Four shows, more than 64,000 fans and one little guitarist who stole a piece of the spotlight. Dani Martín has turned Roig Arena into his own rock ’n’ roll playground, with the latest instalment of his “25 pts años” tour delivering a glorious hit parade of memories, emotion and full-throttle singalongs. Some artists perform for a crowd; Dani Martín makes an arena feel like one enormous group of friends who happen to know every single word. On Saturday night at Roig Arena, Valencia got another reminder of exactly why the former El Canto del Loco frontman remains such a formidable live performer, as thousands of voices joined his in a celebration of a career that has soundtracked the lives of multiple generations. Opening with the one-two punch of “Zapatillas” and “Volverá”, Martín wasted no time getting the place singing, before weaving between his solo material and the songs that made El Canto del Loco a Spanish pop-rock phenomenon. “Cero”, “Emocional” and “Qué bonita la vida” sat comfortably alongside crowd favourites including “Besos”, “Puede ser” and “Una foto en blanco y negro”, creating a set that felt less like a greatest-hits exercise and more like a reunion with old friends. The emotional temperature rose another few degrees when Martín left the traditional distance between performer and audience behind, sitting among fans in the stands to deliver “La suerte de mi vida” and “Peter Pan”. It was an intimate moment on a very big stage, reminding everyone that the real power of these songs lies not just in the melodies, but in the memories and milestones people have attached to them. But one of the night’s most charming surprises came courtesy of an eight-year-old guitarist named Ali. The youngster, son of Martín’s close friend and fellow musician Raúl Gutiérrez — better known as Rulo, frontman of Rulo y la Contrabanda — made a special guest appearance, adding a wonderfully human moment to an evening already packed with nostalgia and emotion. In an arena accustomed to big productions and big personalities, seeing a young musician step into the spotlight was a reminder that rock ’n’ roll is also about friendship, encouragement and passing the love of music on to the next generation. The scale of Martín’s achievement in Valencia is every bit as impressive as the spectacle itself. His two October concerts brought close to 31,000 people to Roig Arena, adding to the more than 33,000 who attended his shows on 8 and 9 May. That takes his 2026 total at the venue beyond 64,000 fans across four concerts, making him the artist who has performed there most often and attracted the largest overall audience since the arena opened. Numbers tell one part of the story, but the atmosphere tells the rest. Martín has built a rare connection with his audience, bringing together fans who grew up with El Canto del Loco and those who discovered his solo work later. The result is a room full of people who don't simply recognise the songs; they own them, singing them back with the sort of conviction usually reserved for personal anthems. With “25 pts años”, Dani Martín is celebrating a quarter-century of musical history without treating it like a museum piece. These songs still have a pulse, the crowd still has the voice, and the connection between artist and audience remains the real headline. Roig Arena has hosted some huge nights, but Martín’s four-concert Valencia run has put him firmly in the venue’s history books. And with Ali’s surprise appearance adding a little extra magic to the latest chapter, this was another reminder that the best live music is about more than the hits: it is about shared memories, unexpected moments and thousands of people finding themselves in the same song. Words and photos: Rhyan Paul

Thirty years in the game, a wall of guitars and absolutely no intention of playing second fiddle. Ankhara brought Spanish metal muscle to Valencia and set the scene for a night of heavyweight power metal. There is something deeply satisfying about watching a band with three decades of history refuse to fade quietly into the background. Ankhara have spent 30 years carving out their place in Spanish heavy metal, and their appearance at Roig Arena on Sunday night was a timely reminder that this Madrid outfit has plenty of fight left in the tank. Invited to open for German power-metal veterans Primal Fear, they faced the familiar challenge of the support slot: grab the audience, make an impression and ensure nobody treats the first band as merely the musical furniture before the headliners arrive. Ankhara had every reason to relish the opportunity. Formed in Madrid in the mid-1990s, Ankhara belong to a generation that helped establish a distinctive Spanish identity within the wider European heavy-metal scene. Their sound draws on the muscular foundations of traditional heavy metal, the speed and precision of power metal, and the kind of melodic hooks that stay lodged in your head long after the amplifiers have cooled. This is music built on big riffs, soaring vocals and the belief that a great metal song should hit hard without sacrificing its melody. Three decades on, that formula remains a formidable weapon. Roig Arena was the perfect setting for an evening celebrating the enduring appeal of heavy metal, with Ankhara providing the Spanish steel before Primal Fear delivered their own German-engineered assault. The pairing made musical sense, bringing together two bands whose approaches share a love of precision guitar work, powerful choruses and the grand, fist-clenching drama that makes this corner of the metal universe so gloriously unapologetic. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when you can make it spin faster, louder and with considerably more distortion. The occasion carried extra significance for Ankhara, who are celebrating their 30th anniversary with plans for a commemorative album revisiting their legacy through new recordings and collaborations with prominent names from the Spanish metal scene. Rather than simply looking backwards, the anniversary offers an opportunity to reconnect with the songs and spirit that helped define the band, while introducing their history to listeners who may have discovered heavy metal through a completely different generation of artists. There is also a particularly neat connection between the two bands sharing the bill. Primal Fear frontman Ralf Scheepers previously collaborated with Ankhara on “Tu Verdad”, giving the evening a musical link that goes beyond the usual arrangement of headliner and support act. Metal has always thrived on these connections, with musicians crossing paths, trading ideas and recognising a shared language that stretches across borders. On this occasion, the relationship between the Spanish veterans and their German counterparts added another layer of interest to the bill. For Ankhara, the significance of playing Roig Arena was about more than the anniversary celebrations. Every opportunity to stand in front of a new audience is a chance to demonstrate that Spanish heavy metal has its own history, character and champions, and that a band does not need to come from Britain, Germany or Scandinavia to deliver the goods. Spain has produced its own generations of metal musicians, fans and underground institutions, and Ankhara remain part of that story. Thirty years is a serious stretch in any musical career, particularly in a genre that demands stamina, commitment and an almost unreasonable willingness to keep turning up with the volume at eleven. Bands change, trends come and go, and th e music industry regularly develops a short memory, but heavy metal has always rewarded those who stay the course. Ankhara have done precisely that, carrying their music through changing times and returning to the stage with their legacy firmly in view. Their appearance at Roig Arena was a welcome reminder that the support slot can be an opportunity rather than a consolation prize. With Primal Fear waiting in the wings, Ankhara had the chance to put Spanish metal front and centre on a bill designed for fans who appreciate their riffs heavy, their melodies mighty and their choruses built for raised fists. Three decades down the road, Ankhara are still flying the flag. And if Sunday night in Valencia reinforced anything, it is that Spanish heavy metal deserves to be heard at full volume. Words and photos: Rhyan Paul

