Innehållsförteckning för May 2025 från Metal Hammer UK

By the end of 2024, Tobias Forge had nothing left. Facing burnout after years of heavy touring and the grinding double whammy of making and releasing a full movie and recording a brand new studio album, the Ghost mastermind found himself at the end of his rope. “I hit a wall,” he admits today. “I realised I am not built to do that. I really can’t.” It’s understandable that Tobias had started to feel the weight of it all. While on the face of it, last year put the perfect exclamation point on an immensely successful chapter in his career – that concert film, Rite Here Rite Now, received rave reviews, crystallising Ghost’s position as one of modern metal’s premier acts – it was also the moment that 15 years…

Employed To Serve singer Justine Jones leans back in her chair and flashes her widest smile. “Don’t be fooled, everything we’re doing now is totally out of necessity,” she says with a laugh. “No one wanted to book us or wanted to take a chance on us. It’s just that you’ve got to make your own opportunities or just sit and sulk. So we stopped sulking and made our own opportunities.” We’ve just asked Justine if the DIY ethics that drive both her band and the underground metal empire she and her husband – ETS guitarist and co-vocalist Sammy Urwin – have built alongside it were born from a staunch punk rock spirit, or simply a necessity to survive in the music business. “I think it’s true of anything, isn’t…

death lurks in the Louisiana swamps. Floods, hurricanes, disease-spreading bugs, colossal alligators… there are plenty of ways to meet a grizzly end. Such mortal perils made it the perfect spawning ground for a nihilistic, scuzzy new strain of metal in the early 90s. But while Eyehategod, Crowbar and Soilent Green helped turn New Orleans into the world’s sludge metal capital, arguably the most groundbreaking band to emerge from that scene came from the backwaters of the Bayou State. For all intents and purposes, Acid Bath lived at the end of the world. “When you’ve got the barrel of a gun pointed at you by God, with hurricanes being thrown at you every year, people don’t worry anymore,” Acid Bath singer Dax Riggs says today. “You get on with living.” Acid…

The Screaming Of The Valkyries NAPALM 2021’S EXISTENCE IS Futile found Suffolk’s venerable institution in the most bitter and apocalyptic form of their lives, spat out as the world navigated the tragedies and tyrannies of the Covid nightmare. With that venom out of their system, the more perky, celebratory vibes of Cradle Of Filth’s 14th LP are neatly signalled by the aspirational decadence of scampering opener To Live Deliciously. With twiddly Maiden-esque harmonies, 80s German thrash riffs, horror soundtrack bombast and sexy goth allure, it’s peak Cradle crystallised. Its definitiveness is comforting on an album that opens up several new musical wormholes to slither through, some more elegantly than others. Demagoguery features Dani Filth kind of rapping while The Trinity Of Shadows goes hard with a sword-waving power metal energy and…

Zenith NUCLEAR BLAST IT’S HARD TO imagine that Bleed From Within once peddled run-of-the-mill deathcore, but from 2013’s Uprising they started their evolution towards becoming the UK’s premier modern metal outfit – and seventh album Zenith lives up to its lofty title. Opener Violent Nature charges in foaming at the mouth before locking into an iron-clad double kick groove. Its flirtation with choral elements makes for epic bridges, segueing into the kind of pit fodder that would get tens of thousands moving at Download. From there, the album continues to affirm Bleed From Within’s supremacy. In Place Of Your Halo celebrates their native Scotland with an atmospheric bagpipe section that feels right at home with the breakdown it accompanies, while God Complex’s four-on-the-floor stomp and gang chants are made to…

The Spin METAL BLADE SHAPESHIFTING AND MERCURIAL, the fourth album from self-described ‘scarlet doom’ act Messa reveals refinement and maturity while retaining their innate sense of mystery. While their early doom whumps were undeniably satisfying, 2022’s Close offered a change of tone and tack, folding in proggier stylings and more by way of worldly instrumentation. The Spin, in typically contrary fashion, seems both a step away from such endeavours and a leap towards their logical conclusion. It’s a swaggering, bluesy, jazz-dappled record that’s fully aware of rock’n’roll’s fabulously storied history, but the band are on decidedly unshowy form as they weave from one knockout moment to the next. While no less ambitious, things have been pared back to the point where strings of sinew and nubs of glistening bone are…

