wars, unbeknownst to me, are from my own stomping ground of Rugby in the Midlands area of England. Their debut album, 2017’s We Are Islands After All (Spinefarm), offered up a lot of promise and it’s time to see if their new EP, As Within /// So Without (Wolf At Your Door), can build and then expand on the debut.Continue reading
Eric A.K. of Flotsam And Jetsam
Amplified Festival rolled out a series of major final lineup announcement today over social media, for the 2019 edition of the fest. Headliners and support acts such as Conan, Flotsam And Jetsam, Memoriam, Jinjer have been added, with a full list below. Tickets are on sale now! Continue reading
In 2015, Liverpool-Manchester hybrid Bodies on Everest produced The Burning (self-release), a ferocious slab of ultra-heavy, underproduced despair which its creators christened ‘Dungeon Wave’ and which tragically glided under the radar. Three years later that Blackened Doom crash has been reinvented on follow-up A National Day of Mourning (Cruel Nature Records / Third I Rex): the minimalist production accompanied by a more pensive, Drone-led violence, offering up a suffocating dystopian nightmare.Continue reading
wars find themselves in the middle of a fork in the road when it comes to the modern Metalcore scene. Some acts turn to heavier ground, whilst others look to blur the lines between pop and rock, such as former genre front-runners Bring Me The Horizon.Continue reading
You can find out a lot about a band simply from their name. Take Hiraeth for example: Hiraeth is a Welsh word which has no direct English translation. The University of Wales has described it as ‘homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the departed’, as well as a mixture of ‘longing, yearning and nostalgia’. With such a unique and interesting band name, it is clear from the beginning that there is something different about them. Their debut EP The World Ends With You is self-released, and they have recently finished their first UK tour with Black Polaris and wars.
Opening track ‘Words To Echo’ opens with a simplistic and distorted guitar riff, proving their melodic hardcore roots instantly. Lead vocalist Charlie Clayton demands your attention from the get go, using his harsh vocals to enhance the emotion-filled lyrics. ‘Barely Breathing’ kicks up the pace, proving that Hiraeth are not just a one trick pony. The song features William Alex Young from Clockwork, and their different vocal styles fuse together perfectly.
There is something almost reminiscent about Hiraeth: they are able to use all of the previously successful melodic hardcore techniques to a high standard. The World Ends With You is an easy EP to listen to, and if you like melodic hardcore then there is no reason why you would not enjoy this band. For a first EP it is impressive, however, it would be great to hear how their sound develops in time and find out what will make them stand out from the thousands of other bands on the UK underground scene at the moment.
7.0/10
JULIA CONOPO
Heavy Metal Movies (Bazillion Points), written by Mike “Beardo” McPadden is a project the likes of which any metal geek-movie geek fusion would be proud to have accomplished in their lives; proof that they have indeed seen more movies than you, and can tell you how headbangingly awesome each is in their own way. Indeed, this titanic titanium tome does indeed show, rather than tell the sheer amount of neck-snapping cinematography observed by one man needed to even dare a book of this lethal thickness. From A to Z, it’s an outpouring of movie mayhem and magick from teenage stoner boners to Nordic loners; rockumentaries and mockumentaries; canon appearances by the metal gods on screen and on record; from swords to spaceships, and from monsters to Manson (Editor’s note: both Charles and Marilyn), this book packs it all in, dating from the silent era Nosferatu (1922) to the modern Hollywood bombast of The Hobbit (2012) and a whole hell of a lot of stuff in between that inspired distortion, patched denim, leather, and poor hygiene worldwide.