Malevolent Dark's June 2025 Musical Roundup
Welcome tot he first issues of the Malevolent Dark Music Round-up. It has long been a desire to ramp up our efforts in the music realm and those efforts or finally coming to fruition. In this periodical, we’ll be poking our heads into the darkest corners of Horror and Dark related music to bring these gems to the forefront for all to see. This issue’s social card features St. Louis’ Death Metal heavyweights Animated Dead.
Gothic / Industrial Festival Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2025 Rocked Leipzig June 6th – June 9th
Wave‑Gotik‑Treffen 2025, the 32nd edition of the world’s largest goth festival, took place in Leipzig from June 6 to 9, 2025, inline with the German Whitsun holiday. The event spread across 40+ venues—most notably the Agra Messepark—the event attracted around 20,000 attendees. The four-day lineup featured nearly 200 acts, spanning gothic rock, darkwave, medieval, synthpop, and industrial. Highlights included headliners Public Image Limited with John Lydon (Really?), a heartfelt tribute to late Silke Bischoff, and sweeping synth‑pop sets by Alphaville, Drab Majesty, and KITE. German synth‑pop pioneers Alphaville and British romantics And Also The Trees opened Friday’s festivities, while KITE’s atmospheric set
Czech Black Metal Artist Draugveil Releases New Album “Cruel World of Dreams and Fears” to Both Praise and Controversy
Czech Black Metal artist Draugveil released a new album on June 13th (Friday the 13th, no less) and for the most part the music has been lauded as a proper cut of romantic Black Metal with enough dark and brooding beats to sully its more upbeat and bouncy Black Metal presentation. The album immediately was drawn into controversy over the brilliant cover art depicting an armor clad corpse paint drenched man lying in a bed of roses. Keen eyed fans were quick to accuse the artist of using AI to generate the image. After a quick listen at MD we’re digging
Thrash Icons Testament Mastering New Album in June 2025 For Fall 2025 Release
Testament is in the process of mastering their first album since Titans of Creation (2020). While the title of the album is still unknown at this time, the album is reportedly being produced by Swedish producer Jens Bogren (OPETH, KREATOR, PARADISE LOST, SOILWORK and AMON AMARTH). The release of this album will be accompanid with a recently announced EU/UK tour with Death Metal juggernauts Obituary. The new album will be release on Nuclear Blast.
Doom Metal Forebearers ORCHID re-release classic albums “Capricorn” and “The Mouths of Madness” on double vinyl (Heavy Psyche Records)
Hailing from San Francisco, Doom riff-lords Orchid re-release their punishing occult laden classic albums Capricorn and The Mouths of Madness on double vinyl on Heavy Psyche records. In addition, the band is releasing a DIGIPACK titled The Zodiac Sessions that combines tracks from their epic debut EP Through the Devil’s Doorway and their first full-length album Capricorn. The EP Through the Devil’s Doorway can also be purchased on vinyl June 20th. Orchid have become a great band, from a good band that tended to rely on Sabbathisms a little bit too much for their debut. But in no certain terms is that a bad thing. Few bands could play
WITHERER: Everything Is Noise Premieres Shadow Without A Horizon From Blackened Death/Doom Practitioners; LP To See Release Friday Via Hypaethral Records
PRESS RELEASE “Standing tall and domineering at 53 minutes across five tracks, this LP slithers through speakers and coils up as soundscapes are built by dense and suffocating ambiance, the kind you can only imagine as moonlit and lonesome, vaguely dangerous and foreboding.” – Everything Is Noise Everything Is Noise is currently streaming Shadow Without A Horizon, the debut full-length from blackened death/doom practitioners WITHERER. The premiere comes in advance of the record’s official unveiling Friday, June 20th via Hypaethral Records. Weaving together black/death intensity and vast funeral doom ritualism, WITHERER crafts soundscapes both punishing and dreamlike, claustrophobic and immense, ruthless and meditative. Veterans
HAGGUS: California Mincecore Practitioners Release “As The Hammer Drops” Video; Destination Extinction Out Today On Tankcrimes!
PRESS RELEASE Haggus (2025, Tankcrimes) – Destination ExtinctionToday, California mincecore practitioners HAGGUS unleash another work of cinematic excellence with “As The Hammer Drops.” The track comes by way of the band’s bruising Destination Extinction full-length out TODAY on Tankcrimes! Take a trip with guitarist/vocalist Hambone (literally) into the wildly unhinged party that makes up a HAGGUS show. From taking LSD and getting tattooed on stage to endless stage dives and trampolines in the pit, it’s the exact type of unpredictable insanity you can expect at a mincecore show. “As The Hammer Drops” is a greasy buffet of all things mincecore: spastic
Malevolent Dark's June Retro Pick
Retro Roundup Pick – Type-O Negative Releases Goth Metal Debut “Slow, Deep and Hard” – June 11, 1991
Type-O Negative often gets lumped in with gothic titans like Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but metal historians love them for their prototypical foray into doom-laden riffage. Slow, Hard and Deep, released on June 11th, 1991 perfectly exemplifies the juxtaposition of these two styles seasoned with blistering hardcore. The song “Xero Tolerance” demonstrates this in an almost arrogant display of cross-over splendor. It’s as if a Hot Topic store was distilled to its purest essence and mainlined directly into the jugular. Frontman Peter Steele descends into emotional depravity, fusing doom-laden riffs with hard-core punk and gothic despair. The result is musically abrasive at times, but emotionally impactful always. It plays like a suicide note written in blood and sarcasm. This album likely didn’t change the game in a meaningful way, but it has a sound so distinctly 1991 that it yearns for black lipstick, dark eyeliner and fishnet stockings.