Is it hyperbole that GEL could be this generation’s Nirvana for hardcore punk? I don’t think so.

On the album launch for their third LP, To Know the Light, Dawn Ray’d add fuel to the fire and convince more to join their thoughtful black metal cohort.

Both bands attempt to push the envelope of death doom with their strict no-guitars mantra, delivering a crushing split release of bass-only reverence and subversion.

An album that feels ambitious and grand in sound and execution, while maintaining a primitive and emotional intimacy. 

False Lankum is a magnum opus; a supreme musical achievement that anyone at all interested in music should have square on their radar in 2023.

An occult love letter to the genesis of black metal written in demented spirals of keys and synths, unhinged vocals and with tortured percussion.

Do black midi dislike their fans? It would be entirely justified…

The Italian’s fourth album fails to live up to the progression evidenced on their celebrated previous masterpiece.

This record is the ward confined, bed bound, astral projecting, clinically and criminally deranged relation to ‘Anthronomicon’.

It’s no exaggeration to make the case that Ulthar are one of the bands at the very forefront of the ongoing glorious reawakening of death metal.

Kayo Dot triumph as they celebrated the 20th anniversary of their daring, influential debut album, Choirs of the Eye’.

If you’re after some supreme underground extreme metal, unrelenting in focus and pace, then you need to get Tithe on your radar and Inverse Rapture assaulting your ears.

Death Pill are a hardcore punk trio that have likely never acknowledge, maybe not even have heard of the term ‘frills’ when it comes to heavy music.

A four-band touring juggernaut entered London. Is this the shape of tours to come?

Privation marks another bold step forward as Fange continues to fearlessly experiment.

Model/Actriz have been steadily bubbling away in the great creative do-or-die melting pot that New York is renowned as since 2016 – and now explode to life with their debut LP, ‘Dogsbody’.

As the quintet navigate through their maze-like mathy, progressive rock/metal melange, one could visibly see the joy ping-ponging between the band and their appreciative, entranced audience.

A hardware store drowning through a recording studio.

Let’s hope we have a strong few years of this brilliant young band taking over the world… It’s Black Country out there.

Alkerdeel’s fourth album is the sum of all that has gone before and is, to my ear, their finest achievement to date. 

‘The Helm of Sorrow’ is a glorious extra from the minds of Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou.