A fitting accolade for one of the great metal bands of all time. Genuinely surprised this happened but very very deserved, should've happened with Countdown to Extinction and possibly even Dystopia but better late than never.

Congrats on 300 guys, what an awesome podcast!

Told myself that it would be an unlikely miracle if the Texans made the AFC championship game today, mostly to guard myself against heartbreak. But this hurts a lot, and I'm saddened. I'd love to see it happen in my lifetime but I wonder if I ever will.

Our good friend @themetalpigeon.bsky.social got us off to one hell of a start for 2026 with his request of Sentenced’s 2002 release, The Cold White Light. (1/2) #metalsky #heavymetal #gothicmetal #gothicrock #metalpodcast #sentenced

My Best of 2025 albums list is up at the blog, a tough, agonizingly difficult list to narrow down and cobble together into a top ten. If you're new to my lists, yeah I just do ten --- no one cares about someone's number 27 in relation to their 23rd. Click through and read why the ten are the ten!

The Best Songs of 2025 list is up at The Metal Pigeon! This is part 1 of a 2 part year end feature, with my best albums of the year list on the way soon (timed with the recording of our year end MSRcast episode!). Click the link and read the words I wrote! Or just scan, grunt & click the tab closed!

Metal Archives is down and I'm having an existential crisis as a result!

A quick dash through some of the noteworthy releases to come out in the past few weeks and months, though certainly not complete by any means. Not really reviews, just quick thoughts and impressions on stuff that wowed me and otherwise.

Seeing Judas Priest tonight, could/might/hopefully not be the last time because who knows how long the band is going to keep touring. Definitely going to try to soak it all in and remember this.

Gutted to hear about this. One of the most incredible extreme metal vocalists ever.

This song is still as beautifully melancholic with it's awesome, heavy riffs and impassioned vocals as it was when I first heard it back in 2003. I need a new Finnish band to resurrect this style of Gothic metal again! youtu.be/HUw8XVo-yeM?...

Stepping back into reviews territory for two long looks at albums that I've been obsessed with this past month, the new Helloween that came out today and Blackbraid from a few weeks ago.

Saw Bruce Dickinson tonight, it was incredible and his new band are gifted musicians doing justice to the older songs. Bummer that Roy Z chooses not to be a part of this for his own reasons but if this group gets Bruce making new records faster as he indicated in stage tonight, it's better for it.

Really awesome conversation with Larry Roberts of Novembers Doom ahead of their Progpower appearance this coming week and their new album soon! Check it outeth!

#Helloween has a brand new album coming out next week and who better to discuss this release than one of the founding members of the band, guitarist #MichaelWeikath! (1/2) #heavymetal #metalsky #powermetal

Watching the Wacken livestreams from Friday and it feels like Dimmu Borgir was the best of the night, coming out of seemingly nowhere to deliver their best set that I can remember in ages. Great setlist and they sound spectacular. Where have these guys been? Get on tour dudes!!!

With ProgPower just around the corner, we invited two festival veterans in Justin and Chris of the Metal Exchange Podcast (@themetalexchange.bsky.social) to come and school us on the ins and outs of North America's premiere prog/power metal fest! Questions are raised and summarily dismissed!

Shocked at the surreal timing of this, happy he got to play that last show. RIP to a legend.

I wish there was a way to detect broken links in my blog, some of the older articles are having issues with YouTube videos going missing or unavailable. I know its just the nature of the internet, but this is a pain in the you know what to have to manually fix.

I deep dive the recent Avantasia album Here Be Dragons, and attempt to understand why it's become the most divisive thing Tobias Sammet has released in donkeys years!

An interview with the soon to be main man behind ProgPower, by two guys who have been going to this festival since way back in the day and know the fest the best! Sorry to age you guys there 🤣 !

The first few months of most years are quiet on the release front, but not so with 2025, which has presented the most stacked metal release calendar in memory. It took me a bit, but I think I'm caught up, and I go over some of my thoughts here. Just fyi, Avantasia and Brainstorm will be next update!

I never thought I'd see Decibel Magazine covering Brainstorm, but happy its happening!

I have no idea what everyone is talking about with the Kendrick Lamar halftime show being about Drake. Is there a cliffs notes for that or is it not worth even trying to understand it?

Its here!

And it's done, the final part of The Best of 2024 feature focusing on the albums! Also be sure to check out the new MSRcast episode for our yearly rewind where we discuss our lists at length. Now time to listen to whatever the hell else I want to! www.themetalpigeon.com/2025/01/03/t...

That time of year again, no not Christmas ffs, its time for The Metal Pigeon's Best of feature, first with Part One focusing on the best songs of the 2024. Set aside your presents, this is the real gift! www.themetalpigeon.com/2024/12/25/t...

Dimebag of course, even Burton and Rikki (I suppose).... but the Jeff Young and Alissa White-Gluz choices have me wondering just how serious the Metal Hall of Fame is trying to be. All of their inductions on a yearly basis have had some questionable selections when this should be easy to start.

New episode out now, covering the last bits of the year before we start diving into year end best of list preparations! Also available wherever you listen to podcasts if you'd rather not Spotify. open.spotify.com/episode/1IfC...

Good solid pick for a replacement drummer, good to go with someone Steve already knows and can likely vouch for being a good dude. At this stage, Maiden don't need a rotating cast at drummer, just one solid dude who can handle the shows. Up the irons Nicko, what a career, glad I saw him many times.

Jumping over to Bluesky in hopes of finally ditching the cesspool of X/Twitter, hope to see old #metal friends over here!