The Archive

Druidess Trip Meadow A Newcastle four-piece turn local folklore into fuzzed, organ-and-sax heavy psych on their debut album. Full of character and good riffs, held back by a dry, front-loaded mix that leaves the vocals stranded on top. Heavy PsychDoom MetalStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 Jul 2026 Ensanguinate Death Saturnalia (With Temples Below) Four Slovenian thrash veterans make filthy, 80s-rooted blackened death on their second album, an occult tribute to Kali, Lilith and Ereshkigal. Riff after riff, played with real conviction, exactly as raw as it means to be. Blackened Death MetalDeath MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Jul 2026 Gavran The One Who Propels A Rotterdam post-metal band comes back from a guitarist's near-fatal illness with five long, cathartic pieces on dunk!records. Wall-of-sound catharsis that mostly earns its scale, with one track where the loudness fights the emotion. Post-MetalDoom MetalSludge ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Jul 2026 Lightless A Foreseen Loss Four tracks, eighty minutes, not a single one under eighteen. A Dresden trio's debut that earns most of its enormous running time, and asks for more patience than the murk can always repay. Funeral DoomBlack MetalSludge ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jul 2026 Miss Lava Under a Black Sun Twenty years in, the Lisbon four-piece deliver their heaviest record and then master half of it into a brick. The songs that were allowed to breathe are the best they have written. Stoner RockHeavy PsychDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jul 2026 Mortui Vultus Distant Echoes An unsigned Odesa band, formed in 2022, playing post-black metal about what the last years have done to the inside of a person's head. The ideas are stronger than the mastering that carries them. Post-Black MetalBlackgazeAtmospheric Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jul 2026 Midryasi's Kult Italian Dark Sound An Italian occult-doom collective's debut, steeped in the horror lineage of Death SS and Paul Chain and caked in dirty fuzz. Raw and characterful, with one genuinely great song, let down by a loud, uneven master. Doom MetalOccult RockHeavy Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jul 2026 Paling Galore Ten tracks of cavernous German atmospheric sludge that pair ritual clean chants with raw screams and bury both in fuzz. Immersive and genuinely oppressive when it moves, dulled by a low-mid murk that clings to the whole record. Sludge MetalPost-MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jul 2026 Truckfighters Masterflow A decade after their last record, the Örebro fuzz institution return moodier and more expansive than the desert-rock nostalgia crowd might expect. Uneven in the mastering, but the best of it breathes like they never left. Stoner RockFuzzDesert Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jul 2026 Okay You Win End of Days A London four-piece's debut, desert rock cut with 90s alt-metal grit and a real gift for a hook. Gutsy and likeable, blunted by a mix that runs too hot and too harsh. Stoner RockDesert RockAlternative Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 Jul 2026 Slift Fantasia The Toulouse trio trade cosmic sprawl for lean aggression, eight tracks of heavy psych sharpened to a point by Kurt Ballou's mix. Their most direct record yet, and one of their best. Heavy PsychSpace RockNoise Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 Jul 2026 Zørza Twilight of the Golden Star A Polish duo's sophomore post-black record, all romantic-symbolist grandeur and guest vocals from Harakiri for the Sky and Karg. The writing reaches high, but a loudness-war master keeps clipping its wings. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 Jul 2026 Iskandr Sacraal The Nijmegen project's latest is a cavernous, hymnal statement of atmospheric black metal drifting into folk-doom and post-industrial dread, sung in Dutch and built to swallow you whole. Singular, immersive, and mastered with rare restraint. Atmospheric Black MetalDoom MetalDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 11 Jul 2026 Purple Skies A Million Years A Bergen crew serve nine tracks of warm, retro-spined proto-doom and fuzz, riffs and vintage haze in equal measure. Genuinely charming when the title track lets the dynamics loose, held back by a low-mid murk that clings to the rest. Doom MetalHeavy PsychStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 11 Jul 2026 Sowa Gdansk Macabre A Berlin outfit pour eleven tracks of brooding, fuzz-caked post-prog and dark alternative into a derelict-shipyard mood, all 90s weight and low-end murk. Full of character and a few genuinely dynamic highlights, dragged down by an uneven, low-mid-heavy mix. Progressive RockAlternative RockStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 11 Jul 2026 Desert Collider Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity A Cesena crew turn Heinlein's generation-ship nightmare into eight tracks of raw, spacey stoner rock, riffs and cosmic drift in equal measure. Adventurous and full of atmosphere, weighed down by a low-mid murk that swallows some of the detail. Stoner RockSpace RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jul 2026 Lost in Kyiv We're All Going To Be Fine The Parisian instrumental crew's Pelagic debut threads synths through cinematic post-metal, seven wordless tracks that swing from ambient calm into fuzzed catharsis. Polished and genuinely widescreen, tripped up only when the loudest walls overcompress. Post-MetalPost-RockInstrumental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jul 2026 Oath Unteach An Athens trio conjure seven tracks of warm, occult 70s doom on their debut, all Baphomet swagger and fuzzed-out riff worship recorded raw and dynamic on purpose. A genuinely characterful throwback, dense in a couple of spots but proud of its garage soul. Doom MetalOccult RockStoner Doom ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jul 2026 Walk Through Fire Hidden Gem Till Aska Five tracks of crushing, cavernous Swedish sludge-doom that treat the impenetrable wall not as a flaw but as the whole point. Monolithic, oppressive and utterly committed, a record that means to bury you and does. Sludge MetalDoom MetalDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Jul 2026 Giant Lungs Praise the Laze An Augsburg trio's second album pushes their desert-stoner into doomier, fuzzier, weirder places across seven tracks. Full of grit and a couple of genuinely breathing highlights, dragged down when the master clamps the life out of the heavier songs. Stoner RockDesert RockDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Jul 2026 Monsternaut Approaching Doom A Finnish trio roll ten tracks of B-movie stoner-doom off the analog tape, monster-truck riffs and all. Great fun and full of grit, let down by a record that can't decide between raw live warmth and modern brickwall loudness. Stoner MetalDoom MetalHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Jul 2026 Void of Sleep The Abyss into which We All Have to Stare Ravenna's progressive sludge veterans stare into a long, synth-laced abyss, seven tracks that swing from ambient hush to modern crushing weight. Ambitious and atmospheric, at its best in the quiet and the precise, undercut when the heaviness overcompresses. Post-MetalSludge MetalProgressive Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Jul 2026 Grey Czar Euarthropodia A Salzburg outfit stages the rise and fall of an insect civilisation across nine theatrical prog tracks, three voices deep and full of ideas. Ambitious and frequently thrilling, weighed down only when the arrangements pile up faster than the mix can hold them. Progressive RockProgressive MetalHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jul 2026 Lord Elephant Ultra Soul Florence's instrumental power trio pour seven tracks of cavernous, fuzz-soaked psych-doom into a raw analog room, all riff and atmosphere and no vocals. Genuinely immersive when it opens up, heavy on the low-end murk when it doesn't. Psychedelic DoomStoner DoomHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jul 2026 PIECE Rambler's Axe Berlin sludge merchants swing an eight-track slab of down-tuned, fantasy-soaked filth in the Crowbar and Eyehategod lineage. Crushingly heavy and mean, at its best when the density leaves room to breathe rather than flattening everything at once. Sludge MetalDoom MetalStoner Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jul 2026 Hidas A Sense of Impending Doom A Munich trio's instrumental doom debut lives up to its title, six tracks of eclipse-black riff worship recorded raw enough to feel like the ceiling's coming down. All mood and weight, if short on light and air. Doom MetalStoner DoomInstrumental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 Jul 2026 Sound of Smoke Mirage The Freiburg quartet's third album chases a desert mirage across nine tracks of fuzz, synth and soul, Isabelle Bapté's voice at the centre. At its warm, analog best it's a genuine trip, undercut by a handful of over-polished detours. Heavy PsychPsychedelic RockStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 Jul 2026 The Red Sea Le Monde An anonymous Le Havre project maps a blackgaze record onto the Major Arcana, seven tarot cards of hush and fury building toward the world. The dynamic writing is gripping, the harsh production sometimes swallows its own payoff. BlackgazeAtmospheric Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 Jul 2026 Bong Voyage Hedonistic Hard Rock An Oslo five-piece deliver exactly what the title promises, nine tracks of loud, dumb, gloriously unserious party rock. Riotous fun when it keeps the vintage live grit, less so when the loudness-war master flattens it into a wall. Stoner RockHard RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 6 Jul 2026 Ill Tidings Seeds of True Rebirth The Viennese trio's third album is cold, apocalyptic black metal with a ritual undertow, sung in a German-English mix and drawn in bleak cosmic strokes. Idiomatically raw and often gripping, though a fatiguing master flattens some of its best moments. Black MetalAtmospheric Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 6 Jul 2026 The Birch Vicious Mind A Quedlinburg power trio's second LP splits cleanly down the middle, a darker, fuzz-caked front half loosening into pure rock'n'roll, all of it tracked with a warm, dynamic analog hand that refuses the loudness war. Heavy psych with real character. Heavy PsychPsychedelic RockStoner Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 6 Jul 2026 Abysmal Grief Taetra Philosophia Three decades into their funeral-organ obsession, the Genoese occultists deliver another cavernous slab of horror-doom, all Latin liturgy, synth fog and shrouded corpses. The atmosphere is total, the murk sometimes more than the songs can carry. Gothic DoomDeath DoomOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jul 2026 Mirkwood Spiders The Black Mountain Ritual A fully DIY prog-stoner-doom record from Chur that trades polish for air, swinging between earthy fuzz, fantasy epics and a genuinely lovely acoustic centrepiece. Warm, varied and refreshingly uncompressed, tripped up only by the odd murky low end. Stoner DoomProgressive RockPsychedelic Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jul 2026 Palm Desert Rays Of The Gold And Grays Wrocław desert-rock lifers resurface with a fuzz-caked, rehearsal-room-warm set of riffs that sound like they were tracked live and loud. When the dynamics swing it's a joy, when the fuzz swallows everything it turns to mud. Stoner RockDesert RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jul 2026 A Ghost In Rags Solfatara Five tracks of largely instrumental, landscape-driven post-metal from Freiburg, swinging from ambient hush into vast cinematic walls. Dynamically sophisticated and immersive, with the closer a genuine standout, undercut only by an over-hot master on a couple of tracks. Post-MetalPost-RockAtmospheric Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 4 Jul 2026 Cornucopia Songs for Unfortunate Times Eight tracks of raw, fuzz-drenched sludge and noise rock from France, harsher and dirtier than the doom tag suggests. Committed, live-sounding and full of grit, but a low-mid murk runs through the