Release Day Weekly Spam - (23/10/2026)

Introduction

This feature post started as a weekly chain of Discord messages about whatever I found interesting in the barrage of release announcements that traditionally happen every Friday in the music world. Personally I've always been focused into the Metal umbrella that covers that subset of the larger Rock canopy in music, but you can sometimes find other styles that either cross-pollinate with my tastes or that just caught my interest despite everything.

Notable album releases:

The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir - Songs From a Dying Empire

One thing that I personally feel the current trying times had been lacking was that rage that other watershed points in recent history channeled through some of its art. I don't know the precise reason for that, maybe it was the slow burning that the shift in the current general climate took time to really conflagrate, a general confusion about the true reasons behind our present impasse, or a lack of focus that's both designed and product of turmoil. But I think at last some of that haze is slowly starting to lift, and as it's usual, it seems to be starting at the edges. Counterculture has also been opted by the reactionary and even corporatized which is probably another reason why independent art has looked comparatively slow to answer the call for nonconformity in meaningful ways.

The Blood Mountain Black Metal Choir may have a bombastic and lengthy name for a one-man project (a known trope on the Black Metal landscape) and it's one that's explicitly self-defined as an anti-fascist in its politics and completely human-made, which tells a lot of our times when both statements have to be made obvious. Songs From a Dying Empire has been a release I've been expecting for a while, both because of promising previous releases of a split and a demo, and also from a desire of having some of that same internal rage shared and exposed to the world, and maybe having it resonate with other indignant souls out there. Angry and mournful at the same time, I think this is going to be one of the most played releases for me in this year.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM - Estuary

To follow up on my previous chain of thoughts, I find relevant that WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM found this time proper for its return to the recording studio, 5 years after Primordial Arcana. But then again, we're pattern recognizing animals in essence, and I'm projecting my own desires for a trend that may not even be there. USBM as a very niche subgenre at least it's showing some desire for maintaining it's existence as a somewhat relevant cultural phenomenon. WITTR in particular keeps being one of the most recognizable names and it's encouraging that they're still finding enough drive to channel their creative concerns in new and fulfilling ways. Estuary is intriguing and challenging enough to interest the listener, and in a genre that's constantly critiqued as being oversaturated with low quality efforts, that's sometimes enough to rise to the top. At least the selling charts on Metal Bandcamp seem to suggest so.

BEATEN TO DEATH - Vntrve

And if you're in need of even more challenging music, the Norwegian Grindcore Avant-Garde specialists of BEATEN TO DEATH have a real doozy for you. Infamously known for refusing to repeat themselves on each release, this one is a slab of intense FUN delivered at breakneck speed. And to be honest, what else could you expect from song titles such as Sunburnt Satanist, My Dying Little Pony, and Satan Spawn, the K-Pop Demon?

Cursebinder - Psychohazard

Psychodelia it's far from a new element woven into extreme Metal, but it's still novel enough to give a lot of originality points for anyone that's crafty enough to do it in an engaging way. And I'm a sucker for a luscious sax tone that's well mixed into my Metal. A few weeks ago I was raving about finding out The Lovecraft Sextet and now I'm raving about finding the magnificent Polish band Cursebinder.

Notable Live Performances:

I also like to share in these features the concerts and live performances that I found compelling during the week, they can be recently released or just blessed by the all-mighty algorithm, but in any case I hope you like them as much as I did, or find something new that didn't expect to enjoy.

One of such unexpected discoveries is this Latin-infused Surf Rock Indonesian band that as is usual on KEXP just plainly rocked their hearts out.

A bit out of the left field (for me at least) there's this great performance of Sheherezade by the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg.

And I found the previous after rewatching this concert by Skáld that I added to my binging of Scandinavian Folk music after my excitement for the latest Heliung release drove me down that rabbit hole.

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