Innehållsförteckning för October 2023 från Metal Hammer UK

Future PLC, 121 - 141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR Web: www.metalhammer.com Letters: metalhammer@futurenet.com 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 (née 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, Robert Arellano, Oliver Badin, Adam Brennan, Richard Chamberlain, Chris Chantler, Alec Chillingworth, Joe Daly, Hywel Davies, Remfry Dedman, Alex Deller, Jerry Ewing, Paris Fawcett, Spencer Grady, Stephen Hill, Emma Johnston, Tyler Damara Kelly, Hannah May Kilroy, Dom Lawson, Elliot Leaver, Dannii Leivers, Dave Ling, Clay Marshall, Will Marshall, Sophie Maughan, Edwin McFee, Joel McIver, Matt Mills, Mörat, Catherine Morris, Tom O’Boyle, Alastair Riddell, Liz Scarlett, Rosie Esther Solomon, Kevin Stewart-Panko, Paul Travers, James Weaver,…

BY 2012, KILLSWITCH Engage were facing an uncertain future. The Massachusetts quintet had released two era-defining records – 2002’s stratospheric breakthrough Alive Or Just Breathing, recorded with original singer Jesse Leach, and 2004’s The End Of Heartache, with replacement vocalist Howard Jones – that had cemented their position as one of metalcore’s biggest bands. But by the end of the decade, a lukewarm response to patchy late-00s material hinted at faltering momentum, and on January 4, 2012, the metal world was shocked when Howard announced his departure, citing health concerns. Killswitch’s sixth album, Disarm The Descent, was born out of that period of uncertainty. The record that saved the band’s career and kickstarted their next era, it saw them welcome ex-vocalist Jesse back to the fold and reboot their blend…

FOR SOME MUSICIANS, even those who play in bands with more hooks than a fisherman’s knapsack, there are times where only sheer, harsh noise can scratch that creative itch. “It was good to do something outside the normal thing from Therapy?,” says Andy Cairns about his latest project, JAAW. Therapy? have made all manner of brilliantly melodic, clattering alt punk over the last three decades, but Andy found himself pining for the abrasive sound that inspired early Therapy? songs like Teethgrinder and Animal Bones. He’s not alone in this quest, and has teamed up with the cream of the UK’s underground noise scene: Adam Betts of Three Trapped Tigers, Wayne Adams of Pet Brick/Big Lad and Jason Stoll of Mugstar. JAAW’s debut album, Supercluster, combines the quartet’s love of everything…

MÖTLEY CRÜE BOX SET SHOUT AT THE DEVIL – 40TH ANNIVERSARY LIMITED EDITION BOX SET BMG £180 PAY HOMAGE TO both legendary glamsters Mötley Crüe and The Great Horned One with this chonky box set, which bulks out the band’s classic Shout At The Devil LP with all manner of delicious sundries. Alongside the album on vinyl, tape and CD you get an LP’s worth of demos and rarities, and the box rattles with an array of other devilish doodads that include a candlestick and Crüe-emblazoned tarot cards. Our favourite knick-knacks are the ouija board and planchette. With these you can try to summon Satan, or perhaps some of the 80s hair metal scene’s fallen soldiers who are doubtless twisting in the pits of Hell for their many crimes against…

CMF2 DECIBEL COOPER RECORDINGS Metal’s favourite motormouth amps up the party spirit WHEN SLIPKNOT FRONTMAN Corey Taylor announced his debut solo album in 2020, some loudly wondered, “Why?”, considering he already had an established rock outlet with Stone Sour – not to mention his collaborations with other artists. Conversely, given social media’s enduring preoccupation with asking what he might think about virtually anything, did we really need any more of Corey Taylor? That debut, CMFT, pointedly answered both questions: “Quite a lot”, and ‘Hell yes”. Combining Corey’s signature metal and rock elements with bits of country, pop and rap metal, CMFT gleefully tapped into the boozy excess of classic rock and 80s metal decadence. Its follow-up, CMF2, is an altogether heavier affair; there’s less of a stylistic buffet and more…

