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From Friday 22 November 2019

LIVE: Dragonforce / LoveBites / McRocklin & Hutch @ The Welly, Hull

Despite being geographically one of the bigger cities in the country – not to mention current holder of the prestigious UK ‘City Of Culture’ title – Kingston Upon Hull is not a regular stop for most touring bands’ itineraries. Stuck at the end of the motorway on

Monday 03 June 2019

Cave In – ‘Final Transmission’

The last decade has not been a fruitful one for fans of Boston’s premiere hardcore-space-prog luminaries Cave In. Though the band’s members have engaged themselves in a number of high profile side-projects (Mutoid Man, Wear Your Wounds, Old Man Gloom, Zozobra, etc), the number of live shows

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Skeletonwitch – ‘Devouring Radiant Light’

When Skeletonwitch dropped their first major release ‘Beyond The Permafrost’ back in 2007, they stuck out from the then-burgeoning retro thrash crowd like a sore thumb. Where everyone else was content to play from the 80s crossover playbook, white high-tops and ripped jeans included, Skeletonwitch dared to

Thursday 24 May 2018

At The Gates – ‘To Drink From The Night Itself’

On the list of bands who you’d be fairly confident would never get back together, At The Gates used to be pretty high. Following a rigorous and destructive tour on the back of their masterpiece album, ‘Slaughter Of The Soul’, the band fell to pieces quite spectacularly,

Friday 20 April 2018

Møl – ‘Jord’

For a hot minute back in 2013, it really looked like ‘blackgaze’ was about to take over the entire world. Though the mixture of dreamy, ethereal shoegaze and harsh, uncompromising black metal doesn’t sound like the kind of music the mainstream rock world would ever

Monday 09 April 2018

Underoath – ‘Erase Me’

When Floridian screamo/metalcore heroes Underoath called it a day in late 2012, for once it seemed like a breakup that would stick. The band members spoke openly and very frankly about their road fatigue, and even released a documentary film, ‘Tired Violence’, to commemorate their own ‘final’

Tuesday 27 February 2018

Witness the rebirth of hardcore, courtesy of The Armed

Why The Armed aren’t the most talked about band in modern hardcore is totally beyond me. Their 2015 debut full-length, ‘Untitled’, was the most chaotic, inventive and down-right barmy hardcore record that wasn’t written by The Chariot in the last decade, and easily one of my favourite albums released

Wednesday 21 February 2018

Conjurer – ‘Mire’

Heavy metal was, at its point of conception, very British. Though you could argue yourself blue in the face whether the very first truly ‘metal’ band was Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath (it’s Sabbath, don’t be a dummy), either way you cut it, the fact is that

Wednesday 06 December 2017

Calligram – ‘Askesis’

In late 2016, London-based noise-mongers Calligram unleashed their debut EP, ‘Demimonde’, on the UK hardcore scene. An assault of punishing D-beat and charred, blackened riffing, it was a terrifying and glorious introduction for the band, and one that threw down the gauntlet pretty hard. Like, too hard.

Friday 27 October 2017

All Pigs Must Die – ‘Hostage Animal’

The last few years have truly been a golden age for the metal/hardcore supergroup. Some of the most stunning music that’s bled from our speakers has been the product of seasoned veterans convening and throwing their collective bands’ sonic fury together to form gargantuan new musical monstrosities.