The track wastes little time establishing its atmosphere. Driven by crushing guitar riffs, textured drums, and haunting motifs, it draws us into a soundscape that is both aggressive and theatrical. Fusing the spirit of 90s hard rock with the heavier edge of contemporary metal, Kings County strike an interesting balance between infectious melodies and unapologetic intensity. Subtle glam-rock flourishes in the guitar work add further character to an arrangement that never quite lets up.

The song takes us into a world of midnight infatuations, questionable attractions, and blurred intentions. Lines like “No storybook happy ending / From a smoke filled magazine” introduce an almost cinematic sense of disillusionment, while references to desire and monetary attraction hint at a relationship caught somewhere between fascination and dependency. The recurring chorus, “We’re living face to face to get away from the dead of night,” captures the struggle to outrun something lurking beneath the surface.

This ambiguity connects with the band’s own interpretation of the track. Vocalist Rob Dexter describes it as an exploration of the darkness we carry within and the silent battles that shape who we become. His commanding, larger-than-life delivery, inspired by Rob Zombie, adds another layer of theatrical intensity, particularly against the track’s soaring melodic chorus.

Interestingly, the song underwent a complete musical rethink during its writing process. With the lyrics already in place, the band decided to start over when the original direction failed to capture their vision. Recorded with producer Chuck Alkazian, the final arrangement brings everything together with impressive cohesion.

“The Dead of Night” by Kings County goes beyond its hard-hitting exterior to explore the complexities of human nature and the shadows that accompany it. It’s an intense blend of attitude and introspection, leaving us with the thought that sometimes the things we struggle to confront are the very things that bring us closer to understanding ourselves.

On release, Control hit #1 on Apple Music Romania’s Metal and Rock Album Charts and reached the Top 10 across all genres. Release single “Earthquake” also topped Apple Music Romania’s “Best New Songs.”

Control is an enthralling ride from beginning to end, with explosive moments that keep you wondering what’s next. It opens with “Earthquake,” which begins on a blooming synth harmony that serves as the overture to the whole record. The sound is familiar enough to draw comparisons to Linkin Park, Enter Shikari, and Bring Me The Horizon, but what HVNDS have built is entirely their own. Tracks like “Breathe” and “Gravity” pair radio-ready hooks with dark, brooding soundscapes.

Lead singer Iustin is a powerhouse vocalist ready to command arena crowds. You can hear it in the way he leads the chants that open “Blood,” and in the deathcore fry and guttural he bellows on “Another World.” His versatility shows on lead single “Baba Yaga,” where he sings in a softer timbre.

Lyrically, the album is laden with religious references that question the character of human beings. “Hallelujah” reckons with how evil people can walk the earth while claiming to be just in the name of their god. “Until There’s Nothing To Burn” warns of demons while a Mick Gordon-esque guitar riff pounds through your chest.

The record also shows that HVNDS are more than students of heavy music. A liquid drum and bass beat opens the title track, “Control.” “Another World” has a Nine Inch Nails moment. “Arriba” is a bombastic salsa fusion that Don Broco wishes they’d thought of first.

It closes with “DOR,” a song about carrying heartbreak in one hand and hope in the other: being grateful for love while feeling the emptiness it leaves behind. “DOR” also became a radio success in Romania, joining the heavy rotation at ROCK FM.

The fan-favourite lead singles are “Blood,” “Baba Yaga,” and “DOR.”

Over the past few years, HVNDS have built a reputation as one of the most intense and emotionally charged acts in the region, with festival-ready music that hits hard, sings deep, and dares to be vulnerable. They don’t play at you. They pull you into something you already know by heart, even if it’s your first time hearing it.

Their first highly acclaimed record, Animal, arrived in 2022, followed by Sintetic in 2023. Both reached #1 Rock Album on Apple Music Romania, and each carried the band higher than the last, to sold-out record release shows for 1,000+ people. Breakout single “Vin Vin Plec Mort” was placed in Teambuilding, Romania’s highest-grossing film to date.