Forget sweaty clubs, sticky floors and waiting until midnight for the good stuff. On Sunday 25 October, Los Radiadores are taking their guitar-driven rock ’n’ roll to one of the most beautiful settings on the local music calendar, the Jardín Botánico de Cullera, for another instalment of Músiques i Art al Botànic. And if you think rock ’n’ roll and botanical gardens sound like unlikely bedfellows, think again. There’s something gloriously appealing about the idea of a live rock show surrounded by greenery, fresh air and the natural beauty of Cullera. The botanical garden provides a stunning backdrop for a morning that combines music, art and the kind of leisurely socialising that makes life around Valencia so special. It’s a chance to escape the usual four-walls-and-a-stage routine, soak up the surroundings and enjoy a proper live band without sacrificing the daylight hours. Taking centre stage are Los Radiadores, the Valencia rock veterans who have spent years sharpening their sound and building a loyal following on the strength of their guitar-led Spanish-language rock. With Raúl Tamarit on guitar and vocals, Sergio Domingo on bass and backing vocals, José Antonio Nova on guitar and backing vocals, and Vicente Vila “Metralla” behind the drums, this is a band with plenty of experience and no need to dress rock ’n’ roll up in unnecessary frills. Their music draws on classic rock roots while keeping its own identity, delivering the sort of direct, no-nonsense energy that has earned them a dedicated crowd. And make no mistake, the diehard fans are part of the attraction. These are the people who know the songs, follow the band from gig to gig and understand that the best live music experiences aren't always found beneath enormous festival stages. Sometimes they're found a few feet from the musicians, sharing the moment with fellow devotees who appreciate every riff, chorus and perfectly timed drum fill. Put a band like Los Radiadores in an intimate outdoor setting and you have all the ingredients for a wonderfully spirited Sunday session. The schedule gives the day plenty of room to breathe, with doors opening at 10am, a visit to the Connectant Art i Naturaexhibition by the Llaurart collective at 11:30am, and Los Radiadores taking the stage at noon. Afterwards, anyone who fancies extending the good times can settle in for an optional paella at 2pm. That lunchtime timing is part of the magic. There's no late-night scramble for taxis, no desperate glance at the clock and no need to choose between a gig and Sunday lunch. Instead, you get guitars ringing through the garden, cold drinks, familiar faces and an easy-going atmosphere that encourages everyone to slow down and enjoy themselves. Then, when the final chord has faded, there's paella to look forward to. Rock first, rice afterwards: frankly, that's a pretty solid life philosophy. The Músiques i Art al Botànic series is all about bringing different creative worlds together, and this date has the makings of a particularly satisfying combination. Los Radiadores supply the volume and attitude, the botanical gardens provide the scenery, the art adds another layer to the experience, and the lunchtime gathering brings the community spirit that makes these events so appealing. Sunday 25 October, noon: Los Radiadores, a beautiful garden, a crowd of devoted rock fans and the promise of a long, lazy lunch in Cullera. Bring your appetite for live music, stay for the atmosphere and make a day of it. The plants can keep growing, the paella can keep simmering, but the best tickets won't necessarily wait for you. For tickets and more information: Moving Tickets

If there’s one thing Valencia knows how to do properly, it’s a long Sunday lunch, preferably involving good music, good company, a plate of paella and absolutely no reason to rush home. On Sunday 11 October, El Café is bringing all those ingredients together with a lunchtime performance from Senyor i el Cor Brutal, promising a healthy dose of Valencian musical magic before the rice even hits the table. The doors to Sunday happiness swing open at 12:30pm, with Enric, El Café’s ever-welcoming owner, doing what he does best: creating the kind of atmosphere where a quick lunchtime drink has a suspicious habit of turning into an afternoon-long social event. El Café has always understood that a great venue is about more than four walls and a stage; it’s about familiar faces, conversations that stretch across tables, cold drinks, and a community that comes together because it genuinely loves being there. And then there’s the music. Senyor i el Cor Brutal bring their own distinctive take on folk-rock, with the promise of songs that know how to tug at the heartstrings without forgetting to give the feet something to do. Described on the poster as “el folk-rock com a manera d’estimar” — folk-rock as a way of loving — the band’s appearance feels perfectly suited to the spirit of a Sunday session at El Café, where a little emotion, a few guitars and a room full of people can make the world feel a rather better place. Forget the idea that live music has to wait until darkness falls and somebody starts shouting for another round. There’s something particularly lovely about catching a band in the daylight, when the atmosphere is relaxed, the conversations are flowing and the weekend still has a few tricks up its sleeve. A midday gig gives music a different kind of intimacy, turning the audience into part of the gathering rather than simply spectators waiting for the headline act. And naturally, in true Valencian fashion, the musical proceedings are only part of the attraction. With lunchtime vibes in full swing and paella on the agenda afterwards, this is the sort of Sunday that deserves to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. First, feed the soul with Senyor i el Cor Brutal; then give the stomach its rightful reward. If the music gets everybody smiling and the paella does its job, nobody should be in any particular hurry to go anywhere. For Enric and the El Café faithful, that combination of live music, good food and genuine neighbourhood spirit is what makes these gatherings special. It’s the sort of place where the band might bring people through the door, but the atmosphere gives them a reason to stay, catch up with friends and discover a few new ones along the way. So, put Sunday 11 October in the diary, round up your favourite people and head to El Café for a generous helping of folk-rock, Valencian hospitality and the promise of a proper Sunday afternoon. Senyor i el Cor Brutal bring the soundtrack, Enric brings the welcome, and paella brings the happy ending. Honestly, Sunday plans don’t get much better than that. Suggested alternative headline: Guitars, Good Company and Paella: El Café's Recipe for a Perfect Sunday One small detail for publication: the band’s name is commonly styled Sènior i el Cor Brutal, and their sound draws on alternative rock, folk and Americana, with a distinctly Valencian personality.

