DEI Metal Vol. 8: Happy New Year a Few Months Late
Welcome to the first DEI Metal roundup of 2026.
Today is a great day for you and/or your band to make it clear that you are antifascist and that you support transgender rights. And it’s always a great day to listen to metal. In the past I have only featured artists with music that was quite new, usually stuff released in the past few months. But I am now also including things that aren’t necessarily brand new, but are new to me and/or deserve some attention.
Here is stuff worth checking out:
Artist: Ice Giant
Song: “At Tyranny’s End”
No ICE but Ice Giant! Boston’s Ice Giant released their self-titled debut in 2017 (and if anyone has it on CD, I’ve been trying to track down a copy for years & would love to buy it from you). Back then, they had a different logo and a less-polished sound than their second album, Ghost of Humanity, one of my favorite albums of 2023. Over the past couple of years, Ice Giant has been releasing reworked songs from Ice Giant, fattening them up, if you will, to better match the grandiosity of Ghost. As the band puts it on Bandcamp, “This 2026 revamp of ‘At Tyranny’s End’ celebrated the 10th anniversary of Ice Giant by reimagining the band’s first ever song in their modern sound.” There is something mighty beautiful about a band fronted by transgender powerhouse Olive Gallop releasing a fortified version of a song called “At Tyranny’s End” in 2026.
Artist: The Recreant
Album: The Code is V… Outlive the Code
Song: “Voice of Dissent”
Honey, wake up. A new Alicia Cordisco project just dropped! The Recreant pairs Cordisco (guitars, bass, and songwriting) with vocalist Ruby Rockatansky for a “shot of pure anger at what the world has done to marginalized people.” “Voice of Dissent,” which opens with the voice of Daniel Rushing, a Florida man arrested after cops mistook donut glaze on the floor of his car for meth in 2015, is absolutely seething and is the perfect anthem for the times we are living through. In fact, the whole album has the urgency and snarl that made early thrash so visceral and exciting. On Bandcamp, the lyrics are described as an “open wound exposure of experiences of bigotry, abuse, sexual assault, medical genocide, and the draconian prison system in the United States and the horrors trans women in particular face.” The Recreant also does a blazing cover of “Burn the Prisons,” one of my favorite Fourth Dominion songs.
Artist: Alicia Cordisco
Album: My Restless Temple
Song: “Laid to Waste”
Honey, wake up again. We have been blessed with yet another new Alicia Cordisco release. My Restless Temple, Cordisco’s second solo album in as many years, is basically a symphonic power metal festival contained in a single release. Cordisco is joined by a slew of talented collaborators, including a number of different vocalists. On “Laid to Waste,” Cordisco’s former bandmate John Yelland (Judicator) takes the lead on vocals. His voice is great as is Cordisco’s guitar playing and songwriting. According to Cordisco, her goal for this album was to write “short, hooky songs that still have plenty of bite in the guitar playing.” Achievement unlocked, to say the least. She also wanted to give “a platform for the six quest vocalists “to deliver emotionally impactful performance, and bring the personal and fantastical lyrics alike to life.” While some songs reference beasts of steel, monsters slain with swords, and stone giants, the lyrics to “Laid to Waste” feel more personal. “Time is ever marching onward, grief is ever weighing me down inside,” Yelland sings, and then later, “Time is ever marching backwards, how do I lift this weight off my heart?” The lyrics would be right at home on Cordisco’s 2025 solo album The Burden of I, although the sound would not given The Burden of I’s black and death metal leanings. Is there any genre of metal Cordisco isn’t amazing at? I doubt it. Keep your eyes peeled for some post-nu viking-folk black and roll metal next. If anyone can pull it off, it’s her.
Artist: Sunrot
Album: Passages (2025, Prosthetic Records)
Song: “The First Wound”
I’m going to see Ragana in April on their 2026 Midwest-East Coast Tour. Opening for them on some dates is Eudaemon, a band I have featured in DEI Metal before, and on other dates is Sunrot, a band I was not familiar with. So, obviously, I looked them up. They describe themselves on Bandcamp as “compulsive post noise power sludge” and in a 2024 interview as “a sludgy noisy metal band from north New Jersey.” In that same interview, they make clear that they have no time for “NSBM Nazi piss babies.” Sunrot released Passages in 2025, so it’s been out a little over a year at this point. But, like I said, I was living my life Sunrotless, like a damn fool, so it’s new to me. Vocalist Lex Santiago told Decibel that Passages is a companion piece to their 2023 full length The Unfailing Rope, which is fucking excellent. I advise you to pick up both, though I think listening to Rope first helps to contextualize Passages. “The First Wound,” which includes Full of Hell vocalist Dylan Walker, is a somberly exultant treatise on how our earliest harms shape us: “The youngest pain / Rewired your brain,” Lex sings. But Sunrot isn’t rooted in misery. They believe that a better world is possible. But it’s up to us to make that a reality.
