Album Reviews

“Throw your worries into the next trash can, at least for 38 minutes and sing, dance, headbang, do whatever feels right!” As far as press release blurb goes, that description from Nuclear Blast Records about the latest release from Finnish sextet Battle Beast hits the nail square on the head. …

Need a fresh, new album to stream this Halloween? A certain Southampton goth rock/horror punk sextet have got you all covered. Happy Halloween, one and all, guys and ghouls… After the success of their 2023 record Sanguivore, which was voted Metal Hammer’s best album of the whole year, Creeper have …

Out with the old, in with the new. Notice something different from this album cover? Some of you eagle-eyed fans will notice that a certain 3 letters have gone missing from the artist’s name. That’s right – from this day forth, Wolfgang Van Halen’s solo band will now be simply …

Since they evolved into global Metal superstars, Swedish history-nuts Sabaton have joined the ranks of such household names as AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead in having a signature sound. Within a few moments, the listener knows that it’s Sabaton. The bombast, the deep brogue of Joakim Brodén’s vocals; the choir; …

“I didn’t set out to make a divorce record. When I made ‘Take It Like a Man’, I was still fighting for something, writing from inside the hurricane, holding my ground, trying to keep love from slipping away. ‘Nobody’s Girl’ is what came after the wreckage, the silence, the rebuilding. …

The rise (and continued rise) of Amyl and the Sniffers has put edgy, punky rock n’ roll back out there into the stratosphere, which can only be a good thing. Not too sure, though, what some of the gatekeepers will make of the band when Amyl opens for AC/DC in …

Another week, another hot batch of singles and EPs fresh out of the oven. A mixture of established names and some artists starting on their journey, all worthy of your attention, regardless of placement in the pecking order. Click on the artist’s name in bold, and follow the link to …

Dutch sextet Blackbriar are an intriguing proposition. Gothic to the core, with an eerie, atmospheric feel about everything that they do. But yet they don’t show what you might class as traditional Goth rock influences. Not a Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Type O Negative, or even The Cure influence to …

Album number 12 from chart-topping German folk-metallers Feuerschwanz, and not only does ‘Knightclub’ see the band continue in the rich vein of form that began with ‘Das elfte Gebot’ back in 2020, but it also sees them break tradition by going with their first-ever new studio album to feature an …

Luke Morley, the best-loved lefty in the world (apart from Ned Flanders, that is), is back with a new solo album to prove that 2023’s ‘Songs From The Blue Room’ was not a fluke. And like SFTBR before it, ‘Walking On Water’ reinforces the fact that Morley is one of …