HVNDS have played major festivals including Electric Castle, Untold, Neversea, and Beach, Please!, sharing lineups with Bring Me The Horizon, Travis Scott, Twenty One Pilots, Massive Attack, and Iggy Pop.

HVNDS kicked off their headlining 10-date tour in support of Control on Friday, 23rd October. The campaign leads into a European run and their ESNS 2027 showcase. Tickets and merchandise are available on the band’s website.

SUNMACHINE comprise Kieran Osborne on vocals, Jacob Wix on guitar and backing vocals, Ross Shelley-Pilsworth on bass and synth, and Ethan Larcombe on drums. Following their debut album The Nova Effect and singles like “Mercy Killing” and “Heart Of Gold”, the quartet continue to develop their blend of heavy and alternative rock, drawing on influences ranging from TOOL and Alter Bridge to Linkin Park and Green Day.

Across Elevator Music, that combination gives the EP its character. Heavy riffs and forceful instrumentation meet melodic passages that allow the music room to breathe. Rather than sticking to one emotional register, SUNMACHINE explore the space between intensity and introspection, balancing the energy of a band built for the stage with a more vulnerable approach to songwriting.

At the heart of the release sits “Fable”, a dark, emotionally charged track exploring heartbreak, desire, and the struggle to find meaning after loss. The repeated plea, “And I’m begging you to give me / Something more,” captures the frustration of searching for answers when a relationship falls apart. Images of angels, tragedy, and a dying sun give the song an almost apocalyptic atmosphere, while its emotional core remains deeply personal.

The track balances heaviness with melody, building an anthemic quality around its introspective lyrics. Its title adds another layer to the story: “We are building a different fable” suggests the possibility of rewriting a narrative that no longer makes sense. Rather than offering a neat resolution, SUNMACHINE leave us somewhere between longing and defiance, making the track’s emotional tension all the more compelling.

The band’s collaborative approach extends to the recording process, with the quartet writing their material together and developing ideas through rehearsal-room jams. Shelley-Pilsworth produced the EP in-house, alongside assistant engineer Greg Kovacs and mastering engineer Chris Pavey. The result reflects a band committed to maintaining creative independence while refining their sound.

Elevator Music is anything but background noise. By combining heavy riffs, melodic hooks, and moments of vulnerability, SUNMACHINE deliver a release that explores the emotional possibilities of heavy rock. “Fable” stands out as a compelling centrepiece, but the EP’s broader appeal lies in its contrasts. With Elevator Music, SUNMACHINE prove they aren’t content to stay on the same floor for long!

Written by Michael Stover, the track takes the familiar rock-and-metal mythology of “selling your soul” and reverses it completely. Instead of a bargain associated with temptation, fame or destruction, Stover presents surrender to Christ as the transaction that ultimately leads to freedom.

It is a simple idea, but it gives the song an instantly memorable identity.

The opening lyric establishes the message immediately: “It was a deal that changed my life / The day I let my savior take control.” From there, Ashes Awaken wastes little time establishing the track’s spiritual center. This is not a song that relies on vague references to faith or hides its Christian message behind generalized language. “We Sold Our Souls to Heaven” is direct, intentional and unapologetic.

That confidence gives the single much of its power.

The chorus is built around the title phrase, and it functions exactly as a strong metal hook should: concise, provocative and easy to remember. “We sold our souls to heaven” sounds almost contradictory at first, which is precisely why it sticks. The phrase invites listeners to reconsider the traditional meaning of surrender and the cultural baggage attached to the idea of “selling one’s soul.”

Here, surrender becomes an act of liberation.

Throughout the song, Stover returns to themes of fear, pain, uncertainty and second chances. “When you are lost what will you do?” the lyric asks before pointing toward Christ as the source of healing and direction. The writing is straightforward rather than abstract, allowing the song’s emotional impact to come from conviction instead of complexity.

That approach should connect naturally with listeners in the Christian rock and metal communities, particularly those drawn to music that addresses struggle without minimizing it.