Somewhere between the witch’s midnight ritual, the industrial dancefloor and a full-scale feminist uprising, Pretty Addicted are dragging centuries of silenced female rage into the light, setting it ablaze and inviting every woman within earshot to dance on the ashes. HYSTERICAL isn’t asking for permission. It’s kicking down the door, torching the rulebook and turning the word once used to shame women into a gloriously ferocious battle cry. Fronted by the uncompromising Vicious Precious, Pretty Addicted have built their own deliciously twisted corner of the musical underground, where industrial aggression, dark electronic beats and theatrical provocation collide in a gloriously unholy union. With HYSTERICAL, that blackened-rave assault takes on a deeper, more defiant purpose, summoning the ghosts of women dismissed as hysterical, dramatic, inconvenient or simply too damn loud for a world that preferred them quiet. The message is gloriously uncomplicated: the voices they tried to bury are coming back with amplifiers, sharpened claws and absolutely no intention of behaving themselves. The arrival of Sarah Jezebel Deva adds another magnificent weapon to the arsenal. Renowned for her work across the extreme-metal landscape, including Cradle of Filth, Therion and Mortiis, Sarah brings a soaring, symphonic darkness that contrasts beautifully with Vicious Precious’ raw screams, growls and venomous vocal delivery. Their voices don't simply coexist; they collide, intertwine and claw their way through the darkness, creating a wonderfully volatile chemistry that gives the track its own distinctive identity. It’s the sound of gothic grandeur crashing headlong into industrial clubland, with the dancefloor caught somewhere between an exorcism and a revolution. But beneath the blackened beats, theatrical menace and deliciously confrontational attitude lies the beating heart of HYSTERICAL: solidarity. This is music that reaches backwards through generations, recognising the women whose anger was pathologised, whose independence was punished and whose voices were smothered beneath labels designed to make them easier to dismiss. Pretty Addicted reclaim that history without asking anybody's forgiveness, transforming shame into strength and isolation into a collective roar. There’s something genuinely exhilarating about hearing a word once wielded as an insult reclaimed with this much conviction, especially when the delivery comes wrapped in such gloriously dark, unapologetic sonic theatre. And that's where Pretty Addicted really hit their stride. This isn't rebellion polished into something comfortable for polite company; it's messy, confrontational, theatrical and alive with the kind of unruly energy that makes underground music such a vital place to be. Vicious Precious and Sarah Jezebel Deva aren't merely delivering a collaboration; they're assembling a coven, raising a middle finger to the expectations imposed on women and turning female rage into something communal, creative and impossible to ignore. HYSTERICAL is a call to arms for the misfits, the outsiders, the furious, the fabulous and anyone who has ever been told they were simply too much. It's a blackened-rave incantation with metal in its bones, rebellion in its bloodstream and a dancefloor-sized middle finger aimed squarely at the patriarchy. Turn it up, summon your sisters and let the old hysteria call. The witches are back, the volume is rising, and this time nobody is checking them into an institution for having something to say. You can follow the cult here: Pretty Addicted

Sometimes the best records are the ones that were never supposed to happen. There is something wonderfully chaotic about Limbo, the new album from Baby Scream. Juan Pablo Mazzola apparently had no grand plan to unleash it on the world. The songs were written between 2022 and 2023, the original idea was an intimate acoustic record, and the whole thing could quite easily have remained another one of those albums that sits on a hard drive gathering digital dust. Then Eze Gruber got involved. What started with Gruber adding keyboards gradually turned into something considerably bigger, stranger and far more interesting. Suddenly the acoustic sketches were being pulled apart, rebuilt and covered in layers of synths, bass, keyboards, backing vocals and production, transforming Limbo from what might have been a stripped-back companion to 2022's Castell de Pop into an eleven-track trip through Power Pop, New Wave, psychedelic pop and classic rock territory. And thank fuck it didn't stay on that hard drive. Limbo is an album with a wonderfully restless personality. It doesn't sit comfortably inside one genre and doesn't seem particularly interested in trying. “Parole” sets the tone with its existential unease, while “Smoke and Mirrors” digs deeper into the album's darker, more surreal territory. “Lullaby” turns introspection into something considerably less comforting than its title suggests, before “Puppets” and “21st Century Bullshit” kick open the door and let the lunacy properly inside. That eclecticism is one of the album's greatest strengths. Rather than sounding like a collection of unrelated experiments, the songs are held together by Mazzola's distinctive songwriting and a persistent sense that something is slightly askew. The melodies can be deceptively accessible, but underneath them is a lyrical world populated by isolation, displacement, ageing, politics, love, absurdity and the occasional glimpse into the abyss. The title Limbo suddenly makes perfect sense. Both Mazzola and Gruber have spent years living away from their native Argentina, and that feeling of existing somewhere between places, identities and versions of yourself hangs over the record. It gives the album an existential edge without turning it into a miserable exercise in staring at your shoes. There is humour here, too, and plenty of surrealism. “21st Century Bullshit” takes a flamethrower to modern absurdity, while “The Jester” heads straight for the circus, with Mazzola firing lyrical arrows at egos, power and self-important bullshit. Then there is “H”, perhaps one of the clearest expressions of that sense of displacement, with its repeated feeling of being far away and unable to quite find home. It is a recurring emotional thread throughout Limbo: being somewhere, but not necessarily belonging there. The Gruber factor is crucial. His role expanded from keyboard player to producer, mixer and multi-instrumentalist, and that evolution is effectively the story of the album itself. He plays keyboards, synths, bass and backing vocals, recorded the production in Valencia and helped turn Mazzola's original acoustic concept into something considerably more adventurous. There is also a nice Valencia connection running through