The Sanctuary Gazette

Wrath is the third album by Bleached Cross, a band from Illinois. Post-punk meets darkwave, industrial, noise-rock and, in bursts, black metal-tinged hardcore. The themes are grief, guilt and a crisis of faith.

The record opens with Thorn Crown, between spectral synthesizers and distant voices. Season Of The Witch takes the form of a clandestine ritual, while Blood Moon sets the desire for eternity over clearer melodies. In Tomb, two voices answer each other, and the arrival of Harlee Young brings a more fragile counterpoint. Torment tips into dissonant fury while keeping the post-punk rhythm. Lingering Souls and Requiem pull toward electronic melancholy, and The Dark, the penultimate track, sets pain against the silence of God.

For OndaRock, which reviews it, the conflict between the need for forgiveness and the impossibility of granting it to oneself forms the heart of the record.

Coming from the Bavarian hinterland, DIAF releases AURA, its third album, on House of Inkantation. The record pairs expansive synthpop with lyrics in Bavarian.

It has ten tracks, all written, performed and produced by DIAF himself. It features big choirs, rhythmic percussion and bright melodies. The magazine Orkus, which devotes a review by Jan Schütz (Meersein) to it, sees a reworking of the Neue Deutsche Welle that escapes the clichés of the countryside. Orkus also interviews DIAF in its October-November issue.

Soliloquy // A Body Knows, an instrumental industrial album by Sheeba exp., is illustrated by Fabrizio Nisi. It unfolds in two parts and follows the course of an emotional disturbance, from thought to the nervous system. Rough electronics render its symptoms, while melodic passages answer the feeling of dehumanization.

The record begins with a ticking mixed with a steam engine, which stops, restarts, stops again. Drowned voices and children’s screams on a roller coaster evoke memories that loop endlessly. Paradise Lost starts on piano before a deluge of rhythms breaks it; Again, and again, and again speeds up, then Respite offers an ambient pause at the centre of the album. Rupture opens the most industrial sequence, with percussion that suggests gunshots and then bombs. In Wounded Ground, the rhythms pass from one speaker to the other until distorted vocalizations, which reviewer Richard Allen of A Closer Listen compares to Skinny Puppy. Void Talk closes the album on a thin but real consolation.

Midge Ure releases If I Was (Blank & Jones So80s Reconstruction) on 21 October 2026, a reworked version of his track by Blank & Jones. The release comes out on Chrysalis Records and is synthpop.

It includes two tracks: the reconstruction of If I Was and Fade To Grey in its single version.

Born James Ure in Cambuslang, Scotland, in 1953, Midge Ure replaced John Foxx as Ultravox's lead singer in 1979. That same year, he founded Visage. In 1984, he co-wrote the Band Aid track “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” with Bob Geldof.

Ortrotasce released I Remember My Life In Great Detail on 20 October 2026. The release was published on the label 3891099 Records DK.

The release brings together five tracks in all: Part of Man, I See Nothing, Framed Print, Critical Eye and Investigation.

Aurat released the single shadow سایہ on 19 October 2026 on Get Better Records. It includes two tracks: shadow سایہ and XIII.

The name Aurat means “women” in Urdu. The band sings mostly in that language. It is led by Azeka Kamal on vocals, with Gil Talbot on bass and production, nev ver on guitar, production and backing vocals, and Alex Lichtenauer on drums.