Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i Metal Hammer UK

“CHAOTIC, ANTHEMIC AND cinematic,” are the three words Charlie Rolfe feels best summarise her band, As Everything Unfolds, contenders for the title of UK metalcore’s newest ‘it’ band. When they’re not appearing on every UK festival line-up possible, or touring with the likes of Enter Shikari and Electric Callboy, they’re writing moody metalcore tracks with insatiable poppy verses that are guaranteed to stick in your head on loop. The band’s vocalist and chief songwriter, Charlie is also a huge film and TV buff and a photography graduate, and her affinity for those subjects plays into the visual aspects of the band. “Our albums are based on loose concepts,” she explains. “The first album [2021’s Within Each Lies The Other] was based off the magician tarot card, and then our new…

IN SHORT SOUNDS LIKE: Crushing modern metalcore, with surprise vocal hooks that Usher would be proud of FOR FANS OF: Issues, Poppy, Bring Me The Horizon LISTEN TO: Burn WITH AN ECLECTIC line-up consisting of former members of P.O.D., Attack Attack! and Demon Hunter, you’d be hard pressed to guess what World Gone Cold sound like. Even the band were confused when they started out. “When we sat down, we really didn’t know what it was,” admits vocalist Ryland Raus. Ryland tells us the band got together as a fool-around thing, with more and more members being added to the line-up because they were friends of friends, before “it just got crazy!” “Electronics? Throw them in there!” he says excitedly. “I like the poppy stuff, so let’s lean in on…

  As the lights go up in Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, Papa Emeritus IV surveys the thousands of people in front of him and beams as widely as a man in a full-face mask can beam. “Go home and fuck somebody!” says Ghost’s singer, his voice crackling with elation. “And if you can’t find somebody, go fuck yourself!” This is the second of two consecutive nights the Swedish band have played in this 17,5000-capacity arena, bringing the US leg of their current Re-Imperatour tour to a close. Even by Ghost’s own standards, the Forum shows are outrageously entertaining: part joyously unholy communion, part retina-searing high-camp heavy metal revue, with Papa Emeritus as the snake-hipped MC. There are eight Nameless Ghouls up there with him, while the set is punctuated…

″Metal Hammer are writing an article about this!” Corey Beaulieu announces with a grin. The Trivium guitarist and his three bandmates are in a dressing room at Cambridge’s Corn Exchange, addressing the eight fans crammed in here with them. Welcome to the Pig Pen, an up-close-and-personal VIP experience where a tiny handful of Trivium diehards can witness their heroes jam out a mix of rare and requested songs before the main show starts. For the £170 ticket price, they also get access to a meet-and-greet with the Florida band, as well as a bundle of souvenirs to commemorate the occasion, from personal photos with bandmembers to a Trivium tea towel. “I’ve always loved that ‘fly on the wall’ thing,” bassist Paolo Gregoletto explains, as Hammer sit with him…

FORCE MUSIC RECORDINGS Symphonic metal titans grapple with the weight of our world THERE ARE FEW bands in modern metal who have shown such a consistent evolution from record to record as Within Temptation. On 2007’s The Heart Of Everything album, they started to experiment with more guitar-driven songs as an antidote to 2004’s hyper-polished The Silent Force. 2011’s The Unforgiving contained many of the best riffs they’d written yet. Three years later, Hydra saw them look outside of their genre to EBM and dance music to find new ways to structure songs – apractice they carried on when writing Resist’s lush, synth-laden single, Supernova. UNDOUBTEDLY THE BAND’S HEAVIEST RECORD TO DATE As massive in scale and as cinematic as any Within Temptation record, eighth album Bleed Out sees the…

NUCLEAR BLAST Alternate histories and hard-hitting riffs from London’s stoner-doom folklorists EACH GREEN LUNG LP has boasted beautiful graphic design, but their third album’s packaging drops this bewitching London quintet squarely in the realm of the hauntological – that strange phenomenon taking its cues from distorted childhood memories of unsettling, British postwar cultural aesthetics. The pastiche of a 1970s Pelican paperback, and the opening documentary sample, immediately suggest This Heathen Land is a metallic iteration of the movement generated by the Ghost Box label – all spooky Radiophonic synths and twee psychedelia with folk-horror undercurrents. The map of occult sites that comes with the vinyl is Scarfolk to a tee. It’s a milieu that fits Green Lung snugly, even if there are more 90s influences and American reference points than…