the record. Limbo was recorded at Studio 4 in Valencia, produced and mastered by Gruber at NPI estudio, and the collaboration follows the pair's 2023 live recording at Loco Club. So while Baby Scream may have begun life in Buenos Aires, Limbo is very much part of the musical conversation happening from this side of the Mediterranean. What makes the whole thing even more appealing is Mazzola's complete lack of interest in pretending that Limbo arrived according to some perfectly executed career strategy. It didn't. The album sat around for years. It was finished more than three years before finally being released. It was never really supposed to see daylight. Now it does. And rather than apologising for its oddness, Limbo embraces it. There is a refreshing freedom in that. This isn't a record desperately trying to fit a playlist, chase a trend or tick whatever promotional boxes the modern music industry has decided musicians should tick this week. It sounds like two musicians following the songs wherever they wanted to go, occasionally taking a wrong turn and deciding that the wrong turn sounded better. That is where Limbo finds its charm. It is melodic without being predictable, eclectic without becoming completely unhinged, introspective without disappearing up its own arse. At its best, it sounds like the result of two musicians throwing different pieces of their musical history into the same room and seeing what survived. The answer is eleven songs that probably shouldn't work as well as they do. But they fucking do. Limbo may have spent three years waiting for its moment, but Baby Scream and Eze Gruber have finally dragged it out of the shadows. And sometimes the records that arrive without a master plan are the ones worth paying the closest attention to. Check it out here: Bandcamp

There is something wonderfully sinister about The Haunt, and Until I Die makes it increasingly difficult to look away. The Florida-born brother-and-sister duo of Anastasia Grace Haunt and Maxamillion “Max” Haunt have spent the past decade building a sound that sits somewhere between alternative rock, hard rock, garage grit and punk attitude, but their latest single pushes that formula into considerably darker and more cinematic territory. Taken from the forthcoming second album Ghost, due on 30 October through Nettwerk, Until I Die arrives sounding like The Haunt have kicked open a much heavier door and discovered something lurking on the other side. The track is energetic and intense from the outset, driven by muscular instrumentation and Anastasia's powerful vocal performance, but what really gives it its bite is the sense that there is something emotionally dangerous lurking underneath the surface. This is not lightweight alternative rock dressed up in black clothing for the photographs. The Haunt have genuine darkness running through their DNA, and Until I Die embraces it without becoming miserable. The guitars carry plenty of weight, the production gives the track a cinematic scale and Anastasia delivers the sort of vocal performance that can switch from vulnerability to outright confrontation without losing its melodic edge. It follows ‘Seasonal Depression’, released the previous month, and the two tracks provide an intriguing glimpse into the world of Ghost. If the first album, New Addiction, established The Haunt as a direct and emotionally charged alt-rock outfit dealing with anxiety, heartbreak, depression and the everyday pressures of modern life, the new material suggests that the band are taking those themes somewhere considerably darker. And that development feels natural rather than manufactured. The Haunt have been making music together since 2015, when Anastasia and Max began developing their shared obsession with hard rock, garage rock and blues influences drawn from artists including Amy Winehouse and The White Stripes. Anastasia was only 12 when the pair began playing shows around Florida, and they have since gone from teenage musicians cutting their teeth on local stages to an internationally touring act who have shared bills with Palaye Royale and appeared at festivals including Download, Louder Than Life and Rock for People. That experience is all over Until I Die. There is confidence in the way the song moves between its heavier passages and more melodic moments, while Anastasia's vocal performance gives the track its emotional centre. She isn't simply singing over the top of a big rock arrangement; she sounds completely embedded in it, which gives the song a sense of urgency that carries the listener through its darker corners. The result is a track that feels tailor-made for a large stage, but still retains the intimacy that has been central to The Haunt's appeal. That combination has clearly served them well, with the band having accumulated more than 40 million global streams and built an international audience through relentless touring and a string of releases. The influence of punk and Riot Grrrl is still audible, particularly in the attitude and sheer refusal to play things safe. Kerrang! previously highlighted The Haunt's gothic aesthetic, punk energy and riot grrrl attitude, while Rock Sound identified them as one of the more promising emerging acts. Until I Die makes a strong argument that those early predictions weren't misplaced. What makes the single particularly effective is that it doesn't try to hide behind its darkness. There is a theatrical quality to the track, but it never tips into melodrama, while the heavier sections have enough bite to keep things firmly rooted in rock rather than drifting into soundtrack territory. If this is representative of Ghost, The Haunt could have something seriously interesting on their hands. The album's tracklist certainly suggests that they aren't planning to lighten the mood any time soon, with titles including ‘Favorite Way to Die’, ‘Worst Taste in Men’, ‘Cocaine’, ‘Psychotic Love’, ‘Hate Me’ and ‘Six Feet Underneath’sitting alongside Until I Die and Seasonal Depression. Taken together, it sounds like the soundtrack to a particularly unhealthy relationship with the inside of your own head, and frankly, The Haunt appear to be having a fucking great time exploring it. There is also a sense that the band's evolution is being driven by their experience on the road. They have already built a formidable live reputation through extensive touring in the US, UK and Europe, including numerous sold-out performances, and Until I Die sounds like a song written with that environment in mind. It has the weight, drama and immediacy to hit hard in a club, but enough melody to survive outside it. Most importantly, The Haunt sound hungry. After more than a decade of making music together, millions of streams and a growing international following, they could quite easily have settled into a comfortable version of what already works. Instead, Until I Die suggests a band pushing further into the shadows and discovering that the darkness suits them rather well. If New Addiction was The Haunt announcing themselves, Ghost looks set to be the moment they start revealing what they're really capable of. ‘Until I Die’ is dark, muscular, melodic and emotionally charged, with Anastasia and Max Haunt sounding like a band that has found another gear and has absolutely no intention of taking its foot off the accelerator. For more information: The Haunt

