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Distorted Sound Magazine

EP REVIEW: Vol 1: As In Life - Red Method

Unflinching grooves meet cutting psyche explorations in metallic force Vol 1: As In Life, the new EP from RED METHOD. In this six-track cyclone of mental suffering and sonic distress, the London sextet paint hell – aka the world – blood-red, while screaming out the musical truth that the more twisted and deranged something is, the better.

RED METHOD have been tormenting eager crowds with their concoction of industrial, groove and dark melodic metal since 2018, with their furious live appearance...
Distorted Sound Magazine

ALBUM REVIEW: Not Midnight Yet - Phantom

If METALLICA, SODOM and DARK ANGEL had an orgy and nine months later a band was born, that band would be PHANTOM. The Mexican speed and thrash metal unit are about to release their third album in three years, and with its deep coffin full of tyrannical riffs and enough twists and turns to give the uninitiated whiplash, Not Midnight Yet may indeed prove to be the most solid PHANTOM record yet. If you thought their previous record, Tyrants of Wrath, was a bountiful massacre of 80s metal madness, N...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Haggard Cat: Chaos Therapy

They have surfed crowds on carpets and never seen or heard from the carpet again. They have walloped Glastonbury’s stage, garnered the reputation as 2000trees’ house band and broken everything under the sun in their live performances. Vocalist/guitarist Matt Reynolds and drummer/vocalist Tom Marsh are masters of chaos, and they are HAGGARD CAT – the noise punk duo from Nottingham. 

“It’s always been chaos,” Matt says. “We’re less chaotic as people now, but that’s just how we’ve always naturally...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Armed For Apocalypse: Beneath The Blasters

Although the exact nature of what disaster is going to wipe us all from this planet is still unknown, post-metal sludge lords ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE have a pretty good method of how to gear up against our increasingly scary reality: “just fill your head with riffs.” And their fourth album, The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me, is rammed with so many suffocatingly dense and grooved-out riffs, it’s practically an apocalyptic armoury.

“It’s the idea that everything beneath us is living and we’re all ju...
Distorted Sound Magazine

LIVE REVIEW: Speed @ The Electric Ballroom, London

There’s one language being spoken in London tonight, and no, it’s not English: it’s hardcore. SPEED. The seven year-young, hardcore band from Sydney, Australia, are celebrating the end of their UK tour in London, with two special guests – WHISPERS and BODYWEB – two additional special guests – SPLITKNUCKLE and SOVEREIGN – and a 1,500-strong, very much sold-out crowd. The Aussies have carved out a special place for Sydney on the hardcore map, and then some. But it’s not just the hardcore kids out...
Distorted Sound Magazine

ALBUM REVIEW: The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me - Armed For Apocalypse

If you could distil the essence of apocalyptic havoc into a syringe and inject it into your ear canals, it would still have nothing on the arsenal of post-metal grit that is ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE’s fourth album, The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me.

The now Oregon-based four-piece have switched out the unrelenting aggression of their previous album, Ritual Violence, for something bleaker and more tumultuous. The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me is a dense, grooved-up weapon that pulsates with the excr...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Atlas: Melancholy, It's In Our Finnish DNA

“Metalcore is still like a curse word to some people,” says Finnish guitarist Tuomas Kurikka, when explaining why his band ATLAS felt the need to coin a new genre, Northcore, to express the music they were creating. “We had a lot of influence from folk stuff – folk music and folk poetry – in Finland, so it felt right to have a name for it. And it’s nice to have a word to reference your music to someone who’s, I don’t know, just a SLAYER fan and doesn’t want to hear any other metalcore stuff. May...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Hellripper: Becoming The Goat