One of the song’s strengths is that it does not present faith as a guarantee of an easy life. Darkness still exists in the world of “We Sold Our Souls to Heaven.” So do regret, brokenness and personal battles. The difference is that Ashes Awaken frames faith as the force that makes those battles survivable.

That distinction gives the track more emotional weight than a conventional inspirational anthem.

Musically, the song sits comfortably within the project’s established Christian metal identity, pairing a forceful, dramatic atmosphere with explicitly faith-centered songwriting. The heaviness is not there merely for contrast. It reinforces the idea that redemption can be intense, difficult and transformative.

In a broader sense, “We Sold Our Souls to Heaven” also demonstrates why Christian metal remains such a durable niche within contemporary heavy music. Metal has always been drawn to questions of mortality, judgment, spiritual warfare and the eternal. Ashes Awaken simply approaches those themes from a perspective of hope rather than nihilism.

The result is a single that understands its audience while still finding a distinctive angle.

There is also an undeniable marketing strength in the title itself. “We Sold Our Souls to Heaven” is the kind of phrase that can spark curiosity before a listener hears a single note. But importantly, the song delivers enough substance behind the title to prevent the concept from becoming a gimmick.

By the final chorus, the contradiction at the heart of the phrase no longer feels contradictory at all.

Ashes Awaken has taken one of rock music’s most familiar ideas and rewritten the contract.

This time, surrender isn’t the price of losing everything.

It’s the beginning of getting something back.

The album opens with The Beast With My Name, immediately establishing a world in which authority and destruction are inseparable. Its central figure builds a kingdom only to become consumed by the violence that sustains it. “I made a kingdom out of ash / Now it’s my turn,” the lyrics declare, framing power as a self-defeating pursuit. The track’s relentless aggression reinforces this collapse, introducing one of the album’s recurring ideas: those who wield destruction in the name of a greater cause may eventually become its victims.

That contradiction takes centre stage in The Ashen Gospel – I. Before the Banners Burn, the first instalment of the album’s three-part narrative backbone. Here, salvation is presented as a political instrument, with promises of righteousness concealing a desire for control. “You built your throne from fear and silence / You fed the crowd a holy lie” exposes the mechanisms through which belief can be manipulated into obedience. The ensuing rebellion appears to offer an escape, but the album leaves room for a more troubling possibility: resistance may challenge the symbols of authority without necessarily dismantling the structures that give them power.

In The Ashen Gospel – II. When the Banners Burn, that possibility becomes a devastating reality. The conflict escalates, and the rhetoric of liberation gives way to the brutality of competing factions. “No peace / No throne / No light / No savior!” captures a world in which the promise of a better order has dissolved into a struggle for survival. The banners may fall, but the desire to dominate remains. Rather than presenting revolution as an uncomplicated victory, Wildcard Campfire explores how movements born in opposition can become trapped in the same logic of coercion they initially sought to overcome.

The album’s political concerns become more pointed on The Tion Revolution, where rapid-fire wordplay turns oppression, distraction, and institutional control into a relentless verbal barrage. “Revolution, burn in my head / Evolution, back from the dead” captures the tension between the desire for transformation and the difficulty of escaping established patterns. The track complements The Ashen Gospel by widening the scope of the critique: manipulation is not sustained by force alone, but also through language, ideology, and the narratives societies accept as truth. A revolution can change the vocabulary of power without changing its underlying grammar.

Yet Where God Grew Tired does not confine its exploration of control to rulers and institutions. On Paradise Has Walls, the struggle becomes intimate, as love encounters the barriers imposed by religious or social expectations. “Your love became my holy war” recasts romantic longing as a conflict against forces that dictate who may love whom. The imagery connects private rebellion to the album’s wider concerns, suggesting that the mechanisms of authority operate not only through kingdoms and political movements, but also through the boundaries imposed on individual lives. The language of faith can offer belonging and meaning, but it can also be used to justify exclusion.

