Metal Hammer UK

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IN EARLY 2015, Motörhead went into Hollywood’s NRG Studios to record their 22nd album, Bad Magic. It would be their last. Frontman and founder Lemmy passed away on December 28 that same year, just four days after his 70th birthday. But, in true Motör

BETWEEN CANNIBAL CORPSE frontman George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher’s obsession with winning plush toys in claw machines and donating them to charity, and Gojira’s environmental campaigns, death metal has a weird habit of producing extreme music’s lovelie

“Schlager years” with fellow countrymen Agents post-Him, the lovelorn dark prince Ville Valo has returned to the heavy side with his new solo record, Neon Noir. Talking to Hammer from his home studio, he’s as grandiloquent as ever, but with a twisted

“KICKSTART MY HEART by MÖTLEY CRÜE is my alltime favourite song. When I was a baby I loved it – Iespecially loved the intro, and when I heard it I’d run round in circles until I crashed into the kitchen cabinets. But SLIPKNOT are one of my favourite

WHEN PUPIL SLICER released Mirrors in 2021, it was compared to the works of Dillinger, Protest The Hero and Rolo Tomassi. The truth is, the British rabble’s debut exceeded the absurdity of even those mathcore giants, their sound as ambitious as their

Death in 1987, bassist Shane Embury has been an unstoppable force of both extreme creativity and creative extremity. He’s also in a billion side-projects exploring just about every avenue of extreme metal you can imagine. From grindcore (Lock Up) and

‘METAAAAAAAAAAL!’ NOT EVEN three seconds into The Book Of Heavy Metal, the opening song – and title track – of Dream Evil’s third album, the Swedish trad metal revivalists were nailing their colours to the mast in bombastic, overblown and entirely un

HOLY FAWN AREN’T strictly a metal band, but they are undeniably heavy. Their second album, Dimensional Bleed – released towards the end of 2022, and co-produced with Mike Watts (The Dillinger Escape Plan, Glassjaw) – is a wild ride, taking elements o

SOUNDS LIKE: A giddy mix of headbanging thrash riffs marinated in a vat of Stella Artois FOR FANS OF: Mutoid Man, Power Trip, Every Time I Die LISTEN TO: Sleeveless Jesus/ The Void BEER AND THRASH. Have there ever been two more satisfying bedfellows

ESCUELA MEANS ‘SCHOOL’ in Spanish, and the goal of this grindcore rabble is to teach the rest of their genre how to lighten up. “In the United States, grindcore music is really good, but the people are salty and conservative,” says Escuela Grind’s dr

SOUNDS LIKE: Self-aware more-br00talthan-thou metalcore with a nu metal twist FOR FANS OF: Attila, Jared Dines, The Hell LISTEN TO: No Rules, No Limits SINCE 2015, THEY’VE been annoying serious metal fans with their ironic takes on metalcore, but ar

SOUNDS LIKE: An emotionally devastating journey soaring over Icelandic forests and glaciers FOR FANS OF: Sólstafir, Sigur Rós, Mogwai LISTEN TO: Hjartastjaki TAKING THEIR NAME from the Icelandic town of Ísafjörður that its founders are from, Isafjør

DANCE DEVIL DANCE: CLOUDS DIPPED IN CHROME SUPER DELUXE VINYL AVATARMETAL.COM £271 RIGHT. AVATAR. WEIRD band. Great band. What’s up with the price tag? Well, this super-deluxe edition of their new record, Dance Devil Dance, is more metal than their

In the early 2000s, at corporate parties in Germany, nine-year-old Jennifer Haben could be seen belting out Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You and AC/DC’s Back In Black, backed by her brother and some schoolmates. Word had got around that the k

Stranger Things got plenty of 80s phenomena bang on, but the one that struck the most authentic chord was undoubtedly the iconic but relatable figure of Eddie Munson. As well as playing guitar in high school metal band Corroded Coffin (and introducin

Where: The Pokey Hole, Lichfield, UK WHEN: AUGUST 1, 1969 Black Sabbath had plenty of gigs under their belts by the summer of 1969, but their appearance at West Midlands blues club The Pokey Hole was momentous for one reason: it was the first time t

Danny Elfman is giving us a video tour of his studio – avast loft filled with marimbas, vibraphones and assorted drums, watched over by 18th and 19th-century wax medical models and old dolls/movie figurines housed inside glass domes. “These toys are

