WORD & IMAGES: MATT MARTINEZ | Sick New World returned to Las Vegas, NV, for its third official installment, after an unfortunate cancellation of last year’s festival. Sick New World is a heavy metal festival that favors the nu metal and industrial side of the genre, featuring approximately 50 bands performing across four stages in a single day, with nonstop music and excitement. Metal fans descended upon Las Vegas for another year to raise heavy metal hell in Sin City.

Doors opened at 10 am for fans to enter the festival grounds, and we were held in one of the main food court areas for a short while while they finished setting up. While we waited, stilt performers and The Street Drums Corp performed under the iconic welcome arch to keep fans entertained before the music started. At 11 am, the ropes dropped, and fans quickly ran towards the stages they planned to camp at for the entire day, to be as close to the headliners as possible.

The four stages, all featuring the bands, were the Green and Purple Stages, which were our headline stages, as well as two side stages, the Diablo and Spiral Stage. Kicking off the entire festival was Los Angeles locals Speed of Light on the Purple Stage. I was fortunate to see them a couple of years ago on a small club stage in LA, and I was excited to see the recognition they were getting, being trusted to open the entire festival.

The Diablo and Spiral stages featured continuous bands and were positioned so that the music from one stage never overpowered the other. The Diablo stage features the heavier side of Sick New World, with hardcore, beatdown, and metalcore bands sending fans into an intensely raging circle pit throughout the day. Some of the featured acts included Flatwounds, Showing Teeth, The Dark.FM, Bloodywood, Norma Jean, Speed, Sunami, Health, Terror X Pain of Truth, Wage War, Poison The Well, and closing out the stage was Underoath.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Stax Records and Craft Recordings announce a long-awaited wide vinyl reissue for Stax Does The Beatles.

Released nearly two decades ago on the influential Memphis soul label, Stax Does The Beatles boasts members of the iconic label’s roster putting their indelible touch on Beatles classics. Among the highlights: Otis Redding’s exhilarating take on “Day Tripper,” Isaac Hayes’ epic (at 11-plus minutes), heart-tugging version of “Something,” Carla Thomas’ live, velvety interpretation of “Yesterday,” and Steve Cropper’s upbeat, brass-laden adaptation of “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

Available for pre-order now, Stax Does The Beatles returns to vinyl for the first time since its limited Record Store Day 2019 exclusive pressing. This newly curated edition distills highlights from the original CD release by Stax luminaries into a streamlined 1-LP format, offering a focused listening experience. Stax Does The Beatles is pressed on black vinyl, while fans can also find exclusive variant drops: a rich Translucent Ruby (Barnes & Noble exclusive), sunny Eggdrop Yellow (indie retail exclusive), and Silver Smoke (Stax Records/Craft Recordings exclusive).

The Beatles’ impact across several music genres is sprawling to say the least, influencing everything from rock to soul—and the legendary musicians at Stax Records were likewise inspired by the Fab Four. From the mid-1960s onward, Stax artists had begun covering Beatles tracks for the label, with their output peaking towards the late 1960s and early 1970s. Released widely on vinyl for the first time, this eight-track LP includes vocal and instrumental performances alike from legendary Stax Records artists, who imbue The Beatles’ catalog with a rousing mix of soul, funk, and R&B.

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Celebrating Bernard Butler, born on this day in 1970. —Ed.

When Suede released their eponymous 1993 debut, Glam fans took notice. No they didn’t. They leapt to their feet and dug through their closets for their six-inch platform Ziggy Stardust boots and moth-balled space age Brian Eno ultra-high collars before sprinting, or more accurately tripping and wobbling—have you ever tried to run in six-inch platform boots?—to loot the make-up counters of every store in London. Finally, they managed to lose (in six minutes flat!) the eighty pounds necessary to squeeze themselves into their old designed-for-skeletons glam attire. Depending on your point of view, it was a glorious moment or a bleeding horror show.

