FatherSon – Pharmakon
Second album from father and son Kramarski: pop-rooted neo-prog about the technology that cures and poisons, and the first one with a flesh-and-blood drummer on it.
Enrico Rava Fearless Five with Joe Lovano – Corners
Rava turned eighty-seven in August and opens the record with eleven minutes of a piece he first recorded in 1998. All six of them write, and Lovano brings the tárogató.
Lugubrious Garment – In the Wide Vale of Uncreated Night
Gabriele Gramaglia opens a new project on 20 Buck Spin for death metal coarser than Cosmic Putrefaction’s, then ends the first track with a violin and a viola.
Enslaved release “Mið” on 30 October: eight tracks and the Norwegian band’s seventeenth album
Nuclear Blast put it out with eight tracks. “Mið” is Old Norse for “the centre”. The band present it in Bergen and Oslo at the end of the month, and play Barcelona on 14 February.
Jez Williams, guitarist of Doves, releases his first solo album on 26 February
“Life Of Me And You” is ten songs and comes out on Earth To Echo Records. The first shows are in Manchester in November. Doves, meanwhile, are three or four songs into album seven.
Chaosbay sign to Metal Blade and put out “Egosystem”, the third advance from an album due in March
The Berlin quartet sign to the American label. The track crosses a reggaeton feel with metalcore hooks, and the band have also released a soft version with a prog-rock bent.
Machine Head release “Sutures” ten days after Robb Flynn called the “UNATØNED” cycle finished
On 10 October the frontman wrote on the band’s site that they were closing the chapter and going home. On the 20th a new track appeared, with no warning. Seven guitarists had passed through along the way.
Delain release “We Are Fire”, the first track of the chapter without a fixed singer: Fabienne Erni, Paolo Ribaldini and Noa Gruman sing it
Napalm put it out on 20 October. The named guests for the new chapter have gone from two to nine, and only three of them sing on this track. The album still has no title and no date.
Hasse Fröberg’s HFMC are calling it a day: live album out 27 November, farewell shows in April 2027
Recorded in Uppsala in November 2024, the live album is out on FREIA Music on 27 November, followed by two farewell shows in 2027, in Germany and Sweden.
Gianni Gebbia – Petrichor
Twelve miniatures for bansuri flute and electronics, and then a piece of almost eleven minutes dedicated to Marian Zazeela that the record files as a bonus track.
Rob Dixon – Naptown Soul
Eight tracks of jazz funk with Hammond organ and guitar, cut by a saxophonist paying tribute to Indianapolis with two Wes Montgomery themes along the way.
Jason Kao Hwang / Human Rites Trio – Second Life
Four long pieces for violin, double bass and a drum kit that takes in oyster shells, a bronze gear and the cover plate off a kitchen tap. Recorded in 2024 and released now.
Bigmoth – Carbon Error
Debut from an Amsterdam quartet that opens with eleven and a half minutes and closes with seven. Zemfira Baghirova’s voice is the hinge between the sung and the roared.
Haken – In A Fever Dream
Twenty-six minutes, five tracks and no bassist of their own: Haken arrive with a single guitarist, two guest bass players and three short pieces at the centre of the record.
Prize Horse sign to Closed Casket Activities and release “The Big Picture”, the first song they wrote for the new album
The Minneapolis trio swap New Morality Zine for the Troy hardcore label. The song has demos going back to 2023 and, they say, ends with the heaviest section they have ever written.
Sweden’s Domkraft close the run of advances from “Night Songs” with “Aurora”, the album they wrote while the guitarist recovered from surgery
“Aurora” is the last of three advances from the trio’s fifth album, out on Magnetic Eye on 20 November. Seven tracks cut at Studio Gröndahl in Stockholm with David Castillo.
Caleb Wheeler Curtis and Jason Moran release “Incantation” on Friday, twelve tracks cut in a single December afternoon in Brooklyn
Imani Records release the saxophone-and-piano duo album on 23 October. Curtis plays the stritch, the straight alto Rahsaan Roland Kirk made his own, and the set makes room for tunes by Arthur Blythe and Orrin Evans.
Ian Anderson plays flute on “A Brighter Day”, the third advance from the Romanians Dirty Shirt’s album, out in January
Jethro Tull’s singer and flautist picked which song suited him from five demos he was sent. “Balkansylvania Vol. 1: Roots” arrives digitally in January 2027, with no physical edition until 2028.
Diana Leah leaves Delain and the band decides against a replacement: guests will sing the new album, Marko Hietala and Sharon den Adel among them
She joined in 2022 and cut a single album, “Dark Waters”. Delain are not replacing her: several artists will sing the record they are preparing, and many of them will play live too.
