That's Not Metal

TNM talks bands we would have introduced to ourselves at an earlier age, a breadth of new tracks from Def Leppard, Exodus, Immolation and Haggard Cat, and Cryptopsy take to the UK with 200 Stab Wounds for 30 years of None So Vile.Releases:Megadeth - MegadethPoppy - Empty HandsCrystal Lake - The Weight of SoundTextures - GenotypeThe Damned - Not Like Everybody ElseBackengrillen - BackengrillenBarbarian - Reek of GodLigation - After Gods

2025 Album Clubs come from the land where the mullet attacks: Sabaton's Swedish concept album Carolus Rex, Hatebreed's hardcore benchmark Satisfaction is the Death of Desire, Visigoth's dungeon-keeping The Revenant King, and Family Force 5 give us Business Up Front/Party in the Back.This episode was originally published January 2025 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

New album singles from Poison the Well, Lamb of God, and Static Dress keep 2026 starting up, along with a killer first band announcement from Damnation Festival, and announcement of our first Patreon special for 2026.Releases:Kreator - Krushers of the WorldKid Kapichi - Fearless NatureGreywind - Severed Heart CityOv Sulfur - EndlessBlanket - True BlueSerpent Column - Aion of StrifeRifle - RiflePush - Plowing AheadCrush Your Soul - Ice WaterI Promised the World - I Promised the WorldLights Out - Fall on Your SwordGylt - In 1,000 Agonies, I ExistSin Against Sin - Demo 2

TNM usher in the new year with hopes, questions and predictions for 2026, and some familiar faces already poking their heads above the parapets for the year ahead.Releases:Ulver - NeverlandFuath - IIIWoe - Legacies of Human FrailtyPaleface Swiss - The Wilted EPAlter Bridge - Alter BridgeThe Ruins of Beverast - Tempelschlaf

Right before Christmas our last bash for 2025 is TNM Awards looking back over the highs and lows, the stories, the icons, the presidents, and the circuses that made the year in rock music what it was:Most Improved BandSong of the YearWorst Song of the YearHero of the YearVillain of the YearBest New BandBiggest DisappointmentGig of the YearEP of the YearArtwork of the YearMovie of the YearComeback of the YearSurprise of the YearOutstanding AchievementWorst Band of the YearUnsung HeroesStory of the YearBand of the Year

Our second go of albums of the year for 2025 with Sam and Mark celebrating records from hair metal to hardcore, and your results for the TNM listener poll as we see who's bringing it home in a year filled with past winners and big dog contenders.

2025 Album of the Year time begins on That's Not Metal, with our first lists from Perran and Elliot celebrating everything from synth-punk to goth-doom, power-goregrind to jazz-death, post-metal to metalcore, legendary rock icons to grimy dungeon crust bands that this year gave us.

This week we've got reports from My Bloody Valentine's first shows since 2018 as we see one of the loudest bands in the world, reaction to Alissa White-Gluz being out of Arch Enemy, and we tell you how to get involved in our 2025 end of year shows.Releases:The Algorithm - Recursive InfinityThe Pretty Wild - zero.point.genesisDanko Jones - Leo RisingGasket - GasketStryper - The Greatest Gift of AllSpeedclaw - StardustMorbikon - Lost Within the Astral CryptsTerror Corpse - Ash Eclipses FleshFlesher - Gore On GoreDome Runner - World PanopticonSpanish Love Songs - A Brief Intermission in the Flattening of TimeThe Halo Effect - We Are ShadowsExitWounds - An Offering to TragedyMaster’s Hammer - Maldoror Discomale//gaze - Too Late NowExcide - Bastard HymnsEquilibrium - EquinoxBlut Aus Nord - Ethereal HorizonsThe Ominous Circle - Cloven Tongues of FirePhobocosm - GatewayFessus - Subcutaneous Tomb1349 - Winter Mass

2025's final reviews is a crazy bag of disco mania with Creeper's Sanguivore II, Pupil Slicer, Drain, Astronoid, Home Front, Lamp of Murmuur, and Master's Hammer, bid farewell to Svalbard on tour, a new single from Converge, and about half an hour before our record, doing cartwheels at the reunion of Black Breath.Creeper 31:51Pupil Slicer 1:09:19Drain 1:24:17Astronoid 1:35:08Home Front 1:47:29Lamp of Murmuur 1:59:08Master's Hammer 2:18:05

