September wrap-up 2026

Feat., Sleep, Behemoth, Tom Morello, Green Lung, Sigh, The Ocean et al.

This September edition of Albums I Didn't Review Because I Also Need to Have Time to Breathe, we're kicking off with a significant weight of stoner rock releases.

First and foremost, there seemed to be quite some dissatisfaction among fans of Sleep due to some line-up changes preceding "Hempispheres", the band's new album (not to be confused with the 1978 Rush LP of the same name). Dale Crover of Melvins fame (well, relative fame) is back on drum duty. But the complaints seem to be more oriented about Matt Pike having left the band and the guitar sound and tone not being as massive as they apparently normally are. For someone like me who's not following the band, that's kinda meh. I just like that the music actually sounds like instruments and amplifiers. The overdrive tone on the album is so vividly organic that it almost becomes tangible. And you can fucking hear the drumsticks catching the snare.

"Hempispheres" doesn't have much in the way of climaxes, and some of the tracks do become monotonous. But I'm betting that's all more or less intended. It adds nothing new to the stoner rock genre, but it still sounds like the band has absolutely nothing to lose or to achieve by any remotely urgent deadline, and it also sounds blissfully organic and present in a day and age where music sounds more and more artificially digital and impersonal. In a fair, unbiased world, an album like this should be guaranteed to please any fan of the most laid-back and introspective corners of stoner. Either way, unreviewed record of the month, right there.

Green Lung are more dirty and uptempo than Sleep, and they have a more flippant metal attitude. But they're still unmistakably out of the occultism-tinged Sabbath/Pentagram tradition. There are no future classics on that new LP of theirs, but it checks all the marks of the genre and should also land in solid ground with any fan of the genre.

Same thing goes for the new album from Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, whom I finally got to check out properly. They do seem a bit like a gimmick band, but they're still good at what they do. Musically, we're back in the 70s, partly in the more fuzzy and esoteric proto-metal territory that Green Lung are digging into, but also early Motörhead and even a group like Fleetwood Mac occasionally come to mind. It's pure retro, in other words. Se you might rightly call it a pure gimmick, but you might also argue – just as rightly – that it's the sound of hard rock crystallizing all over again, which in and by itself is beautiful.

Behemoth put out "I, Scvlptor", an EP. I don't review those, but I'll mention them when they're from someone important. It had some singular cool ideas and passages on it, but it was largely a less inspired extension of last year's masterful, albeit cringily titled "The Shit ov God" LP, and with a couple of covers, unnecessary as those tend to be.

Green Carnation finished their "A Dark Poem" trilogy with "The Messiah Complex", which sounded more like pt. 1 than pt. 2 did – that is, until everything morphed into pure cinematic classical music. This was one of those cases where the word 'visionary' is justified. It wasn't superior to pt. 1, just like pt. 2 wasn't, but it was still impressively ambitious and, just like its predecessors, didn't really sound like any other band. Just goes to show how incredibly overlooked these guys are.

Same thing goes for another progressive enterprise, Japanese avant-black-metalheads Sigh. I heard the first track of their new LP and then decided to let it be. This is something I would only normally do if an album really blows, but in this case, (and with the opener being +9 minutes and all) I could tell pretty much immediately that I would not have the mental capacity to get properly into the material – it's simply too weird. Guess this is what some unfortunate individuals must feel like with regards to Igorrr. If you are one of the fortunate people who does have that capacity, more power to you.

One new black metal album I did hear to the end, though, was Aborym's "Metachaos" – true, insensitive, and monstrous black metal, yet somehow with a warm, thick production with a lot of bass and mid-tone. It was almost worth listening to for the production only – but it's worth listening to in any case. And also, I should take this opportunity to say that I never met a chaos I didn't like. WAZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Lot of new releases in the world of straight-up hard rock and/or heavy metal this September. And Sweden, of course, has its own category of the former.

First of all, there were new albums from Velveteen Queen and Europe, but those only got put on YouTube as those fragmented playlists I've mentioned a coupla times already: The uploaders often mess up the order of tracks and/or interject them with self-promotional videos, so I can't be bothered. Neighboring norwegians Audrey Horne put out a slab of old school hard rock in the vein of, say, equal parts Scorpions, Foreigner, and Iron Maiden. It wasn't nearly as elegant or original as either, but it did have a solid baseline, a singer that can actually sing, and a production that, in spite of being a tad too compressed, still sounds like actual fucking instruments.

In spite of everything, I heard the first five songs from the new Stryper album, which weren't downright bad, but overall uninspired and mostly instantly forgettable. Also the production was kinda thin and the compositions were kinda run-of-the-mill. But maybe you'd expect that from someone who takes their particular brand of organized superstition more seriously than music. (That said, I'm pretty sure I do have their 1986 LP "To Hell With the Devil" on vinyl somewhere. Because it's hard rock, and probably because I got it for like $2.)

