heavy metal
Thomas H. Green
For better or worse, the lockdown may be easing in the UK but there’s no sign of any gig action, even on the far distant horizon. So it’s back to our screens for all that, and here’s the latest, liveliest selection of concerts, conversations and virtual festival action for the coming week! Dive in!The Other Songs/Brit School FestivalThe record label and management company The Other Songs, whose speciality is nurturing new talent, combine with the Brit School for a virtual festival this Friday (5th June) at 6.00 PM. It will showcase plenty of fresh-off-the-block artists, as well as dancers, Read more ...
Asya Draganova
The Yorkshire metal veterans Paradise Lost have been around for more than three decades. The name of the band has become synonymous with a distinct sound combining gothic, death and doom to deliver a layered, wonderful type of darkness. Their 16th studio album, Obsidian will very much please serious metal fans who have followed the band throughout, presenting a natural continuation of The Plague Within (2015) and Medusa (2017). At the same time, even a metalhead’s non-metalhead neighbours might not complain too much if Obsidian penetrates through the walls: the album is riddled with brilliant Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Abyss is the second disc by Osaka’s self-proclaimed “dark witch doom” duo BlackLab, but their first album proper, and it certainly delivers the monster sounds that were only hinted at by the compilation of impossible to find, early releases, Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0. In fact, BlackLab’s latest is a feral beast that bulldozes all before it like a true force of nature. Loud and distorted guitars, thunderous drumming and howling, banshee-like vocals burst out of the speakers like a caged animal set free and encourage the volume to be turned up to 11 right from the first notes. For this is Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As we unwillingly become used to lockdown, most of us are regularly looking for juicy tidbits to pass the time online, so here's another selection that should be well worth a look. Dive in.Sea Change Goes OnlineSea Change Festival, run from Totnes record shop Drift and usually based in Devon across a weekend in August, will be running a virtual edition this weekend. The five year old event, which has garnered a reputation for imaginative, independent curation, offers two days of live sets from Billy Bragg, Midlake, Metronomy, The Breeders, dame of folk, Shirley Collins, extraordinary Texan Read more ...
Asya Draganova
When it comes to new releases by Scandi rockers Nightwish, it’s not unusual to hear the well-worn phrase “I like their early stuff…” – usually referring to the mythical times when the band were with their first singer Tarja Turunen. Indeed, listeners might even have given up on Nightwish or at least failed to stay up to date with their line-up changes. However, their new release Human II: Nature deserves close listening. The symphonic metal band have made a massive contribution to Finland’s global metal image and their unmistakable style continues to evolve in exciting directions on this Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Given the times, theartsdesk’s New Music section is starting weekly round-ups of new streaming fare to liven the spirits and entertainingly pass the time during this lockdown. Here are our first five suggestions. Dive in!Light In The Attic ShowcaseThe archival/reissue label Light In The Attic put together an impressive continent-hopping set of live-from-home performances, running the gamut from veteran Brazilian musician Marcos Valle to Alex Mass of Texan fuzz-rockers The Black Angels. Mostly cover versions, the biggest name is probably Jarvis Cocker who, psychedelically shadowed, offers a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For the duration of this C19 Lockdown, rather than the usual sprawling monthly epic, theartsdesk on Vinyl will be presented regularly in bite-sized editions, roving across the pile of releases we have already, since those incoming have been whittled down a trickle. Welcome, then, to a cross edition of plastic ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre. Dive in!Napalm Death Logic Ravaged by Brute Force/White Kross (Century Media)Great title. You don’t get titles like that with Dua Lipa! Five years after their last album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat, the Midlands’ perennial politico noise-riff Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Welcome to the biggest plastic reviews party on earth. Now that vinyl is steadily successful as niche musical medium, some have rightly been considering its environmental impact. Perhaps the best overview is given by Kyle Devine’s feature in the Guardian, which is well worth checking (please come back if you do!). So, yes, record companies big and small should be looking to ecologically sound options to reduce the damage wrought by our love of music in this retro medium. They should, then we can continue to enjoy these warm, boomin’ sounds. Collected below is a multitude of music and a vast Read more ...
Mark Kidel
There is natural logic in the unholy marriage between heavy metal and Mongolian throat singing. The Hu are not to be confused with The Who – although John Entwistle’s vocals on “Boris the Spider” were an early manifestation of the "death growl" in death metal, but perhaps not a major source of inspiration for this new band from the East. “Hu” in Mongolian signifies the human realm or race, as opposed to the world of animals and their spirits. The Ulan Bator band have taken the world by storm, as the armies of Ghengis Khan, their distant ancestors, before them, with over 30 million views on Read more ...
Ellie Porter
“Are you ready to do battle with us?” bellows Johan Hegg, Amon Amarth’s imposing yet cheery frontman, immediately prompting an enthusiastic roar from the packed-out Brixton crowd. “GOOOOOOD!” He’s the most genial Viking you could imagine - six-foot plus with a gigantic beard and massive hair, a drinking horn holstered on his thigh, and a huge smile plastered across his face.Named after the Sindarin name for Mount Doom in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, naturally, Amon Amarth are currently marauding their way across Europe as part of a massive world tour (whose upcoming dates include Norway's Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The Ol’ Black Eyes is Back Tour celebrates Alice Cooper’s 50 years using his stage name. He’d been around under other names before 1969 but Alice Cooper – originally the title of the band rather than the man – achieved success as the Seventies began by combining trash-glam drag with stompin’ riffy music. He’s famed for his theatrical shows but needed to be on especially fine form tonight to match support acts who are both riveting.First on are MC50, a supergroup iteration of Sixties Detroit countercultural rockers MC5, consisting of original MC5 guitar warrior Wayne Kramer, Soundgarden Read more ...
Katie Colombus
There’s something in the dichotomy of Babymetal that I just can’t fathom. Cutesy J-pop meets heavy metal. Sheeny bubblegum-bounce dance routines to thrash. Sweet teen vocals over shredding.It’s like something that would get the audience vote on X Factor just because the entire nation wanted to piss off Simon Cowell. It shouldn’t work. And yet, bamboozlingly, they seem to have won over at least some of the hard core metal heads (Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Rob Zombie, Anthrax, Judas Priest) that should, by definition, think they’re a load of shite.My own mindset adds to the conglomeration of Read more ...