Music and Metal

Aereogramme

3 Jul 2007

FAREWELL SHOW When Aereogramme released their aptly-titled third album My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go earlier this year, it was to a certain critical warmth and a gust of commercial tumbleweed. Now that they’ve knocked it on the head…

Records - Will Haven

3 Jul 2007

METAL After splitting up, re-forming, and then losing vocalist Grady Avenell, Will Haven’s continued existence has been in question of late. But with the arrival of long-time friend Jeff Jaworski, the California metal quartet has finally found a…

Records - Pig Destroyer

3 Jul 2007

GRINDCORE Pig Destroyer have always had more to them than your average grinders, largely thanks to the lit-heavy lyrics of JR Hayes. So, while Phantom Limb plays like the illegitimate offspring of early Napalm Death, there’s a deeply unhinged quality…

Records - Megadeth

21 May 2007

METAL Once one of the most influential thrash titans (part of the ‘big four’ alongside Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer), Megadeth went one faster, one harder than the rest of the metal pack. However in 2002 it looked like frontman Dave Mustaine would…

Mastodon - preview

Mastodon

28 Feb 2007

METAL While metal continues to splinter and cross pollinate into a million different subgenres, each more wilfully obscure and self-conscious than the last, it takes a band like this quartet of Atlantans to reunite these individual pieces under the…

End, The - album review

The End

27 Feb 2007

METAL (Relapse) 2006 wasn’t the most exciting for metal. So it’s a relief that The End have come out of nowhere (well, Canada) to restore the faith and push the genre into new forms. Gone are the tonsil-tearing screams and mathcore chaos of…

Killswitch Engage

3 Jan 2007

5 REASONS TO SEE 1 They’re the illegitimate sons of Slayer They are leaders of the metalcore movement that take the blueprint of thrash as laid down by Slayer, but ramp it up with elements of their hardcore roots. In fact, their rock forefathers…

Iron Maiden

6 Dec 2006

5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1. Over 70 million sales Humungous sales are often wrong - just look at Celine Dion - but not in this case. The legendary heavy metal outfit have shifted gargantuan numbers of albums, and are rightly considered the biggest metal…

Manatees

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Tue 7 Oct

6 Dec 2006

METAL Let’s call it the Isis effect. But nowadays with the Boston group gaining mainstream exposure thanks to a recent support with Tool, the number of bands playing epic, shoegazer, soundscape rock is a lot more than it used to be. Thankfully…

Cradle of Filth - album review

Cradle of Filth

27 Nov 2006

METAL There will always be a place in the history of metal for Cradle of Filth. They’ve been reliably upsetting our self imposed moral guardians since their inception. However, this is Cradle’s main problem - as an idea they’re like a bolt from the…

Converge - album review

Converge

11 Nov 2006

METAL OK, so metal is generally the ‘duh’-centric domain of Beavis & Butthead but amidst the OTT-ridiculousness of it all, there are groups who have pushed the genre past artifice into art. Boston’s Converge, are such craftsmen. In a 15-year…

Various - Butchering the Beatles - album review

Various

11 Nov 2006

METAL UP YOUR ASS If you’re the kind of sick fuck who’s always wondered what a heavy metal Beatles would’ve sounded like, wonder no more. Here, a host of metal luminaries massacre the fab foursome’s back-catalogue, with surprisingly entertaining…

Trivium - album review

Trivium

2 Oct 2006

METAL Opener ‘Ignition’ is a killer track, all thundering riffs and heavier than thou grooves, if someone told you it was a lost Metallica track you’d have no reason to doubt them. And they count the aforementioned Metallica and Iron Maiden…

Mastodon - CD review

Mastodon

4 Sep 2006

METAL Loud, for some reason, has always been equated with stupid (Spinal Tap have a lot to answer for presumably), but as these four fairly well-adjusted young men from Atlanta prove, metal can be both big and very, very clever. They still indulge…