Pigeonhole Katatonia at your own peril. Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström’s tandem may have started as students of the death/doom movement, but since then they’ve flourished into a genre-busting singularity. Elements of traditional metal, prog, alt-rock and shoegaze have all played parts in the Swedes’ sound, with the only constants being addictive hooks and a deeply depressive tone.
In 2025, the band are nearing 35 years of miserable majesty. Pair that with the fact that they have 12 top-notch albums under their belt and figuring out where to start can be tough – so here’s some help. Below, Hammer details the five releases that, chronologically, best illustrate Katatonia’s unique story so far.
Brave Murder Day (1996)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
When singer/ex-drummer Renkse and guitarist Nyström formed Katatonia in 1991, they were teenagers enamoured with the nascent death/doom movement, especially Paradise Lost and Tiamat. Their earliest works, demo Jhva Elohim Meth and debut album Dance Of December Souls, paid obvious tribute to those pioneers. 1996’s Brave Murder Day, however, saw the duo start paving their own way.
With Opeth mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt offering lead vocals, the band stayed true to their roots on the sluggish but melodic Brave, then started to expand. Day layered exclusively clean singing atop haunting guitars and pensive percussion, whereas Endtime toyed with a lengthy intro that carried hallmarks of The Cure’s atmospheric magnum opus, Disintegration.
Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
During the mid-90s, Renkse’s screaming fried his throat and Katatonia were eager to explore their goth and shoegaze influences. They quickly released Discouraged Ones and Tonight’s Decision, which tightened their songwriting but slightly suffered from Renkse’s unseasoned clean vocals. As a result, Last Fair Deal Gone Down proved their true transformative masterpiece.
From top to bottom, album five marked this band’s most bulletproof arsenal of songs, each one shining through their mix of mood, melody and rock-solid riffing. Chrome, Teargas and Tonight’s Music flourished into fan-favourites, and side-by-side they demonstrated Renkse’s growing range, from whispered croons to arena-filling cries. After years of searching, Katatonia finally found their niche and delivered their idiosyncratic statement.
The Great Cold Distance (2006)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
If Katatonia were to have a single “essential” album, The Great Cold Distance would be it. Almost two decades after it came out, half of its 12 songs remain must-plays in the band’s setlists. The heartbroken My Twin became, as Renkse jokes, their only hit single when it cracked Finland’s top 10, while other tracks’ juddering riffs foresaw their later embrace of prog metal.
Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
This standout’s success wasn’t just the result of its myriad bangers – which also include July, Leaders, Deliberation and Soil’s Song – but the refined production of Jens Bogren. Having recently worked with Opeth and Pain Of Salvation, he gave Katatonia newfound density and clarity, exposing the chops behind their seemingly simple songs.
The Fall Of Hearts (2016)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
Across the 10 years after The Great Cold Distance, Katatonia’s prog undertones grew into overtones. 2012’s Dead End Kings stacked itself with symphonies and electronica, but followup The Fall Of Hearts pushed even further, becoming almost labyrinthine in its complexity.
All seven minutes of opener Takeover put the band at a new peak of maximalism, but their emotional core remained intact thanks to Renkse’s increasingly dramatic voice. The Night Subscriber dropped from lush strings to hellishly heavy metal, whereas Serac dedicated much of its bridge to a rare, extended guitar solo. Old Heart Falls and the all-acoustic Pale Flag gave fleeting glimpses of simplicity during what was otherwise the most ambitious Katatonia outing to date.
City Burials (2020)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
When touring for The Fall Of Hearts wrapped, Katatonia shockingly announced a hiatus. Mercifully, though, the break was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, with their comeback confirmed in early 2019 and a new album, City Burials, set free the following year.
Plainly, the band knew they couldn’t outdo their previous effort in the ‘epic’ stakes, so what they delivered was more episodic but still adventurous. Where Behind The Blood and Neon Epitaph threw back to the off-kilter but tight-knit metal of The Great Cold Distance, Lacquer was entirely new, emphasising sombre piano and agonised vocals. By the time finale Untrodden built up from sparse keys to blazing virtuosity, City Burials satisfied both casual listeners and prog diehards alike.
