Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Metal Hammer UK

Editorial Editor Eleanor Goodman • eleanor.goodman@futurenet.com Production Editor Vanessa Thorpe • vanessa.thorpe@futurenet.com Reviews Editor Jonathan Selzer • jonathan.selzer@futurenet.com Art Editor Louise Hilton (neé Brock) • louise.brock@futurenet.com Associate Editor Dave Everley • dave.everley@futurenet.com Staff Writer Rich Hobson • rich.hobson@futurenet.com Content Director – Music Scott Rowley Contributors Steve Appleford, Oliver Badin, Noah Berlatsky, Adam Brennan, Richard Chamberlain, Chris Chantler, Alec Chillingworth, Madison Collier, Joe Daly, Remfry Dedman, Alex Deller, Jerry Ewing, Paris Fawcett, Jon Garcia, Spencer Grady, Perran Helyes, Stephen Hill, Emma Johnston, Hannah May Kilroy, Dom Lawson, Elliot Leaver, Dannii Leivers, Dave Ling, Tamlin Magee, Clay Marshall, Will Marshall, Sophie Maughan, Edwin McFee, Dan McHugh, Joel McIver, Matt Mills, Mörat, Catherine Morris, Tom O’Boyle, Jack Press, Graham Ray, Alastair Riddell, Liz Scarlett, Ali Shutler, Kevin Stewart-Panko, Paulina Subia, Emily Swingle, Ims…

SINCE 1993, WHEN the idea of Metallica songs played in an orchestral style had a curious novelty buzz around it, classically trained cellist Eicca Toppinen has guided Apocalyptica to unimagined success over an extraordinary career, releasing nine albums and working with Sabaton, Amon Amarth, Corey Taylor, Ville Valo, Bullet For My Valentine and more. As the Finns return to the theme of their much-loved 1996 debut, Plays Metallica By Four Cellos, for new album Plays Metallica Vol. 2, we got Eicca to share some handy tips for living. KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE “It’s insane when you put it on paper: the fifth show after our first album release, and we were opening for Metallica! It felt surreal in a way, but I think we always had such a strong…

“IT’S BEEN QUITE a journey between myself and Justin,” says MTVoid’s Peter Mohamed of the project he created alongside Tool bassist Justin Chancellor. The pair met in the late 90s when Peter’s band, Sweet Noise, were opening for Tool on the Ænima tour. “We got to know each other on this special level,” he recalls. More than a decade on from the release of their debut, Nothing’s Matter, MTVoid made a surprise return last year with their new album, Matter’s Knot, Pt.1. “The first one was more like a demo,” Justin nods. “This time we’ve taken it further; it’s our first real commitment.” Matter’s Knot… is full of beautifully dark electronic, bewildering progressive passages, and the baseball-bat thud of Justin’s unique bass tone. It’s a complex, labyrinthian, yet constantly engaging…

Last year, in case you didn’t notice, those “hands that threaten doom”, which Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson once sang about, inched 10 seconds closer to midnight. The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the people who created the Doomsday Clock back in 1947 to gauge how close humanity is to destroying the world, reset the minute hand for the 25th time since its creation, moving it closer to the hour than it has ever been. So the prospect of imminent global catastrophe is now ever more pronounced, which, to be honest, is something of a bummer. “We are approaching the end of an era. So let’s have a good time.” It was with these equally doom-laden words that Papa Emeritus IV, Ghost’s puckish frontman, welcomed…

The love-in between the movies and metal has been long, fruitful and often drenched in blood. This two-way relationship began long before Tony Iommi sliced off the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident – hell, Black Sabbath even took their name from a schlocky horror movie – but metal’s gonzo aesthetics are firmly embedded in the DNA of Hollywood and beyond. We could have filled this list of classic movie scenes that bear the scene’s imprint with 50 horror flicks alone, but no, there’s more to metal than gore, guts and death. Well, a little more, as the 50 most metal movie moments show. 1 THE DEATH SHIP ARRIVES NOSFERATU (1922) Having slurped his way through the unfortunate crew, the vessel carrying ancient vampire Count Orlok and his…

THE SYSTEM OF A DOWN ONE Chop Suey! (Toxicity, 2001) The obvious choice, yes, but 1.28 billion Spotify streams and 1.3 billion YouTube plays bear testament to the strength and enduring popularity of the first single from System Of A Down’s second album, arguably the greatest song of the nu metal era. You’re singing along to the ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ coda in your head already, aren’t you? THE SOLO ONE Empty Walls (Elect The Dead, 2007) With the benefit of hindsight, the opening track and first single from Serj’s debut solo album served notice that System Of A Down’s career would never be the same again. Hooky, multi-layered, swooping and soaring, Empty Walls is the sound of Serj Tankian flying free and loving every second of his newfound…

