Vespera are back! Vocalist Casval Wolfe is hear to walk us through each track on their album “The Thoughts That Plague You”. Check it out below.

Introduction

The Thoughts That Plague You was never supposed to be three EPs. It was written as one complete album, with each song positioned to carry the listener into the next. Circumstances eventually forced us to release the music in pieces, so although every song reached the world, the album itself never really did.

This record was written during a period when I was trying to rebuild my understanding of myself. It traces that process in real time, moving through self-erasure, rebellion, nostalgia, escapism, accountability, anger, and a more complicated understanding of compassion. I did not realize I was writing that arc as clearly as I can hear it now.

Nearly five years after Vespera went quiet, this feels like the first real opportunity to explain the record as one continuous piece: where these songs came from, what was happening around me while I made them, and what I hear in them now that so much time has passed. These are the meanings I remember, the choices I would make differently, and the things I can understand now that I could not understand then.

1. Sleepless

"Sleepless" was never about one specific person. I had a recurring habit of trying to optimize myself for the people around me. The intent was always genuine. If someone was hurting, angry, or unable to hear me, my instinct was to figure out what I could change within myself to make things better. Eventually, self-improvement and self-erasure began to look frighteningly similar.

The fire exists on both sides of that idea. It is destructive, but it is also phoenix-like. There is a willingness to burn away the person I had been, alongside the hope that someone stronger might emerge from it. Looking back, I can also hear the beginning of another pattern: turning my private pain into something useful for other people before understanding what sharing it might cost me.

We chose it as the opening track for a more visceral reason. It was the heaviest song we had at the time, and we wanted the album to begin with that shock before moving through a much broader sonic journey. It introduces the record at the point where transformation and destruction are still almost impossible to tell apart.

2. Phoenix Down

"Phoenix Down" is where the record turns outward. If "Sleepless" is about burning myself down to become what other people need, this is the moment I stop accepting that premise altogether.

The song is about rebellion and rebirth. The people maintaining control are not powerful because they are strong. They keep others numb and restrained because they are terrified of losing their relevance. "Falling out of line" becomes an act of freedom rather than failure.

The image of all of us as pawns chasing silhouettes was also an acknowledgment that none of us are completely outside these systems. We are taught to pursue hollow versions of success, approval, and belonging, then encouraged to compete within a game that was never designed for us.

The title comes from the item in Final Fantasy that revives a fallen character. After the fire of "Sleepless," this is the resurrection. I am getting back up, but I am not returning to the same life. I am saying, very simply, that I will not play their game anymore.

3. Fading Light

"Fading Light" was written during an extremely low point in my life. I was living in Seattle, trying to put distance between myself and the life I had known while I healed and made sense of a reality I no longer trusted. The fading light is hope. It remains visible, but it is becoming harder to reach.

The bridge expands beyond my own experience. "Reach for something dignified" was me reminding myself and anyone listening that we have to strive for more than the simplified version of life we are handed. When our inner lives remain unfulfilled, everything around us begins to feel larger and more impossible.

This was the first song I recorded vocals for when we entered the studio, and it helped establish the emotional and vocal language of Vespera. It was the first time I stopped trying to belt across an entire song and allowed restraint to carry some of the weight.

Its placement was primarily sonic. I wanted something slow and grandiose between two more energetic songs, hoping the contrast would pull people in differently. If I could change one thing now, I would remove the arpeggiated keys from the introduction. Without them, I think it would sound even closer to what Vespera eventually became.

4. Obsidian Dreams

"Obsidian Dreams" holds two ideas at once. On the surface, it is about waiting for something to wake up and become what you once imagined it could be. It romanticizes the nostalgia and honeymoon period of something new, when possibility can become more compelling than reality.

Underneath that, it is about longing for something you may be better off without. The title became a way of looking at my past as a nightmare that was gradually fading away. "I want it back, I need it back" captures the contradiction of reaching backward even as that chapter begins to lose its hold over you.

Musically, it felt like an early distillation of Vespera. It balanced heaviness, melody, and something more ethereal, which made it a natural introduction to the band.

In retrospect, I wish I had allowed the bridge to breathe. When we play it live, I leave the breakdown instrumental instead of repeating "I want it back, I need it back." Giving that moment space makes the entire section feel more powerful.

