Clutch have happily given us a Christmas treat, delivering their bluesy heavy-rock metal to a packed Manchester Academy. They always serve up a fantastic live show with their unique and infectious performance and endless catalogue of songs. Tonight they’ve also brought the brilliant Greek rockers 1000mods and unhinged Norwegian stoner-punks Bokassa along for the ride!
Read MoreThere is a divine beauty in darkness. In the shrouded bleakness, if you look hard enough, you will always find hope, redemption, and immaculate splendour. For respectively thirty-four and twenty-five years, Saturnus and Swallow The Sun have been mining the melancholic gloom for the glimmers of positivity. They both operate in a corner of the doom metal universe that is melodic and tinged with sadness as opposed to sadism. It is doom metal in the fact that it is slow and pendulous in its delivery, but it has an emotive and poignant core, focusing on affairs of the heart instead of the more fanciful and fantastic.
Read MoreThere’s something intriguing and exciting about a lineup that covers all the stages of the journey of a band. Openers Gore. are at the start of their journey, complete with enthusiasm, vigour and wide-eyed energy. Main support Ghøstkid are looking to push on, building to the next level from their strong foundations. And then headliners Of Mice & Men are maintaining their grip on success and establishing their legacy.
Read MoreHow do you get more intimate than the sweat box that is The Deaf Institute upstairs room? The answer is plain and simple, you can move the whole shebang downstairs into the main pub. This evening's event has the feel of having a band play your Nan’s front room. It's claustrophobic, in places it is shambolic, and you're not going to find any self-respecting cat getting itself swung round this place. But it embodies the true spirit of rock n‘ roll. You can take your arenas, you can take your Apollo's and you can shove your Academies up whatever orifice you fancy; this is where our music thrives, this is its foundry and this is its source.
Read MoreThree bands, three different shades of extremity, one unforgettable night. From Worn Out’s hardcore ferocity to Pupil Slicer’s avant-garde chaos and LLNN’s sludgy soundscape nightmares. Three radically different approaches to metal and a Thursday night Rebellion crowd ready to lap it up or let it obliterate them trying.
Read MoreIf you strip metal back to its molten core, you will find Conan. They synthesise the base element of ungodly weight that makes metal, metal and celebrate the simplistic beauty of that gnarly heaviness. There is something ritualistic and primal about their approach; by removing all the elements that have aided metal's evolution, they reboot everything to a point where it is all about the heaviness.
Read MoreThere is prestige in becoming an arena-level act. It signifies a shift from making it to having made it, a sense of sustainability. It is a badge of honour to be able to fill cavernous rooms, a status symbol. It is a state of affairs that many bands aspire to, but few actually achieve. Halestorm are one of a number of acts attempting to make that jump from theatres to enormodomes. In many ways they achieve the feat unscathed and with their integrity intact.
Read MoreSvalbard may well cover unsettling subject matters, but they always had an element of joy about them. The music they choose to accompany their treaties on depression and isolation has consistently had a euphoric element to it. It uplifts as opposed to grinding down the listener. Whilst Serena Cherry cheekily welcomes us to their funeral, tonight's final performance in Manchester before they call it a day, has an air of celebration as opposed to commiseration. Serena herself is positively bouncy and comes across as being in a particularly healthy state of mind. It is obvious they are very proud of everything the band has achieved, but that they are also very aware of when to step away. As Serena declares midway through the show, “We are ending like we started, with passion in our hearts and no money in our bank accounts”.
Read MoreTonight’s lineup is a dive straight into the early Noughties metal scene and tonight we travel back to that era with three big hitters of that time taking to the stage in Manchester. Drowning Pool, Spineshank and (hed)pe were some of the names you’d see on all the tours, festivals and MTV. As it turns out this isn’t just a nostalgia trip - it’s a reminder of how bands evolve, survive, and sometimes…don’t quite reached the heights they once did.
Read MoreLike a pumpkin left on the porch, Wednesday 13 is here to provide Halloween vibes after the big day has come and gone. Now whilst Wednesday 13 may have long ago decided the UK is a lucrative market for shock horror rock 'n' roll antics, this is his third tour of this isle in twelve months and there is a distinct whiff of diminishing returns. The 1,500 capacity Ritz has shifted 350 tickets, and ...
Read MoreTonight, the O2 Ritz is treated to a perfect storm of avant-garde chaos, technical excess, and cinematic madness. The lineup is a journey through the outer limits of metal, with Imperial Triumphant summoning the spirits, Master Boot Record overloading the circuits, and Igorrr stealing the show with a performance that’s as unhinged as it is unforgettable. Three wildly different acts take the stage, each pushing the boundaries of what metal can be and what it can sound like.
