Back catalogue: Metal

Review: Full of Hell join forces with Primitive Man for the new release Suffocating Hallucination, a collaborative record that is followed up by both bands touring. The music is controlled chaos with lots of harsh sonics and violent textures across the tracks which all drag you kicking and screaming through pure metal misery and torture. Walls of guitar noise, heavy doom and gloom atmospheres and plenty of distortion define this most abrasive of listens - which will no doubt be a joy to the ears of hardcore metal fans. What a monster of an album and a real showcase of sonic scuzzery.

Review: Taking both acts on their core traits, Full Of Hell primarily deal in death-grind fusion with some blackened aspects and a powerviolence twist, with their tracks rarely crossing the two-minute threshold and their average album length clocking in at approximately 20 minutes and some change. Primitive Man on the other hand, are the type of abyss dwellers that deal in lengthy sonic dirges, often running for well over an hour at a time. What happens when you combine two unmatched forces of modern extremity into one nightmare-fuelled hellscape of sonic torture? You get a truly oppressive display of grinding, trudging sludge-soaked doom with walls of caustic harsh noise which drone on for lengthy uncomfortable sections. Ugly, slow, unwelcoming and vile, 'Suffocating Hallucination' does its utmost to earn its nihilistic title, and offers little in the way of hope on its successful pilgrimage into the abyss.

Review: It would be unfair on Papa Roach not to note how well they've aged. Formed in 1993, the California nu metallers were relatively early advocates of a hip hop infused take on the hard rock, and rode on the crest of that wave as it turned into a veritable tsunami, the sub-genre suddenly becoming a dominant force within mainstream music circles, not just niche.

Ultimately, though, it would be their lack of definite commercial peak - compared with peers, many of who were doing it for less time and would enjoy much shorter lifespans going forward - that seems to have saved the day. Ego Trip more than proves our point. Studio album number 11, the 2022 outing feels fresh as the 1997 debut, Old Friends from Young Years, managing to swerve predictability and repetition via tracks that define the sound itself, but also help reassure us that it's still alive and kicking.

Review: Parkway Drive are huge metal stars from Aus and this is the band's 20th anniversary. Winston McCall (vocals), Luke Kilpatrick (guitar), Jeff Ling(guitar), Jia O'Connor (bass), and Ben Gordon (drums) are marking the occasion by making their Don't Close Your Eyes album available for the first time ever on vinyl. The eight original tunes re included as well as some bonus cuts from their split record with I Killed The Prom Queen and compilation albums What We've Built and True Til Death, Volume 1. Several versions of this one are out there and this is a limited edition gatefold with translucent gold vinyl so is not to be sniffed at for fans old or new.

Review: So good then named them seven times? That's no doubt what fans of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs will say, and you'd be hard-pushed to argue off the evidence of this new album. It is their fifth in just 10 years and is a powerful statement that is packed with some of their most potent work in an already storied career. The Newcastle-based quintet, fortified by their own individual passions, held up mirrors to themselves in writing this one. The result sounds are anthems for a world that is sleepwalking into oblivion but if it sounds this good, we aren't perturbed.

Review: If you're in the mood for heavy, fuzz-drenched guitar riffs, psychedelic intent, bass-heavy grooves and gnarled, echo-laden vocals, Geordie outfit Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs has you covered. They're at their weighty, intense and intoxicating best of 'Land of Sleeper', their first studio album for three years. They set the tone with the exceptionally dense, atmospheric and intense 'Ultimate Hammer', which evokes the grand heavy rock/proto-metal of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Led Zepellin. The album continues in that vein, with a dash of punkish, late '70s/early '80s 'new wave of heavy metal' thrown in. A few critics have already suggested that it may end of being the best heavy rock album of 2023; while it's too early to tell, it's certainly a fantastic full-length excursion.

Review: Porcupine Tree made a fine comeback in early November with their 'Harridan' single. It was well received and certainly lived up to the band's reputation for being one of the UK's most forward-thinking, genre-defying outfits. That was their first new music in 12 years and now comes their album Closure/Continuation. It is a grand statement that is presented here as a deluxe version with an album artwork booklet and a Blu-Ray boxset. It is packed with their definitive and singular take on progressive rock from front to back.

Review: Steven Wilson, Richard Barbieri and Gavin Harrison are better known as the hugely influential and ever innovative British rock outfit Porcupine Tree. Wilson formed the band as an outlet for his experimental side outside the work he did with his other band N-Man, who had a more synth pop styled sound. Porcupine Tree evolved into a live act and expanded their sound to go from psychedelic rock and ambient soundscapes to experimental pop and then a big, powerful metal sound. All of those different niches came together on their later records making the band real cult favourites.

Review: Denver based sludge doomsters, Primitive Man, return with their signature brand of sonic devastation on 'Insurmountable'. This latest EP from the trio continues the malevolent, abrasive, crushingly oppressive dynamic perfected on 2020's 'Immersion', yet showcases further honing and understanding of their particular cacophonous maelstrom. Melding elements of grindcore, sludge infused doom metal and distorted harsh walls of white noise to conjure and harness the power of ugly brutality, there's a warped sense of catharsis to be found within the dismal ether for those brave and patient enough to take up the excursion.