Dragged Into Sunlight, Helpless, Dawn Ray’d, SonanceThe Exchange, Bristol, 6.10.2017 Photos by Chris Nicholls Please do not use the photos without the photographer’s permission.

I find this band witty and imaginative in their execution of this album. Gloriously heavy in parts and beautifully melodic in others.

In his his inimitable style, Bruce Cowie reckons the best way to see Damnation 2017 is to and fro between the smaller stages (with the odd pasty break) and make sure you see Wren. . .

In the second of our Damnation 2017 previews, Steve Fallows checks out the Terrorizer Stage, and finds it to be aptly named!

‘Dear’ feels like the crushing weight of the amassed fathoms of the ocean collapsing onto the listener. It’s diverse but, it is also ceaselessly oppressive and relentlessly intense. Boris always deliver, they never fail to disappoint not in twenty five fucking years!

Damnation is a one-day festival that packs a mighty metal punch; and with so much choice, and so many clashes, it may seem challenging to find your way round. In the first of our previews, Steve Fallows demonstrates that if you keep it simple and stay with the main stage, you certainly won’t be disappointed.

Mammothfest 2017 Sunday: Amenra, Vodun, OHHMS, Patrick Walker (40 Watt Sun), Telepathy, Grave Lines, Wren, Haast’s Eagled, KurokumaThe Arch, Brighton, 8.10.2017 Photos by Magda Campagne Please do not use the photos without the photographer’s permission …

YLVA | Facebook | Bandcamp Drawing influences from a deep well of experience in past outfits, YLVA, hailing from Melbourne, Australia’s capital of underground music, create patient, dark and mysterious pieces of heavy music. While the fi …

Painfully intimate, achingly beautiful and excoriatingly heavy, ‘Mass VI’ is a complete masterpiece.

God Mother have created a beautifully ugly, abrasive and visceral blend of hardcore, d-beat, grind, sludge and black metal, and carved out 14 angry slabs of perfectly proportioned noise that brings the energy of the pit to your stereo speakers. Guaranteed to ruin your neighbour’s day.

This is an album for the dark months of the year. . . an album for the autumn, for the heavy dampness of our winter, down to the colour palette of the cover, an obscure image that should perhaps be obvious. What is that there, reflected in still and cold water? Something dim and shaggy, an indeterminate horror. . . Or an inanimate thing, tricking the eyes into finding meaning?

Gavin Brown had an entertaining chat with Jim Rushby and Steve Watson to hear all about their return, the new album, the band’s early days and what Iron Monkey have planned for the future.

A big event that is sustaining itself, putting up a stage for lots of jobbing UK bands, and pulling in an honourable selection of big, extreme international players. . . Get Mammothed!

Birmingham industrial metal duo Khost’s latest offering is full of familiar parts – warped Arabic vocals, heaving industrial percussion and relentless crushing guitar alongside spoken word pieces from Eugene Robinson of Oxbox and Syan and cello from Jo Quail – but it’s imbued with a sense of horror and a purpose that elevates it above their earlier work.

The Moth | Facebook | Bandcamp Signed to This Charming Man Records just one year after their formation in 2012, Hamburg-based doom/sludge trio The Moth are one of Germany’s leading underground lights. Upon the release of their acclaimed debut album …

Gavin Brown caught up with Full Of Hell vocalist Dylan Walker to hear all about the new album with The Body, the recent tour, festivals, films, working with Kurt Ballou and Merzbow, touring with Max and Igor Cavalera and Immolation and more.

Lets say you took My Bloody Valentine, added a bit of Gish-era Smashing Pumpkin, sledgehammered it with Godflesh and then topped the remainder with a twist of Tangerine Dream, you would have New York’s Spotlights. However, the net result of all this crossbreeding is a new hybrid animal. Its own thing, a unique product that stands apart and pushes hard at genre boundaries.

Italian psych-doom masters Ufomammut’s return to action following their 15th anniversary celebrations sounding somehow more full of energy than ever. Recorded live in the studio ‘8’ sees them at their sludgiest and most furious, and is as relentless a trip as they’ve ever taken us on.

Horse Head | Facebook | Bandcamp Horse Head formed in 2011 after Chris Gisriel and a few other members dissolved the band Nataraja, allowing for a new project with Wilson Hensleigh as lead guitarist, Jonathan Portnoy on bass, and Andrew …

Monarch! have long reigned as one of doom’s most drone heavy outfits, utilising colossal heaviness and hypnotically slow guitar thrumming across typically epic song lengths. On ‘Never Forever’ they add a little more light to the shade and craft perhaps the most distinct album of their career.

Big|Brave don’t change their formula on Ardor, they just refine it a little, distil its essence down into 3 long tracks. The result is an incredible piece of slow, heavy, emotional metal, a landmark for both the band and heavy music in 2017.