Few know him as James McBain; to most, he is the genius behind blackened speed metal band HELLRIPPER and leader of the goat kvlt. “The whole goat thing was a complete accident,” James admits. “I don’t think there was any mention of goats for the first two years of the band. Then, when I wanted to do the HELLRIPPER Scotland artwork (a parody of the MOTÖRHEAD England logo), I thought a goat would be perfect.” What was initially planned as a run of 50 T-shirts ended up being their best-selling merc...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Cold Night For Alligators: In A While, Crank Down The Dial

Reeling from the idea that COLD NIGHT FOR ALLIGATORS are gaining listeners from random Spotify radio stations, Nikolaj Lauszus is as nerdishly humble as his Instagram bio would have you believe, “World’s okayest drummer”. “It’s weird to think that people just stumble upon us and actually explore and listen to our music,” he says. “I’ve been playing for so long in all these weird metal bands, so in my mind, people that listen to us have maybe seen us live or just know us a little bit.”
Noizze UK

New Noizze – The 12 Must-Listen Tracks of Last Week

Oh. Oh. OH. ‘Wet Death’. That’s the new single from Norwegian deathpop outfit Blood Command, and it’s as disturbingly fun as it sounds. With their fusion of pounding punk rhythms and tinkling synths, the deathpoppers force you down a rabbit hole into a pile of spit-roasting two steppers and launch you back out only once you’re sufficiently drenched in screaming whimsy. The layering of Nikki Brumen’s roars take on a paralysing, possessed quality – think Galadriel’s green-faced coming undone in The Fellowship of the Ring, but if she was wearing a two-piece tracksuit and backed by a grizzly set of bass lines. They’ve torn away the pop party and replaced it with a spiralling rage that wakes up the need to bounce. – Lucy Dunnet
Distorted Sound Magazine

The Hara: Moshpits, Gorillas and Nuggets Of Glory

“The gorilla turned away because he was scared of Jack.” All Jack Kennedy had to do to earn his place in what would later become THE HARA was jump into a gorilla enclosure and survive. Vocalist Josh Taylor was the zoo’s janitor at the time and tried to stop Jack from taking such a risk, because he’d have to “clean up afterwards”. But when it became clear that Jack was a gorilla repellent, Josh asked if he played an instrument, and upon hearing the magic words, “I play the drums,” Jack was in the...
Distorted Sound Magazine

Uuhai: Connection Beyond Borders

Mongolian folk metal is the gift that keeps on giving. When global phenomenon THE HU burst out of Mongolia over eight years ago, they gave metal fans across the world a taste for Morin Khuur solos, throat singing and songs that take you galloping across the Mongolian Steppe with a herd of wild horses. While THE HU may have lit the spark of curiosity and slammed open the floodgates, bands like HURD, HARANGA, and NISVANIS had been laying the groundwork for decades prior, inspiring younger musician...
Distorted Sound Magazine

LIVE REVIEW: Sylosis @ O2 Forum Kentish Town, London

British heavyweights SYLOSIS celebrate the release of their new album, The New Flesh, by merging with HEAVEN SHALL BURN’s Heimat Over Europe tour for the most mega night of metal mayhem to have ever graced the O2 Forum Kentish Town. At least, that was the positive spin on why they joined forces. Originally clashing not only with each other, but also with the mighty DEFTONES down at The O2, led to torn fans and the need to make some tactical changes. Someone really needs to tell London’s booking...
Noizze UK

New Noizze – The 16 Must-Listen Tracks of The Week

Hardcore legends Terror released a new single on Tuesday, so if you haven’t been mentally corkscrewing off a stage into a pile of tough guys shouting ‘Still Suffer’ all week, shame on you. Scott Vogel spits out every lyric with a punishing force that is matched only by the predictably damaging thick riff lashings. ‘Still Suffer’ is the title track off Terror’s upcoming album, out 24th April, which the band has promised is “ten fast, aggressive, in-your-face tracks that embrace the themes that made Terror so influential in the first place.” Don’t be fooled. When Terror say in your face, they mean multiple boots flying 100 miles an hour in your face, and this is just the beginning. – Lucy Dunnet
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