The Sinner Rides Again NAPALM Judas Priest’s former guitar hero sharpens his axe ONCE MORE UNTO the breach for Kenneth ‘K.K.’ Downing – Judas Priest’s original guitarist and a fully fledged founding father of heavy metal – currently enjoying a new creative splurge after spending a decade away from music. Having busied himself with more quirky business ideas than an Apprentice contestant, this LP was written back-to-back with 2021’s invigorating debut Sermons Of The Sinner. It does sound initially like The Sinner Rides Again (an amusingly passé, corny name for a sequel) might as well be disc two of a double album. By the time we get to the nervy, brooding Keeper Of The Graves, festooned with ghostly choral chants and dusky acoustic picking, you might wonder if a few…

The Weight Of The Mask NUCLEAR BLAST Bristol’s atmospheric metal flag-bearers uncover diamonds in the darkness BRITISH METAL IS thriving right now. The scene is creaking under the weight of exceptional young bands who have something to say and are pushing heavy music in new directions, and Svalbard are right on the frontline. The Bristol band have made three scenedefining records that have forged a blackened and blissful post-metal sound that’s now recognisably their own. Tackling everything from animal rights to misogyny and mental health, they’ve made an icon out of vocalist/guitarist Serena Cherry, who has emerged as one of metal’s most passionate lyricists and voices. 2020’s When I Die, Will I Get Better? was written during a difficult period for Serena, and she has confirmed The Weight Of The…

What’s been blowing our tiny brains ARCHITECTS ARE HEADLINING BLOODSTOCK 2024! Alongside Viking metallers Amon Amarth and a yet-to-be-revealed third band. Colour us excited! SKINDRED’S SMILE GOT TO NO.2 IN THE ALBUM CHARTS… Amazing scenes! It was a tight-run race, with the band missing out on top spot by “less than 150 chart units”. …AND THEY’RE HEADLINING WEMBLEY ARENA! That’s gonna be one helluva Newport Helicopter! Get your tickets for March 15. GHOST FANS WERE FORCED TO REMOVE THEIR MAKE-UP Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Missouri wouldn’t allow make-up or masks, and the band were not impressed. A TOOL FAN DELAYED HIS WEDDING Because he wanted to go see the band. We’re not sure that’s the wisest footing to start a marriage on… THERE’S A NICKELBACK DOCUMENTARY COMING Titled Hate To…

IN SHORT SOUNDS LIKE: If Cult Of Luna stumbled upon Candlemass’s riff library FOR FANS OF: Cult Of Luna, Isis, Old Man Gloom LISTEN TO: Condemned WHEN HE WAS 17 years old, Ashish Dharkar lost his dad to a heart attack. “You become so numb that you can’t feel anything,” the Mumbai musician tells Metal Hammer of the emotional impact. “It’s something you’ve never expected and you’re so young that you never think it could happen. Your whole life is turned upside down.” To grieve, the only thing the then-teenager had was music, and he turned to Candlemass and Autopsy for comfort. “All my friends got back to their lives, and I don’t blame them. I couldn’t relate to anyone and they weren’t in my [emotional] state either.” Ashish eventually…

It was the most important live announcement of Babymetal’s career. On April 1, 2023, at the end of the first of two shows at Yokohama’s Pia Arena, a booming voice narrated the words appearing on a big screen: “Here and now, a new Babymetal has been summoned by the god of metal, the Fox God. “Vocal & Dance… Su-metal. Scream & Dance… Moametal. Scream & Dance… Momometal.” A roar of applause went up from the audience. “Given a new life, the newly reborn Babymetal will begin a new stage and journey into the Metalverse.” And there, the three figures stood onstage wreathed in dry ice, soaking in the moment Momometal officially became part of one of the most talked-about metal bands of the past 10 years. It was the first…