whole record. Sludge MetalDoom MetalNoise Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 4 Jul 2026 Qlesaar Stratorian Oracle A Lucerne stoner "supergroup" whose debut pushes desert roots into heavier, more atmospheric territory, clean and screamed vocals over sludge-post-metal walls. Strong writing and dynamics, muddied by a congested low end. Stoner MetalPost-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 4 Jul 2026 BOG Incubant A Ghent debut steeped in the Consouling-and-Amenra tradition, five tracks of atmospheric post-metal that swing from near-silent ambient troughs into cavernous walls. Immersive and dynamically assured, muddied only when the walls come down. Post-MetalSludge MetalBlackgaze ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 Jul 2026 L'Ira del Baccano The Praise of Folly The Roman instrumental crew's fifth album is a warm, hypnotic hour of doomdelic space-prog built on an Erasmus concept and recorded live in one take. Immersive at its best, undercut by a dull mix and a couple of static stretches. Instrumental DoomSpace RockPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 3 Jul 2026 Mientras las Abejas Duermen MLAD An Andalusian debut that weaves flamenco-tinged acoustics and hand percussion into cinematic, cavernous post-metal. Distinctive and dynamically rich, held back by a warm but dull, low-mid-heavy mix. Post-MetalPost-RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 3 Jul 2026 Eleanore Between Here And Anywhere Desert rock from the North Sea coast. The Emden trio's second album is warm, organic, unhurried stoner rock cut with real dynamics and a voice that sits inside the room, familiar terrain travelled well. Stoner RockDesert RockHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jul 2026 Kröwnn Santa Somnia Venetian sludge-doom drenched in dark fantasy and video-game dread. Raw, filthy and ritual, Santa Somnia is heaviest when it lets a synth-lit intro breathe before the wall comes down, undercut by a dense, one-texture mix. Sludge MetalDeath-DoomDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jul 2026 Mount Palatine Wormholy World Six long tracks of cinematic, cavernous atmospheric post-metal from Helsinki, built on near-silent hush erupting into vast walls. Immersive and genuinely dynamic, with only a congested midrange in the heaviest peaks holding it back. Post-MetalAtmospheric DoomHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 2 Jul 2026 New Mexican Doom Cult Ziggurat Despite the name, this occult doom cult hails from Gävle, Sweden. Ziggurat is a varied, theatrical trip through stoner doom, epic doom and drone, carried by a genuinely characterful clean voice and let down only by an uneven production. Stoner DoomEpic DoomOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jul 2026 Queen(ares) Choices A cinematic, emotionally heavy post-metal record from northern France, built on huge quiet-loud swings, screamed dread against spacious clean troughs. Ambitious and cohesive, with only a congested low end in the densest walls holding it back. Post-MetalAtmospheric SludgeBlackgaze ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Jul 2026 Stargo Violet Skies The Dortmund band's fourth album trades their stoner roots for a dense, modern, heavily processed heaviness, shouts against clean layers, walls of gated fuzz. Good songs with a real dynamic instinct, buried under a loud, sterile production. Post-MetalAlternative MetalStoner Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jul 2026 Angellore Nocturnes The French gothic doom act's fourth album is a cinematic, melancholy sweep of atmospheric death-doom, neofolk hush and orchestral weight, ethereal cleans against deep growls. Ambitious and frequently gorgeous, with a couple of denser missteps. Death-DoomGothic DoomAtmospheric Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 30 Jun 2026 Nedgravd Ascension A raw, cavernous debut of occult death-doom from Oslo, filthy by design and drenched in cellar reverb. The murk is the whole point, and the dread is real, even if one mode of it runs a little long. Death MetalDeath-DoomSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 30 Jun 2026 Vansind Hævnen Danish folk-metal sung in the saga tradition, harsh verses against soaring clean folk choruses, acoustic passages opening into Scandinavian melodic-death walls. Strong songs and a great vocal contrast, flattened by a loud, fatiguing modern master. Folk MetalViking MetalMelodic Death Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 30 Jun 2026 Mädätys Kuoleman ulottuvuudet A debut full-length of raw, old-school Finnish death-doom, downtuned and drowned in fuzz. The murk is the tradition here, and the atmosphere is genuinely crushing, even if a couple of tracks stay flat where the best ones breathe. Death-DoomDoom MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 29 Jun 2026 Mirror of Deception Transience Three decades in, the German doom veterans push their sound somewhere new, melodic, atmospheric, folk-touched, and for the first time ever using guttural vocals. A mature, sombre, mostly beautifully realised record from a band still willing to risk. Doom MetalAtmospheric DoomMelodic Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 29 Jun 2026 Pilori Sans Adieu Ten tracks of blackened crust from Rouen, sung entirely in French and swinging from grinding hardcore fury into dark ambient, post-black and a warped Bashung cover. Relentless to a fault, but the ambition and the best moments are real. Blackened CrustHardcoreSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 29 Jun 2026 Gjenferd Black Smoke Rising Eleven tracks of atmospheric stoner-doom out of Bergen, ranging from warm, dynamic heaviness to hushed acoustic and orchestral interludes. Uneven in places, but the peaks are genuinely strong and the ambition is real. Stoner DoomAtmospheric SludgePost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 26 Jun 2026 Glowsun NOVÆ The long-running French psych-doom trio resurface with their darkest record, six tracks of crushing, cinematic sludge and drone. The atmosphere is immense and the dynamics breathe, but a heavily low-mid-loaded mix smears the detail. Sludge MetalDrone DoomHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 26 Jun 2026 Gom Jabbar Gom Jabbar A Game Boy and a distorted guitar walk into late-capitalist hell. The Italian duo's copyleft debut is eight tracks of low-resolution violence, brickwalled by design, and it is the kind of genre-collision that has no business working as well as it does. Digital HardcoreNoiseChiptune ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 26 Jun 2026 Kalamata Zenosyne The Hildesheim instrumental trio's third album turns years of touring, lineup changes and personal crises into a warm, cinematic record built on restraint. Five tracks that read as one sentence, "There Is No Coming Back," and a band that learned to let fragile melodies breathe. Post-RockStoner RockPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 26 Jun 2026 Motsus Atlas A mostly instrumental Belgian trio dealing in dirty, lo-fi sludge and drone. When Atlas breaks its own walls it hits hard, but too many tracks settle into a static, low-end haze that wears thin. Sludge MetalPost-MetalDrone ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 26 Jun 2026 Aeon Temple Resurfaced Five long tracks of atmospheric doom from Essen that swing from sacral hush to hypnotic wall, dynamics left wide open. Ambitious and immersive, held back by a mix that turns to murk when the heaviest passages crash in. Post-MetalAtmospheric DoomPost-Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 25 Jun 2026 Capacopter Capacopter A self-released debut from Mannheim that sounds like it was cut live on a sweaty stage. Eight tracks of fuzzed, dust-dry stoner rock that breathe more than most, rough around the edges in ways that mostly suit them. Stoner RockPsychedelic RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 25 Jun 2026 The Dharma Chain Some Kind Of Pure State Berlin via Byron Bay, recorded live over ten days at Funkhaus. The Dharma Chain's second album pours krautrock motorik, shoegaze haze and post-punk gloom into one long reverb-soaked rush, and the dynamics mostly survive the density. Neo-PsychedeliaShoegazeKrautrock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 Jun 2026 Gli Alberi Maturafine A Turin band's third album, a desert-themed journey through atmospheric post-metal, blackgaze and noise, ethereal female vocals set against the growls. Ambitious and absorbing, pushed a touch hard in the loud bursts. Atmospheric Post-MetalBlackgazePost-Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 Jun 2026 Mossystone Paysages Tristes A French one-man atmospheric/depressive black metal debut, crushing noise walls breaking into ambient hush and clean-guitar grief. Genuinely affecting, dulled by a lo-fi, over-compressed master. Atmospheric Black MetalDepressive Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 Jun 2026 Neurosis An Undying Love for a Burning World A special, outside our usual EU-underground focus. The architects of atmospheric post-metal return after a decade with Aaron Turner as a new full member and an album about uprooting and the last light. Monumental dynamics, a few production scuffs. Post-MetalAtmospheric SludgeDoom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 24 Jun 2026 Verdun Abyssal Womb A long-running Montpellier crew turn dissonant and blackened, seven tracks of punishing blackened sludge-doom shot through with atmospheric clean breaks. Heavy and cinematic, undercut by a loud, dense master. Sludge MetalBlackened DoomPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 Jun 2026 Andvara Midnight Mysticism A Stockholm trio's atmospheric post-black metal, bookended by acoustic neofolk and steeped in Norse folklore. Warm, dynamic and genuinely absorbing, blurred only by a muddy low end and a couple of flatter stretches. Atmospheric Post-MetalPost-Black MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 Jun 2026 Double Horse Violent Sessions A Valencia occult-doom outfit caught live and unfiltered, six tracks of dirty single-take filth steeped in horror-film dread. Real sweat and atmosphere, muddied by the live low end. A raw document, not a polished statement. Doom MetalSludge MetalStoner Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 Jun 2026 Taihr Allicanto A Cologne septet with Chilean roots and a female voice out front, weaving funky prog-crossover from jazz, math-rock and electronics. Distinctive and sharply played, dulled only by a radio-loud, over-compressed master. Alternative RockProgressive RockCrossover ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 Jun 2026 In Vespro Where Silence Used To Sleep A Roman debut of slow, cyclical death-doom in the early-Katatonia mould, hypnotic and grief-soaked. Atmosphere to spare, held back by a brickwalled master that never lets the gloom breathe. Death-DoomDoom MetalDeath Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 Jun 2026 Smokemaster In the Temple A Cologne psych outfit's warm, dynamically produced third album, roaming from heavy psych through shoegaze, synth-rock and post-punk. Easy to get lost in, if a touch unfocused, and a welcome break from the loudness war. Psychedelic RockHeavy PsychStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 Jun 2026 Starless Void Mors Certa, Hora Incerta An Upper-Silesian death-doom debut steeped in the region's industrial gloom, deep growls trading off with spectral female vocals. Heavy, atmospheric and occult, blurred only by a muddy low-mid mix. Death-DoomDoom MetalOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 Jun 2026 HUM three A Frankfurt trio's restless follow-up to their debut, heavy psych that refuses to sit still and keeps mutating into ambient, industrial and pure noise. Brave and dynamic, sometimes to the point of fragmentation. Heavy PsychStoner RockExperimental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 Jun 2026 Litúrgia I A Catalan debut of raw, ritual epic doom sung entirely in Catalan, six tracks drawn from local myth and the legend of Comte Arnau. Atmospheric and distinctive, held back by a muddy, uneven mix. Epic Doom MetalDoom MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 Jun 2026 Plaindrifter Gestalt A Ruhrgebiet trio's second album, desert-prog stoner that