Kamelot
Kamelot, the American band and a reference in power metal with a symphonic and gothic touch.
Angra
Angra, the Brazilian band that pioneered Latin American power metal.
Helloween
Helloween, one of the founding bands of European power metal.
Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian, the German epic power metal band, known for its Tolkien-inspired lyrics.
Nightwish
Nightwish, the Finnish band that is a global reference in symphonic metal.
Sepultura
Sepultura, the Brazilian band that took thrash and groove metal to the world stage.
Anthrax
Anthrax, the New York band among the Big Four of thrash metal, a benchmark of the genre in the 1980s.
Megadeth
Megadeth, Dave Mustaine’s band (ex-Metallica), one of the Big Four of thrash metal.
Slayer
Slayer, one of the Big Four of American thrash metal, a byword for aggression and speed.
Metallica
Metallica, the Los Angeles band that took thrash metal into the stadium.
Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard, an essential trumpeter of hard bop and 1970s jazz fusion.
The Eleventh House
The Eleventh House, the jazz fusion band led by guitarist Larry Coryell.
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell, a pioneering jazz fusion guitarist, often called the “godfather” of the genre.
Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock, one of the great pianists of modern jazz and a jazz-funk pioneer with Head Hunters.
Tony Williams Lifetime
Tony Williams Lifetime, the pioneering jazz fusion band founded by Miles Davis’s drummer.
Present
Present, the Belgian band founded by Roger Trigaux (ex-Univers Zero), a pillar of Rock in Opposition.
Etron Fou Leloublan
Etron Fou Leloublan, the most eccentric French band of Rock in Opposition, a fusion of rock and absurdist theatre.
Stormy Six
Stormy Six, the Milanese progressive rock and political song band, a founding member of Rock in Opposition.
Aksak Maboul
Aksak Maboul, Marc Hollander’s Belgian project, a landmark of Rock in Opposition and the pop avant-garde.
Art Zoyd
Art Zoyd, one of the founding bands of French Rock in Opposition.
Jane
Jane, one of the most popular krautrock and progressive hard rock bands in 1970s Germany.
Panna Fredda
Panna Fredda, one of the first Italian progressive rock bands, with a single cult album.
Biglietto per l’Inferno
Biglietto per l’Inferno, a cult Italian progressive rock band with a single landmark album.
Celeste
Celeste, the cult progressive rock band from Sanremo, a reference for the melancholic, Mellotron-laden Italian sound.
Locanda delle Fate
Locanda delle Fate, one of the last great classics of 1970s Italian symphonic progressive rock.
A book on thrash metal’s big four comes out on 10 November and starts the story in 1981
“Heavy Metal’s Big Four” is by Daniel Bukszpan, author of “Rush At 50” and “Iron Maiden At 50”, and works through Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer year by year.
Myrath cover Sting’s “Shape of My Heart” halfway through the tour that brings them to Barcelona on 25 October
Myrath have put the version out midway through the “Wilderness of Mirrors” tour, which has five Spanish dates and closes its European leg on 28 October in Villeurbanne.
Avaland preview “Face The Eternal” and release “Chemical Poetry” on 30 October
The third chapter of the French band’s metal opera, produced by Joost van den Broek. The track they’ve put out was the weakest on the demos until the riffs went in.
Archive release “Not In My Name” on 19 March, with an eighteen-minute title track sung by all five voices
The Croydon collective’s fourteenth album, just over a year on from “Glass Minds”. Eleven tracks on Dangervisit and [PIAS], with a 2027 tour taking in four German cities.
Agriculture release a European live album on Friday, most of it taped at Roadburn
“The Spiritual Sound, Live in Europe 2026” arrives digitally on 2 October and on vinyl and CD on 27 November. Seven of the ten tracks come from the Tilburg festival.
Ian Gillan will do twenty-four spoken-word nights across the UK in April and May 2027
Twenty-four nights from Bournemouth to Cadogan Hall, between 28 April and 29 May 2027. The name comes from the nonsense words he uses to fix a melody’s metre before writing the real lyric.
Faith No More return to Europe in June 2027 as headliners of Gdańsk’s Mystic Festival
It’s the first European date of the comeback, announced with a “Surprise! We’re alive!”. Faith No More have not played since August 2016, and in January and February they play four shows in Australia and New Zealand.
Nirvana collect MTV’s Video Vanguard Award, the first band to take it since Duran Duran in 2003
Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear picked it up on 27 September at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, handed over by Chuck D. The band shot seven videos before 1994.
Disfear release “The Last Nail” on 20 November, eighteen years on and carrying the last recordings Tomas Lindberg and Marcus Andersson made
Eight tracks on Relapse, written across fourteen years and recorded in three. It’s the first record since 2008’s “Live the Storm” and the last to carry Tomas Lindberg’s voice and Marcus Andersson’s drums.
Slug Comparison – Cold In Cold Out
Fen’s Doug Harrison opens his EP with a declared homage to “Something in the Way”, cut on a twenty-pound guitar. The five tracks that follow don’t get near it.
Chad Fowler / Eri Yamamoto – Polkadots & Moonbeams
An elegy for Fowler’s father, the song played at his wedding, and six improvisations taped in one Brooklyn afternoon with nothing said beforehand. A duo that listens hard.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – Shapes of Midnight
Cut at Abbey Road in three days and put out on their own label: Uncle Acid’s seventh heads back to familiar ground, with Rachel Burnett’s saxophone the best thing on it.
Bloque
Bloque, the Cantabrian progressive rock and jazz-rock band with flamenco influences.
Storm
Storm, the Seville hard rock and psychedelic rock band of the 1970s.
Smash
Smash, the Seville band that pioneered the fusion of flamenco and progressive rock.