That's Not Metal

TNM returns to Bloodstock Festival for the 2023 event as Perran reports on sets from Killswitch Engage, Megadeth, Triptykon, Meshuggah, Knocked Loose, Employed to Serve, and generally more heavy metal than you could shake a stick at.

We pore over the first Wacken announcement looking for festival clues for 2024, debate the worth of rock's various one hit wonders, and learn some mad stats about AC/DC's setlists.Releases:The Hives - The Death of Randy FitzsimmonsUrne - A Feast on SorrowCaskets - ReflectionsKataklysm - GoliathWerewolves - My Enemies Look and Sound Like MeSlugchild - Wounds Untold

Wacken caps its attendees early, Marmozets tease a return, Skindred announce their first Wembley show, and we poke the bands sitting on albums for too long. The return of Toolwatch?Releases:Teenage Wrist - Still LoveSkindred - SmileMammoth WVH - Mammoth IIHumanity’s Last Breath - AshenAn Autumn for Crippled Children - Closure

TNM's Barbenheimer musical double bill moments, Roger Waters re-records Dark Side of the Moon like a mumbling lunatic, and as the aliens are confirmed here we pick our albums to try to communicate with them.Releases:Greta van Fleet - StarcatcherAs December Falls - Join the ClubJames and the Cold Gun - James and the Cold GunOxbow - Love’s HolidayMizmor - ProsaicAgriculture - AgricultureThe Zenith Passage - DatalysiumYellowcard - Childhood EyesMutoid Man - MutantsThe Sun’s Journey Through the Night - WordlessSevendust - Truth KillerUncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Slaughter On First Avenue

We spotlight a bunch of underground acts and fresh faces as we review new albums from Blackbraid, Mutoid Man, Torture Rack, Outer Heaven, Calligram, The Sun's Journey Through the Night, Temple of Angels, and Home is Where.Apologies for the lower quality microphone recording as Elliot calls in, we'll be back to full capacity in no time.Blackbraid 32:21Mutoid Man 48:00Torture Rack 56:20Outer Heaven 1:05:06Calligram 1:13:14The Sun’s Journey Through the Night 1:20:53Temple of Angels 1:29:59Home is Where 1:40:55

The Ghost Inside make a stylistic shift and there's new album announcements from everybody, but it's all about the potential activity going on in the Creed camp as we wait with arms wide open.Releases:Voyager - Fearless In LoveEvile - The UnknownCavalera Conspiracy - Morbid Visions / Bestial DevastationEleine - We Shall RemainTemple of Angels - Endless PursuitCalligram - Position | MomentumChamber - A Love to Kill ForEnd Reign - The Way of All Flesh is DecayDeitus - Irreversible

Paramore add to the Taylor Swift ticket buying crisis, Lil Uzi Vert drops collabs with Bring Me the Horizon and Babymetal on unsuspecting hip-hop listeners, and Iron Maiden's Future Past tour hits the UK.Releases:Will Haven - VIIBlackbraid - Blackbraid IIFen - Monuments to AbsenceAstral Tomb - Total Spiritual DeathBloodbound - Tales from the NorthThe Raven Age - Blood OmenBetter Lovers - God Made Me An Animal

We return to Outbreak Fest to see how the UK's biggest hardcore fest with sets from Code Orange, Converge & more integrates huge hip-hop acts into its bill for one of the now most innovative and genre-experimental weekends in the heavy music calendar.Releases:King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic ApocalypseRoyal Thunder - Rebuilding the MountainCreeping Death - Boundless DomainSunami - SunamiVulture Industries - Ghosts from the PastHome is Where - The WhalerSaturnus - The Storm WithinThy Catafalque - AlföldSwans - The BeggarTrophy Eyes - Suicide and SunshineMental Cruelty - ZwielichtMilitarie Gun - Life Under the GunBurner - It All Returns to NothingTsjuder - HelvegrXasthur - Inevitably DarkEbony Pendant - Ebony PendantWilt - HuginnLoma Prieta - LastStatic Abyss - Aborted From RealityCoffin Mulch - Spectral IntercessionGrotesqueries - Vile CrematoryKhanate - To Be CruelDivide and Dissolve - Systemic

We close the year's Album Club packs with the last time Tom DeLonge returned to Blink-182 with Neighborhoods, the returning Heck's Instructions, Anaal Nathrakh releasing the most venomous metal record ever made The Codex Necro, and remembering the time Christopher Lee made heavy metal records about Charlemagne and shed the blood of the Saxon men.This episode was originally published November 2022 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Avenged Sevenfold make the most daring and unhinged album of their generation, in a review episode colossus with new works from Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Rancid, Pupil Slicer, Vexed, Godflesh, & PONY.Avenged Sevenfold 9:21Foo Fighters 1:14:53Queens of the Stone Age 1:37:15Rancid 1:59:05Pupil Slicer 2:09:30Vexed 2:27:49Godflesh 2:39:32PONY 2:54:09

Fresh off one of the biggest weekends in UK rock festival history: the 20th anniversary Download Festival review, the full experience four day event featuring headlining sets from Slipknot, two unique Metallica sets, and a long-awaited graduation for Bring Me the Horizon.

