Written By Kevin McSweeney
Seven Deadly Songs: The Best New Metal Tracks This Week March 27TH 2026
Welcome to Seven Deadly Songs, Metal Lair’s weekly feature, coming to you from a relatively balmy UK this week where temperatures have soared to around 16 degrees Celsius.
My Australian and Floridian colleagues will be jealous! Anyway, you know the drill: we highlight songs from seven new albums or EPs by bands who don’t yet have the platform they deserve, but first, a word or two about other notable releases.
We’d like to direct you towards Awesome Anthems of The Galaxy, Iron Savior’s album of 1980s pop covers, which sounds like a lot of fun.
We’ll also draw your attention to the fact that Zakk Wilde has stepped away from Pantera for a while to bring us Engines of Demolition, the 12th full-length album from Black Label Society.
Oh, and there’s also the small matter of What if Better Never Comes? Bristolian alt-metal band Mallovora’s long-awaited debut album is getting the full review treatment, so keep your eyes peeled for that, but be warned: it’ll be written by me.
There’s a lot of good British music coming out this week, actually. It pains me that I haven’t found room for the superb Divine Chaos, with their new album Hate Reactor, but I strongly recommend that you check it out anyway. Why on Earth did we limit this to just seven songs? On with it!
Seven Deadly Songs: Carnivore A.D. – Social Decomposition
Well, this is interesting! What we have here is the concept of the tribute band being taken to a whole new level.
Carnivore was a controversial 1980s thrash metal trio fronted by Peter Steele before he formed Type O Negative.
Steele actually resurrected the band and toured with a new line-up, featuring Joey Z of Life of Agony, in the years just prior to his untimely death in 2010.
Now, three young Brooklyn-based musicians have slipped into Steele’s sizable shoes and are releasing new music under the Carnivore banner.
Their Facebook page describes the project as being: “dedicated with love and honor to the memories of Peter Steele and Keith Alexander.”
Their new EP Transmutation – I see what they did there – is available from March 27th via Apostasy, and this track from it is just under three minutes of face-melting thrash of which the original band would have been rightly proud.
Seven Deadly Songs: Final Coil – Narcissist
From what I can gather, Final Coil, who hail from Leicester in the English midlands, normally deal more in prog or post-metal, but have adopted an alternative rock/grunge sound for their forthcoming EP as a sonic love letter to the era “…which ignited the creative spirit of their youthful selves.”
That’s according to their website, anyway. Don’t come for me if that’s not an accurate reflection of their motives.
The EP is titled 1994, and will be available from March 27th, courtesy of Nyctophobic.
I have happy memories of that year, when I was young and slim with a full head of hair, and could occasionally elicit interest of an illicit nature from those in whom I had an interest of an illicit nature.
I digress! To my ears, they sound like Mudhoney on this track, but bear in mind how flawed my ears have been proven to be many times on this very platform. It all goes downhill at my age!
Seven Deadly Songs: Grain of Pain – To Burn Inside
Let’s not overlook the elephant in the room: it’s a daft name for a band. In fact, It might have been the silliest name of any I’ve seen this week, were it not being released on the same day as Press Start by German metalcore outfit Samurai Pizza Cats.
It really doesn’t matter when the music is this good, however. The melancholic melodic doom merchants from Finland are due to release their second full-length album Behind Us All via Noble Demon on March 27th.
To Burn Inside is the perfect way to introduce yourself to it. It’s slow and sombre, mournful yet majestic, elegant and achingly beautiful, while still being legitimately heavy. If that doesn’t compel you to turn a blind eye to a silly name, what will?
Seven Deadly Songs: Hellripper – Coronach
A Coronach is a funeral song in Scotland and Ireland. It has nothing to do with coronary thrombosis, though I suppose that could be the reason for the funeral.
If that leads you to expect something doleful and elegiac from from Scotland’s Hellripper, then your expectations will not be confounded.
It begins with a brief burst of the funeral march, for crying out loud! It is bleak, but also quite beautiful at times, and brutal at others.
Hellripper is a black/speed metal solo project by the admirably able Aberdonian James McBain, and this particular number is the title track of his fourth full-length album. It is due to be released on March 27th via Century Media Records. If you don’t seek it out, you’ll be pure scunnered.
Seven Deadly Songs: Kerrigan – The Ice Witch
Kerrigan sounds more like the name of a whiskey.than a melodic heavy metal band from Germany. I’d love to know how and why they decided upon it.