The UK's biggest dedicated extreme music fest at Damnation Festival goes bigger than ever for its 20th anniversary with a bonkers two day line-up featuring Corrosion of Conformity, Napalm Death, Deafheaven, Perturbator, Anaal Nathrakh, Amenra, Warning, Wormrot, Castle Rat, and so many more to crack our skulls.Releases:Of Mice & Men - Another MiracleThe Devil Wears Prada - FlowersRise of the Northstar - CHAPTER 04: RED FALCON SUPER BATTLE! NEO PARIS WAR!!AVVT/PTTN - AVVT/PTTNLamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy1914 - Viribus UnitisBell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Vol. IIRagana & Drowse - Ash SouvenirVoidCeremony - AbditumChairmaker - Leviathan CarcassVower - A Storm Lined With Silver

It's that week in November where every big festival announces their lineup so we assess the bills of Download, Outbreak, 2000 Trees, & Slam Dunk 2026, Turnstile come through Ally Pally, and finally one of the UK's great rock bands Marmozets return with first new music in over 8 years.Releases:Drain - …Is Your FriendPupil Slicer - FleshworkAstronoid - StargodSet It Off - Set It OffAgnostic Front - Echoes In EternityCold Steel - Discipline & PunishThe Devil's Trade - Nincs Szennyezetlen SzépDrowned In Silver - MothersOmnium Gatherum - May the Bridges We Burn Light the WayNovembre - Words of IndigoCentinex - With Guts and GloryGlorious Depravity - Death Never SleepsDysentery - Dejection ChrysalisYellow Eyes - Confusion GateWaldgeflüster - Knochengesänge I & IIQrixkuor - The Womb of the WorldPrimordial - Live In New York CityRecollection - Vivid DreamsAlexisonfire - Copies of Old Masters Vol 1

For Halloween we take the time for some horror movie questions including our pitch for a 2025 Freddy vs Jason, discuss Dogma's fracturing and Megadeth choosing to cover Metallica on their final album, live trips to Common Thread and Igorrr with Imperial Triumphant, and there is a Hagar horror on the loose...Releases:Soulfly - ChamaMammoth - The EndDayseeker - Creature in the Black NightDownswing - And Everything Was DarkAction/Adventure - Ever AfterSpiritual Cramp - RudeThe Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God HerePsychonaut - World MakerAleksi Kii - VarjokuviaRolo Tomassi - In the Echo of All DreamsColdrain - OptimizeHeavensgate - A Heart is a Heavy BurdenMastiff - For All the Dead DreamsKrallice - No HopeCreeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of DeathAvatar - Don’t Go in the ForestDespised Icon - Shadow WorkSpite - NEW WORLD KILLERWitch Fever - FEVEREATENGumm - Beneath the WheelChat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth AgainPrimitive Man - ObservanceAnna von Hausswolff - IconoclastsBelieve In Nothing - RotBa

With autumn chill in the air we plunge into a stacked October reviews bunch of new AFI, Thrice, Miltarie Gun, Conjurer, Perturbator, Sanguisugabogg, Tribal Gaze, & Agriculture.AFI 24:01Thrice 47:28Militarie Gun 59:04Conjurer 1:11:12Perturbator 1:23:08Sanguisugabogg 1:33:37Tribal Gaze 1:44:21Agriculture 1:50:37

Perran and Mark catch up to talk about some of 2025's massive event tours with both Parkway Drive and Blood Incantation blazing trails to put on some of modern metal's most ambitious shows.Releases:All Time Low - Everyone’s Talking!Sabaton - LegendsBattle Beast - SteelboundMilitarie Gun - God Save the GunBiohazard - Divided We Fall84 Tigers - Nothing EndsCoroner - Dissonance TheoryTribal Gaze - Inveighing BrillianceInternal Bleeding - Settle All ScoresEvoken - MendaciumTombs - Feral DarknessAfsky - FælleskabWolvennest - ProcessionCzart - Czarty Polskie:Skull & Dawn: - The HarvestUnto Others - I Believe In Halloween IISpaced - No EscapeSunn O))) - Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & ReverentialCarach Angren - The Cult of Kariba

