Under the needle

It’s precisely 7pm on a Monday night, and the freshly-birthed drudgery of a new working week has had ample time to take effect – judging, at least, by the endless hordes of weary-looking Londoners jostling their way home through the hectic streets of a presently heaving Camden Town. So it’s with no small amount of amusing irony to note that the sizeable crowd of black-clad metal fans camped up outside The World’s End should be the ones looking so uncharacteristically cheery t

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

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-

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

Listening to the pulverising aggression and intensely visceral, gargling horror that oozes from every pitch-black pore of Baest’s deliciously deathly being, it’s hard to imagine that, fewer than four years ago, this Danish wrecking crew was little more than a Bloodbath fanboy’s distant, seemingly unattainable dream. Having already inked a deal with international label giant Century Media and shared stage space with Polish genre titans Decapitated, it seems things are moving a

Of all the cruellest and most psychologically shattering of emotional states, nothing cripples the human spirit more brutally and absolutely than the tragic loss of a loved one. The quiet, shell-shocked numbness. The great, gaping void within that aches like some horrific incurable wound. The raw, gnawing grief slowly devouring the very fibre of your being from the inside out. Yet out of these agonising, tear-stricken moments of darkness come some of the most jaw-dropping and

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

DunkelNacht are gearing up to take the metal world by storm, and if you haven’t heard whisper of them yet, you soon will. Offering up an exquisitely crafted mix of black and death metal divinely inspired by various classical and avant-garde sources, these purveyors of darkness have a universal appeal, with enough of a savage edge to satisfy hard-nut, hairy head-bangers and plenty of opulent, melodic interludes to indulge more gothic sensibilities. Dark Matter caught up with t

Situated smack bang in the midst of a vast, concrete labyrinth of glistening, glassily anonymous Wagamamas, Vue Cinemas and supermarkets, the unbroken, corporate uniformity of the O2 Academy hardly lends itself to the lawless, wildly energised pleasures of extreme metal. But as a queue of excitedly chatting metalheads duskily snakes its way round the corner of a brightly-lit shop window bearing the word “LOVE” in giant, baby pink neon lettering, it's clear there’s no dampenin

In a chaotic modern world where mindless, manufactured trends and coldly impersonal electronic exchanges all too frequently form a pitifully inferior substitute for genuine human connection and creativity, German death metal crew Deserted Fear are one of an exceptionally rare and inspiring breed of bands. A band whose every crushing, sinewy groove and raggedly energised spiral of tremolo audibly crackles with seamlessly instinctive chemistry. Bassist and co-founder Fabian Hil