Actually, of course, none of this happened, because while Suede had that classic Glam sound, they didn’t necessarily look the part. They were, for the most part, Glam in mufti, and dressed, for the most part, in fashionable black, with the notable exception of vocalist Brett Anderson, who had that vintage Brian Ferry look—sans the 1940s tailored suits and jaded sophistication—down flat.

But none of this has anything to do with Suede, which ranks amongst the finest LPs of the Britpop era. By turns lush, romantic, low key, high strung, guitar heavy and flat-out metallic, the album’s songs are showcases for Anderson’s vocals, which tend towards the histrionic fabulous. His voice is the Glam glue that draws it all together—Bernard Butler’s guitar shapes the music, for sure, but it’s primarily Anderson’s arch delivery that sets the band squarely in the Great Glam Tradition.

“So Young” is as good as it gets. The song’s fresh melody captures the sound of youth, Anderson goes big time romantic, Butler’s piano adds flavor, and his guitar gives the song just enough muscle to keep it from dissolving into a lovely fey wisp. “Animal Nitrate” is a tougher beast boasting a killer chorus and Anderson singing, “Oh, it turns you on, on/Now he has gone/Oh, what turns you on, on?/Now your animal’s gone.” The ballad “She’s Not Dead” showcases Anderson’s ability to hit those dramatic high notes, while the band produces a Starman solar sound that fits Anderson’s voice like a tailored space suit.

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Today on Radar, I spoke with Genre is Death, an uncompromising noise duo made up of Ty Varesi (guitar, vox) and Tayler Lee (bass, vox).

They moved to NYC in 2023, looking for something beyond what small-town Georgia had to offer. They hit the ground running. A chance encounter with ’80s underground stalwarts Live Skull pulled them into the city’s noise scene and into orbit with Lydia Lunch and The Art Gray Noizz Quintet. In 2025, they toured with Gogol Bordello and shared stages with Bush Tetras and Jon Spencer.

Their debut LP, Attractive People, is out this Friday on In the Red Records, recorded by Martin Bisi at BC Studio in Gowanus. We spoke about their beginnings, their journey to New York, and the making of Attractive People. Tune in.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Los Angeles’ The Electric Prunes came up with a great idea in “free-form garage music.” It makes you think of a collaboration between Sun Ra and The Kingsmen. Unfortunately, something went terribly, terribly wrong when they went into the studio (actually a pair of studios) in late 1966 to record their eponymous debut LP.

Actually, that something was several things, primarily producer Dave Hassinger and the songwriting team of Nancie Mantz and Annette Tucker, whom Hassinger tasked with writing the bulk of the songs for the LP. Forget the fact that The Electric Prunes had songs of their own, only two of which would make it onto 1967’s The Electric Prunes. Hassinger got what Hassinger wanted.

The Prunes were understandably unhappy about this. Said one of the band’s songwriters (Mark Tulin, bass guitar, piano, organ) later, “We had nothing resembling freedom, let alone total freedom, in the selection of our songs. Consequently, there are definitely songs that I do believe didn’t belong on the album…” (Not only that, but they had to fight Hassinger when it came to HOW the songs should be played.)

Tulin might have added that there are songs on the album that don’t belong on ANY album. Not even Blood, Sweat & Tears would have touched the likes of “The Toonerville Trolley.”

So how is it that The Electric Prunes came in at No. 29 on Brooklyn Vegan’s “The 50 Best Psychedelic Rock Albums of the Summer of Love”? Well, I can only assume it made the list because it includes two of the greatest freak-flag-fliers of the acid rock era, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time,” along with a few other lesser lights that are far from embarrassments.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | BMG and The Montreux Jazz Festival announce the return of their prestigious live collection series, with a brand-new release, Roberta Flack: The Montreux Years.

The album, out June 26th in multiple-format configurations including 2LP heavyweight vinyl, CD, download and all major streaming services, features a sublime collection of Roberta Flack’s Montreux Jazz Festival performances spanning four decades, from her debut appearance in 1971 through to her last in 2008. Fully restored and superbly mastered for the first time by Tony Cousins at London’s Metropolis Studios, the unique recordings come with exclusive liner notes from her long-term manager, Suzanne Koga, and rare, unseen photography.

