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 Miracle
The Devil Wears Prada - Flowers
Rise of the Northstar - CHAPTER 04: RED FALCON SUPER BATTLE! NEO PARIS WAR!!
AVVT/PTTN - AVVT/PTTN
Lamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy
1914 - Viribus Unitis
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Vol. II
Ragana & Drowse - Ash Souvenir
VoidCeremony - Abditum
Chairmaker - Leviathan Carcass
Vower - 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 Friend
Pupil Slicer - Fleshwork
Astronoid - Stargod
Set It Off - Set It Off
Agnostic Front - Echoes In Eternity
Cold Steel - Discipline & Punish
The Devil's Trade - Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép
Drowned In Silver - Mothers
Omnium Gatherum - May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way
Novembre - Words of Indigo
Centinex - With Guts and Glory
Glorious Depravity - Death Never Sleeps
Dysentery - Dejection Chrysalis
Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate
Waldgeflüster - Knochengesänge I & II
Qrixkuor - The Womb of the World
Primordial - Live In New York City
Recollection - Vivid Dreams
Alexisonfire - 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 - Chama
Mammoth - The End
Dayseeker - Creature in the Black Night
Downswing - And Everything Was Dark
Action/Adventure - Ever After
Spiritual Cramp - Rude
The Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God Here
Psychonaut - World Maker
Aleksi Kii - Varjokuvia
Rolo Tomassi - In the Echo of All Dreams
Coldrain - Optimize
Heavensgate - A Heart is a Heavy Burden
Mastiff - For All the Dead Dreams
Krallice - No Hope
Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death
Avatar - Don’t Go in the Forest
Despised Icon - Shadow Work
Spite - NEW WORLD KILLER
Witch Fever - FEVEREATEN
Gumm - Beneath the Wheel
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth Again
Primitive Man - Observance
Anna von Hausswolff - Iconoclasts
Believe In Nothing - Rot
Barren Path - Grieving
Grave Ghoul - Gruesome and Macabre
One of Nine - Dawn of the Iron Shadow
Thron - Vurias
Outlaw - Opus Mortis
Runemagick - Cycle of the Dying Sun (Dawn of Ashen Realms)
Trivium - Struck Dead
Going Off - Kill List II

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 24:01
Thrice 47:28
Militarie Gun 59:04
Conjurer 1:11:12
Perturbator 1:23:08
Sanguisugabogg 1:33:37
Tribal Gaze 1:44:21
Agriculture 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 - Legends
Battle Beast - Steelbound
Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun
Biohazard - Divided We Fall
84 Tigers - Nothing Ends
Coroner - Dissonance Theory
Tribal Gaze - Inveighing Brilliance
Internal Bleeding - Settle All Scores
Evoken - Mendacium
Tombs - Feral Darkness
Afsky - Fælleskab
Wolvennest - Procession
Czart - Czarty Polskie
:Skull & Dawn: - The Harvest
Unto Others - I Believe In Halloween II
Spaced - No Escape
Sunn O))) - Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise the Chalice & Reverential
Carach 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/West
Orbit Culture - Death Above Life
50 Lions - New Reality
Author & Punisher - Nocturnal Birding
Today is the Day - Never Give In
Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound
Wode - Uncrossing the Keys
Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration
Impure - The Devil Sees My Dreams
Ephemeral - Envisaged Human Collapse
Cathedral - Society’s Pact With Satan
Suffering Hour - Impelling Rebirth
Corpse Pile - In the Beginning…
Yellowcard - Better Days
Perturbator - Age of Aquarius
Testament - Para Bellum
Dead Heat - Process of Elimination
Greyhaven - Keep It Quiet
Soul Blind - Red Sky Mourning
God Alone - The Beep Test
Sanguisugabogg - Hideous Aftermath
Frayle - Heretics & Lullabies
Terjiz de Horde - Our Breath is Not Ours Alone

