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Articles by JP Pallais
heaven in her arms’ ”Zanka” Is the Remaining Flower That I’ll Preserve Until the End of Time
From an objective standpoint, 2026 has undeniably been a stellar year when it comes to music releases. That being said, there hasn’t been an album that truly, truly resonates with me on a cellular level where I can feel it breathe life into my withering soul. If I’m lucky, I discover one album like this a year (Vines in 2025 and State Faults in 2024 for example), but that hasn’t always been the case.
Demersal Re-Emerge From the Bottom of the Sea With Their Newest Single, ”Du Ligner Din Far”
If I had to designate any specific form of music to represent the sheer and transient ecstasy of finally relieving a long-held, nearly bursting bladder, it would easily be non-English screamo/skramz for me.
Iapetus – “The Mother Void”
Release date: October 16, 2026 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Website There are a multitude of bands out there in which fans have been waiting for what seems like a millennium for a new release, leaving us questioning if that day will ever even come.
Floating Points & San Francisco Ballet Orchestra – “Mere Mortals”
Release date: August 28, 2026 | Deutsche Grammophon | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Website Believe it or not, being chronically behind on music comes with its advantages from time to time. There once was a time when an album would be announced a typical amount of time prior to release and from then on, I’d agonizingly be forced to count the minutes until I could listen to it months later at midnight like a desperate ghoul.
Hollie Kenniff & Kazuma Okabayashi – “The Last Bright Place”
Release date: August 14, 2026 | Nettwerk Music Group | Bandcamp | Hollie Kenniff Facebook | Instagram | Kazuma Okabayashi Instagram Being able to find the time and willpower to sit down, appreciate, and then write about music has become quite a rare occurrence for me these days; it certainly does not help that I’m egregiously behind on new music releases and continue to dig myself further in that hole with each passing minute of every tortuous day.
If Only the Delightfully Blissful Musical Harmony on Epitaphe’s ”Transient” Wasn’t as Transient as It Felt
I’m always up for when a heavy-ass band strays a little from their typical material and drops a clean/acoustic type of song. The hood classic that best exemplifies this is Death‘s “Voice of the Soul” (RIP Chuck), meanwhile a more recent example would be First Fragment‘s “Sonata en Mi Mineur”.
You Could Always Use Some Company in the Form of MISERE and Their New Track, ”GEISTERBAHN”
There once was a time in which the only thing that mattered to me about music was the complexity and production value. Everything needed to be over-the-top complex (a naive form of self-assurance that led me to believe I was more sophisticated than I truly was at the time) and sound as polished as can be.
If I Die Today Strikes a Match in the Dark With “Light”
Crust is one of those genre descriptors that makes zero sense to me, yet it simultaneously makes all the sense in the world once you actually hear the music with your own ears. Similar to how ‘crunch’ is used to describe guitar tone with distortion/high gain (which also applies here), that term doesn’t help at all in describing sound when I sit and overthink it.
WFA: Overhead, The Albatross
‘I hope one day I can look at death and understand it as nothing but a step’ I often find myself in the headspace of where I am preemptively mourning the loss of those around me despite them still walking this mortal plane; Counterparts’ “A Eulogy For Those Still Here” couldn’t be more appropriately titled and lyrically, it is something I connect deeply with.
∞ – “Kuinka Löydän Luoksesi”
Release date: March 20, 2026 | Datura Projects | Instagram | Bandcamp Long gone are the days where I froth at the mouth over a 15-minute prog epic, the kind that’s the “prologue” to a five-song suite kicking off a trilogy of conceptual albums. I always naively thought that “more is more”; the math checks out, right?
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas – “Mariner”
Release date: April 8, 2016 | Indie Recordings | Cult of Luna Facebook | Instagram | Website | Julie Christmas Instagram Collaborative records carry a certain level of risk and reward; in the case of Swedish veterans Cult of Luna and Battle of Mice/Made Out Of Babies vocalist Julie Christmas, the risk was taken and highly rewarded with the creation of a now legendary post-metal record that’s beloved far beyond the confines of the subgenre.
Sacralvna - "Ritual/compulsión" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: February 17, 2026 | Brunzit Records | Bandcamp | Instagram The current state of music (which I like to refer to as the music industrial complex) has slowly morphed into an indomitable, mindless behemoth that has tragically extended far beyond the point of no return; we are so cooked.
The Musical Necromancer BOY WITCH Is Here to Summon the ”Ghost” That Will Forever Haunt You
With as many music videos as I’ve seen in my lifetime (even dating back to the days of good ol’ MTV), the more I’ve come to realize that I only ever actually care for music videos in which the band/artist is hardly in them, if at all. I don’t want to see people miming their performances with unplugged instruments out in the middle of a field or in a massive empty warehouse filled with dozens of tube lights.
