The summer months might be drawing to a close, but 2025 is still in full swing when it comes to new music. As the festival fields of Europe open for the last burst of events (and we gear up for the likes of Riot Fest and Aftershock in the States), there's still plenty of opportunities to discover some excellent new metal bands.
So, much as we did last month, we've assembled a diverse selection of some of the finest new bands to release exciting new music for your listening pleasure. There's massive riffs and radio-friendly choruses from Unpeople, Satanic boogies from Saturday Night Satan, infernally complex prog metal from Tiberius and hazy Deftonescore heavygaze from Oversize, all ready for you to explore.
Our massive playlist below contains all of these bands, and every other New Noise featured band this year, so be sure to get stuck in and let us know which new bands are exciting you most at the moment - and have an excellent month of new music!
Unpeople
London riff-mongers Unpeople are a hard band to pin down. Crushing riffs collide with gargantuan vocal hooks tailor-made for huge festival singalongs. While their name has negative connotations – the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘unpeople’ as ‘a group of people regarded as politically unimportant or without rights’, and the word also echoes Orwell’s 1984, where an ‘unperson’ is someone erased by the state – the band want to use it in an inclusive way.
“The term ‘unpeople’ was used as a political term to describe everyone but the 1%,” explains guitarist Luke Caley. “That’s all of us! We’re all busy throwing insults at each other and arguing, but we’re all in the same boat.”
While there’s a sunniness to their melodies, their lyrics paint a darker picture, as the four-piece examine social issues and mental health. In Waste, vocalist Jake Crawford cries, ‘Shoot yourself in the foot with the starting gun / good going / running a race that you know just can’t be won.’
“It’s the juxtaposition,” drummer Richard Rayner explains. “It’s such a light tune and you can see people thinking about it.”
The aim isn’t to be bleak, but to acknowledge a shared plight. Says Luke: “There’s a lot of, ‘Let’s all come together and be as one’, but we’re revelling in the shit of humanity.”
For all their darkness, Unpeople have certainly had plenty to celebrate Since forming in 2023 after the collapse of Jake and Luke’s previous band, Press To Meco, the band have had an incredible ascent through the UK’s heavy scene, including opening for Metallica in Austria last June… before they had even played a headline gig!
“Opening for Metallica was a circus situation,” Luke laughs, given the band had only just released their debut self-titled EP.
“Thankfully we didn’t turn up and immediately get booed offstage. That’s our bar!” Will Marshall
Unpeople's self-titled EP is out now. The band headline Camden Underworld on September 10.
Sounds Like: Invasive thoughts set to a pop metal beat
For Fans Of: Vukovi, Biffy Clyro, Black Peaks
Listen To: Waste
Saturday Night Satan
Saturday Night Satan describe themselves plainly: “Smooth rock’n’roll for Devil worshippers.” The husband-and-wife duo from Athens aim to soundtrack a witches’ dance with the mystery and panache of late-60s and early-70s occult rock bands like Blue Öyster Cult, Black Widow, and the band that launched their love of the genre, Coven.
“I want to party with the Devil, to have drinks!” vocalist Kate Soulthorn says with a smile. “It’s Saturday! This is the feeling of the music.”
To put listeners under their spell, Saturday Night Satan lean on Kate’s haunting croon, and guitarist Jim Kotsis’s Sabbathian riffs and Thin Lizzy harmonies. They wouldn’t be out of place chanting in a Black Mass with the likes of Lucifer, Green Lung or Jess And The Ancient Ones. Their 2024 debut, All Things Black, made waves with the hard-charging, synthladen intro track 5AM, dance-floor belters such as Devil In Disguise, and the doomy, lurching Lurking In The Shadows.
In a full-circle moment, the album earned them a spot supporting Coven on this April’s Magickal Chaos Tour, which Kate describes as a “dream” and “an honour”. The band aren’t interested in being depressing or demonic, and they aren’t worried about appearing heavy or evil enough. Rather, they want their music to conjure Satanic positivity in an increasingly terrible world.