In the harder end of things, Tygers Of Pan Tang put out a straight-up heavy metal record, which was far from any pinnacle of inspiration. The vocals were impressive, and the execution was flawless in and by itself, but nothing seriously outstanding or memorable to take away. And staying with the NWoBHM minor leagues, the new effort from Cloven Hoof, apart from the vocals being a bit on the hysterical side, seemed to be a decent round of classic heavy metal. Then, however, came the title track, and it seemed evident that this one was designed to pander towards the uneducated preferences of contemporary music consumers rather than a classic metal audience, because it stank of Auto-Tune, and the chorus was those four fucking standard chords that anyone with a modicum of awareness of hackneyed songwriting tropes would be long aware and sick of by now. Piss off.

Staying in the really stinky end of things, Kai Hansen – normally such a wicked singer worthy of immense respect from anyone who knows metal – put out an uninspired and forgettable solo album that also stank of Auto-Tune locally. And after about 15 minutes, it entered a passage that went something like, "Come on everybody, put your hands in the air / And [something something something] like you just don't care". I can't even be bothered to look up those lyrics that I didn't catch, because fuck right off. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Stinker of the month, however, goes to another solo album – by Tom Morello – for the most disastrous mixing and especially drum sound I've heard in years. Not even gonna try to describe it, but mark my words: Fucking "Lulu" had a tighter production. While, to be fair, it did feature some cool riffs from a master in those, the man's vocals and lyrics sound like a tuneless Leonard Cohen reciting Dr. Seuss verses. His son (I mean, Morello's) and Serj Tankian were supposedly featured on the second track, and I had no idea who was doing what, but while the main riff was cool, the lack of structure and that horrible mixing threw me off right there.

Finally, I lasted through the first 20 minutes through the new LP by The Ocean. It was definitely an ambitious, creative undertaking with some huge soundscapes and impressive structures. But again, one overshadowing problem: It had the all-pervasive plastic stench of Auto-Tune on it. Yes, I know I gripe about that a lot, and that's because pitch correction, if used at all, should not be fucking audible. It has never sounded anything but alienating and off-putting. It might have been a cute little effect back in the day when Cher used it, but we have long reached a point where kids – and even fucking adults – are unable to distinguish between a human singing voice and a digitally manipulated ditto. All of my human instinct in every human fiber of my human body tells me that this is just plain wrong, no matter how you look at it.

And this notwithstanding, metal and its subgenres are all about artistic integrity, not pandering towards the ignorant club segment by kowtowing to the trends that are popular with it. And much less those that compromise that aforementioned artistic integrity that comes with actually being able to sing or play your goddamn instrument WITHOUT ARTIFICIAL MANIPULATION. I mean, Jesus Christ, people. Just exactly when, and especially WHY, did everyone stop caring about music losing its goddamn soul and starting to sound like something that's purely digitally generated by AI in order to adhere to fucking algorithms??

Just like Milli Vanilli were rightfully ridiculed when caught lip-syncing back in the day, there should be some way of reporting supposed musicians who fake their own livelihood like that. If and when you hear anything indicating that a singer uses pitch correction, point it out, and let your fellow humans know that it's possible to have higher standards. We disqualify athletes for enhancing their performance artificially; why not apply just a bit of that same principle to the alleged "artists" of the world?

I'm still off the sauce, but goddammit, do I sometimes wish I could take the liberty of forgetting modern popular culture for just one blessed evening along with the Night Flight Orchestra back catalogue and a bottle of black Johnnie Walker.

Staying with the personal notes, but changing tracks, yours truly was also at the lovely Swiss Nomad Fest in September, a much more intimate setup than the ditto in Bansko, but almost all the better for it. Lot of impressions, learning, new contacts, new opportunities, lovely people, and gorgeous nature.

In terms of reviews, we actually had a minor bunch of those for a change. First, the new Airbourne album was all-round above passable. But while I do like certain things being shameless, lack of originality isn't always one of those things – especially not when you're carbon copying one particular other band. But they hella rocked, so they got a good rating and that was it.

Then there was a surprisingly good new record from Anthrax out, not only back after 10 years, but shaking things up creatively – and succeeding, at that. And last, but definitely not least, Godflesh scored the so far first rating of 6 out of 6 here on GMB for their new album "Decay", a psychologically harrowing 40-minute insight into equally cold and infernal auditory imaginations of how it will be once the machines take over. (Seems like that'll happen any day now.)

October's already here, and we've got new albums lined up from the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, Ministry, and this one little guitar player, name of Tony fucking Iommi. Apart from that, and apart from the new releases already out by Amon Amarth, Xhastur, and Butcher Babies, October's gonna see new full-lengths by Graveyard, Gloryhammer, Insomnium, Master, Stoned Jesus, Dragonland, Forbidden, Wolves in the Throne Room, Enslaved, Cirith Ungol, Darkest Hour, Xentrix, and my countrymen in HateSphere.

Stick around if you like any of those. And if you don't, maybe you shouldn't be at a website like this anyway?

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