When Bad Omens frontman Noah Sebastian enters the Zoom chat, he’s sitting in an empty backstage room of a music venue in Massachusetts, wearing a black hoodie that all but envelops his skinny frame. We introduce ourselves and offer our gratitude to h

Gothenburg’s melodeath pioneers make their way back to their roots FOR A BAND who are considered a genuinely classic metal act, the last decade has not been creatively bright for In Flames. With albums ranging from the dull (2014’s Siren Charms), to

Sweden’s kings of the carnivalesque forget to oil their joints THERE CAN’T BE many bands who can write songs that sound like Humpty Dumpty stumbling around after an all-night bender and pull it off with aplomb. Since their inception, Gothenburg circ

Heavy rebel music on the righteous side of history THERE WAS ALWAYS something subversive about Big | Brave. Ever since 2014’s Feral Verdure, the Quebec trio have been embraced by the doom and post-metal scenes, while casually making any such affilia

Dutch symphonic metallers get a new lease of life WHEN THE NEWS broke in February 2021 that every member of Delain had quit, bar keyboardist Martijn Westerholt, many fans thought the symphonic metallers were finished. The split came out of the blue;

Metalcore saviours swap the pit for a rave REMIX RELEASES COME just below b-sides and rarities compilations but above cover albums in terms of music you want from a band. Yet Code Orange are a more tantalising proposition, given their masterful appl

Paradise Lost’s creative kernel reawaken their goth-pop passion WITH ITS ARTY photography and Times New Roman lowercase betokening a full flight into millennial alt rock, Paradise Lost’s 1999 album Host proved a bridge too far for a significant tran

Melodeath veterans revisit the darkest of ages SWEDEN WAS SEIZED by a paranoia over witchcraft towards the end of the 17th century. At its apex, pastor Laurentius Hornæus was commanded to exterminate black magic in his village. He shoved children in

Italian Eurovision superstars deliver måre than is necessary IF LORDI WERE suaver, hornier and Italian… er, they might be playing a sold-out O2 Arena this May. They’re not, but Måneskin are. The Roman four-piece countered Eurovision’s 15-year rock f

WITH THE PROSPECT of a 16,500- capacity arena planned to replace and plug the gap between the newly rechristened, 5,000 capacity Cardiff International Arena and the enormoconcerts at the Principality Stadium, it’s hoped that the Welsh capital will so

DESPITE DOORS OPENING mere minutes before ALLT are due to take the stage, the Swedes gather a growing crowd for their rousing fusion of metalcore, djent and post-metal. Paralysed, off their latest EP, The Seed Of Self-Destruction, is monolithic, its

Glam metal jokers remain stuck in their own timewarp TWO DECADES AFTER their inception and 14 years on from debut album Feel The Steel, Steel Panther are still telling the same joke. The band set out their stall for the new campaign early with opene

ELECTRIC BALLROOM, LONDON THE ORANGE GOBLIN Christmas gig has become a festive rite of passage alongside hangovers, heartburn and family arguments. Dodging the train strikes and frosty weather, a smattering of early comers see DESERT STORM kick off

O2 ACADEMY, BRISTOL WHILE THE ACADEMY can be relied on to be an uncomfortably stuffy, sweaty venue no matter the season, the current cold snap pervades the walls. As such, even though the show is near capacity, it’s bloody freezing, with extra press

O2 ARENA, LONDON TWENTY THOUSAND ROCK’N’ROLL devotees have descended on Greenwich for an evening sure to get the blood pumping and keep spirits warm, despite the frozen spell cast over London. MAMMOTH WVH, aka Wolfgang Van Halen, refuses to let his

Birmingham’s blackened grind heroes find themselves on a precipice OFFERING BOTH A possible farewell and a long-overdue return, tonight doesn’t feel like a regular gig so much as a coming together – asold-out crowd united for two bands with uniquely

It’s Friday April 22, 2022 at Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland. Fifteen thousand Nightwish fans await a much-delayed live taste of their heroes’ ninth album, Human. :II: Nature., released as the world shut down in 2020. Anticipation is high. The stage

From fantastical realms to elaborate filmic sagas and love-letters to Darwinism, the Nightwish discography is rich in intrigue – and low on dull moments. As its central creator, Tuomas Holopainen is inextricably bound to the sounds, feelings and memo