Fabiano Do Nascimento & E Ruscha V
Release date: January 21, 2026 | Music From Memory | Bandcamp | Fabiano Do Nascimento Facebook | Instagram | Website | E Ruscha V Instagram In my writing, I find myself frequently circling back to this idea of music being a vessel to experience things that would otherwise go unexperienced; here I am back at it, yet again to no one’s request.
Find Some Much Needed Mental Solace In Magnify The Sound’s ”Searching for a quiet place”
With each passing day, the urge to suddenly go off the grid and become a completely self-sufficient hermit becomes more and more tempting; if only I had the money to make that happen. While cutting oneself off from the rest of humanity seems like a brilliant idea at first, especially for my own mental well-being given the abysmally bleak news cycle that gets hilariously even more hopeless with each passing day, I can already anticipate the loneliness becoming the biggest challenge I’d face.
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore
Release date: January 16, 2026 | InFiné | Bandcamp | Julianna Barwick Facebook | Instagram | Mary Lattimore Facebook | Instagram Much like two shooting stars colliding for a second time, Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore unite yet again, this time for a full-fledged effort that the world does not deserve. On Tragic Magic, they showcase everything that they’ve been highly revered for across their musical careers thus far.
INTER CLAUS 7: Seven Times The Charm, Kiddo
In this dim year’s turning when frost grips the land, and nations speak in thunder that none may understand, the streets are thick with rumors and dread on every face. Hope walks hooded and slow through time’s unkind place. The bells still toll at Christmas, yet they sound more like a bruise than a cheer. For hearts are worn and scattered by the weight of doubt and fear. Old stars seem pale from watching. The night is long and wide. And many souls wander with unsatisfied faith.
Raphael Weinroth-Browne - "Lifeblood" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 3, 2025 | Anamnesis Arts | Website | Facebook | Bandcamp If you’ve been an active, or even just a casual, listener of the modern prog rock and metal sphere, chances are you’ve heard Raphael Weinroth-Browne’s orchestral musings on at least twelve separate occasions. It is now an unspoken requirement for anyone putting together a prog record to ‘inquire with Weinroth-Browne about a possible feature’.
The Reticent - "please" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: November 13, 2025 | Generation Prog Records | Website | Facebook | Bandcamp Buckle up, it’s a long one today. I am a firm believer that the world would be a far better place if we all had to go through experiencing a certain set of stories, told through books, films, or music, that stripped away our comfort and forced us to feel the weight of someone else’s pain for once.
An Abstract Illusion - "The Sleeping City" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 17, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Purchase/Stream In the unforgiving tundra of progressive death metal, An Abstract Illusion’s The Sleeping City emerges as a colossus, hewn from the frozen marrow of innovation and ambition. Following the seismic impact of Woe a mere three years prior, this latest offering arrives with the ferocity of a winter gale, its synth-laden expanse reshaping the genre’s horizon.
FIRST DRAFT Provides Encouragement That All is Not Lost in This Troubled World With "An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn"
I’m not going to beat around the bush: Everything Is Noise is doing an exclusive full album premiere for FIRST DRAFT‘s debut LP, An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn, which you can find below with a single flick of your thumb or 153° clockwise rotation on your mouse scroll wheel.
The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
Release date: August 22, 2025 | Epitaph Records | Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Purchase/Stream With the 24/7 news cycle constantly one-upping itself day after day with something either depressing as all hell or comedically pathetic, I find the only way to maintain a sliver of sanity in today’s day-and-age is to disconnect and immerse myself in the things that make (my) life worth living; those things being my family and religiously listening to music.
The Only Way to Properly Enjoy IAN’s ”Fennel” is While Wearing a Sweaty, Green Morphsuit
When it comes to heavy music, more often than not the music itself is a direct reflection of the lived experiences from those who composed the music. It is no secret whatsoever that metal music is synonymous with the not-so-pretty parts of life; tragedies, grief, political injustices, you name it. It makes perfect sense that out of all the genres of music, this is the one that must bear the weight of things that frustratingly cannot be answered for, no matter how much we want it to be.
Maruja - "Pain to Power" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: September 12, 2025 | Music For Nations | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp In case you already weren’t aware, there is a major clanker crisis that has been stealthily creeping into the music industry (what hasn’t been tainted by AI these days…) with the sole intent of sucking every last dollar from listeners that it can.
