A View From The Castle: The Hollywood Vampires (Matt Bladen)

The Hollywood Vampire & The Damned, Depot Live, Cardiff Castle, 14.08.26



There's an energy in Cardiff, it's the beginning of a huge weekend, two massive sold out gigs in the castle and a big football fixture means people are in a jovial mood.

Many it seems have had a few pints on the train on the way down from The Valleys, a huge contingent have made their way to the capital as they do for every classic rock based show, but this particular show offers something a bit different as though it features some rock legends it also boasts a genuine A-List celebrity.

This particular gig sees Cardiff Castle at the busiest I've ever seen it, constantly being told to move from the path, swathes of people making their way into the castle grounds two whole hours before the show even started (would it have killed anyone to have a local opener?), many dressed in their goth/post punk finery, others in horror and film themed outfits because of a certain members filmic slant.

Before all that though let's discuss the opener as it was The Damned (8) who took to the stage first. The London based band were born out of punk but have transcended that label through psychedelia and establishing themselves as one of the most notable goth acts.

You could call them the original musical vampires, especially frontman David Vanian who's baritone vocals and sartorial class led the congregation in tracks such as Eloise, Is It A Dream and great version of White Rabbit, the Cardiff crowd singing back when required, though perhaps not as loud as Mr Vanian would have liked.

Captain Sensible punched out the riffs in his trademark beret, offering words of encouragement and general madness between songs while Paul Gray set the pacing on bass against the percussive drummer Rat Scabies as Monty Oxymoron's keys brought the baroque as they stormed through Neat Neat Neat and New Rose to a wider recognition.

The coffins had been opened by The Damned and as the light dimmed it was time for the most famous vampires in the world to bring their rock n roll celebration to Cardiff.

In case you didn't know the Hollywood Vampires is a supergroup band named for the legendary drinking club started by Alice Cooper back in the 1970's at Rainbow Bar & Grill, it featured numerous world champion caners most of whom are now dead, which is basically the entire ethos of the band, as this is a rock n roll variety show where originals and covers merge to entertain the masses.

For the rock lovers, the band Hollywood Vampires (8) features the godfather of shock rock Alice Cooper up front in full master of macabre mode, all costume changes and sneers, with movements of a man a third of his age, he's flanked by Aerosmith six stringer and Toxic Twin Joe Perry who's effortlessly cool and peels off riffs and solos throughout with the sort of louche approach he had through his days with the veteran blues rockers..

It's Cooper's long time guitarist and full time vampire Tommy Henrikesen who is the cornerstone of the whole live show for my money, leading the touring band of drummer Glen Sobel, bassist Chris Wyse and keyboardist Buck Johnson through a set that featured their own tracks such as I Want My Now, Raise The Dead and Dead Drunk Friends into the first cover, a triumphant I'm Eighteen.

The fourth Vampire was the one most of the Cardiff audience came to see, the female contingent were particularly excited the the first time one Mr Jonny Depp came on the screen. Putting the Hollywood in theses vampires I was actually surprised how good of a guitar player he is and his low vocal was perfect for the darkly sensual Venus In Furs and People Who Died by The Jim Caroll Band.

Though he could have been egotistical about things, it seems Depp is quite happy to be a team player in this supergroup as they shifted through a 21 song set where Boogieman Surprise and Who's Laughing Now were the last two originals as the remaining tracks were all covers but with the caveat that they came from bands who had had famous, now dead, member who was a mythical drinker such as The Who's Baba O'Reilly,  The Doors' Roadhouse Blues and AC/DC's Highway To Hell and David Bowie's Heroes.

Or they were songs from the Vampires other bands such as I'm Eighteen, Living On The Edge, Walk This Way and Schools Out, which was mixed with Another Brick In The Wall, each cover lapped up by the Cardiff audience as they were pretty much all rock classics that are made for huge stages and the type of theatrics like massive inflatable teeth, giant balloons and all manner of rock n roll vaudeville. I did find the tributes to Jeff Beck particularly heartfelt with Becks Bolero coming in the middle of the set and Hi Ho Silver Lining closing the show, as Cardiff was in full voice one last time.

The Hollywood Vampires is an experience, a super group of super groups, the definition of a big rock n roll show, who like a vampire could arguably go on forever with different members paying tribute to their lost friends.

A View From The Hallowed Ground: Bloodstock 2026 Sunday Review (Rick Eaglestone)

Bloodstock Festival Review 2026 – A Quarter Century Of Chaos

Every Bloodstock Sunday carries the same bittersweet charge: bodies running on fumes, campsites in a state of glorious disrepair, and the creeping awareness that in a few hours it will all be over for another year. But the 25th-anniversary Sunday came loaded with an extra weight of occasion, because closing the whole thing out were the Metal Gods themselves. 

From the moment the gates opened, the Ronnie James Dio Stage rolled out a main-stage bill of almost absurd depth, running from Wild-West rowdiness through occult doom, a landmark reunion, Swedish groove-metal firepower, Bay Area thrash royalty, Zakk Wylde’s monolithic riffing and Ice-T’s Body Count, before Judas Priest brought a quarter-century of Bloodstock to its knees. For me, Sunday was entirely a Ronnie James Dio Stage affair, and what an affair it was.

Sunday

If Sunday morning threatened to ease everyone in gently, Graphic Nature had other ideas. The British metalcore crew came out swinging, bringing crushing, contemporary heaviness to a main-stage slot that felt like a genuine step up for a band on a steep upward curve. This is modern, downtuned, emotionally raw metalcore built for exactly this kind of moment, and the sizeable early crowd many clearly there on purpose rather than by accident was proof of how quickly their stock has risen. A statement booking, seized with both hands.

New York’s Castle Rat brought their medieval-fantasy doom to the Ronnie James Dio Stage as a fully realised world unto itself — the Rat Queen presiding, the costumes and lore deployed without a hint of irony, the songs heavy enough to justify every bit of the theatre. Off the back of their second album, this was a set that trusted the audience to buy into the world entirely, and a big early-afternoon crowd duly did. In a scene that can take itself far too seriously, Castle Rat’s combination of genuine doom heft and unabashed spectacle was a joy, and precisely the kind of act a festival celebrating twenty-five years of the weird and the heavy should be putting on its main stage.

For a large section of the crowd, this was the set they had circled on the timetable weeks in advance. Kittie’s return has been one of the more emotionally resonant reunion stories in recent metal and seeing the band on a Bloodstock main stage for many, a first-ever chance to witness a group whose late-’90s and early-2000s records were formative carried real weight.

The London, Ontario band have always been heavier live than the casual observer expects, and the ferocity was fully intact, Morgan Lander commanding the stage with the authority of someone who long ago earned her place in this scene’s history. Spit and Brackish the two songs that, fittingly, remain the band’s most recognisable calling cards and drew the biggest roars of recognition. What is beyond dispute is the reception: a large, genuinely moved crowd greeting a band who, against considerable odds, have earned their return to a stage of this size.

Few bands have risen as fast, or as deservedly, as Orbit Culture, and their mid-afternoon set confirmed exactly why. The Swedish outfit deal in a colossal, groove-laden strain of modern metal — all cavernous low end, martial rhythms, and enormous, instantly memorable hooks — and on a big festival stage it sounds vast. Opening on Death Above Life and The Storm, the band had the field moving from the first riff, and the run through North Star Of Nija, From The Inside and The Tales Of War underlined how deep their catalogue of festival-sized songs has already become.

The set carried one sobering interruption: Hydra was halted after a crowd injury, the kind of moment that briefly turns a field of thousands into a single concerned crowd looking out for one of its own. It speaks well of the band and of Bloodstock’s crew that the priority was clearly the wellbeing of the person involved. Once the situation was managed, the set closed on Vultures Of North, and Orbit Culture left having thoroughly justified their high placing on the anniversary bill. On this evidence, a main-stage headline slot in the not-too-distant future feels less like a question of if than when.

Testament have been levelling stages for four decades, and a Sunday main-stage slot at Bloodstock proved the ideal setting for a concentrated dose of Bay Area precision and power. Opening with the taped Catacombs before tearing into Into The Pit, the band wasted not a second of their 45 minutes, and the crowd many of whom had been running largely on lager and adrenaline since Thursday found the energy for exactly the sort of circle pits the moment demanded.

The set was a lean, muscular parade of the essentials: the enduring bite of Practice What You Preach and Sins Of Omission, the more recent Nature Of The Beast standing shoulder to shoulder with the classics, and the immortal Over the Wall Testament’s calling card since 1987 sending the whole thing off in a blur of flying hair and flying beer. Chuck Billy remains a commanding presence and the band around him is as tight as it has ever been. No frills, no filler, just world-class thrash delivered by masters of the form.