keeps reaching for the horizon. Atmospheric, dynamic and ambitious, let down only by a couple of tracks where the loudness and the drum sheen flatten the magic. Stoner RockHeavy PsychProgressive Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 Jun 2026 Green Desert Water Eerie Meadows An Asturian power trio's latest, a stoner record about mist, ancient woods and the cycles of life. Earthy, grunge-flecked and strongest when the master lets it breathe. A couple of squashed tracks are the only real drag. Stoner RockHeavy PsychGrunge ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 20 Jun 2026 Leviathan Rising King in Yellow German cosmic-horror metal from Passau, nine tracks dragging Carcosa down to the bottom of the sea. Atmospheric post-metal weight with clean and screamed voices, ambitious and heavy, undercut by an uneven master. Sludge MetalPost-MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 20 Jun 2026 Warning Rituals of Shame Twenty years after Watching from a Distance, Patrick Walker resurrects Warning for five long songs about guilt, longing and love. Warm, dynamic, devastatingly heavy-hearted doom. The comeback lives up to the wait. Doom MetalAtmospheric DoomEpic Doom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Jun 2026 Gold Spire Hidden Gem Steps into Shadow Swedish avant death-doom from the ashes of Usurpress, eight tracks where saxophone and flute drift through cathedral-deep riffing. Heavy, cinematic, strange, and produced with rare warmth. A genuine hidden gem. Death-DoomProgressive MetalAvant-Garde Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 19 Jun 2026 Red Sun Songs from Hidden Places An Italian psych-stoner trio's fourth album, and a leap. The arrival of a singer turns their instrumental desert rock into a warm, theremin-haunted, occult-psychedelic journey. Distinctive, dynamic, and a real grower. Psychedelic RockStoner RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 19 Jun 2026 Undrowned Universe A female-fronted German melodic death-doom record, nine tracks of weeping leads over mid-paced weight. Solid and heartfelt, held back by a loud, compressed modern master. Death-DoomMelodic Death MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 19 Jun 2026 Cenozoa Manta Hymns A Greek one-man post-metal project raging at the screen age, eleven tracks of fuzz-bass dystopia where doom weight meets sludge grime. Heavy and pointed, a touch buried by its own loud master. Post-MetalDoom MetalSludge ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 18 Jun 2026 Numen Erre Basque pagan black metal sung entirely in euskera, five tracks summoning the 17th-century witch trials into glacial, atmospheric fury. Veterans with a story to tell, if a loud master clips its wings. Atmospheric Black MetalPagan Black MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 18 Jun 2026 Tidal Wave Volume Tree Swedish stoner rock at its heaviest yet, eight tracks of Sabbath worship roughed up with grunge and a prog streak. Warm and riff-sure, best where the mix stays out of its own way. Stoner RockHeavy PsychHeavy Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 18 Jun 2026 Aghalmar Ruin A German solo debut of atmospheric post-black metal, seven tracks that swing from cavernous quiet to wall-of-sound dread. Immersive and promising, if the loud master muddies its heaviest moments. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 Jun 2026 Galibot Catabase French melodic black metal that mines its hometown's coal history for a concept, eleven tracks of Germinal-grim atmosphere and Scandi-bright tremolo. Strong songs and a striking voice, pressed a little flat by a loud master. Melodic Black MetalAtmospheric Black MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 Jun 2026 PallBear Grief Is Love A one-man doom record from Oxford that wears its grief openly, five tracks of warm, fuzzed, low-slung heaviness about loss as a kind of love. DIY to the bone, and better for it. Doom MetalPost-RockHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 Jun 2026 Acid Row Magic Prague garage stoner-doom with a heavy-psych streak and a concept about the illusion of power. Nine tracks of fuzz, murk and ritual, raw as a basement and proud of it. Stoner DoomHeavy PsychNoise Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jun 2026 El Altar del Holocausto Ecos Spanish instrumental post-doom that swings between cathedral-quiet atmosphere and crushing walls, cello and clean delay set against fuzz. Evocative when it is patient, muddy when it is heavy. Post-MetalDoom MetalInstrumental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jun 2026 Solar Mantra State of Joyful Lightness Roman stoner rock with a warm, rehearsal-room glow, ten tracks of fuzzed riffs and growling bass that prize groove over gloss. Loose, earthy, and a welcome break from the loudness wars. Stoner RockHeavy PsychHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 14 Jun 2026 Afterwise Disintegration An Athens instrumental post-metal debut, and the rare 2026 heavy record that actually breathes. Six cinematic tracks of cathedral reverb, patient builds and dynamics left blissfully uncrushed. Post-MetalPost-RockInstrumental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jun 2026 Fyrnask Íosir A long-running German black metal project returns on Ván with ten tracks of dense, ice-cold atmosphere, tremolo walls and ambient dread built into one immersive grey mass. Heavy on mood, heavier still on the master. Atmospheric Black MetalAmbient Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jun 2026 Soulburn Quantifying Cosmic Doom Dutch veterans risen from the ashes of Asphyx return with their fifth, eleven tracks of blackened death-doom aimed squarely at the void. Crushing and well-played, if mixed louder than it needs to be. Blackened Death MetalDeath-DoomBlack Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 13 Jun 2026 Alunah & Samavayo Embers of Belief A split that pairs two decades-deep heavy bands, Birmingham doom from Alunah and Berlin's oriental-tinged stoner rock from Samavayo. Uneven by nature, but Samavayo's half is worth the price on its own. Stoner RockDoom MetalHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 Jun 2026 Arroganz Death Doom Punks German extreme-metal veterans on their seventh album, a relentless slab of death, black, doom and thrash welded to a crust-punk snarl. Crushing and precise, if exhausting at full length. Death MetalBlack MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 Jun 2026 King Potenaz Arcane Desert Rituals Vol. 2 Italian occult stoner-doom that records like a ritual held in a cave, four downtuned, fuzz-caked tracks of desert mysticism and low-end murk. Heavy, hypnotic, and gloriously filthy. Stoner DoomOccult RockPsychedelic Doom ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 Jun 2026 In a Forest Dark To a God Unknown A Portuguese solo project turns Steinbeck into blackened gothic doom, dense melancholy synths and buried growls building one long grey fog. Atmosphere over clarity, and on its best tracks that trade pays off. Death-DoomGothic MetalAtmospheric Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 11 Jun 2026 Mörkekraft Fragments A Norwegian debut that calls itself a depressed Thin Lizzy and sounds caught between earthy stoner rock and polished modern alt-metal. Fragments is best when it loosens up and worst when it chases the big loud chorus. Stoner RockHeavy RockAlternative Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 11 Jun 2026 Primal Cult Dark Passage Greek atmospheric black metal built around a mythic sea-voyage, all Hellenic melody and cinematic quiet-loud drama. Dark Passage has the songs and the sweep, even when the mix keeps the vocals stranded on top of it. Atmospheric Black MetalMelodic Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 11 Jun 2026 Crobu More Than This A Sardinian debut that channels the swamp sludge of Down and Crowbar through a post-metal lens. Eight tracks of downtuned, dry, loud heaviness that hit hardest when they let a riff breathe. SludgePost-MetalGroove Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jun 2026 Food for the Wyrm Hidden Gem A Wicked Huntsman A debut that turns traditional and original folk songs into a record about transmuting trauma, threading dark Americana and ritual folk through doom, drone and black metal. Strange, sincere, and unlike almost anything else this year. Folk MetalDark FolkDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jun 2026 Gravvålnad Dreams of Evernight A one-man Swedish project that builds a frozen, synth-forged world out of seven tracks of atmospheric black metal, more interested in dread and dungeon-cold atmosphere than in clean riffs. Atmospheric Black MetalEpic Black MetalDark Ambient ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 10 Jun 2026 Blüdwyrm The Blissful Sleep Of Ignorance A debut EP from a young Bournemouth trio that buries everything, the vocals, the riffs, the listener, under a fuzz wall thick enough to chew. Eighteen minutes of cavernous sludge-doom that knows exactly how ugly it wants to be. SludgeDoom MetalStoner Doom ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Jun 2026 Junon Hidden Gem The Golden Citadel of the Astral Sphere A German avant-black metal project that builds its citadel out of ritual choirs, drone, and crescendos that run past twenty minutes. Four tracks that swing from near-silence to crushing density and treat both as sacred. Avant-Garde Black MetalAtmospheric Black MetalDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 9 Jun 2026 Together to the Stars Iridescence Stockholm post-black that swings between weightless, glittering calm and a wall of sound mixed loud enough to bruise. Iridescence has the songs and the atmosphere, it just keeps its thumb on the loudness the whole way. Post-Black MetalBlackgazeAtmospheric Black Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Jun 2026 Aetere Théogonie A French doomgaze debut where the heaviness comes from synthesizer drones, not guitars. Six tracks of cavernous, low-end murk and buried ethereal vocals, an album that asks you to take its fog as the point rather than the flaw. DoomgazeDroneShoegaze ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jun 2026 Mandy Manala Something Wicked Female-fronted Finnish occult hard rock that pulls from Ghost and Bathory as easily as Fleetwood Mac and ABBA. The second album from the Vaasa five-piece is catchy and confident, with a modern loud master as the steady trade-off. Hard RockStoner RockOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jun 2026 Urzah A Tranquil Void The Bath progressive-sludge band's second album reaches wide, from acoustic passages and cello to a twelve-minute closer. The writing has the ambition to match, and a very hot master is the one thing holding it back. Progressive Sludge MetalPost-MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 8 Jun 2026 Chullachaqui Epiphanic Perdition A solo debut built from material that didn't fit another band. Matt Cooper of Vulgaris plays nearly everything on this London post/doom/sludge record, six tracks that run from a 42-second fragment to a fifteen-minute crawl, raw and cavernous by design. Post-MetalSludge MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 Jun 2026 Dead Void Cranial Devastation Copenhagen death/doom recorded live in the studio, the way the filthiest end of the genre likes it. The second Dead Void album ends on a Danish-language cover of an Adrian Borland song, and the whole thing sounds like it was conjured in a cave. Death Doom MetalDeath MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 Jun 2026 Oh Hiroshima And The Dead Tree Gives No Shelter The Swedish post-rock band's new album on Pelagic is the rare loud record that keeps its dynamics. Eight tracks of cinematic quiet-to-wall post-rock where the production lets the contrast actually land instead of flattening it. Post-RockPost-MetalCinematic ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 7 Jun 2026 Brüle Beltane The second album from a Perpignan occult-doom trio, sung in French and English and built around pagan fire and Thelemic freedom. The riffs and atmosphere are real; a relentlessly loud, machine-tight production keeps the doom from landing its full weight. Stoner DoomDoom MetalOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jun 2026 Crimson