5. A Fragile Seed

"A Fragile Seed" is a short instrumental that separates the first act of the album from what follows. I have always loved records that take the listener on a journey, and instrumental pieces can create space that another full song cannot. This one acts as both a transition and a palate cleanser.

The title represents the vulnerable beginning of something new. Rebirth does not immediately produce strength. Sometimes it leaves you with a small possibility that still needs to be protected before it can become anything more.

Its placement directly before "Bloom" was intentional. The interlude plants the seed without forcing it to become fully formed within the same piece. When the next song begins, that idea is allowed to open into something larger. It gives the album a moment to breathe while quietly carrying the listener into its next act.

6. Bloom

"Bloom" began as a poem before I refined it into a love song of sorts. It was the first love song I had ever written, although the "we" was never limited to one romantic relationship. It included the people I loved and my wish that I could remove the trauma that continued to follow them.

I wanted to place ideas of compassion, intentional living, and collective growth inside something that could still function as a love song. The answer to suffering was not to remain defined by it, but to help one another grow beyond it.

"Fruitful shame" is the idea that something meaningful can emerge from what we have kept buried. It does not justify the pain, but it refuses to let that pain become the final shape of our lives.

The bridge recognizes that this process cannot be forced. I can wish for time to be gentle, but I cannot command it. All I can offer is the belief that, with enough patience and care, we might eventually become more than what happened to us. Placed after "A Fragile Seed," "Bloom" is that vulnerable possibility beginning to open.

7. Painted Fragile

"Painted Fragile" is about the divide between a constructed identity and the person underneath it.

At the time, I lacked confidence, self-love, and a secure sense of who I was. Those absences had shaped me so completely that they had also become what held me together. I was "stitched whole" by the very things that remained missing.

I was also at the beginning of a spiritual journey that made me question the attachments, expectations, and fixed identities weighing me down. I wanted to evolve by tearing away the earthly things that prevented me from becoming something more.

The fire connects with imagery throughout the album. Burning becomes a form of shedding, but the line between liberation and self-destruction is rarely clean. That tension is central to the record's larger story.

The definitive album contains an extended version of the song. The version released publicly was a radio edit because I ultimately felt the song flowed better without the additional section.

8. Vanilla Sky

"Vanilla Sky" is about realizing how many of our problems are created or amplified within our own minds. We become trapped inside fixed perspectives, then begin treating those perspectives as reality rather than one limited way of seeing it.

The dream imagery represents that mental confinement. It can feel vivid, comforting, and completely convincing, but it still prevents us from seeing the larger world around us.

Opening your eyes means zooming out. It is the decision to push beyond the ideas, fears, and patterns that have kept us stunted. The "revolution of the mind" is that shift in perspective becoming powerful enough to change how we live.

Contemplating our mistakes is not about remaining trapped in regret. It is about accountability and acceptance. We acknowledge what happened, understand what it taught us, and allow ourselves to move forward. Placed after "Painted Fragile," the song continues dismantling an old identity by releasing the perspective that created it.

9. Deafening, Dissonant

"Deafening, Dissonant" came from accumulated loss and the desire to retreat into the comforts of an earlier life. I think of Cypher in The Matrix, choosing a pleasant illusion over a reality he no longer wants to accept. The song lives inside that temptation. I knew I could not return to what existed before, but part of me still wanted the fantasy.

The dissonance is both internal and external. I felt incompatible with the world around me, while older wounds had become their own "melody of pre-existing chaos." The ending is where acceptance meets resignation. "I guess today I'll learn" is not bitter or triumphant. It is closer to a shrug.

I wrote the main riff on a random rainy day in Seattle. Two hours later, the entire instrumental was finished.

The lyrics took longer. I had been struggling to write words for five songs when, on one unexpected day, all five finally came out at once. Looking back, I wish I had spent more time sitting with some of those vocal melodies. This remains one of the performances I am least satisfied with, particularly because I still think the instrumental underneath it is incredibly powerful.

10. The Thoughts That Plague You

I wanted the title track to serve as a point of introspection. Without lyrics directing the listener toward my own story, the music leaves room for something more personal to emerge. What thoughts surface when nothing else is speaking? What memories still make you wince or squirm?