One of the most distinctive and powerful voices in contemporary music, Roberta Flack rose to global prominence in the early 1970s with recordings that shaped her legacy, including the timeless “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and the era-defining “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” A classically trained pianist and vocalist, she developed an artistry that was both technically refined and emotionally resonant, moving effortlessly between soul, jazz, pop and folk.

Flack also broke records and barriers in the music industry, becoming the first artist to win back-to-back GRAMMY Awards for Record of the Year, and establishing herself as a pioneering figure among Black women in taking creative and production control of her own recordings. Her career helped redefine the pathway for future generations of artists and reinforced the importance of artistic independence and musical excellence.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Three-time Grammy award-winning hitmaker NE-YO celebrates two decades of his breakthrough full-length debut album, In My Own Words, with the release of a new special Expanded Edition, In My Own Words (20th Anniversary), out June 19, 2026.

It arrives in multiple configurations, including physical and making its digital debut on most DSP platforms. The 2LP standard version is pressed on classic Standard Weight Black Vinyl and lands in stores nationwide and online. A limited-edition “Enchanted Night” color 2LP vinyl drops exclusively D2C through NE-YO’s uDiscover, Sounds of Vinyl, and Complex. A standard edition CD will also be available at brick-and-mortar retailers and online. Pre-order HERE.

All iterations of In My Own Words (20th Anniversary) notably feature brand new 2026 mixes of the original record’s 13 tracks. Plus, it flaunts a fresh 2026 mix of the fan favorite bonus cut “Girlfriend” and another remix of the opener “Stay.” He has also added special acoustic versions of “So Sick” and “Sexy Love” recorded live in Atlanta during 2021, which will be available across all streaming platforms for the first time after previously being exclusive to YouTube.

The CD and digital versions boast a handful of exclusive gems, featuring acoustic studio renditions of “So Sick” and “Sexy Love” and instrumental tracks for “When You’re Mad” and “So Sick.”

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Celebrating Nick Feldman, born on this day in 1955. —Ed.

The planet’s a mess, the US of A is going down the shitter, and everybody seems to hate everybody else, but it wasn’t always this way. There was a time, 1986 and early 1987 to be exact, when peace, love, and understanding reigned supreme.

And there was a simple reason for this—we were all Wang Chunging.

We were Wang Chunging in Detroit, Wang Chunging in Berlin, Bangkok, Bora Bora, and Bangor, Maine, Wang Chunging in clubs and cars and bars and retirement homes and passenger jets soaring high above the flyover states, where every single person in every single one of those flyover states was Wang Chunging until their eyes rolled up in the backs of their heads. None of us really knew what we were Wang Chunging about, or even what Wang Chunging entailed, but we were Wang Chunging anyway, and we were all deliriously happy.

And for that, we have the English New Wave duo Wang Chung to thank. I don’t know how they failed to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

The sad truth is Wang Chung never won a single prize period, and to add insult to injury the video for the song that had us all Wang Chunging to begin with, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” was banned by the BBC after a medical expert determined that its machine-gun editing (some shots approach up to 1/25th of a second between edits) could cause epileptic fits. It would have been one thing if it had been banned because it revealed Wang Chunging to be an interspecies sex act. But the video tells us nothing. You can watch it and Wang Chung to it, hell, you can even have an epileptic fit to it, but you still won’t know what Wang Chunging is.

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Some voices carry a country on their back. Ziggy Marley has been doing it for forty years, and the weight has only made the man more graceful, more centered, more himself. Nine Grammys and a lifetime spent stewarding a global musical inheritance, and he still sounds like he has something to prove—not to us, but to the work. Brightside, his ninth solo studio album and his first new material in eight years, arrives as a quiet act of defiance against the noise of the moment.

