Author: James Lawrence

Gehennah are one of those ‘I don’t give a flying fuck’ bands. A career born from the ideals of drinking, fighting, smoking, women and heavy metal; a metal version of a biker gang, substituting the Harleys for a different kind of six-stringed beast. ‘Too Loud To Live, Too Drunk To Die’ is … Read More

Few bands invoke mysticism and atmosphere quite like Grave Miasma. The leather clad quartet play behind a delicate haze of incense whilst doused in blood, their first full-length release, ‘Odori Sepulcrorum’, invoking deities, death, decay and the unknown, giving the listener a lesson in death metal’s rich and unrelentingly brutal history.

Three … Read More

Power metal has long been associated with central Europe and the rabid fans that live and breathe by it. It’s never quite been as much of a hit on our shores, but the bands who play within the genre are as dedicated now as they day they formed. Hamburg’s Paragon, on … Read More

Hand on hearts, we’ll admit, our knowledge of Sri Lankan metal is limited, even with Annick Giroux’s World Downfall series guiding our hand through these things. Serpents Athirst are a four-piece black metal band who’ve had their EP ‘Heralding Ceremonial Mass Obliteration’ released on Indian underground label Cyclopean Eye and over … Read More

I fell in love with Deathhammer when stumbling across their 2008 EP 'Forever Ripping Fast' back in the early haze of a black-thrash education. Championed by heavy metal hero Fenriz was as good a seal of approval as any band of this style needed.

'Straight Metal War' is the fifth full-length album from Barbatos in a career spanning 17 years. Playing a brand of booze-drenched metallic punk, Barbatos stick to the rule book of songs about Satan, Hell, women, drugs, war and basically having a filthy old time.