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#alternativemetal — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #alternativemetal, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Songs For The Deaf

    #queensofthestoneage #songsforthedeaf #rock #stonerrock #alternativerock #heavymetal #hardrock #desertrock #alternativemetal #davegrohl #rock #rockmusic #music #musicsky #musiciansky #joshhomme QOTSA release their 3rd album on August 27, 2002 featuring a damn powerhouse lineup -- Dave Grohl on drums, front-man Josh Homme, bassist Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan on vocals. Both the critics and fans loved the album -- a conceptual road trip from Los…

    robinbannks.com/2026/08/27/son

  2. In This Moment Announce New Album Witch, Release Powerful New Single “Crawl”

    Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum alternative metal outfit In This Moment have announced their ninth studio album, Witch, set for release on August 28 via Better Noise Music. The album marks the band's first full-length release with the label.

    voiceofnoir.com/2026/07/20/in-

  3. Esprit D’Air – Aeons Review

    By Baguette of Bodom

    Electronic music and metal joining forces is often treated with suspicion. Not electronic in the ‘band member finds a Casio keyboard in their cellar’ sense,1 but a genuine fusion of the two with synthesizers on the forefront. Esprit D’Air is one of the more recent bands making waves with their take on this mix. A Japanese band formed in London in 2010 and spearheaded by Kai (The Sisters of Mercy—yes, that one), they’ve quickly formed their identity around a catchy blend of alternative metal, J-rock, and trance, among other stranger things. One break-up and reformation later, debut album Constellations finally appeared in 2017, followed by 2022’s Oceans and 2024’s Seasons.2 Fourth full-length Aeons is looking to delve deeper into Esprit D’Air’s niche, attempting a more varied package without any of their usual guest features help. How do they handle this melting pot of genres alone?

    Aeons is here to have fun, first and foremost. While the resurrected post-2016 incarnation of Esprit D’Air is technically a solo project—Kai being the only ‘official’ full-time member—they do function as a band in practice. Frontman Kai and partner-in-crime Takeshi Tokunaga are behind most of the album’s writing and instrumentation, with Jan-Vincent Velazco handling the drum department. It’s difficult to pin down simple comparison points to Esprit D’Air’s genre soup shenanigans, but the majority of Aeons is built around alternative metal filtered through an anthemic, rock-oriented quality, the likes of X Japan (“Like a Phoenix”). Occasionally, their sound even leans towards the AOR, power-ish metal soar of newer Battle Beast (“Shadow of Time,” “Silver Leaf”). The guitar work usually resides next to or behind the keyboards, but it does a fine job adding extra heaviness to the album, and the instrumentation in general is tight and snappy. Kai’s vocal chops also play a major role on the record, further decorating strong choruses with melodic, J-rock-inspired vocal lines (“Chronos,” “羽ばたけ”).

    Esprit D’Air has a penchant for strong hooks, especially on keyboards. Tracks like “Silver Leaf” and “Like a Phoenix” highlight the album’s greatest strengths, fusing together J-rock with extremely catchy synth patches that borrow from both techno and trance. Crucially, its multifaceted arsenal of keyboard and guitar styles makes the songs distinct from one another. Though the guitars could be more prominent, their relatively simplistic rhythmic role is complemented by powerful leads and intricate solo work when needed. The band’s attitude on instrumentation and songwriting is at times reminiscent of the way Elyose fuses early 2000s electronic and metal influences together, occasionally drifting towards their modern djentier alt-metal sound (“Chronos,” Lost Horizon”) or even the melodic downtuned attack of Periphery (“Quetzalcoatl”). Through their spectrum of styles, Aeons fulfills the band’s threat to feature more variety in a sleeker form.

    The variety of Aeons, while intriguing, is a double-edged sword. There’s a particular spot around tracks 8–10 where the album’s alternative edge morphs into an edgier, nu-informed sound, both instrumentally and vocally (“Broken Mirror,” “絶望の光”). Despite Esprit D’Air kind of pulling it off, it doesn’t fit the album’s mood, especially not with all of it centered on one region. Half-ballad “Stardust” also quiets the album’s thunder somewhat, its bright but melancholic soundscape causing Kai to overstep his optimal vocal range. Fortunately, the majority of Aeons is memorable and at times even infectious. Its brevity softens its missteps; where Oceans landed at almost an hour, Aeons does more in nearly half the amount of time. This slick 35-minute runtime means its speed bumps aren’t fatal, but the middle of the album does still sag in comparison to the powerful start and finish.

    Aeons ends up being an entertaining, tight bundle of melodic genre-defying goodness. Its catchy rock/metal attack blends together everything ’00s, and the electronic influences are particularly satisfying. The record’s inconsistency does leave something to be desired, and its sonical direction is unfocused at points, but the positives ultimately outweigh its stumbles. When I picked up the promo for Aeons, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into or what to expect. Now, it’s apparent Esprit D’Air have made an album that amounts to more than its components imply. I reckon their appeal can reach beyond their cited genre tags, and there’s plenty of room to further expand on their best qualities in the future.