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 - Ascension
Castle Rat - The Bestiary
Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World
Greywind - Severed Heart City
Cardiacs - LSD
Total Wife - Come Back Down
C4 - Payback’s a Bitch
Igorrr - Amen
Werewolves - The Ugliest of All
Novembers Doom - Major Arcana
Heretoir - Solastalgia
Amnio - Psalms of Immortality
Firmament - For Centuries Alive
Secret World - Tomorrow is a Mystery to Me
Missing Link - Miracle Smile
The Starting Line - Eternal Youth
Sprints - All That is Over
Dave Hause - …And the Mermaid
Amorphis - Borderland
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters
Vintersorg - Vattenkrafternas Spel
Mors Principium Est - Darkness Invisible
Esses - Pain at the Altar of Jest
President - King of Terrors
PeelingFlesh - PF Radio 2
Elder - Liminality / Dream State Return
Tetragrammacide - Cyber-Tantric Paradigm of Radical Sri-Vidya

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 42:50
Fleshwater 1:06:56
Scorpion Milk 1:21:44
La Dispute 1:38:16
Modern Life is War 1:52:16
Der Weg Einer Freiheit 2:01:20
Die 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 Me
Between the Buried and Me - The Blue Nowhere
Spinal Tap - The End Continues
Silverstein - Pink Moon
I See Stars - The Wheel
The Rasmus - Weirdo
The Chameleons - Arctic Moon
Ho99o9 - Tomorrow We Escape
Not Enough Space - Weaponize Your Rage
Spite House - Desertion
Maruja - Pain to Power
Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Innern
Year of the Goat - Alucarda
Crippling Alcoholism - Camgirl
Intercourse - How I Fell in Love With the Void
Slomatics - Atomicult
Jo Quail - Notan
Barrens - Corpse Lights
Heruvim - Mercator
Caesarean - 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 Party
The Hives - The Hives Forever Forever The Hives
Nova Twins - Parasites & Butterflies
End It - Wrong Side of Heaven
Helloween - Giants & Monsters
Slow Crush - Thirst
Adur - We Fail to Love Ourselves
In Mourning - The Immortal
Månegarm - Edsvuren
Void - Forbidden Morals
Deathhammer - Crimson Dawn
Proscription - Desolate Divine
Torso - Annihilation Day
Death Goals - Survival Is An Act Of Defiance
withpaperwings - Six Thousand Days
Fleshwater - 2000: In Search of the Endless Sky
Tallah - Primeval: Obsession // Detachment
blessthefall - Gallows
La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car
Modern Life is War - Life on the Moon
Still In Love - Recovery Language
Glenn Hughes - Chosen
Dark Angel - Extinction Level Event
Primal Fear - Domination
Green Carnation - A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia
Faetooth - Labyrinthine

In our end of summer reviews we give the verdict on new albums from Deftones, Dinosaur Pile-Up, The World is a Beautiful Place & I'm No Longer Afraid to Die, Pool Kids, Malthusian, Faced Out, and brave a trip into the Knightclub with Feuerschwanz.

Deftones 24:30
Dinosaur Pile-Up 1:1:29
The World is a Beautiful Place & I'm No Longer Afraid to Die 1:14:36
Feuerschwanz 1:29:53
Pool Kids 1:48:13
Malthusian 1:56:18
Faced Out: 2:14:25

End of summer Album Clubs are the sleaze and scandal of W.A.S.P.'s debut, The Distillers' perfect punk rock Sing Sing Death House, Japandroid's celebrated Celebration Rock, and Watain split black metal opinion on The Wild Hunt.

This episode was originally published August 2024 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

Sam reports from a hardcore fireworks show underneath a bridge in London, there's tracks from Joyce Manor, Conjurer, and Gaerea's continued surprising swerves into pop black metal, and we respond to the awful news of Brent Hinds' death. Hearts Alive, forever.