The "you" in the title is everyone. We each carry private thoughts that return against our will, even if the events and emotions behind them are completely different.

Musically, I wanted to build something cinematic and heavy. This is not intended to be a peaceful interlude. It gradually surrounds the listener and gives those internal thoughts somewhere to take shape.

Its placement before "Paradise" is also important. The instrumental creates the psychological space, then the next song confronts what we sometimes reach for when remaining inside that space becomes unbearable.

11. Paradise

"Paradise" can represent any form of escapism, but it was rooted in a very personal period of my life. I had lived completely sober until a serious snowboarding accident changed my relationship with substances. What followed was two difficult years of relying on alcohol and drugs to numb both physical and emotional pain. I do not need to excavate every detail publicly. The core of the song is the desire to escape yourself when remaining present feels unbearable.

The opening image is "weathered veins." I have never used heroin, but I wanted the verse and video to evoke the most physical extreme of addictive escape. "Aching to feel infinite" is simply another way of saying that I wanted to feel happy again, influenced by a line from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The "somewhere in between" is the hope that life can improve if some part of you still wants it to, even before you know how to reach that better place.

Spencer Sotelo of Periphery was the right voice for the song. His range and intensity gave it another emotional register, especially in the moments that needed to feel larger than one voice.

The conversations surrounding The JED Foundation campaign were difficult, but mental health was discussed very differently when we released this song. I believed it was necessary to help people feel less alone. Looking back, I have complicated feelings about how much of my personal story I offered publicly. Part of me wishes I had protected more of it. That tension connects back to "Sleepless" and the instinct to make my own pain useful to other people before considering what giving it away might cost me.

12. Gossamer

I was seething when I wrote "Gossamer." It began with one person who had been a significant part of the pain I was carrying, but with time I realized the lyrics applied much more broadly. The song calls out performative behavior and the people who confuse presentation with character. It is the moment I stop pretending not to see the performance.

The rebirth in the song is mine. I am not waiting for the person being addressed to transform. I am recognizing what they are, denying them any further control over me, and beginning again without them.

The song came together in roughly thirty minutes. Everything I had been holding back arrived at once, which is probably why the performance still feels so immediate and teeth-gritting.

One of my favorite details is the accidental A-natural in the chorus. The song is centered in G-sharp minor, where the expected second would be A-sharp. Dropping that note to A-natural creates a flattened second and a tight half-step pull against the root. It functions like a chromatic upper neighbor resolving into G-sharp, while the distortion exaggerates the clash around it. On paper it looks wrong. In the song it sounds like clenched teeth, which is exactly where I was emotionally.

13. Euphoria / Dysphoria

"Euphoria / Dysphoria" is a pendulum. It reflects the constant emotional movement I experienced while trying to recover and grow: hope followed by collapse, clarity followed by confusion, and progress that could disappear almost as soon as I felt it.

The song grew from a deeply personal experience that changed my relationship with trust, joy, and myself. I do not feel the need to define that experience publicly. The song is concerned with what followed and with the emotional contradictions that remained after a moment had altered the way I moved through the world.

This is a different wound and a different kind of anger. Some of that anger was directed outward, while some of it turned inward through the irrational belief that I should have been able to prevent what happened. That self-blame became another force I had to recover from.

The title does not promise that one side defeats the other. Recovery was not a clean ascent. I could feel genuine joy and genuine despair without either one canceling the other. The song preserves that instability rather than pretending I had already found my way beyond it.

14. Smile

"Smile" was inspired by my partner at the time and what I could see them carrying internally. I wanted to take all of it away, partly because I loved them and partly because I believed that if they could become okay, our relationship could become okay.

The impulse was noble, but hindsight reveals how little I understood boundaries. I had learned early in life to treat other people's emotional states as something I was responsible for managing. By the time I wrote "Smile," that instinct had become entangled with my understanding of love. I thought devotion meant making myself strong enough to carry everything another person could not.

The crown of thorns imagery turns that devotion into martyrdom. There has always been a part of me that wants to take everyone's pain away because I believe I am better equipped to carry it. I was drawn to the idea that a burden shared becomes a burden halved, but "Smile" blurs the line between sharing someone's suffering and taking possession of it entirely. At the time, that felt selfless. Now I can recognize both the compassion and the danger within it.