    Rating: Good!
    DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: FLAC
    Label: Starstorm Records (self-run)
    Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
    Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

    #2025 #30 #aeons #alternativeMetal #battleBeast #electronicMetal #electronicore #elyose #espritDair #jRock #japaneseMetal #nov25 #periphery #review #reviews #starstormRecords #theSistersOfMercy #tranceMetal #xJapan

  4. Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound Review

    By Owlswald

    Black metal is rooted in extremity—a core toolkit of visual aesthetics, speed, power and atmosphere that naturally imbues it with an inherent spiritual essence. But that essence often collapses into a monochromatic buzz of tremolo and constant tempos. Los Angeles-based quartet Agriculture challenges this expectation with their second LP, The Spiritual Sound, moving beyond the solely dark and brutal in search of presence and illumination. Coming off their potent self-titled debut—a record that landed on Cherd’s Top 10(ish) records of 2023—and 2024’s Living is Easy EP, The Spiritual Sound is a statement of pure honesty and fearless experimentation. The record shatters typical black metal conventions, throwing out ritualistic fanfare for a vast array of influences including death metal, noise, math rock, folk, country, and punk. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” the foursome demands you check all preconceived notions at the door as they reframe extreme in their own unique and expansive way.

    While Agriculture hasn’t completely turned their backs on their blackened roots, The Spiritual Sound uses them as a launchpad to branch out into realms occupied by groups like Liturgy and labelmates Chat Pile. The frenzied, tremolotic dissonance of guitarists Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill still power tracks like “Serenity,” “Flea,” and “Micah (5.15am),” underpinning Leah Levinson’s manic vocals and Kern Haug’s unhinged drumming. Now, however, this approach serves as a stepping stone to more expansive horizons, as Agriculture’s originality has fully blossomed. The record’s forty-four minutes are a playful, unpredictable and complex patchwork of styles: math rock chaos (“My Garden”), sludgy down-picked riffs (“The Weight”), soothing Slowdivey shoegaze harmonies (“Flea,” “Dan’s Love Song”), punky gallops (“Micah (5.15am))” and delicate, folky passages (“The Reply,” “Hallelujah”). This diverse blend transmits an authentic ethos centered on camaraderie, collective struggle, and catharsis, grounded in themes from queer history and AIDS-era literature to historical collapse and Zen Buddhism. As unconventional as it might be, The Spiritual Sound’s mission is a clear success: to craft unique, empowering music that fosters community without pretense.

    Agriculture’s experimentation largely shines through Meyer and Chowenhill’s impressive and inventive shredding. The duo injects The Spiritual Sound with tons of flashy guitar work through a hodgepodge of bends, squeals, trills, and high-pitched pick taps around more conventional bouts of thrashy riffing and smothering tremolos to create a vibrant spectrum of textures. The captivating leads in tracks like “The Weight,” “My Garden” and “Bodhidharma”—the latter of which contains one of the best solos I’ve heard in a long time—take influence from Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) boundary-pushing designs or Larry LaLonde’s (Primus) accented jams, while “Flea’s” solo elicits the expressiveness of classic rock. Song o’ the Year candidate “My Garden” explodes into a whirling dervish of frantic math fretwork before dropping into one of the most crushing riffs I’ve heard all year. It then transitions into a soothing interlude for a brief moment before bludgeoning you once more with heaviness and rapid-fire high tremolo runs. This constant shift between doom- and groove-laden weight, jarring dissonance, and soothing ethereal passages is what gives The Spiritual Sound its complex structure and feeds its absorbing, often unpredictable journey.

    The Spiritual Sound’s novelty is equally defined by Levinson and Meyer’s vocal performances. Levinson shifts between extreme intensity and introspective subtlety, delivering ear-piercing shrieking rasps balanced by softer, more experimental elements like the poetic, spoken word found in “Bodhidharma” or the conversational tone of “Flea.” The strategic use of soothing clean vocals and Meyer’s beautiful harmonies in songs like “The Reply,” “Hallelujah,” or “Dan’s Love Song” also provides essential emotional contrast, amplifying the impact of the record’s heavier tracks and buttressing Agriculture’s originality. The coarse production—courtesy of Chowenhill—is compressed and somewhat lo-fi but allows the quartet’s unbridled sound to rush through the speakers with both raw aggression and clarity.

    Agriculture may have stumbled into black metal during their formation, but the genre—and The Spiritual Sound—is all the better for it. Though their ambitious scope results in some unevenness (“Flea” and “Serenity” rely on tropey structures and interlude “The Spiritual Sound” is confusingly split into its own track), Agriculture is unafraid to walk its own path, successfully blending various styles into a great record authentically rooted in the power, community and pure enjoyment of extreme music. Black metal purists should look elsewhere—however, those who approach The Spiritual Sound without pretense will find a unique, genre-defying experience that only gets better with every play.

    Rating: Great!
    DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
    Label: The Flenser
    Websites: agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/music | agriculturemusic.com | facebook.com/agriculturemusic
    Releases Worldwide: October 3rd, 2025

    #2025 #40 #Agriculture #AlternativeMetal #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #ChatPile #ExperimentalMetal #Liturgy #Oct25 #Primus #RageAgainstTheMachine #Review #Reviews #Slowdive #TheFlenser #TheSpiritualSound