“I remember it like some people remember the Kennedy assassination. It made me want to be weird.” How watching one episode of iconic US TV show Saturday Night Live in 1980 changed future Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl’s life forever
(Image credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage)
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has been added to the line-up of the star-studded SNL50: The Homecoming Concert spectacular being staged in New York on February 14 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of US TV institution Saturday Night Live.
Grohl holds the record for the most musical appearances on the satirical late night entertainment show, having performed on SNL 15 times since 1992. And his appearance at the Valentine’s Day concert, being hosted at the storied Radio City Music Hall, will be of special significance for the 56-year-old musician because he’ll be sharing the spotlight with a band whose appearance on the show back in 1980 gave him a glimpse into an alternate reality and changed the course of his life forever.
On the evening of January 26, 1980, the 11-year-old Dave Grohl sneaked out of his family home in Springfield, Virginia to hang out with his big sister Lisa, who was babysitting for a local family. Having packed the children off to bed at the appointed hour, Lisa Grohl was watching Saturday Night Live when her little brother showed up, just in time to see host Terri Garr introduce the night’s musical guests.
The B-52s, to young Dave, were odd, so alien to his understanding of what a rock band should be that they could have descended from Mars rather than Athens, Georgia. Vocalist Fred Schneider seemed to be speaking in tongues, the two big-haired women flanking him – one blonde (Cindy Wilson), one a redhead (Kate Pierson) – were shrieking and wriggling as if they had ants in their pants, and guitarist Ricky Wilson was playing using just two strings. Then, two minutes into their performance, Schneider and Wilson tumbled to the ground, and lay twitching on the studio floor like they’d been struck by lighting.
“I remember that moment like some people remember the Kennedy assassination,” Grohl told me in 2009. “When the B-52s played Rock Lobster, honestly, that moment changed my life. The importance and impact of that on my life was huge. That people that were so strange could play this music that sounded so foreign to me and for it to be so moving … growing up in suburban Virginia, I had never even imagined something so bizarre was possible. It made me want to be weird. It just immediately made me want to give everyone the middle finger and be like, Fuck you, I wanna be like that!
“But the B-52s thing really had an impact on me, because it made me realise that there was something powerful about music that was different. It made everything else seem so vanilla. I didn’t shave a mohawk in my head, and I still loved the melodies and lyrics in my rock ‘n’ roll records, but that sent me on this mission to find things that were unusual, music that wasn’t considered normal.”
Speaking with UK music magazine Melody Maker, Grohl expanded on this musical epiphany.
“Those guitars! Two strings! How cool! Those drums! Slap slap slap! Dead easy! The women looked like they were from outer space and everything was linked in – the sleeves, the sound, the clothes, the iconography, the logo, everything. I think when you’re a kid, that’s what you’re after, a real unified feel to a band, and that’s what the B-52s offered. Their songs were so easy to learn, they got me into playing really easily. This was definitely the first thing after Kiss or Rush that totally absorbed me like that.”
Alongside the B-52s, the SNL50 show will also features appearances from Eddie Vedder, Jack White, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Devo, Post Malone and more. The show will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon, and streamed live on Peacock.
The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.
A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
Prog has teamed up with UK Steven Wilson to celebrate the release of his great new concept album The Overview to bring you this special, limited edition bundle.
You can get the brand new issue of Prog featuring Steven on the front cover, along with a mint green vinyl edition of The Overview and an individually signed art print.
Inside the new issue of Prog, Steven says of The Overview: “To pre-empt a question you’re maybe going to come to, why have I gone back to a more progressive style, it’s because that’s what the theme suggested to me. It all comes down to this idea of perspective. That immediately suggested something more longform, more conceptual and dare I say it, more progressive. It’s a prog record, yes.”
Also in the new issue are the results of the 2024 Readers’ Poll; Bill Bruford discusses his return to active music duty, as well as the Winterfold/Summerfold era of his career; Dream Theater tell us all about their first new album with Mike Portnoy since 2009; White Willow look back over their career of making music and discuss what we might expect next; Tiger Moth Tales celebrate a decade of the Cocoon album.