Valencia is about to get its first taste of Muse, and if the band's reputation for turning rock concerts into full-scale science-fiction blockbusters is anything to go by, the Roig Arena is going to need a big screen. On 23 January 2027, Muse will bring their The Wow! Signal Europa Tour to Valencia for what will be the band's first concert in the city, with the Roig Arena also serving as the final stop on the European leg of the tour. Tickets go on sale at 09:00 on Thursday 8 October via the Roig Arena website. By then, Muse will already have spent months travelling across Europe, beginning the European run in Manchester on 12 November before heading through London, Berlin, Milan, Düsseldorf, Paris, Amsterdam, Montpellier and Zurich. The newly announced January dates extend the campaign into 2027, taking in Lisbon, Bordeaux, Lyon and Madrid before Matt Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme finally point the tour towards Valencia. And considering what Muse have been doing with their live shows for the best part of three decades, closing the European adventure at the Roig Arena feels like a suitably enormous way to finish. The band have just completed the North American section of The Wow! Signal Tour, including headline appearances at Summerfest in Milwaukee and Festival d’été de Québec, before bringing that run to a close at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Now the European machine is warming up, and Valencia has landed the final date. At the centre of the tour is The Wow! Signal, Muse's tenth studio album, a record that once again finds the band staring into the technological abyss and wondering what the hell is staring back. The album takes its name from the famous 72-second radio signal detected in 1977 from the direction of Sagittarius, an unexplained burst of cosmic noise that became known as the Wow! Signal after astronomer Jerry Ehman famously circled the sequence of data and wrote “WOW!” beside it. Naturally, Muse have turned the mystery into a full-blown rock'n'roll concept. The album explores extraterrestrial communication, technological anxiety, humanity's search for meaning and the increasingly strange relationship between people and the machines surrounding them, which sounds like exactly the sort of subject matter that should be accompanied by enormous video screens, lasers, gigantic lighting rigs and Matt Bellamy making a guitar sound like it has just received a transmission from another galaxy. The musical firepower is there too. The Wow! Signal includes “Nightshift Superstar”, “Be With You”, “Cryogen”, “Hexagons” and “Unravelling”, with the latter originally released in 2025. The album has already attracted plenty of critical attention, with NME calling it Muse's best album in two decades, while Kerrang! praised its creativity and Louder highlighted its combination of spectacle, emotion and rock intensity. The album's launch was suitably bonkers, with Muse introducing The Wow! Signal in March through “Be With You”, announcing the record from space and immediately giving the world's music press something to write about. The single reportedly passed three million streams during its first week and made a major impact at Alternative Radio. But anyone who has followed Muse knows that the studio album is only half the story. Since forming in 1994, Bellamy, Howard and Wolstenholme have transformed themselves from a Devon trio with a taste for dramatic alternative rock into one of the world's biggest live bands. Their catalogue now stretches across ten studio albums, more than 30 million records sold and an awards cabinet containing two Grammys, an American Music Award, five MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, eleven NME Awards and seven Q Awards. Their previous album, Will of the People, continued that extraordinary run by debuting at number one in multiple territories and becoming their seventh consecutive UK number-one album, while 2015's Drones picked up the Grammy for Best Rock Album. All of which makes their first visit to Valencia rather overdue. The Roig Arena is also an interesting choice for Muse. Valencia's new indoor multi-purpose monster has a concert capacity of up to 20,000 people, giving the band the scale required to unleash the full cinematic version of The Wow! Signal. This isn't going to be a three-man-and-a-microphone affair in a sweaty basement. Expect a huge production, spectacular visuals and the sort of sonic assault that makes you briefly question whether you've accidentally wandered into the control room at NASA. For Valencia's music fans, however, the headline is beautifully simple: Muse are finally coming to town. The first chord will land on 23 January 2027, and when the final note of the European tour disappears into the roof of the Roig Arena, Valencia will have hosted something the city has been waiting nearly three decades to experience. Muse. Live. For the first time in Valencia. And closing their European tour. Tickets go on sale Thursday 8 October at 09:00 via the Roig Arena website. For tickets and more information: Roig Arena

There are records that arrive politely, introduce themselves, shake your hand and wait patiently for you to decide whether you like them. Then there are records that kick the front door off its hinges, throw the furniture into the street and demand to know why the fuck you're still sitting down. Kill The President!’s Face The Tide belongs firmly in the second category, arriving from Valencia with 27 minutes of melodic hardcore fury, skate-punk velocity, huge guitars and the sort of righteous anger that sounds considerably better through a large amplifier than it does through a laptop speaker. Released on 2 October through Lockjaw Records, Face The Tide is the latest full-length from a band that has been putting in the miles since their debut Citizens, travelling across Europe and the UK and sharing stages with the likes of Less Than Jake, Strung Out, Belvedere and GBH. Their 2022 album Aftermath established that Kill The President! were no longer simply another Valencia punk band making a lot of noise in small rooms; Face The Tide takes that experience and sharpens it considerably. Lockjaw calls it melody, rage