Under the needle

With its mind-boggling array of purist codes and conventions, elevated icons and genre-defining legends, few subgenres are harder to...

If humankind’s consistently mindless, self-serving and hatefully bigoted behaviour during these continually troubled times has taught us...

Whether shielding child sex offenders, seizing control of women’s reproductive rights or being used to legitimise a host of bloodthirsty...

As far as inspiring dark and thoroughly disquieting feats of artistic brilliance goes, suffice it to say that the year 2020 has done a...

In a scene riddled with woefully uninspiring posers and pretenders, there are certain bands that have a rare knack for cutting straight...

One of the few silver linings of lockdown has been the opportunity to stick something brutalising on the stereo, roll up our sleeves and...

Forging music out of the darkest, most unspeakably tortured and broken parts of ourselves has long been something of an occupational...

In a year that has been relentlessly hellish, music fans long denied the vital lifeblood of live gigs can’t help but feel a certain...

Whether it’s the luscious, airily flourishing territories of symphonic metal, Norwegian black metal’s raggedly abrasive trademark riffs...

Satan worship and substance abuse aside, there are few more painfully well-worn clichés that could be applied to the metal genre than...