Former Immortal frontman Abbath is set to return with his new band which is cleverly named Abbath. The group will release its debut album on January 22, 2016 via Season of Mist records. The disc is titled (what else?) Abbath (pre-order at Amazon). Apparently the man really likes his own name!

All of the advance tracks from the album point to it being the singer/guitarist’s strongest work since Immortal’s legendary Sons of Northern Darkness period from the early 2000s which is great news for fans of symphonic black metal. Abbath has just released another preview track titled “Ashes of the Damned” and it is a ripper! Check it out right here below and check back in a couple of weeks for my full review of the new album.

Following a strong 2015 slate, The Walt Disney Studios continues its eclectic lineup of original productions, branding via Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and Disney, and a few remakes. 2016 should once again demonstrate Disney’s prominence in the film business, though Universal is experiencing a creative and critical resurgence to some degree. What Disney holds in its favor is consistency (in quality, generally) and accessibility (familiarity with properties). Consumers know (almost) precisely what they receive in buying a ticket to a Disney movie – even if Disney now has its hands in Lucasfilm and Marvel films.

Here is a preview of 2016 films from The Walt Disney Studios.

I’ve been unabashedly gushing over about how great I think Michael Dougherty‘s upcoming Krampus is going to be ever since Legendary announced that the film was in the works. The director won me over completely with his Halloween horror anthology, Trick ‘r Treat, so I’m excited to see what he does with the Krampus myth.

Now, Dougherty is getting us ready for the film with a prequel graphic novel he wrote, Krampus: Shadow of Saint Nicholas, out on November 24, 2015 from Legendary Comics.

Check out the cover for the comic, along with two interior pages, here below.

This week’s edition of Black Metal Friday features blackened death metal gods Belphegor. Hailing from Salzburg, Austria, and taking the name of one of the seven princes of Hell, these guys have been spreading their blistering blasphemy since 1991. I’m very ecstatic to say that I will be catching the band live this weekend, along with over 60 other metal bands, at Slipknot’s Knotfest festival. And if that wasn’t enough to make me absolutely giddy, the band has also just released a live rehearsal video of themselves performing a brand new track entitled, “Totenkult – Exegesis Of Deterioration.” I assume this killer new song will be part of an upcoming full-length release. Keep your eyes fixed right here at GoD for any news regarding that and for full coverage of the Knotfest weekend.

Belpegor’s most recent studio album, Conjuring The Dead, was released in 2014 via Nuclear Blast Records, and reached number 13 on the Billboard U.S. Heatseekers chart.

Pioneering heavy metal band Megadeth has announced that its fifteenth studio album Dystopia will arrive on January 22, 2016. The album will be the first to feature the band’s new lineup, which includes Chris Adler (who is also in Lamb of God) on drums and former Angra guitarist Kiko Loureiro. Former members guitarist Chris Broderick and drummer Shawn Drover left the band earlier this year to form the new unit Act of Defiance.

Along with the album announcement comes the premiere of Dystopia’s first single, “Fatal Illusion,” which you can listen to here below.