![[Heavy News] Polish Death Metal Duo, DORMANT ORDEAL, to Release Tooth and Nail on Willowtip in April!](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1739771812411-F013H17ORTZA2GG20R2F/rsz_1dormantordeal-1.jpg)
[Heavy News] Polish Death Metal Duo, DORMANT ORDEAL, to Release Tooth and Nail on Willowtip in April!
Krakow-based Polish are our first cab off the rank for a busy #MusicMondays segment, with lots of Heavy News to come! This stellar duo in Maciej Nieścioruk (guitars) and Maciej Proficz (vocals) have completed recording of their upcoming harsh, expansive and gritty LP Tooth and Nail in April, via Willowtip. Check the link for album/artist bio, singles links, album pre-order and more! Death, doom and much cool nastiness abounds.
![[Review] - Newest ISC Staffer Dean Explores Saor’s ‘Amidst The Ruins’ LP.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1739365977272-M0VPLIP1ECN9KWQZLAIV/saorphoto1.jpg)
[Review] - Newest ISC Staffer Dean Explores Saor’s ‘Amidst The Ruins’ LP.
On mutual agreement, latest staffer Dean and myself have agreed to let the words speak for themselves for his formal addition to the Inner-Strength Check Podcast canon. And what beautiful, evocative words they are indeed! Check the link for our newest staffers’ resplendent coverage of atmospheric folk/black metal act Saor’s latest LP, Amidst The Ruins. You can also find album order links, multiple recent singles, full album streams and much more. Another fantastic staff introductory piece, the first of many!
![[Review] Into The Void - ‘Dysphoria’ LP.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1739351410654-SZ47G56Z2U2WOC3Y0YU6/dypshoriaalbumcover.jpg)
[Review] Into The Void - ‘Dysphoria’ LP.
Introducing our first piece of fresh content from new addition to the Inner-Strength Check team in Spiro (a.k.a The Hype Guy)! For his first piece, Spiro has elected to provide a great review of the 2024 album Dysphoria, by Michigan-based alternative-rock/nu-grunge outfit Into The Void. Check the link for the full review, album and singles links and more. As well, we’ve re-included an important appeal Spiro recent put out in support of Jampot Studios. Many thanks for an awesome review!
![[Music Mondays] Mon 3rd Feb, 2025.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1738581277133-7RTXWS4SVZEU50VZVOZ2/427135807_7654838114540460_8045244545557484009_n.jpg)
[Music Mondays] Mon 3rd Feb, 2025.
This week’s Music Monday contains more than you shake a stick at! Multiple recent Heavy News items - album releases! Recent Riffs (articles)! Reviews and more! Plus a whole swathe of updates from the equally-busy Musolegion community - more album reviews, gig reviews and several packed Musolegion Recommends pieces exploring bands from Iceland, Japan and Central Asia! Dig in, music-lovers.
![[Heavy News] GOTTHARD unleash new single & video 'Thunder & Lightning'; ‘STEREO CRUSH’ now available for pre-order](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1737964062720-IZNJ12JKX2ZY9Z2HUHJW/gotthardband.png)
[Heavy News] GOTTHARD unleash new single & video 'Thunder & Lightning'; ‘STEREO CRUSH’ now available for pre-order
Swiss rock legends Gotthard are 16 albums deep into a successful, decade-spanning career. Not content to rest on their laurels, here at the Heavy News desk for our Music Mondays column we’ve been given a swathe of details on up-and-comer LP Stereo Crush. There’s plenty of content here to sink into - album bio/details, video/streaming links for newest singles ‘Thunder and Lightning’ & ‘Boom Boom’, plus all a heap more! Stereo Crush will be released courtesy of Reigning Phoenix Music in Oz.
![[Gig Review] ENFORCER @ The Leadbeater Hotel, Melbourne 25.01.25.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1737969903782-LTJ9L6VK9H41K3HBL7QD/Enforcer+-+Leadbeater+Hotel+250125-28.png)
[Gig Review] ENFORCER @ The Leadbeater Hotel, Melbourne 25.01.25.