Artist: Victim of Fire
Album: The Old Lie (2025, Human Future Records)
Song: “The Old Lie”
Victim of Fire, who call themselves “Denver’s only stadium crust band,” have made one hell of an anti-war album. The Old Lie draws influence from the poetry of Wilfred Owen, a British soldier who was killed in combat at the age of 25 in 1918. In fact, the title track’s lyrics borrow heavily from Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est.” The poem ends with the lines, “The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.” In case you don’t read Latin, that translates to, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country,” which the Internet tells me is from the Roman poet Horace. “The Old Lie is our response to the machinery of propaganda that feeds generations a narrative of war and glory, only to leave them with the cost,” vocalist and guitarist Austin Minney tells Decibel. “This album is also a personal outlet, a way to voice frustrations with the current political climate that I might not express otherwise.” Victim of Fire’s sound is raw and urgent, which is very fitting for the subject matter. But there’s a nice melodic element, too. In addition to Austin on guitar we also have Emily (whose last name I could not find) and their twin guitar attack is “sweet and fitting,” indeed.
Band: Vicious Blade
Album: Relentless Force (Redefining Darkness Records)
Song: “Lunacy”
On March 18, 2023, I went to see Tower play at a little venue on the border of Detroit. Opening the show was Vicious Blade. I had never heard of them before and while I enjoyed watching the show (front woman Clarissa Badini is quite literally a relentless force), I felt like they weren’t really for me. Too heavy, too raw. However, I recently listened to Vicious Blade’s 2024 album Relentless Force and my god is it good. It’s clear to me that back in 2023, it wasn’t that Vicious Blade weren’t right for me, it’s that I wasn’t ready for them. I’ve grown a lot as a listener, broadening my horizons to include heavier and heavier shit such as the face-melting blackened thrash of Vicious Blade. Needless to say, I’m late to the Vicious Blade game. I went to the Decibel Metal and Beer Fest in Philadelphia last year and Vicious Blade were on the bill. I did not get there early enough to watch their set. Man, do I regret that now. If I am lucky enough to be given the opportunity to see them live again I will definitely take it.
Artist: Sylvia Rose
Album: Séance
Song: “End of Bliss”
Episode 612 of the Toilet ov Hell podcast ends with an ethereal song that sounds like an incantation. That song is “End of Bliss” by Sylvia Rose, “a multi-instrumentalist trans woman from Chicago.” According to her Bandcamp page, Séance was “created to channel the trans ancestors that have come before, to seek their guidance and to bring their power and energies forward” by merging “doom metal, shoegaze, noise and neo folk.” The chills I got from “End of Bliss” were very similar to the ones I get when I listen to “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. Sparse and contemplative, both songs feel like they are pleading with an alternate realm; a place that is itself alive despite being inhabited only by those who are no longer living. But while Phil Collins wrote his song after the break up of his marriage, Sylvia Rose’s inspiration is the “trans family that came before” her, a reminder that transgender people have always existed. Sylvia Rose sings of “Carrying stress and weight / Seasons of wanting / Longing to be,” as if she is both acknowledging the strain and suffering trans people have to withstand to simply exist in the present as well as proclaiming that her desire to exist is stronger than the forces that seek to make her disappear.
Artist: Stitched-Up Heart
Song: “GLITCH BITCH”
I recently went to see Sebastian Bach and Stitched-Up Heart, a band I’d never heard of, opened. A few days before the show I listened to a song or two and thought that they were okay, but not really for me. But you know how you see a band live and they just hit different? I ended up really loving their set. At one point, Stitched Up Heart singer Alecia “Mixi” Demner said, “Conquer Divide is in the house.” Now I LOVE Conquer Divide. It wasn’t until after the show that I learned that two members of Conquer Divide provide additional vocals on Stitched-Up Heart’s single “GLITCH BITCH,” which was part of the set that night. Whether those members of Conquer Divide got on stage when the song was performed, I honestly don’t know. I was pretty far from the stage and not familiar enough with the Stitched Up Heart to know who should be on stage at any given time. When I got home I watched the video for “GLITCH BITCH,” which deals with the quest for Internet notoriety and features a slew of influencers and figures that people younger than me might recognize as well as prominently displayed cans of Monster Energy. According to Consequence, “Kiarely ‘Kia’ Castillo and Kristen Sturgis of the band Conquer Divide” share vocal duties and the music video features “a number of goth/emo influencers, as well as Steel Panther front man Michael Starr.” Ok, the Steel Panther part is gross. But everything else is pretty cool. Stitched Up Heart’s latest album, Medusa, comes out June 12.
