Cold Night For Alligators: In A While, Crank Down The Dial

Cold Night For Alligators: In A While, Crank Down The Dial



Reeling from the idea that COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS are gaining listeners from random Spotify radio stations, Nikolaj Lauszus is as nerdishly humble as his Instagram bio would have you believe, “World’s okayest drummer”. “It’s weird to think that people just stumble upon us and actually explore and listen to our music,” he says. “I’ve been playing for so long in all these weird metal bands, so in my mind, people that listen to us have maybe seen us live or just know us a little bit.”
Music & Audio





COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS are Nikolaj Lauszus and vocalist Johan Pedersen, a Danish experimental metal two-piece who are about to embark on a tour with their fellow countrymen, the critically acclaimed blackgaze band MØL. They have traversed the progressive tech metal landscape in various shapes and lineups for almost two decades, but four years ago landed on a softer, more emotionally yielding sound that struck a much louder chord within the metal world. “I usually joke that our singer became a father, and it got a little more sensitive after that, but honestly, it’s nice to have those dynamics to play with. If I want to turn the intensity up to 11 on a song, to me it has more of an impact if it’s not heavy the whole time,” Nikolaj says.

It wasn’t just creative preference that inspired COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS to turn down the tech metal dial of their first two albums and ramp the experimentation. “When we started writing 2022’s The Hindsight Notes, we had no label, and the record before had received zero attention and zero opportunities,” Nikolaj explains. “So we were like, we are going to write something we think is cool. And I mean, it’s not like it blew up, but way more people listened to us after we released that album. With All That’s Left turned out to be even more experimental. I don’t think it’s a quantum leap, but it does have more trumpet.”

“With The Hindsight Notes, we saw people who were clearly connecting to our music in a different way. We started having more experiences of people crying and singing along in the front row. We also saw more women. So it wasn’t just, you know, dudes who came to compare their guitar chops to ours, which was fun.” Having said this, Nikolaj admits he IS that guy at concerts, “I stand with my arms crossed or with my beer next to the sound guy and I watch what the drummer’s doing. If I can impress that guy next to the front of house checking out my drumming, that’s fine. But that’s not really my goal.”

“This is going to come off weird, but I want to hit people right in the guts, right between the eyes. I want to feel that what I’m doing is translating instantly, and then they can critique it, like it or dislike it (I mean, hopefully they don’t completely dislike it). It’s kind of like having a conversation. You can be free to disagree with me, but at the very least, I would like my point to come across as I intend it.”



Alongside the release of their first album as a duo, they put out four music videos, one of which (With All That’s Left) inspired a YouTuber to boldly query in the comments section if it is “a legal requirement for a ridiculously-talented Scandinavian prog drummer to go shirtless?” Nikolaj laughs. “It was required by Johan and Cornelius [Qvist, videographer]. They told me, ‘you’re going shirtless in this’. It wasn’t the most fun to be drumming shirtless in that weather.” The video for the album’s title track is set in a forest, features a shirtless Nikolaj with Johan in all black, and dances in an aesthetic realm somewhere between The Blair Witch Project and the blood-red finale in Evil Dead. “They just decided that we were going to go out and use some really simple lighting and film in a forest at night. And then it started raining and snowing, and I think everyone involved had in the back of their mind that this is gonna be cool, but it might also fail completely,” Nikolaj says. “It was the most black metal thing I’ve ever done.”
Rock Music



“I think it’s also ironic that we chose the song that has the most extra stuff going, this whimsical prog metal thing, for a video that is just two guys playing drums and singing,” Nikolaj says. There was also an element of logic behind this particular video’s creation: “We wanted at least something that was just the two of us, because otherwise it was going to be like: who are these guys?

“I’m an IT consultant,” Nicolaj reveals, as, alas, COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS is very much not his nor Johan’s sole profession. “My colleagues think it’s hilarious. One guy used to be a pretty high level professional footballer and talks about playing against Zlatan Ibrahimovic and then there’s me, ‘I have this tiny metal band that I play drums in’.” What to music fans is the metal version of the Clark Kent / Superman effect, is to many musicians’ colleagues a “hilarious” little hobby. “That’s why you start playing metal, right?” Nicolaj points out. “It’s because…you’re an introverted nerd who can’t play football. So you have to get it out somehow.”

And to anyone wondering if people bid Nicolaj and Johan farewell with a cheery, “see you later, alligator”, the answer is yes. “Many, many times,” Nicolaj laughs, before needing a quick prompt to offer up the only appropriate response to such a farewell, “in a while, crocodile.”

With All That’s Left is out now via Prime Collective. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS128 here:



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lbum NewsMelodic Death MetalMusic VideoNew SongNews

Photo Credit: Matthew Jackson
Album NewsMelodic Death MetalMusic VideoNew SongNews

FIRES IN THE DISTANCE have announced a new album!



The Connecticut-based melodic and melancholic death metal band will release their third full-length album Circadian Promise on June 12th via Prosthetic Records. Following 2023’s Air Not Meant For Us, the album reunites the band with longtime producer Dave Kaminsky and orchestration collaborator Randy Slaugh [TESSERACT, DEVIN TOWNSEND], and introduces new vocalist and guitarist Brendan Hayter.

Speaking on the band’s creative foundation, founding guitarist and songwriter Yegor Savonin says, “our music stems from raw feeling. Each new record depicts a different experience and time period in our lives, with which the sound and atmospherics evolve and reflect this as well.”

Recorded at the Power Station in Connecticut and Studio Wormwood in North Carolina, Circadian Promise continues the band’s exploration of mental health, existentialism and perseverance, this time with a focus on accepting life’s inevitabilities, including aging and death. Despite its bleak themes, the album is rooted in realism and a search for balance and peace. Further expanding on the album’s concept, Savonin adds, “it comes down to acceptance, peace, and calm. Finding that balance in your own life and having the courage to keep going in the face of circumstances which could easily cause devastating effects on the perspective of what is still to come.”

Alongside the album announcement, the band have released the lead single Of Radiance And Levitation, which arrives with an accompanying music video directed by Jayson Cessna. The track was written following the band’s 2024 North American tour with DARK TRANQUILLITY and AMORPHIS.

Explaining the song’s origin, Savonin shares, “that song came together after we came home from our tour with DARK TRANQUILLITY and AMORPHIS. There’s a wave that you’re riding after a long tour like that, which eventually dissipates but serves as a breakthrough from living with depression – like peeking into what it’s like to be ‘normal’.”

Watch the official music video for Of Radiance And Levitation here:



Also, you can view both the track list and artwork for the upcoming new album below:

Track List: Of Radiance And Levitation
To You, Author Of My Fade
Lightless Days Of A Songless Bird
By This Time Tomorrow
Once The Silence Takes Your Place
Agonal Dreaming



Circadian Promise is set for release on June 12th via Prosthetic Records. Pre-orders are available now and can be purchased here.



For more information on FIRES IN THE DISTANCE like their official page on Facebook.

SACREDEATH, New SINGLE "Black Horizon"

SACREDETH is in the studio recording another studio album. The band has released the track "Black Horizon" and "Sonata Dela Muerte," a piano theme reminiscent of horror films, on their social media. The released track, "Black Horizon," evokes bands like Dissection Darkthrone and roots Black/Death metal. According to vocalist/guitarist Alessandro Martins, the songs on this new album are inspired by the destruction humanity is experiencing today, and many songs, like the new single, are based on "Temple of the Black Light" and the book "Azerate." Could this change in musical styles be a reflection of the changes in band members, which today consists of (Alessandro Martins) (Guitar and vocals), Gustavo Fernandez (Bass), and Jonh.Ruch Drums, and is divided between Brazil and Norway? The current music world is plasticized and disposable; all bands sound the same. We live in dark times with wars, destruction, and false humans hungry for power. We want to sound like what we live in today. Darkness is everywhere, inside you. The group's latest release is the EP "Guardian of Death," which came in fourth place in the 2024 Best EP poll according to the Metal with Potato Brazil poll. Watch the video for "BLACK HORIZON."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMrB5_JVuWE

https://linktr.ee/sacredeath.metal
https://www.instagram.com/sacredeath_official/
https://sacredeath.bandcamp.com/album/the-dream-and-illusion

Ov Sulfur: All Life, No Death, Endless Suffering

Ricky Hoover had a problem. The frontman of deathcore bruisers OV SULFUR had expunged himself lyrically on debut record The Burden Ov Faith – a hard-hitting, blistering attack on organised religion – but now the time had come for a follow up, he was suffering from writer’s block.



“He felt he’d said all he wanted to on The Burden Ov Faith,” explains guitarist Chase Wilson, “and he wanted to take a more subtle approach than the confrontational, in-your-face style of that album. He asked me for some ideas, and I said ‘well, we’ve already written Wither and Seed for the record, why not write an album about endless suffering?’”
Metal (Music)



That one question set the foundations for Endless, OV SULFUR’s sophomore release and, while not a direct sequel to its predecessor, focuses on the concept of everlasting life – something many walks of faith preach – and the flip side of that coin. “We expanded that question to ‘what if you had to deal with those things for the end of time?’ What would that feel like? Would you go crazy?” Chase continues, “and that was when we wrote Evermore, which became the centrepiece for the whole album because it goes over the idea of eternal life and the downsides to that.”

Stylistically, Endless largely consolidates OV SULFUR’s abilities at creating pummelling, symphonic deathcore, but there are already seeds coming in of other influences, from the straight up death metal of CATTLE DECAPITATION to the frosty, symphonic black metal stylings of DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH. “Me and Levi [Xul, drums] would send stuff back and forth,” reveals Chase, “and he sent some things where he’d said ‘I don’t know if this fits, but I’d like to use it’ and I fully agreed; it shouldn’t fit, but the overall, sonic amalgamation of things meant it worked.” Chase knows that things could have easily gone the other way, though. “It was a risk doing all of these styles,” he admits, “but I feel as if we managed to combine them into one sound, which is awesome.”

There is no greater example of this than on the aforementioned Wither and the closing track Endless//Loveless, which are a significant departure from OV SULFUR’s regular sound. Wither is a melodic, emotionally weighted song that starts with a voicemail message from Ricky’s late grandmother and finishes with a soundbite of Chase’s late grandfather. “I lost him in 2023 before we went on tour with CHELSEA GRIN,” the guitarist explains. “He was around in the Rat Pack era, did some work as an emcee for clubs and he’s a huge reason why I’m a musician. After I lost him, Ricky lost his grandmother and I then lost both of mine, so it was very cathartic when we were recording the song. When we’d finished, the rest of the band were off celebrating the completion and I started to break down in my corner because I’d finally made the song I’d wanted him to hear.”
Music & Audio





Endless//Loveless, meanwhile, brings in acoustic guitars and, for all the darkness on of the album, provides a glimmer of hope. “It’s still sad,” Chase explains “but the chorus does indeed offer hope. I wrote that about a former relationship where my partner was struggling with me being away so much and this was a kind of lover letter from me to her saying ‘Hey, I understand and I get this, but I’m trying my best’, and it didn’t work out, but the song came out of it and I couldn’t be happier for that!”

Conversely, there’s the opening track Endless//Godless, which is essentially two huge breakdowns. “I just wanted to make something that was pure deathcore and fucking ridiculous!” Chase laughs. He also agrees when Distorted Sound offers up the idea that, in the most complimentary way possible, it’s ‘dumb but fun’. “Absolutely it’s that! It’s caveman music, it’s banging stones against each other!”

Like The Burden Ov Faith, Endless has some guest vocalists in the form of INGESTED’s Josh Davies, CARCOSA’s Johnny Ciardullo and DISTANT’s Alan Grnja, but Chase was keen to ensure the band didn’t lean on them. “We didn’t want to go overboard; we wanted our music to stand on its own. The last album had some bucket list guests, but we didn’t want to overload this one. But we still got some of our friends to be on the record, which is super awesome to me!”

OV SULFUR are heading out across the States as main support to the mighty ORBIT CULTURE from February to April and Chase is stoked to be on tour with a band he describes as one of the best modern metal bands around. He’s tight lipped on dates after that, understandably, but should OV SULFUR make it to these shores, they’d be well worth your time catching.

Endless is out now via Century Media Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS127 here:

Evergrey release new music video for ‘The World Is On Fire’

Photo Credit: Patric Ullaeus






The Swedish progressive metal masters have unveiled The World Is On Fire, taken from their upcoming new album Architects Of A New Weave, which is set for release on June 5th, 2026 via Napalm Records.

The release also marks the official introduction of guitarist Stephen Platt [SCAR SYMMETRY], who officially joins EVERGREY as a full-time member after touring with the band throughout 2025.



Speaking about the new single The World Is On Fire, vocalist Tom S. Englund comments, “The World Is On Fire was one of those rare songs that reached inside me and articulated feelings I hadn’t even fully recognized yet. Once again, our timing, just as with the song Save Us is both haunting and profound. To me, this isn’t just a lament – it’s an uprising. It’s a defiant stand against the forces that thrive on chaos, fear, and silence. They want us scared, quiet, and compliant. But all we want is to raise free-spirited, free-thinking, and independent children who can help build a better world – for us, for them, and for everyone. The devastating lack of compassion and humanity is at the root of everything we see around us. This song isn’t passive acceptance or mere description of our broken reality. It’s us boldly painting a picture of the world we refuse to accept.”

Commenting on the line-up change, the band adds, “we played a lot of shows with Stephen Platt already, he’s an incredibly lovely human being on top of being a brilliant guitar player, we couldn’t be happier to have him join us for real!”

Stephen Platt says, “I’m so happy to become the new guitarist of EVERGREY. I’ve been a fan of the band for a long time now and am extremely honored to have been asked by this group of incredible musicians and people. Looking forward to seeing what the future holds!”

Watch the official music video for The World Is On Fire here:
TV & Video





Architects Of A New Weave is set for release on June 5th, 2026 via Napalm Records. Pre‑orders are available now and can be purchased here.

For more information on EVERGREY like their official page on Facebook.

INTRODUCING: Storm Orchestra

French trio STORM ORCHESTRA were birthed from the underground Paris alternative scene, where they spent time creating their own take on modern alt-rock, combining intricate riffs, catchy choruses and a whole lot of meaning.



Consisting of singer and guitarist Maxime Goudara, bassist Adrien Richard and drummer Loïc Fouquet, STORM ORCHESTRA came out of the gate swinging with their album Get Better featuring both CHUNK! NO! CAPTAIN CHUNK! and JJ WILDE.

Speaking to Max and Loïc from their studio (their camera was literally propped up on a snare drum) they delved into the creation of the band, the album, and how they ended up with two insane features on their album.
Music & Audio



The band initially formed due to Max and Adrien meeting as they studied to become sound engineers, but it wasn’t until 2019 when they met Loïc that STORM ORCHESTRA really started to take shape; to the point where only months after joining the band, they won a competition to open a festival stage in France to an audience of thousands. Reminiscing, Max called Loïc joining the ‘real birth’ of the band.

The name itself came from the band listening to Brainstorm by ARCTIC MONKEYS, deciding to take the ‘storm’ section and combine it with ‘orchestra’ to create their name “we chose to add orchestra as a joke, because there’s only three of us, but we want to create the noise of a whole orchestra,” Max laughs.

The band lean quite a lot into the orchestra section of their name, “when you listen, we use violin sounds quite a lot in our work,” Loíc points out, “it’s actually a dream of ours to put on a big show with a full orchestra,” he adds excitedly, “but it has to be at the Royal Albert Hall!” Interjects Max excitedly, leading them to launch into impassioned discourse on their favourite artists that have performed there.

When asked on how a young band have already got two albums and an EP out, Loïc was quick to say “COVID meant we had a lot of time. We weren’t touring, so we were in the studio, it helped us get our emotions out in the first album.” Since then, they have signed with Mascot Records in 2023, which was a game changer for them. “We had real support through creating our second album, it let us push ourselves to give them something to work on,” Loïc explains.



Their latest album Get Better, was released in 2025, with track Drummer hitting particular success online “that’s the thing with social media and Spotify, this new industry we navigate now, a track just has to be on the right playlist and it can get attention, this is what happened for us,” comments the drummer. “Our music video was a bit more funny, it was a new side of the band for fans, the label helped promoting it too, we didn’t expect it.” Max adds, “we faked me leaving the band and it caused a lot of panic!”
Musical Instruments



Rest assured, the trio are still going strong. “This album is our strongest music, we have a great mix of strong choruses and deeper songs,” Max praises. “There are no fillers, just showcasing different musical parts of the band.”

The album features Bert Poncet of CHUNK! NO, CAPTAIN CHUNK! on Crash the Mirrors and JJ Wilde on Désolé. The collaboration with Bert is described as a “natural progression” by the pair, as he has worked on all of their releases so far and is a “long time collaborator and friend”. “We wanted to start opening up the possibility of collabs, so it was perfect for him to be first,” Loïc comments, “who better than him to help us showcase the heavier side of our band!”

Désolé on the other hand was originally written and recorded with just Max’s vocals, but the band turned to their label and suggested a female voice, to which the label responded with the recommendation of JJ WILDE. “My girlfriend is a huge fan of JJ WILDE, and I wrote this song thinking about her [the girlfriend] so it just fit,” Max chuckles. “She added her own lyrics and harmonies, it was a great combination!”

Though the band don’t have specific messages per songs, their second album overall focuses on the state of the world, global warming, wars and how we have to either be part of the solution or just learn to live through it. “I believe that changing the world starts with changing yourself,” proclaims Max.

As for favourite tracks, Max waxes poetic that his is Superplayer due to the experience of playing it live and having that connection with the audience “there’s a football chant and heavy riffs, we love it, the fans love it, what more do you want?” Loïc’s favourite? Crash the Mirrors and why? “It’s the heaviest!”

Get Better is out now via Mascot Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS126 here:



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INTRODUCING: Pravitas

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INTRODUCING: Pravitas



The tech metal scene has flourished over the last decade with visionaries such as PERIPHERY, TESSERACT and MONUMENTS injecting their own creative spin on the genre established by giants such as MESHUGGAH, CYNIC and ATHEIST. UK-based quintet PRAVITAS have been causing quite a stir in the underground scene since their arrival back in 2014 but they have, by their own admission, let their performances do the talking rather than pushing the social media promotion side of things. Whilst this has allowed them to steadily build their reputation as an impressively tight live band they have realised in this current digital age that it has become a significant part of the process.



“We’ve played hundreds of gigs and that’s no exaggeration. There was a point where we were playing multiple gigs a week,” explains guitarist Joseph Taylor. “We were more focused on being musicians, rehearsing, practising and playing but it has become more apparent that there is a big shift in bands having an online presence now.”



“We’ve not done a lot of promotion over the years, we’ve kind of relied on just playing live shows to help spread the word and it has worked really well but I feel like we’re at the point now where we need to focus on our social media promotion,” admits guitarist Richard Barnes. “We always get positive feedback but we’re bad at telling enough people. We are still trying to get our heads around it all and make some shiny new videos.”

After a few shifts in lineup, PRAVITAS are entering an exciting new chapter with the recruitment of new vocalist Chris Sellers. “We’ve all been good mates for quite a while. Me, Joe and Conor all met at Leeds College of Music,” informs Rich. “Me and Joe started jamming and writing demos together with our original drummer. Our previous vocalist Jack left the band for personal reasons, there was no bad blood. We used to live with Chris at one point and he is in another band called AFTER THE ABDUCTION, so we knew what he could do and it seemed like a no-brainer to get him on board. It took a lot of the stress out of finding someone and wondering whether we would gel and get along.”
Music & Audio





“I actually played bass for PRAVITAS at a few shows back in 2016 so it was great to be able to re-join the band further down the line,” adds Chris.

The impending release of their debut full-length album The Parasitic Divine is just over the horizon and as well as showing the progression in their songwriting abilities through years of grinding around the circuit, it is also a nod to the journey they have experienced thus far. “Some songs are completely new and some of the songs have been written for a long time, back to when we first met,” discusses Rich. “There is a song called The Crustacean which was written as far back as 2014 and was previously released on an EP but we felt we could do it more justice with better production. The album is kind of an anthology of sorts where we have modernised some of our older catalogue and we wanted Chris to put his stamp on them. It was produced by our friend Sam Butterfield at Pitch Black Audio. I like to dabble in mixing but he’s on a completely different level. He’s a wizard.”

“When we were talking about making the album an anthology piece it was quite difficult to whittle the list down of what we wanted to include,” adds bassist Conor Devlin. “We had around an eleven year period’s worth of tracks to choose from and we were conscious that we didn’t want to recycle too much as we want to show our evolution as a band as well.”

“When we’re writing songs we like to have a lot of guitar solos in them,” states Joe. “Me and Rich are really influenced by shred guitarists like YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, JEFF LOOMIS and JOE SATRIANI which also gives our music a bit of an old school vibe as well.”

The dedication to their craft has not gone unnoticed, being rewarded with multiple festival appearances which has only fuelled that fire further. “We’ve played Tech-Fest a few times, as PRAVITAS and as our MESHUGGAH cover band MILK AND TWO ‘SHUGGAH’S where we played the main stage, that was huge,” smiles Rich. “Our previous drummer Don left the band around 2018 so we were searching for a replacement and we have been friends with Les (Harrison) for a long time who is an insane drummer. He comes from more of a jazz background but is really into tech-death. He bailed us out at a really critical time as we were due to play Tech-Fest and he came in as a bit of an emergency situation and learned some of our songs in a matter of days. That was his first show he played with us, the rest is history! We also won Metal 2 The Masses in 2019 and played at Bloodstock. Hearing our single playing on the big screens walking around which was so surreal. I’m also very proud of us for getting this album out too as it’s a lot of hard work getting everything in order and getting the arrangements right. There are so many great bands out there that we want to make sure that we stood out from the crowd. Our first single Defragment has done really well. We got a few thousand views on our video within the first week and I know we’re not pulling huge numbers like METALLICA or anything but for us it shows we’re growing and we’re really happy about that. We’ve also released Monolith which shows the groovier side to our sound as opposed to the crazy, technical, note-filled music most people probably know us for.”

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