And Neal Morse, Matt Berry, Marko Hietala, Mogwai, Dorie Jackson and Alex Carpani all get 2025 rolling with new albums to tell everyone about.
(Image credit: Conquer Divide: Jim Louvau/Faetooth: Autry Haydon-Wilson/Avoid: Press/Defences: Press)
January is over – and good riddance! Alright, it wasn’t that bad, but we’re just itching to get stuck into the rest of 2025 with plenty of brilliant new albums to come. In that spirit (pun half-intended), we’ve got rising stars Spiritbox back on the cover of Metal Hammer ahead of the release of Tsunami Sea in March.
But while that’s well and good, we’re also bringing you fresh faces you perhaps haven’t heard of. Much as we did last month, we’ve scouted far and wide to bring you some of the most exciting sounds from across the metal and heavy spectrum, this month unearthing everything from pop-infused metalcore to self-styled fairy doom.
You can read about those brilliant bands below and also listen to our massive playlist of the hottest bands of 2025, containing the latest releases from every band featured in the New Noise section of Metal Hammer. Enjoy!
Conquer Divide
Cross-continental quintet Conquer Divide are on their second life and determined to make this one count. Formed in 2013 by Michigan-based guitarist Kristen Sturgis, she carefully handpicked her bandmates from the US, UK, and Canada to execute her ambitions for an all-female metalcore band. The fact 2015’s self-titled album has amassed more than 30 million streams proves Kristen’s vision was worth pursuing. However, with its follow-up readied, the pandemic and personal issues condemned the band to the gallows.
In hindsight, the death of their first era was a blessing. With their second album, Slow Burn, they’re back from the dead, refined and reinvigorated. Their gnarly riffs are augmented by sharper pop sensibilities for songs that can open pits and garner mainstream radio play in equal measure.
“We’ve gotten away from that classic metalcore sound,” explains Liverpudlian co-guitarist Izzy Johnson. “We have a more modern and polished sound.”
Via breakdowns and seven-string riffage aplenty, Conquer Divide get seriously heavy. Yet their pop-centric approach to songwriting means that, no matter how bruising, their music is always infectious.
Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
“We always start with a chord progression,” explains Izzy. “Once you take away all the instruments and effects, genres don’t matter. Some of our songs sound heavy as hell, but they’ll share a chord progression with Taylor Swift. We use the pop element to our advantage.”
The band have also worked with esteemed songwriter Johnny Andrews (Halestorm, Buckcherry, Motionless In White) and collaborated with Electric Callboy and Attack Attack!. While Izzy admits that metal bands bringing in outside help can be deemed as “taboo”, she says working with others “really helps your art flourish”.
Two UK tours, with New Years Day and Ankor, and a “heavy radio rock” single, Bad Dreams, will see the band start 2025 with a bang. Conquer Divide are hellbent on making up for lost time. Phil Weller
The Deluxe Edition of Slow Burn is out now via Mascot. Conquer Divide support Ankor on their UK tour from February 7.
Sounds Like: Gut-wrenching modern metal getting seduced by heart-churning pop hooks For Fans Of: We Came As Romans, Parkway Drive, Demi Lovato Listen To: system_failure
Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings. In the twisted literary world of The Brothers Grimm, these fantastical stories often involved harrowing ordeals, offering a reflection on the true, darker nature of reality. In a similar spirit, California’s Faetooth combine “the trials and tribulations of life” with ethereal imagery, often seeking to blur the distinction between them as they transform from moments of light, mystical shoegaze to “visceral and unsettling” heaviness.
“In these tales there is usually some kind of moral, lesson, or deeper meaning,” explains bassist/vocalist Jenna Garcia. “We’re definitely inspired by that.”
Jenna formed Faetooth in 2019 alongside guitarist/vocalist Ari May and drummer Rah Kanan. The trio – who met at high school and on Los Angeles’ DIY music scene – classify themselves as “fairy doom”, which Jenna summarises as a kind of “magical doom that is sparkly but heavy”.