Roots Open Roads The Nuremberg five-piece's debut is a concept record about a traveler in motion, carried by Ina Salaj's clean, expressive voice. The songwriting breathes; the question is whether a production this polished serves a band whose tags read blues rock and retro soul. Blues RockPsychedelic RockClassic Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jun 2026 Go Mahhh Doppelgänger An international quartet's Berlin debut that earns its title: eight tracks, each wearing a different face, from dusty stoner haze to noise-rock to a tabla-driven psych workout. Raw, analog and dynamic in a way most debuts aren't. Heavy PsychFuzz RockKrautrock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 5 Jun 2026 Hanry What Came From Silence Written through a long Breton winter, the debut full-length from this six-piece French post-rock collective lands on Pelagic Records. Eight cinematic instrumentals that keep migrating from guitar-driven post-rock toward something almost electronic, with the loud modern master as the steady trade-off. Post-RockCinematicHeavy Post-Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jun 2026 Sad Whisperings The Hermit The first full-length in thirty years from one of Holland's formative death-doom bands. Eight tracks built around isolation, released on Vidar Records, with a modern-loud production that doesn't quite match the patience the songwriting wants. Death Doom MetalDoom MetalDeath Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jun 2026 The Dharma Chain Some Kind Of Pure State A preview of the second album from this Australian-born, Berlin-based band, recorded at Funkhaus by Jonathan Dreyfus and out 5 June via Spinda Records. The two advance singles trace the album's range, from atmospheric dual-voice shoegaze to a knurrig, fuzz-bass motorik pulse. Neo-PsychedeliaShoegazeKrautrock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good Pre-Release The Fifth Alliance Stenahoria A new vocalist, five long tracks, and a Greek word for the kind of distress that has no edges. Stenahoria is the fourth album from this Breda blackened-doom outfit on Tartarus Records, and the pivot to Natalya at the microphone is the record's defining move. Blackened DoomPost-Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jun 2026 Tooms Karst An Irish sludge record where the quietest minute carries the album. Karst is the new full-length from the Limerick trio, mixed by Matt Bayles and mastered by Chris Fielding, with an acoustic interlude that does the heaviest lifting on the whole thing. Sludge MetalDoom MetalProgressive Sludge ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 2 Jun 2026 Elder Through Zero Two decades and seven albums in, the quartet keep moving away from the heavy psych they started in. Through Zero is the most produced, most synth-saturated Elder record yet, and the loud master and the compositions pull against each other in ways the early albums never did. Heavy Psychedelic RockProgressive RockPost-Stoner ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 Erdve Epigrama Lithuania's most architectural extreme band return with their third Season of Mist album. Self-produced, self-mixed, self-mastered by the band, Epigrama is the loudest, most clinically engineered Erdve record yet, and the dissonant-hardcore identity is intact even as the master crushes the air out of it. Dissonant HardcoreBlackened HardcorePost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 Monolord Neverending Sylvia Massy at the desk, eight tracks, two halves. The fifth Monolord album splits cleanly between the heavily-mastered modern doom on the front and an analog, dynamic warmth on the back, and the two sides do not sound like the same record. Stoner Doom MetalDoom MetalPsychedelic Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 Mother Bear Orm 2 Slow music for slow minds, sophomore edition. The Dortmund stoner-doom trio's second album doubles down on the Zamonian concept and on a cave-room aesthetic that buries the kick, mumpfs the bass and leaves the songs to do most of the talking. Stoner Doom MetalSludge MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 Sealess Aura A doom record that lives between genres and refuses the loudness war. Recorded at Electric Witch Mountain in Wrocław and mastered by Haldor Grünberg, the new Sealess album sits somewhere between melancholic doom, cold wave and post-rock, with the production patient enough to let it. Doom MetalCold WaveDark Wave ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 Tales of Mike Human An epic-heavy debut album from a German solo project born out of personal loss, with cross-continental production and a vocalist in the King Diamond and Halford falsetto tradition. Catching up with last October's release on the occasion of its new vinyl edition. Epic Heavy MetalEpic Doom MetalHeavy Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Jun 2026 AYD AYD Four tracks, an hour, one room that sounds like a cave. The self-titled debut from this Slovenian sludge/doom/post-metal band out of Gornja Radgona builds its drama out of long hypnotic ascents and the walls of sound they collapse into. Sludge MetalDoom MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 29 May 2026 Consecration Exanimis A first look at the fourth Consecration album, due on Nuclear Winter Records, judged from its two advance singles. The Norwich death/doom veterans hand the desk to Greg Chandler and come back sounding like a wall of dirt with the lights off. Death Doom MetalDeath MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good Pre-Release Godthrymm Projections The Yorkshire doom band close their Visions Trilogy with a third album that brings Aaron Stainthorpe back to the microphone for one track. The songs carry the weight of a band with My Dying Bride and Anathema in their bloodline, but a loud modern master keeps getting in the way. Doom MetalEpic Doom MetalMelodic Doom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 29 May 2026 Downfall of Nur And the Firmament Will Burn to Quench the Pain of this Earth Sardinian atmospheric black metal solo project's first album in a decade, on Avantgarde Music. Seven tracks, eighty minutes, a profound reflection on the ancestral memory of Sardinia, mastered by Gabriele Gramaglia. Atmospheric Black MetalBlack MetalFolk MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 28 May 2026 Fuzzrider Desert Boogie Athens fuzz-and-dirty-blues trio's new album -- nine tracks of raw, mid-forward stoner-blues recorded with a deliberate live feel and no loudness-chasing polish. Stoner RockBlues RockHeavy PsychFuzz Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 28 May 2026 Hypnosaur Afterlife Polish stoner/rock'n'roll quartet's second album, recorded at Sound of Records with Haldor Grünberg -- nine tracks of clean, modern-mixed heavy rock with synth-led bridges and a polished contemporary production. Stoner RockHeavy RockHard Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 28 May 2026 Inherits the Void The Silent Abscission A preview of the fourth Inherits the Void album, due June 19 on Avantgarde Music. AS's French atmospheric black metal project turns to a concept of erasure and cosmic implosion across eight visions, in its cleanest and most modern-produced form yet. Atmospheric Black MetalMelodic Black MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good Pre-Release Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell The Trouble With The Shovell Hastings heavy-rock trio's fifth album -- seven years since the last one. Nine tracks of unrepentant '70s-leaning hard-rock- with-fuzz on Rise Above Records, recorded without modern polish and committed to the same grease-rock vocabulary they've worked since 2008. Heavy RockHard RockHeavy PsychStoner Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 26 May 2026 Endless Floods PASSAGES Bordeaux post-heavy trio's sixth album -- four long-form pieces stretching across 38 minutes, with saxophone, French vocals, and the kind of extreme dynamic contrast between intimate acoustic passages and dense fuzz walls that the band have spent six records refining. DoomgazePost-RockPost-MetalDark FolkDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 26 May 2026 Khybernaut Tales of Ashes and Delusion Berlin stoner-metal quartet's debut LP -- six tracks recorded at Castalian Spring studios, rough clean vocals over fuzz-saturated riffs, atmospheric intros giving way to dense walls of sound. Stoner MetalStoner RockHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 26 May 2026 Deliverance The Voyager Golden Banquet French avant-garde sludge/black/psych act's new album on Les Acteurs de l'Ombre -- eight tracks, forty-three minutes, the band's black-metal/sludge DNA confronted with post-rock, Floydian psychedelia and electronic textures. Sludge MetalBlack MetalAvant-Garde MetalPsychedelic RockProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 May 2026 Lorn Searing Blood Italian atmospheric/raw black metal solo project's fourth album on I, Voidhanger Records -- six tracks, written and performed by Radok in Prali, returning to genre tradition after eight years away from the LP format. Black MetalAtmospheric Black MetalRaw Black MetalExperimental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 25 May 2026 Sloth Slothmachine Brno stoner/heavy-psych quartet's debut LP -- six tracks of brutal fuzz on Kabinet Records, recorded at Golden Hive Studio, built for lovers of speaker-blowing low-end weight. Stoner RockHeavy PsychDoom MetalFuzz Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 25 May 2026 Jesus Crustus El Crustadore Berlin crust-punk-into-grindcore duo's new album: fifteen tracks across thirty-two minutes, recorded at Noir Surge Studio, guest vocals from Tina and Harmony Dies, exactly the kind of dirty short-form chaos the genre lives on. Crust PunkGrindcoreSludgeD-Beat ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 May 2026 Sauvageoness A Maze Deep In Swiss solo project's debut LP -- fourteen tracks of 'doomed industrial dream pop' mixed and mastered by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Soft Kill) at Atomic Garden. Indie noise, shoegaze, post-punk and the raw weight of black metal, threaded together. Doom MetalShoegazePost-PunkIndustrialDream Pop ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 24 May 2026 The Space Huns Sunny Road Hungarian instrumental stoner trio's new LP on Minimal Bogart Records, six tracks of improvised jams recorded, mixed and mastered at Rossz Records -- and explicitly without any AI-generated content. Stoner RockHeavy PsychInstrumentalBlues Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 May 2026 Buio Dentro Aurora Italian post-metal/noise project, four long-form pieces totalling forty-seven minutes. Recorded between Rome and Perugia, mastered at Hombrelobo Studio, leaning hard into lo-fi atmosphere and drone. Post-MetalNoise RockSludgeDrone ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 May 2026 Goddess Ritual of the Cloven Hoof Reborn from the ashes of Goatess after a founding-member departure, the Swedish doom quartet's first record under the new name lands on Majestic Mountain. Six tracks, thirty-seven minutes, recorded by Joona Hassinen at Studio Underjord. Doom MetalStoner DoomHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 23 May 2026 Hex A.D. Surgical Cuts in the Cosmos Norwegian doom-prog veterans' new album, three years after Delightful Sharp Edges. Seven tracks spanning prog rock, classic heavy metal, stoner-rock fuzz and old-school doom, all on Apollon Records. Doom MetalProgressive MetalStoner RockHeavy Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 May 2026 Faded Remembrance The Blessing Of Downfall Hungarian one-man atmospheric doom project, third album on Bitume Prods. Nine tracks of slow doom built around trumpet, trombone and synthesizer -- a Pan-Thy-Monium reference made flesh. Doom MetalAtmospheric DoomGothic MetalExperimental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 May 2026 Impure Wilhelmina Le Sanglot Thirty years into the Geneva quartet's progressive-dark catalogue, their most radical record yet -- nine tracks of French- language post-hardcore, mastered by Magnus Lindberg of Cult of Luna. Progressive MetalPost-HardcorePost-Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 May 2026 Sons of Node Consequence of Abundance