One of the wondrous things about this music, is that it keeps confounding expectations. It is easy to assume that a particular genre has run its course or has no further byways on which to travel. And then a new act will appear from nowhere and push the envelope in unimagined and unforeseen directions. This is the case of Blackbraid. At a juncture where many of us believed black metal had no ...
Read MoreThe way we discover new bands and fads has changed irrecoverably since us ageing dinosaurs, called the shots. Gone are the days when weekly publication like Kerrang, NME or Sounds would proclaim who was hot or not. Or of waiting for musical soothsayers like John Peel, Tommy Vance or Janice Long to rake through the entrails of never-ending demo cassettes in order to feed us with the tastiest ...
Read MoreIt is hard to imagine, but there was a time when Kreator were not the ubiquitous, imperious and omnipresent force of nature that they are today. This is their third appearance in this fair city in as many years, and their stature just keeps growing. Not bad for a band from the eighties that were practically written off during the nineties. The Apollo is completely sold out, and the crowd is an …
Read MoreManchester welcomes true New York hardcore royalty in the form of Madball and we're all in for it. The band were formed in the late 80s as an offshoot from the mighty Agnostic Front and haven't looked back since. Tonight they've got Dutch veterans Born From Pain and the UK's Tempers Fray in tow. Let's get ready to hardcore!
Read MoreIt’s always exciting to cover a gig that has a mixture of new and old bands, known and unknown bands, familiar tracks and fresh hits. And so, we find ourselves in such a situation down in Club Academy on a Friday night. A first look for us at Australia’s brutal Diesect, a reconnection with favourites Great American Ghost, a look at the new singer and tracks from Crystal Lake, and all topped off …
Read MoreTonight is a real treat as we get to watch one of my all-time favourite bands – Thrice. The Californian veterans, whose decades‑deep evolution has shaped them into one of post‑hardcore’s most inventive and emotionally resonant forces, are touring their new album which is a return to their earlier rawness. First up though it’s the singular support act of France’s Lysistrata, a jittery...
Read MoreSamy Elbanna used to be a very angry man. Lost Society started life in their native Finland as a fairly straightforward thrash metal band who enjoyed a party but here we are some 16 years later crammed into the tiny room at the Star & Garter to see how they have evolved and grown. The thrash roots remain, the vocals are often strident and indicative of a still barely repressed fury but the lyrics …
Read MoreRising from the ashes of Creed in 2004, Alter Bridge have the somewhat bizarre distinction of being an arena band who don’t like arenas and have also never had what you might call a hit to their name. They have won numerous awards over the last 22 years both as a band and individually, somewhat unusually kept the same original lineup, sold millions of albums, and are highly acclaimed as a live act ..
Read MoreIf you look at the posters for this year's Radar and ArcTanGent festivals, they are littered with performers that simply would not exist without Sikth. Call it mathcore, call it tech-metal or even call it, if you dare, djent. The simple fact is that Sikth birthed a sound and approach that now paths the more interesting of metal’s byways. Like all good innovators, they have been overtaken by ...
Read MoreRebellion is rammed tonight. Not in a passive “oh it’s busy” rammed, more like “can I not even stand at the back of the room by the merch” or “please stop breathing near me” rammed. It’s the busiest I’ve seen it in Rebellion for ages, and there’s a distinct hipster‑who‑doesn’t-go-to-gigs vibe in the room. I guess that’s what you get when you have genre-busting mainstream darlings like The Callous Daoboys headlining and an undercard of the excitingly novel Knives and Love Rarely. Let the games begin!
Read MoreTonight is a story of quality over quantity. For a tour that will move into arenas when it arrives on the continent, Academy 2 is criminally underpopulated. However, the sparse attendance enhances rather than detracts from the evening. Every member of the pit pushes harder and faster, creating a hurricane of havoc that quite simply elevates the atmosphere. Those of us unwilling or unable to sprint …
Read MoreGenuinely, heavy metal on a Saturday night at the O2 Ritz is a treat you should never pass-up on. Tonight we have an array of bands at different stages of musical development. Life Cycles bring the sharpened edge of modern crossover, Distant arrive armed with the kind of deathcore brutality we delight in, Revocation represent the old‑guard technical thrash lineage still fighting away, and Sylosis …
Read MoreAvatar: noun; (from Hebrew) a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth, an incarnate divine teacher. Ho hum. Also a rather stunning melodic death metal band from Sweden whose iconic corpse-painted lead singer probably imagines that he is all of the above! Here on this earthly plane his bodily form (and those of his bandmates) is celebrating some 25 years and 10 albums ...
Read MoreThere is a point during Drug Church's opening set when the monumental shift in Deftones popularity and support base suddenly makes sense. Patrick Kindlon decides to undertake a census of the tribes within the enormous aircraft hangar that is the Co-op live. His call out for old-skool metalheads elicits some sporadic cheers. When he asks for nu-metallers, there is more recognition but still ...
Read MoreImagine the scene. Two guys walk into a bar near their homes. One is a founding father of British Heavy Metal, having been a guitarist in Iron Maiden more or less since 1980 (with a short hiatus in the 90’s to pursue other interests and play in frontman Bruce Dickinson’s band). The other is s stalwart of American Glam, having replaced CC Deville in lipstick rockers Poison, briefly joined Mr Big ..
Read MoreRebellion feels cold in temperature but hot with anticipation tonight with three bands all wired with intent, all pushing their own flavour of atmospheric progressive metal. Headlined by the phenomenal MØL, what links them all is precision - three drummers playing like they’re chiselling their names into stone, three vocalists pulling emotion from both ends of the human register, and three ...
Read MoreThe ascension of Lorna Shore has frankly been astonishing. It is astonishing that a band this extreme, this heavy and this uncompromising has connected so easily with the mainstream. They do not deal in watered-down, commercial-friendly variations. This is full-on ball-breaking and boundary-splitting deathcore. Yet here we are in a massively oversold warehouse complex with an audience that ...
Read MoreMetal has persevered because of its innate ability to simultaneously seek inspiration from the past and the future. Tonight’s two acts build on what has come before and the muses of nu-metal and grunge are obvious. However they are also forcefully challenging the confines that metal exists within. They are reaching up to grasp the zeitgeist and seem undeterred by the notions of what is or isn’t me…
Read MoreThis is no ordinary gig. There is a positive feeling of refinement about the usually lowbrow surroundings of Rebellion. Chamber music pumps out pre-bands, and a tall lad stands reading a book at the front of the stage. During Patrick Walker’s solo acoustic 40 Watt Sun set you can hear a pin drop. There are no sounds of unruly rabble attempting to drink the bar dry. Instead, there is a deathly ...
Read MoreIf there is an act that truly deserves the opportunity to step into the big league of enormodome arenas, that band is Motionless in White. They have worked tirelessly to build up the rapid and expectant fanbase large enough to fill a good proportion of this 22,000-capacity room. Their following has been accumulated through blood, sweat and rampant omnipresence. This is their eleventh show in ...
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