GORILLA BISCUITS – START TODAY (1989) “The perfect hardcore record. It’s optimistic, it’s exciting, it’s strong, it’s powerful.” SLINT – SPIDERLAND (1991) “I didn’t know what post-rock was until I found Slint. It’s poetry, it’s anti-rock, but palatable in a lot of ways.” RADIOHEAD – KID A (2000) “I love music that isn’t just guitars. This really opened me up to electronic music. To me, Kid A is the anti-record.” MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE – THREE CHEERS FOR SWEET REVENGE (2004) “My alternative music indoctrination. It made me want to wear black eyeliner.”…

Fire SUMERIAN Canadian champions make an incendiary return KITTIE SEEM TO HAVE spent most of their career trying to distance themselves from their most successful album. Although they always exhibited more aggressive strands than most of their contemporaries, the band’s 1999 debut, Spit, was firmly positioned in the nu metal sphere. By their second album, Oracle, they had stepped away from that scene entirely, with a more extreme sound and grooves that owed more to Obituary than Korn. They explored new directions and kept the consistency high for the next decade, but interest gradually fizzled out and, when bassist Trish Doan passed away in 2017, it looked like the band would fizzle out too. Instead, they were swept up in a wave of nostalgia, with high-profile appearances at the When…

ANTHROPOPHAGUS DEPRAVITY Demonic Paradise COMATOSE MUSIC These Indonesians are making some of the best brutal death metal currently available. Demonic Paradise is disgustingly heavy, but smart and subversive too. These riffs will hurt you. DOM LAWSON KRYPTOS Decimator AFM The seventh album from these Bangalorean heshers eases off the Teutonic speed pedal to lovingly rub the NWOBHM nubbin with some smooth but tough, punchily melodic late-night car-deck anthems. CHRIS CHANTLER SHAMASH Done With Misery ROTTWEILER Shamash mix beefy melodeath with metalcore choruses. The Malaysian trio’s second album is a pretty surefire shot of adrenaline for those who love Shadows Fall and Unearth. MATT MILLS…

EIVØR / ZETRA ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON Finland’s lord of the lovelorn marks a magisterial end of an era in stunning surroundings GLORIOUS SUNSHINE AND 20°-plus heat might not be a goth’s natural habitat, but that’s not stopping them from turning out in droves for the end of an era, as love metal legend Ville Valo puts his ‘VV’ moniker to rest with one final stop at the historic Royal Albert Hall. But first, openers ZETRA cast their 80s synth rock spell over the throng, their corpsepaint and chains flanked by robed dancers accenting their gothic splendour. They bring out Svalbard’s Serena Cherry for recent single Starfall, as she lends her roars to the song in a high point of the set. While they’re limited to just the front half…

How hard has it been to carry on without Riley Gale? (The Power Trip vocalist passed away in 2020) “Oh, very hard. He was one of my best friends in the world, and I miss him a ton. He’s the reason behind how I came to be here. I wasn’t originally in the band – it was, like, two years later that I joined. But it was because Riley and I were good friends, and just very compatible. Once there was an opening in the band, he fought hard to make sure that I was the person that filled that position. I consider myself really lucky to have had so many memories and close experiences with him.” Power Trip recently returned with a show at Mohawk in Austin, Texas. How…

TOBIAS FORGE HAS always been wildly ambitious. After throwing everything at Ghost in his last real shot as a professional musician, he established the band as an occult-rock force you couldn’t look away from, all shady Nameless Ghouls and papal vestments. As the years rolled by, Tobias might have unmasked, but the Ghost legend has only grown. Back at their early gigs in 2010, few could have predicted they’d have their own actual movie in 2024. Like everything Ghost do, Rite Here Rite Now has been kept tightly under wraps, but Tobias was kind enough to grant our Paul Brannigan an audience, and reveal the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to such a triumph of creativity. And if you’re reading this letter on June 20, the day the magazine goes on sale…

LISTEN NOW To hear Enkush’s choices, head to Tinyurl.com/EnkushHuSlaylist “IN 2006, I went to see Nisvanis, one of the first viral hard rock bands of Mongolia. After a night out, I was hungover and walking down the street to get home, and I heard Reaper Of Life by HATESPHERE for the first time. It was a different time in the Mongolian music industry almost 20 years ago, nothing like we see now. There weren’t fresh music releases every other week, so hearing this track felt like taking a breath of fresh air, because of their rhythm and how modern it was at the time. My music taste was never the same again! “Many things can go wrong in a person’s life and it doesn’t matter how old you are, it…