There is a physicality to Zakk Wylde’s playing that translates perfectly to a field this size — the tone vast, those trademark squealing harmonics carrying to the back of the arena, the riffs built on sheer heft. Black Label Society arriving in the late-Sunday-afternoon slot felt exactly right: a chance to plant your boots, raise something cold and let the weight of it wash over you. There is nothing subtle about BLS and there is not meant to be this is heavy metal as monolith, built on tone, groove, and the unmistakable presence of one of the most recognisable guitarists alive.

The set moved from the doom-laden Funeral Bell through the swagger of Destroy & Conquer and Fire It Up to the enduring anthems Suicide Messiah and Stillborn, the latter still one of the great communal fist-in-the-air moments in the band’s catalogue. The emotional high point, though, was a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears Wylde’s long history at Ozzy’s side lending the moment a genuine poignancy, and the crowd responding in kind. A masterclass in exactly what it says on the tin: enormous riffs, delivered by a titan of the instrument.

Ice-T bringing Body Count to Bloodstock was always going to be one of Sunday’s loudest, liveliest hours, and so it proved. More than three decades on from the furore that made them infamous, Body Count remain one of the most viscerally exciting live bands in heavy music — a genuine crossover of hardcore, thrash and hip-hop attitude, fronted by a man whose charisma and command are simply undeniable. This was the sort of set that draws in the merely curious and refuses to release them, an hour, and a quarter later, hoarse and grinning.

Opening on the taped Civil War intro before Body Count’s In The House tore the evening open, the set was a masterclass in pacing and provocation. A savage cover of Slayer’s Raining Blood / Postmortem paid respect to fallen giants; the socially charged one-two of No Lives Matter and Talk Shit, Get Shot showed the band’s teeth are as sharp as ever; and a cover of The Exploited’s War / UK 82 / Disorder nodded to the punk DNA in their bloodstream. Then, inevitably, Cop Killer — still incendiary, still delivered with total conviction — before the encore of Born Dead and This Is Why We Ride sent a jubilant, sweat-drenched crowd off towards the headliners. Ice-T worked the field like the seasoned showman he is, and Body Count justified their special-guest billing completely.

And then, the Metal Gods. There is a pleasing symmetry to Bloodstock’s 25th anniversary — a festival that opened its first-ever indoor edition in 2001 under the stewardship of Saxon closing its quarter-century celebration with Judas Priest, the Birmingham band who, more than almost any other, wrote the rulebook that everyone else at Catton Park has spent the weekend following. This was the Faithkeepers tour, a band north of fifty years into their career and playing, remarkably, like one with everything still to prove. Rob Halford — the Metal God himself — remains an astonishing presence, that operatic wail undimmed and every ounce of the band’s theatre (the motorcycle entrance included) delivered with total conviction.

The setlist was a victory lap through one of the deepest catalogues in the genre. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin' and Metal Gods set the tone; Breaking The Law turned tens of thousands of voices into a single chant; and the deeper cuts — The Sentinel, Desert Plains, a gloriously unexpected Steeler rewarded the devotees. The modern material held its own, Panic Attack from Invincible Shield proving Priest are no heritage act content to coast, before the one-two of Victim Of Changes and a titanic Painkiller brought the main set to a shattering close. 

The encore was pure celebration: Electric Eye, Hell Bent For Leather and, to bring twenty-five years of Bloodstock to its feet one final time, Living After Midnight. A twin-guitar attack honed over half a century, a singer who remains the genre’s definitive voice, and a field full of people who found their tribe in this exact spot there was no more fitting way to draw the celebration to a close. When the last chord finally rang out, a quarter-century of Catton Hall’s finest weekend was, officially, done.

As a final day, Sunday was close to flawless: a main-stage bill with barely a weak link, spanning theatrical doom, a landmark reunion, Swedish groove-metal on the cusp of the very top table, first-generation thrash, a guitar titan, Ice-T’s incendiary Body Count and, to close, the Metal Gods delivering a masterclass in exactly why they matter. As a full stop on twenty-five years of Bloodstock, it was perfect. 

This festival has grown from a one-day indoor event into one of the most important fixtures on the European metal calendar without ever losing the thing that made it special: the sense that everyone in the field, from the New Blood hopefuls to Rob Halford, is part of the same tribe. Across four days, Catton Park once again became its own heavy-metal universe and then, as it does every August, it vanished, leaving twenty-five years of memory and the certainty that we will all do it again. 

Here’s to the next twenty-five!

A View From The Hallowed Ground: Bloodstock 2026 Saturday Review (Rick Eaglestone)

Bloodstock Festival Review 2026 – A Quarter Century Of Chaos

Once more unto the breach mighty metal warriors. Saturday offered barely a moment’s respite but there were two defining moments, an opening statement from a British crossover force, a genuine reunion for the ages and an extremely long wait after things we'd rather miss for Swedish prog veterans. It was a day of discovery in the smaller stages with South Wales shining. 

Saturday 08.08.26

Handing a British crossover-thrash band the job of opening the main stage on the busiest day of the weekend is a statement of faith, and Inhuman Nature repaid it. There is nothing fashionable about what they do, this is fast, mean, riff-first thrash with hardcore in its bloodstream and at a quarter to eleven in the morning that is precisely the jolt a hungover field needs. They played to a crowd notably larger than a main-stage opener has any right to expect, a sign both band’s rising stock and of a Bloodstock audience that has always turned up early for its own.

An early Sophie-tent slot for Outergods brought a welcome dose of genuine extremity to Saturday morning, churning, punishing heaviness that rewards the committed few who make it into the tent before lunch. There is a particular satisfaction in a band who treat a late-morning festival slot as an opportunity rather than a warm-up, and Outergods played with the conviction of a group determined to be remembered by everyone who wandered in.

One of the earlier names on a stacked New Blood Saturday, Vampyra brought a dose of theatrical darkness to the tent while much of the site was still surfacing. Playing early on New Blood is a trial by fire small crowd, everything to prove and it is exactly the crucible that has forged so many bands who later graduated to the bigger stages. Vampyra used their window to make the case and left a trail of newly curious onlookers heading back into the day. I have not stopped humming baked bean monster since I have got back.

By early afternoon, the New Blood tent had properly filled, and Apothis stepped up to a crowd with its blood up. This is what the stage does best — hand a hungry, ambitious band a proper audience and let them prove they belong. Apothis attacked the opportunity, the sort of set that sends a knot of new believers off to the merch stall and to follow the band home online. Grassroots metal doing precisely what grassroots metal is for.

URNE, on a blazing Saturday afternoon at Catton Hall, arrived by both routes at once. Bumped up to the Ronnie James Dio Stage after Of Mice & Men's late withdrawal reshuffled the weekend's running order, the London four-piece could have looked like beneficiaries of a lucky break. Instead, they played like a band that had been waiting for exactly this a big, open-air canvas broad enough to hold everything they have been building toward.

It is not, of course, their first time up here. URNE tore up the same stage back in 2023, and the memory of that showing is a large part of why the promotion felt less like a gamble and more like an overdue correction. This time they came armed with Setting Fire To The Sky, January's third album and comfortably their most ambitious statement yet — a record that trades some of the suffocating darkness of A Feast On Sorrow for something more expansive, defiant, almost triumphant.

The set opened the way the album does, an acoustic passage drifting out across the arena before the band crashed in on top of it. Be Not Dismayed is a canny choice of curtain-raiser — a song written, in part, to reassure younger fans not to feel intimidated by the seasoned, patch-clad regulars at metal shows — and its lurch from gentle intro to grinding riff set the template for everything that followed. This is a band that lives in the space between crushing weight and open melody, and they spent their whole slot proving how much territory that space contains.

Now bolstered to a four-piece with the addition of second guitarist Kurtis Bagley, URNE sound denser and more muscular live than the trio that made their name, the extra guitar thickening the sludgier passages without smothering the intricacy that sets them apart. Songs like the title track a sprawling monster of a thing churn between thrash urgency and doom-weighted heft, while Nally's voice ranges from guttural roar to genuinely stirring clean, dismissing once and for all the old accusation that he was a one-trick vocalist.

It is the light and shade that lingers. For every pulverising breakdown there is a passage of real beauty, the band unafraid to let a song stretch out, wander, and build. That progressive streak, the willingness to follow a riff wherever it leads rather than bludgeon a crowd into submission is exactly what marks URNE out from the crowded field of UK heavy bands, and it translates surprisingly well to a festival field that, minutes earlier, had been baking quietly in the sun. They do not offer an easy way in. They make you meet them halfway. And on this evidence, plenty were more than willing.