Elsewhere, the album turns from external systems of control to the damage they leave within individuals. The Ghosts of My Past shifts towards a more melodic and introspective sound, bringing guilt and trauma into focus. “What you cannot heal / You learn to carry” offers a quieter counterpoint to the record’s larger conflicts. The line suggests that even when the immediate source of suffering disappears, its consequences endure. In Shackles of Blood, that burden becomes more claustrophobic: “I built my prison / I can’t be saved” captures the moment when guilt and self-perception become another form of confinement. The movement between these tracks and the album’s grander political narrative creates a meaningful parallel: just as societies can perpetuate destructive systems, individuals can become trapped in patterns they struggle to escape.

For all its darkness, however, Where God Grew Tired makes space for absurdity. Khinkali Inferno turns a Georgian dumpling feast into a chaotic battle cry, with “Juice on my knuckles, fire in my heart” capturing its exaggerated, gleefully unruly spirit. The track provides a striking tonal shift, interrupting the album’s ideological conflicts with food, humour, and communal excess. The Legend of the Shanenigator pushes the absurdity further, transforming domestic chaos into an outsized legend about a tiny, unstoppable force of destruction. These tracks may appear far removed from the album’s political and spiritual concerns, but their irreverence gives its fictional world texture. They also prevent the record from becoming a uniformly grim exercise, reminding the listener that human experience cannot be reduced to grand historical narratives.

All these threads converge in The Ashen Gospel – III. Where God Grew Tired, the closing chapter of the suite and the album. The conflict now stretches across centuries, outliving the leaders, institutions, and symbols that first gave it shape. “The riders died, but war kept marching / Wearing nations like a cloak” distils the record’s central argument: power can change its appearance while preserving its underlying logic. The banners, borders, and doctrines may be replaced, but the machinery of violence continues to find new justifications. The resulting vision of civilisational collapse is not simply an apocalyptic finale; it is the consequence of a world unable to distinguish genuine transformation from the repeated rearrangement of authority.

Wildcard Campfire reinforces this expansive narrative through contrasts between low-tuned riffs, crushing breakdowns, melodic passages, and cinematic atmosphere. Drawing on melodic metalcore, djent, deathcore, progressive metal, and post-metal, the album shifts between overwhelming force and moments of introspection. Its more aggressive passages lend weight to the conflicts, while the melodic tracks reveal their psychological consequences. The variety of styles serves the album’s narrative ambitions, allowing political upheaval, personal suffering, and dark humour to occupy the same fictional universe.

The project’s creative process adds another dimension to the listening experience. Rom Burla develops the lyrics, guitar-written riffs, melodies, song structures, and overall creative direction, using generative AI to render and perform the material before editing, arranging, and final mastering. This distinction is important when considering the album’s authorship: its narrative architecture and compositional direction originate with Burla, while AI forms part of the performance and production process. The project’s faceless presentation further places the emphasis on the music and the interconnected world it constructs.

Where God Grew Tired is concerned with the ruins left behind when ideals become instruments of power. Through its three-part The Ashen Gospel, its portraits of intimate suffering, and its unexpected moments of absurdity, Wildcard Campfire examines how faith can become control, rebellion can reproduce oppression, and violence can survive long after its original justification has disappeared. The release builds a world out of the remnants of failed promises, asking whether humanity can ever escape the systems it inherits; or whether it is destined to keep rebuilding the same ruins under different banners..

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Day 3 Highlight: Metal’s Historic Night

The event touches on different genres of music and on September 18th, 2026 the R.U.C. stadium was home to numerous heavy metal and rock bands that shook the stadium with their electric performances.

Sotherion: Kicking off the professional metal segment of the evening, Sotherion put on an astounding display of atmospheric black metal music. Their act consisted of unrelenting blasts, musical technicalities, and dark and engrossing stage presence that instantly set the right climate for the concert.

​Suicide Machine: Coming back on to the stage as former winners of Tremplin (springboard) contest, the band Suicide Machine showed incredible artistic progress. The Moroccan group played a heavy mix of death metal and hardcore band and showed such tight stage presence that speaks volumes about the health of local music scene.

​Sepultura (The Headliner): The major show stopper of the night was Brazilian thrash metal legends Sepultura. They put on a heavy show as part of their farewell tour.

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Crowd Dynamics and Atmosphere: 

The main highlight of L’Boulevard 2026 was the vivid synergy between the performers and the listeners. The heavy metal performance energized the audience, resulting in spectacular mosh pits and circle pits coupled with unending crowd surfing demonstrations. The musical encore took place in a tranquil atmosphere of mutual understanding.

The rest of the festival ground was characterized by its distinctive friendly and tolerant atmosphere. The Souk L’Boulevard cultural area was a very lively place where people could see a contemporary acrobatic performance from the Colokolo circus or watch break dancing battles in the Liquid Bridge area.

The 24th Tremplin Competition of L’Boulevard Festival hosted at the R.U.C. stage selected and presented emerging artists and groups over a period of three days. Artists and groups presented original songs to receive training and financial awards. The best songs and artists were recognized at the end of the competition.

Juries evaluated contestants’ originality, and overall artistic presentation and performance. The best projects were awarded and recognized.

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The best project in the category of Rap and Hip-Hop was awarded to Shinohidden from Berkane and BrownY Original from Casablanca in second place. The project Metrotune from Casablanca and Settat won the first place award in the category of Fusion and Contemporary Music and the second place was awarded to the project Arinass from Fes. The project Lixivia from Salé won the first place in the category of Rock and Metal and the second place was awarded to the project Darih from Casablanca.

The Importance of the Competition’s Outcomes: The emphasis of the competition goes far beyond winning. Both runners-up will receive training from renowned professional music and performance facilities (Boultek), and studio recording sessions at the HIBA studio, as well as slots on the performance stage for the international band music acts.

L’Boulevard 2026 demonstrated once more that an independent and community-based festival can reach high levels of production without losing its true essence. Connecting local artists with world-known icons, the great festival of Casablanca sets the bar for the live alternative music scene in the region.

Stay metal, stay safe & take care, STAY ROCK ERIANS!

Photography: Chadi Ilias, Hicham Laabd, and Abdelhamid Belahmidi.

VYRUS will take you through some of Metallica’s most iconic eras — drawing from Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All, The Black Album, and Reload — alongside a selection of VYRUS original songs that have been part of the Egyptian metal conversation for three decades.

And because one band was never going to be enough, Groovak and BandMakers will be bringing the best of pop and rock to keep the night moving from start to finish.

Expect it loud. Expect it memorable. Expect the kind of night that reminds you exactly why you fell in love with live music in the first place.

VYRUS are not new to any of this. They are one of the oldest and most significant acts in Egypt’s metal scene — formed in the early 1990s by school friends Mostafa Mito and Amr Costandi, with guitarist Tamer Younes joining in 1995 and elevating the band to a new level of technical and creative ambition.

In 1995, at just 18 years old, VYRUS recorded their rendition of Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction on a 16-track reel-to-reel recorder — and it promptly became one of the most requested tracks on Egypt’s iconic metal radio show, Monsters of Rock. Through the second half of the decade they played venues across the country, from small local stages to sold-out arenas, writing and performing originals alongside the covers that filled their sets.

Then came January 1997 — when Egypt’s government crackdown on heavy metal music brought the scene to a near halt. Musicians and fans were arrested. Live metal effectively vanished. Fear spread through an entire community.

In September 1997, VYRUS stepped back onto the stage.

They were the only band courageous enough to do it. Opening with Metallica’s Enter Sandman, they broke the silence — and the crowd responded with headbanging, stage-diving, and the collective relief of a community that had been pushed underground and was finally breathing again.

VYRUS didn’t simply come back. They stood on stage when nobody else dared to, and in doing so, helped bring Egyptian metal back to life.