NO REMORSE MOTÖRHEAD BUNDLE £160 YOU’VE NEVER HEARD a shit Lemmy story, have you? Ahead of Motörhead’s 50th anniversary, the man, the myth, the mutton chops have been immortalised (again) in graphic novel form. Within 176 pages, this warts-and-all tell-all’s packing yarns from everyone: Slash to Neil Gaiman, Ozzy to Triple H, accompanied by artwork from world-class illustrators like Brent Engstrom and Dave Chisholm (see more on p.8). If that’s not whetted your whistle or bitten your snake, how about the snazzy bundle of extras? A leather-style slipcase, a certificate of authenticity, an exclusive set of prints, a limited white version of Motörhead’s classic No Remorse compilation on double-vinyl, plus a collection of framed Lemmy art cards by legendary metal artist Ed Repka. No Remorse: The Illustrated True Stories Of Lemmy…

Pennsylvania-born filmmaker Alex Ross Perry has a CV that includes helming music videos for the likes of Kim Gordon, Pavement, Sleigh Bells and Bully; writing, producing and directing acclaimed grunge/punk movie Her Smell; and creating Ghost’s brilliant 2022 mockumentary, Metal Myths. However, he explains, working with Tobias Forge on Rite Here Rite Now was an experience like no other. HOW DID YOU AND TOBIAS FIRST COME INTO ONE ANOTHER’S ORBIT? “I first saw Ghost opening up for Iron Maiden in New York, at the Barclays Center, seven years ago, and then I went on YouTube and had a lot of fun diving into their music videos. I’d done work for [Ghost’s US record label] Loma Vista, and so I said to them, ‘Nothing I’ve done is in the world of…

When James O’Barr came up with the idea for The Crow in 1981, all he wanted it to achieve was emotional catharsis. He was a 21-year-old US Marine stationed in Berlin, still reeling from the death of his fiancée at the hands of a drunk driver a few years earlier while they were still in high school. He didn’t know if the comic he was writing and drawing would ever get published. “It was just a way of getting it down on paper,” James told The Los Angeles Times in 1994, referring to the grief he still felt. “I had never done anything that personal before.”1 The first issue of The Crow wouldn’t be published for another eight years, but this story of an undead avenger seeking retribution against the…

BLACK ORCHIDS The Calling SELF-RELEASED After debuting their slow-burning soulful sounds on their Enshrined album, this London quartet return with a three-track package of sprawling psych, fuzzy textures and California-born Kay Elizabeth’s soulful, ethereal vocals. HOLLY WRIGHT DROUGHT EP IODINE RECORDINGS Across a mere three tracks, this Bay Area post-hardcore crew have created a deeply moving, emotionally stirring effort on their debut EP, brilliantly capturing the spirit of Samiam, Touché Amoré and other scene luminaries. STEPHEN HILL OGIVES BIG BAND Boisterous Love STOLEN BODY These Bristolians are a must-listen for fans of Melvins’ noisiest moments, Mastodon’s freakiest freak-outs or Breach’s eye-bulging intensity. With maximum ferocity and dexterous ingenuity over five tracks, this is huge. STEPHEN HILL BLACK VEIL BRIDES Bleeders SPINEFARM BVB are entering a blood-drenched era of Sweeney Todd…

PAUL BRANNIGAN WRITER During his three decades in music journalism, Paul’s had some memorable interviews. This issue, he reminisces about a 1998 Christmas shopping trip with System Of A Down, and hanging out with Tobias Forge at 2012’s Sonisphere Finland. LIZ SCARLETT WRITER When Liz isn’t doing fun online stuff like directing Battlesnake interviews, she can usually be found attending witch conferences or visiting spooky old buildings. In these pages, she takes us inside the Nordic folk world of Kati Rán. CHRIS CHANTLER WRITER This month, Chris squeezed Apocalyptica man Eicca Toppinen for his Life Lessons. When he’s not busy writing for Hammer, Chris is making long lists of all the cvlt vinyl he’s listened to, on Fawlty Towers notepaper. Lad!…

KITTIE Fire “A thunderous and triumphant return for the Canadian trailblazers” ELEANOR GOODMAN EDITOR HELLBUTCHER Hellbutcher “Metal! THAT skullet!! More metal!!! Nifelheim’s ex-frontman unleashes another blaze of glory” JONATHAN SELZER REVIEWS EDITOR EIVØR Enn “Gorgeous and haunting. Perfect to take your brain on a trip to another realm” VANESSA THORPE PRODUCTION EDITOR LOWLIVES Freaking Out “My little grunge-loving heart just skipped a beat” LOUISE BROCK ART EDITOR GATECREEPER Dark Superstition “Proper stank face-inducing, gloriously massive death metal” RICH HOBSON STAFF WRITER ORANGE GOBLIN Science, Not Fiction “It’s Orange fucking Goblin, baby! ’Nuff said” DAVE EVERLEY ASSOCIATE EDITOR…