Read MoreWhat to do on a boring Tuesday night? Go to a secret gig you say? By a seminal, genre-defining band? At the Star & Garter? Well how could anyone pass up such an offer! And so we find ourselves queuing up to grab a can from the bar and go up that narrow staircase to a venue that holds around 200 people. To see the mighty Hatebreed. Oh yes, the kind of thing you dream of experiencing and we’re there for it!
Read MoreTonight, Manchester is metal city, but there is a distinct air of age demarcation going on. If you are under 35 then you are off to Co-op Live to witness Architects' ascension to greatness in Europe’s biggest arena. However, those of the disposition of being over 35 you are heading to the Academy for a stunningly retro celebration of a musical art form that is now well into its fifties. This iteration of Thrash of The Titans brings together all the distinct flavours of the flash in the pan movement that steadfastly refuses to die. We have new blood from South America in the shame of Nervosa, teutonic terror from Destruction, old school thrash/death hybrid from Obituary and a headline stint from a band that should be king, the almighty and still thoroughly underrated Testament.
Read MoreIt is now de rigueur to describe the early 90s UK metal scene as a bit of a desolate wasteland laid bare by the cataclysmic influence of grunge and American alt-rock. Whilst Seattle’s influence was far-reaching, in West Yorkshire, something quite incredible was forming. Whilst Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride (and Anathema over on Merseyside) were aware of each other, their brands of Gothic metal developed independently of each other. More a collection of bands with shared influences than a scene, it still proved that not every new act wanted to sound like they came from over the pond.
Read MoreThis evening is all about expectation. Blood Incantation blew everyone away last year with an album that challenged the very core of our music. “Absolutely Elsewhere” topped every end-of-year chart going (including our own), and the furore started to build about seeing these songs come to life in a live context. The size of venues on this tour is a massive step up for a band that has previously haunted the tiny but legendary Nambucca in London (now horribly gentrified). The expectation is both how the astonishing Tablet suite (that makes up the whole album) is reproduced in the flesh and also how Blood Incantation cope with their sudden, but well-deserved, transfer to the big league.
Read MoreProphetically, Refused’s 1998 third record “The Shape of Punk to Come”, has become the most important punk album since “Never the Bollocks” careered into our collective lives. However, at the time it was a commercial bomb and was scorned by the band’s ferment fanbase. It was so ill thought of, that the derision sent the band into a tailspin that they never recovered from. They partially limped through a traumatic American tour only to implode during an internal flight to Atlanta, Georgia. It was only after their demise that people started to see the astonishing depth of this unparalleled prog punk masterpiece.
Read MoreA euphoric crowd can make a show. The audience becomes the twelfth man, enhancing the performance and turbocharging the atmosphere. Tonight is one of those instances. It might be a Thursday night in that very Mancunian of seasons, second summer, but those in attendance are ready to party like it's 1999. It is a smorgasbord of goblin masks, pointed ears and party hats. Rather than become a cauldron of repulsive toxic masculinity, the pit this evening is a fabulous, inclusive maelstrom of energetic fun. There are Push-ups, rowing, and whale rides in this wild communal orgy of ridiculousness. The geniality and good-natured preposterousness is intoxicating and resonates far out across the venue, attaching everyone and every act to its gravitational pull.
Read MoreThere are albums that are born out of time. Records that are created in one era but steadfastly belong in another time period. Recordings that feel as if they have fallen through a hole in the space-time continuum. Earthtone9’s seminal third offering “Arc Tan Gent” is one such effort. Unveiled in 2000, it was birthed into a world where metal was back but was obsessed with “Nookie”, papercuts and smashing a baseball bat against a steel drum. “Arc Tan Gent” was slight, cerebral and highly intelligent. It married metal, prog and hardcore into an unholy trinity of sound that resonated righteous anger but was thoughtful about its disdain.
Read MoreGood things come to those who wait, or more literally, cacophonous, impenetrable noise comes to those who wait. Portal are a veritable enigma. The Australian noise mongers have existed in some form for over 30 years, yet visits to these shores have been few and very far between. The last time they were here (in fact, the only other time they've been here) was for the late lamented Temples festival in 2015. With some acts, this lack of physical contact would breed contempt or even apathy, but with Portal their absence has added to the mythology and expectation.
Read MoreWell, hats off to Unleash the Archers. Their one-off London show back in February was completely sold out, but instigated the usual online comments of "Why only London?” or “There is more to the UK than just the capital” or simply “Come North!”. Now most other bands would see these sorts of interactions as collateral damage and occupational hazards. But with Unleash the Archers, it struck a particularly empathetic chord. Hailing from the wastes of British Columbia, they were used to having to travel miles and miles to Vancouver or even over the Border into Seattle to see the bands that mattered to them. So, they listened to the impassioned pleas to come to Nottingham, Glasgow and Manchester, found three spare days in the middle of their European Festival trek, hired a cheap and cheerful van and headed North…
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