With all the hoopla surrounding bands boasting anniversaries of their major milestones, whether it be sticking together after 30-plus years or playing a tour after decades of dormany, it’s crucial that extreme metalheads don’t forget one especially important 2026 celebration, especially in the black-metal netherworld.
That would be the 40th anniversary of Norway’s Darkthrone, who influenced the development and dissemination of black metal around the world more than arguably any other band not named Emperor, Mayhem, Bathory or Burzum. This year also marks the 35th anniversary of the release of their debut, Soulside Journey – which also was, ironically, Darkthrone’s only death-metal album.
Recognizing those milestones, metal publication Antichrist Magazine – based appropriately in Hell, Norway – released the simply named but dense in high-quality material A Tribute to Darkthrone. It was one of a series of like-minded compilations the outlet has issued and dropped in late July. With enormous help from the rep behind that various-artists collection, we received a slew of testimonials from 12 of the 17 bands who contributed exclusive songs to the comp about why they worship at the altar of Darkthrone.
Paper Girl, the Nashville-based emo/folk-punk project led by Sarah Gargano, has just put out the final single ahead of the release of a new album next month. It’s called “Ohio (Fall 2016),” and the video for it exclusively premieres today on The Bad Penny.
Paper Girl was also the title of Gargano’s first single, which itself referenced the John Green book Paper Towns. The new video for “Ohio (Fall 2016)” features the whimsical song playing as the artist bikes to a field, where she sits down and plays the song with a beaming smile on a sunny day. In addition to recalling the days of yore when her music was primarily of the emo variety, one can’t help but be reminded of the ongoing 2016 nostalgia meme, fueled in part by a Gen Z’s longing for pre-COVID days.
” ‘Ohio (Fall 2016)’ is a song I wrote from my high school boyfriend’s perspective about watching me go to college in Ohio and have fun without him after breaking up,” Gargano told The Bad Penny. “It’s probably the folkiest/cutesiest song on the album and the most similar to the songs I was releasing under my actual name.
Ombra – a thrash unit from Montreal consisting of Giuseppe “G” Criniti on vocals and lead guitar, Marco Sisti on rhythm guitar and his cousin Nico‑Angelo Sisti on drums – just released their first EP, Night Terror, on Monday. But we’ll be damned if these hosers (we’re kidding; these are three bright dudes) don’t know their metal history, especially when it comes to their Canada homeland.
Ombra – not to be mixed up with the Indonesian hardcore-punk band of the same name – live by a simple credo: “We encourage listeners to think freely, explore their minds, and express themselves without compromise,” the band states on its website. Their mesmerizing, pulverizing music is far more complex, however; it’s a stew of old‑school thrash, sludge, groove metal and psychedelic rock that will appeal to fans of Mastodon, Power Trip, High on Fire and Motörhead. It’s almost impossible to believe that only three guys are making Ombra’s music.
Before delving into Ombra’s picks for the best Canadian heavy bands, check out their cosmic, seizure-inducing new video for the psych-metal voyage “Blue Dream,” one of the songs featured on Night Terror.
And now, Ombra’s picks for the best heavy metal bands to come out of Canada.
Rush tops the list because of their impact, influence and pioneering of the heavy-rock scene. Canada’s first arena-scale heavy act: the Zeppelin-weight riffs of “Working Man and the sci-fi crush of 2112 proved a Toronto trio could hang with Sabbath and still invent something no one else was doing. They never stayed in one gear, but when they wanted weight – with Stick It Out,Far Cry and stretches of Clockwork Angels – they delivered drop-tuned, dissonant heaviness without abandoning the virtuosity that made every later Canadian metal band possible. Influence plus longevity plus those genuinely heavy moments is why they sit at number one to us. -G
Spiritbox lands at number two because no Canadian heavy band this decade has moved the needle like they have. Holy Roller and Eternal Blue turned a Victoria act into a global force. Courtney LaPlante’s shift from glass-clear melody to gut-level lows – stacked on Mike Stringer’s precision-groove riffs – gives them both the hooks and the impact that most modern metal chases and misses. They’re the proof that Canadian heaviness didn’t freeze in the thrash and death-metal eras; it just got sharper, louder, and harder to ignore. -G
Actress – Radical Frame (Ninja Tune) Babehoven – I See Them, I See Me (Double Double Whammy) Beabadoobee – Pylon (Double Hit) Beck – Ride Lonesome (Capitol) Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree – In Between Strides (Magnetic Eye) Boy Harsher – Get Mean (Atlantic) Castle Rat – Bestiary (Blues Funeral)
It’s not every day you come across a band touted as “bridg[ing] the gap between cerebral jazz-rock, raucous post-punk shredding, and tightly composed minimalism in the school of Steve Reich/ Terry Riley/ Philip Glass.”