“It’s not possible to have positive feelings all the time,” Jim says. “We feel bad about a lot of things, so the best thing to do is invest this energy into music.” “I’m not a little girl in the darkness,” Kate adds. “Saturday Night Satan is a happy dance. I’m happy when I sing and when I write songs, and you can hear it from our record.” Jon Garcia
All Things Black is out now via 3P Lab.
Sounds Like: Dancing with witches and devils under the pale full moon
For Fans Of: Lucifer, Green Lung, Thin Lizzy
Listen To: Devil In Disguise
Tiberius
What is progressive music? That’s not an easy question for Scottish prog metal quintet Tiberius, but guitarist Chris Foster eventually settles on a genre-agnostic answer.
“I want to have absolutely no idea where it’s going to go next,” he says. “I want it to be the last thing I expect, but as soon as it happens, I want to be like, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what it should have done.’”
Chris and his bandmates fulfil that criteria on Tiberius’s new album, Singing For Company, an eight-song platter of pulverising breakdowns, fleet-fingered riffs and vocal acrobatics that combine prog metal brutality with pure pop confection. Tip Of The Spear and Mosaic boast soaring melodies that add a lightness to their techy stomp, while New Revelation opens the LP with a sweeping orchestral intro that guitarist Jahan Tabrizi lovingly describes as “literal fucking clown music”.
This kitchen-sink approach, along with cheeky music videos and a theatrical live show, set Tiberius apart from many of their stone-faced peers.
“When we started doing this, a lot of metal, especially in the tech and prog scene, was taking itself very seriously,” Chris explains. “We were consciously trying to push against that a little bit, and have the catchier, more pop-inspired choruses, and have some sort of flippant, tongue-in-cheek lyrics.”
Singing For Company is a logical successor to Tiberius’s 2020 debut album, A Peaceful Annihilation, with a greater emphasis on hooks – something they realised they needed while they were on a tour delayed by the pandemic.
There might be some validity to lead singer Grant Barclay’s theory: “I always say that we’re a pop band masquerading as a metal band,” he quips.
Jahan grins. “Don’t tell Metal Hammer that!" Bryan Rolli
Singing For Company is out now. Tiberius play Bloodstock Festival in August.
Sounds Like: Melodic prog metal with a smart mouth and a light step
For Fans Of: Protest the Hero, Alter Bridge, Between The Buried And Me
Listen To: Mosaic
Oversize
Resting on nostalgia can often feel like an easy creative gimmick. Not so for English rockers Oversize.
“I don’t think we ever really sat down and went like, ‘We want to sound like X, Y, Z,’” says vocalist Sam McCauley. “We always knew we were a guitar band, and it just went from there.”
On Vital Signs, the group’s debut full-length, there’s no doubt that ‘the power of the riff’ is a driving force. Tracks such as Fall Apart and Vacant overflow with the kind of fuzzy, dynamic heft of Hum and the melodic bliss of The Smashing Pumpkins.
“We definitely don’t get bummed out when people compare us to those bands,” explains guitarist Lewis Lennane-Emm. “Because we do listen to those bands a lot. The 90s alt scene was still guitar music, but it was incredibly earnest, heavy and interesting, especially when you look at those more fringy bands like Helmet, Quicksand, and Snapcase.”
Every now and then, someone will pop up in the media and say that rock music is dead. But Oversize understand that it’s timeless. They aim to write songs that will appeal to people now and in the future, and they won’t be chasing any trends.
“I can really appreciate a well-written song regardless of genre,” Lewis says. “I really like pop music, and I love songwriting, but [some modern acts] were missing that authenticity for me. That sort of idea plays a huge part in our band. We don’t want to just write hits that trend on TikTok.
I would love for somebody in 10 or 20 years to stumble upon Vital Signs and still feel like it’s fresh and relevant. Writing a record is about creating something that stands the test of time. To me, that’s the highest compliment that you could ever have." Owen Morawitz
Vital Signs is out now via SharpTone.
Sounds Like: Loud, proud and fuzzed-out bliss
For Fans Of: Hum, Quicksand, The Smashing Pumpkins
Listen To: Vacant