So far, they’ve released the 2019 EP …An Invocation, and one full-length, 2022’s Remnants Of The Vessel. From its gossamer cleans and delicate, gorgeous riffs to its murderous, sludge-backed screams, it thrums with treacherous magic and potent rage.
“Life can suck sometimes, and not even in just our personal lives, but the world is constantly on fire,” says Jenny of what informs the album’s darker side. “So I think there are a lot of reasons to be pissed off.”
As well as fairy tales, Faetooth feed off their many interests, such as witchcraft, the occult, European folklore, psychology and horror films, including Robert Eggers’ The VVitch.
“There’s a lot of inspiration in terror and it can be so beautiful too,” says Ari. “It’s often really poetic.”
This year they’ll release their second LP, which they’re currently recording. “We’ve somehow gotten heavier and softer at the same time,” says Jenna of the album, while Ari promises it will be “depressing in the best way possible.” Liz Scarlett
Faetooth play Roadburn Festival in April and Download Festival in June. Their new album is expected later this year.
Sounds Like: Being lost in the woods of another realm, sword-in-hand, surrounded by bloodthirsty creatures For Fans Of: Chelsea Wolfe, King Woman, Thou Listen To: Echolalia
Avoid have one of the more eyebrow-raising biographies on Spotify. Described as what would happen “if Dale Earnhardt, Guy Fieri and Steve-O started a Spinal Tap cover band”, it somehow manages to be completely spot-on yet massively inaccurate. It conveys their infectious enthusiasm and the general goofiness of their catchy metalcore anthems, even if they sound nothing like Derek Smalls and co.
Formed in Seattle when its members were just 14 years old, the band spent their school years as “the local opener for every metalcore band coming through town”, according to singer Benny Scholl. After graduating, they realised that continuing the band would be a good excuse to keep hanging out together, so kept playing. They’ve since built a wave of momentum and are entering 2025 with a new album on the way. They’re also branching out beyond what would traditionally be considered metalcore.
Avoid’s music incorporates hip hop and electronica influences, and Benny sees no problem with pushing the boundaries.
“We’re not gatekeepers,” he says. “There are no rules with music. If you’re having fun and being creative, you’ll figure out something that hits for you. People say, ‘You can’t put a blastbeat there.’ Why not?”
It’s a wide-eyed, genre-hopping approach with a keen sense of fun, but it’s not all silly, lightweight fluff. Avoid use positivity as an act of rebellion and want to be a light in the dark.
“I hope that we can continue to create a space with our band where everyone feels welcome, even though our country isn’t doing a great job at that. Sometimes you have to be able to find the humour in a sad thing, and smile through the pain, or else the other shit wins, and that’s when it gets real scary.” Tim Bolitho-Jones
Burn is out now via UFND.
Sounds Like: Upbeat and catchy metalcore with a smattering of hip hop and electronica For Fans Of: The Word Alive, Fall Out Boy, Bleed From Within Listen To: Burn
When asked to give an elevator pitch for Shadowlight, their latest full-length album, the members of alt metal band Defences strike decidedly different tones. Vocalist Cherry Duesbury declares the record is “a journey towards acceptance”. Meanwhile, with a cheeky grin, guitarist Calum Wilmot suggests it sounds like “Silent Hill if it had breakdowns and choruses”.
It’s one hell of a juxtaposition, but one that isn’t entirely unfounded. Taking its title from Jungian psychotherapy, Shadowlight is fixated on contrasts: darkness and light, melody and heaviness, internal and external.
“It’s an amalgamation of all our personal influences from within alternative music,” Calum explains. “We wanted to say something very honest. Although it’s very personal, I think fun was also probably more at the forefront of this record than perhaps it has been in the past.”
This desire for joy translates to some of the Hertfordshire quintet’s most urgent material to date. Whether it’s through Perish’s quaking riffs crashing against soaring melodies, Gold In The Dark’s harsh screams and synth lines dancing around metalcore progressions and pop crescendos, or the towering heights of Cherry’s angelic clean register on The Almost, Shadowlight proves the group have what it takes to stand with the UK’s current alt metal vanguard.
Ultimately, however, the strength of Shadowlight hinges on seeking authenticity through storytelling, as Defences seek to channel vulnerability into a creative vessel for personal growth.