Vines - Everything Is Noise
If you frequent Everything Is Noise, you’ll likely recall an unnecessarily lengthy album review published recently for an artist who goes by Vines. Their music is something I was completely enamored with (I still am and always will be), hence I lunged at the opportunity to review the new album the instant its release was announced to the world.
Boneflower - "Reveries" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: July 25, 2025 | Deathwish Inc. | Facebook | Bandcamp | Merch Within the (sub)genre of post-hardcore, I’m noticing that I only care to keep up with bands that lean more on the skramz side of things. The older I get, the less I care about superficial things such as hyper-polished production value, catchy hooks, and overly self-indulgent instrumental displays (ahem, swancore); all of which are nice features to have, but they are low bearing fruits in the grand scheme of things.
Vines - "I'll be here" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: July 18, 2025 | Independent | Website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Linktree Have you ever come across an album in which you instantly feel that it was made for no one else in the world other than yourself alone? An album that you’ve been endlessly dreaming of without even realizing it, only for it to serendipitously emerge when you need it most as if summoned from the deepest corners of your subconscious.
With "Fragile Immortals", Phantom Heir Holds a Mirror to a World That No Longer Recognizes Itself
Having to wake up in the morning each day is proving to be more exhausting with every successive rotation of the Earth. As if the world couldn’t be on fire enough, there is always something new that is either absolutely horrendous or comedically stupid-yet-also-just-as-awful that just adds even more fuel to the seemingly inextinguishable proverbial flames that encroach on our happiness, rights, and long-term existence as a species.
loscil - "Lake Fire" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: May 2, 2025 | kranky | Facebook | Bandcamp | Website Over the past couple years, I’ve found myself becoming more and more acquainted with and invested in the mystical wonders of ambient music. I remember a time way back when I thought ambient was the most boring thing ever and that it could barely even qualify as music because there was ‘nothing’ going on; oh, how naïve I was.
Vildhjarta - "+ där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: May 30, 2025 | Century Media Records | Facebook | Bandcamp Vildhjarta is very much a name that speaks for itself. This Swedish group of musical savants spearheaded the movement of progressive metal and djent (referred to as THALL) beyond what was already achieved by the legendary Meshuggah towards something that couldn’t have been envisioned by anyone else on this Earth.
With “Everett”, Shifting Heigo Dives Into the Void Where New Realities Reshape the Mind
With all that has been going on in the world lately (the biggest understatement of all time), I’ve found a considerable amount of comfort in ambient music. This amorphous form of squiggly air reliably acts as a reliable mental reset, with soothing soundscapes that help me re-align my bruised and battered mind with my inner biological processes and that of the surrounding nature.
Maruja - "Tír na nÓg" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: February 21, 2025 | Music For Nations | Website | Facebook | Bandcamp I’m sure many of us recall when Black Country, New Road broke out into the scene in 2021 with their debut record. I vividly remember the exact thing that excited me the most when I heard For the first time for the first time (unintentional, I swear) was the erratic jazzy build-ups and crescendos, notably in “Instrumental” and “Opus”.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Alcest
Release date: March 26, 2010 | Prophecy Productions | Instagram | Website | YouTube Black metal and shoegaze walk into a bar. A French musician looks and them and thinks: ‘I ship it.‘ And that, kids, is how we got blackgaze. Sounds made up, mainly because it is. Still, we have a single French metalhead to thank for the creation of this unlikely pairing of musical styles: Neige, mainly know as the mastermind behind blackgaze pioneers Alcest.
MIRAR - "Ascension" - Everything Is Noise
I’m getting serious déjà vu as I sit down to write this as it wasn’t that long ago that I was just talking about MIRAR‘s Mare. After such a really exciting debut EP, I wouldn’t have expected a full length to follow suit in such a short period of time, especially one of this quality.
Datûra - Everything Is Noise
I’m the type of music listener that lives off the high of finding new music, always on the hunt for something that will lay my expectations to waste.
State Faults - "Children Of The Moon" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: July 26, 2024 | Deathwish Inc. | Facebook | Bandcamp It’s been just over six years and there still hasn’t been a single record that has moved me as deeply and profoundly as Rolo Tomassi’s Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It; there has been a lot that comes close but nothing quite on that level.
Zeitgeber Wants to Reset Your Inner Biological Clocks With ”Innenwelt”
While music is my escape from the world, as it is for many people around the world, I was not expecting to get reminded of and have to think of work outside of work upon seeing the name Zeitgeber. I am in the field of biological research, mainly focusing on neuro-metabolism, and zeitgebers are external/environmental signals, such as light or feeding cues, that help regulate our circadian rhythm, simply known as our inner biological clock.
toe - "NOW I SEE THE LIGHT" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: July 10, 2024 | Machu Picchu Industrias Inc./Topshelf Records | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Purchase/Stream There is a saying that goes around that if everyone in the world could hypothetically smoke/consume marijuana, the world would be an infinitely better place.
