Sander van den Driesche went to see the excellent mixed bill of loacl(ish) bands at the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh.

Haunted Lives provides the first retrospective for enigmatic Scottish artist Grey Malkin – a “gathering of works” from 2009–2025.

One of the hardest working metallic hardcore bands in the UK add to their flawless catalogue with this intensive and immense EP.

Vexations create frenetic and off-kilter post-psych, with dissonant layered guitars, unorthodox song structures, and vocals that oscillate between spoken word and emphatic screams, to give a punchy yet unearthly sonic experience.

Abrasive, beautiful, emotional, manic, heavy and calm. Requiem is one of the finest summations of the boundless possibilities of avant-garde.

Reunion of Broken Parts is something else entirely, it is its own thing, and I absolutely love it.

Post-metal that is atmospheric enough to relax to but also heavy enough to headbang to. The songs, sounds and textures are flawless.

I wrote “Siphonophores” on guitar, during the first lockdown, a period where I was kind of trapped between an almost empty flat in Edinburgh and Dresden. . .  I´m not a confident guitarist since I am completely self-taught, but, probably because of this, I feel that this instrument allows me to focus on aspects of the song-writing that I normally overlook when writing on piano. . .

Codespeaker put the metal into post-metal and create a unique sound for a phenomenal second album.

Watching Iress perform is a truly marvellous experience, and I’ll wager that more than a few tears were shed in the audience tonight. The dreamy, doomy quartet perform with confidence, nuance and passion, with a particular sensitivity to dynamics, moving smoothly from a scream to a sigh, a thundering riff to a lightly rippling melody.

DVNE manages to be heavy without falling into the usual metal tropes, creating a technically excellent and emotionally resonant work, a worthy additional to the band’s back catalogue.

I hope we hear more from Scarred Lip as this set of songs sets a high standard of songwriting. Highly recommended.

Corryvreckan is tremendous, it is folk without being twee, metal without being generic and has an appeal even beyond those genres.

Simon Mernagh went to the inaugural festival edition of underground heavy music festival Sonic Dissonance in Edinburgh.

Sonic Dissonance is a new extreme metal festival held in Edinburgh. Simon Mernagh caught up with the festival’s key architect and creative lead Bailey Junior to find out more.

Exclusive two-part premiere. A fantastical fusion of surrealist scenes and soundscapes from three of Spain’s greatest ambient artists and their forthcoming album, Bordando el manto terrestre.

Gavin Brown had the pleasure of talking to Endless Swarm vocalist Gray Caldwell about their new album Manifested Forms, their recent live shows, upcoming touring plans and taking powerviolence into shopping centres. 

Adriana Ciccone caught up with Amaya and Scott from healthyliving to talk about their debut album, the processes behind it and much more.

Without a doubt you’ll struggle to find an album this year as ferociously energetic as this one.

A vibrant and uplifting album, Brothers and Sisters, pump up the volume!

DVNE have been utterly spellbinding. Majestic. They have become something very special. Absolutely, ridiculously, immense.