“I was ready to make changes and start a new chapter of my life,” Cherry explains. “I had this vision of a different version of myself that was a bit more whole than I was at the time. I started to take steps to go on that journey, and that’s essentially what the album is: a journey from darkness into light.” Owen Morawitz
Shadowlight is out now via Long Branch.
Sounds Like: A seductive modern metal serenade For Fans Of: As Everything Unfolds, Sleep Token, Gore. Listen To: The Almost
Defences – The Almost (Official Visualiser) – YouTube
Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token.
“Fear is not a good mindset for musicians. Rock ‘n’ roll was not born out of fear.” From Igor Stravinsky to Public Enemy, here are 10 bold, brilliant albums to inspire and fire revolution
(Image credit: Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The founder of provocative German digital hardcore crew Atari Teenage Riot and one of the most respected experimental musicians in Europe, Alec Empire has always considered that music has the power to change our world, elevate radical consciousness and inspire revolutionary struggle.
Here are 10 records he endorses for soundtracking the fight for a better tomorrow.
The Last Poets – The Last Poets (1970)
“This is the blueprint for so much hip-hop, a really key record for the genre. If you listen to a band like Death Grips, you’ll still hear elements of the primal, physical energy of this record. The lyrics here are so incredibly powerful: it shows that you don’t need to be a great songwriter who knows all the chord structures in order to communicate important ideas.”
The Impressions – People Get Ready (1965)
“Curtis Mayfield made some incredible music. People now might hear these songs and wonder why I’m labelling them as songs of revolution, but in the context of the time, this was very radical music and it inspired so many people in America.
“Many of the white radio stations in America considered this Black Panther music, and wouldn’t play it, but now it’s music that Obama used in his Presidential campaign. It’s interesting to me how music can come in different clothes. People think revolutionary music must be loud and aggressive, but this is proof that that’s not the case.”
Meat Beat Manifesto – 99% (1990)
“I don’t think [MBM mainman] Jack Dangers gets enough credit, but his music influenced a lot of people on the early rave scene: I know The Prodigy were fans. He doesn’t get mentioned so much in articles about the birth of rave culture, but I sometimes go back to this record and marvel at how he was kinda ahead of his time. Nowadays, for instance, sampling is so accepted and common-place, but if you check out the music Meat Beat Manifesto were making at this time it’s just really interesting and ground-breaking.”
“Merzbow is the godfather of noise. He has made so many albums, like maybe 400 albums, but this is one of the best noise records I know of…and I’ve heard a lot of noise records! [Laughs]. It’s quite a rare record, I think only 1000 were produced, but it has a real revolutionary energy. Merzbow gave me a copy of this in Japan and I was like, Wow! I still often include this in my DJ sets.
“People sometimes hear noise records and go, ‘Uh, this sounds like my washing machine played through a distortion pedal’ but the deeper you get into the noise scene as a musician the more challenging it is. It’s easy to make one noisy, fucked-up record, but to keep things evolving and moving forward isn’t easy.”
Igor Stravinsky – The Rite Of Spring (1913)
“This piece of music is so accepted now but it genuinely inspired a riot when it was first played, which shows how powerful it is. Confrontation is sometimes necessary in music and people shouldn’t shy away from that: too many musicians now are scared of losing fans, but seriously guys, sometimes you just have to push things. Fear is not a good mindset for musicians – rock n’ roll was not born out of fear. The amazing dissonant atmosphere of this music can make you look at the world in a different way.”
Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring (1913) – YouTube
“This guy, David Hammer, has been kinda forgotten about – he died of a heroin overdose in 2011, sadly – so even though it’s on our label Digital Hardcore, I’m going to mention it. This guy used to take a lot of drugs, but the way he put samples together was really innovative: I can DJ with it now and people still freak out.
“He would often open up for us in America and when we’d go onstage there would already be riots in the crowd because his music was just so in-your-face and so fucked up: sometimes he’d be on LSD and would accidentally play two tracks at the same time, which was even more intense! I know that the Beastie Boys are huge fans of this record.”
The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.