BEFORE HEILUNG, GOD Of War, and the endless onslaught of Viking TV shows, Wardruna were the force reviving Nordic traditions for the modern age. Headed by Einar Selvik, the band adapt ancient themes and instruments for contemporary times, relaying lessons from history and championing nature. With new album Birna emerging from the ethereal mists, Einar tells Hammer what he’s learned during a career that’s included soundtracking mainstream franchises and collaborating with the Norwegian government. ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER “I presume that growing up in Osterøy is a big part of why I love nature and Norse history. It was a postcard Norwegian landscape, a picturesque place. But also, when you grow up in that kind of environment, it’s just something that’s naturally there. It’s not something you reflect much…

LIKE A QUIRKY rom-com that suddenly veers into thriller territory with a surprise murderous streak, Sydney’s Bloom find great joy in disrupting convention, mixing pop-punk, melodic hardcore and metalcore into an emotional package. “We don’t want to feel constrained by what we can and can’t explore,” says vocalist Jono Hawkey of their debut album, Maybe In Another Life. Having started out “playing shitty Touché Amoré covers”, the band quickly outgrew their melodic hardcore roots. Counterbalancing every melodious hook on the record is a gut-wrenching breakdown or tech metal turn to subvert expectations. The album follows 2020’s tooth-baring EP In Passing, which blended crushing, complex riffs with seismic, radio-friendly choruses as Jono grieved the death of his grandfather. This time, his evocative lyrics journey through a bittersweet break-up. “Heaviness, to me,…

PEACEFIELD Building from a moving, children’s choir intro into a histrionic, heart-bursting shot of 80s rock’n’roll theatre, it’s the kind of epic album opener that now seems to be par for the course for Ghost.Tobias: “Because the record is going to slalom into darker subjects, I wanted to set a tone of hope in the beginning. I wanted to add a hand to the listener – ‘It will all be fine, but we’re gonna go sideways now and go on a little trip.’” LACHRYMA Throwing us straight back into classic Ghost territory with a heavy, marching riff, Lachryma reads like an aborted Nosferatu screenplay, wrapped in Sabbathian doom metal and glorious AOR cheese.Tobias: “It opens with more of a riffage, and I guess now comes off as somewhat of a…

Skeletá LOMA VISTA IN JANUARY 2022, two months before Impera had even reached the world’s ears, Ghost founder and frontman Tobias Forge confided to Metal Hammer that he already had its successor mapped out, though demurring on details. That path has now become clear – Skeletá is Ghost at their most confident, flamboyant and defiant. If Impera was the band’s ascension into the stratosphere, their latest collection finds them looking down from above, unconcerned with whether the world can keep up. IT WOULD BE EASY TO DISMISS SKELETÁ AS INDULGENT Peacefield’s baroque choral incantations give way to shimmering synths and a creeping sense of grandeur. It sets the tone for an album that leans harder into the polished, late-70s AOR influences that have lurked at Ghost’s edges since their inception.…

Fallen Star SPINEFARM IT WAS A crime against British metal that Conquering didn’t make Employed To Serve absolutely massive. Released in the autumn of 2021, the Woking quintet’s fourth offering was an album of the year contender, opening up their once dense and scabrous brand of metallic hardcore to go straight for the jugular with the biggest, most hook-infested songs of their career. OK, they have had a solid few years since, in fairness – touring arenas with Gojira and smashing main stage festival sets is nothing to be sniffed at – but in an era where genuinely heavy artists are playing Jimmy Kimmel and bagging Grammy nominations, it’s long past time one of the UK’s most consistent metal bands gets a seat at the big table. If Fallen Star…