SOCIAL MEDIA HAS no shortage of musicians displaying their often eyepopping skill and ingenuity, with the vast majority seemingly content or doomed to go no further. Yet, having a built up a massive online following that led to touring in Machine Gun Kelly’s backing band, Sophie Lloyd is now unleashing what so many of her peers are unable to: a well-produced and star-backed full-length, taking her career to the next stage. What’s unsurprising is that her debut has such an unambiguous title, enlisting some high-profile names to negate the negatives of doubters and her own anxieties about breaking through the glass ceiling. Writing songs that suit the styles of the various singers employed to front them can result in either an irrepressible greatest hits album or a patchwork collection. And…

OF MICE & Men have endured a lot of change since their inception in 2009, but they seem to get stronger at every turn. After parting ways with not one but two beloved vocalists in Shayley Bourget and Austin Carlile, they could have easily thrown in the towel. But since stepping up to the challenge of filling the void as lead vocalist in 2016, bassist Aaron Pauley has breathed new life into the band. Aaron’s effect on OM&M’s eighth album – and the fourth with him as frontman – is particularly special, whether he’s in melodic or aggressive mode. Into The Sun is a satisfying blast of stadium rock, Eternal Pessimist is deliciously vicious, and Enraptured has an unexpectedly strong Tool vibe to it. However, it’s the gentle, gripping title…

SINCE DEBUTING WITH Düsseldorf legends Warlock in 1984, Doro Pesch has been the undisputed Metal Queen. She’s back again this month with her 14th solo album, the uplifting and tempestuous Conqueress – Forever Strong And Proud. She’s also just about the loveliest person on the planet, with enough positive energy to make Dave Grohl look like Eeyore, so it was high time we threw her your perceptive questions – well, perceptive except for the one about the duck/ horse thing. That one’s just barmy. Who are your musical heroes? John Felix, Facebook “That’s easy to answer! When I was a little girl, I was into glam rock – T. Rex, Sweet, Slade, Suzi Quatro, Alice Cooper – then when I had my first band, my heroes were Ronnie James Dio,…

VOLTAIRE WARNED THAT ‘perfect is the enemy of good’, and Edinburgh-based alternative trio Healthyliving certainly took that to heart when crafting their debut, Songs Of Abundance, Psalms Of Grief. Collaborators Amaya López- Carromero and Scott McLean had already worked together on several musical projects – Maud The Moth, Ashenspire, Falloch and Tyrannus, to name but a few – so when it came to writing music for the nascent Healthyliving, they knew they had to take a different approach to songwriting this time – namely, not to obsess over perfection. IN SHORT SOUNDS LIKE: Introspective, expansive alternative rock languishing between shoegaze, doom and post-punk, with a heartstopping vocal FOR FANS OF: Messa, The Oath, Shaam Larein LISTEN TO: Galleries “The songs had to be finished in one sitting,” explains Scott. “To…

W.A.S.P. THE 7 SAVAGE: 1984-1992 – 8LP BOX SET MADFISH £199.99 FUNNY TO THINK that W.A.S.P. were once seen as the most shocking band in the world. What quaint times those must’ve been, eh? While the lyrics to Animal (Fuck Like A Beast) still read like the lusty thoughts of a horny virgin, there’s no denying that when the band hit home they were pretty unstoppable. This limited-to-2,000 box set is a suitably big bastard, with the music spanning eight slabs of half-speed-mastered vinyl that take in the band’s first five studio albums, their Live… In The Raw outing and a disc’s worth of oddments. If you can stop headbanging for long enough to use your eyes, you’ll also be treated to a Blackie Lawless poster (phwoar), a 60-page book…

we have been instructed to arrive at Twin Temple’s home after dark. Located in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Los Angeles, the old house sits behind tall hedges, its outer walls painted black. A metal art deco bat watches over the porch and funereal lace covers the windows. After a knock on the door, we meet singer Alexandra James. “Welcome to the crypt,” she says with an inviting smile, fake (we assume) blood trickling from her lips. The singer lives here with husband Zachary, her life partner in art and magick. As Twin Temple, they make what they call ‘Satanic Doo-Wop’, a loving throwback to classic girl group rock’n’roll with genuine demonic overtones. Tonight, they will lead Metal Hammer on a tour of their carefully curated 1895 Victorian home.…

