After 35 years of evil existence, Rotting Christ still stand the test of time. Sakis Tolis, his brother Themis and their Greek brothers-in-arms have risen from the Athenian underground to become one of the metal world’s most reliable forces, backed by a pantheon discography that has both defined and defied black metal.

While already Chilean Grammy winners, this year, Mawiza continued their rise as a guiding force for indigenous metal. Behind their critically-acclaimed new album ÜL, the modern day Mapuche warriors appeared on magazine covers, took the stage at major summer festivals and brought home a LIT Music Award.

Few grindcore bands have enjoyed the shelf life of Rotten Sound. After outrunning the apocalypse on their last long-player, the Finnish grindcore vets are back with another politically-charged EP. The latest single from Mass Extinction is slightly more optimistic about our future than its initial discharge, but “Idealist” gets its message across with such blunt force, that it’s impossible not to heed the band’s charge.

Italian dark-arts collective PONTE DEL DIAVOLO announce the upcoming release of their new album, De Venom Natura. Following the impact of their acclaimed debut Fire Blades From the Tomb (2024), the Turin-based ensemble now enter a bolder phase of their evolution. Their signature fusion of doom, black metal, post-punk and wave is pushed into even more confrontational territory, driven by a sharpened production aesthetic and the band’s distinctive dual-bass attack. The band describes the ethos behind their new direction succinctly:

As they prepare to follow up their latest list-topping, Billboard-busting album, Horrendous are kicking off 2026 by celebrating an earlier record that has come to define the band’s steady upward trajectory.

Since assembling in 2013, Alkaloid have known no bounds. Fresh from the minds who brought metalheads Obscura, Triptykon and Dark Fortress, the supergroup has rearranged the very composition of progressive death metal. Their three studio albums are widely acclaimed for synthesizing seemingly opposing forces. Worldly polyrhythms are bent to shape sci-fi storylines, only to morph into brutally catchy choruses. However, last summer, the quintet conducted a truly one-of-a-kind experiment, the kind that only a maestro an perform.