Under the needle

Having kindly allowed fans a good few months to pick their bloodied and semi-obliterated jaws up off the floor following the release of earth-shattering blackened epic, ‘A New Kind of Horror’, the tail-end of March 2019 saw Anaal Nathrakh hit the road for their hugely anticipated ‘Horror in Extremis’ tour. On the final night of the Birmingham wrecking crew’s recent round of electrifying UK tour dates, Dark Matter had the pleasure of checking in with frontman Dave Hunt to disc

In a frantic tsunami of densely chugging riffs and banshee shrieks, British extreme metal legends Akercocke are quick to ensnare the full, undivided focus of fans from the get-go. With ‘Horns of Baphomet’s’ lunging, serpentine contortions and tortured screams taking ample time to work their ritualistic magic before accelerating into a battering frenzy of staccato blasts, theirs is a deliciously sinister and abrasive presence. Bridging whiplash-inducing stints of aggression wi

"We started out swapping images between the two of is, which is how we usually start considering artwork. We’re not sure at the time what we’re looking for – maybe an image that we can use wholesale, maybe just things that set a kind of visual tone that we can both get into as somehow connecting with the spirit of the album as a whole. For A New Kind of Horror, obviously one of the most visual inspirations was the first world war theme. But we have a particular take on it."

Scratch the surface of any dominant political agenda, social norm or organised religion and you’ll very quickly uncover something infinitely more ugly and primitive lurking beneath in limitless abundance. And through desolate, darkly unravelling strains of rasping snarls, ricocheting blasts and deathly atmospherics, it’s with seamless ease and diabolical panache that Anaal Nathrakh plunge the listener headlong into these horrific waking nightmares. So hold your breath and bra

If all of hell’s minions rose from the abyss to gorge on a ghoulish cocktail of Class A hallucinogens, undiluted hate and human suffering, the sum of this combined wretchedness would still fail to rival the sheer, nightmarish darkness so richly contained within ‘A New Kind of Horror.’ But rather than being the product of any such black sorcery or demonic influence, the various battering and blackly atmospheric energies that abound here originate from a place of intense, unmis