, making it as much an aesthetic statement as a musical one. With Monster, Smiling Jackals summon the shadows, name them, and give them a soundtrack potent enough to make you look them in the eye.

Monster is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud. 
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Review by Amelia Vandergast

SCREECHER CREATURE explored the duality of disquietness in their alt-rock debut, Fever Dream

Posted on 21 October 2022

Between madness and reality, SCREECHER CREATURE’s debut single, Fever Dream, encompasses the disorientating duality of consciousness to the tune of grungey down-tuned guitars, chorus vocal hooks, and hair-raising riffs.

The atmospheric hit wouldn’t be out of place on playlists including Drowning Pool, Eighteen Visions, Soil, Coal Chamber and other bands that reigned supreme in the 00s alt-metal scene, but SCREECHER CREATURE came into their own with the catchy pop elements and the immensity of the lyricism that gets right into the crux of mental disquietness that gives little reprieve when your head hits the pillow.

SCREECHER CREATURE is the solo rock project for the Nashville-hailing songwriter, multi-instrumentalist & producer Wesley Steed. For the debut single, Steed collaborated with co-writer Jordan Brooker. We hope the sophomore release is already in the pipeline.

Fever Dream will officially release on October 21st across all streaming services. Check it out via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast