Photo credit: Ville Jurrikkala
Keefy sits down with Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost to explore their latest studio effort, Ascension, released September 19, 2025 via Nuclear Blast Records. This is the band’s 17th album, their most refined work in years, blending gothic metal and death/doom with a clear creative focus. Nick explains how the songwriting process has evolved, self-producing, and how they balance heaviness and melody while staying true to the Paradise Lost sound. Continue reading
For reasons best known to themselves, some bands deliberately go out of their way to disguise their influences and inspirations. Feral are not some bands. One listen to To Usurp the Thrones (Transcending Obscurity Records) and everything is perfectly clear. Continue reading
Day 4 – Sunday
What a difference a day makes. May 26th marked the last day of this Maryland Deathfest, my birthday, and my one-year anniversary (my fiancé flew in to join me for this day).
This was a wild day. Security was smoother but there were so many sets to see to finish the day. Some of them, legendary, and I was sure to catch a little bit of a lot today. I took my fiancé to see the marketplace lined with tents, each filled with merch and metal-adjacent goods. My fiancé had a one-day pass, which we would come to find meant she could not go inside to the two main indoor venues. We found a way to do so, however, (first accidentally, then by luck), and we caught parts of twelve different sets. It was wild. Continue reading