We're drowning in news with Oathbreaker and Rush both coming back, Alex Bent stepping out of Trivium, Bleeding Through & Darkest Hour hitting the UK, and a slew of new metal songs from Lamb of God, Ice Nine Kills, and Megadeth revealing their favourite game show.Releases:AFI - Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…Thrice - Horizons/WestOrbit Culture - Death Above Life50 Lions - New RealityAuthor & Punisher - Nocturnal BirdingToday is the Day - Never Give InAgriculture - The Spiritual SoundWode - Uncrossing the KeysHooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of ObscurationImpure - The Devil Sees My DreamsEphemeral - Envisaged Human CollapseCathedral - Society’s Pact With SatanSuffering Hour - Impelling RebirthCorpse Pile - In the Beginning…Yellowcard - Better DaysPerturbator - Age of AquariusTestament - Para BellumDead Heat - Process of EliminationGreyhaven - Keep It QuietSoul Blind - Red Sky MourningGod Alone - The Beep TestSanguisugabogg - Hideous AftermathFrayle - Heretics & LullabiesTerjiz de Horde - Our Breath

For this week's show Album Club returns with an eye once again on this year's Damnation Festival with Warning's monument of misery Watching from a Distance, Wormrot's early 10s grind detonation Dirge, Devil Sold His Soul's innovative post-metalcore A Fragile Hope, and Code's bizarro black metal genius on Resplendent Grotesque.

This week we top up our last reviews show with Biffy Clyro's first album in four years Futique and Dying Wish's bleaker kind of metalcore Flesh Stays Together, along with a trip to Brighton's D.I.E. Fest and discussion of Watain's three year plan of disbandment.Releases:Nine Inch Nails - TRON: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Paradise Lost - AscensionCastle Rat - The BestiaryMotion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful WorldGreywind - Severed Heart CityCardiacs - LSDTotal Wife - Come Back DownC4 - Payback’s a BitchIgorrr - AmenWerewolves - The Ugliest of AllNovembers Doom - Major ArcanaHeretoir - SolastalgiaAmnio - Psalms of ImmortalityFirmament - For Centuries AliveSecret World - Tomorrow is a Mystery to MeMissing Link - Miracle SmileThe Starting Line - Eternal YouthSprints - All That is OverDave Hause - …And the MermaidAmorphis - BorderlandRevocation - New Gods, New MastersVintersorg - Vattenkrafternas SpelMors Principium Est - Darkness InvisibleEsses - Pain at the Altar of JestPresident -

Lorna Shore, Fleshwater, Scorpion Milk, La Dispute, Modern Life is War, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, & Die Spitz albums get tackled, Jupiter and The Opposite of December get toured across the UK, but with another crushing blow to metal we also try to find words for one of the underground's truest heroes Tomas Lindberg. RIP King Tompa.Lorna Shore 42:50Fleshwater 1:06:56Scorpion Milk 1:21:44La Dispute 1:38:16Modern Life is War 1:52:16Der Weg Einer Freiheit 2:01:20Die Spitz 2:11:20

Turnover's 10 Years of Peripheral Vision tour hits the UK, Poppy, Amy Lee, & Courtney LaPlante put out "Lady Marmalade for goths", and System of a Down unveil one hell of a stadium run with a particular choice of opener.Releases:Lorna Shore - I Feel the Everblack Festering Within MeBetween the Buried and Me - The Blue NowhereSpinal Tap - The End ContinuesSilverstein - Pink MoonI See Stars - The WheelThe Rasmus - WeirdoThe Chameleons - Arctic MoonHo99o9 - Tomorrow We EscapeNot Enough Space - Weaponize Your RageSpite House - DesertionMaruja - Pain to PowerDer Weg Einer Freiheit - InnernYear of the Goat - AlucardaCrippling Alcoholism - CamgirlIntercourse - How I Fell in Love With the VoidSlomatics - AtomicultJo Quail - NotanBarrens - Corpse LightsHeruvim - MercatorCaesarean - Wretched Decrepitude

It's our birthday! This week That's Not Metal turns 10, and to celebrate this crazy crazy milestone, we get misty-eyed dialling it back to the first ever episodes of TNM to look at the albums that launched this podcast and track our decade through these bands. Thank you for 10 years of support - you've not let us down, so we're still here. To TNM, and to you.Releases:Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette PartyThe Hives - The Hives Forever Forever The HivesNova Twins - Parasites & ButterfliesEnd It - Wrong Side of HeavenHelloween - Giants & MonstersSlow Crush - ThirstAdur - We Fail to Love OurselvesIn Mourning - The ImmortalMånegarm - EdsvurenVoid - Forbidden MoralsDeathhammer - Crimson DawnProscription - Desolate DivineTorso - Annihilation DayDeath Goals - Survival Is An Act Of Defiancewithpaperwings - Six Thousand DaysFleshwater - 2000: In Search of the Endless SkyTallah - Primeval: Obsession // Detachmentblessthefall - GallowsLa Dispute - No One Was Driving the CarModern Life is War - Life o