In their original incarnation from 1966 until their split into two separate bands in 1998, Barclay James Harvest followed their own career trajectory. Snubbing the obvious route to success – and managing to upset several other artists as they went – they refused to embrace the idea of being part of a scene. In 2016 co-founder Les Holroyd told Prog that, despite all that, they’d achieved the form of success they’d been chasing.
Les Holroyd has his own theory as to why Barclay James Harvest never got the respect or recognition they deserved in the UK during the 70s.
“It seemed you had to be based in London and hang out with everyone else at places like The Speakeasy if you wanted to be noticed,” he tells Prog. But that wasn’t something we wanted to do. None of us wanted to be rock stars, so we never played those London games.”
The bassist, a founding member who left in 1998, looks back at the formative years as a time when he, John Lees, Mel Pritchard and Stuart ‘Woolly’ Wolstenholm were left to develop their own style without interference.
“Harvest, to whom we were signed at the time, really didn’t have much of an idea of what to expect from us,” Holroyd says. “The idea of progressive music was totally new, and we were right at the forefront of what was happening. So we were left to our own devices to write songs and create albums. We stayed in our farmhouse and just got on with the job of writing.”
He now feels the music business wasn’t prepared for the progressive explosion. “The labels were all used to dealing with commercial, mainstream artists. There were so few who appreciated how to handle a band like us.”
While a lot of musicians in the late 60s and early 70s had a strong bond, Barclay James Harvest were a little removed from any notion of a movement. In fact, Holroyd recalls, there was just one band with whom they had any rapport. “We got on really well with Argent. We did a lot of gigs with them. But we had very little to do with others like Yes, Genesis or any of the names getting attention at the time.
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Robert John Godfrey wanted to become the fifth member of the band… that was never gonna happen
“Musically, we were often regarded as a cross between Genesis and Pink Floyd. Personally, I never quite got that comparison. We were also seen as being close soundwise to The Moody Blues – but a lot of that was down to the fact that both bands used the Mellotron.”
To some, Barclay James Harvest were regarded as being a second-rate version of the Moodies, which led to them recording the song Poor Man’s Moody Blues. That led to an uncomfortable encounter with the other band’s vocalist, Justin Hayward.
“I met Justin a long time after we’d done that song and we had a chat about it. He wasn’t too pleased about that song. I can understand why. For me, it was never funny or clever in the first place. John Lees wrote it, and I was uncomfortable recording the song. I wish we’d never done it.”
While Poor Man’s Moody Blues generated an undercurrent of controversy, it was the strained relationship with Robert John Godfrey that created the biggest waves of rancour over the decades. Godfrey was the band’s musical director on their first two albums, but the split was so acrimonious that The Enid founder still bristles over what he perceives as a lack of recognition from the band.
In particular, Godfrey believes he should have been given a songwriting credit on Mockingbird. Holroyd, though, offers little sympathy. “The business side of things should always be sorted before you go into the studio. It has to be made clear who gets credit for what. But Robert just assumed he would get it, and never did anything to confirm it. Sorry, but that was his problem.
We were equal partners. The four of us saw the band as a co-operative
“He wanted to become the fifth member of the band. But that was never gonna happen. We had nothing in common with him. He went to a private school and none of us did. He was trained at the Royal Academy Of Music and we didn’t have that type of musical education.”
Holroyd does confirm that, within the band, he was closer to one member than the others.“I was very friendly with Mel. But we’d known each other since the age of five. I suppose I wasn’t too close to John and Woolly. But on a musical level, that made no difference. We were equal partners. The four of us saw the band as a co-operative.”
Overall, Holroyd regards that period as being highly successful. “We followed our own musical journey. Being commercial never worried us. All that mattered was being true to our vision.”
It’s been a long break since his last album, bluesy garage rocker Witness, but Benjamin Booker is back with Lower, this time experimenting in noise rock and contemporary indie hip-hop – and some weighty subject matter. Now the proud head of his own label, he’s enjoying a new level of artistic freedom.
It’s seven years since your last record. What have you been doing?
I was just working on music. I had a specific idea of what I wanted to do for this record, so it was really just about following through and getting there. I spent a couple years trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It was different to other things that I’ve done, because there was a clear vision of what I wanted, and it wasn’t easy for me to get to.
What was that vision?
I’ve been listening to eighties UK indie stuff, noise pop, stuff like My Bloody Valentine, The Cure and Jesus And Mary Chain. And I was listening to a lot of indie hip-hop and ambient music from today, and just trying to figure out how to put all of these things together in a cohesive way.
Benjamin Booker – SAME KIND OF LONELY (Official Music Video) – YouTube
How do you even begin to bring that sort of stuff together?
I started painting more and getting more into visual art, and learning more about art history, which made me think a lot more about music history. So I spent a lot of time studying the history of recording, which is so short, but just seeing what people had done with hip-hop and what things hadn’t been done in hip-hop – you don’t really hear distortion in hip-hop music.
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What were you influenced by lyrically?
I was reading Book Of Longing by Leonard Cohen. I liked the simplicity of the poems, but how they felt so spiritual, there was a depth to them. And I’m a very big Dylan fan. Those people use a lot of biblical allusions in their work, and my song LWA In The Trailer Park is referencing Haitian voodoo. Every song, I was trying to write about something that I didn’t think had really been written about before. But also, there’s songs like Rebecca Latimer Felton Takes A BBC, which is referencing pornography and slavery.
Benjamin Booker – SLOW DANCE IN A GAY BAR (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, and was pro-slavery and pro-lynching. Why did you want to reference her?
