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Aaron Sammut
Aaron Sammut
07 Aug 2026
A slightly unusual one today. No album, no tour dates, no band — just a metal-themed comic book that takes the genre as seriously as anything else we cover. Twelve years ago, Aaron Sammut had a bad start to the day, put on METALLICA's "Master of Puppets," and by the time he got to work he had the entire premise of a comic book in his head: a superhero powered by heavy metal, and a Walkman possessed by the ghost of a BLACK SABBATH roadie. That comic, Maurice & The Metal, is four issues deep, has been drawn by three different illustrators, and is back on Kickstarter to fund a fifth — one that pits its hero against a goth cult act called THE VAMPLIFIERS and a frontman who wants every genre of music in town to sound the same. We caught up with Sammut, the Brisbane-based writer and creator behind the series, to talk about where the idea came from, the artist who defined Maurice before his death in 2021, why the book has stayed black and white for four issues running, and how much AI he lets anywhere near the actual story.
STORMKEEP
STORMKEEP
01 Aug 2026
Colorado's STORMKEEP have spent the better part of a decade rebuilding a bridge back to the golden age of symphonic black metal, the EMPEROR and DIMMU BORGIR-indebted sound of the mid-'90s that, as frontman Otheyn Vermithrax puts it, had been largely dormant for fifteen or twenty years. With their second full-length, *The Nocturnes of Iswylm* (out now via Vesperian), the band doubles down on that vision while pushing into darker, more dramatic territory: real orchestral arrangements in place of the dungeon synth interludes that once defined their sound, and Vermithrax himself taking on clean vocals for the first time across an entire record. The album continues the story of the world of Elda, following the Seer as he grapples with a curse from the Serpent Stone after the awakening of the Dragon Queen, a figure who also graces the album's cover art, painted by legendary British illustrator Simon Bisley. We sat down with Otheyn Vermithrax to talk about the record's new direction, the Bisley collaboration (and the YouTube algorithm's reaction to it), the symphonic black metal revival happening across North America, and juggling STORMKEEP alongside BLOOD INCANTATION and WAYFARER.
TODOMAL
TODOMAL
18 Jul 2026
Spain barely registers on the doom-metal map, and TODOMAL seem perfectly happy to start from that blank slate. The Anglo-Spanish duo of Christopher "Chris" Wildman and Javier Fernández Milla — two friends who make music in the half-abandoned villages of the Spanish interior "just for the sake of it" — have just released their third album, Graveyards of Joy, on Season of Mist, closing a trilogy that began with Ultracrepidarian (2021) and A Greater Good. Recorded against a backdrop of personal loss, it's a slow-brewing, widescreen kind of doom: operatic clean vocals, Hammond organ, folk textures and cinematic strings, and not a single growl. Chris sat down with The MetalList to talk about grief and music as therapy, the depopulated provinces that shape the record, a 19th-century Catalan painting on the cover, why he switches off the moment he hears a growl, signing to Season of Mist, and what happens after the trilogy.
VIA DOLORIS
VIA DOLORIS
04 Jul 2026
Gildas Le Pape's musical path has looped back on itself. Born in Brittany, France, he grew up on metal and classical music, drifted into jazz, spent 2007 to 2013 touring the world as guitarist for Norwegian black metal institution SATYRICON, then all but vanished into jazz again for the better part of a decade. Now based in Oslo, and back playing with Satyricon this year, he has just released Guerre et Paix (War and Peace) — the debut album of his solo black metal project VIA DOLORIS, out now on Season of Mist. Gildas wrote and recorded nearly everything himself: guitars, vocals, lyrics in three languages, even the cover art. The one thing he didn't do alone was the drums, which he handed to a man he calls the best black metal drummer alive — his Satyricon bandmate Frost. Gildas sat down with The MetalList to talk about the Breton bagpipe drone hiding inside his signature "chainsaw" guitar riff, why he keeps his black metal and his jazz strictly unmixed, the internal war and peace behind the album's themes, and why he designed a cover with no pentagrams in sight.
THE GHOULSTARS
THE GHOULSTARS
28 Jun 2026
Finland's THE GHOULSTARS spent five years haunting stages before releasing a single note — a horror-punk supergroup of seasoned players hiding behind corpse paint and ghoul names. Founder, guitarist and main songwriter Markus "Daddy Ghoul" Laakso sat down with The MetalList to talk about the debut album The Dark Overlords of the Universe (Season of Mist), the B-movie, sci-fi and '80s obsessions behind the concept, assembling the band, shooting the "Too Ghoul For School" video in a Cadillac that once belonged to Alexi Laiho of CHILDREN OF BODOM, his school years in San Diego, the personal grief tucked inside songs about monsters — and why this music either grabs people or it doesn't.
ERDVE
ERDVE
05 Jun 2026
Lithuania's ERDVE built their name on crushing, sludge-laced metallic hardcore — and on never quite standing still. Five years on from Savigaila, the band return with Epigrama, their third album and their second for Season of Mist — a record that only exists because they threw away the one before it. Vocalist, songwriter and main creative force Vaidotas sat down with The MetalList to talk about scrapping a finished, label-ready album for lacking sincerity, co-producing for the first time with guitarist Adomas, lyrics built on the idea of universal entropy and "moral debt," the hand-made gravestone statues behind the artwork, and what it was like to play a Vilnius church and the former Lukiškės Prison — a building where his own grandfather was once held.
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Latest Reviews
STREET TOMBS — Existence Is Corruption
STREET TOMBS
Existence Is Corruption (2026)
★★★★ 8/10
MISERY INDEX — Feral Future
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Feral Future (2026) Single
★★★★ 8/10
RAKINUA — Esi Um Ninu - Heal Us Mother
RAKINUA
Esi Um Ninu - Heal Us Mother (2026)
★★★★ 8/10
EMPTINESS — Nowhere Speaks
EMPTINESS
Nowhere Speaks (2026)
★★★★½ 9/10
WAILIN STORMS — The Arsonist
WAILIN STORMS
The Arsonist (2026)
★★★★ 8/10
TODOMAL — Graveyards of Joy
TODOMAL
Graveyards of Joy (2026)
★★★★½ 9/10
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Latest Live Reports
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