The Surface RED BULL Caleb and co make the long voyage to self-acceptance NEARLY A DECADE on from Beartooth’s 2014 debut, Disgusting, and the mindset of that album couldn’t be further from frontman Caleb Shomo’s thoughts. A more mature venture than those early days of lyrical self-flagellation, The Surface is his most balanced outing to date – aburst of glowing metalcore grappling with his turbulent journey to self-love. As the opening title track howls, ‘might have pushed it to the limit – but I’m not dead yet!’ From the off, The Surface is thrumming with life. Soaring instrumentals glimmer with unbridled joy, while beefy breakdowns serve as a defibrillating jolt, grounding you in the moment. What Are You Waiting For is perhaps the finest example of this – asoaring, moshpit-bait…

IN HER PREVIOUS incarnation as Lingua Ignota, Kristin Hayter released several jaw-dropping records, each one an uncompromising exploration of the singer’s own personal traumas. Not unreasonably, she eventually concluded that tethering her artistic identity to all that darkness and terror was probably unhealthy. Thus, one of heavy music’s most idiosyncratic voices would be reborn as Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter: a new persona for a radical change of musical focus. Although littered with sonic subterfuge, Saved! is, in essence, a gospel record. An exercise in seeking salvation through the ecstasy of religious fervour, it strips away most of the excoriating noise of the Lingua Ignota years, revealing the true depth and breadth of Kristin’s extraordinary voice over swampy, treated pianos. I’m Getting Out While I Can is a gently confounding entry…

ON THURSDAY AUGUST 24, the wrestling world was rocked by the news that Windham Rotunda, known by his WWE moniker Bray Wyatt, had unexpectedly died at the age of just 36. Beloved by fans for his captivating promos and unique wrestling style, and particularly embraced by metalheads for his horror-influenced gimmick and darkly subversive aesthetic, Bray enjoyed almost a decade as one of WWE’s most memorable on-screen characters, winning three world championships during his time with the company. A huge metal fan, Bray once reached out to Slipknot with a request to use their 2019 single Unsainted as his official entrance theme, tweeting: “I’m trying to convince Corey Taylor to let me use this as the best entrance music of all time.” He was also a fan of Code Orange;…

IT’S BEEN A long but steady climb for Sheffield metalcore crew While She Sleeps. Hotly tipped as metal’s bright new hopes when they emerged just over a decade ago, they’ve taken the longer, arguably more interesting, route to the top. With every record they put out being greeted with greater and greater acclaim by fans and critics, and having sold out a venue as prestigious as Alexandra Palace in London, their forthcoming sixth album could be the one that finally places them atop metal’s mountain. We caught up with vocalist Loz Taylor and guitarist Sean Long to ask what they’ve got cooking. You’ve taken big leaps in your sound over the last few albums, by including rapping, choirs and electronics. Will this one see similar experimentation? Loz Taylor: “I think…

The Used (left to right): Jeph Howard, Quinn Allman, Bert McCracken, Branden Steineckert BY THE EARLY 2000s, nu metal was no longer the undisputed top dog when it came to heavy music. Granted, relative latecomers such as Evanescence’s Fallen would still climb up international charts, but the scene as a whole had become formulaic, with many of its originators moving on or distancing themselves from an increasingly toxic crop of johnny-come-latelys. Alternative music was in sore need of a shake-up, and tonally shifted towards something more nakedly confessional. On The Used’s 2002 debut single, The Taste Of Ink, vocalist Bert McCracken had one thing to say: “Here I am.” Originally penned for the band’s 2001 demo tape, commonly referred to as their ‘Demos From The Basement’, The Taste Of Ink…

THE SHOCK AND sadness that surrounded the acrimonious split of Every Time I Die in January 2022 still lingers, and even though The Dillinger Escape Plan haven’t been a going concern since 2017, plenty of fans still mourn them. So, when the key members of both bands announced they were coming together to form Better Lovers, it felt like a dream for fans of challenging, chaotic and furiously noisy music. “You have to have that humbleness,” smiles guitarist Jordan Buckley. “But you also need to know that you’re fucking killers and you’re going to blow everyone away. Not just because of the name, but because of what we know we’re all so capable of.” If a new band rocked up on the scene with this level of confidence, you might…

IN SHORT SOUNDS LIKE: Wayfaring cinematic metal that will fuel your imagination and rack up stamps in your passport FOR FANS OF: Arch Enemy, Epica, Ad Infinitum LISTEN TO: Dunes IGNEA WEAVEA cinematic tapestry of symphonic, progressive and death metal, heavily influenced by their Ukrainian musical heritage. Their third LP lives up to its name, immersing listeners in ‘Dreams Of Lands Unseen’ via a concept that follows the journey of Ukrainian travel documentarian Sofia Yablonska, who explored the world in the 1920s-40s. Ignea, who formed in 2013, trace Sofia’s footsteps to Morocco, the Sahara, China and beyond, bringing the sounds of those destinations to your headphones, while also highlighting their own culture through passages sung in their native tongue. “I want people to hear Ukrainian language, which is not very…