The Teutonic troubadours have been around since 2020, though you’d be forgiven for thinking that they recorded Wayfarer, their second full-length album, sometime in the 1980s.
Their debut album Bloodmoon was released via High Roller Records but this is an independent release, and will be available from March 27th.
I don’t know if The Ice Witch is inspired by the work of Hans Christian Andersen, or indeed the Frozen movies, but it’s probably melodic and inoffensive enough to be on a Disney soundtrack.
I don’t say that disparagingly. There’s some exquisite harmonies and some stellar musicianship to be found here. Not everything has to be Anal Cunt!
Seven Deadly Songs: Lion’s Share – Pentagram
They should have been mentioned among the big names in the intro, quite honestly. Swedish power metal powerhouse Lion’s Share have returned with Inferno, their first full-length album since 2009’s Dark Hours, and their seventh overall.
The red-hot new release will be available from March 27th, courtesy of Metalville, and all I can say is that they’ve been doing it since the late 1980s and they are masters of their craft.
The soaring vocals of Nils Patrik Johansson and sublime shredding of Lars Chriss will surely attest to that.
The cover art is impressive, depicting a fire demon resembling Surtur, the giant who brings about the destruction of Asgard in Norse mythology, as he is depicted in Marvel Comics. It’s only Ragnarök and roll but we like it.
Seven Deadly Songs: Winterfylleth – Echoes in The After
The final entry on our list is this week’s second example of British black metal at its finest.
In this case, it’s metal as black as Lancastrian clouds courtesy of Manchester’s Winterfylleth – an Olde English name for the month of October, apparently.
They release, quite remarkably, their ninth full-length album on March 27th via Napalm Records. The album is titled The Unyielding Season.
(I don’t know what the unyielding season might be in Manchester, but it’s bound to involve rain.) Alarmingly, the cover is one of several black metal album covers this week to depict forest fires.
Others include Autumn Embrace by Ensum, which ties in nicely with Winterfylleth, and Chronicles by Helgafell. I can only hope they helped Helga back up again. I’ll get my coat! See you in seven for another seven.
Artwork for Metal Lair’s Seven Deadly Songs, where riffs fall like judgment.
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SEVEN DEADLY SONGS Q&A
Q: What is Seven Deadly Songs?
A: Seven Deadly Songs is Metal Lair’s weekly roundup of the heaviest new releases across the full metal spectrum. Each week we spotlight seven standout tracks you shouldn’t miss.
Q: When does Seven Deadly Songs update?
A: We post a new edition every Friday, typically highlighting weekly new releases.
Q: Where can I find the best new metal songs?
A: Right here. Seven Deadly Songs is your go-to source for discovering the latest metal tracks including fresh black, death, thrash, doom, and speed metal releases, all curated in one place.
Q: How can I listen to the songs featured?
A: Every featured track links out to the artist’s official release, streaming platform, or label page so you can dive deeper and support the bands directly.
Q: Does Metal Lair have other weekly series?
A: Absolutely, Try:
- Deep Cuts – Hidden gems and lost recordings from rock and metal history.
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- Ministry of Metal – A satirical authority devoted to the laws, rituals, and unspoken rules of heavy music. Features proclamations, decrees, cultural edicts, metal lore, and an original comic book series, all delivered with humor and bite.
- Metal Legacy Profiles – Deep dive essays honoring artists who shaped metal’s sound, culture, and philosophy. These aren’t timelines or greatest-hits lists, but examinations of impact, conflict, evolution, and what each figure left behind.
- Road Riffs: Metal On The Map – We take metal beyond the speakers and onto the highway, exploring legendary venues, scene-defining cities, historic landmarks, local haunts, and travel stops tied to real
metal scenes around the world that every metalhead should experience.
About The Author
Kevin McSweeney is Metal Lair’s resident scribe of the underground, eternally rummaging through the global metal scene for riffs worth your time.
As the guiding hand behind Seven Deadly Songs every Friday, he has an uncanny knack for finding the track you didn’t know you needed, usually before finishing his pint.
Equal parts loyal, kind, and quietly razor-witted, Kevin brings deep knowledge, impeccable taste, and a steady, reliable presence to Metal Lair.
Read More From This Author:
Night Thieves: Metaxis Album Review
Matador – Above, Below And So Album Review
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