Review CALIGULA’S HORSE Live After Lockdown
The next best thing to not being at a gig in our current shit show of an existence is being locked down at our humble abodes (as opposed to being shoulder to shoulder covered in delicious beer and sweat with our mates at our favorite venue) and watching live streams performed by our favorite […]
Contemplating A New Level Of Violence With Cannibal Corpse
Alex Webster is a name synonymous with the institution of death metal. Having almost written the original thesis on the genre of horror/gore extreme music, his band Cannibal Corpse are continually pushing themselves as artists whilst holding fast to the purity of their original mission statement focussing on what they, as almost pioneers of […]
CANNIBAL CORPSE – “Violence Unimagined”
It took the MIGHTY Cannibal Corpse a mere two and a bit years to construct their latest murderous rampage disguised as pure death metal magnificence. Album number fifteen for these metal icons is as Corpse as Corpse get: Of course it’s called Violence Unimagined! In over thirty years they have never strayed from […]
WEREWOLVES Justify The Brutal Existence Of Living
*DISCLAIMER – This interview contains topics of acts which some may deem offensive and inappropriate. HEAVY urges you to consider this before listening to the full audio interview. PROCEED WITH CAUTION! 2020 was an unprecedented shit show of unpredictable unforeseeable chaos, disruption and all-round turmoil. The complementary soundtrack to this malevolence was courtesy […]
WEREWOLVES – “What A Time To Be Alive”
I guess we’re into shitshow year two and the masses are in isolation getting down with their creative “badselves”! Not less than ten months ago I reviewed the blisteringly gnarly debut album The Dead Are Screaming [2020] from Aussie death metal legends Werewolves. Stepping upon the steps of the capital to cough, splutter […]
ARCHITECTS: Live at The Royal Albert Hall (22/11/2020)
So I have just sat through my first online live stream event and it would seem that some folks are keen to know about my review of the experience. The event – Architects live at the historic Royal Albert Hall. My thoughts..? Still out to lunch on an answer. Make no mistake […]
PERIPHERY: “Live In London”
The longing for getting sweaty together in a hot room watching bands we love with the scent of warm beer teasing our nostrils is getting harder and harder to keep at bay. We all miss seeing bands we love don’t we? With 2021 fast approaching and bringing vaccines to hopefully eradicate some virus we’ve […]
Clear Vision With PERIPHERY
Periphery have for the past fifteen years consistently risen to the top of the heavy djent dependant spectrum prog tree thanks to their strong songwriting ability, all the while reinventing themselves without ever having to reinvent the wheel. Since 2005 founding member and guitarist Misha Mansoor’s vision has been focused on crafting incredibly intricate albums, […]
KILLER BE KILLED – “Reluctant Hero”
Killer Be Killed’s first album was IMHO one of the best metal debuts album of all time. Supergroup forays are always a dicey ring to get into especially when it contains four of the finest musicians from all walks of heavy metal diversity come together in the same rehearsal space. The challenge of such […]
KILLER BE KILLED – The Reluctant Heroes Metal Had To Have
As has been discussed and bandied about for the better part of nearly a decade on how Killer Be Killed is a supergroup, there is no need for me to dwell on it further here for readers to reacquaint themselves with this massive band. What is important right now in the shit show that […]
BENEDICTION “Scriptures”
Right down into it and no fuckin’ around – Benediction’s new album Scriptures? Well, it fuckin’ rules! Classic no holds barred, straight up killer death metal just as the old school forefathers of the genre intended. Regardless of whether they were from the U.S of A or the U.K., death metal at its very core […]
Scriptures Written On Parchment For BENEDICTION
Benediction are your straight up, no bullshit death metal. To semi-phrase guitarist Daz Brooks himself – “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, in, out…song’s done!” Formed in Birmingham in 1989 by Daz Brooks on guitar, Peter “Rewy” Rewinski also on guitar, Ian Treacy on drums and Paul Adams on bass – and one Barney Greenway on […]
ENSLAVED’s New Album “Utgard” Proves They Reside In The Abode Of Giants