and adrenaline, which sounds suspiciously like someone has been spying on the band's rehearsal room. The opening track, “Hollow Mirrors,” wastes absolutely no time establishing the rules. Guitars come flying out of the speakers, the rhythm section gets its boots firmly planted and the whole thing hurtles forward with the kind of momentum that makes you instinctively reach for the volume control. This is melodic hardcore with the brakes removed, but the important word remains melodic. Kill The President! aren't interested in turning speed into a competition; they understand that the fastest route into somebody's head is often a chorus you can remember after the first listen. That balance between aggression and melody is where Face The Tide really earns its keep. You can hear the band's influences — Strung Out, Belvedere, Propagandhi, Strike Anywhere and No Fun At All are all obvious reference points — but the Valencia connection matters because Kill The President! have their own sense of urgency. There is Mediterranean heat in the delivery, European hardcore muscle in the execution and enough punk-rock tunefulness to stop the whole thing becoming a 27-minute exercise in shouting at the walls. “The Lighthouse” is arguably the record's most immediate statement, and it is easy to understand why it was chosen as the album's calling card. The song has the propulsion of a band racing downhill with a stolen shopping trolley while somehow maintaining enough control to nail every corner, with guitars that slash and soar rather than simply bludgeon. It is the sort of track that makes perfect sense when you imagine it being played in a packed club, with the crowd three deep against the barrier and half the room shouting the chorus back at the stage. Then comes “Unspoken,” which has already existed in the Kill The President! universe as a 2024 track and now finds its place within the album's wider landscape. Its lyrical anger is aimed squarely at social injustice, environmental destruction and the hypocrisy of people who watch the world burn while pretending they can't smell the smoke. The band's Bandcamp version makes the subject matter explicit, but what matters musically is that they don't turn the message into a sermon. The rage is carried by the music itself, with the guitars and rhythm section providing the forward motion while the vocals deliver the punch. The album then pulls a neat little trick with “Reminiscence,” a 64-second instrumental that gives you just enough breathing space before “Remembrance” arrives and kicks the door in again. At a time when albums routinely seem to arrive carrying enough material for a small box set, the discipline here is refreshing. Ten tracks, 27 minutes, no unnecessary padding and no temptation to turn a punk record into a conceptual fucking thesis. The running times tell the story: most tracks are between two and three-and-a-half minutes, with “Unspoken” and “Papers” stretching beyond that without losing the album's momentum. “Liger Society” keeps the pressure high before “Start Moving Forward” brings Japanese melodic-hardcore band waterweed into the picture. The collaboration makes sense because the song embodies the album's central philosophy: don't stand around waiting for somebody else to fix the mess, because the world isn't going to send a rescue team. Keep moving, keep fighting and keep pushing through whatever is coming at you. At just over two minutes, the song doesn't hang around long enough for anybody to overthink it, which is probably exactly the point. By the time “Painted In Gold” arrives, the record has settled into a beautifully brutal rhythm. There is nothing particularly complicated about the basic proposition here, and that is one of the album's strengths. Kill The President! know what they are good at, and instead of disappearing down some unnecessary musical rabbit hole, they concentrate on doing it extremely well. The guitars are sharp, the drums have genuine physical weight and the melodies keep appearing just when the record needs them. “Papers” is another reminder that this is a band interested in more than simply making a room bounce. Kill The President! have always had social and environmental issues running through their work, and Face The Tide continues that tradition without becoming an album you need to read a political essay alongside. The songs have something to say, but they also have riffs, hooks and enough horsepower to make you forget that you're being lectured until you suddenly realise you're singing along. That is the trick. The message gets in because the music gets you first. The title track closes the album with the final piece of the puzzle, and Face The Tide suddenly makes perfect sense as a complete statement rather than simply a collection of songs. The tide is the pressure, the noise, the environmental and social chaos, the constant sense that everything is getting slightly more fucked than it was yesterday. Kill The President's response isn't despair, because despair is boring and ultimately useless. Their answer is movement, resistance, community and the stubborn belief that you can still push back even when the water is already around your knees. That makes Face The Tide a surprisingly positive record considering how much anger it contains. There is a huge difference between being angry because you've given up and being angry because you still care. Kill The President! clearly belong in the second camp. Their frustration comes from somewhere much more useful than nihilism, and the music reflects that. Even when the lyrics are dealing with some fairly bleak territory, the songs themselves feel alive, physical and optimistic in that peculiarly punk-rock way where optimism means picking yourself up, turning the amplifier back on and having another fucking go. It is also a record that feels built for Valencia's live circuit. Kill The President! have spent years developing their sound in clubs and on European festival stages, including Groezrock, Manchester Punk Fest, Punk Rock Holiday and Brakrock, and that experience is all over Face The Tide. This isn't studio punk designed to sound impressive through headphones while you sit quietly at your desk. These songs want sweaty rooms, battered trainers, people leaning over the barrier and a crowd that has forgotten for approximately 27 minutes that adulthood is mostly paperwork and bills. Which makes the album release show at Loco Club on Friday 9 October particularly appropriate. Kill The President! will be joined by Asturian melodic-hardcore outfit Flashback and Valencia punk-pop bruisers Los Brackets, making the evening less of a launch party and more of a three-band excuse to rearrange the furniture. The show gets underway at 19:30, with tickets listed at €12. And if Face The Tide is