Category: Featured
Featured posts
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Festival Review: Fortress Festival 2024
As a young buck, I was never attracted to Black Metal more than when it was filled to the brim with inconceivable levels of exalted atmosphere that encapsulated the world around me in all aspects; emotionally, physically and geographically. As I walked up to the edge of Scarborough’s Seaside Cliff to find myself gazing down…
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The Vapids – Revenge Therapy LP
The Vapids Revenge Therapy LP (independent) Beyond a certain point, it’s understandable how fans of any given punk band lower their expectations of new albums, when they’re announced. Part of that might have to do with the age of the band playing a role; whether they admit it or not, fans of four-chord punk expect…
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Billy Liar – Crisis Actor LP
Billy Liar Crisis Actor LP (Pirates Press Records) It feels unlikely on the surface because, like Henry Ford, punks often want to proclaim that, “history is bunk” – but the fact is that some of the permutations of punk rock that have passed through the mainstream are possessed of an undeniably accessible quality. Even on…
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Voivod & Cryptic Shift – Glasgow, UK – April 19th, 2023
Decisions, decisions. Tonight Canadian prog metal weirdos Voivod are in Glasgow, the same night as Cannibal Corpse and Dark Funeral. Despite the former’s legendary fame, Slay is particularly busy with punters who select cosmic chaos instead. The doors open at 6:30pm, yet the sole support Cryptic Shift takes the stage at 8:15pm. The audience’s mandatory…
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Swallow the Sun & Draconian – Glasgow, UK – April 10th, 2023
What better way to celebrate Easter Sunday than a gloom-drenched evening with Nordic doom metallers Swallow the Sun and Draconian? This funerary co-headlining tour stops in Glasgow’s Slay on its UK tour. The venue is busy, defying both economic despair and festive familial commitments. Sweden’s Draconian are a well-established hybridisation of gothic and death/doom metal,…
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Heavy Picks for Bandcamp Friday – May 2023
It isn’t slowing down at all – there’s an even bigger bouquet of fresh riffs out there since the last edition of Bandcamp Friday, and I’m not mad about it. The header image this month is by Brad Moore, the aptly named “Art Wizard”, for the cover of Spinebreaker’s Cavern of Inoculated Cognition, one of…
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Amon Amarth – Live in Toronto – December 2022
The Great Heathen Tour saw Viking metal legends Amon Amarth joined by death metal giants Carcass, Obituary and Cattle Decapitation for a North American tour of epic proportions. Belatedly, here are some captures of the tour’s stop in Toronto at the east-end venue History, by guest photographer Keith Ibbitson of Lower Eastside Photography. Follow Keith…
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Carcass, Municipal Waste, Sacred Reich, Creeping Death – Live in Toronto – April 2023
It was an absolute rager at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, on a Sunday night no less, for the legendary CARCASS with Municipal Waste, Sacred Reich and Creeping Death. Your friendly neighbourhood photographer, Danielle, was there and suitably overcaffeinated to capture some of the action. Here’s highlights of some of the shots I got, starting with…
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Napalm Death – Glasgow, UK – March 9th, 2023
Grindcore legends Napalm Death return to Glasgow with the Campaign for Musical Destruction 2023 tour. Just in December, these crazed Englishmen in Glasgow opened the eclectic bill of Volbeat and Skindred at the Hydro arena. Now, they’re rightfully headlining the Classic Grand and the show is sold out. Like many, this gig fell victim to…