Tag Archives: riffs

Chrome Waves – A Grief Observed

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All the way back in 2010, former members of Wolvhammer, The Gates Of Slumber, and Amiensus formed Chrome Waves, but a focus on other projects meant that the band sat firmly on the backburner for many years with just one EP and a few singles to their name. Nearly ten years later, after founding member and guitarist Jeff Wilson left Wolvhammer and Abigail Williams, Chrome Waves has been given new life and the mid-Western post-Black metal trio present us with A Grief Observed (Disorder)Continue reading →


Minors – Abject Bodies

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When Atrophy came out a year and a little bit ago, Ontario Hardcore outfit Minors made a lasting impression in their twenty-minute onslaught of Converge melancholy and frenetic All Pigs Must Die-like energy. It was another home run for Holy Roar Records, but due to its December release it sadly got overlooked by a large portion of the Metal media. Well, it’s a new year and with that comes new material from the Canadians in the form of Abject Bodies; a traumatic continuation of their uncompromising sludgy, Hardcore oppression.Continue reading →


Starve To Survive – Have Me To Waste EP

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Newcastle’s latest Hardcore reprobates Starve To Survive are back after a whole three years with a new EP, Have Me To Waste (Caliber), hoping to make their own statement of intent and garner some of the attention that the northern Hardcore scene generates, specifically Loathe and God Complex who have been turning more than a few heads over the past year.Continue reading →


Ossuarium – Living Tomb

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Do you remember the scene in Ridley Scott’s Alien in which Harry Dean Stanton’s (RIP) Brett gets offed by the titular space invader? Our younger readers may want to pull that up on YouTube, but the reason I ask is because the grimy, damp and claustrophobic set design on display matches the aesthetic that Ossuarium is serving up on Living Tomb (20 Buck Spin). Brief, almost acoustic passages come in here and there, but for most of its run time, Living Tomb lives up to its moniker.Continue reading →


Mastiff – Plague

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For the better part of the past six years, Hull’s Mastiff has been slowly festering in the underbelly of the UK’s underground scene. A handful of demos and 2016’s Wrank set expectations for the band to become mainstays of any grotty pub or club gig you’d care to attend, and Plague (APF Records) continues their trend of spreading as much abject misery as musically possible.Continue reading →


Khaidian – Penumbra

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London’s Khaidian, while not exactly new to the UK’s DIY metal scene, start 2019 off with ambition to set themselves apart from the herd. Not content to be catalogued as one thing or the other, the foursome present to us their debut record Penumbra (Armalyte Industries) in the hopes to push Metal’s boundaries with their blend of poly-rhythmic technicality and electronic flair.Continue reading →


Cloudburst – Cloudburst

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One of the most appealing aspects of getting to listen to Cloudburst’s self-titled sophomore (Samstrong Records) effort is learning that they hail from Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Through years of tape trading, international touring and eventually communicating online we’ve always known that the extreme music market is indeed a global one, but it’s always exciting to receive these imports.Continue reading →


GUEST POST: Tom Ballard of Allfather – Top EP’s of 2018

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We have a LOT of time for UK Sludgey Hardcore/Metal act Allfather. Not only is their new album And All Will Be Desolation (Rotting Throne) a beast of a record, they also possess an arsenal of MASSIVE riffs, and those riffs also kill fascists. It’s true, it’s damn true! Staunchly political, and marrying this to a love of underground HEAVY music, spearheading a campaign to share and promote their contemporaries and those they love and share ideals with online, it only made sense to ask vocalist Tom Ballard to talk us through some of his favourite EPs of 2018. Continue reading →


Ginger Wildheart – G*A*S*S Mark II

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One of the first UK rock musicians to demonstrate how crowd-funding could really be successful in the non-mainstream world with his phenomenally successful 555% (Pledge Music) campaign, in 2014 Ginger Wildheart embarked on the G*A*S*S (Ginger Associated Secret Society) project. Fans signed up, and in return, received three exclusive tracks a month and opportunities for a whole host of goodies. At the end of the process, a ten-track release of the most popular tracks, Year Of The Fanclub, was made available to the general public. G*A*S*S Mark II (Round Records) is the Directors Cut… Ginger’s own preferred curation of his favourite tracks from the experiment.Continue reading →


Slayer – Lamb of God – Anthrax: Live at Arena, Birmingham (UK)

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So, this is it then. The end of an era. A bruising, sweaty, and sometimes controversial, earache-inducing era which spanned over three and a half decades ends with the three words I never wanted to write:  Slayer are retiring.Continue reading →