anything to go by, the Loco Club is going to get properly battered. What Kill The President! have achieved here is not revolutionary in the sense of reinventing punk rock from scratch, and nor should they have tried. Punk has survived precisely because bands keep finding new ways to take the basic ingredients — speed, melody, anger, humour, politics, friendship and the need to make an unreasonable amount of noise — and make them relevant to their own time and place. Face The Tide does exactly that, taking the familiar language of melodic hardcore and speaking it with a distinctly Valencia accent. The result is an album that feels experienced rather than manufactured. It sounds like four musicians who have spent years hauling gear, crossing borders, playing festivals, sweating in clubs and gradually figuring out exactly what they want their band to sound like. The production gives the guitars enough room to bite without sanding away their rough edges, the rhythm section drives everything forward and the melodies ensure that the aggression never becomes exhausting. Most importantly, Face The Tide is fucking fun. In an increasingly strange musical landscape where everything seems designed to be clipped into 15-second fragments and fed to an algorithm, there is something deeply satisfying about putting on a proper punk record and letting it run from beginning to end. Kill The President! understand that songs can still be weapons, that a chorus can still become a communal shout and that three minutes of distorted guitars can occasionally be more useful than three hours of doom-scrolling. Face The Tide doesn't pretend the world is getting better. It simply refuses to accept that getting worse means we have to sit down and watch it happen. For a Valencia band with international ambitions, that is a pretty fucking strong statement. Face The Tide is melodic hardcore with its fists clenched and its heart firmly in the right place, and Kill The President! sound like a band that has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Check it out here: Spotify

There’s now one week to go before Gutalax storm into Valencia, and frankly, Peter Rock should probably start checking the drains. On Monday 12 October, the Czech Republic’s finest purveyors of goregrind, toilet humour and utterly deranged blastbeats return to Peter Rock Club for an evening that promises to contain considerably more toilet paper than any respectable venue should legally have to deal with. Doors open at 20:00, with the sonic assault getting underway at 20:30. Gutalax have spent the last 17 years perfecting their particular brand of “Gore ’n’ Roll”, combining brutally fast grindcore, subterranean vocals, ridiculously heavy riffs and a lyrical fixation with bodily functions that would probably have Freud reaching for a larger notebook. Formed in Křemže in 2009, the band have built a reputation across Europe for turning extreme metal into one gigantic, filthy party. And this is where Gutalax become something rather special. Underneath all the toilet jokes, costumes, masks, toilet brushes and enough rolls of Andrex to make a supermarket manager nervous, these guys are seriously fucking tight musicians. The riffs hit like industrial machinery falling down a staircase, the drums operate somewhere beyond the accepted limits of human wrists and the whole thing moves at a speed that makes conventional timekeeping seem largely pointless. Then the crowd gets involved. Anyone who witnessed their previous appearance at Peter Rock already knows what happens when Gutalax meet Valencia. The place filled with fans dressed as sewage workers, armed with toilet brushes and rolls of toilet paper, before the whole room descended into a glorious combination of mosh pits, walls of death, flying bog roll and the kind of collective lunacy that makes you wonder whether somebody accidentally left the gates of the asylum open. This isn't a show where you stand at the back with your arms folded while quietly analysing the musicianship. Gutalax is participatory extreme metal, with the audience becoming part of the spectacle and the entire room eventually behaving like one enormous, sweaty organism that has consumed far too much caffeine and developed an unhealthy obsession with plumbing. And Peter Rock is almost absurdly well suited to the job. The Valencia venue's compact live room puts the audience right on top of the action, which means there is nowhere for the madness to hide and absolutely no chance of watching this from a safe distance. When Gutalax hit the stage, the distinction between band and crowd tends to disappear somewhere around the first blastbeat. The timing is perfect too. While the rest of Valencia is worrying about Monday morning, Gutalax will be preparing to turn Ciutat Vella into the unofficial European headquarters of extreme-metal toilet humour. So, with seven days remaining, now might be the time to locate your finest toilet brush, stock up on bog roll and accept that whatever clothes you wear to Peter Rock may not return home in the same condition. Because Gutalax aren't coming to Valencia to play a polite little metal gig. They're coming to flush the fucking place! For last minute tickets: Peter Rock

There’s something about a Friday night at El Cafe de la Plaça in Carcaixent that makes even the most ordinary gig feel like a proper occasion, and on Friday 9 October, Enric is turning the place over to Elena & Brothers amb Greg Izorfor an evening of blues, rock, soul and plenty of musical chemistry. Front and centre is Greg Izor, bringing vocals and harmonica, alongside Elena Castejón on vocals and flute, José Luis Ulloa on bass and Josep Carbonell behind the drums. It’s an intriguing combination, with flute and harmonica sharing the frontline while guitar, bass and drums provide the muscle underneath. And if you’ve been to El Cafe before, you already know the other ingredient that makes these nights work.The crowd! Enric has built something rather special at this little Carcaixent venue. It feels less like turning up at a gig and more like walking into somebody’s favourite local bar where, inconveniently for your liver, there happens to be a cracking live band playing. Regulars, musicians, locals and curious newcomers all end up packed together, talking, drinking, eating and getting properly involved once the music kicks in. That sense of community is a huge part of El Cafe’s charm, and Enric has become very good at putting the right people in the room at the right time! Expect a warm, intimate night, a seriously musical crowd and a band with plenty of room to stretch out. Elena & Brothers amb Greg Izor hit El Cafe at 20:00 on Friday 9 October. Get there early, grab a drink, find a spot and settle in. Friday night in Carcaixent just found its soundtrack!