I still believe in helping people carry what hurts. What has changed is my understanding of where one person ends and another begins. Sharing a burden means standing beside someone beneath its weight. It does not mean making yourself disappear so they never have to feel it.

In that sense, "Smile" quietly returns to the place where "Sleepless" began. The album opens with me reshaping and erasing myself for the people around me, then closes with that same impulse expressed through love. The wordless outro allows the record to exhale and dissolve before it begins again with the cryptic introduction to "Sleepless."

Afterword

Listening now, I do not hear a finished person. I hear someone trying to grow without yet understanding the difference between transformation and self-erasure, compassion and sacrifice, or escape and healing. There are arrangements, melodies, and decisions I would change today, but I would not rewrite the person who made them. Giving the record its intended shape now feels less like returning to the past than finally allowing it to exist as a whole.

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Down have shared an official video for their new song “Blood Oath.” That track will appear on their new album, “Volume V,” which will be out on November 20. Phil Anselmo commented on the single:

“Anybody who’s from New Orleans is going to get a kick out of the references to the city. Musically, it’s got a big hook. It’s a Down song, but it takes a turn.”

Pepper Keenan added:

“You’ll know it’s own right off the fucking bat. It’s heavy in its attack.”

The band also commented on the album:

Phil Anselmo:

“We were all excited about this. There was a sense of lightness in the air. Everyone’s attitude was positive. There was more focus than ever. It just felt fresh again. Each one of us was individually striving for something, and I believe we achieved what we wanted to achieve. The record is a journey. It’s classic Down, but it’s also unique.”

Kirk Windstein:

“Everybody played their asses off, wrote great riffs, and Philip is singing amazing. There’s so much electricity when we get together. To me, it’s the same vibe as our debut NOLA, but we’ve got another 35 years of experience as songwriters.”

Pepper Keenan:

“The five of us are from the same era, grew up together, and accomplished a lot on our own. We all sounded different, but we’re still from the same 20-block radius. As far as what makes Down special, we knew one another before any of us had done anything. There’s history.”

“Volume V” Track Listing:

01. “The Myth
02. “Merciful Fate” (feat. King Diamond)
03. “Turn Out the Light”
04. “The Message”
05. “Causeway Grief”
06. “Blood Oath”
07. “They Walk The Night”
08. “They Came From Dust”
09. “Ozz”
10. “Twice-Told Tales”

Escape The Fate and Bad Wolves have been confirmed as the openers on Skillet’s “Comatose” 20th anniversary tour. Here's the dates for that run:

09/30 Schenectady, NY – Proctors Theatre
10/02 Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore
10/03 Montclair, NJ – The Wellmont Theater (no Escape The Fate)
10/04 Huntington, NY – The Paramount
10/07 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
10/08 Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring
10/10 Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
10/11 Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
10/12 Pittsburgh, PA – Citizens Live at The Wylie
10/14 St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
10/16 Minneapolis, MN – Uptown Theater
10/17 Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
10/18 Omaha, NE – Steelhouse Omaha
10/20 Kansas City, MO – The Midland Theatre
10/22 Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
10/23 Salt Lake City, UT – The Union Event Center
10/26 Airway Heights, WA – Pend Oreille Pavilion at Northern Quest
10/27 Seattle, WA – Moore Theatre
10/30 Wheatland, CA – Hard Rock Live Sacramento
10/31 Inglewood, CA – YouTube Theater
11/01 Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
11/05 Dallas, TX – House of Blues
11/06 San Antonio, TX – The Aztec Theatre
11/09 Jacksonville, FL – Greater Jacksonville Agricultural Fair (Skillet only)
11/10 Orlando, FL – House of Blues

Maynard James Keenan (Tool, etc.) is getting into the sushi business. The frontman will be launching a restaurant called Queen B Sushi on September 4 in Cottonwood, AZ.

