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

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

As far as death metal line-ups go, a headlining set courtesy of the immeasurably brutalising and influential Cryptopsy - coupled with some of the most vicious and intriguingly characterful new talent the genre has to offer - makes for a fairly unmissable proposition. And with this most recent, tremendously anticipated run of shows centring heavily on iconic material pulled from 1996 classic ‘None So Vile’, it’s no surprise that every inch of the O2 Academy Islington is soon p

There’s arguably no better measure of a band’s stylistic breadth and evolution than the fanbase they attract — a subcultural strata only too keenly observable within the colourful and frequently chaotic sphere of live music. Indeed, the motley assortment of leather-clad metalheads, romantically attired goths and follicularly challenged, middle-aged gentlemen gathered here this evening gives no small indication of just how fluid and ever-evolving a craft Katatonia have been ho

Whether you’re the newly signed talent that’s been relegated to a 10am slot on a stage the approximate size of a postage stamp, the...

“Burn this place to the ground!” howls ROTTING CHRIST ’s wild-eyed, uncontainably euphoric frontman Sakis Tolis mere moments after ‘Fire,...

From such high-grossing corporate giants as Download through to the cosily intimate, subterranean delights of Yorkshire-based black metal...

On this momentous milestone of a 30th anniversary tour, iconic black metal horde Dark Funeral will no doubt perform on a scale infinitely...

With the better part of the UK already gearing up for December and its unrelenting annual onslaught of gaudy, enforced festivity and...