By the close, any lingering question about whether URNE belonged on the main stage had been answered emphatically. This was a band seizing an opportunity with both hands, delivering the kind of performance that sends the uninitiated scrambling to find out who they had just watched. Vended had the unenviable task of following it.

Britain's heavy underground is in ferociously good hands. On this showing, URNE's next promotion up the bill will not need a last-minute reshuffle to justify it.

A mid-afternoon New Blood slot gave Metal To The Masses South Wales winners INSCAPE their moment in front of one of the day’s more engaged tent crowds, and they seized it. There is a particular energy to a New Blood set that lands the sense of a band visibly levelling up in real time, playing what may be the biggest show of their career to date and rising to meet it. Inscape had that quality in droves and watching the crowd and band themselves go through the emotions of dejection at some quite serious technical issues beforehand and the elation which the band used a huge positive carried them through and honestly and were among the acts I was still enthusiastically thinking about over the weekend. I cannot wait to see what they do next.

This was the one. Sixteen years on from their last UK appearance Nevermore walked onto the Ronnie James Dio Stage and reminded a packed field why their name has been spoken in reverent tones for a decade and a half. Few bands from the American progressive/power-thrash tradition ever fused technicality and genuine emotional weight the way Nevermore did, and the question hanging over this reunion can they still do it with such huge boots to fill and well, this was answered within the first few minutes.

Opening with the taped strains of Ophidian before launching into Beyond Within, the set leaned hard on the material that made the band’s reputation. Inside Four Walls and the surging This Godless Endeavor landed with the force of songs a crowd had waited a very long time to hear in the flesh; The Heart Collector provided the set’s dark, dramatic centrepiece; and the run through Narcosynthesis, The River Dragon Has Come and Enemies of Reality underlined how much ferocity still lives in these songs. For a certain kind of Bloodstock veteran, this was the set of the entire weekend a performance that justified itself completely, staged in front of exactly the crowd who had kept the flame burning.

Four decades on and still one of thrash’s most dependable live thrills, Death Angel brought their full arsenal to a Sophie tent packed out long before they struck a note, the kind of set where the crowd, the hair and the airborne pints all end up moving in the same direction. Slotted opposite the back end of the main stage run, this was a set for the purists, the people who would happily sprint across a field for a taste of genuine, first-generation thrash.

The band tore through a career-spanning selection, from the older venom of Evil Priest and Seemingly Endless Time to the more recent bite of The Moth, Hatred United/United Hate and The Dream Calls for Blood, closing on Thrown To The Wolves. Mark Osegueda remains one of thrash’s great frontmen, all wild energy and easy command, and in the compressed 45-minute festival format the band simply hit and kept hitting. No theatrics, no fat — just four-plus decades of Bay Area thrash delivered at full tilt to a crowd who knew exactly what they were there for.

Closing off the night for me was the SWHC of the primal Døsed who offered another of those left-field festival discoveries that reward anyone willing to wander away from the bigger names for half an hour. The EMP Stage spends the weekend quietly turning out gems for the curious, and as it turned was a low-stakes, high-reward proposition you go looking for somewhere to stand in the shade and leave with a new band followed being battered along the way.

Saturday is where Bloodstock’s scale and its soul meet most obviously. What it felt like was a festival firing on every cylinder at once, from the grassroots urgency of New Blood to a genuine, era-defining reunion in Nevermore and the first-generation thrash mastery of Death Angel. the signing queues and the campsite chaos, and you have the quintessential Bloodstock day: too much to see, no way to see it all, and not a single dull hour in which to try. Twenty-five years in, the festival’s middle day remains its most complete argument for itself.

A View From The Hallowed Ground: Bloodstock 2026 Friday Review (Rick Eaglestone)

Bloodstock Festival Review 2026 – A Quarter Century Of Chaos

When Bloodstock lit its first indoor fires back in 2001, with Saxon presiding over the whole thing like a set of iron-clad godparents, nobody was drawing up business plans for what a quarter-century of British metal might become. 

For the 25th anniversary the organizers threw the rulebook onto the barbecue (Careful now there's a drought in effect - Ed), opening the Ronnie James Dio main stage on the Thursday and letting Saxon the festival’s very first headliner, back in 2001 to close the circle they started.

Bloodstock is bigger now, unarguably, but it still runs on the same principle it always has put the grassroots New Blood hopefuls, the cult heroes and the genuine legends on the same patch and trusted the crowd to move between them.

What follows is the full three-day account of extreme warmth, dust, jet sprays, and great music.

FRIDAY 07.08.26

The first full day of the weekend for me was Friday and this spanned the entire breadth of what Bloodstock celebrates: black metal before midday, New York hardcore mid-afternoon, thrash carnage at teatime, a piece of genuine metal history in the penultimate main-stage slot and one of the modern era’s most reliable headline acts to bring the curtain down. It read like a festival firing a warning shot for the two days still to come.

Black metal at twenty past eleven in the morning is a proposition that sorts the committed from the curious, and the crowd who made the pilgrimage to the Sophie tent for Blood Countess got exactly what they came for: cold, blasting, unrepentant darkness deployed as a wake-up call. Half an hour is not long, but it is enough for a band with a clear identity to make an impression, and Blood Countess understand the value of atmosphere as much as velocity, tremolo-picked ice one moment, a mid-paced churn the next. A reminder that Bloodstock’s underground booking remains as fearless as ever.

Following the pre-noon blackness, Hammer kept the Sophie stage’s momentum ticking over with another half-hour blast as the tent gradually filled with the day’s first proper wave of arrivals. There is an honesty to a lunchtime festival slot, no lights to hide behind, a crowd still assembling and it is exactly the environment that separates bands with real conviction from those going through the motions. Hammer belonged to the former camp, using their window to press their case with the sort of no-nonsense delivery that wins new followers one riff at a time.

If the first two Sophie slots dealt in darkness and grit, Sellsword brought a dose of drama and swagger, their brand of heavy metal built for banners, choruses, and raised fists. There is a long and noble Bloodstock tradition of bands who take the theatre of metal seriously without ever slipping into self-parody, and Sellsword pitched themselves squarely in that lineage big, melodic, unashamedly grand giving the growing crowd exactly the sort of chest-out heavy metal that plays beautifully in a festival tent and not forgetting the t-shirt firing trebuchet.

Life Of Agony brought it to a sun-warmed early-afternoon crowd. Keith Caputo remains one of the most distinctive voices the New York scene ever produced — a rasp that can crack open into something startlingly tender within the same bar — and the material from River Runs Red still lands like a confession shouted across a room. Dropped into a 45-minute festival window, the set was built for maximum emotional impact rather than deep-cuts connoisseurship, and it was all the better for it.

Opening on This Time and rolling straight into the title track of River Runs Red, the band set out their stall early: this was a set about the songs that made their name, delivered without ceremony or filler. Bad Seed and Ugly kept the momentum taut, Lost At 22 and I Regret gave the crowd their cathartic singalong moments, and by the time the groove of Method Of Groove and the closing surge of Underground arrived, an early Friday audience that might reasonably have still been finding its feet had been fully activated. For a band who have weathered more than most, there was no sense of a legacy act coasting.

If Life Of Agony warmed the field, Fit For An Autopsy set fire to it. Returning to Bloodstock for the first time since 2023 and to the UK for the first time since their storming late-2024 run, the New Jersey deathcore heavyweights arrived with something to prove and a stated intention to go after the festival’s crowd-surfing record. On the evidence of a 45-minute demolition job, they meant it. Fit For An Autopsy occupy that rare space where genuine songwriting and pure physical brutality coexist the breakdowns are colossal, but they are always in service of a bigger structure, and Joe Badolato’s delivery carries an anger that never tips into cartoon.

Lower Purpose detonated the pit immediately, A Higher Level Of Hate and Heads Will Hang kept the intensity pinned to the top of the dial, and the atmospheric heft of The Sea Of Tragic Beasts proved the band can do dread as convincingly as they do violence. Pandora and the one-two of Savior Of None / Ashes Of All into Far From Heaven closed things on the kind of down tuned devastation that leaves a crowd grinning and bruised in equal measure. Whether or not the crowd-surfer counters were troubled, the intent was unmistakable: a band treating a mid-afternoon slot as if it were a headline, and a field responding in kind.

