GALLERY: LIVE: AFI, TR/ST @ Manchester Academy 1

Sometimes, you become a fan of something, and are forced to wait YEARS for the next instalment. Euphoria season 3? Four years. Chinese Democracy? Fourteen years. Winds of Winter? Fifteen years and counting! And yet, AFI take the lead on all of those, as it’s been SIXTEEN YEARS →

GALLERY: AFI, TR/ST @ Manchester Academy 1

GALLERY: Russian Circles – ‘Nine’

For over two decades Chicago based trio Russian Circles have been releasing their own brand of dense instrumental post metal, and with this, their aptly titled ninth album ‘Nine’, they add another stellar addition to their already impressive catalogue. Undeniably consistent, over the years Russian Circles have →

GALLERY: LIVE: All Points East Presents Outbreak 2026

Weeks of drought might have turned London’s Victoria Park into Arrakis, but like the Spice, the heaviness must flow. Outbreak’s takeover of All Points East brings new acts, old favourites returning, and the headlining set that proves Deftones have transcended from a band to a full-on experience.  Words: Kate →

GALLERY: All Points East Presents Outbreak 2026

GALLERY: Beartooth – ‘Pure Ecstasy’

We might be tempted to call ‘Pure Ecstasy’ a return to form for Beartooth, but what even is the form we’re looking at? After years as the world’s premiere misery merchant, Caleb Shomo took a hard left turn with 2023’s ‘The Surface’ which was, dare we say it, optimistic →

GALLERY: Colorblind – ‘WHO SOLD YOU THIS TRUTH ++ WAS IT YOURS TO HOLD’

As the saying goes, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘Team’. Apparently there’s also no ‘U’ in Colorblind, but of course this is the name of a band, and they’re not British. Hailing from Austin, Texas the four-piece has been labouring away for almost a decade and, after having →

GALLERY: Retrospective: Iron Maiden – ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’

No comeback in metal was as welcome as Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith’s jubilant return to their rightful places in Iron Maiden back in 2000 with the release of the band’s triumphant twelfth album ‘Brave New World’. After the 90’s saw the band stumble and meander with →

GALLERY: Mastodon – ‘Marrow Deep’

Moving on after the exit of an integral band member is never an easy task, but for Mastodon the circumstances were infinitely harder. Five months after their friend and guitarist of twenty-five years Brent Hinds parted ways with the band, he tragically lost his life in a →

GALLERY: Dinosaur Jr. – ‘There Near’

There was always something retiring about Dinosaur Jr. Their name alone – appended with that suffix of inferiority, necessary to avoid legal action by way of ‘60s supergroup Dinosaur – was indicative of something slightly less than greatness.   Seeing Dinosaur Jr. live is similarly lacking in →

GALLERY: Bloodstock Festival 2026 – Sunday

GALLERY: LIVE: Bloodstock Open Air 2026 – Sunday

Sunday at Bloodstock always carries a different kind of energy to the rest of the weekend: equal parts triumphant and battered, like a boxer who’s still standing purely out of spite. Muddy boots, questionable hygiene and a healthy dose of Sunday-scaries mixed with the giddy realisation that this is →

GALLERY: Retrospective: Alexisonfire – ‘Crisis’

In January 1977, the Great Lakes Blizzard struck the Niagara region of North America. Temperatures plummeted to -18c degrees and hurricane-level winds smashed windows and doors. Anyone driving on the motorway was forced to abandon their cars and try and make it home on foot. Two thousand children were →

GALLERY: LIVE: Bloodstock Open Air 2026 – Saturday

Saturday arrives, and the morning bathing options are either queuing up for 3-5 business days to take a shower, or deciding you don’t have all day to wait and instead opting for the lite version; baby wipes and prayers. A festival classic. Breakfast is continental – a selection of →

GALLERY: Bloodstock Festival 2026 – Saturday

GALLERY: Bloodstock Festival 2026 – Friday

GALLERY: LIVE: Bloodstock Open Air 2026 – Friday

There’s an energetic first-day-of-the-main-festival kind of buzz on this sunny day in Walton on Trent. It can only mean one thing – Welcome to Bloodstock Open Air 2026. Tents have been pitched. Huge flags consisting of niche memes and references have now been hoisted (two massive flags →

GALLERY: Chelsea Wolfe – ‘The Dark’

There are many types of Chelsea Wolfe; the doom folk poet, the goth overlord, the master of all things hypnogogic. Wolfe’s covered a vast landscape of mystery and occultism over the past two decades, distorting genre lines into uniquely amorphous collections of songs. ‘The Dark’ is her newest →

GALLERY: Karen Dió – ‘FUGAZ’

Brazil’s top exports include coffee, petroleum, iron ore, frozen bovine meat and now Karen Dió. Snapped up by Hopeless Records for her 2024 EP ‘My World’ EP, she now has to prove success wasn’t a fluke. The pressure is on. You’ve probably seen the slogan, with its →

GALLERY: Retrospective: Reel Big Fish – ‘Turn The Radio Off’

Imagine the taste of a Slush Puppy when you’re a kid whose mum doesn’t let them have sugar, or the sensation of a teenager who’s just worked out that they can just about have that house party and clean up before their family get home. A Saturday spent at →