Pelican has always been a band that’s not just from Chicago, but distinctly of Chicago. Formed in 2000 by guitarists Trevor Shelley de Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec alongside brothers Bryan and Larry Herweg on bass and drums respectively, Pelican’s foundation was built upon the rule-free, genre-agnostic scene synonymous with the Fireside Bowl. “The ‘90s in Chicago was a free-for-all. Everyone was just coming from a place of pure creativity,” says Shelley de Brauw. With Schroeder-Lebec returning to the band following Dallas Thomas’ exit in 2022, this reunified version of Pelican allowed the band to tap back into those influences and build something distinctly new with Flickering Resonance.

Gnosis is the highly anticipated 8th full length from Russian Circles.

When times are tough, or you’re feeling worn down, you start longing for a life of total peace. A life where there are no fights, arguments or lies; where there is no such thing as disappointment and your actions have no consequences. Some might call it a “fantasy world”. Genre-jumping Belgian trio Brutus call it the “Unison Life” – a phrase that titles their third studio album. Unison Life is about all the stuff that wears you down in the first place. It’s the ugliness, the pain, and the acts of bravery that get you through it all. Beginning with a portrait of contentment and unravelling from there, the album goes into battle and asks what really counts. In their own words: “Is this Unison Life a hoax? Or a quest?”

Recorded by Neige and Winterhalter themselves, with a little help from talented friends, Les Chants de l’Aurore pulls off the neat trick of sounding both huge and intimate. From the opening Komorebi onwards, Alcest sound reborn and revitalised, as their most cherished trademarks are reinvented for a new era, and with new depths and sophistication on display.

BIG|BRAVE’s music has been described as massive minimalism. Their fusillades of textural distortion and feedback emphasize their music’s frayed edges as much as its all-encompassing weight. The potency of the trio’s work is their singular artistry combining elements of traditional folk techniques and a modern deconstruction of guitar music. Gain, feedback, and amplitude are essential to A Chaos Of Flowers, an album that builds on their ferocious 2023 album nature morte. Lyrically, the songs explore the most vulnerable of human experiences, how marginalizations manifest internally and externally, the inner struggles of isolation, and co-existence in nature. A Chaos of Flowers draws on catharsis and beauty as well as the quagmire of disorientation and othering. The album is a monument of simultaneous serenity and disquiet, a subtle maelstrom of internal life.

Dwelling somewhere between melodic, soothing serenity and heavy, crushing force Atlases define their sound as Modern Post- Metal. The band uses electronic drum pads and keyboards in addition to traditional instrumentsto achieve a full, cinematic and immersive soundscapes.

BIG|BRAVE, the elemental ensemble of guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie, guitarist Mathieu Ball, and drummer Tasy Hudson, harness an earthen heaviness composed of distorted and textural drones, austere bombast, and Wattie’s heart-rending voice. Like recent collaborators The Body, BIG|BRAVE is at the forefront of reconfiguring the landscape of heavy music. The trio brandish sparseness and density like weapons, cast tense atmospheres with languid tempos and mutate feedback into eruptions of enveloping tempests. nature morte sharpens BIG|BRAVE’s ferocity and expansive sound into emotional elegies for the disenfranchised, wringing abstracted textures and pure fervence into songs of unfathomable mass.

Nothing can turn back the tides of time or stop their inexorable forward grind, but music can always be relied upon to make the journey more enjoyable. LONG DISTANCE CALLING have been expressing the inexpressible for the last 16 years, ploughing their primarily instrumental furrow with the skill and dexterity of true sonic artisans.

As progenitors of some of the most inventive, uninhibited, dynamic music ever recorded, LA's Intronaut are a force to be reckoned with. These traits are expanded ever further on sixth full-length Fluid Existential Inversions, which features the most dramatic and epic sounds of their career.

“Radiant Bloom“ is the third full-length album from New England rock outfit, ASTRONOID. Often hard to categorize, the band has been dubbed "shoegaze black metal" due to their unique ability to weave together songs containing soaring, lush guitars over classic blast-beats. Coming in over the top are singer / guitarist Brett Boland's Mew-like vocals, a band he openly cites as a major influence.

During spring of 2020, a line-up change occurred. The band recorded and released an EP named “KMPXP” for this milestone. It also announced the new artistic direction for the future of The Kompressor Experiment. This new album, “Ebb & Flow” is recorded during spring of 2021 by Ludovic Volper (Méandre). Darker and more frantic than ever, the 7 tracks present a view of the history of mankind, its uncertain beginnings (Endure The Sky, Riss-Würm), through its exponential development (Epigenesis), its infinite violent cycles (Tooth & Nail, Castle Bravo I and II) to end on a hope for resilience (Liminal Space).

Having traversed the entire expanse of the spectrum of atmospheric sludge and post metal in their 24 years of existence, Cult Of Luna’s evolution shows no signs of slowing down. The Long Road North is another welcome addition on their quest to push sonic boundaries and is one of their hardest hitting releases yet…

Celeste have been breaking the outer boundaries of heavy music for over fifteen years. When they first evolved from the Lyon hardcore punk scene, they were absolutely brutal and entirely unique, delivering extremity on their own terms that they pushed further and further with each successive album.

Hex is the eighth studio album of Spanish post-rock outfit Toundra. Like many bands all across the globe, 2020 forced a new and unexpected reality upon the Madrid natives, who found their touring plans cut short due to the pandemic and would begin shifting their focus towards recording new material under unusual circumstances.

Taking inspiration from bands like Latitudes, The Ocean, Cult of Luna, Cloudkicker, Celeste, Ulcerate, and Cranial, Laden's third album The Visitation, guides listeners on a post-metal journey with elements of black, prog, and sludge metal…