There are bands you watch at a festival, and there are bands that reach off the stage, grab a field by the collar, and refuse to let go until they are done with it. Biohazard, unsurprisingly, belong firmly to the second camp. Dropped into the mid-afternoon heat of a sun-scorched Friday at Catton Hall Bloodstock's 25th-anniversary edition baking under a genuinely un-British sky the Brooklyn crew turned their slot into a tight, uncompromising burst of concentrated New York menace.

It was no small task, either. Following the modern deathcore battery of Fit For An Autopsy, who had already whipped the barrier into a churn of crowd-surfers, could have left a lesser act treading water. Biohazard simply changed the flavour of the violence. Where the deathcore came at the crowd in slabs, Biohazard came at it sideways, that unmistakable crossover swagger, half hardcore stomp, half hip-hop-inflected groove, all attitudes. This is their third visit to the site, following the S.O.P.H.I.E. headline appearance back in 2023 and the mud-caked 2014 outing, and the years of festival craft showed.

Riding the momentum of last October's Divided We Fall, a reunion record that arrived sounding hungry rather than obligatory, a genuine surprise given how fractured the band's road back had been the set leaned hard into the catalogue's most bruising crossover moments. Urban Discipline and Shades Of Grey arrived early and did exactly what three decades of muscle memory demanded: pits opened, the front rows folded inward, and thousands of voices bellowed every word back without a syllable of prompting. That's the thing about a Biohazard crowd; there is no coaxing required. You don't so much watch the songs as brace for them.

Billy Graziadei remained the beating heart of the whole thing, prowling, barking, and at one point simply abandoning the stage altogether to plant himself in the middle of the throng during Wrong Side Of The Tracks. It is a well-worn move, but it never fails to detonate, and the Bloodstock faithful obliged with the kind of surge that sends bodies pinballing over the barrier in waves. Nobody on that stage settled for a second. The energy was relentless, the delivery all coiled aggression and blue-collar snarl, and the musicianship far tighter than the ragged-glory image might lead the uninitiated to expect.

Newer material earned its place too. Fuck The System barbs aimed squarely at governments and politicians — proved the band's teeth have not dulled with the reunion. If anything, it slotted in beside the classics with a swagger that suggested Biohazard still have something to say, not merely a legacy to trade on. That balance is what separates a heritage act coasting on nostalgia from a band that still means it, and Biohazard, gloriously, remain the latter.

By the time the closing salvo landed the crowd a heaving, dust-caked sea under the afternoon sun — the argument had been comprehensively won. There is a particular volatility these guys bring to a metal festival that even the heaviest death and thrash acts on the bill don't quite replicate: that streetwise, anything-could-happen crackle. It never actually tips over, of course. But the threat of it is half the thrill.

Municipal Waste had the unenviable job of following it. Biohazard, meanwhile, had once again proved that reunion or not, turmoil or not, they remain one of the most physically compelling live bands the genre has produced. A masterclass in doing more with less: no pyro, no gimmicks, just riffs, fury, and a relentless run of controlled chaos.

Municipal Waste appear on Bloodstock bills with the regularity of a returning tide: nobody turns a field into a joyous, beer-soaked riot with quite the same efficiency. Richmond, Virginia’s finest crossover-thrash export does not deal in subtlety and never have. What they deal in is velocity, gang chants, and a communal understanding that the entire point of the exercise is to make as many people as possible run in a circle while grinning. By their teatime slot the Friday crowd was fully lubricated and ready to be conducted, and Tony Foresta is one of the great crowd-conductors in the business.

The set was a greatest-hits assault of the band’s party-thrash canon: Slime And Punishment and You’re Cut Off out of the gate, Beer Pressure and the immortal The Art Of Partying turning the arena into a single heaving mass, and the sub-two-minute grenades of the back end — Poison The Preacher, Breathe Grease, Mind Eraser — going off like a string of firecrackers. If any single set on Friday was purpose-built for the sort of horizon-to-horizon circle pit Bloodstock loves to boast about, this was it. Waste do not reinvent themselves each cycle; they don’t need to. They arrive, they detonate, and they leave the field happier and more knackered than they found it.

Some sets you review; others you simply bear witness to. Sepultura’s penultimate main-stage appearance fell firmly into the second category. Billed as part of the Celebrating Life Through Death farewell, this was their last European festival appearance, the closing of a book that opened in Belo Horizonte more than four decades ago. There is a version of the farewell-tour narrative that curdles into sentimentality; Sepultura, to their enormous credit, refused it. They did not come to Catton Hall to be mourned. They came to flatten it one last time.

The setlist was a career in seventy-five minutes, and it was sequenced with real intent. Inner Self and Desperate Cry anchored the early section in the untouchable late-’80s and Arise-era material; Kairos and the Quadra-era Means To An End proved the band’s more recent lineup had every right to stand on that stage; and the run home was simply devastating. Territory, Refuse/Resist and Arise arrived like a fist, a shortened Ratamahatta gave the tribal percussion its last festival airing, and then Roots Bloody Roots — of course Roots Bloody Roots — turned tens of thousands of people into a single roaring organism. 

For a generation who grew up with Chaos A.D. and Roots as foundational texts, this was heavy in a way that had nothing to do with volume. Whatever your feelings on the long, complicated arc of this band, standing in that field as they said goodbye to the UK was a genuine piece of metal history, and Bloodstock was exactly the right place for it to happen.

Birmingham’s Vanitas provided a set of progressive metal that punched well above the size of the platform. There is something fitting about a Midlands band making their mark on Midland’s turf during a 25th-anniversary celebration, and Vanitas used the opportunity to show off the ambition in their writing — the shifting time signatures, the light-and-shade dynamics, the sense of a band reaching for something bigger than a half-hour slot might suggest. Precisely the reason the EMP and New Blood stages remain, year after year, the beating heart of what makes Bloodstock more than just a big-name festival.

Few bands have ever fit the shape of a festival headline slot as neatly as Lamb Of God fit Bloodstock. Returning to the top of the Ronnie James Dio Stage as a homecoming of sorts for a band who have made no secret of their love for the UK and for this festival in particular — Randy Blythe and company delivered the kind of set that reminds you why the phrase “modern metal institution” exists. This was the Into Oblivion tour, in support of the band’s twelfth studio album, and the setlist threaded the new material through the canon with the confidence of a band who know precisely how good their catalogue is.

The opening salvo of Ruin and Laid To Rest was a statement of intent — no slow build, just a headline band going straight for the throat — and for the next ninety minutes Randy Blythe was in constant, restless motion, the sort of frontman who fills a festival stage through sheer physical intensity rather than choreography. The new songs held their own: Into Oblivion and Blunt Force Blues slotted in beside Resurrection Man and Grace without any drop in intensity, and the crushing middle stretch of 512 and Walk With Me In Hell had the whole field moving. 

There was room for the more recent Parasocial Christ and the enduring devastation of Omerta and 11th Hour before the band left and returned for an encore that was never really in doubt: Memento Mori and, to send twenty-five years of Bloodstock Friday nights off in the only appropriate fashion, “Redneck”. Thousands of voices, one enormous groove, a Derbyshire sky gone fully dark. If you were writing the brief for a 25th-anniversary Friday headliner, you would be describing this.

Day one of Bloodstock’s 25th anniversary did what the best festival days do: it made the impossible business of choosing to feel like a privilege rather than a chore. From black metal in a morning tent to a farewell from one of thrash’s founding families and a headline set tailor-made for the occasion, Friday spanned the full breadth of what this festival has always celebrated. Sepultura’s goodbye gave the day its lump-in-the-throat moment of history; Lamb of God gave it the emphatic, groove-drenched full stop a milestone Friday deserved; and the underground stages did what they always do, sending people home with a fistful of new favourites.

Reviews: Wormwood, Negative Frame, Sinsid, The Vicious Head Society (Mark Young & Matt Bladen)

Wormwood - Å (Black Lodge) [Mark Young]

A two track EP from the Stockholm based melodic black metal act Wormwood. There is a subtitle, Contemporary Decay Of Stockholm, in two parts which suggests that this could be on the darker side. I’ll leave others to tell me if its darker than their other material. Their bio certainly suggests a lot, so let’s dive in.

YRA|Extas starts in a way that expected; no messing or wasted moments but without the traditional speed fest of blasting drums or manic vocals. Instead, it coasts along until they decide its time to show their teeth. 

This is a brief moment, manic until they fall back into slight chordal movements and melodic lines that play off each other. The song length should have clued me that this was going to be an exercise the band showing off their talents in being able to fill that space by doing whatever they want. 