There’s a venue like Krakow’s Klub Studio in every city on the planet – functional, modestly sized, anonymous. But right now it looks like a prison riot is taking place in this one. Bodies are crashing into each other, drinks are cartwheeling through the air and there’s a distinct sense that something is about to get broken. Standing in the middle of it all is the architect of this chaos. Stripped to the waist, tattoos glistening with sweat, holding a guitar above his head, Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo is a whirling one-man wrecking crew whose charisma exudes from every pore. Amid the carnage, he’s the absolute focus of everyone’s attention. It’s the end of Beartooth’s set, and as his band peal out deafening closer The Last Riff on the stage…

Impii Hora METAL BLADE Volbeat frontman returns to this death metal roots WHETHER IT BE Dominus’s early stabs at death metal or Volbeat’s Brylcreem-drenched rock, Michael Poulson’s pedigree is littered with terrible band names and, in the latter case, millions of albums sold. The clunky moniker selection continues with Asinhell, a deliberate look back at his Swedeath/Earache Records/Sunlight Studio-worshipping roots. Step one for this project was welcoming Marc Grewe (Insidious Disease, ex-Morgoth) to hack his lungs into the mic. This allowed Michael to deep dive with his axe into the Dan Seagrave-adorned corners of his record collection and explore his nascent extreme metal fantasies. Joined by drummer Morten Toft Hansen (Raunchy, ex-HateSphere) the result is as slick and measured as expected, considering the years of wellfunded exactitude that has coloured…

World Domination HASSLE Norway’s death pop deviants find the cornerstone of chaos  FIVE ALBUMS IN, it’s something of an insult to refer to Norwegian “deathpop” group Blood Command as merely reliable. Sure, every album has been some shade of brilliant. Yes, they’ve retained their unique sound – that of careering hardcore, savage metallic riffing and sherbet-sweet pop melodies all congealed into one lovely, gooey sonic soup – despite numerous line-up changes. But even so, Blood Command are so much better than many give them credit for. Once again, World Domination is a fantastically exciting listen, with the band stretching themselves into oddly eccentric shapes while resolutely keeping their core sound intact. On paper, the parping brass, extreme metal crunch and nursery rhyme melody of The Plague On Both Your Houses…

Jailbreak NAPALM Brazil-based thrashers reinvent themselves for a second time THE 2020S HAVE been turbulent enough for most people, but for Nervosa it appears to have reached another level. Having spent the previous decade cementing themselves as Brazil’s foremost entry to an international thrash revival alongside the likes of Evile, Havok and Warbringer, they underwent a complete line-up change in 2020 that left guitarist Prika Amaral as the sole original member. They came back from the brink with a stormer of an album in 2021’s aptly named Perpetual Chaos – only for the band to disintegrate again. Following this second Nervosa breakdown, Prika stepped up to the lead vocalist role and recruited another entirely new international line-up. The bad news? The mainstay’s vocal delivery is a little more one-dimensional than…

War Of Being KSCOPE British djent heroes consolidate 12 years of progressive metal IF YOU HAD a baby on the day that Tesseract released their last album, that child would now be starting primary school. Five years and one global pandemic separate War Of Being from Sonder but, according to the band, the dry spell was a blessing. As well as recording the Portals livestream and upgrading their stage show, the UK prog metal luminaries got the time to fine-tune the biggest release of their lives. Tesseract’s fifth album makes their comeback in the most monumental manner. When it was unveiled, the band also announced a seven-month world tour and released the 11-minute-long title track as a single. The song War Of Being is a careerconsolidating opus, pulling from the…

THE UNDERWORLD, LONDON NOT MANY BANDS can boast of selling out their entire first headline tour overseas, including a night at Camden’s legendary Underworld. But after their single Pardon Me, I Have To Go Now went viral in January, that’s exactly what happened to Japanese ‘harajuku-core’ sensations Hanabie. The quartet fuse hyperactive pop, anime and batshit metalcore in the vein of fellow Japanese mavericks Maximum The Hormone to create something almost wholly unique and extremely Gen Z. The line already snakes around the block and for some distance well before doors open, buzzing with excited chatter about the band’s first ever UK show, and the merch line inside is huge too. Fortunately, that enthusiasm extends to support band KNIFE BRIDE, whose selfdescribed “slut metal” aims to reclaim the word while…