Norwegian neo-traditional progressive black metallers Enslaved have continuously and consistently refused to be a band that can be pigeonholed. Throughout their twenty five year journey through the realms of extreme metal creation and artistic impression Enslaved are true expressionistic artisans that paint stunning musical murals with broad multi-faceted brush strokes. With their latest release (number […]
THE OCEAN “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic”
While there are many progressive heavy bands in existence within the world of metal there are few bands that stick out like the proverbial sore thumb like Germany’s The Ocean. Yet, contrarily I find it criminal that they remain largely unknown and unheard of! Hopefully with their freshly released latest album, 2020 will see them […]
Articulating Our Phanerozoic Aeon Courtesy Of The Ocean
Germany’s progressive metal band The Ocean have been around for twenty years and throughout this time, as evident on their previous seven album releases, they have found their niche in focusing on periods of humanity’s existence. With album number eight titled Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic (following on from 2018’s Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic) that trend […]
ENSLAVED “Utgard”
With a career that has been forged over twenty five years, Norwegian progressive post-black metallers Enslaved have very little to prove to either themselves or their fans both old and new. Fifteen albums in, each new artistic journey sees the Enslaved collective breathe on old embers of inspiration and forge monstrous musical experiences from the […]
NAPALM DEATH “Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism”
Like all pioneers, legends, GODFATHERS of their breed, the mighty and magnificent Napalm Death need no introduction. True and unforgiving pioneers plus consistent leaders and redesigners of their brand. Napalm Death have never followed a familiar path but neither have they ever strayed from the world of carnage that they single handedly forged within the […]
BARNEY GREENWAY Discusses The State Of The World According To NAPALM DEATH
Napalm Death are without questions – LEGENDS! Album after album they have demanded the attention of every person that has encountered their sonic carnage: whether they wanted to be pummeled or not. Be it through the captivating blast beats or hypnotic beats of Danny Herrera; that sonic low end, tsunami invoking bass of Shane Embury; […]
ABRAMELIN – The Philosophy of Never Having Enough Snuff
The term “Godfather’s of [insert genre here]”, in relation to Metal music specifically, is often bandied about all too freely to bands who are less worthy than others. There are few bands in Australia that can hold up to be true “Godfathers” of a genre where extreme metal is concerned. Abramelin is the one that […]
NEMESIUM “Continua”
Bringing old school death metal back to life and into ’20s is Nemesium with their long-awaited and much-anticipated debut Continua album — the follow up to their 2015 EP Sentient Cognizance. This album has been a long time coming and fuck me if it wasn’t worth the wait. The cold, confronting intro “Antecedent” kicks Continua […]
CALIGULA’S HORSE Rise Above And Beyond Radiance
For over a decade now Caligula’s Horse have been creating exceptional, beautiful and meaningful progressive [Prog] heavy music. Album after album redefining their sound and forcing themselves to be something more. Caligula’s Horse are not just another band rewriting the same old tired album resting upon some laurel bestowed upon them by reviews accompanying each […]
CALIGULA’S HORSE “Rise Radiant”
Rise Radiant is by far Caligula’s Horses‘ most explorative package. Following on from their 2017 masterpiece, In Contact, was going to be no easy task and any fan would be remiss in asking these incredible artists if it could be done. So, has it? Opening the album is “The Tempest” which has that instant pummeling […]
ABRAMELIN “Never Enough Snuff”
Twenty LONG years have passed since the last Abramelin‘s album Deadspeak has emerged. The Melbourne, Australia based death metal Godfathers paved a scarlet painted, gore-filled, underground scene with glory with on a handful of releases. The first time I heard them was on their Transgression From Acheron EP from 1994. This short twenty-minute death fueled […]
PARADISE LOST “Obsidian”
Even though Paradise Lost have been around for over thirty years now, Obsidian sees the band heavier, angrier but yet more melancholic than ever; more mature if that could even be possible. Paradise Lost were one of the first bands that PROPERLY melded Death Metal and Doom Metal music together. Even though Paradise Lost have […]