This is fine, but once they kick it into gear it becomes something else. The trouble is that they feel the need to pull that speed back once more and dive into the cinematic side of their sound. This might mean more to me if I’d heard more by them prior to this, but hey ho. Comparing this against other black metal I’ve reviewed recently, this sounds like what could be the higher end of that movement. 

Other bands are approaching it from maybe one perspective, and the music they are releasing is good, don’t get me wrong but there is a huge amount of confidence on display here. Here is a band that have touched down in a number of different lanes and are closing this out with a brilliantly pitched lead break. 

This is quality, and Purposeless Geometry starts with what sounds like a choir singing, but I think it’s a guitar tracked many times. It’s like night and day compared to YRA, just another facet of a band that grows more and more interesting as this song unfurls. 

I mean if you dived into this at around 4 minutes 40, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to a completely different style of music. Its as far removed from extreme metal and then they kick the legs from under you and throw in the guttural vocals to provide that extreme edge, working as a counterpoint to the music underneath it.

And that is all she wrote. Two songs, 16 minutes of frankly spellbinding music. 9/10

Negative Frame - Break The Ice (Blood Blast Distribution) [Matt Bladen]

The UK has become a center for bludgeoning metallic hardcore in recent years, with bands like Malevolence, Guilt Trip and Pest Control all bringing the disgusting breakdowns, mechanized precision, some epic soundscapes, hardcore punk aggression and melodic elements that steal from early metalcore and melodeath.

Maybe it's the weather or the insane times we live in politically but bands have a lot to be angry about so there's and influx of bands coming from the underground grabbing on to the cultural zeitgeist that the whole metallic hardcore sound brings with it. A rage against oppression, injustice and a general feeling of emptiness that many may have with this world.

The extremity of the daily grind has informed this debut album from Negative Frame, a band born from the London skate scene who throw together their love of hardcore punk, thrash and groove metal on Break The Ice, their first studio record where these influences are very strong especially on tracks such as the lead guitar filled Cut Throat and the thrashing Cold Nights.

It's visceral and volatile as any bands who've emerged from the UKHC scene always are, songs with an intense communal spirit that are designed to get you moving, be that circle pits, stage dives or throwing high kicks, it's music for stages and you can feel the livewire energy bristling though every single note of this record.

However there's also maturity shown, more complexity coming through with a dedicated lead guitarist offering plenty of solos as a accoutrement to the stomping riffs on tracks such as the incensed Pay To Play, the steamrolling, fret sliding monster that is Rat Trap or the Pantera-like Heavens Blue which shows Negative Frame in whole new light.

Negative Frame are a band born from UKHC scene but Break The Ice, is a different beast with the lead guitar parts and the shift in tone towards more melodies in the latter part of the record, there's evidence that Negative Frame could ascend to the lofty heights of Malevolence and even beyond. 9/10

Sinsid – All That Remains (Pitch Black Records) [Matt Bladen]

Like traditional heavy metal with vocals that sound like prime Blackie Lawless? Then I’d suggest picking up a copy of All That Remains from Norwegian metal act Sinsid.

A band that is built on the foundation of Terje Singh Sidhu’s raw, gritty vocal, they’ve been playing classic heavy metal for 14 years and they’re a band who do thing traditionally. Those vocals, the twin axe riffs, melodic elements and choruses that are built to be shouted back by loyal warriors.

All That Remains is their fourth album and I’d love to tell you it’s a revolutionary piece but it isn’t, this is Sinsid doing what they do with a record of heavy metal that’s got grit and guts, elements of Grim Reaper, Helstar, Accept, Running Wild or any of the NWOBHM/Teutonic crew who play down tuned and tough heavy metal.

There’s galloping work outs like Breaking All The Rules and Sarcophagus, anthemic moments such as the Title Track some strutting street metal on the very W.A.S.P-like Running and the spooky The Horror (I Know), all delivered by a band who live for heavy metal and mixed/mastered to give it an authentic throwback sound of the bands I've mentioned.

If you like traditional heavy metal but a bit gnarlier then Sinsid's new record will get you pumping that fist. 7/10

The Vicious Head Society - Call Of The Void (Crime Records) [Mark Young]

This is one of those albums where there is so much going on, a lot of it good, a lot of it very good and some of it that caused me to skip forward. I have to be honest with you, that prog isn’t my thing at all, but I would suggest that lovers of prog, especially with a technical skew this has (is that just prog?) will go nuts for this.

The Vicious Head Society hail from Ireland, with Graham Keane occupying the creative and driving force behind it. What the band does is provide an outlet for some of the most virtuoso displays of musicianship you will hear anywhere. Some of this is mind blowing, absolutely jaw dropping in execution and in some ways, they hit like a modern day Deep Purple – guitar/keyboard interplay that is something to behold.

Fractured is as good as example of what they can do – pummeling double bass, off-kilter riffs and some soaring cleans that are machine built to sit with each other, its difficult to put into words how good this sounds as opening blast. That technical approach I mentioned starts to creep in, but the real quality is in how this has been put together. You will know what I mean when you hear it, promise. And obviously there is the lead breaks that come in around 4 minutes. Just fabulous stuff. 

The Edge Of Time occupies the same space as Fractured, well built on a solid riff foundation and giving the vocals room to do their thing. I’m not doing the best in describing this but just take my word for this. I need to give a shout out to Nathan Max, who delivers a stunning vocal performance on this and deserves his moment in the sun. These two are belters, dripping with quality. When they are firing like this, I have to say I could listen to it all day long. 

It’s when they step off the gas a little that I find myself losing a little bit of interest, such as with Holding On To Forever which after a good start pulls back into what I call ‘soft track three mode’ and makes me skip onwards. The Tide picks up after this, and its back on track, admittedly with a familiar riff build. This one does have those mint chord changes to it, plus more of that stunning guitar work, it can’t fail.

And then they do it again, Ignite opting to lean into that softer style of things, which turns me off almost instantly. I think a lot of its is to do with my personal preferences, and the way that the band have pulled this together. Its their art, not mine but it didn’t work for me. The Void comes back stronger, but still feels light in its touch, driven more by synths which is no bad thing but for me something is missing. 

The Edge Of Time Pt 2 comes across like they want it to be an epic piece and certainly possesses all of those required ingredients but I can’t get on with it. That heavier approach that I locked into has gone, at least to this point and its likely that this will excite fans of the scene. 

So Speaking of epics, They close up with Distant Lights of Home, which is an epic piece of work. There are elements, that remind me of the Running Man’s soundtrack (the OG one) and yes, it does pick up after a soft opening section. I think that it represents the good and bad in one spot, and I guess that it fits into milieu that they are going for – a journey taking in a number of steps, changes in arrangement and the use of light/dark tones to get to where they need to be. I’ve said this before that some songs don’t need to be the length they are, and if you are going to do this make the song interesting all the way through. 

Whether this is derived from an extended jam that has been hammered into shape, I don’t know but depending on your tastes this will either be a climax of climaxes or something you skip onwards.

For me, this is one of those albums that has some amazing moments on it that are undone. Again, you cannot argue with the virtuoso displays on here, or with the vocal performances. Had they kept that momentum built from the first two tracks, we would have been having a different conversation. 6/10

A View From The Back Of The Room: Repent Fest - Summer Bash (Heather Louise Ash)

Repent Fest - Summer Bash: Cro-Mags, The Oppressed, Rancour, Flubber, System Slaves & Bottom Of The Barrel, Corn Exchange Newport, 08.08.26



Repent Summer Fest saw Bottom Of The Barrel, System Slaves, Flubber, Rancours, The Oppressed and Cro-Mags take over the Corn Exchange for a day of Punk/Hardcore.

Presented by South Wales Collective who strive to keep hardcore, ugly, real and for the working class. 

It was my first time at the Corn Exchange and when I arrived the room was almost empty. Concrete floors, exposed pipes across the ceiling and accessible seating near the front of the stage, meaning those using it could still be part of the experience, something I don't usually see at a venue.

There had been some changes to the line-up before the event. Hoods were removed following footage of transphobic comments being made at another gig, with the bands touring alongside them also coming off the bill. It was quite clearly the right call.

Bottom Of The Barrel (7) got things started to a small crowd, with messages of support around gender, sex and race. “Don't be a cunt” probably summed it up best. 

They also spoke about free speech not meaning freedom from consequences, particularly fitting given the changes to the line-up. The crowd engaged well and they were a great start to the day. I'm looking forward to hearing more from them.

System Slaves (7) were next. I really enjoyed the vocals but just wished the crowd had pulled in and moved more like the other sets. There was plenty of space at the front, with most people choosing to hang further back. 

