The Sanctuary Gazette

Solstice is the fourth album by London artist A.A. Williams, and the third of new compositions. The first album, Forever Blue, dates from 2020. The second, Songs From Isolation, gathered nine covers, and its title refers to the pandemic period.

The record has eleven tracks, running close to an hour. It opens with Poison and closes with The Gentle Harm. Electric guitar features prominently in the most intense songs, such as Just A Shadow, Wolves and It Won't Rain Forever. The more intimate pieces, including Outlines, I've seen Enough and The Veil, rely mainly on piano.

Distorsioni, which gives the album 8.5/10, notes that the artist softens the edges of the dark and gothic register, to the point that several songs sound clear, even luminous.

Brooklyn post-punk band ADMIN released a cover of Only a Shadow on October 15, 2026 on PaperCup Music, a song by Cleaners From Venus that came out in December 1982 on the cassette Midnight Cleaners. The release includes two remixes of the band's songs: Marathon Times (Trash Moth Remix), by guitarist Amelia Hazen, and Not Bad (KaeoFLUX Remix), by producer Ryan Casey.

Cleaners From Venus were founded by Martin Newell and drummer Lol Elliott. Only a Shadow was later covered by MGMT and Small Black, and Captured Tracks reissued the band's early albums in 2012.

ADMIN's version stays close to the original, with a more supple bass and a softer guitar. According to the band, it is the first song its members played together. It was recorded live in a few takes, with about thirty minutes of studio time left during the Mirrored Construct sessions.

Marathon Times comes from Mirrored Construct, Not Bad from the EP Systems (2025). As Trash Moth, Amelia Hazen added more pronounced percussion and insistent synthesizers. Singer Ian Jacobs says the band was impressed by their guitarist's remix.

The Berlin band Golden Apes, active in post-punk and darkwave, released The Sun Came Up Tremendously on Icy Cold Records on September 18, 2026. It is their twelfth studio album, made up of ten tracks recorded and produced at Thommy Hein Studios in Berlin. It comes out on limited vinyl, as a digiCD and in digital form.

The record leans on dense, layered guitars, Christian Lebrecht's bass, Salomon Bosse's drums and Peer Lebrecht's deep voice. In his review, Karo Kratochwil notes that the band makes no attempt to reinvent itself and that the voice stays woven into the sonic architecture rather than placed up front.

The lyrics return to a shared set of images: light, water, fire, wounds, walls, dreams and stars. Light changes meaning from one song to the next: it is what survives disorientation in “The Light (Inside Us)” and a threat in “Radiation”. “Milk And Poison” sets nourishment against poison, while “Resistance” turns toward action. “Helion” comes fifth, in the middle of the album, and “Where The River Ran” evokes, among other things, a wounded dog.

Vacíos Cuerpos release the single Volviéndome Loco on October 16, 2026, on the project's own label, Vacíos Cuerpos.

The project is Mexican and blends post-punk and new wave. It works with drum machines and dark, bittersweet melodies, and its lyrics deal with rawness and disenchantment.

Then Comes Silence, a post-punk band from Stockholm that was formed in 2012, is releasing Bye Bye Land on 16 October 2026 on Metropolis Records.

The release brings together three tracks in all: “Bye Bye Land”, “Remaker Redeemer” and “Judgement Day”.

The coldwave project IAMTHESHADOW releases the single Bending Time on October 16, 2026 on the label Cold Transmission Music.

IAMTHESHADOW was launched in 2015 by Portuguese musician Pedro Code, who is also linked to The Dream Collision and Rainy Days Factory. Its influences draw on the darkest and sharpest sounds of the 1980s. The project describes itself as a modern “dark romance”, where melody and words carry the desire to overcome fear.

Amulet releases the single I am the Dark on October 16, 2026 on Dist0rtion Productions.

Amulet describes itself as a female-fronted goth-industrial band with heavy bass, catchy melodies, atmospheric synths and dirty beats. The project is the originator of the #girldustrial movement.

An album titled The Dark is announced for 2027. It is produced by Christopher Hall of Stabbing Westward.

The single I'll Burn This Winter, which belongs to darkwave, is published on 16 October 2026 on the Hallwood label.

This is a release that is effective on that date and not an announcement, and the track bears the same title as the release itself.

Alien Skin releases Siamese Babies Back to The Womb on October 16, 2026, a three-track release: Simulation, You Look Like Death and Siamese Babies Back to The Womb. It is out on the label Alien Skin Music Australia.

Behind Alien Skin is George Pappas, keyboardist of the Australian band Real Life. Alien Skin was launched in 2008 with the album Don't Open Till Doomsday, followed by The Unquiet Grave in 2010 and Ghost In The Rain in 2012.

The project is coldwave. It claims a DIY approach and 80s influences, between coldwave, post-punk and minimal synth.

Extize releases ZERO GRAVITY on 16 October 2026 on the label darkTunes Music Group. The release comprises four tracks in total: ZERO GRAVITY, HOT AS FUCK, MAYBE BABY and BUENOS DÍAS MI AMORE.

Extize is a Franco-German electro-industrial band originally from Heidelberg, Germany.

Fatal Aim releases the single Алый Свет on October 16, 2026 on the label SkyQode.

The band formed in Tula, Russia, in July 2003 around keyboardist and composer Artyom “Tranquilizer” and singer Ekatherina Agrat, who writes the lyrics. Guitarist Vadim “V_ad” is a former member of Forgive-Me-Not.