BLACK TRILLIUM “The Fatal Shore”
The purpose and intent of doom metal is to be enduring and not to give the listener a quick fix. The full picture is extended foreplay, unveiled agonisingly over time, through broad and succinct musical strokes. Although The Fatal Shore is a debut release, Black Trillium appears to have enunciated themselves exceptionally well. Invoking the essence of many influences, […]
WEREWOLVES “The Dead Are Screaming”
The Dead Are Screaming is the insubordinate bastard spawn of every band, genre and artistic frontier smashing vision that Bean, Wilcock and Haley considered canon in their quest for extreme music domination. The term supergroup has been bandied about by many bands over the years. Some good, some not so good. Musicians who choose to […]
KATATONIA “City Burials”
I have started writing this review for the new KATATONIA album, City Burials, and a bare three minutes into the first track “Heart Set To Divide”, I am already hypnotised and in love with what I have already heard and excited about what beautiful solemn doom-prog will be in front of me for the next […]
BENIGHTED “Obscene Repressed”
“Benighted are the poster children for all that repulses and delights the immoral minority. Those of us who love extreme metal and seem to be drawn to darker aspects of human capabilities and their pleasurable malevolence. The whole band has a clear binding rhythmic unity that controls our heartbeat… like Dahmer through a Homo-Sapien Sunday roast…!” […]
IGORRR ‘Spirituality And Distortion’
“My love affair with Igorrr was born of Gautier Serre’s ability to bend and mutate sounds and instruments to create meaningful, full of life pieces of art, disguised as songs. They are unapologetically jarring, discordant and confronting — yet beautiful, cohesive, perfectly formed and balanced. That is what makes it either hard or easy to […]
Dealing With The Ghosts Of MY DYING BRIDE
It’s so creative and wonderful to look at and half the time when I see their [the fans] ideas are better than mine, I use their ideas instead! For thirty years My Dying Bride have been the Godfathers of depressive-death-doom music; they have never strayed from their melancholic-pain-soundtrack which is inherently felt by the world […]
CATTLE DECAPITATION + Supports Revocation & Remains, Live At Max Watts – Melbourne, 19/02/20
With so many sold out Metal gigs in Melbourne over the past numerous months at a plethora of venues across our great city, it would be negligent to not now consider, call and claim Melbourne to be the Heavy Metal capital of our great nation! With that judgement declared and carved in grandiose non legible death […]
Review: CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, Don Fernando & El Colosso – Live @ Max Watts, Melbourne 7th Feb. 2020
Australia had waited for the time to lapse that would feature the (near) original lineup of Corrosion Of Conformity to once again grace our shores. Pepper, Woody Mike and John have nearly completed an absolutely decimating run of dates around Oz and NZ that ensures that they are a band that delivers nothing short of an uncompromising all […]
CATTLE DECAPITATION Find Life Surrounded By Death
“For this one, we sat there in a fucking recording studio for two months recording and it was a big epic thing and I personally can’t be prouder of it! It’s my favourite thing we’ve done but far” – Travis Ryan 2019 saw the release of Cattle Decapitation’s eighth full-length album known as Death Atlas which […]
CARCASS are Ready to Sever Arteries
“For some bands, their strength is settling on a winning formula and continuing in that vein but we are one of those groups that goes the other way, preferring every album to be different.” – Bill Steer When people ask who my favourite metal band of all time is, I don’t have to think about […]
PERTURBATOR – Live at Max Watts, Melbourne, Saturday 1st Feb. 2020
It was a gathering of the clans of sorts at Max Watts in Melbourne last night for the sophomore tour of the mighty dark electro Synthwave king Perturbator from France. The first Oz tour being 2018. There were metalheads in abundance, alongside hawaiian shirts wearers, ravers, businessmen and women in suits and a few older attendees who […]
CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, Pepper Keenan Delivers a Promise with the Upcoming Oz Tour, “We are Not Coming Down There to Fuck Around!”
