You're browsing the archives

From Wednesday 15 July 2026

LIVE: Iron Maiden @ Knebworth

Iron Maiden are British metal titans, famous even to those who cower at the thought of distortion. Celebrating their fiftieth year as a band, the Run For Your Lives tour lands in Knebworth for one final extension of last year’s extensive UK performances. They’ve played here before, having previously

Thursday 09 July 2026

LIVE: Outbreak Festival – Sunday

The final day of Outbreak 2026 brings with it the usual trudge of tired festival-goers, ready for one final day of moshing. It’s still warm, but the cooler breeze and semblance of cloud cover means that the sunburnt are at least unlikely to be any more so by the

Wednesday 08 July 2026

LIVE: SUNN O))) @ Project House, Leeds

Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson stand facing each other, their faces largely hidden by their familiar attire of black hooded robes. Behind them are a series of tombstone-like amplifiers, arranged in a horseshoe shape around the duo. As O’Malley and Anderson simultaneously strike their guitars, the entire building starts

Monday 06 July 2026

LIVE: Outbreak Festival 2026 – Saturday

Day two of Outbreak 2026 sees the opening of a larger outdoor stage, which subsequently becomes the festival’s main stage. It’s a mixed blessing given the blistering sun which reflects off the surrounding concrete into the melting eyes of an audience of punks. Nonetheless, with three stages and a

Friday 03 July 2026

LIVE: Outbreak Festival 2026 – Friday

Outbreak Festival 2026 is filled with nostalgia. There is of course the usual array of hardcore and metal bands – some of which are at the genres’ vanguard – but the occasion has an altogether retrospective feel. A staggering number of the weekend’s performances revolve around album(s) shows, with

Wednesday 10 June 2026

BIG|BRAVE – ‘in grief or in hope’

It’s amazing to think there was a time when BIG|BRAVE performed as an acoustic project. During the early 2010s, the then-nascent band were a folk duo. Their evolution since – from duo to trio – has dramatically broadened the band’s scope. During this time, the Canadians have traversed most

Tuesday 02 June 2026

Converge – ‘HUM OF HURT’

In 2024, the BBC aired a four-part series called The Listeners. Based on the Jordan Tannahill novel, the drama follows Claire, an English teacher driven to insanity by a continuous and inexplicable ambient sound. While the story is fictional, the phenomenon, known as “the hum”, is well-documented. Instances of

Wednesday 29 April 2026

LIVE: Supersonic Festival 2026, Birmingham

Hidden within the increasingly gentrified confines of Digbeth, Birmingham, Supersonic Festival has been a sanctuary for underground and experimental music for over two decades. Now earlier in the year than usual and scaled-back to two days, the festival nonetheless continues to champion music and culture indiscriminately. It’s for this reason

Friday 03 April 2026

SUNN O))) – ‘SUNN O)))’

For almost three decades, SUNN O))) have consistently left listeners struggling to describe the ineffable sounds that Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson create. Genre-wise, most reach for terms like “doom” or “drone” metal, but those are insufficient descriptors. It’s like saying that Dick Van Dyke has a Cockney accent

Thursday 26 March 2026

Winterfylleth – ‘The Unyielding Season’

There’s a cold remoteness that resonates throughout black metal’s complex and not always pleasant history. It’s often the music of isolation, and many of the genre’s most identifiable characteristics – high-pitched screams, brisk tempos and coarse recording qualities – possess an innate relationship with absence; of light, company, temperature,