Under the needle

With the brutal, marrow-chilling grip of winter finally beginning to relent into the lush and verdant territories of spring, much of the western world is already awash with all the prerequisite, garishly commercial trappings of the season - a diabetes-inducing plague of painted eggs, chocolate bunny-rabbits and religious iconography inundating every imaginable corner of the continent. Here in the historic, strikingly grandiose environs of central Oslo, however, we find oursel

Whether it’s Satyricon selling out national opera houses or Emperor headlining major summer festivals, navigating the less-than-seamless transition from underground obscurity to the decidedly more public domain of globally celebrated fandom is no easy feat. Especially when your subgenre of choice is, by definition, purpose-built to alienate, bewilder and, in many instances, inspire abject horror in the average, psychologically well-adjusted individual. Yet this is something M

Legions of Dark Matter - Craig here with my first review for this website, and who better to start off with than the Texas, Houston American black metal band known as Necrofier. Here we have a blistering hour’s worth of ghoulish hellfire with their third brand new full-length album entitled: ‘Transcend Into Oblivion’, which is absolutely my kind of beverage. A hypnotic wave of blackened sorcery spells a furious meltdown of extreme firepower and blazing expertise, intercepting

From grisly, ritualistic artefacts and intricately rendered occult artwork to specialist record stores and whole volumes dedicated to documenting black metal’s rich, delectably sinister sonic legacy, it’s hard to imagine a subgenre of music more deeply entrenched in culture and tradition than this notoriously frostbitten variant of extreme music. And with a full two days chock-full of DJ sets, album playbacks, live artist interviews and an expansive bill of artists spanning u

In between the post-Christmas malaise, Dry January evangelists, hollowed-out bank accounts, work burnout, doom scrolling and the ever-growing host of global atrocities currently assailing us from every imaginable angle, there's no denying that life at this early juncture in the calendar year can be a dour and, at times, psychologically debilitating affair. Particularly for those of us already wrestling with a Vatican-sized horde of personal demons and associated private battl

Beyond the many assorted memes and Instagram reels regularly seen rather mercilessly poking fun at what is, admittedly, a genre whose cartoonish, corpse-painted melodrama lends itself only too readily to such playful mockery, anyone with even a casual interest in black metal will attest that this notorious, ghoulishly subversive offshoot of extreme metal is in a pretty exciting place right now. Indeed, from the searing viscerality and sumptuous, melancholia-steeped atmospheri

With their signature blend of blackened, icily visceral hostility and sleekly entwined, Gothenburg-tinged riffery, Dødsrit have carved out a reputation as one of the most electrifying forces in modern extreme metal. Having unleashed the intensely cathartic ‘Irjala’ to riotous acclaim earlier this year, summer 2025 finds the Danish/Netherlands-based collective deep in an international touring cycle. Fresh from a rapturously received debut at Fortress Festival, founding duo Geo

Between Brexit, Covid-19 and the painfully prolonged periods of austerity that have punctuated the last decade, it’s hard to overestimate the immeasurable creative losses inflicted during this unprecedented era. As long-established record labels, iconic music magazines and cherished venues continue to fold under mounting pressures, underground black metal publishing group and label Cult Never Dies has achieved something remarkable: not merely weathering one of the most hostil

It’s a little after 12pm on a decidedly bleary-eyed Sunday morning, and as an ever-expanding horde of dishevelled-looking punters pile...

As the mainstream continues to sink ever deeper into the mires of nondescript, heavily commercialised mediocrity, atmospheric black metal...