The first album, Winter Saga, came out in June 2007 on Irond Ltd. Larisa Sitnikova, an actor at the Tula Philharmonic, later replaced Ekatherina Agrat on vocals.

The coldwave project Чайки улетают с моря releases Das Lächeln des Kapitalismus on 16 October 2026. The release has three tracks: Заметь меня, Das Lächeln des Kapitalismus and Добрые люди. It is released on the label of the same name as the artist.

Alien Tears releases Landmines, a darkwave album, on October 16, 2026 on the label Icy Cold Records.

The record features eleven tracks: Cyanide, Plague, Crash, I Know It's Hard To Understand, Celebration, Explanations (Kill The Feeling), Sleeping Pills, Lend Me Your Eyes, Facing The North, City Hostile and the title track Landmines.

Black Nail Cabaret releases Through Open Eyes (Black Nail Cabaret Remix) on October 16, 2026, a reworked version of its own song Through Open Eyes. The release is out on Gateway Music.

The darkwave band is a Hungarian duo formed in Budapest in 2008, before relocating to London. It brings together Emese Arvai-Illes on vocals and Krisztian Arvai on keyboards. Sophie Tarr, the project's original keyboardist, left in 2016 to focus on their own music.

Blut Reaktor releases the single Welcome Oblivion on 16 October 2026 on the label Black Hole Society. The project is dark electro.

It began in 2008 as a side project of John, with the first release In Limbo. The EP Pyro, accompanied by remixes, followed in February 2009, then the album Insomnia in 2010.

Goo Munday, a producer and musician from Sydney, releases the single Pastel Locket on 16 October 2026. The track is darkwave.

The release is on Goo Munday Productions, the artist's own label. 16 October 2026 is the actual release date.

Madd Rod releases Big Cities Make Me Feel So Small (Mr. Funghi Remix) on 16 October 2026, a reworked version by Mr. Funghi of the track Big Cities Make Me Feel So Small.

The single is out on the label Inner Shah Recordings. 16 October 2026 is the actual release date.

AD Ozium, the Washington, DC-based project of Jeremy Moore, released the album Body Without Organs on October 15 on the label Saccharine Underground. It is available digitally on Bandcamp. It is the third release of the year under this name, after the debut album In the Style of Dead Sparrows in June and the EP If Membership is Slumber in May.

Recorded mainly in March and April, the album has 12 tracks. It is more avant-garde than the industrial and progressive releases of Moore's other projects, such as Zabus, Zero Swann or Bell Barrow.

Its subject is social and economic inequality, with an emphasis on the dehumanization produced by widespread privatization. Moore states: “A society founded on dehumanization will know no other end than complete annihilation.” He also warns that “death comes slowly and surely to those arrogant enough to believe there is a statute of limitations on revenge.”

The cover reproduces a painting by Steven Archer (Stoneburner, Hopeful Machines, Ego Likeness) titled “Weight Incrementally Increasing”.

The series Crystal Lake, a prequel to the Friday the 13th franchise, went online on October 15, 2026 on Peacock, with all episodes available at once. The teaser released by A24 on October 9 carries the line “Follow the rules, stay alive”: a camp counselor welcomes children and asks them to follow the camp rules in order to survive.

Linda Cardellini plays Pamela Voorhees, who is mourning her son Jason, drowned in the lake almost a year earlier. When two strangers start digging into her past, a series of disturbing events is set off. Callum Vinson, seen in Chucky, plays the young Jason. The series is presented as the origin story of the masked killer.

Showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, whose credits include IT: Welcome to Derry, says the season devotes a few episodes to Pamela's psychology. He also promises many inventive deaths: “It's a lot more brutal. I think it's even more brutal in many ways from some of the movies.” The cast includes William Catlett, Cameron Scoggins, Devin Kessler and Christopher Denham.

The Horror Collective, Studio Dome's genre label, has acquired U.S. rights to Silver Screamers, a documentary by Sean Cisterna. The film will stream exclusively on the BloodStream platform on November 6, followed by other platforms in the first quarter of 2027.

The film follows a group of older people who step out of their comfort zone to make a very low-budget horror film under Cisterna's direction. It had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025 and has since played numerous festivals, including Toronto After Dark, Strasbourg, the Calgary International Film Festival, BIFFF and Celluloid Screams. The Globe and Mail sees it as a mix of “American Movie” and “Cocoon”.

It is the first release from a new theatrical distribution partnership between Studio Dome and Antenna Releasing. For Clark Collis, BloodStream's programmer, the film has the same broad audience as The Nonnas, with horror added, and it is real.

In an interview with The Playlist, picked up by Écran Large on 13 October 2026, Mike Flanagan discusses a departure from Stephen King's novel in his series Carrie, eight episodes on Prime Video. Spoiler warning.

The 1974 book ended with a letter from a woman describing the powers of her 4-year-old daughter, which reminded her of her grandmother's. Flanagan developed this thread by imagining a secret society of women with powers and a mysterious ally with whom Carrie flees at the end. The heroine therefore survives season 1.

The director says he sees it as a way to surprise the audience, who already know the prom scene. He states that King liked the idea from the start and that it could lead to a role for Carrie in his adaptation of The Dark Tower, after the one of The Mist. Écran Large, for its part, says it is disappointed by this modernization.