Lonely People With Power ROADRUNNER “DEAFHEAVEN AREN’T REAL black metal.” It’s a sentence purists have bandied about ever since the San Franciscans started tempering extreme music’s savagery with blankets of shoegaze. Pearls only got clutched tighter as 2013’s Sunbather won the acclaim of indie magazines, then again when Infinite Granite eschewed screeching and blastbeats almost entirely. Now, Lonely People With Power seems tailor-made to shut whinging mouths. The proverbial yang to Infinite Granite’s yin, it bombards with torrents of volume and grants only fleeting glimpses of the band’s tender heart. Lead single Magnolia epitomises Deafheaven’s rejuvenated might. With no atmospheric fannying about, it breaks straight into a sprint of bullheaded metal and progressive rhythms. George Clarke has rediscovered his scream to ear-splitting effect. It’s a display of brutality matched by Revelator,…

PARKWAY DRIVE WILL play the iconic Sydney Opera House this summer. On June 9, the Australian metalcore mob will perform with a full symphony orchestra in a special, one-night-only, black-tie event. Tickets have already sold out, but the band revealed the show would be recorded for their upcoming live album/film, Home. The quintet last toured their home country in 2024, as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations. After the Sydney Opera House show, they will go to the US for their Summer Of Loud tour – which includes a stop-off at Ohio’s Inkcarceration Festival – before heading to Europe and the UK for an arena tour. In a statement for the Sydney Opera House, frontman Winston McCall said: “For over two decades, we have carried our home in our hearts…

“SO, WHAT ARE we doing here? Sniffing glue and shooting heroin?” Zakk Wylde is in typically boisterous spirits after being led into the ‘I Am Anarchy’ suite in London’s swanky Chateau Denmark hotel, so called because it’s where punk legends the Sex Pistols lived and rehearsed during their infamous heyday. It’s a historic venue, but it takes more than that to faze you when you’re Ozzy’s right-hand man, front Black Label Society, lead Black Sabbath covers band Zakk Sabbath, and are an all-round metal guitar legend. But if the ghost of Sid Vicious can’t rattle Zakk, let’s see if questions from Hammer’s notoriously inquisitive readership can! What does Zakk Wylde do in his free time when he wants to be Zakk Calm?  Chris Baudette, Facebook “Usually when I’m home, therapy…

FEW BANDS DID more than Atreyu to bring metalcore screaming into the mainstream. 2004 was a watershed year for the genre, with the likes of Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall and Underoath all clawing up from the underground. It was, though, Killswitch Engage with The End Of Heartache and Atreyu with their second album, The Curse, who really took it to the next level. “We were definitely part of this era where hardcore metal, metalcore or whatever you want to call it became more commercially successful,” nods Atreyu frontman Brandon Saller. “If you look at what’s extreme and gnarly now, Atreyu is pretty tame. But at the time people would be like, ‘I cannot believe this band is on the radio right now. What is the world coming to?’” Formed in…

ONE OF THE freshest-sounding bands in the underground, Dawn Of Ouroboros play progressive songs that snake between blackgaze atmospherics and crunching melodeath. Their genre-smashing ways are a direct response to their founders’ past work as hired guns for other artists. “When I played in other people’s bands, it was like, ‘We’re doing this style’ or ‘We’re trying to sound like this’,” guitarist Tony Thomas explains. “I don’t want to say I had a harder time writing when I was told things like, ‘Oh, this has to be a death metal album’, but it’s just not the way I listen to music.” He also explains that his day job as a molecular biologist informs his boundary-free songwriting. “Working as a researcher, I guess it’s more explorative. I’m going to sit down…

LORD OF THE LOST OPVS NOIR VOL. 1: WOODEN BOOK COLLECTORS’ BOX NAPALM £46 GET OUT YOUR glitter and your glo-sticks, because Hamburg’s Eurovisionbefuddling high commanders of camp are coming back and they’re ready to par… Actually, nix the spangly stuff and get your thickest eyeliner instead, because while Lord Of The Lost are about to embark on their most ambitious adventure yet, they’re also heralding a return to their dark industrial roots. Due in August, but available for pre-order now, Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is the first part of a 33-song trilogy that, as frontman Chris Harms explains, is “a travel guide, or perhaps also a travelogue, through the dark sides of our inner world”. Featuring guest spots from Sharon den Adel, Deathstars’ Whiplasher Bernadotte and more, it comes…

