Metal's having a genuinely strange week. Two genre legends announcing their final records, a Trivium we almost didn't recognise, and enough new blood from Japan to make you wonder why we're not paying more attention to what's coming out of there. Metal Hammer's 18 September tracks of the week is a lot to process, so let's get into it.
The Old Guard Saying Goodbye
The big story this week is endings, and there are two of them running simultaneously.
Ministry are back with Singularity, a new single from their final record Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery), out 30 October. It does exactly what you'd expect Ministry to do at this point: mechanised chaos, end-of-days energy, Al Jourgensen treating civilisation like a burning skip. The band declare "your time on this planet has passed" and they're not joking around. The only blemish is that they've apparently gone with a cheap AI video to accompany it, which is the wrong call for a band that's spent four decades building a visual identity as ferocious as their sound. A shame.
Then there's Godflesh. Justin Broadrick's band aren't quite at the finish line yet, their forthcoming Decay album is actually the penultimate record rather than the last, but Master And Slave still feels like a goodbye being drafted in real time. Claustrophobic, grinding, and completely merciless, it sounds like being processed by industrial machinery. In the best possible way, obviously. If you've been a fan of the heavy, miserable end of the metal spectrum, this is not a great week for your long-term emotional wellbeing.
Fresh Faces Worth Your Attention
Trivium drop Dead Inside Of Me, and it's a deliberate departure. After the more traditional metal territory of In The Court Of The Dragon and What The Dead Men Say, the Orlando band are pushing into heavier, more lumbering territory, with bassy verses and big choruses that bring Machine Head to mind. They've also just announced 2027 tour dates with In Flames, which makes Sable Hills' Homura arriving in the same week feel almost too on the nose. The Japanese metalcore band open with a soaring power metal solo, then pivot into something with genuine In Flames-influenced melodic death metal underneath it, all wrapped in a modern package with Japanese folk touches. New album also called Homura lands 13 November.
Fellow Japanese act Zilqy offer up Run, a pop metal track with a killer main beat that sits alongside the likes of As Everything Unfolds while still sounding distinctly Japanese in its melodic structure. Their debut Birth Of Riot drops 7 October.
Elsewhere, Cabal's Hurt Me features Justine Jones of Employed To Serve on vocals, and the result is a metalcore track that drags the genre back to the sweaty clubs it came from rather than the arenas it currently fills. Both bands are touring the UK together in November, and this one will absolutely hit differently live.
Hulder bring some frosty black metal with And We Will Sing, Ignea team up with Combichrist on the heavy and apocalyptic Prefab from their upcoming album Monumental (out 23 October), and Mental Cruelty's Frost, lifted from new album Echoes of a Forlorn Land, balances sheer heft with folky melodic passages that shouldn't work as well as they do.
Our Take
If there's a thread running through this week's selection, it's transition. Established names either winding down or shifting shape, newer acts stepping confidently into spaces being vacated. Metal's in good hands. Go vote for Cabal or Zilqy, and check what's coming out of Japan before everyone else catches up.