The frontman said the following:

“Although I’ve been enjoying sushi since my days in Boston, circa 1987, my first Japanese tour wasn’t until 2000 with A Perfect Circle. It was an eye opening and mind-blowing experience. While there, I picked up these amazing titanium and hard wood travel chopsticks from Snow Peak. And I’ve carried them with me ever since. Last year I ran into Janeane Garofalo at the Chelsea in NYC. She was saying to David Cross and Dave Hill, ‘I haven’t seen Maynard in several years but one thing I remember is that he used to carry chopsticks in his pocket.’ At which point I reached into my pocket and pulled them out. Twenty-five years I’ve been carrying these chopsticks. That’s how much I love sushi.”

A press release added:

“Queen B Sushi is led by Culinary Director Chef Brett Vibber, whose résumé spans Roka Akor’s London, Hong Kong, and U.S. locations. Vibber built the Queen B Sushi team around two hires: Chef Chuhiro “Thomas” Kato, who trained under Nobu Matsuhisa in Beverly Hills and Masaharu Morimoto in New York, and Chef Sheridan “Sher” Chase, an Arizona native who built his career in kitchens from California to Texas before returning home.

The concept began almost by accident. When Keenan and his wife, Jennifer, were developing the menu for Queen B Vinyl Café, they shelved the idea of a full sushi program, assuming they wouldn’t find the right chef in a town of 12,000. Vibber, already on staff, turned out to be exactly that chef.

Queen B Sushi will pour a rotating selection of Caduceus Cellars and Merkin Vineyards wines.”

Judiciary have shared an official video for their new song “Death Knell.” That track will appear on their new EP, “Stalagmite Angels,” which will be out on September 4.

Mareux has announced some December East Coast shows. Here's the dates:

12/03 Chicago, IL - Metro
12/07 Brooklyn, NY - Saint Vitus
12/10 Washington, DC  - Black Cat
12/12 Miami, FL - TBA

This news comes as Mareux is celebrating the double platinum certification of his song “The Perfect Girl.”

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Rise Against have debuted two new tracks, “Katy Bar The Door” and “Living Undercover.” Vocalist Tim McIlrath commented on “Katy Bar The Door”:

“I don’t know where I came across this expression, but I immediately was taken with it. While an obscure reference now… I liked the idea of resurrecting it for this song, and that it sort of fits what it feels like to be alive in 2026.

[The ICE raids in Minneapolis were] not the first time in history we have reckoned with abuses of power. Bearing witness to the fragility of democracy is a scary thing, and it demands a response.”

He also added the following about “Living Undercover”:

“Sometimes [we hide things] because we’re building something beautiful behind the curtain, other times we’re hiding some kind of darkness. I like the cloak and dagger feel of the song that ties into its central theme.”

Living Weapon (Fleshwater, etc.) have shared an official video for their song “In Loving Memory.” That track appears on their newly released album “Death In The Family.”

Wage War have shared an official video for their new single “Sweet Dreams.” The band said the following about that track:

“‘Sweet Dreams’ is a song about being deceived by the world around you. About safety in a sense of blissful ignorance. Sonically, it draws inspiration from all of our previous work over the last 10 years.”

Movements have shared a visualizer for their new song “Live By The Sword.” That track will appear on their new album, “Happier Now,” which will be available on September 4.

Skillet have shared a lyric video for their new song “Lift Me Up.” That track will appear on their new EP, “After The Storm,” which will be out on October 9. Frontman John Cooper said the following about the single:

“‘Lift Me Up’ reminds me of early Skillet, but it still feels fresh. When I wrote it, so many things were dragging me down. I was asking God to lift me up. It’s a reminder that even when life feels overwhelming, there is still hope.”

He also added the following about the EP:

“‘After the Storm’ is special to me because it reignites what Skillet was always meant to be—which is music that helps lift people out of dark times. I wrote these songs because I needed to be lifted out of my own darkness.”

Altersoul have shared an official video for their song “Abandoned.” Vocalist/guitarist James Close commented:

“This single is a re-recording of a very early track from the previous iteration of this band, under the name ‘Ominous Eclipse’. It comes from OE’s debut album more than a decade ago, when studio quality wasn’t as high. As a tribute to Ryan Clements, and as a treat for old fans of Ominous Eclipse, this song finally gets the treatment it deserves. We have multiple albums’ worth of unreleased material, but chose to begin with this re‑imagined single from our past to show both where we came from and who we are now.”

