Dark act, VOSH, came together to explore a fusion of inspirations which extend from early gothic rock to industrial and punk next to others. The band cite Bauhaus, early Ministry, Sisters of Mercy, Zounds, Killing Joke and Nine Inch Nails among their main influences.

Although the band's sound can be categorized as dark synthpop and darkwave, it also incorporates a wide range of other influencing factors, creating a menacing, consistently gloomy tone.

The central musical element of VOSH is vocalist, lyricist, and front person Josephine Olivia, who merges an enchanting and ethereal approach with imposing power. The band's impending album, Vessel, is expecting to underline all that darkness and the strong goth aesthetics with raw dynamism, and it's introduced with the forceful single and video, PRAY.

VOSH are composed of Chris Moore (Repulsion, Coke Bust, The Rememberables), Carson Cox (Merchandise, Death Index), and Josephine Olivia (Blacksage). 

Moore enlisted Kevin Bernstein, a producer and engineer from Developing Nations in Baltimore, to help with the mix. The recording took place at Moore and Olivia's joint residence in the greater Washington, DC, area. The project's mastering was overseen by Magnus Lindberg (Tribulation, Russian Circles, Lucifer, Hellacopters, Frida Hyvönen).

Spitting Image, a group of abrasive punks from Reno, Nevada, release their debut album, Full Sun, on February 3rd, 2023, after touring widely and consistently in the US, and having released a few solid singles.

With their perception of culture obtained from growing up in crowded lines of small record shops, scores of sci-fi and horror flicks, noise rock and hardcore punk shows, and the blowback of the 2007 financial collapse, Spitting Image came together in the underground DIY music scene of Reno in 2012. The group was very well received in the underground press for their early releases on Casino Trash Records, and supported acts like Ceremony, Shannon & The Clams, Sheer Mag, VR Sex, Iceage, Surf Curse, Spiritual Cramp, and others.

The band's perfectly balanced fusion of noise rock grit, punk fury, and hardcore tenacity is on display in Black Box, one of the new album's most relentless, direct, and concise songs.

Full Sun is out now digitally through Slovenly Recordings, while on March 24th, 2023 the vinyl and cassette will be available.

Spitting Image are Austin Pratt (vocals), Julian Jacobs (guitar), Jack Scribner (bass), Donovan Williams (drums).

After the release of their well received debut album Body Semantics in 2017, Swiss band, Jon Hood return with Ocean, an expressive illustration of their artistry, engaging on both the visual and the musical fronts. 

Going through various moods and styles, ranging from wistful dreampop to expansive psychedelia and motorik krautrock, Ocean is a beautiful and engaging journey, coming together with a video of analogously stimulating properties.

The song is propelled by a dense instrumental profile and excellent production, further highlighting vocalist Joan Seiler's words, which arrive in both spoken-word enchantment, and mellow, tuneful dreaminess, and become underlined by backing resonances delivered by Costa Rican musician, Sonya Carmona.

The song's opening line, "I can hear the ocean in your name," is a simple reminder that, while the world can feel systematic and alienating at times, there is still place for fantasy and rich sensory opportunities. This concept is also evidenced in Eliane Bertschi's music video, in which performer Lara Dâmaso shifts between a green screen studio and differing animated fictional worlds created by Joerg Hurschler.

Jon Hood are Joan Seiler, Martin Schenker, David Hänni and Mario Hänni.

Pioneering electronic musician, The Album Leaf, will release the upcoming album, FUTURE FALLING, on May 5th, 2023 via Nettwerk. The album, which features performers like Kimbra and Bat For Lashes, will be the artist's first original collection of music since his well-received 2016 album Between Waves, excluding the numerous noteworthy film scores and reissues.

Near is a melodic and compelling collaboration with London artist Bat For Lashes who contributes ethereal vocals to the atmospheric track.

The Album Leaf mastermind, Jimmy Lavalle, says: “I had sent Natasha a song I was working on to see if she’d be up collaborating. We spent an afternoon in my studio while she sang a handful of ideas over the piece. I took those ideas and created something new inspired by her vocal. I really wanted to create something to support the dreamlike narrative she was painting. It was all very natural."

Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes, adds: “We worked organically, I was building vocals over Jimmy’s music; playing with melodies and words... he then took it away and sculpted it into what became Near. The imagery was of going deep into a dark forest with a small glimmer of safety, something precious and secret. Sort of an ambient fairytale. It was very spontaneous and fun to improvise."

Two years after their album, FIX YOUR HEARTS OR DIE, Brooklyn, New York-based trio, A Very Special Episode, return, this time with an very interesting concept that explores cults, the desire to 'belong,' and the darker side of that idea. The song will be part of an upcoming album which will further elaborate on these themes, the more extreme parts and the grey areas in between.

AVSE found interest in cults after a visit to the parking lot of Scientology’s Los Angeles Celebrity Center and its nearby ‘museum’ dedicated to the alleged evils of psychiatry. After that, it was simply an issue of spending the following years watching documentaries, TV shows, and films that explored this realm, before this developing cult fascination emerged to the forefront in a cabin in the Catskills of upstate New York during a blizzard-bound songwriting session.

Vocalist and bassist Kasey Heisler speaks on Heaven's Gate: “It’s about the need to belong, the search for an in group, and the length’s one may go to find one in spite of the danger and the vulnerability that requires.” 