After a hiatus in the early 2000s, the band returned again in 2019 with their Metallica Tribute Night concept — and since that resurrection have performed over 30 shows across Egypt, including many sold-out nights. Their setlist has expanded well beyond Metallica into the full rock and metal catalogue the band grew up on, while their originals remain an essential part of every night. During the pandemic they released a widely respected rendition of Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers, and in recent years have introduced original tracks including the melodic progressive metal of “Avenge” (2022) and the gothic, Middle Eastern-flavoured “Angel of Mercy” (2025).

Tickets are EGP 320 (including taxes) and are available now. This is a standing event with limited seating available for those who prefer it. Do not wait.

Saturday, October 17th is the next chapter.

Event: …AND VYRUS FOR ALL — A Metallica Tribute Night
Date: Saturday, October 17, 2026
Venue: Room Art Space & Cafe — New Cairo
Tickets: EGP 320 (including taxes)
Format: Standing event — limited seating available
Book Tickets: Check here.
Event Page: facebook.com/events/2141532736742922

• Booking: vyrus.rock.band@gmail.com | +20 100 518 6996

The End marks the Bergen-based DIY alternative pop-rock band’s return to new music after three years. The song has existed for even longer, evolving alongside its makers and gathering new meaning through experiences of grief and hardship. That history feels embedded in the music itself.

The End refuses to settle into one shape. Soaring guitars and driving drums give it a muscular rock foundation, while melodic passages and indie textures create space for quieter, more contemplative moments. The vocals move with that shifting landscape, from passionate intensity to rawer outbursts and well-placed screams. There is always the sense that another turn is coming.

Yet the track’s many shifts never feel arbitrary. Instead, they create a kind of musical accumulation, with each section carrying something from what came before. In that sense, the structure mirrors the song’s central proposition: nothing exists in isolation.

People leave. Moments pass. Things change. But what is gone continues to shape what follows; an ending belongs not only to the story it completes, but also to whatever story it makes possible next. The music seems to embody this rather than merely describe it.

PROJECT: Beyond write, produce and mix their own material, openly embracing the imperfections that come with making everything themselves. The End retains that sense of human touch: expansive and ambitious, but never overly polished into submission.

For a song concerned with endings, The End is remarkably interested in continuation, and that is its most compelling quality. PROJECT: Beyond‘s The End does not simply close a chapter; it carries everything that came before into whatever comes next!

This is one hell of a melodic metal album, a full hour of theatrical, gothic metal with genuinely nothing to complain about. It plays almost like a piece of theater, with the closing title track functioning as its own three-act finale. This dense record packs an enormous amount of music, and it’s clear how much heart and soul the band put into assembling it.

“Life Lost Love” stands out as an early highlight, a genuinely dynamic composition that weaves from relentless heaviness into electronic, syncopated, almost ethereal sections built around acoustic guitar, at points recalling post-metal more than anything strictly gothic or symphonic. It shows a real dedication to storytelling, the band consistently reaching for whichever tool best serves the narrative rather than defaulting to one mode throughout. And that’s really just a preview of what the album has waiting later.

“She Is Me” runs seven minutes but never feels like it, a breathtaking ballad carried by genuinely mesmerizing lyrics and some of the best melodic guitar solos heard in a while, the kind of egoless playing that exists entirely to serve the song rather than show off. The pacing throughout is excellent, and the quieter passages building toward its climax land with real goosebump-inducing weight.

The album closes with the fourteen-minute title track, and it plays as the whole record’s payoff, essentially its own separate film or stage production. The band stretches out fully here, building a massive wall of sound around carefully constructed melodies with no urgency to rush toward the ending, prioritizing cinematic storytelling above everything else. It functions like its own third act within a larger play, using tension and release with genuine skill rather than just piling on volume.

Between the scale of the closing track, the dynamic range of songs like “Life Lost Love,” and a ballad as strong as “She Is Me” sitting comfortably alongside the album’s heavier material, Omega Origin earns the “most ambitious yet” billing the band gave it. This record is built to be experienced as a full journey rather than picked apart track by track, and it rewards exactly that kind of attention.