There are parts of the 18th-century church where Creeper’s Will Gould lives that he dare not venture into. Even though this former place of worship has largely been converted into flats, remnants of its previous function are still in evidence, and they give him the willies. There’s the crypt, for starters. “It’s terrifying,” says Will. “I refuse to go in there. I keep imagining that there’s something really sinister in there. Or someone.” Then there’s the mysterious area at the back of the church, which has been blocked off by a dividing wall with a door that remains permanently locked. Or at least it did until the other day, when Will found it open. “It was pitch black in there, except for this big, stainedglass window with light coming from…

When you hear the click, it’s about to drop,” advises Serena Cherry. Svalbard’s vocalist and guitarist is as cool as a cucumber when she says this, which is impressive given we’re currently ascending more than 100 feet into the air while strapped into a vertical tower ride named Detonator at Thorpe Park, 25 miles west of London. As we reach the top of the ascent and the entirety of this theme park and a large chunk of the surrounding Surrey countryside spreads out beneath us, Hammer is struck by the view. But we’re also aware that our legs are dangling down into thin air, our stomach feels hollow and our heart is thumping. The ride clanks to a stop. Was this a good idea? Are our shoes going to fall…

Unhealthy Mechanisms NUCLEAR BLAST Cavalera and son take their hardcore project off the deep end IT SAYS SOMETHING about Max Cavalera’s status as an unstoppable force of productivity that Go Ahead And Die’s second album is the third record he’s released since the start of the summer. Granted, the first two were revamped and re-recorded versions of Sepultura’s scrappy first releases, but the vicious new editions of Morbid Visions and Bestial Devastation attest to Max’s refusal to half-arse anything he puts his hand to. Much like the 80s crossover punks they so lovingly pay tribute to, Go Ahead And Die have gone heavier with their subsequent effort. Drafting in extreme metal drummer Johnny Valles, Max and son Igor (‘no, not that one’) Amadeus go so hard on the likes of…

AFTER 18 YEARS of solid grind, In This Moment have reached a pivotal stage. Led by singer and visionary and witchy high priestess, Maria Brink, the LA quintet’s career can be best described as a slow burn. They’ve evolved their sound from melodic metalcore with their debut, Beautiful Tragedy, to a vivid metal stomp, before stepping things up on 2017’s bluesy, occult-themed Ritual. Since then, they’ve continued to expand their sonic palette and climb into bigger venues – their last album, 2020’s Mother, deftly balanced the light and the dark and saw their already mesmerising live shows evolve into full-blown, eye-popping performance art. With Godmode, ITM are ready to take the next step. Hardened by a glint of industrial metal and Nine Inch Nailsinspired electronics on Sacrifice, the throbbing title…

IN THE TEMPESTUOUS waters of contemporary music, where genre lines are regularly redrawn, Myrkur – aka Amalie Bruun – pilots a vessel entirely her own. Her latest album is a riveting odyssey, skilfully merging contrasting sonic landscapes and reflecting emotional tumult in equal measure. Spine is a vast, internal journey informed by the birth of Amalie’s child and our increasingly disconnected world. Myrkur’s artistic vision has long juggled black metal and Danish folk via her own spiritual alchemy, but Spine deviates markedly from its predecessors. It’s an album that revels in dichotomy yet seeks synthesis, flitting between the human connection of mother and child to the alienation accelerated by the modern era. The opening track, Bålfærd (‘Viking Funeral’), serves as a sonic prologue of both elegy and rebirth: a metaphor…

IN THE FIVE years since they bounced head-first into an unsuspecting metal scene, Wargasm have already racked up millions of streams, played main stage sets at the likes of Download, Louder Than Life and Bloodstock, and nabbed supporting slots with everyone from Babymetal to Limp Bizkit. Now, with a debut full-length album to finally show for their efforts, it’s time to nut up or shut up – and the genre-splicing duo have delivered and then some. Bashing together elements of punk, metal, EDM and hip hop with the vigour and recklessness of a toddler who’s just downed 12 cans of Red Bull, Venom is a relentlessly entertaining ride, driven by sheer energy and kept on course by the two-piece force of personality that is Milkie Way and Sam Matlock. Sam’s…