Portals 2024 is set to be the biggest and best year yet for this incredible underground, DIY festival. We’re talking guitar music of all stripes: post-, alt-, math-, prog-, psych-, shoegaze, blackgaze, metal-adjacent, all along the spectrum up to metal. I really hope to meet some of our readers there!

Uprising Festival, the East Midlands metal extravaganza makes a welcome return  to the O2 Academy in Leicester on Saturday May 25 and this year’s bill, the seventh incarnation of the festival, could easily be the greatest in its history.

Seattle’s Michael Freiberger (owner of Satanik Royalty Records and director/booker for Disemboweled God Fest) pulled off an incredible feat for the second consecutive year: packing an intimate venue with top-notch national and regional purveyors of death metal to celebrate the genre in all its glorious forms.

The joyous 2-day showcase of Satanik Royalty Records artists was a testament to the vibrancy of the Seattle music scene and the importance of one of its most important members, Michael Freiburger.

The final ever gigs of LINGUA IGNOTA were in London. Sinner, get ready to cry.

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

I went to Supersonic and I had a really great time. You know I did, of course I did, because it’s a brilliant festival with a packed bill of excellent bands. “It’s not an accident, it’s a choice.” 

Rather than give a play-by-play review of ArcTanGent, I want to write about a few of my personal highlights of the festival. The beauty of the setup is that you can dip in and out of sets; nothing is more than a few minutes’ walk away. . .

So was the first instalment of Core. Festival a success? In almost every respect, yes.

ArcTanGent, the Bristol-based, independent festival starts tomorrow, with a variety of over 50 acts. Jody Dunstan steers carefully through the clash-finder and picks out his personal favourites.

Rejoice friends! If the endless rain doesn’t wash us all into the filthy sea then Supersonic festival will be upon us in less than a month’s time. An undoubted pinnacle of underground music’s calendar, this year it will be celebrating its twentieth birthday. . . It’s going to be quite a party, come ready. If you’re still dithering about that now is the time to commit.    

Day number three. The wild ride was nearing its conclusion, having lined up some its heaviest hitters for a real knockout of a grand finale.

Day number two at Pointu Festival held promise of a slightly heavier-hitting set of performances. I resurrected in a puddle of drool and crumpled notes scattered across the apartment floor, feeling sore but ready to face the last ten hours of a sunny festive Saturday in the south.

With its killer line-up and heavenly setting at the far end of France, Pointu Festival’s seventh edition seemed a fitting destination to question my life choices.

A new exciting underground heavy music festival in Glasgow.

With the sun now settled on another edition of the ever excellent Focus Wales festival, held every year in the North Wales town (oops…now a city) of Wrexham, its maybe time for a some reflection on another wonderful three days of music and networking

Acid Mammoth, Bloodswamp, WALL and Warren Schoenbright: just four of the highlights of Chris Keith-Wright’s mnorable final day at Desert Fest.

Sander van den Driesche went to Roadburn Festival 2023 to witness the next step in the festival’s evolutionary journey.

I grab a coffee then head over to catch Corrosion of Conformity, at the Ballroom. . . there’s a celebratory air in the room, people swaying, grinning and grooving in a way I haven’t seen elsewhere all day. Yee, and indeed, Haw! See you next year DesertFest!

It’s that time of year again – Desertfest returns to take over London, or, rather, much of Camden. . . for three days there’s yet another noticeable jump in black t-shirts with unintelligible logos, long hair being whipped around by London’s changeable climate, and the smell of… umm… y’know… freedom?  Yes, it’s that time again, and everyone couldn’t be happier.

A mere half-week remains before Barcelona is to host the triumphant return of the sweet, heavy and blissful sounds of AMFest.