Utrecht sludge band's second LP. Eight tracks across forty-eight minutes, recorded with Abel Jansma and mastered by Tim de Gieter, with a two-minute instrumental interlude bracketing the album's long-form centrepiece. Sludge MetalStoner MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 May 2026 The Dead At Sea III Birmingham post-rock-into-doom project's third album. Five instrumental tracks rooted in the isolation of North Sentinel Island, mastered by Jack Chuter. Post-RockPost-MetalHeavy PsychDrone ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 May 2026 Abyssian Let Me Die Under the Stars Italian Atlantean dark-doom collective's third album, on Black Widow Records. Six pieces of sumerian creation mythology, fretless bass and gothic baritone, closing on a Roxy Music cover. Gothic MetalDoom MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 May 2026 Manøver Insurrection Münster crust/sludge three-piece's new LP. Nine tracks, forty minutes of antifascist d-beat and dystopian doom, recorded by Role at Tonmeisterei, vinyl on Fucking Kill Records. Crust PunkSludgeD-BeatHardcore ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 May 2026 Red Swamp Peace and Hate Budapest groove-metal four-piece's fourth LP, leaving the stoner phase behind for tighter modern-metal songwriting. Eight tracks, two in Hungarian, sax and trumpet guest appearances. Groove MetalSludge MetalStoner MetalHeavy Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 21 May 2026 Damask Three Times Ten Debut album from the Polish project Damask, fronted by Weno Winter of Sautrus. Eight tracks that move between acoustic intimacy and doom walls, built on twenty years of accumulated ideas. Progressive RockDoom MetalStoner RockAcoustic ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 20 May 2026 Dromos Failing Light London funeral-doom quartet's debut LP, recorded in five years of dark London winters. Three pieces, forty-six minutes, mixed by Greg Chandler of Esoteric and mastered by James Plotkin. The cinematic patience the genre rewards, executed by people who know it. Funeral DoomDoom MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 May 2026 Void Sinker Cycle Salerno one-man instrumental project, second release of 2026. Five tracks across fifty-three minutes of low-tuned caveman riffs, drone, and the kind of hypnotic monotony the genre lives on. Doom MetalDroneSludgeInstrumental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 20 May 2026 Godes Yrre Feelings Can Burn You A preview of the fifth Godes Yrre album, due June 26 on Bitume Prods. Oliva's one-man Swiss doom project gathers three 2024 EPs into a sixty-minute whole, with a guest soloist on every track. Stoner DoomGothic MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good Pre-Release Belzebong The End Is High Their first new full-length in seven years. Four tracks of Kielce stoner-doom, instrumental save for the buried shouts and the smoke samples, recorded at Satanic Audio and released on Heavy Psych Sounds. Stoner DoomDoom MetalOccult RockInstrumental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2026 Bismut Matsutake Their fourth full-length, named after Anna Tsing's book on the mushroom that grows in capitalist ruins. Recorded live at Galloway Studio, six instrumental-leaning tracks of progressive heavy psych from the Nijmegen trio. Heavy PsychProgressive RockStoner RockSpace Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2026 Black Toaster Astrobird Bern stoner trio's first studio album. Six tracks of high-energy Motörhead-leaning rock'n'roll with stoner weight, self-released and self-produced at Mazzive Sound Productions. Stoner RockHeavy RockHard Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 May 2026 Oreyeon The Grotesque Within Italian heavy-psych quartet's fourth album, inspired by the pessimist horror of Thomas Ligotti. Seven tracks of stoner-doom with prog architecture, mastered by James Plotkin, released on Heavy Psych Sounds. Heavy PsychStoner DoomDoom MetalProgressive Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2026 The Cosmic Dead Beyond The Beyond Tenth studio album from the Glasgow space-rock collective. Four tracks, forty-one minutes, bass and drums and fiddle and synth, all wah-soaked, phasers set to destroy. Space RockPsychedelic RockKrautrockDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2026 Yeast Machine Bad Milk Tübingen fuzz-trio gone full-album for the first time. Ten tracks that hop between grunge weight, stoner-rock fuzz and patient psychedelic stretches, with the kind of widescreen contrast between calm and eruption that Yeast Machine seem to have decided is their argument. Stoner RockGrungePsychedelic RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 15 May 2026 Turpentine Valley Veuel -- Revisited Follow-up to our February pre-release piece. Ten tracks, properly heard, in the lineage of Russian Circles, instrumental-leaning post-metal where the songwriting does the heavy lifting and the production keeps the dynamics intact. Post-MetalPost-Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 13 May 2026 Azken Auzi Infernua Six tracks, six descents. The French trio behind Azken Auzi call their second album Occult Doom Sludge, and the genre frame doubles as a method statement. Blackened DoomSludge MetalDoom MetalPost-Hardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 May 2026 Cowboys & Aliens Finis Temporum Thirty years in. The Bruges stoner-rock veterans Cowboys & Aliens close their seventh full-length with a re-recorded track from their 2000 debut, and the loop the album closes is the project's own. Stoner RockAlternative RockHeavy Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 May 2026 Desert Colossus Apparatus Their fourth full-length, self-released by the Zaandam quartet. Forty-five minutes of fuzz-stoner where the production decisions are the most distinctive part of the record. Stoner RockStoner DoomHeavy PsychFuzz Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 May 2026 Kal-El Astral Voyager Vol. 2 Vol. 2 of the Mica chronicle. The Stavanger stoner-doom crew return to the space-bounty-hunter saga their first record opened, this time settling into the architecture rather than sketching it. Stoner DoomStoner RockHeavy PsychDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 May 2026 Kaleidobolt Karakuchi Their fifth full-length, produced by Oranssi Pazuzu's Niko Lehdontie. The Helsinki power trio Kaleidobolt strip back to live-in-the-studio takes and let the prog architecture breathe. Progressive RockPsychedelic RockNoise RockProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 May 2026 Misty Route Ethos Ethos, in Greek, is character. The Athens trio Misty Route turn the word into eight tracks about the modern self under pressure, and the album follows the questions the title raises. Progressive MetalAlternative MetalPsychedelic RockPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 12 May 2026 Red Sun Atacama Summerchild Franco-Chilean desert punk from a Bordeaux trio. Summerchild is Red Sun Atacama's third LP, and the volcanic identity in the band name keeps surfacing across the eight tracks. Desert RockStoner RockHeavy PsychHardcore Punk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 May 2026 Unearthly Rites Tortural Symphony of the Flesh Capitalist oppression as a sonic project. The Tampere five-piece make their dystopian critique a forty-minute death-grind- crust manifesto where the production roughness is the politics. Death MetalGrindcoreCrust PunkHardcore Punk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 May 2026 Low Road Low Road Four tracks. Three different mixes. Wayne Adams recorded Low Road's debut at Bear Bites Horse Studio, and the production decisions across the record vary more than any other element. Post-MetalSludge MetalPost-HardcoreDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 May 2026 Poly-Math Something Deeply Hidden The PR says ethio-jazz, classic prog and math-rock. The audio says industrial-leaning wall-of-sound. Brighton's Poly-Math have made the kind of record where the press release and the master tape disagree. Progressive MetalMath MetalIndustrialPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 May 2026 Slund Last One Twenty-two tracks. The shortest is one second long. The Slovenian solo grinder Igor Mortis turns the album format itself into a punch line. GrindcorePowerviolenceHardcore PunkSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 May 2026 Cesar Sun The Palace Eighty seconds of restraint open the album, then the Belgian trio detonate. The opener tells you everything about how Cesar Sun work: hold, then let go. Stoner RockHardcore PunkPost-Hardcore ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 May 2026 Occult Hand Order Hidden Gem Meaningless Monuments Five tracks named for Eastern European places. The mix tells you which ones the trio got right, and the geography starts to feel like a map of recording-day moods. Post-MetalAtmospheric Black MetalBlackgazeDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 7 May 2026 White Tundra Stories From The Dark Six tracks, six titles that sound like postcards from somewhere too cold. Trondheim's White Tundra spend their second LP figuring out which side of the genre fence they're on. Post-MetalSludge MetalPost-HardcoreDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 7 May 2026 Drawn Into Descent Hidden Gem Onrust Four Dutch words in sequence become a thesis about losing your bearings. Mechelen's Drawn Into Descent return after six years with their third record, recorded by Chiaran Verheyden, and the language pulls more weight than the production lets on. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 May 2026 Northern Graves Derelict Heart A blackened doom record about Saskatchewan ghost towns ends with a Richard Marx cover. That decision is the key to the whole album. Blackened DoomAtmospheric Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 3 May 2026 Ultha A Light So Dim Track six is where the album's logic comes into focus. Eight minutes of Ultha at their most exposed, where the Cologne band let clean vocals carry a song built on classic heavy-metal foundations, and the rest of the record reads differently through it. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 May 2026 Atlantic Ridge Atlantic Ridge A debut about places almost no one lives. Six tracks, six remote geographies, six attempts at translating distance into sound. Atlantic Ridge spent five years building this trip and routes the listener through it on the same path the band took. Atmospheric Black MetalFuneral DoomPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 29 Apr 2026 Cruel Force Haneda Eighteen years into a career that started as raw black-thrash demos, Cruel Force pivot into Rainbow-meets-Razor speed metal territory and refuse to wink at the listener. Shadow Kingdom Records gives Germany's cult name another LP to be cult about. Speed MetalHeavy MetalThrash Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 28 Apr 2026 Tons Stoned Villains Forget the song titles for a minute. The most important credits on Tons' fourth record are Danilo Battocchio at Deepest Sea and James Plotkin on the master. Same room as Ponte del Diavolo, same hand as Moloch, and the result tells you what Heavy Psych Sounds bought. Sludge MetalDoom MetalStoner Doom ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 28 Apr 2026 Bekor Qilish Consecrated Abysses of Dread Andrea Bruzzone's third Bekor Qilish record runs ten tracks in thirty minutes, with Mick Barr stopping by for a guitar solo and a vocabulary pulled from Cynic, Atheist and Pestilence rerouted through avant-garde black metal. Avant-Garde Black MetalTechnical Death MetalProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 Apr 2026 Corrosive Agent Vastator Mundi Eight years between forming and the debut tells you Corrosive Agent are not in a hurry. Karlsruhe's five-piece deliver nine tracks of self-released death metal with an explicit anti-fascist edge and the patience of a band that waited for the record to be ready. Death MetalBlackened Death MetalGroove Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 24 Apr 2026 Fátima Primal A Paris trio that swings between monumental stoner-doom riffs and song titles like "Chilled Monkey Brains". The third album commits to both registers hard