A WOMAN DANCES at the opening ceremony of Norway’s Midgardsblot festival, which took place in August. The ‘Blot,’ performed by shamanic folk outfit Folket Bortafor Nordavinden – who are endorsed by Amon Amarth’s Johan Hegg – featured two hours of ritual drumming, chants and dancing, as audience members were invited to lay offerings such as jewellery on a fire pit, bless the wooden totems for Freya and Odin (see far left of photo), offer a paean to the gods of their choice, and – perhaps not one for veggies or vegans – dip a birch branch into a pot of blood, brush the figurines, and then anoint themselves with it. Held at Borre, North Europe’s largest Viking burial grounds, where a reconstructed Great Hall sits next to the main stage,…

SONS OF NORTHERN darkness, lords of the fictional, ice-bound realm of Blashyrkh, and one of the most defiant, iconic bands in black metal, Bergen’s Immortal were, for 24 years, a singular brotherhood forged around co-founders guitarist/lyricist Demonaz and frontman Abbath. Demonaz was forced to take a back seat for more than a decade due to acute tendonitis, but although he was cured by 2013, he and Abbath underwent a much-publicised split two years later, leaving Demonaz to resurrect the band with himself as frontman. As new album War Against All raises its banners, we sent him into battle with your questions. How did your move from Bergen to the countryside [in 2019] affect how you wrote music for Immortal? Adelina Ravenwraith, email “When I was living in a city, I…

“WELCOME TO THE pain and agony of disgusting riffs and huge drums,” grins Beyond Extinction’s guitarist Jude Bennett, proudly brandishing a copy of his band’s latest EP, Nothing More Wretched. Taking cues from everyone from Bury Tomorrow and Parkway Drive to Black Tongue, their sludgy, beatdownflecked deathcore is a far cry from an inauspicious start in high school playing Asking Alexandria covers. Now, with their eldest member just 23 years old, they are quite literally representative of the next generation of British extreme metal. Formed in 2018, the band built a reputation for mixing the sheer brutality of deathcore with an ambitious creativity more in line with prog. To wit, the new EP is centred around the concept of “a colossal interdimensional being that eats planets”. “We don’t confront the…

IN SHORT SOUNDS LIKE: CBGBs circa 1986 via Leeds circa 2023 FOR FANS OF: Crumbsuckers, D.R.I., Drain LISTEN TO: Masquerade Party CROSSOVER IS LONG overdue a revival. Luckily, Leeds’ Pest Control are helping give this mutant mid-80s hybrid of hardcore and thrash a modern update. Their debut album, Don’t Test The Pest, detonates 11 songs in 21 moshinducing minutes, evoking such oldschool greats as Crumbsuckers and D.R.I. “We get a lot of people saying, ‘This sounds like bands I used to listen to,’” says guitarist Joe K, who co-founded the band in 2020. “But we’re more than just a copy-and-paste version of the past,” adds singer Leah. “We’re bringing something fresh to the table.” Unlike their 80s predecessors, Pest Control avoid the explicitly political on furious bangers such as Buggin’…

At a party somewhere in London, the clock was creeping towards dawn, but Milkie Way and Sam Matlock weren’t ready to call it a night. So they did what any person in an alcohol-infused state would do – they turned to Fred Durst. “Everyone was trying to do some holier-than-thou SoundCloud rap thing that no one had ever heard, and no one liked,” remembers Sam, Wargasm’s vibrantly coloured-haired guitarist and vocalist. “We were like, put fucking Limp Bizkit on.” They did and – boom! – the room suddenly erupted. “It taught us something about how human nature reacts to loud guitars,” he says. It was a pivotal moment for the pair, who met at a gig in 2018. At the time, Sam – the son of original Sex Pistols bassist…