Kaonashi have released a new single titled “Typing…” An official video for the track is available below:

Waterparks have debuted a music video for “Tell Me Why” featuring Mark Hoppus (Blink-182), Danny Elfman, Dillon Francis, and Eric Nally (Foxy Shazam). That song appears on their latest album “Jinx.”

On another note, the band also have the following dates booked:

10/27 Salt Lake City, UT – Soundwell
10/29 Denver, CO – Oriental Theater
10/31 Lawrence, KS – Granada Theater
11/02 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theatre
11/04 Milwaukee, WI – Rave Bar
11/05 Milwaukee, WI – Rave Bar
11/06 Milwaukee, WI – Rave Bar
11/08 Lakewood, OH – The Roxy
11/10 New Haven, CT – Toads
11/12 Asbury Park, NJ – House of Independents
11/13 Asbury Park, NJ – House of Independents
11/14 Asbury Park, NJ – House of Independents
11/16 Towson, MD – The Recher
11/17 Towson, MD – The Recher
11/20 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade (Hell)
11/21 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade (Hell)
11/22 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade (Hell)
11/24 Orlando, FL – House of Blues
11/28 Houston, TX – Scout Bar
11/29 Houston, TX – Scout Bar
12/02 Tucson, AZ – La Rosa
12/04 Santa Ana, CA – Observatory OC
12/06 Sacramento, CA – Ace of Spades
12/07 Sacramento, CA – Ace of Spades

Godflesh have revealed the details for their new album “Decay.” The effort will be available on September 25 and it will feature the following tracks:

01. “Master And Slave“
02. “Living/Ending“
03. “Feral Colony“
04. “Fear Of Man“
05. “Fodder“
06. “Consume Me“

“Living/Ending“ can be streamed below:

Vocalist/guitarist Justin Broadrick said the following:

“Music for me, is rarely complete, but it has to reach a point where enough is enough. Creatively, there has to be self-discipline. One has to end it.

‘Decay‘ was born from the same sessions as ‘Purge‘. It was one huge pool of songs. I picked what I felt was appropriate for what I wanted to achieve with ‘Purge‘, with the intention of releasing the songs that didn’t fit as a new album within a year of ‘Purge‘ being released. Unfortunately, two years passed whilst considering external labels, so that I didn’t have to self-release Godflesh anymore, but it took an awful lot of time to establish a comfortable home for me. The recordings were done, but as usual for me, I did change a lot of stuff once I came back to it.

Fortunately, all of the recordings for ‘Decay‘ were completed long before the surgery, vocals included… although the back end of a couple of songs were recorded with the hernia itself, and that was a struggle. I was already aware that the Godflesh shout, so to speak, was exacerbating the hernia greatly, as was every Godflesh performance in the lead-up to the surgery once the hernia appeared, and the hernia was mostly caused by year upon year of shouting in Godflesh. The album was mixed post-surgery, and while I was still in some pain and considerable discomfort, but fortunately Godflesh is generally me expressing my pain, albeit [usually] mental, philosophical and existential, whereas this was physical pain.

It expresses my pain, and I’ve put my body and soul into this expression for the majority of my existence. I feel quite lucky, because Godflesh is now physically impossible for me, rendering it useless. I now wish to move out of its constraints, move on creatively with heavy/ugly music to new ground.”

Distant have debuted a music video for “Flesh And Nails” featuring Bodysnatcher’s Kyle Medina. That track will appear on their new album, “Into Despair,” which will be available on November 6. The band said the following about the single:

“On ‘Flesh And Nails,’ we join forces with our longtime friend Kyle Medina for a powerful and uncompromising exploration of betrayal, deception, and broken trust. The track confronts the reality of those who hide behind false loyalty, only to turn their backs when it matters most. Channelling anger, frustration, and hard-earned clarity, ‘Flesh And Nails’ captures the emotional weight of discovering who people truly are when the façade falls away. It stands as a visceral statement on betrayal and the lasting scars left by those closest to us.”

Grabbitz has partnered with Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes and Spiritbox’s Courtney LaPlante to create the official anthem for Riot Games’ “Valorant Champions” tournament. The single, which is titled “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight,” will arrive this fall. The event will take place in Shanghai on September 24 to October 18.