What an honour! Our first local review as an official outlet in Melbourne, and it could’ve been a better pick to kick things off in that respect. Sweden’s Enforcer blazed The Leadbeater Hotel in Richmond last night with a level of NWOBHM/trad/speed-metal and classic rock bombast that was transcendent, skilled and heartfelt! Read on for full the review, including sets by support acts Burnout, Aardvark and Livewire, gig footage, pics and more!
![[Archive] Review of Rat Lord’s 2024 LP, ‘Blazed In The Northern Sky’.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1737172689757-BMYGZVYYSCD0XRT40BF6/ratlordcover.jpeg)
[Archive] Review of Rat Lord’s 2024 LP, ‘Blazed In The Northern Sky’.
Another review exhumed from the archival corpse of our sadly now-defunct old website (RIP), check here for review and associated links for Norwegian crust-grinders Rat Lord and their brutish, fast and fun LP, Blazed In The Northern Sky. It’s quick, nasty, fun and full of snark. Well worth revisiting in 2025.
![[Archive/Riffs]: Win: toe is coming.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1737096125771-AQXQLOPYY10MWIH7TQXM/toeband.jpg)
[Archive/Riffs]: Win: toe is coming.
Originally posted to our sadly now-defunct old website (RIP) by fellow author Hamza Siddiqi on June 12th, 2024. Hamza wrote a fantastic little retrospective/hype piece on critically lauded math/post-rockers toe ahead of their 2024 Australian tour with Dumbsaint. Be sure to check this one out; plenty more from my team’s older posts also incoming! Riff on.
![[Review] Daufødt - ‘Glitter’LP.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1736743641516-6YRA8AJ0PKYWQJWRZEZ3/Daufodt_web.jpg)
[Review] Daufødt - ‘Glitter’LP.
Our first NEW album review for the new website! (RIP old site). I could very easily label this as my punk, hardcore or noise-rock AOTY for 202 - if it were any of these things in isolation, or even together. Norway’s Daufodt released this stellar, catchy and raw skilful cacophony in September 2024 via Fysisk Format. Glitter is glamorous, but only via the sticky, raw, neon shades of decidedly-Nordic punk. Well worth the belated review. Check link for review and artist/label links and more.
![[Heavy News] Introducing: Music Mondays and Tech Tuesdays!](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1736945266015-ZY5CR0M2KV34E7T3SKPZ/image-6.png)
[Heavy News] Introducing: Music Mondays and Tech Tuesdays!
Featured Image: Lachlan R. Dale, solo artist and label owner of Worlds Within Worlds and Art as Catharsis. (interview with Lachlan incoming as i extract it from the carcass of our now-defunct old website, RIP). This article was originally posted to our old website, long may it rest, and introduces Music Mondays for the first time - a regular column including all the latest in heavy and alternative music news, features, reviews, ISC content updates and our own musician updates as well!
![[Heavy News] THE CIMMERIAN's ‘An Age Undreamed Of’... Out Now and Streaming!](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1736652156847-T4JLBU015XDY0JLBP71W/bandpicfinal2024.png)
[Heavy News] THE CIMMERIAN's ‘An Age Undreamed Of’... Out Now and Streaming!
(ISC Heavy News, 13.01.25) - Los Angeles (CA) - Doom/Thrash trio THE CIMMERIAN set a crushing tone for the new year with today's release of An Age Undreamed Of..., the band's first full-length album! This rogue set conjures images of high adventure and mayhem with an aggressive mix of sludgy-based rumblings, caustic fuzz-filled riffs, and sonorous war drumming that recalls High on Fire, among others.
![[Archive] Interview with MARK PALFREYMAN of Australian Prog-Metal Institution ALARUM.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1736152351338-UIL5DK5Q6Y8D3EZI84AM/alarum2-1.jpg)
[Archive] Interview with MARK PALFREYMAN of Australian Prog-Metal Institution ALARUM.