I have been a fan of Corrosion Of Conformity for nearly three decades. I first heard them with the release of their sophomore album being 1991’s Blind. CoC were all killer no filler from the opening note on “These Shrouded Temples” to the closer “Echoes In The Well”. Blind came about at a time in heavy music […]
OBITUARY, Wormrot, Remains – Live Max Watts – Melbourne, Saturday January 18th
Another successful sold out evening of pure metal brilliance was had in Melbourne at Max Watts again last weekend with the incredible return of one of the godfathers of pure unadulterated death metal in Florida’s Obituary. Supported ably by two equally killer bands Melbourne’s own Remains who opened proceedings and the truly unbelievable Wormrot from Singapore. Let’s get straight […]
CATTLE DECAPITATION – Death Atlas
Captivating, confronting, engaging and excruciating but most of all honestly-extreme. Exactly as it should be! This is a brief introduction of feelings and emotions that gripped me intensely the first time, plus all ensuing times, I have listened to Cattle Decapitation’s 2019 masterpiece and easily my album of the year so far, Death Atlas. Absolutely […]
JINJER – Macro
The fourth album now in, Macro expands beyond the realms of what we thought we’ve heard in terms of what Jinjer can offer. From the get-go, Jinjer’s latest offering, Macro, is mind-numbingly earth-shattering. Ten years into any bands career can easily see them falter somewhat, struggle for inspiration and artistic integrity plus seemingly lose a certain […]
An Evening with DEVIN TOWNSEND – Live at The Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne
There’s something so special about spending an evening with Devin Townsend. Tonight’s sold-out show in Melbourne at The Thornbury Theatre was something more than special though. It was an intimate up-close personal get together with The Dev and a few hundred others that witnessed a creative genius at his near vulnerable best. Tonight was not […]
Live Reivew: CALIGULA’S HORSE, Melborune
There is something incredibly special about seeing one of your favourite bands perform one of their most important and captivating albums in its entirety. Witnessing perfection animating from the minds of five incredibly talented musicians performing for what seemed a fleeting burst of time. Caligula’s Horse did just that in Melbourne (August 2018) for the […]
BREWTALITY at The Tote and The Bendigo Hotels, Melbourne on 3/8/19
Well fans of Aussie heaviness another one of Melbourne’s annual Brewtality 2019 festival has been and gone and this year once again featured a stellar cast of hundreds making it a magnificent day/night all round. Today was going to be a day of many first encounters band wise, having arrived at The Bendi just after […]
The FRANKENBOK Beast
We’ve got a new song out [“Coming Out Swinging”] which is a bit of an entree really but it’s nowhere near what this band can accomplish if we put our heads together and really knuckle down and write some new shit….I’m curious to see what we can come up with and I think it’s gonna be a hybrid of the old and something new which we haven’t done before.
CIRCLES at Max Watts, Melbourne on 13/7/19
A frosty Saturday evening welcome in Melbourne saw hometown heroes Circles perform to a large and receptive crowd at Max Watts for their first headline tour. Accompanying them for this momentous and worthy evening were some of our state’s finest up and coming plus well known heavy bands, the first of which warmed up proceedings […]
DISENTOMB And All The Light We Cannot See
“We wanted to progress by putting more things into the songwriting rather than straight out brutality.”
ABBATH ‘Outstrider’
For decades Abbath has been the corpse-painted face, mascot if you will, of the black metal world. When Abbath decided to leave Immortal in 2015 it shocked the entire metal community, in particular, the black metal world. This, of course, brought up the question of what path and direction Abbath would take which would continue […]
Letting Life Grow with CALIGULA’S HORSE
“In term of the fans, I love the idea of giving them a unique experience that will probably never be repeated. The cool thing about this tour is we’re doing it as an “evening with”, a couple of hours of our crazy prog. For a Caligula’s Horse fan [the Let It Grow tour] this is going to be fairly historic. It’s going to be something that is an interesting learning experience both for us and those who come out are, for what it’s worth, going to be getting a once in a lifetime experience.”
KRISIUN at The Barwon Club Geelong on 20/06/19
It is always a disappointment when a band/s put on an event that deserves far more attendees than are present. Sure it was beyond cold and miserable evening in Geelong on Thursday night and that may well of been symptomatic of the turn out. But if KRISIUN, both a name and a band synonymous with […]
KING PARROT at The Barwon Club, Geelong on 01/06/19
Another killer night in ol’ G’town for gig number two at the BC for this years very short four date run for what has seemingly become King Parrot’s annual Regional Rampage tour and once again the passionate heavy metal hordes braved the nut shrivelling weather and post AFL match Cats fans to be kept warm […]
D-A-D “A Prayer For The Loud”
A Prayer For The Loud is like shaking hands with an old mate or hugging a new friend. Just really good, catchy rock that tugs at the heartstrings.
