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.
DIAMOND HEAD ‘The Coffin Train’
Forty three years ago a legend with pure intent and foresight was born. Formed in Stourbridge England was one of the flag carriers and front linesmen for what we Metaheads know and revere as the sound instantly recognised as NWOBHM. Few bands can claim the title of Godfathers of the genre, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, […]
NE OBLIVISCARIS at 170 Russell, Melbourne on 10/05/2019
Friday May 10th at 170 Russell in Melbourne can only be described as a Sold Out Heavenly Progressive Tech Death Extravaganza. It was far more than an evening of heavy entertainment hosting some of our country’s and the world’s greatest metal musicians and bands in one venue on one special night for one special tour. […]
Alex Hellid Discusses A Concise History Of ENTOMBED
Alex opened up on the unfortunate split and demise of Entombed and the intricacies surrounding the lengthy legal battle and use of the name Entombed as a brand.
ENTOMBED ‘Live Clandestine’
Twenty-Eight years ago, in 1991, cutting edge extreme music was being forged. An abundance of many angry teenagers was looking for expression, disregarding what anybody thought and blended together with a myriad of emotions and feelings, differing musical tastes, genres were smashed together and influences created a fledgling and raw style of heavy music. This […]
SUPERHEIST ‘Sidewinder’
Sidewinder – They have written, recorded and produced a truly significant album that redefines the Superheist we thought we knew.
AT THE GATES, THE HAUNTED, WITCHERY at Max Watts, Melbourne on 27/4/19
Q: What’s better than seeing one of Sweden’s premiere and best Death Metal bands live? A: Seeing three of Sweden’s premiere best bands on the same bill on the same night! Australia was last week privileged to have the honor of hosting what was known as the Triple Kill bill. Witchery, The Haunted and At […]
NUMENOREAN ‘Adore’
I want you to imagine for a moment if you can, that if Gojira got romantically intimate with Deafheaven whilst flirting graciously with Alcest and Astronoid and produced a beautiful pure newborn! Then what we will hear spawned from this consummation is one incredible band out of Calgary, known as Numenorean and their latest offspring […]
OMIUM GATHERUM at The Barwon Club, Geelong 19/4/19
There’s always a special little tingling feeling in the marrow of metal fans when who live outside of the burbs and big cities and a big international band comes to play in their hometown and even better when it’s at the venue which is many a metalheads local drinking establishment. So…what better way to be […]
VLTIMAS ‘Something Wicked Marches In
The term ‘Supergroup’ definitely gets bandied about way too often. Often featuring one, maybe two relevant member/s of a genre and/or band long forgetting or now seemingly irrelevant. The last true and great supergroup to rear its formidable head was none other than Killer Be Killed in 2014 and released a devastating and, pardon the […]
Jukka Of OMNIUM GATHERUM Interprets His Burning Desire To Tour Australia
“For the individual…and for the whole population, we are the whole world as nations and the bigger picture, we are one planet…Heavy Metal music globally is really aggressive…but there are studies that say there’s such a positive vibration going on in the metal community globally. There’s no violence!
EMPEROR at 170 Russell, Melbourne 3/4/19
There is no question that Emperor are one of the founding fathers of black metal and that they sit amongst a throne at the top of the black metal elite. Releasing some of the most important albums that shaped and designed the genre as we know it today. The first of which is In The […]
SUPERHEIST Interview with DW Norton
Superheist was born in a beachside, suburban town called Frankston in the state of Victoria, Australia and began as a powerful industrial/electronic death metal band in 1993. Over time Superheist diversified into the nu-metal “groove kings” who moved thousands of punters during a time The Big Day Out [2002] was around. But, in 2003, Superheist, decided to call it a day, much to the disappointment of their fans. They had grown so fast and achieved so much — it was a shock to see them fold.