One young teenage girl clearly wasn't bothered, dancing away and enjoying herself regardless. With the age range already standing out to me, it was nice seeing someone so young getting involved and supporting the local scene.

Before Flubber (8) started I overheard someone say, “I'm gonna get Flubbed to fuck”, followed by “any band can become a verb”.

Then came the Cape Fear intro with “Councilor, Councilor I am as big as God and he is as small as I” being bellowed down the mic.

Once things got moving there was plenty of pacing and swinging arms back and forth in front of the stage, with members of the band smirking at each other clearly enjoying themselves. 

Someone two-stepped onto the stage before later being carried around over someone’s shoulders with their legs stretched out. One of those legs ended up against my back and accidentally pushed me along with them, so I unexpectedly went for a little walk through the crowd too, but that's hardcore/punk.

By Rancour (8), the crowd had picked up. Their energetic set came with messages of a "Freee Palestine" and the climate crisis, alongside a dedication to their friend. More people started moving as the set went on until arms and legs were flying and that familiar musky smell of trainers started filling the room.

The Oppressed (9). With age comes experience and they have nailed the art of storytelling, something I wish we had more of at shows personally. Each song had a story and everyone hung off every word. 

At times it felt really intimate, particularly when another man joined them on the mic. You could really sense the respect between them both. The love for these Cardiff legends was clear throughout the crowd as they sang along and moved their bodies to every song.

Cro-Mags (10) finished the day. Harley showed that age really is just a number. A few songs in and the shirt came off, with compliments about the shape he was in coming from several directions around me. Then there were the vocals, followed by fists pumping, bodies piling at the front and high energy throughout, with the rest of the band matching Harley's intensity.

There were messages of equality and peace between songs, with Harley thanking The Oppressed for being such a big influence. It was nice seeing that respect between two bands from different ends of the world who have both been doing this for decades.

Harley also spoke about how music connects us, and it was something I saw all evening . In-between sets I noticed people gathering outside, catching up with friends, making new ones, networking and sharing stories with each other. Inside there were teenagers alongside people who had been going to shows for decades. 

I'd watched younger and older generations throwing themselves around the same floor, while multiple generations of bands shared the same stage. People who perhaps would never have met if it hadn't been for this particular gig.

Reviews: Electric Callboy, Din Of Celestial Birds, Temple Of Dread, Niveous (Matt Bladen & Mark Young)

Electric Callboy - Tanzneid (Century Media/Sony) [Matt Bladen]

Tanzeid, which translates to 'Dance Envy' for you non German speakers, is the anticipated new record from German rave metal kings Electric Callboy.

Staring back in 2010 with a chillier name, since they've added the Electric moniker they've taken the world by storm with a style of music that is almost unclassifiable but also has a massive following from lovers of multiple genres.

Within the metal community there's just as many who love them as loathe them but you know what they're headlining both Waken and Bloodstock next year so what do the gatekeepers know? Their previous album Tekkno (2022) was a worldwide smash so they are looking to recreate that with this new record, their seventh studio release.

They're looking to do by taking more risks musically than on their other records, pushing the Electro pop choruses, techno hyperbeats, emo anthemics and metal breakdowns further to create a collision of sounds that swirl together resulting in a record of urgent, heavy music that's right on the pulse of modern metal while also taking them further into a genre of one.

Their meteoric rise can been witnessed by the company they keep as single Ratatata brims with Euro/J-Pop Dance energy and features Babymetal. Let The Good Times Roll however has a nostalgic pop punk bounce as The Offspring add their gang shout choruses. The pop punk influence doesn't stop there though as Still Waiting is an electo metal cover of the Sum 41 hit, the band where drummer Frank Zummo played until they disbanded.

Written while in tour, in backstage areas, flashes of studio time, Tanzeid feels like a band who are creating music for the stage, there's few breaks in the pace, but definitely a more mature way of songwriting that uses space to create more an impact than just audio battery, even on the metallics blasts of Heartclub there's huge clean choruses, as The Way You Are takes us into the realm of boy bands and close harmonies then explodes into the heaviest track here.

Tanzneid encourages you to dance like no one's watching and with the ten new Techno-metal bangers and four remixes you'll definitely be hearing these in an arena near you soon so start throwing shapes. 8/10

Din Of Celestial Birds - Takeoffs & Landings (Big Scary Monsters) [Matt Bladen]

Din Of Celestial Birds are Matt Benatan (bass/synths), Chris Core (guitar), Andie Gill (guitar/synth), Tom Hazlehurst (guitar) and Vince Knight-Schrijver (drums/percussion).

They've been making waves in the post rock scene for a while now and with their second record Takeoffs & Landings they've enlisted Joe Clayton and Brad Boatright to make sure it sounds the absolute best it can.

On their sophomore record the have made a concept album about "adventure, travel, and the journey of life" these journeys and experienced channeled though their progressive, vibrant, instrumental post rock. Three expansive, cinematic guitars sounds interplay, an insistent rhythm section and innovative synth patterns make sure that this Leeds based band are able to showcase serious emotion without vocals.

They've become post rock scene darlings after performances at Arctangent and across the UK and beyond, following their 2023 debut album The Night Is For Dreamers. This established their heart on sleeve style of instrumental goodness and directly influenced this follow up release.

Even though many of the songs were written before these ventures onto stages across the world they all are connected by a sense of discovery and the spirit of adventure, the melodies of the record soar high from the Title Track where clean and heavy combine and through the anthemic Marmoris that shimmers in post rock brilliance.

There's a cinematic quality here which does feel like the beginning of a journey, leading into From This Summit We Can See The Heavens, a more intense number that does feel like a climb towards the top of mountain, while there's a grooving detour on the thundering electro rock of When Suddenly.

The dreamlike You Are My Temple imbues itself with a sense of deep longing as Migratory Patterns follows repeating motif that mimics that of birds in flight with the guitars and bass, layering the approach until once again into harmonic brilliance.

Takeoffs & Landings is a captivating listen, instrumental post rock at is absolute finest, dynamic, inventive and just emotionally powerful, it's stunning! 10/10

Temple Of Dread - Dreadspawn Dominion (Testimony Records) [Mark Young]

This is why I love reviewing music. Sometimes you get release that is the musical equivalent of meat and potatoes; filling, comforting food that does a job. Dreadspawn Dominion is little bit more than that, but I think you get the picture. Temple Of Dread formed in 2018 and have consistently dropping new music since 2019.

After the now customary acoustically driven introduction with Wings Of Immortality, we are driven headlong into a full bore death metal kicking, customary of these scene veterans. This is death metal with no time to lose, the title track flying in and setting us up for some old school goodness. This might not be groundbreaking in any shape or form but what it lacks in modern day subtlety or production it makes up for it in the brutality stakes.

Born To Rot takes that delicious old school flavour and keeps it in check. Its like going back to the early 90’s and as a fan from then its great to hear. Its similar in execution to Left To Die, in the way that the songs are built from what feels like a fans perspective. I’m sure that it won’t have the same affect on everyone but sometimes you need your death metal to sound like its 1990. Riffs are the order of the day here, hard edged riffs and after all that is what we have come for.

Even when they slow down, and I use that description loosely, there is still a feeling of movement to it. Death March opting for that approach, building to one of those head shaking arrangements that will cause spontaneous head banging live. Its also controlled, deciding to avoid going down the expected route of blasting itself with increased speed. Blood Pyre does it in a similar way but breaks out the lead breaks so we forgive them for that.

 As good as these slower paced tracks are, an injection of speed is sorely needed otherwise that good work they have built up will disappear. Scorched By Cosmic Fire starts off slowly, but wisely they take the brakes off and increase the temperature accordingly, until they pull back at the end. Rites Of Blasphemy is then sent from the gods, a snarling 3 minute burn that injects that pace back into the album, recovering some of that momentum lost earlier. It is possibly my favourite track on this, just for its intent. 

Artisan Of Oblivion sees them back on solid ground, this time mixing tempo to suit but keeping that push going. You remember I said meat and potatoes? This is a prime example of that, Solid riffs, speed and aggression. Infernal Eternity sees them close out in a barrage of solid riffs and that medium crawl that has dominated elsewhere. All things being equal it is a suitable end for the album, one that provides a decent set of songs with a lot to like.

For me had they avoided that mid-album lull, and maintained that early intent, then I would have scored it higher. As it is, its still a strong album. 7/10

Niveous - Cult Of The Void Star (Hypnotic Dirge Records) [Mark Young]

If someone was to ask me what does black metal sound like, at least in 2026 then I would have no issue in putting Niveous forward as an ideal example of what it is supposed to sound like. This is their debut full length record, following in the footsteps of an EP (Endless Snowfall) which dropped in 2025. The fact that this is a (whisper it) concept album of sorts doesn’t change that view, and having such a strong focus in place does them no harm at all.

