Back catalogue: Metal

Review: Ever consistent Canadian hardcore punk crew, Cancer Bats, are seemingly set to return with their follow up to 2018's 'The Spark That Moves', which marks their first offering following the departure of founding guitarist Scott Middleton.

With the frenetic thrashings of latest single, 'Lonely Bong', the group haven't sounded this vitriolic or pissed off in the better part of a decade.

From the thunderous title-track alone, it's evident 'Psychic Jailbreak' marks a smouldering return to form with low end grooves and Southern snarl imbued within its hardcore bindings. Cancer Bats have always sounded their best when resembling Every Time I Die getting into a beer-soaked bar brawl with Down, and this could be the fight that leads to a hospital visit.

Review: Ever consistent Canadian hardcore punk crew, Cancer Bats, are seemingly set to return with their follow up to 2018's 'The Spark That Moves', which marks their first offering following the departure of founding guitarist Scott Middleton.

With the frenetic thrashings of latest single, 'Lonely Bong', the group haven't sounded this vitriolic or pissed off in the better part of a decade.

From the thunderous title-track alone, it's evident 'Psychic Jailbreak' marks a smouldering return to form with low end grooves and Southern snarl imbued within its hardcore bindings. Cancer Bats have always sounded their best when resembling Every Time I Die getting into a beer-soaked bar brawl with Down, and this could be the fight that leads to a hospital visit.

Review: Ever consistent Canadian hardcore punk crew, Cancer Bats, are seemingly set to return with their follow up to 2018's 'The Spark That Moves', which marks their first offering following the departure of founding guitarist Scott Middleton.

With the frenetic thrashings of latest single, 'Lonely Bong', the group haven't sounded this vitriolic or pissed off in the better part of a decade.

From the thunderous title-track alone, it's evident 'Psychic Jailbreak' marks a smouldering return to form with low end grooves and Southern snarl imbued within its hardcore bindings. Cancer Bats have always sounded their best when resembling Every Time I Die getting into a beer-soaked bar brawl with Down, and this could be the fight that leads to a hospital visit.

Review: Like Ronseal does exactly what it says on the tin, Procreation Of The Wicked: Rehearsal June '84 is a rare session recorded by Swiss extreme metal pioneers Celtic Frost, the same year they unveiled their debut EP/mini-LP Morbid Tales. Later expanded into what the band would retrospectively regard as their debut full-length, the bulk of material from this session comes directly from this project, with the notable inclusion of studio-version lacking 'Messiah', which has grown to become an underappreciated fan favourite in the decades since, largely due to its rehearsal session-only mystique. Raw, feral, and boasting the proto black metal thrash abrasion that would utterly reroute the metallic landscape for future generations, this early incarnation time capsule is a vital piece of extreme metal history, though its ragged edges require true fandom to appreciate the boundary-pushing genius being captured in real time.

Review: .By its very nature, Tenkiller is a very different beast to Chat Pile's other releases. Recorded in the winter of 2020 to be the soundtrack to Tenkiller, an indie movie about the lives of ordinary people in small-town America, it sees the noise-rock/post-hardcore combo focus on mood and tone, rather than form and function. As a result, fuzzy and forthright cuts of the sort you'd expect come supplemented by dystopian, industrial-influenced soundscapes, lo-fi alt-country, guitar-laden mood pieces, low-slung and effects-laden creepiness, intense electronica and the kind of slow-burn ambient-not-ambient that was once the preserve of cult bands such as Labradford.

Review: Coheed and Cambria are often heralded to be some of the best rock music storytellers in the world. This much hyped new album Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind goes some way to backing that up and was produced by the band's own Claudio Sanchez and Zakk Cervini. Early singles got a great reception from fans and critics and showcased what to expect from the full album - thrashing heavy metal-infused riffs with vast in scale melodic vocals that are this band's signature style.