Metal Hammer UK

Editor Merlin Alderslademerlin.alderslade@futurenet.com Deputy Editor Eleanor Goodmaneleanor.goodman@futurenet.com Production Editor Vanessa Thorpevanessa.thorpe@futurenet.com Reviews Editor Jonathan Selzerjonathan.selzer@futurenet.com Art Editor Lou

I HOPE YOU had a swell festive period, however you decided to spend it, and were allowed some time for rest and reflection after a, quite frankly, bonkers 12 months. Team Hammer couldn’t be more excited to hit the ground running for 2022, and what be

DEPUTY EDITOR As if pulling together four cover features and a big 2022 preview wasn’t enough, this month El also wrote one of said covers features, chatting to talismanic Spiritbox frontwoman Courtney LaPlante for an enlightening piece on the singer

SABATON ARE NO strangers to stagecraft. They are, after all, the band that came onstage at Bloodstock 2019 in an honest-to-gods tank (now the world’s most threatening drum riser), rising to their status as an arena-headlining band through sheer dogge

TOM MORELLO WEARS many hats, figuratively speaking: as well as being the guitarist with Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Bruce Springsteen and his ongoing The Atlas Underground solo project, he’s an activist, agitator, comic book author and occa

“GROWING UP IN the 80s, you only heard what you were specifically exposed to. My parents were immigrants from Nigeria, so they didn’t buy the Top 40 albums – they were listening to King Sunny Adé or Ebenezer Obey, these old Nigerian cats. But then I’

PHIL BOZEMAN FACED down the worst life had to offer early on. The Tennessee-born Whitechapel singer lost both parents by the time he was in his mid-teens – his dad to a heart attack, his troubled mother to drug addiction. Rather than drown in his own

FOUR ALBUMS AND almost 20 years into their career, Halestorm have amassed an arsenal of gale-force, hard rock anthems that howl and stomp, building hurricane-like around Lzzy Hale’s roaring, high drama vocals. Their last album, 2018’s Vicious, was cr

IT WAS A glimpse of a leather jacket on a New York subway that sparked the song that would turbocharge Sepultura’s ascent from global ambassadors for Brazilian metal to one of the most important and influential bands of the 1990s. “I was riding the s

You know the way everyone pretended they hated Limp Bizkit for ages and then in the past few years there’s been a resurgence and everyone’s admitted they’re actually sick? Yeah that’s gonna happen with Nickelback in the next year and a half. Milkie W

“Metallica didn’t trust outsiders. Not just me, they were suspicious of everybody. I can say that I’d never been involved with people who were as intense as them.” Bob Rock ruined Metallica. Before that, they were the best thrash band in the world, a

I presumed Iron Maiden would just walk the Critics’ Poll [issue #356] with Senjutsu as they always do when they release an album, so I was pleasantly surprised to find two brilliant, modern metal bands in Gojira and Trivium grab the No.1 and No.2 spo

Zeal & Ardor “One of the most vibrant voices in metal has just taken the next step up” MERLIN ALDERSLADE EDITOR Zeal & Ardor “Manuel Gagneux realises his concept in spectacular style” ELEANOR GOODMAN DEPUTY EDITOR Perfect Light “A record to stop time

PICTURE THE SCENE: an eager-eyed young greenhorn approaches a grizzled, retired veteran for advice on how to take on the world, and before they know it, the vet is gearing up to join them and take one last shot at glory. It’s the overarching narrativ

THE LONG ROAD NORTH: VINYL BOX EAGER TO SNAFFLE every last crumb from 2019’s A Dawn to Fear, Cult Of Luna built on those recording sessions for album number eight, The Long Road North. Clocking in at 69 minutes across nine songs, it’s a gloriously lu

There are many iconic figures in heavy metal, but there’s only one Metal God. In a career spanning five decades, Rob Halford has fronted one of the most important and influential metal bands in history, his beloved Judas Priest, and almost singlehand

TRANSLATION LOSS Apes’ second album is all about stirring Old Man Gloom sludge, death metal sewage and wind-tunnel grind into a bubbling cauldron of demon’s blood instead of the maple syrup you’d expect of maniacs from Quebec. CONNIE GORDON BLIGHTTOW

SUICIDE This Chilean thrash quartet fully embrace prog here. The hard-edged riffs and acerbic barks recall Coroner, but the fretless bass is wobbly enough to make Steve Di Giorgio proud. KEZ WHELAN PERSONAL Hellbent on reducing the Philippines to a p

BUSH HALL, LONDON Before Talons take to the stage for their penultimate live performance, London trio TANGLED HAIR put on a great set that mixes self-deprecating betweensong humour with some superbly mathy, pre-emo tunes in the vein of Spy Vs. Spy or

THE BLACK HEART, LONDON Few things say ‘Christmas’ more than corpsepainted, space-age synth rock, so it makes sense for Church Road Records’ ‘Riffmas Party’ to kick off with ZETRA. The screens and silver stalagmites onstage make the duo an intergalac

If Dave Grohl hung up his guitar tomorrow, Myles Kennedy would gain the title of ‘Nicest Guy In Rock’ without a second thought. On this, the opening date of his new solo tour, Bristol finds the Alter Bridge frontman as polite and courteous as ever, t

Leprous open their set with Silent Waters: a long-buried demo that hasn’t been played in 15 years. That’s one hell of a way to make a tour called From The Beginning instantly earn its stripes. In front of a sold-out Camden, the prog idols are compreh

THE UNDERWORLD, LONDON In the best sense, BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT are a shadow of their former selves. Every album has relieved them further of their early doom/psych trappings, becoming more emotionally affecting the further they drift into a state of

THE DOME, LONDON HERIOT are a revelation live whether you are familiar with the band or not. Their bruising, deliriously heavy riffs collide with acerbic screams during Dispirit, which is about as subtle as a brick, and new single Near Vision sounds

What’s the worst thing about being a musician? “There’s a misconception that we don’t actually work. There ends up being a lot of people in your life who don’t think you have a ‘real job’. It’s obviously wonderful work and I’m super-grateful to do it