enough that you stop asking which one is the joke. Stoner DoomGrungePost-Punk ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 Apr 2026 Goatsmoker E.R.I.S. Copenhagen's Goatsmoker walk away from their stoner roots on their third album. Five tracks of patient doom with post-metal structure and an artwork by Dylan J. Davies that knows exactly what it is promising. Doom MetalSludge MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 23 Apr 2026 Blut Aus Nord Ethereal Horizons Vindsval's sixteenth record is presented as the summation of a thirty year vision. Seven tracks that move through the band's vocabulary without quite reaching the disorientation the catalog was built on. Black MetalAvantgardeProgressive Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 Apr 2026 Crouch Hidden Gem Breaking the Catatonic State Three Ghent players with CVs in Wiegedood and the wider Belgian hardcore network compress late-90s mathcore into a debut that remembers Knut, Botch and Burnt By The Sun without nostalgia. Sludge MetalPost-HardcoreMathcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 Apr 2026 Myar Bleak Mountains Recorded live at Le Grand Mix in Tourcoing, Myar's debut is six tracks of fuzz-drenched stoner doom that burns slowly and collapses with intent. Lille's heaviest export since the last time someone underestimated northern France. Stoner RockDoom MetalHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 Apr 2026 Syberia Hidden Gem Quan Tot S'Apagui Barcelona's Syberia return with their first fully Catalan record, five long-form post-metal pieces about death and leaving. The companion release of isolated backing sequences makes their live practice transparent. Post-MetalPost-RockInstrumental Post-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 Apr 2026 Worm Necropalace Florida's Worm push their self-branded Nekromantic Black Doom past the hour mark, with Arthur Rizk producing and Marty Friedman guesting on a fourteen-minute closer. The ambition is the statement and the problem. Black MetalDoom MetalDeath Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 22 Apr 2026 Moloch Bend. Break. Kneel. Crawl. Seven years of silence, then forty-three minutes of sludge that sounds like it was fermenting the entire time. Moloch's third album is suffocating, caustic, and completely uncompromising. Sludge MetalPunk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 21 Apr 2026 Ponte del Diavolo Hidden Gem De Venom Natura Two basses, no second guitar, and a Bauhaus cover. Turin's Ponte del Diavolo play blackened post-punk that treats poison as both subject and method, recorded live to tape at Season of Mist. Post-PunkBlack MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 20 Apr 2026 Ethereal Darkness Echoes Sixty minutes of melodic death/doom mixed by Dan Swano. Six tracks that move through grief at the pace grief actually moves, unhurried and heavy and impossible to shortcut. Melodic Death MetalDoom MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 19 Apr 2026 Doodswens Doodswens Not about wishing for death, but the death of the wish. Doodswens' self-titled fifth album on Svart Records turns DSBM inside out, finding strength where the genre usually finds surrender. Black MetalDSBM ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 18 Apr 2026 The Holeum Hidden Gem Ensis The Fermi Paradox as doom metal. Alicante's The Holeum compress experimental metal, death doom, and post-metal into seven tracks of cosmic weight on Lifeforce Records. Doom MetalDeath MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 18 Apr 2026 Funeral Pile Summoning Shackleton's endurance, Lovecraft's mountains, a cursed mill in the German woods. Funeral Pile's third album is literary blackened death/doom that earns its nine tracks and its ambition. Death MetalDoom MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 17 Apr 2026 Sotabosc Hidden Gem El Batec dels Maquis Atmospheric black metal in Catalan about anti-fascist guerrillas. Sotabosc's debut on Dunk! Records transforms dark folk into tremolo storms and closes with seventeen minutes of uncompromising resistance. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalPost-Rock ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 17 Apr 2026 Unmother State Dependent Memory London as open wound. Unmother's second album maps the isolation of a metropolis through post-black metal and post-punk, moving between Greek spoken word, urban dread, and moments of devastating clarity. Post-Black MetalPost-PunkExperimental ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 16 Apr 2026 Desert Storm Buried Under the Weight of Reason Oxford's Desert Storm deliver nine tracks of stoner-sludge that know the difference between heavy and slow. Tight, varied, and built on riffs that move rather than lumber. Stoner RockSludge MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Apr 2026 Rosa Faenskap Ingenting Forblir Patricidal black metal from Oslo. Three musicians tear through seven tracks of hardcore-laced black metal about watching the world you grew up in rot from the inside out. Black MetalHardcorePost-Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 14 Apr 2026 Vertige Chute-Libre Old-school black metal kitsch done right. Marie's second album as Vertige is sixty-eight minutes of high-gain tremolo worship, unfiltered self-doubt, and a banjo interlude that somehow does not ruin anything. Black MetalAtmospheric Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 Apr 2026 Void of Light Asymmetries Three guitarists, five tracks, fifty minutes. Glasgow's Void of Light build post-metal in the Cult of Luna tradition with craft and patience, though the energy does not always match the ambition. Post-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 9 Apr 2026 Splendidula Absentia Written after the death of bassist Peter Chromiak, Splendidula's fourth album moves between English grief and Flemish mourning with Aaron Stainthorpe and Tim Yatras lending weight to an already heavy record. Atmospheric Black MetalDoom MetalDSBM ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 6 Apr 2026 Lantlôs Nowhere in Between Forever Markus Skye buries black metal under layers of 90s alt-rock shimmer and hollow plastic nostalgia. Eleven tracks that feel like channel-surfing through a decade that only looks golden in hindsight. Alternative RockShoegazePost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 Apr 2026 Unverkalt Héréditaire Greek roots, Berlin address, Season of Mist backing. Unverkalt's third album is their heaviest -- a wall-of-sound interrogation of inherited guilt that never lets up across nine tracks and fifty minutes. Post-MetalProgressive Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Apr 2026 Cult of Occult I Have No Name Seventy-one minutes of sludge as psychological descent. Cult of Occult strip away identity one track at a time across six movements of crushing, slow-moving devastation. Lyon's underground at its heaviest. Sludge MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 31 Mar 2026 Domhain In Perfect Stillness Four Belfast musicians channel Irish myth and grief into five tracks of atmospheric post-black metal. Cello, choral vocals, and Chris Fielding's immaculate mix make this one of 2026's early highlights. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalBlackgaze ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 31 Mar 2026 Matador Above, Below and So A Brighton trio that sounds like a six-piece. Above, Below and So is 41 minutes of crushing post-metal and atmospheric doom, dedicated to a friend and built around the heaviest guitar tone we've heard all year. Post-MetalAtmospheric Doom ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 31 Mar 2026 Aluk Todolo LUX Eight years of silence, then light. Aluk Todolo return with six tracks of hypnotic occult rock recorded entirely to tape -- Morse code track titles, no vocals, no concessions. Occult RockKrautrockExperimental ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 25 Mar 2026 Terzij de Horde Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone Terzij de Horde channel Hartmut Rosa's resonance theory into seven tracks of vitalistic black metal and hardcore fury. Their most focused record yet -- burning, political, and fully alive. Post-Black MetalHardcoreBlack Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 Mar 2026 Weedpecker V The name and artwork promise sludge. What comes out of the speakers is an unexpectedly fresh blend of psychedelic rock and expansive post-rock textures. Psychedelic RockStoner RockProgressive Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 24 Mar 2026 Witchcraft A Sinner's Child Magnus Pelander strips Witchcraft down on five tracks of proto-doom and folk. Intimate and raw, but the stripped-back approach also exposes a lack of direction. Proto-DoomFolkOccult Rock ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 24 Mar 2026 Zahn Purpur Instrumental krautrock and noise rock from Berlin, mixed by Magnus Lindberg. Purpur is 36 minutes of monolithic grooves colliding with synthetic shimmer. Noise RockKrautrockPost-Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 24 Mar 2026 Gaerea Loss Gaerea trade density for directness on Loss, their Century Media debut. Clean vocals, catchier structures, and the question of what a post-black metal band becomes when it decides to write songs. Post-Black MetalExtreme Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Mar 2026 Harakiri for the Sky Scorched Earth Harakiri for the Sky know exactly what they do well, and Scorched Earth delivers it with conviction. Whether that consistency is enough depends on what you need from them. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 20 Mar 2026 An Abstract Illusion The Sleeping City On The Sleeping City, An Abstract Illusion push their blend of progressive death metal and 80s synth aesthetics into something genuinely cinematic. Progressive Death MetalPost-Black MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 18 Mar 2026 The Mountain King Pike Dreams A compelling concept held back by its execution. Pike Dreams maps two millennia of upheaval onto instrumental doom, but muddy production undercuts the ambition. Doom MetalDroneAmbientPost-Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 18 Mar 2026 Bosse-de-Nage Hidden Fires Burn Hottest After eight years of silence, Bosse-de-Nage return with their most expansive and unpredictable record yet. Hidden Fires Burn Hottest rewards patience. Post-Black MetalBlackgazePost-Hardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Mar 2026 BRIQUEVILLE IIII Belgian post-metal collective BRIQUEVILLE continue their anonymous, ritualistic journey with IIII, twenty Akten deep into a body of work that treats albums as chapters rather than separate statements. Post-MetalDoomDrone ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Mar 2026 Vor die Hunde Hidden Gem Weltmarktführer Befiehl – Wir Entfolgen! Kaufland's finest grindcore export turns corporate satire into a weapon on their sharpest, most relentless record yet. GrindcoreDeath MetalPunk ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 13 Mar 2026 Der Weg einer Freiheit Innern Der Weg einer Freiheit's sixth album turns inward, and the result is their most focused and devastating record to date. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-MetalProgressive Black Metal ● ● ● ● ● 9 Mar 2026 auszaat Dissolve With Dissolve, auszaat return with a single that feels like a steel room closing in, equal parts industrial dread and human collapse. Black MetalSludge MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 Mar 2026 Bloodred Colours of Pain Eight tracks and forty-three minutes of tightly wound extremity, Colours of Pain finds the German band at their most personal and most precise, mapping grief and fury onto a record that earns every decibel. Blackened Death MetalMelodic Death MetalExtreme Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Mar 2026 Slaughterday Dread Emperor Thirteen years into their run, the Leer duo have not softened a single edge , Dread Emperor is their most focused album yet, ten tracks of Lovecraftian death metal that doubles as a mirror pointed at the present. Death MetalDoom MetalOld School Death Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Mar 2026 Misotheist Hidden Gem De Pinte Four tracks, forty-three minutes, zero filler, De Pinte is Misotheist at their most ferocious and most patient at once, a record that earns its 21-minute centrepiece with everything that comes before it. Black MetalBlack/Doom Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 25 Feb 2026 Nightscape Cosmic Viewer Ten tracks of cosmic stoner doom that sounds like watching a desert horizon at 3 AM, Nightscape build a whole world in 65 minutes and don't waste a second of it. Stoner DoomPsychedelic RockInstrumental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 Feb 2026 Turpentine Valley Veuel From Zulte in Belgium, Turpentine Valley build their world from Dutch and local dialect, ten tracks of post-metal patience that communicate through accumulation rather than declaration. Post-MetalDoomExperimental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent Pre-Release American Sharks Not Dead Yet American Sharks return with a guest list that reads like a letter of recommendation from heavy rock's working class heroes, and the music earns every name on it. Stoner RockPunk MetalFuzz Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent Pre-Release GOZD Trees Are Silent Poland's GOZD take you into the oldest, darkest part of the forest and leave you there. Their third album is melancholic, patient, and quietly extraordinary. Post-MetalStoner RockAtmospheric MetalInstrumental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Feb 2026 Wright Valley Trio Hidden Gem Leben ist Schmerz Two tracks, two statements, the Wright Valley Trio's Leben ist Schmerz earns its title in full and then some. Doom MetalSludgePost-Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Feb 2026 ELLEREVE Umbra Eleven tracks of cold, reaching post-metal from South Tyrol, Umbra is dense where it needs to be and open where it counts, anchored by a vocal performance that carries the whole thing. Post-MetalPost-Black MetalDoomgaze ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 8 Feb 2026 Mourir Insolence Four tracks of blackened sludge rooted in French soil, Insolence finds Mourir at their most focused, tracing the arc from pride to ruin with the kind of patience that only comes from a band who trust their own weight. Post-MetalSludge MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 31 Jan 2026 Course of Fate Behind the Eclipse Eight songs, forty-five minutes, one ten-minute centrepiece, Behind the Eclipse is a confident, unhurried statement from Norway's Course of Fate. Progressive MetalHeavy Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 23 Jan 2026 Oh Hiroshima All Things Shining Oh Hiroshima's fifth album is their most personal, a slow-burning meditation on wonder, ageing, and the stubborn hope that the world will always find a way to reclaim its spark. Post-RockPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 16 Jan 2026 Cryptic Shift Overspace & Supertime Almost eighty minutes of cinematic death-thrash following a rogue Recaller through asteroid battles and cryogenic freezing chambers, Cryptic Shift make the same album twice and somehow make it feel like progress. Tech DeathThrash MetalProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 29 Dec 2025 Zatokrev ...Bring Mirrors To The Surface Seven years of silence, eight songs of reckoning, ...Bring Mirrors To The Surface finds Zatokrev expanding outward, inviting collaborators into the heaviness rather than keeping it locked behind closed doors. Sludge MetalPost-MetalPsychedelic Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 21 Dec 2025 Bell Witch Stygian Bough Volume II Bell Witch return with another collaboration with Aerial Ruin, four tracks, an hour of funeral doom, and absolutely no wasted seconds. Funeral DoomDoom MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 15 Dec 2025 Doubtsower Nothing Reduced to Everything Cardiff one-man operation Doubtsower turns in his most fully realised album yet, six tracks that take their time and mean every second of it. Funeral DoomBlackened DoomPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 13 Dec 2025 MWWB The Harvest A rebirth in all but name, The Harvest finds MWWB trading their old skin for something stranger, heavier, and more cinematic, a nine-part voyage that rewards total surrender. Psych DoomDoom MetalSpace RockStoner Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 Dec 2025 Primitive Man Observance Primitive Man's Observance is seven tracks about watching everything fall apart, and it sounds exactly like that. Doom MetalSludge MetalNoise ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Dec 2025 Enshine Elevation A Swedish-French collaboration at peak form, Elevation is eight songs of slow-moving light, where grief and beauty arrive in the same breath. Doom MetalDeath MetalMelodic Death Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 27 Nov 2025 ZU Ferrum Sidereum An 80-minute double album built from meteoric ore and sheer will, Ferrum Sidereum is ZU at their most sprawling, most untameable, and arguably their best. Avant-Garde MetalJazz MetalExperimental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 19 Nov 2025 Thosar The Bold Idea of Being Satisfied Graz's Thosar are just a drummer and a bassist, and they sound like a full band having the worst, best time of their lives. Sludge MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Nov 2025 Crippled Black Phoenix Banefyre A self-declared musical in fourteen acts, Banefyre is Crippled Black Phoenix at their most ambitious, witch trials, class warfare, the 1977 New York blackout, and a recurring question about what it means to be alive at the end of things. Post-RockDark RockProgressive Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 11 Nov 2025 Nadja Cut Four tracks of drone-doom that cuts, the Toronto duo's Cut is one of their most focused records in years, with song titles that are doing their own work before the music even starts. Drone DoomShoegaze MetalAmbient Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 Nov 2025 Sylosis The New Flesh Named after a Cronenberg provocation, The New Flesh is Sylosis doing what they do better than almost anyone, stacking riffs until the whole thing becomes undeniable. Thrash MetalProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 Nov 2025 Bizarrekult Alt Som Finnes A desperately personal third album from Bizarrekult, Alt Som Finnes strips away every defense and finds something human underneath the black metal fury. Black MetalPost-Black MetalExperimental Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 26 Oct 2025 The Hirsch Effekt Der Brauch Nine tracks, all titled in German, all pointing toward the same question , Der Brauch is The Hirsch Effekt at their most deliberate, threading classical restraint and progressive weight into something that resists every easy label. Prog MetalPost-HardcoreArt Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 18 Oct 2025 Oaken From The Bonfire Three tracks, no filler, Budapest's Oaken make the most of the EP format on From The Bonfire, and the result is one of the year's better pieces of atmospheric doom. Post-MetalAtmospheric DoomPost-Hardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Oct 2025 Alcest Les Chants de l'Aurore Alcest return from five years of shadow to make their most luminous record in over a decade, seven songs that reach toward the light with the sureness of a band who finally know exactly what they are. BlackgazePost-Black MetalShoegaze ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 9 Oct 2025 Slow Crush Thirst Ten songs about need, loss, and the body's refusal to let go, Thirst is Slow Crush at their most focused, building walls of sound around a voice that refuses to be buried. ShoegazePost-MetalDream Pop ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 2 Oct 2025 Dvne Voidkind Edinburgh's Dvne arrives leaner and fiercer on their third album, Voidkind trades cosmic sprawl for punishing directness, and the trade is largely worth it. Prog MetalPost-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 22 Sept 2025 Atlantic Timeworn Five tracks and thirty-five minutes of atmospheric post-black metal that earns its landscape metaphors without ever demanding you notice them, Timeworn is the sound of the West of Ireland in a November gale. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 14 Sept 2025 St. Unholyness Through High Holy Haze A one-woman reckoning from Pfarrkirchen, Through High Holy Haze is Christina Earlymorn channelling religious trauma, Pantera worship, and Hermetic philosophy into eight tracks of raw, uncompromising doom. Doom MetalBlack MetalStoner Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 6 Sept 2025 Hemelbestormer Hidden Gem The Radiant Veil Belgium's Hemelbestormer name their tracks after Etruscan gods on The Radiant Veil, and the music lives up to every one of those deities. Post-MetalDoom MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Sept 2025 Hypno5e Sheol A prequel that arrives after its sequel, Sheol is Hypno5e building an entire mythology in sound, sixty-three minutes that feel like memory, loss, and geology all happening at once. Post-MetalProgressive MetalCinematic Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 29 Aug 2025 Sugar Horse The Live Long After Sugar Horse arrive with a debut that refuses to settle, nine tracks of post-punk bile, noise rock sprawl, and pitch-black wit that feels permanently on the verge of falling apart, and is better for it. Noise RockPost-MetalSludgePost-Punk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 21 Aug 2025 Årabrot Rite of Dionysus Nine songs of ritual and reckoning, Rite of Dionysus finds Årabrot more expansive and more personal than ever, trading brute force for something stranger and harder to shake. Noise RockArt RockPost-Punk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 12 Aug 2025 Bohren & der Club of Gore Patchouli Blue Six years between albums, and Bohren return with Patchouli Blue, eleven tracks of slow-motion noir jazz that feel less like music and more like a long, deliberate exhale in the dark. Dark JazzAmbient ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 4 Aug 2025 Mizmor Mnemonic Ambient Mosaic Mizmor's ambient record is not a retreat, Mnemonic Ambient Mosaic is as heavy as anything A.L.N. has made, just in a different register. Atmospheric Black MetalDoom MetalAmbient ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Aug 2025 Hippotraktor Stasis Seven tracks, one story, and no interest in playing it safe, Stasis is Hippotraktor building the kind of record that takes time to understand and rewards the effort. Post-MetalProgressive MetalPost-Hardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 27 Jul 2025 Profane Elegy Herezjarcha Eight songs built from cold air and Appalachian stone, Herezjarcha is Profane Elegy arriving fully formed, imbued with the kind of conviction that makes atmospheric black metal worth taking seriously. Atmospheric Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 19 Jul 2025 Vandampire Hope Scars Vandampire's debut full-length is a record about displacement and endurance , eight tracks that move from city grime to open sky, anchored by riffs that feel both crushing and quietly necessary. Post-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 3 Jul 2025 Cwfen Hidden Gem Sorrows Glasgow's Cwfen (pronounced 'Coven') arrived fully formed on their debut , Sorrows is haunting, heavy, and one of the best doom records of 2025. Doom MetalDoomgazeGothic Doom ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Jul 2025 Khirki Κυκεώνας Steeped in Greek mythology and ancient ritual, Κυκεώνας is Khirki's most ambitious record, eight songs that move between hard rock muscle and genuinely strange psychedelic territory without ever losing the thread. Hard RockHeavy PsychFolk Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 Jun 2025 Ultha All That Has Never Been True Seven tracks, sixty-three minutes, and a Jacob Böhme quote borrowed from Blood Meridian, All That Has Never Been True is Ultha making the case that black metal still has room for something genuinely heavy with ideas. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-Black Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Jun 2025 Full of Hell Broken Sword, Rotten Shield Full of Hell have never exactly done concept albums, Broken Sword, Rotten Shield is the closest they've come, and it's their most complete record. Noise MetalGrindcoreExperimental Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Jun 2025 SÂVER From Ember and Rust Four years of detours, a split with a folk singer, a collaboration with Belgian post-metal collective Psychonaut, and SÂVER return with From Ember and Rust, an album that sounds like a band who finally knows exactly how heavy they want to be. Post-MetalDoom MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Jun 2025 Sumac The Film Sumac have always made records that behave like films, The Film makes the analogy explicit and then dismantles it completely. Post-MetalExperimentalNoise Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Jun 2025 Year of No Light Consolamentum Twenty years in, the Bordeaux six-piece deliver their most fully realized record, five colossal instrumentals that move like tectonic plates and land with the weight of a collapsed cathedral. Post-MetalDroneSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Jun 2025 The Ruins of Beverast Tempelschlaf Nine years on from Exuvia, Alexander von Meilenwald returns with seven tracks of slow, dense ritual, Tempelschlaf is The Ruins of Beverast at their most patient and most complete. Black MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 May 2025 rýr dislodged Berlin's rýr build crushing post-metal without a single word, dislodged is their third album and easily their most powerful, a wordless story of pressure and release. Post-MetalAtmospheric DoomInstrumental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2025 Tarlung Axis Mundi Five years of silence, eight tracks of reckoning, Axis Mundi is Tarlung returning heavier and more focused than ever, with the world falling apart as their backdrop. Doom MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 May 2025 HEADS. Push Recorded across two Berlin studios and mixed in Stockholm, Push is HEADS. at their most direct and most damaged, a ten-song record that sounds exactly like the world falling apart around it. Noise RockPost-PunkPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 May 2025 Daevar Sub Rosa Cologne's Daevar make doom that actually swings, Sub Rosa is seven tracks of riff-driven grunge-doom with hooks sharp enough to stick for days. Doom MetalGrungeStoner Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 May 2025 Wiegedood There's Always Blood at the End of the Road Wiegedood's fourth record is a deliberate rupture, faster, uglier, and stranger than anything the Ghent trio has made before, and all the more compelling for it. Post-Black MetalBlack Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 25 Apr 2025 Fange Purulences Rouen's Fange make music about infection, corruption, and rot, Purulences is exactly as unpleasant as the title promises, and twice as good. Sludge MetalIndustrialNoise ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Apr 2025 Novarupta Astral Sands Novarupta's Astral Sands is a blackened sludge record built around eight guest collaborations, and somehow every one of them makes the album more itself, not less. Blackened SludgePost-MetalExperimental ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 15 Apr 2025 Conjurer Unself Conjurer's Nuclear Blast debut is their most focused and most furious record yet, nine tracks about estrangement, identity, and a world that fails its people. Post-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 Apr 2025 Karatschai Karatschai Three tracks of hallucinogenic horror from Berlin, Karatschai's debut EP is raw, live-recorded sludge that earns every minute of its 24-minute runtime. Sludge MetalDoom MetalHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Apr 2025 Amenra De Toorn Amenra return with the EP that closes what De Doorn opened, grief and wrath in Flemish Dutch, preparing the ground for Mass VII. Post-MetalDoom MetalHardcore Punk ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 28 Mar 2025 Druma Sores of Our Time Hamburg's Druma make blackened atmospheric post-metal that carries genuine political weight, Sores of Our Time is heavy, honest, and urgently of the moment. Post-MetalAtmospheric Black MetalSludge ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Mar 2025 Treedeon New World Hoarder Five years in the making, six tracks of slow-burning fury, New World Hoarder is Treedeon at their most deliberate and most devastating. Sludge MetalDoom MetalNoise Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Mar 2025 Hangman's Chair Saddiction Paris's Hangman's Chair make doom that sounds like the city at 4 AM, Saddiction is their most refined record, and also their saddest. Doom MetalDark RockPost-Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Mar 2025 Howling Giant Crucible & Ruin Howling Giant expand to a four-piece and let the sky get bigger, Crucible & Ruin is their most ambitious, most sustained record yet, built from mythology, mass, and the kind of harmonies that land harder than they have any right to. Stoner RockPsychedelic RockProgressive Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Mar 2025 Möuth Global Warning Sweden's Möuth spell it 'Warning', not 'Warming', and the distinction matters. Global Warning is eight tracks of doom that sounds genuinely alarmed. Doom MetalPost-MetalSludge ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Mar 2025 Witchcraft Idag Twenty-five years in, Witchcraft deliver their most complete album yet - a record that pulls every thread of their history into a single, unflinching statement. Doom MetalPsychedelic RockHeavy Psych ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Mar 2025 Mantar Post-Apocalyptic Depression Hamburg's Mantar have survived the apocalypse and they're furious about it , Post-Apocalyptic Depression is their most unhinged record yet. Black MetalSludge MetalPunk ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Mar 2025 Pothamus Hidden Gem Abur Belgium's Pothamus blend ritualistic sludge with eastern drone and animist philosophy, and somehow it's one of the year's most genuinely heavy records. Sludge MetalPost-MetalAmbient ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Mar 2025 Psychonaut World Maker Psychonaut's most ambitious record yet, ten tracks that treat heaviness and tenderness as the same force, held together by a lyrical vision of cosmic parenthood and light. Post-MetalPsychedelic RockProgressive Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Mar 2025 Regarde Les Hommes Tomber Ascension The concluding chapter of a trilogy built on sacred scripture and controlled devastation, Ascension finds Nantes' finest pulling black metal skyward before letting it freefall into something stranger and darker. Atmospheric Black MetalPost-MetalSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Feb 2025 Cult of Luna The Long Road North Cult of Luna's ninth album is a journey across northern Sweden in sound - slow, enormous, and quietly devastating, with enough space between the riffs to let the cold air in. Post-MetalSludge MetalAtmospheric Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 14 Feb 2025 Earth Ship Soar Six years of silence, eight songs of reckoning, Soar is Earth Ship returning with more weight, more texture, and a better record than they've ever made. Sludge MetalDoom MetalStoner Rock ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Feb 2025 The Ocean Holocene The Ocean close out their geological saga with their most surprising record yet, Holocene trades post-metal enormity for synth-driven restraint, and mostly pulls it off. Post-MetalProgressive MetalExperimental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Feb 2025 Ahab The Coral Tombs Eight years in the making, The Coral Tombs finds the Heidelberg four-piece diving deeper than ever, a Jules Verne-inspired descent into slow, crushing beauty that earns every one of its seventy-five minutes. Funeral DoomDoom MetalDeath Doom ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 8 Feb 2025 Downfall of Gaia Silhouettes of Disgust Downfall of Gaia return with their sharpest record yet, a concept album about eight strangers in a crumbling city, held together by d-beat ferocity and some of the most atmospheric post-black metal they've ever written. Post-Black MetalCrust PunkSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 Feb 2025 Snake Mountain Man at Arms NRW's Snake Mountain have been building toward this for a decade, a four-track doom-death record that doesn't waste a second of its 23 minutes. Doom MetalDeath DoomDeath Metal ● ● ● ○ ○ Good 1 Feb 2025 LLNN Unmaker Copenhagen's LLNN return with their most ambitious statement yet, ten tracks of crushing, cinematic heaviness that sound less like a metal album and more like the score to a civilization's collapse. Post-MetalSludge MetalHardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Jan 2025 Winterschmerz Lichtbegräbnis A burial of light in two movements, Winterschmerz's Lichtbegräbnis is slow, German doom at its most literal and most effective. Doom MetalDeath DoomSludge ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Jan 2025 Sunrot / Body Void Sunrot / Body Void Split Two of heavy music's most explicitly political bands on one record, this split delivers exactly what that promise implies. Sludge MetalNoiseDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Jan 2025 Oranssi Pazuzu Muuntautuja Oranssi Pazuzu's Muuntautuja is their most psychedelic and most unsettling record yet, black metal as a vehicle for something genuinely alien. Psychedelic Black MetalSpace RockAvant-Garde Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 15 Nov 2024 Yanos Elysium Leipzig's Yanos build post-metal that earns its peaks, Elysium is six tracks of carefully constructed weight, and every crescendo lands. Post-MetalSludgePost-Hardcore ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Sept 2024 Dopethrone Broke Sabbath Dopethrone call their sound 'slutch', that's accurate. Broke Sabbath is seven tracks of Montréal slum doom with track titles that do exactly what they say. Stoner DoomSludge Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 20 Jul 2024 Thou Umbilical Thou's angriest record is also their most melodic, Umbilical is the rare sludge album that gets more devastating the closer you listen. Sludge MetalDoom MetalPost-Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Jul 2024 Pallbearer Mind Burns Alive Pallbearer keep getting better at something they were already great at - Mind Burns Alive is six tracks of heavy, melodic doom that sounds like no one else working in the genre. Doom MetalProgressive DoomHeavy Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 15 Jun 2024 Bongripper Empty Four tracks. Four words for a title: Nothing, Remains, Forever, Empty. Bongripper mean every one of them. Doom MetalDroneSludge ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 1 Jun 2024 Inter Arma New Heaven Inter Arma refuse to be categorized on New Heaven, and the refusal produces one of 2024's most vital heavy records. Post-MetalBlack MetalDoom Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 1 Jun 2024 High on Fire Cometh the Storm Six years between records, and Matt Pike comes back with High on Fire's most ferocious album in over a decade. Cometh the Storm doesn't waste a single second. Sludge MetalThrash MetalStoner Metal ● ● ● ● ● Indispensable 15 May 2024 Isenordal Requiem for Eirênê Portland's Isenordal write a requiem for the Greek goddess of peace, and the music sounds appropriately bereft. Atmospheric Black MetalDoom MetalFolk Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Apr 2024 Lord Dying Clandestine Transcendence Lord Dying's fourth album reaches for something genuinely transcendent and mostly gets there, psychedelic sludge that earns every one of its big ideas. Sludge MetalProgressive MetalPsychedelic ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 15 Feb 2024 Thronehammer Kingslayer Nine tracks of epic doom that earns the adjective, Kingslayer is Thronehammer's most accomplished record, and Kat's vocals are one of the great doom performances of the year. Epic Doom MetalTraditional DoomHeavy Metal ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 5 Dec 2023 SARKH Helios EP Four instrumental tracks named after wind, sun, waves, and a Scottish headland , SARKH's Helios EP is geography as sound design, and it works completely. Post-MetalPost-RockInstrumental ● ● ● ● ○ Excellent 10 Aug 2023