The 25 or so people gathered in the Cellar Bar in Bracknell, Berkshire on a cold October night in 2007 could be forgiven for not recognising the significance of what they were witnessing. Onstage, five men in their early 20s were blasting out a thrashy if geometrically complex noise that couldn’t quite conceal its debt to Meshuggah. The name on the flyers was ‘Tesseract’, a moniker that evoked hard-to-grasp concepts of four-dimensional mathematics, and this was their very first gig. “We were a lot more raw and raucous back then,” says guitarist Acle Kahney, who had conceived Tesseract as a one-man project in the bedroom of his mum’s house in Milton Keynes four years earlier in 2003. “I was headbanging all over the place. Now I just think, ‘I can’t…

The Above BLUE GRAPE MUSIC Pittsburgh’s explosive post-hardcore crew expand their blast radius THERE’S A CORNER of the internet still clinging on to the idea that Code Orange are theirs. “When did Code Orange go from a legit hardcore band to a WWE soundtrack band?” bleated one Reddit user at the start of 2023. “Anyone still interested in what Code Orange does next or are they too far gone for y’all,” waaaah-ed another in June. The gist of it is: Code Orange have sold out. If they thought that after hearing 2020’s head-spinning industronumetalcore glitchbomb Underneath, they’ll shit their pants at The Above. Just as Underneath was a huge leap forwards from 2017’s Forever, with its Grammy-nominated title track, so Code Orange’s fifth album completely dismantles its predecessor, then reconstructs…

Stone ABRAXAN HYMNS Savannah’s masters of the chromatic riff strip back and rock out BARONESS ESCHEWING COLOUR-CODED nomenclature for their sixth album feels very much like a statement, or the laying down of a marker. And while this latest record might not see them diverge too wildly from beloved predecessors such as Gold & Grey and Purple, it does present both a subtle evolution and a desire to strip back as the band power towards new terrain. This slimming down – probably no bad thing after the thrillingly ostentatious bloat of Gold & Grey – doesn’t mean a shortage of ideas or ambition, however. Indeed, if, as someone somewhere once said, it’s about the journey rather than the destination, then Baroness are intent on taking us on one hell of…

Chaos Horrific METAL BLADE The kings of sonic splatter kill again VINCE LOCKE’S BLOODTHIRSTY artwork could hardly be more perfect. Humans and zombies are battling it out in a blur of blood and severed flesh. One man raises an axe in murderous triumph. Another shoots a zombie directly in the face at point-blank range. Lower down in the scene, several other humans are having an absolutely terrible time at the hands of the undead. If you want death, here it is. When a new Cannibal Corpse album arrives, the likelihood that anyone is going to survive with their organs, limbs or skull intact is slender indeed. In truth, Cannibal Corpse have been going at it with such ferocity and force for so long that they really should be knackered by…

Take Back The Night SUMERIAN Frisky Georgian foursome try to keep their skin in the glam game STARBENDERS WATCH THE TV, nipple tape and leather-induced chafe glimmering in the technicolour warmth. On the screen, Måneskin. They’re dressed just like Starbenders, stealing a win at the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Starbenders clench their fists, grit their teeth. Steam spaffs from their ears, drowning out the foghorn of a boat being missed. The Georgian glam rockers’ third record snorts and shags the Måneskinian promise of SEX! DRUGS! ROMANTIC TURMOIL! into the ground, limply. You want a song called Sex? You got it. Lyrics like ‘I wanna fuck what’s dead inside’? That’s from another song about sex, not called Sex. Kimi Shelter – Kimi Shelter! Like Gimme Shelter! – is unquestionably a great…

How It Ends METAL BLADE Epic, blackened bluster from Ireland’s finest IN AN ERA when authenticity is often overshadowed by superficial flash, Primordial remain a benchmark for passion and grit. The Irishmen’s 10th album is almost predictably glorious and feels like an artistic statement of immense importance, even when compared to past classics like The Gathering Wilderness and Where Greater Men Have Fallen. As ever, How It Ends sounds huge, rain-battered, windswept and untamed. The opening title track unravels slowly, but steadily evolves into a sustained howl of righteous indignation, as vocalist A.A. Nemtheanga commentates on the end of all things, eyes ablaze with outlaw spirit. It’s a classic Primordial moment, but one with considerably more metallic oomph than has been present on any previous album. In fact, it is…