Metal has always been the genre most comfortable with its own contradictions. It traffics in beauty and ugliness simultaneously, in vulnerability dressed up as aggression, in the tender things men and women cannot quite bring themselves to say aloud without a wall of distortion to hide behind. Brussels five-piece Karma Noir understand this instinctively. On "This Is Her Time," their debut single, they have made something that announces itself with the force of a band who have been waiting — perhaps impatiently — to say exactly this.

**Somewhere between Birmingham and the earth's lower crust, two people have figured something out.** The history of rock and roll is, when you strip away the mythology and the merchandise, a history of reduction. Take away what isn't needed until only the essential remains — the nerve ending, the blunt instrument, the thing that makes the neighbours complain. The Velvet Underground knew it. The White Stripes knew it. And now, lurking in a garage somewhere in the West Midlands with nothing more than drums, a Bass VI and two voices that sound like they've been gargling gravel soaked in righteous fury, dredge — lower case, thank you — know it too.

Punk rock has always thrived on borrowed mythology. From the Clash dragging Jamaican rebellion into the grey slabs of South London, to the Misfits ransacking B-movie horror for their imagery, the genre has never been shy about finding its fury somewhere other than the strictly autobiographical. So when North Jersey veterans I.D.K. announce their return after seventeen years of silence by planting their flag squarely inside the fictional prison complex of Narkina 5 — that salt-white hellhole from *Star Wars: Andor* — the move feels not merely defensible but genuinely inspired.

Australian artist Clare Easdown presents her new project and this is the band The Cunning Linguists which also includes Jade Ryan. Their single 'BURN THE SWASTIKA' has already been released and showed the collaboration of two talented musicians and producers.

The British band Tritonic has released their new six-track EP 'Algae Bloom'. The release took place on September 10. This work really expands the framework of punk and hardcore as mentioned by guys and we fully agree with this thesis.