Shizuo – Shizuo Vs. Shizor(1997)(Full Album) – YouTube
“Public Enemy are such an important group. I know lots of people would nominate the albums before this, but for me, with songs like Fight The Power and Welcome To The Terrordome, this is the one, this is special. There’s such tension in the music, and such revolutionary spirit. I think this hasn’t aged: I know people will listen now and go, ‘Oh, the beats aren’t like now’, but that’s not what this record is about in my opinion. It’s a crossover record which drew in a lot of rock fans, and if you want to understand a lot of the racism in America, if you listen to this record you can figure it out. It’ll certainly tell you much more than a Kanye West record will.”
Contract On The World Love Jam (Instrumental) – YouTube
“This vinyl is pretty rare, it’s black guys in Detroit making techno, and they were almost like the Public Enemy of the techno scene at the time. At this point we were already doing Atari Teenage Riot in Berlin with super-fast breakbeats and aggressive synths and punk records samples and they almost had a very similar energy, but on the other side of the world. Nowadays the world seems much smaller and more connected, but back then it was kinda a surprise to us that someone in America shared some of our ideas. I used to see these guys DJ at raves and it always felt genuinely dangerous, particularly with their militant, angry image.”
“This might be music for a step before the revolution, kind of a warm up music for people! It’s a super important album, they were bringing electronic music and rock and psychedelic music at a time when nobody really thought in this way. It still provokes a lot of people when I DJ this stuff, certain melodies have this dissonance that just unnerves people.”
Winston Edwards & Blackbeard – Dub Conference (Winston Edwards and Blackbeard at 10 Downing Street) (1980)
“People often play reggae at protests but it’s always the ‘Yeaaah, peace!’ stuff, with that laidback, stoner vibe, which actually always makes me aggressive! But I always recommend this record, it’s really interesting. It’s a really good dub record, with titles like Shake Buckingham Palace Down and Kensington Palace Confusion, but for some reason it’s super underground: I remember being in Tokyo once and talking about it to [dub producer and founder of the influential dub label On-U-Sound] Adrian Sherwood and he didn’t know about it.
“It doesn’t sound like a Jamaican dub record, it was made by Jamaicans in England, and it’s just really powerful. Dub really brings people together, and when you play music like this at protests it really connects people in a new and different way.”
Behind Closed Doors Of The House Of Commons – YouTube
A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
Space rock legends Hawkwind have announced that they will release their 37th studio album, There Is No Space For Us, through Cherry Red/Atomhenge Records on April 14.
Following hot on the heels of the band’s recent triple-disc live album Live At The Royal Albert Hall, and the follow-up to last year’s well-received Stories From Time And Space, the new album has been recorded by the current line-up of Dave Brock, Richard Chadwick, Magnus Martin, Doug MacKinnon and Tim “Thighpaulsandra” Lewis.
There Is No Space For Us “develops the dystopian themes of recent albums and the cosmic, almost metaphysical perspective on humanity’s place in the universe through expansive soundscapes and electrifying psychedelic rock,” the band say.
Hawkwind have also announced live dates to coincide with the album’s release, including a date at London’s Barbican on May 26, which you can see below.
There Is No Space For Us will be available on both CD and double vinyl, the latter featuring a bonus of two recent live rehearsals.
Hawkwind: There Is No Space For Us 1. There Is Still Danger There 2. Space Continues (Lifeform) 3. The Co-Pilot 4. Changes (Burning Suns and Frozen Waste) 5. There is No Space For Us 6. The Outer Region Of The Universe 7. Neutron Stars (Pulsating Light) 8. A Long Long Way From Home
Sign up below to get the latest from Prog, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Hawkwind There Is No Space For Us Tour Dates
Apr 17: Gateshead Glasshouse Apr 18: Guildford G Live Apr 19: Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre Apr 20: Birmingham Symphony Hall May 9: Aylesbury Waterside Theatre May 10: Liverpool M&S Bank Arena May 11: Manchester Bridgewater Hall May 23: Sheffield City Hall May 24: Portsmouth Guildhall May 25: Cambridge Corn Exchange May 26: London Barbican May 27: New Day Festival
Devo has announced North American tour dates, an extension of their farewell tour “Celebrating 50 Years of De-Evolution.”