The six songs, all weigh in on a hefty side with only two of them coming in under 6 minutes. The rest are all six plus, so it gives you an indication of their approach on this. It takes in the classic tropes you would expect – frantic chord changes, the blast beats, the shriek style of vocals these are all in place, which is great what is added to that is a frigid energy that courses though each of these tracks as they unravel this concept story. 

Harbinger Of The Void Star is their opening ticket, a blast through those comforting black metal touches but done in their own style. It’s worth listening to this with decent headphones just to pick up on those little touches that are dropped in throughout. Its that kind of attentiveness to making this and the others such an engaging listen. Does it go on slightly too long, well yes and that is something that you can level at this genre, but when the riffs within are as a good it is something, you can put up with. 

Servants Of The Monolith is up next and seizes the opportunity to pummel you. Again, its style is familiar but, in their defense, trying to sound too dissimilar would move them away from their core audience. This one is built more from a speed perspective The question you have to ask yourself is does it grab you, is it interesting? The answer is yes. Even the lead break that comes in towards the end is spot on, flash without being overly technical. I’m not the greatest fan of black metal, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate good metal when I hear it and there is plenty of it on here. 

From Frostborne Resistance and its sing-along refrain that should be quality live through to Northbound, each track has a forward thinking approach hammered into it. I’m sure that there will be those that will decry them as not being from Scandinavia, but what are you going to do? They write good extreme metal that ensures that the key objectives are met: Its aggressive, its fast and sounds like they enjoyed making it. 

Boreal Stronghold is the last track and brings those core requirements one last time. This one has this rapid build to it, which still allows for little flourishes to be observed right through it. What it gives you is a closing moment that is as strong as the opener, and for me that is the sign of good metal, no matter the genre. Niveous don’t lose sight of doing what they know they must do, approaching this from a fan perspective in ensuring they let no one down.

It will be interesting to hear what they have in store next, and I’m hoping that they maintain this level of craft and quality observed on here. 8/10

Reviews: Rezn, Dead Meadow, Emptiness, Hexorcist (Matt Bladen, Rich Piva, Mark Young & Joe Guatieri)

REZN - Cycles In The Infinite Dream (Sargent House) [Matt Bladen]

Doom? Prog? Psych? Saxophone? Flute? Lap Steel? Ok you got me, I guess I'll dive into and probably love another album from Chicago, Illinois, virtuosos REZN.

It's been a decade since they formed and defined their own niche in the music world, coming from the heavy foundations of psychedelic stoner doom over the years and across five previous albums they've added extras that have shifted them into the prog-sphere, using instruments I've mentioned that may be more at home in jazz or country genres.

It's this experimentalism that has gained them a very dedicated following and positive reviews across the board, fusing cavernous doom riffs and a tsunami of synths, on new record Cycles In The Infinite Dream they've expanded their minds to go further into psychedelia while amplifying the other elements of their music as well.

The album explores "the nexus of our waking and nocturnal worlds" as if lost in the subconscious, they weave a sonic tapestry that combines multiple skilled performances into nine complex songs, that never stay too long as prog often does, but squeezes a lot into run times that are between 4 at their shortest and 8 at the longest.

With Rob McWilliams up front on guitars/vocals, he's joined by Phil Cangelosi on bass and rainstick, Patrick Dunn on drums and Spencer Ouellette, who has a lot of work to do with synths/lapsteel/sax/flute/keys, this is the four piece who create all of incredible music here as Natalie Drakes and Ómkara Gil add violin and cello to two tracks, to add yet more musical dexterity and dynamism.

Dreamy textures on Aerial Birth, through to the Mastodon meets King Crimson of Transient, and the cascading melodic doom of The Vessel which reminds me of Pallbearer while Primal Thread takes me into the realms of Elder whom REZN will be supporting on tour next year. That promises to be a brilliant set of shows as Cycles In The Infinite Dream is another incredible record from these Chicago innovators. 9/10

Dead Meadow - Foundlings (Heavy Psych Sounds) [Rich Piva]

Dead Meadow rules, so any new Dead Meadow material is very welcomed, even if it is an odds and sods type deal, like the band’s latest release, Foundlings. Foundlings is one of those “deep dive into the archives” type releases that, not surprisingly, has some pretty great songs on it, both covers and original material from sessions over the past two decades. 

What makes this one even more special is that it is dedicated to late band founder and bassist Steve Kille, who recently passed away from cancer and who plays on all of the tracks on Foundlings.

So what are these seven songs all about? Fuzzy, spaced out psych goodness that you expect from one of the best bands ever to do it, like on the opener, Lost To Light, which quality-wise is as good or better than anything that wound up on the great Voyager To Voyager, the sessions from which it was recorded. A killer version of the track Nobody Home, from the 2018 record The Nothing They Need, recording for an EarthQuaker session, is up next and it is more of the same greatness from the band, with the rhythm section locked in and that guitar tone, highlighting how great the band is live, even if it is live in the studio. 

Also recorded live in the studio, Kingdom Of Heaven is a cover of a Powell St. John, who I have not heard of before, but whose song is a spacy, atmospheric Twin Peaks vibes journey that has a killer solo. We even go back to 2001’s classic Howls From The Hills, and a session version of the killer trippy-as-hell Everything's Goin' On. Sure, throw in a cover of one of the greatest songs of all time, The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, done in Dead Meadow fashion, and have me listen to it 20 times in a row. 

This one is worth the price of admission alone. While we are at it, let’s get a cover of the Led Zep classic No Quarter. Also great. From The Children Of Planet Earth closes Foundlings out, and is a weird, synth driven mindbender that closes this set up perfectly.

Any Dead Meadow is great Dead Meadow, and the seven “from the archives” tracks on Foundlings are certainly worth your time, especially if you are a fan who can’t get enough of unheard material from one of the best bands out there. RIP Steve Kille. 9/10

Emptiness - Nowhere Speaks (Season Of Mist) [Mark Young]

Emptiness’s Nowhere Speaks is a timely reminder that its simply impossible for me to like every piece of music that I hear. There are some things that were they to fall into someone else’s lap then the conversation would be different and to be fair I have been on a good run so I guess it’s the law of averages. 

 In any event, it’s the kind of thing that attempts to do something different and ends up being falling short, at least of the promises made in the extensive bio that accompanies the release. Its good enough to explain to those who may not know that its opening track directly where a track from 2014 abruptly finished, bearing in mind that there have been releases in between then and now. I’m not sure if that statement set the tone for me, are those in the community really scratching their collective heads as to what happened back then? I don’t know, I’m sure someone will tell me.

What follows next is a collection that merges differing approaches – true extreme metal, noise, electronica that looks to shine a light on them for how unique they are as a band. One thing their bio gets right is that they have no interest in making things easy for the listener. That’s completely fine, be abrasive and uncompromising but come armed with songs that provoke a reaction, be it joy or pain. Their songs fall largely into the middle groove, offering neither to me. 

I expect extreme metal to excite me, to be visceral and here they fail until they get late into things and drop The Clash Of Forces, which at least has a direct, forward kicking movement to it. It is saying a lot that we have got to track 8 before something has landed and has made a mark. Is this what they had in mind, is this what they wanted from this release? 

No idea but the cacophony falls away, replaced by Next In Line. It’s a 4 minute track where 2 or more minutes are wasted and any kind of late album momentum is lost. Its more than likely that fans of the band will get onto this immediately, understanding and maybe expecting that the content here will deploy the way it does. For me, it just feels like a gigantic waste of my time. 

All For Nothing is the closing piece and lives up to its name. I've looped backwards to the start again, just to see if I pressed play at the wrong time, but no. Its definitely you not me. 5/10

Hexorcist - Evil Reaping Death/Bestiarum Vocabulum (Invictus Records) [Joe Guatieri]

Hexorcist are a Death Metal band out of Miami, Florida, in the United States. They’ve been together since 2019, already having a sizable discography then any band would be happy with two demos, a full-length and two splits to their name. Known for their raw sound, your poor ears won’t last long with the sound being turned all the way up.

A unique situation for me today as I’m not only covering their new LP, Crucificial Imprecations, but also a combo release featuring two remasters, one being their first studio effort Evil Reaping Death and the other one is of their first demo, Bestiarum Vocabulum.

Starting off with their first album, Evil Reaping Death, it presents pummelling drums and bass which reach through your stereo and contort your body into shapes that you didn’t think were possible.