Randy Blythe wants to make one thing clear. “I’m not Buddha,” says the Lamb Of God singer. “I get angry all the time. But are you just going to sit here and be angry forever? Or are you going to try and figure out a way to make things better?” He’s talking the inspiration behind his new book, Just Beyond The Light: Making Peace With The Wars Inside Our Head, a collection of first-hand stories of survival and self-betterment, and the insight they’ve brought him. “It’s just trying to understand myself and the world,” he says. “It’s just about navigating those thoughts.” Do you think you could have written this book before you got sober? “No fucking way. I couldn’t have written any book when I wasn’t sober. I used…

Harper bounds towards us, each step sending a brown spray of mud up her dazzlingly white trousers. Each slippy stomp is followed by a mischievous howl of delight; she’s made it her mission to destroy the pair of brand new trainers on her feet. “I just love splashing in all the puddles,” she announces triumphantly, punctuating a particularly brave leap that sees her windmilling her arms for balance. It’s June 2024, we’re at Download, and it’s wet, with punters cautiously wading between stages in knee-high wellies and raincoats. But 12-year-old growler Harper seemingly didn’t get the memo. While her explosive energy could well be a result of the “like, 20 Red Bulls” she’s downed today, she’s still riding the high of her very first live show. Despite finding success on…

Dani Filth is aware of the reaction Cradle Of Filth have provoked over the years. “You might hate us but at least you’ve heard of us,” says the vocalist, visionary and sole remaining founder member of Britain’s most recognisable extreme metal outfit, with a laugh. “There are bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica that everyone knows. Builders who only listen to daytime radio know them. If there’s to be an epitaph for the band, it would be nice to be in that position and just be remembered as Cradle Of Filth.” They might not be in the same commercial league as Maiden or Metallica, but Cradle Of Filth enjoy a level of notoriety and success that has taken them way beyond the black metal underground that spawned them more than…

Unatoned NUCLEAR BLAST IT IS AMUSING to recall how many people were willing to write Machine Head off only a few years ago. After the release of the supposedly polarising (but, in reality, perfectly successful) Catharsis in 2018, and the unexpected departure of half the band later that year, Robb Flynn’s relentless forward march at least seemed to be experiencing a hiccup or two, and critical vultures were circling. Satisfyingly, the near-immediate turnaround was enough to give us all whiplash. Since returning with a revitalised line-up in 2019, Machine Head have been on fucking fire. 2022’s Of Kingdom And Crown was a blistering return to top form. The band’s first concept piece, it was tighter, heavier and more ferocious than anything they’d released since Burn My Eyes in 1994, but…

Te Rā NAPALM NEW ZEALAND’S ALIEN Weaponry are one of the most exciting metal bands to have emerged in the last decade. Brothers Lewis and Henry de Jong started playing together before they had even hit their teens, and their prodigious talents and chemistry, coupled with a desire to splice crushing groove metal with influences from indigenous Māori culture is certainly a unique USP. After two impressive albums in 2018 debut Tū and its 2021 follow-up, Tangaroa, now is surely the time for the band to transition from hotly tipped youngsters to leading lights. They couldn’t have given themselves a better chance of getting there than with Te Rā. Comparisons with Sepultura have followed Alien Weaponry from the start of their career, and this very much feels like a similar…

Aspiral NUCLEAR BLAST THE LAST FEW years have been a whirlwind for Epica. From celebrating their 20-year anniversary to putting in a stint on Metallica’s M72 tour and making the collaborative, experimental The Alchemy Project EP with the likes of Fleshgod Apocalypse and Shining (NO), the Dutch symphonic metal outfit have been on quite the journey. Aspiral feels like a natural response – a return to their roots with a renewed focus on the core of who Epica are. Everyone knows they can deliver a grandiose metal album with their eyes closed, and Aspiral is, like most Epica records, a sumptuous aural feast. Cross The Divide comes straight out of the gate with high intensity and an instantly memorable chorus melody, sung powerfully by the divinely talented Simone Simons. The…