Love To Rock 2026 had one hell of an opening act, and it wasn’t a band. It was the weather. With Valencia under an orange weather alert and torrential rain threatening to turn La Marina into something resembling a particularly soggy swimming pool, Friday’s entire festival programme was cancelled. Safety had to come first, even if that meant pulling the plug on a day that was supposed to feature Lori Meyers, Iván Ferreiro, Ginebras and a whole load of indie firepower. For a festival, that’s the sort of problem that can knock the wind out of the sails before the first guitar is plugged in. Love To Rock, however, wasn’t going to let the weekend disappear without a fight. Saturday was completely reworked, with the organisation opening the gates at 10:30 and reshuffling the programme to bring some of Friday’s casualties into the surviving day. Most notably, Lori Meyers were moved onto the Mainstage at 13:30, giving fans who had watched their Friday plans disappear into the weather a second chance. And what followed was one hell of a comeback. By the time the music got properly underway, La Marina was buzzing. The atmosphere had that particular Love To Rock quality: relaxed, friendly, slightly chaotic around the edges and absolutely committed to having a bloody good time. Rather than feeling like a festival desperately trying to make up for lost ground, Saturday quickly became its own beast. The setting helps enormously. La Marina is made for this kind of event, with the Mediterranean sitting just beyond the festival site and enough space to wander between stages, bars, food and the various pockets of activity without feeling like you're trapped in a human cattle grid. And Love To Rock understands that a modern festival doesn't have to mean spending eight hours standing in front of one stage. Three musical areas kept the day moving, with the Mainstage handling the big guns while La Pèrgola provided another stream of live action and Love To Food brought together music, chefs, drinks and the inevitable festival grazing. Lori Meyers getting their Saturday morning resurrection was one of the weekend's great moments, but the bill kept delivering. Mala Gestión, Depedro, Sanguijuelas del Guadiana, La M.O.D.A. and León Benavente took over the Mainstage as the day rolled towards night, while Los Punsetes, Vera Fauna, Parquesvr, Los Invaders and Grande Amore kept La Pèrgola moving. And that's where Love To Rock really scores. It's not simply about throwing a bunch of names onto a poster and hoping people turn up. It's about creating a place where people actually want to spend the entire day. You could bounce between stages, grab something to eat, catch a DJ set, bump into friends, discover a band you'd never previously heard of and then find yourself back in front of a big stage when the next favourite came on. There was a genuine sense of community running through the place. Families wandered around. Groups of mates claimed their favourite corners. Old-school indie heads rubbed shoulders with younger festival-goers. People danced. People drank. People ate. People wandered. And, crucially, people looked like they were enjoying themselves. That might sound like a fairly basic requirement for a festival, but it's surprisingly easy to get wrong. Love To Rock gets it right. The food side of the festival deserves a mention too. Love To Food has become an important part of the identity rather than some glorified collection of burger vans shoved behind a fence. The combination of live cooking, quality food, drinks and music gives the whole thing a slightly more grown-up feel without sucking the fun out of it. And then there were the DJs, filling the gaps between the live sets and keeping the place moving long after the sun had started disappearing. By the time La M.O.D.A. and León Benavente hit the Mainstage, the festival had effectively shrugged off Friday's cancellation and got on with what it came to do: put a bloody great soundtrack underneath a Saturday in Valencia. That's probably the best way to judge Love To Rock 2026. Was it the weekend the organisers originally planned? No. Was losing Friday a massive blow for artists, fans, crews and everyone involved? Absolutely. But did the festival recover? Like a bastard! Saturday demonstrated exactly why Love To Rock has carved out its place in Valencia's increasingly crowded festival calendar. The location is superb, the format works, the food is strong, the programming crosses generations without feeling forced and, most importantly, the crowd brings the right energy. There was no sense of everyone sitting around mourning the Friday that never happened. Instead, Valencia turned up, the music started, the beers flowed, the sun eventually behaved itself and Love To Rock got on with the fucking job. Sometimes festivals are judged by how spectacularly everything goes right. Others are judged by what happens when everything goes spectacularly wrong. Love To Rock 2026 had the weather throw the first punch. On Saturday, it punched back! Words and photos: Rhyan Paul