Mountaineer - "Dawn and All That Follows" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: July 26, 2024 | A Thousand Arms | Facebook | Bandcamp It is no secret that Everything Is Noise are massive fans of WFA alum, Mountaineer, and for good reason too. We’ve covered their two latest works (Bloodletting & Giving up the Ghost) and with the upcoming release of their newest effort, Dawn and All That Follows, we feverish jumped at the opportunity to keep the streak alive.
MIRAR - "Mare" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: June 10, 2024 | Independent | Bandcamp The godfathers of djent, Meshuggah, gave rise to a whole subgenre (or playstyle depending on who you ask) of metal with most modern bands incorporating influences of this style into their music to this very day. Out of all these bands, Vildhjarta stand apart from the rest and have even inspired their own sub-subgenre of music referred to as ‘thall’.
Joey Valence & Brae
Release date: June 7, 2024 | Independent | Facebook | Artist Website We’re a few weeks into summer now, and if you’re by chance searching for a rager of an album to keep your spirits up during the high heat index and construction traffic, look no further as I have just the thing for you. Joey Valence & Brae’s NO HANDS is a bombastic record that is rooted in east coast hip hop but with a modern twist in its hyper-energetic bravado and comedic nostalgia.
Prepare for Takeoff With Shun’s Newest, Grungy Single, ”Aviator”
While we at Everything Is Noise and our readers tend to endlessly scour the depths of the worldwide web for the next best piece of music that blows our expectations to smithereens, no matter how obscure or experimentally abstract it may be, the persistent hunt for that type of thing gets to be mentally taxing at times, especially considering the sheer amount of music out there.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Casualties of Cool
Devin Townsend. *uproarious standing ovations* I genuinely believe I might as well have left it at that, because what the hell am I going to say about the man without risking repetition? His body of work speaks for itself quite eloquently, too.
Locusts and Honey's Bleak Single "Leathern Cord" Is One of Biblically Profound Proportions
If you want to talk about album titles that go hard, Locusts and Honey‘s Teach me to live that I dread the grave as little as my bed should be part of the conversation. Just a quick glance at it can already lead to multiple interpretations forming in my mind, but the one that stands out is wanting to live life to the absolute fullest, so that we welcome the big sleep with open arms as much as we do any other night in which we’re exhausted and look forward to collapsing in bed.
Eidola - "Eviscerate" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: April 12, 2024 | Rise Records | Facebook | Band Website Eidola is one of those bands I vividly remember the time and place when I had discovered them, which in my case happened to be on the release day of Degeneraterra back in May of 2015 while I was in between classes during undergrad – an extremely transformative year for me for a multitude of reasons.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: maudlin of the Well
‘Enigmatic’ doesn’t even begin to cut it when talking about Toby Driver and his longstanding career of presenting audiences with the most brain-twisting, progressive, and artful rock/metal imaginable. Kayo Dot is somewhat of a household name these days, but it was with his previous project maudlin of the Well that he left his first synapse-contorting impact on the music scene.
Part I" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: April 26, 2024 | M-Theory Audio | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp Atmospheric black metal that comes out of Minnesota is that of a different breed. Being a MN native myself, I have and always will proudly represent these local bands to the day I die. While we may not necessarily have the sheer quantity of bands out there, we most certainly have those that put out nothing but utmost quality (and then some – see Panopticon and Ashbringer).
Gaze Into the Endless Cosmic Abyss With ”I, Empyrean” From Urzah
While Converge and Chelsea Wolfe‘s Bloodmoon: I was mostly met with praise, its forward-thinking take on sludge/metalcore/hardcore left the fans who want nothing but relentless face-melting riffs and bone-chilling screams in the dark. Apparently that album was a little too much on the meditative, musically meandering side of things but alas, couldn’t be me as I adore that type of stuff.
abriction - "Banshee" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: February 9, 2024 | Independent | Instagram | Bandcamp | Listen/Stream As much as I love to write about artists that I already enjoy and am familiar with, I find myself gravitating towards releases that are completely new discoveries when it comes to writing reviews.
Olhava - "Sacrifice" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: January 26, 2024 | Avantgarde Music | Facebook | Bandcamp Like many genres and subgenres, black metal is one that comes in many different forms and flavors. It is nowhere near as one dimensional as people who haven’t given it more than a passing glance deem it to be.
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