Releases:
Rise Against - Ricochet
Joey Valance & Brae - HYPERYOUTH
Justice for the Damned - Stay Relentless
Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done
Kerosene Heights - Blame It On The Weather
Unleashed - Fire Upon Your Lands
Baest - Colossal
Castrator - Coronation of the Grotesque
Panopticon - Laurentian Blue
Panopticon - Songs of Hiraeth
Phosphorus - Frail Grasp of Broken Hands
Fell Omen - Caelid Dog Summer
Firestarter - Still Holding On…
Cult of Luna - Beyond III, IV, V
Deftones - Private Music
Pendulum - Inertia
Three Days Grace - Alienation
We Came as Romans - All is Beautiful… Because We’re Doomed
Hot Mulligan - The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still
Dinosaur Pile-Up - I’ve Felt Better
The World is a Beautiful Place & I’m No Longer Afraid to Die - Dreams of Being Dust
really big really clever - …huh?
Faced Out - At Eternity’s Edge
Feuerschwanz - Knightclub
Burning Witches - Inquisition
Signs of the Swarm - To Rid Myself of Truth
Arcadea - The Exodus of Gravity
Malevich - Under a Gilded Sun
Desaster - Kill All Idols
Innumerable Forms - Pain Effulgence
Zetra - Believe
Fates Messenger - Eternal War

TNM returns to a monster edition of Bloodstock Festival where Trivium, Machine Head, Gojira, Mastodon, Emperor, Nailbomb, Ministry, & more bring heavy metal to the fields of England once again.

There's gothy new AFI and even more dramatically new Davey Havok facial hair as we wonder who is really under there, and pay our respects to the sadly passed Erik Wunder behind the revolutionary USBM outlaws Cobalt.

Releases:
Babymetal - Metal Forth
Halestorm - Everest
Good Charlotte - Motel Du Cap
Lord of the Lost - Opvs Noir Vol. 1
As December Falls - Everything’s On Fire But I’m Fine
Firstborne - Lucky
Attack Attack! - Attack Attack! II
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Sinsaenum - In Devastation
Asunojokei - Think of You
Malthusian - The Summoning Bell
Crypt Sermon - Saturnian Apprentices
Aversions Crown - A Voice From the Outer Dark

Musical drum stools strikes again, Dying Wish and Fleshwater set new records for the autumn, and the Poisoned Ascendancy shadiness raises its sassy head once again.

Releases:
Alice Cooper - The Revenge of Alice Cooper
Post Animal - Iron
Scalp - Not Worthy of Human Compassion
Kontusion - Insatiable Lust for Death
Nuovo Testamento - Trouble
Fit for a King - Lonely God
The Armed - The Future is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed
Fox Lake - New World Heat
Hammer - Trapped
Hedonist - Scapulimancy
Kayo Dot - Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason
Car Bomb - Tiles Whisper Dreams
Saphir Levi - Follow Your Shadow

We shake up the reviews with looks at plenty of smaller newcomer bands with TNM fave The Dirty Nil plus Blood Vulture, Psycho-Frame, Blind Equation, Crown of Anguish, Stangarigel, & Nuvolascura, and of course we do our best this week to speak to the seismic passing of the Prince of Darkness, heavy metal's hugest figure, Ozzy Osbourne.

The Dirty Nil 46:49
Blood Vulture 1:04:23
Psycho-Frame 1:20:14
Blind Equation 1:32:06
Crown of Anguish 1:45:16
Stangarigel 1:55:58
Nuvolascura 2:05:20

TNM makes a long overdue return to 2000 Trees Festival to see Alexisonfire, Coheed and Cambria, the return of letlive., a massively contested slot from Kneecap, plenty more from punk rock spectrum, and in the same episode somehow, we face the great Profanatica jar controversy.

Releases:
Bring Me the Horizon - Lo-files
Daron Malakian and Scars On Broadway - Addicted to the Violence
Bush - I Beat Loneliness
Zac Farro - Operator
Laura Jane Grace In The Trauma Tropes - Adventure Club
Panic Shack - Panic Shack
Blind Equation - A Funeral In Purgatory
Stomach - Low Demon
Ba’al - The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here
Entrails - Grip of Ancient Evil
Abigail Williams - A Void Within Existence
Haunter / Cape of Bats - Black Magick Metal Punk

The biggest metal weekend of all time maybe arrives, with our impressions of Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning and Ozzy's retirement party, plus trips to the return of Slayer in the UK.

Releases:
Split Chain - motionblur
Calva Louise - Edge of the Abyss
dead7 - Love What You Can While You’ve Still Got Something Left to Love
Ward XVI - ID3NTITY
Born of Osiris - Through Shadows
Margarita Witch Cult - Strung Out In Hell
Floating - Hesitating Lights