Indie Singer-songwriter Cat Dowling has been praised over the years for her unique and stylish vocals. Like the ever-overcast skies of the rainy city of Dublin from which she hails her vocals have a dark and evocative quality that blankets you in raw passion and keeps you coming back for more. Dowling is one of those artists that you put on repeat when you’ve had a bad day when the obstacles in life seem insurmountable and you just want to zone out and swim within your own emotions and plunge depths for answers. Her career in music really kicked off around 2001 when she fronted the Irish electropop band “Babelfish” which then became Alphastates” in 2003. The band had some decent success and released one EP and two LP albums over the course of 9 years. At the beginning of 2010, they played their final show together and parted ways amicably, claiming that each of them felt life was simply pulling them in different directions. In an interview in 2010 Dowling had expressed interest in possibly releasing a solo album somewhere down the road, but at the time was too consumed with raising her newborn daughter.

Thursday night, independent deathcore metal band Shadow of Intent took to the stage at 7:30 pm at the Brooklyn Steel in NYC following the same-day release of their latest animated music video for “Blood in the Sands of Time” off their new album Elegy. This latest album was released on January 14th, 2022 making it the follow-up album to their last, Melancholy released back in 2019.

Fans of alternative metal and prog rock will have a new band to obsess over. Straight out of the Rhineland area of Germany comes Emerra. The group has already received positive feedback from metal fans for their EP Monochrome and the single “Pirouette” which was highlighted on Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist. Now Emerra is unleashing a new single and music video for the track “Disintegrate.”

Hailing from Toronto, Canada, the metalcore band Red Handed Denial has managed to make an impact beyond the Great White North through expert use of online media. Lead vocalist Lauren Babic is a YouTube sensation with her live covers of metal and non-metal songs going viral. The band themselves have attracted fans through Spotify. The song “Trespasser” off the Wanderer EP earned the group 953K-plus Spotify streams. Their album Empire gathered 948K Spotify streams. When Red Hand Denial covered the Beyoncé and Lady Gaga song “Telephone” it pleasantly surprised metal fans and racked up over 1.1 million Spotify streams. All together Red Handed Denial has over 5 million-plus streams to their credit.

On January 21, 2022, alternative music group Set It Off released their new single “Projector”, along with a music video. This song continues to tease their upcoming album, Elsewhere, which is set to release on March 11th.

On Saturday, February 12th, Fit For An Autopsy headlined the final show of their latest US album tour at Gramercy Theater in NYC to celebrate their latest album release “Oh What the Future Holds”. This deathcore band played to a nearly sold-out venue full of metalheads who enjoyed the night in the best way possible, opening an insane pit and letting loose.

On January 25th, 2022, British band Blossoms announced their upcoming studio album Ribbon Around The Bomb, set to release on April 29th. That same day, they shared the title track of this album along with the music video.

On January 28th, Pittsburgh’s indie/90’s alternative independent group Sadurday dropped their new single “Out of Touch” off their self-titled debut EP which was co-produced by Jim Ward. The song is full of many styles and genres from shoegaze to alternative rock showing off a sound that's all their own. The lyrics attempt to channel the final thoughts of a friend just moments before taking their life, a tragic real-life event that occurred during the writing and recording of the song.

Swedish-based progressive metal group SOEN has announced a special performance to be exclusively streamed live. The show called Live from Atlantis Grammofon Studios will take place on February 18th, 2022, at 8:00 pm EST/CET/AEDT.

Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and producer Betty Moon has announced the release of her newest album Undercover. This would be Betty Moon’s 11th studio album and her first since the critically acclaimed Cosmicoma released just last year. Undercover highlights the diverse influences that Betty Moon has drawn from throughout her career. The new album includes covers of bands representing an eclectic mix of synth-pop, hard rock, folk, and soul classics.

On the night of Friday, February 4th, the band Afterus opened up a show at Lucky 13 Saloon in Brooklyn, NY. This local NYC band has a sound all their own, they perfectly mesh together extreme metal, folk metal, industrial metal, metal, modern metal, and melodic death metal making them stand out from the rest. Recently, they had released their music video for their single Obsidian Moon giving us just a small taste of what's to come from them in the future.

On January 18th, 2022 the Virginia-based metal group Bad Omens dropped a track off their called “Like A Villain” off of their upcoming album The Death of Piece of Mind which is set to release February 25th.

On January 14th, 2022, artist Years & Years released a new track, “Sooner or Later”. This was the last single released for his album, Night Call, which was released on January 21st.

Clutch has announced that they will embark on a massive North American tour this Spring. This will be the band’s return to touring since their successful co-headlining tour with Dropkick Murphys back in 2019. The band has decided to split the 38-day tour into two legs. Each leg of the tour will feature different supporting acts.

On January 12th, 2022, Belgian musician Stromae released new single “L’enfer”. The song will be a track featured on Multitude, which will come out on March 4th of this year.

Since forming in 2014, Shadow of Intent has attracted a following due to their progressive rock styling of deathcore. The band uses their highly technical musical skills to create symphonic style metal that has contributed to a new renaissance within the deathcore scene. To this day, Shadow of Intent has earned 60 million streams, 22 million YouTube videos, and 240,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Shadow of Intent looks to continue their success with the new album, Elegy.

On January 7th, 2022, New Jersey pop-punk group All Systems Go released a new single, “Don’t Let Me Go”. Paired with a music video released on January 14th, this song is a motivating and hopeful song through times of struggle.

The creepy Las Vegas-based shock rockers Vampires Everywhere have released a new single and music video for their song "Sudden Death.” While fans of Vampire Everywhere will no doubt greet the announcement with great pleasure, news of the release can be thrilling for the members of the band themselves.

On January 14th, heavy metal band Once Human released their fourth latest single and music video for “Erasure” off their soon-to-be-released album “Scar Weaver” available on February 11th. The band had been working hard the last handful of years to release their third studio album and so far it seems it has been well worth the long wait since their previous album back in 2017 titled “Evolution”.

Pop-punk band Loss Of Signal is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland but you would be forgiven if you thought they came straight out of Southern California. Loss Of  Signal has a style that is very much influenced by the pop-punk bands of the 90s and early 2000s. Fans of bands such as Blink-182, Sum 41, and New Found Glory will gravitate towards Loss Of Signal whose sound, while reminiscent of earlier pop-punk, also throws in newer influences as well.