NIGHTWISH HAVE NEVER been ones to think small, but their upcoming 10th album, Yesterwynde, is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything they’ve done before. Written over several months in 2021 and 2022, and recorded between keyboard player/songwriter Tuomas Holopainen’s hometown of Kitee and London’s fabled Abbey Road Studios, the 12-track record may not feature any side-long epics, but in every other respect it is, as Tuomas puts it, “a big one”. How would you describe Yesterwynde compared to the other albums Nightwish have made? “It’s probably the biggest album we’ve done. It complements the lyrics and the stories we want to tell. In the song An Ocean Of Strange Islands, there are more than 600 tracks. That’s a lot. It was hell for the mixing engineer.” Is there an overarching…

LIKE THE GREAT roots of an ancient tree, Kati Rán’s musical world is vast. Over the nine years it took to create, the Dutch Nordic folk artist’s second album, Sála, saw her travel overseas to source rare historical instruments, spend hundreds of hours learning ancient languages, and converse with academics to uncover an even deeper understanding of what inspires her most - Norse mythology. “It’s been a long time in the making,” she admits with a wry chuckle. Sála (Old Norse for ‘soul’ and ‘sea’) is a rich tapestry of cinematic, oceanic soundscapes and multilingual folk melodies derived from poetry, ancient texts and spellcraft, enhanced by Kati’s playing of numerous historical instruments. The gorgeously meditative Stone Pillars features the use of a lava stone marimba (a percussive instrument similar to…

LAURA FELLA IS no stranger to darkness. “I’m that kind of person who is super-melancholic… and I like that,” she admits. “Death is part of life, and we should accept it. That’s a big part of me; I could not do life any differently.” Despite her innate draw towards the morbid, Laura remains radically optimistic. At the helm of German folk metal band Tvinna – she is also a vocalist in the pagan folk band Faun – her lyrics are a positive encouragement to embrace life in all of its complexities, even the unknown. This attitude guided her trajectory from childhood to adulthood, as she asked herself, “Where have I been? Where do I want to go?” She muses: “I’m a mom; how do I want my small daughter to…

Serj Tankian was at work in his home studio last night, immersed in composing a score for an upcoming Hollywood movie, when he suddenly realised he was not alone. Taking off his headphones, and pausing the action on screen, Serj walked over to join his nine-year-old son on the couch, and asked his boy what he’d been drawing in the sketchbook on his lap. Young Rumi, however, was much more interested in what his father had been watching. “He was like, ‘There was a gun, some girls, and some sexy stuff happening there, what is that?’” Serj says, laughing. “I said, ‘Um, it’s inappropriate for you, so you can’t watch it. But it’s a Hollywood film, it’s not real, the gun’s not real’ – you know, kinda explaining it. And…

GRAPHIC NATURE THE CIVIC AT THE HALLS, WOLVERHAMPTON Boston’s horror-mad metalcore troupe get their hooks into the Midlands CONSIDER THIS A victory lap for Ice Nine Kills. The band have made only fleeting appearances in the UK since the 2021 release of The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood, and now looked poised to break out and play ever-bigger stages as they pack out the 3,400-capacity Civic in Wolverhampton – especially impressive given metalcore’s ceaseless turnover. It’s also testament to how broad a church metalcore is in 2024 that GRAPHIC NATURE still fall into the same sonic planes while sounding so utterly different to the headliners. Tapping into the heavier elements of nu metal, their set bridges the sweaty, frenzied energy of early Slipknot with the chest-beating meatiness of Hatebreed.…

THE GLOOM IN THE CORNER/PROFILER RESCUE ROOMS, NOTTINGHAM The sons of Slipknot start to forge their own, frenzied dynasty BRISTOL NU METALCORE trio PROFILER are, if the reaction to their set is anything to go by, destined for big things. Inciting pits and synchronised headbanging from the very beginning, they garner a huge response from an audience baying for more. Musically, however, they’re fairly hit-and-miss – while there are moments that sparkle, especially during All In Forever, there’s not a huge deviation from a well-trodden path of licks and grooves that bands like Graphic Nature have done far better. Australian metallic hardcore quartet THE GLOOM IN THE CORNER aren’t about to let their trip halfway around the world count for nothing. They unleash a furious onslaught of riffs and filthy…