09/04/2026

LYFE THURSDAY | APR 9, 2026

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

ON TELEGRAM m RAM

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South Korean Hooligan tops streaming charts for 2nd week o BTS remains on top of game after much-anticipated comeback with Arirang

K -POP megastar BTS topped Spotify’s weekly charts for the second straight week with its latest album Arirang , the septet’s agency said last Saturday, Yonhap News reported. The group remained atop the global music streaming platform’s three charts – Weekly Top Albums Global, Weekly Top Songs Global and Weekly Top Artistes Global – for the week from March 27 to Thursday, according to BigHit Music. On Spotify’s daily charts, BTS also held the top spot on the Daily Top Artistes Global and Daily Top Songs Global charts for 14 days in a row from March 20, when the group released Arirang . The album’s main track, Swim , is also gaining traction on YouTube, recording 83 million and 6.2 million plays on the platform’s global and US weekly charts, respectively, for the week of March 20. Arirang and Swim debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums and Billboard Hot 100 singles charts, respectively, this week. With the new album, BTS returned as a full seven-member group after nearly four years of a break from group projects. It held a promotional concert for tens of thousands of fans at Gwanghwamun Plaza in central Seoul on March 21, reported Bernama-Yonhap The group will kick off the BTS World Tour Arirang in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, this Saturday, and continue in major cities around the world through 2027. Ű BY MARK MATHEN VICTOR THE fourth full length output by one-man Scottish black/speed metal band Hellripper continues its rip-roaring streak of releasing exceptional albums in three year intervals. At its core, Coronach sticks to what Hellripper’s James McBain does best: relentless black/speed metal driven by riffs, tempo and attitude. Surpassing the highs of previous full-lengths Coagulating Darkness , The Affairs of the Poisons and Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags , Coronach sees McBain not only going faster, but smarter as the album balances his signature breakneck aggression with longer, more structured compositions. Where earlier records largely leveraged on McBain’s instrumentation prowess and how he uses it to fuel the raw momentum necessary of black/speed metal, Coronach ’s display of it has been refined through dynamic songwriting. Tracks such as Kinchyle often shift pace, introduce unexpected transitions and layer in sonically different textures, allowing the album to move between being neck-breaking high-speed assaults and mid-tempo grooves while giving the music room to breathe while still hitting hard. Expanded sound lifts already fierce guitar work Like the other one-man band musicians in the more niche corners of metal, McBain is adept with all the instruments needed to make music in this realm, but Coronach is the real testament to how lethal he is with ALBUM REVIEW

BTS performs its hits and tracks from the album during a comeback concert at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, South Korea. – REUTERSPIC

Hellripper’s Coronach sharpens chaos with control

continues leaning into Scottish folklore and occult imagery providing a consistency that not only binds Coronach to the previous albums, but also ties the stylistic shifts in the album’s songs into cohesiveness. That said, some of the tracks do overextend their stay past the typical speed metal length. On the other hand, these couple of songs such as Coronach , have enough packed in them that they are minor dents on an otherwise strong tracklist. A refinement and an expansion of Hellripper’s music, Coronach excels not only by keeping the speed, riffs and chaos that define McBain’s goat imagery-laden project, but also by how it successfully adds structure, variety and ambition. Coronach goes beyond the limitations of the previous albums. – PICS FROM BANDCAMP

the guitar. A centrepiece of the album, the guitar work soars here, with the riffs and solos on the record being among the best in metal this year. Unlike how riff-packed the previous albums and how they tended to overshadow the other instruments, McBain finds the and give it a fuller shape. The best representation of it is the title track that closes the album, which even has bagpipes and clean vocals. Growing ambition, overreaching tracks Lyrically and thematically, McBain Though his first EP in 2014 went unnoticed, it was 2017’s full-length Coagulating Darkness that put McBain’s Hellripper on the radar. perfect equilibrium this time around. One of the reasons for it is how there is an expanded sonic palette, with added instruments such as the piano in The Art of Resurrection , and the subtle folk and classic metal passages. Rather than diluting the black/speed sound, they create an armour around it