In under 40 minutes it achieves chaos and what it set out to do but at what cost? The crop of songs that flow in and out of each other have a real hitting quality to them, a lot of them with dynamic changes which keep you guessing and your head banging. Hexorcist are definitely showing a lot of love here for classic Death Metal, Raw Black Metal and for sure a lot of old-school Doom too.

Now I haven’t heard the original mix but if this is a remaster then you can definitely here it. A lot of the time in this warts and all approach the bass often gets forgotten about but not here, it seems to be turned all the way up. It’s organic though as slides and curves around the other instruments very well.

As I mentioned beforehand, packaged alongside Evil Reaping Death, you also get the band's first moment with the demo, Bestiarum Vocabulum. This early recording strikes me as more of a full on assault by Hexorcist. What I mean by that is, the instruments come together in one full swoop, comparing it to their other releases, Bestiarum Vocabulum is more like a gun, every little element works together to form a movement, whether the others feels like five archers, shooting their arrows at one target, it’s not the same. 7/10

Hexorcist - Crucificial Imprecations (Invictus Records) [Joe Guatieri]

2026 is a new era for Hexorcist, their last record at this stage was their split with Morbid Messiah which was put out in 2023 and a lot can happen in three years, now Crucificial Imprecations awaits…

The album presents half an hour of power with eight tracks, again keeping things concise which is something that we all like to see. Guess what happens here? Yep full-throttle blasting from every direction, sending you to an early grave.

The drums across the album are the highlight for me, being at times they are so overpowering, they might as well have knocked out the bass and guitar in real-time. Crucificial Imprecations takes on a deep love for Black Metal here, so much so that all of the dynamics and detail are sucked into a black hole.

If you’re looking to be buried by repetition then this record is for you. Compared to the band's previous material it only really has one thing going for it, it’s an evil scientist that focuses on one thing constantly and rolls around in bed endlessly sleeping on that thought and that is destroying the world that created him.

Thankfully it ends before the point where it gets far too much for me, I can only hear the same thing so many times. I’m left hungry for more and I come out of Crucificial Imprecations with the same feeling that I have a lot of the time with Death Metal, if you want to end existence, it doesn’t have to be done in one way. 

It’s easy for a band to make something sound dark but it’s going to take a lot more than that for Hexorcist to scare me. 5/10

A View From The Castle: The Sex Pistols (Michael Chapman)

The Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, The Undertones & Panic Shack - Cardiff Castle - 01.08.26

This castle has seen many things, but tonight may be something new, as the keep towers over the castle grounds there is a rumbling…the Punks are coming.

Celebrating 50 years of Punk, the Sex Pistols with Frank Carter are here to take us on a journey from Punk’s inception, and those turbulent and innovative days back in the late 1970s.

Starting the afternoon were Welsh band Panic Shack (7), bringing an energy that was truly infectious. Hailing from Cardiff, the male-backed band ripped through a confident and electrifying set of punk rock tunes. Sarah Harvey (lead vocals), Meg Fretwell (guitar, backing vocals), Romi Lawrence (guitar, backing vocals), Emily Smith (bass) and accompanied by Nick Doherty-Williams on drums engaged with the crowd and looked every bit a headline act in waiting, songs such as Jiu Jits You, Tit School and Ick were standouts in a set that should ignite the interest of any punk rock fan young and old, a tremendous outing by the five piece that set the tone for the evening ahead.

Following Panic Shack were Norther Irish stalwarts The Undertones (7). Kicking off with Jimmy Jimmy and flowing into You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It) and Male Model the audience was hooked, by the time the indelible Teenage Kicks arrived the tempo shifted upwards. Ending a well balanced set with My Perfect Cousin The Undertones proved to be a more than welcome addition to the lineup.

Soon it was time for The Stranglers (8) to take the stage. Toiler On The Sea beginning what would be a fantastic set, the audience with them every step of the journey. Duchess & ‘Nice ‘n’ Sleazy’ preceded the ever popular ‘Golden Brown’ & ‘Peaches’, their unique sound complimenting the speed and energy of the support bands, ‘Always the Sun’ a tempo shift before ‘Hanging Around & ‘No More Heroes’ round of a brilliant set and very much laid the way for the main act to take to the stage.

The Sex Pistols (8) need no introduction, but for those very few amongst us who aren’t familiar with one of British Punks originators, Guitarist Steve Jones, Drummer Paul Cook, Bassist Glen Matlock definitely made themselves and their legacy known. Front man Frank Carter, of Gallows & Rattlesnakes fame felt a perfect addition to the band, ‘Holidays in the Sun’ beginning a raucous set of Punk classics. Not long into the set the brilliant ‘Pretty Vacant’ was sung by Carter in the thick of a circle pit, surrounded by feverish fans young and old, very much showing the world that Punk is not dead. As ‘God Save The Queen’ was displayed on the huge screen and guitar chords rattled it really was a pinch me moment, these songs helped to usher in a movement and still resonate as strongly today as ever. As the band prepared for ‘No Feelings’ Carter demanded all Men to vacate the mosh pit, creating a Women's only space as the drums pounded and guitars rang. Finishing their ferocious set with ‘E.M.I.’, a cover of ‘My Way’, then straight into ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was the perfect statement to punctuate a fantastic night of nostalgia and everlasting punk energy, you really had to be there.

Review: Flamebearer - Igniter (Matt Bladen)

Flamebearer - Igniter (Interstellar Smoke Records)



A punchy drum beat, a big bass throb, a filthy riff, a massive shout and yeah Flamebearer are back and it feels good!

Flamebearer are a veteran band from the doom/stoner underground scene, brought together through the love of the riff to create doom punk, dank and heavy but propulsive and volatile.

Their EP and debut album were well received, reviewed and loved by yours truly so when the the London based band returned with their second album, Igniter and it hit my inbox, it went straight on, and the dial was turned right up.

What I notice is that, like their debut Brazen, the immediacy of this record is paramount, these are tracks written for the stage, the filth and fury of basement clubs, where everyone gets hot and sweaty down the front, they've been all over the country with their debut so they've had time to hone these songs and figure out where they want to go next as a band.

The result is this more streamline, direct second album, they've injected their energy into Igniter, with the bluesy, stoner meets heavy rock of Electric Haze, the first track on the record, setting the tone immediately for what's about to happen over the remaining 7 incendiary cuts.

Flamebearer manage to juggle their influences perfectly, Orange Goblin one minute, Clutch the next, then some Ozzy (solo) even a bit of RJD Rainbow, throw in some punk and even some glam and you get the Flamebearer, who I like to refer to as the British equivalent of Corrosion Of Conformity, a band with both punk and stoner/doom DNA, especially when they sling fuzzy riffs like Don't Think (Your Life Away)

However Flamebearer like to keep you guessing and as long as it's loud and raucous they'll get behind hit which means that Bow Down To Me has the hip shaking glam grooves and dual vocal approach of Queens Of The Stone Age, the rhythm section of bassist Dom Bailey and drummer Tiago Pinho, always keeping the engine running nice and hot as the slip between their various guises and influences.

Brazen set the table, Igniter is the feast, written after bouts touring you can hear muscle and peacocking of their livewire shows coming through this record, Sense Of Freedom having an intensity behind it that will surely get frontman Andy Valiant writhing like a madman when they take these songs on the road, so too will the gang vocal thrust of Falling Down.

On the record he's also unhinged, his vocals are all over the place from bellowing cleans to snarls, tracks such as Burning Soul feels like two distinct vocalists but that's all part of the program on planet Flamebearer as even when Andy is shouting his head off, the rhythm section has everything locked down tight for Alastair Riddell's exemplary guitar work.

His playing isn't about how many notes he can hit, though there's plenty of speedy 80's metal solos, more so than on Brazen, but he's more about the riff, giving the song it's bare bones, he's the doom punk at cornerstone of the band, always playing it distorted and dirty, through fist swinging punk with those bursts of metallic excellence, for instance Something Going On.

The riffs are louder but the whole ethos of this record is to make something catchier and Flamebearer have succeed with that as once the atmospheric dooming of Whispering Wind finished I wanted to press play again and go back for more, the production of Misha Hering at Holy Mountain studios, adding the toughness and retro perception but keeping it contemporary as they try to recreate their performance volume here.

Brazen was the sound of band breaking down the door and announcing their arrival, Igniter is Flamebearer taking a sledgehammer and matches to the rest of the room, with a record that is pure unfiltered (punk) rock n (doom) roll, so my suggestion is just sit back, watch it all burn and turn the volume as loud as it'll go! 10/10