A pre-release review copy landed on my doorstep ahead of Record Store Day, and what I pulled from the mailer was a stripped-down version of what fans would soon find in shops—a clean, uncluttered cover, a plain white inner sleeve, no insert, no handwritten note from Ziggy, no colored wax. Just a black-labeled disc spinning in those classic Tuff Gong colors, the way the originals always looked. Sliding it out of the sleeve, that unmistakable new-vinyl smell hit me first, that warm petroleum-and-paper perfume every collector knows. I dropped the needle and let it ride. A faint crackle, a whisper of static, then the music breathed in.

Eight tracks total, co-produced by Ziggy and his brother Stephen at the newly built Rebel Lion Studio in Los Angeles, all of it tracked at 432Hz—that warmer, slightly detuned frequency reggae heads and meditators alike swear by—and you feel it. The low end sits lower in your chest. Trombone Shorty’s horns breathe instead of blare. Sheila E.’s percussion, Nikka Costa’s vocals, Jake Shimabukuro’s ukulele—this is a deep bench playing soft, and the restraint is the whole point. There are tiny imperfections in the pressing on my copy, a little surface noise here, a barely-there pop there, and somehow it makes the record feel more alive, not less. Reggae was always meant to be heard this way.

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First there was The Churchills, followed by a switch to Jericho Jones and then simply Jericho, essentially the same band in different stages of development. Formed in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a transition to the UK, an album was cut under all three names, and all three albums have been reissued on vinyl by the ever-dependable Guerssen Records of Spain. We give proper consideration to this trio of platters below.

The story here begins with the legendary UK producer Joe Meek. A new version of the Meek-affiliated band The Tornadoes (of “Telstar” fame), notably with no original members but formed through the auspices of Meek, were doing that “struggling in the 1960s” thing when they secured a six-week run of gigs in Israel.

After arriving, the arrangement fell through (naturally), but they still managed to play some shows and crossed paths with an Israeli band, The Churchills (or Churchill’s). At this stage in this region, all successful rock-oriented bands were essentially cover bands, and Tornado Robb Huxley began dishing a 30-minute set of soul belters live with The Churchills.

During this period, Huxley also met Canadian Stan Solomon, who became a musical collaborator who convinced Huxley to remain in Israel. Guitarist-vocalist Huxley and lead vocalist Solomon eventually joined a version of The Churchills with guitarist-mandolinist-vocalist Haim Romano, bassist-vocalist Miki Gavrielov, and drummer Ami Triebich.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | When you’re gathering guests for a Rainbow tribute album, who better to invite than some of the people who made Rainbow such a great band in the first place?

That’s what Cleopatra Records have done. Ride The Rainbow is an absolutely star-studded journey through the many faces of the Ritchie Blackmore-led legend, with stunning performances from no fewer than six Rainbow alumni: Bob Daisley, Graham Bonnet, Don Airey, Joe Lynn Turner, Doogie White, and Ronnie Romero! Plus Blackmore’s Night vocalist Candice Night, and Ritchie’s successor in Deep Purple, Steve Morse. As the subtitle says, it truly is “The Ultimate Tribute To Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.”

And to get the ball rolling, here’s the fantasy league line up of Bonnet, Airey, and Daisley reuniting for the first time since the dawn of the eighties, to perform a song that Daisley first recorded on Rainbow’s third album, also titled Long Live Rock’n’Roll, in 1978. The late Ronnie James Dio was the frontman on that record, but of course Bonnet and Airey know it well… they joined the band for its next album, Down To Earth, but “Long Live Rock’n’Roll” remained a concert favorite throughout their own time with the band.

The rhythm section here, too, is legendary. Bob Daisley is here, of course. But there’s more. Back when Ritchie was first starting out with Deep Purple, Vanilla Fudge were one of the nascent band’s biggest influences. Keyboard player Jon Lord caught the American group’s first London performance in 1967, and was convinced, “we were going to be an English Vanilla Fudge.” Drummer Carmine Appice, here taking a break from his current duties with Cactus, was a founder member of the Fudge.

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