Following their appearance on the opening evening of this year’s Hard Rock Hell, PM sat down with the guys from up-and-coming North East metallians Hellion Rising to talk about their experience, the debut album, ‘Eight Of Swords’ (reviewed at http://planetmosh.com/hellion-rising-eight-of-swords/) and their plans for 2015: Keep up with developments from …

As the HRH masses once more descended upon a remote corner of north Wales for this year’s eighth instalment, the PlanetMosh team also assembled from several corners of the UK to brave the early winter weather, hard-as-concrete camp beds, dodgy heating and copious amounts of alcohol to report from the …

Leicester power trio Skam delivered one of the early highlights of this year’s Hard Rock Hell, when they took to the second stage on the Friday afternoon with a set that proved they are the real thing (see what we did there?).  Afterwards, with the sweat still glistening on their …

Midnight Messiah had the honour of being the first act to take to the stage at this past weekend’s Hard Rock Hell.  PlanetMosh met up with the five guys afterwards for a chat about the band’s past, present and future: https://www.facebook.com/MidnightMessiah

One of the most eagerly anticipated acts to appear at this past weekend’s Hard Rock Hell were Finnish sleazesters Santa Cruz… PlanetMosh pulled up a chair with three-quarters of the group (drummer Taz was off doing whatever it is that drummers do an hour before going on stage) for what …

Sometimes it takes vision.  And a simple vision at that.  The vision of one clear-sighted, single-minded – some might say stubborn – individual.  And that vision is to do what you enjoy, and what you want to do, need to do, to fulfill that enjoyment, no matter what adversity, what …

Fresh from their triumphant performance on the main stage on the final afternoon of this year’s Hard Rock Hell, PM chatted to Steve Zodiac, Terry Horbury and Gary Pearson – collectively known as the legendary Vardis – about the band’s reformation after 20+ years of inactivity, their forthcoming live album recording, their …

Northern Ireland metallians Sinocence have released a ‘behind-the-scenes’ teaser video from the recording of their new ‘No Gods No Masters Volume 2’ EP. Post by Dave Bradshaw Photography. The video was shot by Dave Bradshaw during the first phase of recording sessions at Einstein Studios with producer Frankie McClay. The …

The primary intention of this Italian black metal crew is to resurrect the darkened spirit of the Nineties Norwegian scene, and particularly the energy brought at that time by the likes of Ulver, Darkthrone, Borknagar and Burzum. To a degree they succeed, as this self-titled debut is a very raw, …

The latest in a new generation of blackened metal acts to emerge from the previously very un-metal (apart from the likes of Aborted and Enthroned) domain of Belgium, Saille (pronounced sahl-yeh) plough the sort of dark gothicism meets extreme brutality route previously explored by acts such as Akercocke. A concept …

It takes a brave decision by any band to continue following the death of not only a founder member but also one regarded as the cornerstone of the act concerned.  Some – such as Led Zeppelin – have decided not to attempt to replace such a key element, while others, …

On the eve of their appearance at this weekend’s Hard Rock Hell, NWOBHM veterans Vardis have announced that they are to record and release their first live album in almost 35 years! The recording will take place at Unity Works, Unity Hall, Wakefield, on Saturday 13 December, with the result being released some time in …

For many bands, the difference between their first and second albums can be a jump of almost cosmic immensity:  how to capture the energy and enthusiasm of your debut opus while at the same time applying the lessons learned from the earlier process and using them to adapt/moderate/progress your sound …

With the clocks having gone back in the middle of the night to give us a much-needed extra hour in bed, the PM team arrived for the third and final day of the 11th and final (?) Firefest with not a great deal of anticipation, as Sunday’s bill, on paper …

Foul Body Autopsy is one-man extreme metal maverick Tom Reynolds, who describes himself as being “armed with an iPod, guitar and a desire to crush skulls” and to date has producedroughly an EP per annum during his four-year career.  Now, he has followed that tradition with this brain-shredding two-track EP, …

The story goes something like this… Back in 2009, in the small Lithuanian town of Seredzius, two local drunks – lets call them Gytis and Simonas (just because that’s their names!) – decided that just spending their days working and their nights drinking was not enough fulfilment:  so, they decided …

There’s an old – and very much overused (as these things tend to be) – saying about how you should never judge a book by it’s cover… in terms of reviewing heavy metal albums, it is perhaps fair to adapt this ancient adage to CDs and their artwork… On first …

Sometimes I feel like I live in Belfast’s most famous music venue rather than five minutes ’round the corner, given the amount of time I spend there… this was my something like my 26th or 27th gig here this year so far (a that’s not counting the amount of evenings spent …

Halloween.  One of the most important nights of the year… the one when the veil between the worlds comes down… or when spidey dickheads get to cross-dress without fear of ridicule from their equally spidey dickhead mates and make even bigger drunken pricks of themselves than usual… or, in the …

The second day of Firefest’s Final Fling promised to be the strongest, in terms of the quality of the names on the line-up, and this was reflected in the fact that breakfast had barely settled in the stomachs of most of the some 1,800 who queued outside the venue to …