The involved parties commented:

Grabbitz:

“The best collaborations happen when everyone brings a different perspective to the room — and that’s what makes this record so exciting to me. Oli, Courtney and I came together from different corners of the globe, and landed on a track that sits effortlessly between my electronic world and the heavy landscapes of Bring Me The Horizon and Spiritbox. The three of us just clicked — and the result is what I believe to be the best Valorant anthem to date.”

Sykes:

“I’ve always been drawn to projects that blur the lines between storytelling and music, so working with Riot Games, alongside Grabbitz and Courtney, and becoming part of the Valorant world felt like a really natural fit.”

LaPlante:

“I cannot wait to release this song! Oli has given me the opportunity to perform live with BMTH many times over the years, and we’re finally debuting something we worked on together. Grabbitz produced such a great atmosphere and a song tailored to all three of our voices, and Oli went in right away and made it a true collaboration.”

Bob DeBelina, Music Artist Partnerships Manager at Riot Games,:

“Welcoming artists of Oli Sykes and Courtney LaPlante’s caliber into the world of Valorant this year has been an incredible honor for us. They’re two of the most respected voices in modern heavy music, and we’re thrilled they brought their own creative vision and emotion to this year’s Champions anthem. Pairing them with Grabbitz, the artistic force behind some of Valorant’s most iconic musical moments, made for an incredible collaboration. The three of them immediately clicked as a creative team, blending their distinct styles into something that feels authentic to each artist while staying true to the spirit of Champions. We can’t wait for players to experience what they created together!”

Chat Pile have shared an official video for their new song “Same Rules.” That track will appear on their new album, “Who Loves The Sun,” which will be out on September 4. Bassist Stin said the following:

“[‘Same Rules‘ is the] first real Chat Pile song mostly recorded on 4-track cassette. Ray B. had given us the challenge to write a trip hop song and this is what we came up with. Unfortunately he’s rejected ‘Same Rules‘ from the challenge as he claims it’s not trip hop at all and that we have to try again. Perhaps we’ll get it right next time.”

Lustmord and Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer) have revealed the details for the debut album from their Lustmord Lombardo project. The effort, which is titled “The Pulse Of Atoms, ” will be out on October 2 and it will feature the following tracks:

01. “An Eternal Presence Part I: Unknown”
02. “An Eternal Presence Part II: Relentless”
03. “Paleomagnetic Resonance”
04. “Beyond The Vast Cold Waste”
05. “The Desolate Shore Part I: Submergence”
06. “The Desolate Shore Part II: Emergence”
07. “The Abyssal Deep”

“Paleomagnetic Resonance” can be streamed below.

Lustmord said the following:

“One thing about an album like this is that you can’t really point it out as being part of any specific genre or hopefully any specific period. Is it from last year? Is it from 10 years ago, is it from 20 years ago, is it from 5 years in the future? It’s trying to create something that has its own sound, not tapping into whatever musical language or history you’re familiar with. It goes way, way further back. This is the sound of planets dying or of stars being born. It’s about a bigger picture. It’s the sound of the birth of the universe and the death of the universe; it’s not rock and roll.”

Lombardo added:

“I’m very proud of this collaboration because it’s so different from anything else that I’ve done. And to create this body of work with Lustmord – this guy is legendary! He rattles the plaster off of venues.”

Ice Nine Kills will be coming to the 2026 edition of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. The band's music will be featured as part of the “Terrifier”-themed Terror Tram. The following was said about that:

“Art the Clown arrives on the Universal Studios Backlot with his blood-soaked bag of presents in tow. But when he realizes he’s too early for Christmas, he hijacks the Terror Tram to start a ho-ho-horrific holiday tradition all his own — complete with music by Ice Nine Kills. Encounter shocking twists on Christmas classics and remember: the best gift is the screams you have along the way.”

Frontman Spencer Charnas added:

“We are forever honored that ‘Terrifier’ writer/director Damien Leone and his team invited us to play in their sandbox of bloodshed. Art himself, David Howard Thornton, killed it in the ‘A Work Of Art’ music video, and we’ve had Damien and several of his cast members at our Silver Scream Cons every year so far. Halloween Horror Nights is among our favorite destinations each season, and our fans love it, too. This is yet another natural step forward in our unnatural world of horror.”

Horror Nights will be held on September 3 through November 1.