DEVIN TOWNSEND ‘Empath’
There isn’t much that can be said about DEVIN TOWNSEND to describe him as a musician, artist, creator that hasn’t already been used to describe his many and varied albums talents and ventures throughout his twenty-six years as an incredibly talented, respected and revered career. EMPATH marks his twenty-third solo record (not including five STRAPPING […]
ANAAL NATHRAKH at Max Watts, Melbourne on 8/3/19
Last night at Max Watts in Melbourne was probably one of the most diverse yet cohesive and bonding evening of metal I have witnessed for a long time. In support of their first ever brief tour of Australia, ANAAL NATHRAKH had an avant garde array of supports that complimented their headline evening. First up was the […]
BEHEMOTH’s Nergal Chats Light And Dark And Farewelling To Slayer
“I have never really wanted to pretend. I’m too old to pretend and really think that I am genuine artist and when you see me on stage I am one hundred percent that persona! What you are seeing is me there. There’s a billion different versions of me, but at that time on stage you see me and then off stage and the different but other me is sincere and honest. I love my life and I like to squeeze the juices out of it…I am living my dream and it is really a great life!”, Nergal – BEHEMOTH
Coming Round A Full 360° CIRCLES
“All of the songs on the album deal with dissatisfaction in some way whatever that may be… getting ready to have the rug swept out from underneath you. But every time we get to the end a song we always hope to find a positive spin on the bleakness because we do smile and we do enjoy life and we do want to convey a little bit of hope to whatever the situation might be.
DEAFHEAVEN at The Corner Hotel, Melbourne on 27/02/19
Let’s face it, there are two types of people when it comes to DEAFHEAVEN. There are those that hate them and there’s those of us that love them! For too long a time, I was in the latter. I just didn’t get them. Their atmosphrice and melodic story telling style of shoegaze black metal influence […]
ALIEN WEAPONRY and Cultured Thrash Metal
“To come home and get the news we’ve been offered that support was pretty insane. We collectively said “WHAT?” laughed it off and said yeah on the bill or something as SLAYER, but didn’t initially believe that we’d be opening for SLAYER and ANTHRAX.”
QUEENSRŸCHE ‘The Verdict’
QUEENSRŸCHE are definitely ones of those bands that have endured through both magnificence and turbulence no matter what has been thrown their way. They are also a band that I adored during the late ’80s and early ’90s, but, due to my tastes broadening they just kind of fell off my listening radar. But… as […]
The “Empath” DEVIN TOWNSEND Makes Peace With His Darkness
Prolific album creator, Devin Townsend, is considered to be one of the most astonishingly creative musical geniuses of our time by many of the heavy musically minded individuals, musicians and fans alike.
WATAIN at Max Watts, Melbourne on 22/02/19
When a “real” Black Metal band lands in Melbourne rampant hordes of worshipping daemons flock forth into the night to release their internal wrath up the dark world. Friday night, at Max Watts, we bore witness to the blood splattered debauchery of Sweden’s overlords of dark satanic armageddon; they are, WATAIN. Supports, Eskhaton, were, without doubt, the perfect legion […]
MARK MORTON Delivers An ANESTHETIC Without Losing Feeling Or Emotion
“Working with Chester (Bennington) was really fantastic and amazing because he was very enthusiastic, motivated and excited about the song. HE LOVED THAT SONG! And that is really why he was there!”
PROGFEST 2019 at The Croxton, Melbourne on 26/01/2019
Gathered in Melbourne, specifically at The Croxton Bandroom on this the 26th of January was a diverse crowd of punters and participants for Progfest 2019 who were about to witness a full line-up and showcase of some of this country’s upcoming and finest representatives of more than just heavy music, but clearly artistry and proficiency […]
THE BLACK QUEEN at The Northcote Social Club, Melbourne on 20/01/19
This past weekend in Melbourne, specifically at The Northcote Social Club (not neglecting Brisvegas and Sydney) was an emotional, cathartic, beautiful and life-changing for those of us that had the opportunity to witness one or all of the sold-out gigs for debut tour of The Black Queen. Those of us that had the privilege of […]
SOILWORK ‘Verkligheten’
The late ‘90’s were a very important time time in metal. It was a period back in time when the most important country to export all things containing heavy ear candy was Sweden. The list of bands and their importance and contribution to what would change the face of metal is long, but, one of […]
The Monumental MONUMENTS
Guitarist for MONUMENTS, Browne explains in depth the reasons for the band only delivering lyric videos for the first three song releases from the latest album Phronesis. “Well, there’s a very good reason for that! Our singer (Chris Barretto) lives in New York, Our drummer (Daniel ‘Lango’ Lang) lives in Dublin then our bass player […]
SPECTRAL FIRES Turn Our Ears Towards The Sun
Young Melbourne band Spectral Fires have been busy honing, refining and attempting to perfect their style of melodic hardcore for the past five years and have landed themselves some terrific supports and gained new fans and recognition based on their tight band brotherhood and seemingly neverending quest to acknowledge the fact that collectively they can […]
