-Raz- has written the following articles:
Technically Alexisonfire are the biggest-selling band in Canada right now, but that’s only because they’re Canadians. Right? Probably. Nobody offered AOF a deal so irresistible that it could supersede eight indie deals so this, their third offering, has been heralded as the best album this year. Full stop. However, there is always much more scepticism around these parts. And rightly so... »
Diversity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Every track on the new album from The Matches is in a different style, retelling a different story, with almost a different producer every time. It lends to little but incoherence...»
It’s turning out to be quite a year for HARDcore. After recent, decent efforts from Terror and Hatebreed, Detroit bruisers Walls Of Jericho have returned and With Devils Amongst Us All is another that ticks all the right boxes - brutality, anger, breakdowns, furious punk anguish, etc - and punches the right buttons with PUNCH being the operative word...»
It's Bestival this weekend (September 8-10), and while it's meant to be the last festival of the year, it's obviously not because there are more coming up. Or maybe it's just meant to be the best? Whatever. It's certainly the biggest Bestival yet, anyway, with some 250 acts - there or thereabouts - performing over three days...»
Are My Chemical Romance merely aping the career of Green Day, albeit in hyperspeed? It’s frightening, but that may possibly be the case. This band is still in pole position to take over this world, and it’s going to happen later this autumn...»
The Bronx are punk fucking rock, or at least they used to be. ‘History’s Stranglers’ makes a strong case for renaming the band Manhattan...»
How deep is your love for Mastodon? I love them inside out and am very glad that they’re back in town with a new album and a new plan. This will blow your mind...»
Disco Ensemble are coming toward the end of their first UK headline tour and, after playing to just four people in Leicester due to the gig-going crowd presumably being in Reading or Leeds, are clearly grateful for a decent crowd in the Barfly tonight...»
The quintet, fresh from a staggeringly good Main Stage performance at The Carling Weekend, are to give As Daylight Dies to the masses on November 21 via Roadrunner Records.»
These Connecticut bruisers have long been blending massive hardcore attitude with even more massive metal riffs. Along with the fact they tour extensively, Hatebreed have amassed an impressive fanbase over their decade-long career...»
Everyone who knows anything about something about music waits in anxious expectation for the August Bank Holiday weekend. That is when The Carling Weekend descends upon two places in England with loads of bands that are okay and some bands that are bloody wicked and others that are fucking shit. Apparently we’re not allowed to call it Reading Rock anymore 'cause that went out in the 1980s. Whatever. Here are the ten bands that we reckon you should see.»
Conversations about this record with an esteemed colleague, who has always remained somewhere between the punk and the rock, yielded no conclusions other than the fact that this is a fucking Motorhead record...»
You would have thought that after a weekend at the UK’s premier heavy metal extravaganza, Download, there would not be too much scope for further encounters with the truest freaks and social outcasts of our sorry world. You’d be wrong. So fucking wrong...»
While Slipknot have shifted truckloads of records, raking in various awards left, right and centre (and will continue to), Corey Taylor needs Stone Sour to express the more sensitive side of his personality. Come What(ever) May, the band’s second album, is far from being the creation of a mere side project...»
Now this is what heavy motherf*cking metal was invented for. Gojira, the mental French eco-warrior types who also play astoundingly massive and technical death metal riffs, are set to go on a joint headline tour with those really great Danes, Hatesphere.»
Killswitch Engage are to play an intimate show in London as a warm-up for their Reading/Leeds sets (and in addition to the already announced show in Wolverhampton). The quintet will perform at the Camden Underworld on August 23...»
Black metal: it’s grim as hell itself. But that’s the idea. While Marilyn Manson may gain the plaudits for influencing the youth of modern America, these true Satanists are mostly imprisoned (guitarist Infernus on a rape charge and singer Gaahl for assault and threat of cannibalism), and thus are able to continue making the most uncompromising and most frighteningly brutal metal around...»
Two of Britain’s prime exports have a keen sense of Americana about their images, personalities and musical style, but Winnebago Deal and Lostprophets are as different as you can get. The question posed this month is Deal Or No Deal? This is Lostprophets vs Winnebago Deal...»
Know this now: the label ‘hardcore’ does not do Terror justice. Scott Vogel is possibly the angriest and liveliest frontman you will ever bear witness to. Always The Hard Way is angry from the off and does not want to give an inch. You will find any solace in this record. Ultimately there’s just not enough breadth to this blinkered aural assault... »
Heralded by many as the best British metal band around at the moment, Bullet For My Valentine are set up for a massive headline tour in November.»
Revellers at this year's Global Gathering festival are set to be treated to a special 'summer of love' feeling by being showered not by rain, but by thousands of lovely flowers...»
One whole per cent of the Finnish population has arrived in Joensuu this weekend for Ilosaarirock. Fair enough there are only two million people in the country, but that’s still quite a turnout...»
As previously reported, there is going to be a festival in Newquay on 4-5 August with some bands, some surfers, some skaters, and some regular people watching it all. While The Beach Boys (pictured) will not be there, in this weather some of those regular people will be wearing bikinis. Mad skills. You can win tickets here.»
September 2006 will see Norwegian black metal experimentalists Satyricon tour their recent critically acclaimed album, Now Diabolical, across the UK...»
Following 2003’s magical display of mathcore complexity, The Trees Are Dead And Dried Out, Wait For Something Wild, was always going to be tough. While SikTh have returned with the same, often overbearing technical proficiency, with Death Of A Dead Day they have created an album that you might actually feel comfortable listening to...»
Many of Underøath’s fans will be thanking the Lord that this album has finally dropped, seeing as their last album - the aptly titled They’re Only Chasing Safety - was a metalcore extravaganza that hit all the right buttons on all the right kids at exactly the right time...»
Probably the most hyped band in Berkshire right now, Exit Ten have formed a thoroughly professional slice of metallic hardcore for their debut release, This World They’ll… Drown. Despite it being a mere five tracks long, this mini-album is far from mini in sound, scope and ambition.»
Flying out of a pigeonhole you can’t quite nail to a tree, Australian quintet The Scare have jittered and jump-started their way out of their adopted home of Birmingham in a punk-rock explosion.»
This year's Bulldog Bash is to take place from the 10th 'til the 13th of August at Shakespeare County Raceway, Warwickshire. And yep, that over there's a bulldog that's been bashed...»
In a thoroughly cosmopolitan move, three of the brightest rock hopes from across the globe (England, Finland and Australia) are converging upon one tour in August...»