The first of these dates will take place on May 1 in Philadelphia. From there, the band will make stops in cities like Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Denver and more. This portion of the tour, which includes a handful of festival appearances, will end on Aug. 29 in Chicago where Devo will open for My Chemical Romance.
A complete list of show dates can be viewed below. Tickets for all headlining shows will be available starting Feb. 7.
When Will Devo’s Farewell Tour End?
At present, it’s unclear when Devo’s farewell tour, which first launched in 2023, will come to an official end.
“I’m looking forward to 2073,” Mark Mothersbaugh joked to The Guardian back then. “We’ll play 100th anniversary Devo shows and then maybe retire.”
Devo, North American Tour 2025 Dates May 1 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia May 3 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem May 6 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount May 9 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway Park May 11 – Cleveland, OH @ TempleLive at Cleveland Masonic May 15 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party 2025 * May 17-18 – Pasadena, CA – Cruel World Festival 2025 * June 18 – Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre June 20 – Columbus, OH @ Kemba Live! June 22 – St. Louis, MO @ The Factory June 24 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Andrew J Brady Music Center June 28 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit June 30 – Toronto, Canada @ History July 19-20 – Oakland, CA – Mosswood Meltdown 2025 * July 21 – Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom Aug. 29 – Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field (opening for My Chemical Romance) ^
For nearly 30 years, Joe Satriani has worked and toured with a lot of different guitar players on his G3 tour. But the late Eddie Van Halen is one major name who never was on the bill.
Though it never happened, Satriani made numerous attempts to make contact. “I called Eddie’s number, office, whatever, almost every time,” he shares in a new interview on the UCR Podcast. “I didn’t want to be a pest, but I didn’t know him. So I couldn’t just call his house or stop by, because I don’t live in the same city. I would go through channels — you know, I tried every angle to say, ‘We’ll take care of everything.’ Which we do, myself and my management, we took care of all of the technicalities of putting on this show. We made it so it was the easiest thing for the artist to come.”
“In terms of Ed, we always made the offer that we could put the band together. He could play whenever he wanted. He could play for as long as he wanted,” he explains. “This was basically the structure of the show and I literally never heard back. So I suppose, maybe after six or seven G3 tries, I just thought, ‘Well, it’s cool.’ Because not everybody is comfortable standing next to two other guitar players every single night. They may do it once at a special show, charity event or something really big [like that], but once you sign on to G3, it’s a responsibility to the audience to show up every night and play.”
Satriani Thinks He Might Know Why it Didn’t Happen
Van Halen famously didn’t work much outside of his namesake group and Satriani believes that might have played into the reasoning as far as why the guitar legend never responded to the offer. “Certain bands provide enough for their guitar players to do whatever they want,” he notes. “The Edge, right? He can do whatever he wants in U2 and so could Van Halen. It’s not like he needed G3, because he had all of this other music he wanted to play or his band didn’t let him play guitar. I’ve always realized it’s not for everybody.”
Beyond Eddie Van Halen, there’s another bucket list booking that eluded Satriani. “The one that was so close to really happening was me with Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons. I think we were a week away from actually putting it in ink in the books,” he remembers. “It was so close to happening. Then, Jeff bailed at the last moment. I think he used the excuse [that] he thought it would be better if we toured with Prince. I took that as a really good joke, like, he just didn’t want to do it, so he came up with the most ridiculous suggestion.”
“I met Jeff twice, but I can’t say I really knew him,” he adds. “So there was no way for me to ever talk to him about it, like, ‘Why didn’t it happen?’ But yeah, I’ve always thought in my mind, ‘Let’s call up Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck,” you know, let’s get all of your favorite guitar players out there. It’s difficult, because I’m a different generation. Steve [Vai] and I, we’re kind of in the middle, to tell you the truth. Especially me, at my age, I’m not part of the classic rock group. I’m not part of the group that really took off afterwards, iconic guitar players like Slash and Tom Morello. So I could see that. I could see them just wondering, ‘Who is this kid? We don’t know who he is. [He] plays instrumental guitar, who cares.’ So I never really thought it would happen, but I’d ask anyway. Once in a while, somebody would agree or just show up and say, ‘I want to play.’ And it would be [guitarists] like Brian May, Neal Schon or Robert Fripp. So we’ve been really fortunate in that respect. But those are the two that got away, certainly, Jeff Beck and Edward.”