Sam returns with a report on the organisational carnage at Slam Dunk as well as a trip to see Bruce Springsteen, and there's a very fresh look at the bizarre news surrounding Slipknot's activity and member change-ups.Releases:Godflesh - PurgeTorture Rack - Primeval OnslaughtScar Symmetry - The Singularity (Phase II - Xenotaph)Geld - Currency // CastrationJohnny the Boy - YouBlack Rainbows - SuperskullSuperbloom - Life’s a BlurGlass Casket - Glass Casket

A huge host of TNM faves are back with music as Creeper, Code Orange, Sylosis, Fever 333, and more offer themselves up, there's discussion around the news of Josh Middleton departing the Architects camp, Iron Maiden's Future Past tour setlist opened up, and everyone being in a right tizz at Royal Blood for saying some naughty words.Releases:Avenged Sevenfold - Life is But a Dream…Foo Fighters - But Here We AreRancid - Tomorrow Never ComesBuckcherry - Vol. 10Pupil Slicer - BlossomTigercub - The Perfume of DecayBully - Lucky for YouEinar Solberg - 16Tortured Demon - Rise of the LifelessBuggin - Concrete CowboysWytch Hazel - IV: SacramentBongzilla - Dab CityNecrofier - Burning Shadows in the Southern LightThantifaxath - Hive Mind NarcosisAmerican Nightmare - Dedicated to the Next WorldDamim - World Turned Hell

Album Clubs look at some beloved cult records in Iron Maiden's Somewhere In Time ahead of the Future Past tour, Coheed and Cambria's In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, Descendents' foundational but thorny Milo Goes to College, and the murder psych rock breakthrough of Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats' Blood Lust.This episode was originally published October 2022 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Sleep Token are taking the world by storm. It's the most significant heavy release of the year, and historically, none of us get it. In this podcast, we try and assess how as non-worshippers we interact with a record like this, and the role of the reviewer to take in everything.Releases:PONY - VelveteenThe Used - Toxic PositivityThe Ocean - HoloceneBotanist - VIII: SelenotropeVnder a Crvmbling Moon - I: OblivionThulcandra - Hail the AbyssHenget - Beyond North StarRadien - Unissa palaneetVomitheist - NekoFvneralBlood Cult - Tomb of the Unknown RedneckMystic Prophecy - HellriotThe Dirty Nil - Free Rein to PassionsImmortal - War Against AllIncendiary - Change the Way You Think About PainElegant Weapons - Horns for a HaloMetal Church - Congregation of AnnihilationAJJ - Disposable EverythingHeart Attack Man - Freak of NatureLegion of the Damned - The Poison ChaliceVomitory - All Heads are Gonna RollCloak - Black Flame EternalSpeedwhore - Visions of a Parallel WorldUsnea - Bathed In LightPhlebotomized - Clouds of C

Eurovision goes into metal overdrive, and we review six of the month's biggest heavy releases from The Dirty Nil, Cattle Decapitation, Frozen Soul, Immortal, Drain, & Hot Mulligan. Big time for ice-people and shirt-tuggers.The Dirty Nil 26:34Cattle Decapitation 44:19Frozen Soul 1:14:55Immortal 1:30:20Drain 1:49:01Hot Mulligan 1:59:20

TNM considers and salutes the careers of departing bands Sum 41 and Dark Fortress, looks at new music from Queens of the Stone Age, Thy Art is Murder, and 30 Seconds to Mars, asks whether Billy Corgan paying a ransom was worth it, and takes a brief look at the rising trend of AI music in metal.Releases:Cattle Decapitation - TerrasiteThe Acacia Strain - Failure Will FollowThe Acacia Strain - Step Into the LightDevilDriver - Dealing With Demons Vol. IIHot Mulligan - Why Would I WatchThe Amity Affliction - Not Without My GhostsVeil of Maya - [m]otherLeft to Suffer - FeralBlack Spiders - Can’t Die, Won’t DieDe Forbandede - MenneskeIsland of Love - Island of LoveOmnerod - The Amensal RiseAscended Dead - Evenfall of the ApocalypseImpetuous Ritual - Iniquitous Barbarik SynthesisEsoctrilihum - Astraal Constellations of the Majickal ZodiacGrave Desecrator - Immundissime Spiritus

Bring Me the Horizon are still making music for Emo Girls, we check out Metallica's opening setlists for their No Repeats tour, put some venues to the sword in order to save Brixton Academy, and take the moment to assess who the best live band in the world is in 2023.Releases:Drain - Living ProofUnearth - The Wretched; The RuinousTherapy? - Hard Cold FireDave Lombardo - Rites of PercussionCurrents - The Death We SeekDeath Goals - A Garden of Dead FlowersBlood Ceremony - The Old Ways RemainEnforcer - NostalgiaHaunt - Golden ArmHerod - IconoclastShit Present - What Still Gets MeTeeth - A Biblical Worship of Violence

September's Album Clubs see Anthrax making the Big 4 with Among the Living, Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now explosion, one of hardcore's most underloved albums in Gallows' self-titled, and ahead of deploying it at Damnation Festival Pig Destroyer's psychotic masterpiece Prowler in the Yard.This episode was originally published September 2022 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Hyperblasts weighs in on the calls for Brixton Academy's license to be permanently revoked, the Trophy Eyes moshing debate, and a stinky Beartooth track, as well as a jubilant trip to Paramore's UK leg of the This is Way tour.Releases:Enforced - War RemainsCradle of Filth - Trouble and Their Double LivesDangerface - Be Damned!The Damned - DarkadelicCrown the Empire - DogmaVamachara - No Roses On My GraveMat Kerekes - You Look Like a StrangerDave Hause - Drive It Like It’s StolenLunar Chamber - Shambhallic VibrationsAustere - Corrosion of HeartsWallowing - Earth ReaperLucifuge - Monoliths of WrathSwollen Teeth - Swollen Teeth