But listen to Talking, the debut album by Baltimore-based experimentalists Crying Laughing, and you’ll be hard-pressed to conjure a more apt description of the quintet’s adventurous sound. The band released the record Friday on Hausu Mountain, which is rapidly becoming one of our favorite record labels.
Familiarize yourself with Spanish experimental art-pop endeavor Sehore, and you will undoubtedly have encountered the most artistically and intellectually challenging musical act in quite some time. Sehore won the Silver Medal for the song “Pesadilla” (“nightmare” in English) and the Bronze Medal for “Bla bla bla (cha cha cha)” (we’ll leave that translation to you) at the Global Music Awards 2025.
With compositions written and performed in extremely complex time signatures, Sehore started last year with the release of its first two albums: Ladencia in January and Husfikbur in September. The group’s project’s album, Ptkbdglmnr (due November 20), is led by the first single “IA.” Sehore describes it as follows: “The rhythmic figures shift between different internal groupings of five (3+2, 2+3, 4+1, etc.), creating a fragmented and unstable pulse that mirrors the theme and is built on the diminished scale. The track alternates consonance and dissonance, using kitsch elements and miniature structures.”
It’s always cool to get positive feedback from readers, especially those of you who keep tabs on what some lame-ass AI tool referred to as “the iconoclastic website The Bad Penny.” Hell, we’ll take it – and much more importantly, we’ll take your liking of this consummately non-mainstream and non-corporate hub for news, interviews, games, reviews and more about rad bands that mostly lurk underground.
Aaaaaanyway, it’s even more flattering to get kind words from musicians; after all, none of us would be on this website, writing and reading any of the posts, engaging in discussions and finding fulfillment in music in general were it not for those who actually make it. All of which is to say that the new series with the loose title The Bad Penny Passport is attracting so much excitement from artists that it feels like getting blindsided by a tsunami. And that enthusiasm is showing in the bands’ submissions, none better exemplified by this golden treasure of a contribution from Bay Area death thrashers Absolute Darkness.
The band began 10 years ago fueled in part by their love of death metal but also thrash metal, the genre du jour in their San Francisco hometown. Now, the band consisting of guitarist/lead vocalist Ron Dorn, lead guitarist/backup vocalist Douglas Vetter Guitars, bassist Orson Sojo and drummer Scott Russell are readying their second album, Witness to a Dying World, for an October 23 release. There’s more on that below; but first, let’s get schooled by Absolute Darkness and what they believe to be the 10 best Bay Area bands of all time.
As the 100th band we’ve interviewed for our On Tyranny series, which we launched in February 2025, we couldn’t have found a more fitting subject than Southern California hardcore/metal/rap enthusiasts Throwlight. The young band is tearing it up in conservative Orange County without any hesitation whatsoever, spitting in the face of the most frustrating aspects of the era in which are suffering through: compliance, willful ignorance and inaction.
While many artists are gratuitously tossing a remark or two into their live performances about how they disagree with the fascist takeover of America, Throwlight – consisting of vocalist Rocom, guitarist Chris Ellis, bassist Kevin Betz and playfully nicknamed keyboardist King of Somewhere – are putting their hearts totally into the fight. Their passion for resistance is as intense as the fury they unleash on their latest single, “No Kings,” which came out last month on limited-edition cassette.
Ever since we got our ears on Anatomy of Rage, the fourth studio album by Switzerland experimental brain scramblers Convulsif, we’ve listened over and over again trying to wrap our heads around its brilliance. (We almost covered every part of the human anatomy in that last sentence.) An offshoot of bassist Loïc Grobéty’s far-out Convulsif Bigband, Convulsif continue to – for lack of a better phrase, even though it’s over-used – push the boundaries of dark jazz, grind, doom, drone and noise. We’re already anticipating Convulsif’s next album, when they’re to incorporate remaining music genres smooth jazz, blue-eyed soul and neo-classical.
Convulsif’s music is badass in its own right, as you’ll discover on Anatomy of Rage or the quartet’s Bandcamp page. But much to our delight and humility, the gentlemen – Christian Müller (bass, clarinet and voice); Jamasp Jhabvala (violin); Loïc Grobéty (bass); and Maxime Hänsenberger (drums) – graciously decided to participate in The Bad Penny‘s latest series, in which we ask musicians from non-U.S. countries what they consider to be their own homeland’s top music offerings. Why embark upon this globetrotting adventure? Because fuck Spotify.
So, without further ado, say hello to Convulsif and the bands they hand-selected as Switzerland’s crème de la crème (fun fact: The Swiss use that turn of phrase the same way the French do!).
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The 10 Best Swiss Bands, Per Convulsif
The Swiss music that has influenced us is very often pioneering. With Convulsif, we continue to offer the kind of avant-garde rock music that is our country’s trademark.
We’ll start with the Swiss avant-garde scene and this duo. They come from a free jazz background and have continually evolved their sound and sound systems. They have released many collaborative albums.