The original G3 lineup featuring Satriani, Vai and Eric Johnson reunited in early 2024 to play shows together for the first time since the inaugural tour in 1996. G3 Reunion Live collects full sets performed by the guitar icons during the run. Satriani and Vai are now focused on finishing an album with their band, SatchVai, and will tour again together beginning in June.
How Van Halen Conquered the World in Just 10 Shows
Van Halen’s meteoric rise to fame during their first world tour in 1978 included 10 particularly important performances. Here’s a look.
The last time Dream Theater’s classic lineup made an album, that 2009 record gave the progressive metal quintet its first Top 10 and still highest-charting LP. Since Black Clouds & Silver Linings, singer James LaBrie, guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung and keyboardist Jordan Rudess have released a steady stream of five albums without their cofounding drummer Mike Portnoy.
But after more than a dozen years away, playing with various groups from the Winery Dogs to Twisted Sister, Portnoy returns for Dream Theater’s 16th album, Parasomnia, 71 epic minutes that doesn’t skimp on the band’s progressive leanings.
Going back to 1992’s masterwork Images and Words, the group’s second album and first with LaBrie, Dream Theater has advanced their analytical approach to music – Petrucci, Myung and Portnoy attended the Berklee College of Music – by leavening elaborately performed 10-minute songs with lyrical inspiration that draws from Shakespeare to the Twelve Steps to recovery. Parasomnia‘s eight tracks revolve around sleep disturbances; the music, suitably, exists in a space somewhere between sweet dreams and a nightmare.
They waste little time setting a backdrop. Within the opening minutes of the album-launching instrumental “In the Arms of Morpheus,” melodic guitars stab and big drums roll in like they just came from an audition for a mid-’70s Genesis song. They’re soon set to metal speed: The nearly 10-minute “Night Terror” and eight-and-a-half-minute “A Broken Man” reflect their titles in both subject and execution.
If Parasomnia songs such as “Midnight Messiah” lyrically often lean toward superficial and obvious (“Eyes open wide, but I can’t see“), the music rarely takes simple routes. Head-spinning solos and rhythmically complex musical passages were essential to defining Dream Theater’s reputation; they’re no less exciting here, the 16-year break from each other rarely reveals any cobwebs. This shakes off any doubts about their return.
Top 25 Rock Albums of 2024
Once again, reports of the genre’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Even though the long-playing album had been around for more than a decade, and artists were using the form to construct entire thematic works from individual songs, the format came of age in 1965.
Just as one of the most important decades in the history and evolution of popular music reached its midpoint, the album started to grow, too. Before 1965, most pop and rock albums were built around two or three great singles; quickly assembled covers, standards and other LP filler would be added to make a 30-minute album.
The tide started to turn in 1965, as artists such as the Beatles and Bob Dylan began to view their music as more than the mere disposable pop moment of the week. Jazz musicians and more “adult” singers had been using LPs to tell stories and reflect narratives about particular times and places. Now it was time for pop and rock artists to do the same.
The list of the Top 20 Albums of 1965 below charts the initial shift of the music landscape that would become even stronger by the decade’s end. This was the year the LP grew up and changed how popular music was listened to. Pop singles would still be the format of choice well into the ’70s and even into the earliest part of the ’80s, but albums would soon become the preference of serious artists across genres.
The albums outlined below form the bedrock of a new movement. Decades after their release, many of them still are significant works and essential in any discussion about the history of popular music.
Top 20 Albums of 1965
The year the LP came of age changed how popular music was listened to.
![Faetooth - Echolalia [Official Lyric Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5s-UQ2Q0KZ0/maxresdefault.jpg)
![AVOID - Burn [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6cWGiB3jdqk/maxresdefault.jpg)