Artist: Traidora
Album: Una mujer trans sin país
Song: “Disforia eterna”
Thank you to Toilet ov Hell podcast boys Joe and Jordan for introducing me to Traidora in their episode about the 2026 Roadburn lineup. Eva Leblanc started Traidora as a one-woman band in 2023, but it is now a quartet consisting of Leblanc and “three other queer people” (I couldn’t find any of their names). Traidora’s sound is proudly rooted in punk and has been described as “stripped-down D-beat with a certain goth or deathrock quality” and a “direct kick-in-the-face, raw and truly hateful slab of crude hardcore punk.” Leblanc isn’t only trans, she’s also an immigrant. She was born to Chilean parents in Venezuela, then moved back to Chile, and is now living in the UK. Una mujer trans sin país, translates to “a trans woman without a country.” The lyrics of “Disforia eterna” (“Eternal Disphoria”) deal with Leblanc’s experience as a trans woman (“Probably 80% of what I write is about being a trans person,” she told The Devil’s Mouth). “Tu cuerpo: una trampa / Vida equivocada,” Leblanc snarls, which can be translated to “Your body: a trap / Wrong life.” In more than one interview Leblanc makes it clear that queer and trans people are not only welcome at Traidora shows, but they’ll be protected at their shows, too. “If you’re queer, you’re trans, if you’re young especially, people know already they will come to a Traidora gig and feel safe,” LeBlanc tells The Quietus. “If something happens, we will help. It’s an act of resistance what we’re doing as a band.” Damn right it is.
Artist: Harboured
Album: We’re Only The Love That We Lead (2026, Lost Future Records)
Song: “Halifax”
Harboured is Michael Stancel (Allegaeon) on vocals and guitar, Brandon Michael (Allegaeon) on bass, and Cierra White (Oak, Ash & Thorn) on drums. The title of their new album, We’re Only The Love That We Lead, is a good mantra for these fucked up times where loving each other and standing up for ourselves and others and creating community is so important. When I first started to listen to “Halifax,” the band’s latest single, I thought, “Oh, maybe this isn’t metal.” It’s very chill, very atmospheric. But things start to pick up about halfway through with screaming vocals kicking in at about 3:35. I wish I had the lyrics to read because I can’t understand a lot of it. Harboured is from Denver, Colorado and as far as I can tell they are singing in English. Decibel pegs their sound as “post-black metal fury and heavy ’90s alt rock emotional passion” and that is pretty darn accurate. “Our first release (Harboured 2023) was more on this darker /’blackgaze-y’ sound, and it was great, but I found that this one needed to be something that brings more mood and more depth,” Stancil tells Decibel. “We really wanted to make something that felt more personal and emotionally attached to us,” he continued, “but didn’t want it to be too ‘heart on your sleeve,’ ‘oversharing’ or ‘whiny ex-boyfriendcore.’” And thank god for that. There is more than enough “whiny ex-boyfriendcore” out there. From what I’ve heard so far, I will definitely be checking out the full album when it’s out May 22.
Artist: Mellom
Album: The Empire of Gloom (2025, Folter Records)
Song: “The Empire of Gloom”
Mellom, which is Norwegian for “between”, is a German black-death duo consisting of David Hübsch (Odium) on guitars and Skadi (Discreation) on vocals. The Empire of Gloom is their first album, with drums and bass credited to Matthias H. and Beli S respectively. Hübsch told Serial Metalbums that his goal with Mellom “was to create a fusion of black and death metal with atmospheric elements” while avoiding “extremely long songs, aiming instead for a more compact, almost pop-like structure.” The central theme of the album is loss. The title track “captures the essence of Mellom perfectly,” Hübsch said. “It’s a song about the fear of losing a loved one, the pain that follows, and the deep despair that comes with it.” “Your pain will go away / when mine starts to come,” sings Skadi. Then, later, “For what comes after, we can’t be sure / a bleak abyss or an open door.” The theme loss is also reflected in the music itself. Hübsch says the music “takes on different forms. At times, it leans towards a doom-like atmosphere; other times, it adopts a faster pace. Yet, no matter the tempo, there’s always a pervasive sense of melancholy and despair woven into the sound.” Very accurate. This is in many ways a dark record lyrically and sonically, but its unflinching approach to death’s inevitability does provide some measure of comfort and strength.