David Six – Dance With The Ghosts III
The close of a trilogy that began at the Moria refugee camp. Six pieces for one to three musicians, and the composer does not always play on them.
Francesca Han – Sisyphus
Seven piano trio compositions recorded in Tokyo in 2017 and released nine years later. The pieces save their energy for the descent, not for the summit.
Fiesta Alba – Drops of Sunshine in the City of Spectres
Five tracks and twenty-three minutes of Italian math rock with luchador masks, processed violin and African polyrhythms. One of the voices on the record belongs to nobody.
Charles Brown – Wind of the Northern Light
Eleven guitar and guitar-synth instrumentals signed by a Denver musician with forty years of craft behind him. The record never credits whoever keeps time, and somebody does.
Dreadnought – Wars of Spirit // Wards of Light
Sixth album from the Denver quartet: nine opening minutes that travel from opera to blast beat without a visible seam, and a mix that floods everything with reverb.
The Ocean – Solaris
The Ocean’s twelfth album, with four of the seven core musicians newly arrived. It opens and closes on celesta, and the label admits it wanted to sound recognisable.
Apocalyptica took their first United States certifications last December: gold for “Worlds Collide” and double platinum for “I Don’t Care”
The Finnish band also hold gold for the single “Not Strong Enough” with Brent Smith. “It took us a while to reach this,” the band said, now midway through a Latin American tour.
Nicke Andersson signs to Sound Pollution for his first solo album, on which he plays every instrument
It is called “Nicke Andersson And Nobody Else” and the Entombed drummer and Hellacopters guitarist handles the instruments, the production and the artwork. The label has given no date.
Terveet Kädet put out “Subterra” on 5 February, eighteen tracks and their first album in four years
Svart Records put out the new album by the Finnish hardcore pioneers, eighteen tracks. Guitarist Ilari Kinnunen says they spent little time polishing the songs this time round.
Apotheus release the video for “Key Keeper”, the second advance from “The Complex Permutation”, out on 20 November
The quartet from Paços de Ferreira put out their fourth album, ten tracks, with no label attached. The first advance, “Boundaries”, is sung by Soilwork’s Björn Strid.
Tony Levin puts out “The Book Of BEAT”, 188 of his own photographs from the tours of the band playing eighties King Crimson
A 156-page book shot from the stage itself and from the wings. It is on sale at the merchandise stand on the North American tour and on the bassist’s own website.
Justin Hagberg joins Anciients full-time after playing the synths on “Beyond the Reach of the Sun”
Season of Mist announce that the 3 Inches of Blood keyboard player is staying with the Vancouver band. It began with an Alan Parsons cover: they asked for keys and he sent back fifteen tracks within hours.
Myra Melford & Satoko Fujii – Katarahi
Two pianos recorded live in Leibnitz in 2024, seventeen years after the only duo session they had recorded. They do not say who is in which channel: they swapped instruments during the concert.
Emma Rawicz – Paintbox
The British saxophonist’s fifth album runs 49:57 on vinyl and 29:30 on streaming: three tracks, the closer among them, exist only if you buy the record. The decision is the record.
Lifeswallower – Lifeswallower
Four tracks and twenty-three minutes of death metal and thrash by four friends from the south of England who started out playing covers. Not one track comes in under four and three quarter minutes.
Castle Mountain Moon – A Layman’s Guide to Unobtainium
Eleven tracks and sixty-four minutes from a Cologne duo who came out of software: a record about maps that never lets you get lost, and that is both its merit and its limit.
Quivira – Quivira
Eleven tracks and sixty-six minutes of symphonic prog from Topeka. The violin that brings them close to Kansas comes from the keyboards on ten of the eleven, and the guest who really plays one goes almost unnoticed.
Clustersun set “Anti You” for 5 March and share “Fire! Fire! Fire!”, a song that goes back to the 2021 sessions
The Sicilian trio release their fourth album on 5 March 2027 through Sister 9 and Vina Records. The song was started at the end of the “Avalanche” sessions and finished live.
Black Widow brings back “Our Lady of the Bones”, Malombra’s 1996 album, with a nineteen-minute track
The Italian label has put the Genoa band’s second album on its Bandcamp: eleven tracks from one of the names of nineties Italian dark sound. The title track runs 19:13.
Sable Hills close the “Homura” advances with “Labyrinth”, less than a month from the album
The Tokyo band release the last advance track from their fourth album, out on 13 November through Arising Empire with eleven tracks and with Fuki guesting on the title track.
Artificial Brain share “Planet: Carrion”, the second advance off “Antillia”, out on Profound Lore on 13 November
It is the fifth of the nine tracks on the band’s fourth album, their first since 2022. Ian Jacyszyn mixed it and Colin Marston mastered it.