Archival post, picked from the carcass of our dearly-departed old website (RIP). This warrants sharing again; a fantastic Q & A with Mark Palfreyman, bassist/vocalist of Australian progressive metal legends Alarum in April 2023. They’ve since released a new full-length in Recontinue. Check the article for links to that and more!
![[Gig Review, Pt 1] – The New Dead Festival XII, 15.04.23 @ Lion Arts, Adelaide.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1735990880505-OQVGET9LUG7MXGUSFIYF/butcherabc2.jpg)
[Gig Review, Pt 1] – The New Dead Festival XII, 15.04.23 @ Lion Arts, Adelaide.
Part 1 of our two-part festival coverage of the New Dead Festival in Adelaide, 2023. (RIP New Dead, and RIP our old website - thanks WP). Features reviews of: R U N, Black Lava, Lumen ad Mortem, Battlegrave, Vexation, Remission, Writhing, Ashen, Hell Machine, Bifurcated, Apocalyptic Annihilation and I Choose Violence. Just one half of a full day of relentless metal mayhem!
![ISC Podcast Ep. 6 - The March Not-An-Update Anti-Update (Update). [05/03/2023].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1735876691453-ZNM7WL2LGUJB70E67X19/471763041_923331563237204_4558893098269910696_n.jpg)
ISC Podcast Ep. 6 - The March Not-An-Update Anti-Update (Update). [05/03/2023].
Originally posted on our sadly now-in-ruins previous website (RIP) back in 2023. In honesty, it’s an interesting piece with some varied thoughts around content-creation and creativity, but it’s overall a pretty impassioned diatribe. If that sounds up your alley, dig in. If not, we’ve got a heap more episodes being copied and reposted from the carcass of ISC.com (RIP)!
ISC Podcast Ep. 05 - ISC Trajectory for 2023. (27.12.2022)
Originally posted on our old website, which unfortunately has met an untimely end (thanks, WordPress!). To quote directly - ‘A culture fed unrelenting standards imposed by some strange continued need to propagate the pre-pandemic model of life under neoliberal austerity. Plot twist - that isn't working, and I'm fed up.’ Link to rant contained inside!
![[Archive Review] - Alarum - Circle's End - (03.11.2022)](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1735713576242-VEB5RHNF23ID3FJPRCEE/alarum.jpg)
![[Interview]: Aaron Osborne of AGLO (Melbourne Death-Doom) - 23.04.23.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1735710610595-YSOBGU03VR3BKBPONGLK/aglo-.jpg)
[Interview]: Aaron Osborne of AGLO (Melbourne Death-Doom) - 23.04.23.
Archival interview with Melbourne-based purveyor of one-man sludge/death-doom act AGLO, originally posted on the now-defunct innerstrengthcheck.com in 2023.
![[Archive Review] - Cannibal Corpse: Unimagined Violence.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67738900deaf1a5f243892aa/1735708844523-L6T576UR28XHRIIGMJJ8/cannibal-corpse-500x333-1.jpg)
[Archive Review] - Cannibal Corpse: Unimagined Violence.
Archive review of Cannibal Corpse’s blazing full-length Unimaged Violence. This was originally posted to now-defunct music journalism online outlet Insert Review Here, then my own sadly-also-goner ISC.com. Check out this extreme metal bruiser of a review once more right here on the new site!
Gig Review: The New Dead Metalfest XI, 23/04/22.
Archival review of 2022’s brilliant New Dead Festival in Adelaide, South Australia at the Lion Arts Factory.
Plenty more from the sadly now-defunct InnerStrengthCheck.com website - you can’t keep us down!
ISC Podcast Episode 01: - Inside the computer.
Inner-Strength Check is a multi-modal podcast/vlog/blog project focused on exploring the intersection between societal discourse, mental health, neurodiversity, recovery, and leisure.
It’s part-blog, part-podcast and part-vlog/streaming. It's also partly serious discussions and fun stuff - video/board/tabletop gaming, roleplaying, music, reviews, banter and other fun ways of practicing what is preached here.