Under the needle

“Feeling good, London?” enquires Shining main man Niklas Kvarforth, brandishing a rapidly depleting bottle of Jack Daniel’s somewhere in the vague vicinity of the audience. “Don’t worry,” he assures with a devilishly disquieting grin. “That’s all about to change now.” And yet, despite the frontman formerly known as ‘Ghoul’s’ best concerted efforts to leave us all suitably shocked and appalled, there’s no hedging around the blatantly obvious fact that Shining are one hell of a

A couple of miles down the road from the squalid petty squabbles of Westminster, Camden’s Incineration fest provided the perfect blistering antidote to the horrors of Brexit. And the impassioned set of one band in particular, home-grown UK talents Winterfylleth, was a timely reminder of what truly makes this country great. Founded in 2007 Winterfylleth are late to the scene and tend to sit on the more dulcet end of the black metal spectrum, but in performance their music take

The blackened and violently energised delights of Incineration Fest 2019 are just hours away from spectacularly laying waste to an unsuspecting capital this Saturday. But before you hurl yourself headlong into this glorious feast of gratuitous, blackened aggression and alcohol-sodden shenanigans, do yourself a favour and check out our ultimate guide to the fest's finest forthcoming attractions! CARPATHIAN FOREST SOUNDS LIKE: Immortal, Emperor, Marduk STANDOUTS: 'A Forest', 'I

The annual inferno of blackened brilliance that is Incineration is about to hit Camden on Saturday and no doubt, like us, you’re bouncing off the walls with excitement - but the sheer amount of eye-wateringly exceptional acts crammed into this single day can feel daunting even to the most obsessively well-informed of fanatical metal-heads. But fear not, Dark Matter have got your leather-covered backs. We’ve sacrificed both sleep and sanity over the past few days to relentless

It was a balmy Spring evening in Camden Town, the air suffused with the familiar pungent odours of warm beer, kebab meat and choking exhaust fumes. Few would have suspected that beneath the sun-dappled streets, the Europe Under Black Death Metal Fire tour was about to rip up a blazing inferno of extreme music that would shake the iconic pillars and sticky, split-level floors of premier music venue the Underworld to its core. Darkrise and God Dethroned provided a fitting warm-

The alliteratively appealing Handful of Hate have been honing their wicked, brimstone-scorched craft since 1993, and judging by the ripping, viciously acerbic fruits of the Italians’ most recent studio labours, these two and a half decades have been put to exceptionally productive use. Indeed, where many acts of a similar vintage are content to stick rigidly to the primitive, blackened conventions of bygone times, ‘Adversus’ is a record that audibly bristles with compositiona

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

With spasm-inducing riffs that race along at a million miles an hour, Nordjevel’s latest homage to the blackest of black, full-length 'Necrogenesis', is not for the faint of heart. Drawing comparison with Dark Funeral, Marduk and Immortal, Nordjevel reject the more melodic traits of evolved black metal and accelerate their terrifying tempos to the max. Although only recently formed in 2015, these Norwegian ne’er-do-wells have plenty of firepower to wage their campaign, with t

Scratch the surface of metal’s dark underbelly, and there are plenty of treasures to be found. Lately there have been a surprising proliferation of solo projects, quietly blossoming like night-blooming flowers with sudden, arresting displays of exquisite dusky-hued iridescence. With just one person involved, there’s no bickering with bandmates, no creative differences about direction and no manoeuvring of busy schedules to get in the way of pure imagination - often resulting

From 1983-84, the director Jonas Åkerlund was a drummer for the Swedish band Bathory, which would later inspire the Norwegian black metal movement. He stated in a 2018 interview that when that culture developed in the '90s and became "too serious", he left the music scene and moved on to film-making. He was always the man for the job of adapting the 1997 book of the same title. People may forget Metallica’s 'Man UNkind' music video was his, with the same cast, as a preface f