Under the needle

Any diehard black metal fan worthy of their corpse paint must undertake at least one major diabolical pilgrimage to worship at a particularly frostbitten altar in their lifetimes. Fortunately for those of the devil’s party inhabiting this green and pleasant land, Camden, London’s subcultural Jerusalem, was about to offer just such an auspicious opportunity. For getting ready to unleash chaos at Incineration were none other than the legendary Mayhem, the most blasphemously sin

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

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

Ahead of the official release of 'Lords of Chaos' in UK cinemas this Friday, Dark Matter webzine is proud to preview an exclusive clip from the much talked-about black metal biopic. Based on the notorious book by Didrik Søderlind and Michael Moynihan, 'Lords of Chaos' charts the bloody, controversy-courting genesis of Norwegian black metal in vivid and unflinchingly graphic detail. Set against an ultra-violent backdrop of clashing egos, gratuitous vandalism and bloodshed, cre

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

The not-so-enticing notion of a Dragonforce guitarist founding an old school death metal project may have raised more than a few purist eyebrows since Sinsaenum first made their bludgeoning, blackly visceral mark on an unsuspecting metal scene back in 2016. But with killer new opus ‘Repulsion For Humanity’ fresh in the can this month, creator Frédéric Leclercq explains why any nagging doubts about the band’s death metal credentials are about to be utterly, unquestionably and

There’s no denying that a supergroup numbering such genre-defining heavyweights as Joey Jordison, Mayhem’s Attila Csihar and Dragonforce bassist Frédéric Leclercq is nothing short of a metal fan’s proverbial wet dream. But before you hasten to reach for a clean change of underwear, let’s first consider how this varied melange of sonic personas and traditions might possibly come together as a sound independent of its high-profile origins. The answer? In more gloriously savage

With such choice lyrical yarns as “Salvation comes through your asshole,” you’d be correct in assuming Fleurety follow a rather less conventional stylistic route than most. And indeed, as a record that’s violently teeming and pulsating with all manner of curiously alien, ambient trappings, migraine-inducing caustic textures and demonic gurgling, few experimental artists so thoroughly and instantly unsettle the listener. Having featured a rich variety of guest musicians extrac

SHINING'S NIKLAS KVARFORTH TALKS BLACK METAL AND SELF-DESTRUCTION As a famously troubled personality who’s long been famed for grisly acts of self-mutilation, violence and inflammatory behaviour, few musicians could be better equipped to shed some exploratory light on black metal’s self-destructive tendencies than infamous Shining frontman Niklas Kvarforth. From his life-altering exposure to the genre at the tender age of twelve to the emotionally draining making of forthcomi