Feeding Frenzy: Mezzrow, Rituals, and More

Mezzrow – Embrace The Awakening

Release date: 14th November 2025||Genre: Thrash metal||Label: ROAR

It’s time to wake up to the latest offering from Swedish thrashers, Mezzrow.

With their new full-length, Embrace The Awakening, Mezzrow deliver snarling, raw thrash metal. And the emphasis is certainly on that last word. This is some no-frills, ugly stuff, with animalistic vocals, and gritty strings. Being Swedish, there is some display of the melodics one might expect, but, in the main, it is held back. The overshadowing bent is towards Seasons era Slayer and the first breatths of The Haunted. There’s also a hint of something darker. Maybe death metal or black n roll can be felt holding a hovering hand over the whole operation. Regardless, the result is something you don’t often find in thrash nowadays. A true aggressive spirit, with all the shine stripped off. This would pair nicely with Kreator and modern Testament. Heavy as hell, filled with hooks, and highly enjoyable. A headbanger’s delight!

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Slow Dragon

Morte Incandescente – …your funeral

Release Date: 5th December, 2025||Genre: Black Metal|| Label: Signal Rex

The darkness returns: reborn for the next generation.

Originally reissued by the revered Elegy Records (USA) in 2003, Lisbon’s Morte Incandescente’s …your funeral now returns on Signal Rex with renewed artwork courtesy of Heresie Studios… and with vicious intent.
The 2025 edition features the brutality of bands original lyrics – a sonic barrage of volatile aggression – and the entire record has been prudently, fully remastered by Diogo Santana at Noise Portrait Studios. Fear not! The raw and low-fi sentiment is not lost, it is as encompassing as it was some twenty-two years ago. Brazen, unholstered vocals infiltrate the harsher instrumentation with unsettling intimacy. Visually, the band have sought a vivid reimagining that bridges the album’s past and present by updating the sleeves photos, shot once again at the iconic location of the original session. Released on classic black vinyl and digipak CD through Signal Rex, with the audio cassette version released by Tour de Garde (CAN).

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AVZD

Rituals  – Hope In Hatred

Release date: 07th November||Genre: Metal||Label: Self-released

UK musicalunatics, Rituals, flip the switch with their Hope In Hatred EP… But what have they turned on..?

If this wasn’t so raw, and soaked in the waste oil of industrial, it could qualify as metalcore. From the songwriting to the production, this is a raging meld of man and machine. Ugly becomes beautiful, and prettiness fuels hatred, howling its humanity from the depths of the construct. Where the contraption starts to crumble under the pressure of it’s own mismatched cogs, an eviscerating organic ryhthm takes over. Even the melodic vocals have more of a masochistic, 90s techno-goth vibe, than modern commercialism. It can be difficult to land really singing nowadays without sounding like an infiltrator, but Rituals absolutely nail it. If you can make pop vox sound this metal, I’m in. Composed against redlined riffs, and the occasional blazing solo, all smothered in grime, they simply add to the unhinged character of the EP. This record delivers the audial equivalent of the satisfaction gained from watching EVERYTHING dropped into a massive power-shredder. It’s totally maniacal, and I’m here for it.

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Slow Dragon

Seeyouicide – The 5 Levels of Misery 

Release Date: 24th November, 2025||Genre: Black Metal/DSBM|| Label: Independent

An inclement, desolate collection from Ontario’s Seeyouicide

The 5 Levels of Misery is an agonizing journey into the duo’s most exposed and intimate emotions. The corpus fuses chilling melodies with piercing emotional intensity, delving into layers of despair, isolation, and existential torment. Track Life is Pointless erupts with sudden, jagged bursts of energy, jarring the listener and propelling them deeper into the demos slow, unyielding descent. Composed of Blackstorms, who commands guitars, vocals, and synths, and Nocthyrn, handling bass and clean vocals, together, the duo crafts a relentless balance of icy atmospherics that is both immersive and callously honest. Highly personal, each track stands alone as a worthy companion to the darkest moments of life and certainly confronts anyone who favours lighter fare; creating a bleak yet captivating landscape that lingers long after the final note. Evasive, elusive, or perhaps deliberately ambiguous Seeyouicide are unafraid to explore the deepest, most harrowing corners of the human psyche, delivering a cathartic, immersive experience that is as haunting as it is unforgettable.

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AVZD

The Vice – The Red Tape Sessions

Release date: 05th December||Genre: Dark metal||Label: Noble Demon

Stockholm’s jagged dark metallers are reeling out their new EP The Red Tape Sessions

The first thing that can instantly be noticed on this short collection of songs, is the true crime slasher aura, swirling through the tracks. Maybe that’s where the ‘Red Tapes… ‘ title evolved from? That mystery remains unsolved for now. Almost punk, and almost metal, The Vice tinker with the borderlines of genre, defining their own script. The sound here owes as much to Jefferson Airplane and The Doors as it does Paradise Lost and Kampfar. It is gloriously hard to pin down, and will undoubtedly offer many personal takeaways of myriad variations to different listeners. What ties it all together, though, is that each number feels like a tribute to acid-washed thriller cinema through the ages, a sinister edge running throughout. The EP in full; a vampiric Vegas death-trip, woven through intangible, smoke stained celluloid.

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Slow Dragon