Patrick Porter, guitarist and vocalist for AVSE, comments: “Joining a group or organization that’s larger than oneself requires being absorbed into a helpless situation, surrendering one’s entire being to the cause. This can be an intentional decision, the result of intense manipulation, or an ambiguous mix of both.”

With the release of Heaven's Gate comes the 'Official Onboarding' lyric video which was created by Brooklyn's photographer and filmmaker, Jen Meller.

Gurriers are a post punk five-piece, emerging from the thriving Irish scene, and leaving a strong impression with their debut single release, Approachable. Although its title shouldn't be taken too literally when it comes to the band's sound and creative approach, the harshness and raging qualities of their songwriting can be rather winsome.

About the single, lead singer Dan Hoff comments: “Approachable is a tongue in cheek anthem about the rising far right rhetoric all over the world.”

With sharp guitars, loud vocals, and an overall sense of genuine post punk angst, Approachable is a heavy, crushing blow carried by a ferocious chorus and forceful verse marked by the line 'I was born in the wrong era,' expressing the band's vitriolic glimpse at modern society.

Approachable, which was produced by Chris Ryan (Just Mustard, Enola Gay, NewDad), seems to mark the beginning of a strong, new force in British post punk.

Asheville band, Powder Horns, helmed by musician Brett J Kent, unveil The G.O.M.s, the second single and music video from their upcoming full length, Dissolution, which is scheduled to be released on March 10th, 2023 via Powder Horns Recording Company.

Once again noisy and guitar-driven, The G.O.M.s shows the band attempting a more shoegaze-bent sound this time, and the outcome feels bold yet traditionalistic and familiar in terms of tone and broad creative approach.

The G.O.M.s is accompanied by a very nice music video by Shadow Light Creative, shot at Drop of Sun Studio in Asheville, where Powder Horns recorded the album.

Period Sex is a track from the new album by M(h)aol, Attachment Styles, which will be released on February 3rd, 2023, by Tulle Collective. The album has already established itself as one of the most uncompromising and unconventional post punk albums of the year with a couple of its first singles, and this new release is unquestionably heading in the same direction.

Period Sex celebrates periods and how it's still such a controversial topic, even for those who would regard themselves progressive. It's a work which people would either love or find extremely uncomfortable.

Singer Róisín Nic Ghearailt says of the song: “Prior to writing the track I’d had a lot of eye-opening conversations around period shame with people of all genders and from all walks of life, and I wanted to write almost an anthem for everyone who had ever had a period or loved someone who had one. It felt like a hugely powerful thing to be in a position to create a song as a band that was unequivocally sexy. I’m a cis bisexual woman in a queer, sapphic relationship. Periods and period sex are a part of my reality, and my girlfriend actually helped me with the lyrics in the first verse.”

Bassist Zo Greenway produced the video on a strict budget to give an accurate representation of female desire. It was impacted by experimental filmmakers like Carolee Schneeman, Barbara Hammer, and James Bidgood. The main source of inspiration was the mature portrayal of period sex in the film The Souvenir Part 2 by Joanna Hogg, while Georges Méliès' underwater world served as another big influence.

Zoë comments: “At the end of the day, it’s just a bit of blood, isn't it? It’s just a biological process that 50% of the human organisms on earth go through every month and there shouldn’t be any shame or taboo surrounding that. You know bats also menstruate? It’s just science that people menstruate, I don’t think anyone should ever feel embarrassed about it, about seeing blood on sheets or underpants or things like that.”

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ZR

Mind Prisoner was formed in the bitterly cold and humid Pacific Northwest during the global pandemic of 2020. The duo developed a distinctive tone which evokes anguish and hopelessness, influenced mainly by the edgiest kinds of extreme metal.

In January 2023, Mind Prisoner released their five-track, self-titled debut EP, all drenched in utter darkness. Black metal, death metal, and doom metal elements are all interconnected into Mind Prisoner's sound, which is best described as a combination of heaviness and lyricism, an aberrant sludge metal approach, with all aforementioned styles vying for the spotlight, while lurking in the background of the project's compositional atmosphere.

Ritual and 11:11, the EP's first two songs, establish the EP's gloomy mood, and by the time Garden of Bones, a blackened death metal track, arrives, the listener is completely engrossed, with the band demonstrating their songwriting strengths. Before Angels Leave can claim the title of the album's most fully realized track, 2:22 dethrones it with an outstanding eight and a half-minute piece whose gothic atmosphere blends seamlessly with the extreme brutality, creating an overarchingly damnable atmosphere.

Even if the dialogue samplings occasionally become a little too intense or overplayed, Mind Prisoner still go to show how capable they can be in bringing their own brand of weightiness, and to call their self-titled EP a promising endeavor is a restrained statement. 

Formed in 2017, Austrian experimental extreme metal act, Black Yen, is the project helmed by Sebastian Lackner, created with the aim to produce music influenced by different directions and genres. Following the 2021 full length, SATORI, Black Yen return with new material as part of their split EP with Austrian post black metal band, ♄​♄​♄​♄​♄.

The bands each recorded three songs to be included on their collaborative process without any coordination.

Cobalt Dreams, an eight-minute journey which moves through passages of post metal, atmospheric black metal, and offbeat psychedelia in a very original and unpredictable way, is a prime example of Black Yen's restless approach.

The songs were recorded by the bands and fellow musician Karl Steinpatz (Noise Transmission). Julian Jauk (Ultima Radio, Tonstudio Grelle Musik) mixed the music, and Bernd Heinrauch handled the mastering. The album is released on tape via grazil Records.