I had been reading about Jeremy O. Harris, this playwright who has a play called Slave Play, which examines slavery and interracial relationships and sex. I like to look through Library Of Congress catalogues, so I was learning about her, I was thinking about Jeremy O. Harris. I had wanted to incorporate pornography into a song. And they all came together.
The song Same Kind Of Lonely is genuinely disturbing. Where is the audio clip of shooting from?
It’s from a school shooting. The clip is this violent thing that kind of hits you in the music. But that’s how those things hit us in real life. They just come out of nowhere.
This is your first record on your own label. How do you find being a label boss?
I love it. There’s things that I’m doing now, where I would say it to people at labels and they would literally laugh in my face. I don’t even have to have those discussions any more. It’s just done, no questions.
The long-awaited movie Becoming Led Zeppelinis finally opening for business, and director Bernard MacMahon has revealed what it took to get Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones to take part in the film.
Speaking with The Guardian, McMahon reveals that all three surviving band members needed convincing to support the project, with Jimmy Page the first to agree after a seven-hour meeting in a London hotel in 2017.
“I wondered if he had brought sandwiches,” says MacMahon, revealing that Page had arrived for the meeting carrying shopping bags filled with his old diaries.
After agreeing to the project, Page called MacMahon and invited him to visit his former home in Pangbourne, a boathouse on the River Thames purchased for £6000 in 1967 and an early rehearsal space for Led Zeppelin.
Later, Page revealed that the invitation to Pangbourne had been a test, telling McMahon, “If you had said no to Pangbourne we wouldn’t have done the film.”
MacMahon would go on to talk to John Paul Jones, who came on board after watching MacMahon’s 2015 documentary American Epic – about the US music business in the 1920s and 30s – and a four-hour discussion. Finally, MacMahon spoke with Robert Plant, who agreed to be filmed after three separate meetings.
Becoming Led Zeppelin will show on UK IMAX screens today (February 5) and tomorrow before a non-IMAX release this weekend. The film will open in the United States and Canada this Friday, a week after a premiere in New York attended by Paul Stanley, Dirty Honey, Jessie Hughes, Scott Ian, and members of Stone Temple Pilots, Black Crowes, and Garbage.
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“Led Zeppelin for me was a religious experience,” said Stanley. “The first time I saw them was 1969 and it was an epiphany for me because I saw how great something can be.”
Becoming Led Zeppelin – Official Trailer – YouTube
Footage of actor and comedian Bill Murray singing Bob Dylan has gone viral, and it’s not for the first time.
Murray’s rendition of the 1965 classic Like A Rolling Stone was filmed at the Thalia Hall in Chicago last month during a run of dates by Bill Murray and the Blood Brothers Band, the blues band led by Mike Zito and Albert Castigli.
The Blood Brothers Band tour finds Murray playing percussion – with vocal duties shared with the other musicians – on songs like Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour, The Kinks’ Tired Of Waiting For You and Prince‘s Little Red Corvette. Like A Rolling Stone ends the set, as Murray steps forward to bark the lyrics with enthusiastic if not entirely in-tune gusto.
This isn’t the first time Murray has gone viral for Dylan-themed footage. A decade ago, a clip from Theodore Melfi’s coming-of-age movie St. Vincent, in which Murray’s character Vincent delivered a mumbled accompaniment to the original recording of Shelter From The Storm as the end credits played, was widely shared.
“By the end of the take, half the crew was crying,” Melfi told the Los Angeles Times. “They were just so moved by him doing nothing. He’s just a mess the whole way, and I guess that’s what the film’s about, how we’re all just kind of a mess, a beautiful mess.
“Bill is a beautiful mess, and Vin’s a beautiful mess, and I’m a beautiful mess, and everybody around is. How messy you get defines who you are and what your life is.”
Bill Murray and the Blood Brothers Band’s next show is this Friday (February 7) at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, GA. Full dates below.
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Bill Murray & Blood Brothers Like A Rolling Stone Jan 3 2025 Thalia Hall Chicago Nunupics – YouTube
Bill Murray and the Blood Brothers Band tour dates
Feb 07: Atlanta Variety Playhouse, GA Feb 14: Port Chester The Capitol Theatre, NY Feb 15: New York Sony Hall, NY Apr 12: St Louis The Pageant, MO May 04: New Orleans Fillmore, LA Oct 04: Louisville Palace, KY
Technically, Billy Gibbons is on a break from ZZ Top right now. But in reality, he’s digging deeper into the band’s history than he has in a long time.
Gibbons is currently touring with the BFGs, leading a trio that also features bassist and Hammond B3 player Mike Flanigin and longtime Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton.
Comparing one of the last shows of ZZ Top’s 2024 tour to the recent Cleveland stop of Gibbons’ trek reveals some cool similarities and differences. You can see the full set list from each concert below.
Seven ZZ Top classics (in bold below) appear in both sets: “Waitin’ for the Bus,” “Jesus Just Left Chicago,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Just Got Paid,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Brown Sugar” and “La Grange.”
Gibbons’ set with the BFGs was almost completely dedicated to ZZ Top’s ’70s catalog, moving into the ’80s only for Eliminator‘s two biggest hits. On the other hand, the ZZ Top show was fully half comprised of songs from the ’80s and beyond, with twice as many songs from Eliminator and two from 1981’s El Loco.
The increased focus on his main band’s first decade gave Gibbons the chance to dig out songs ZZ Top hasn’t played in years, including “Francine” ( last played in 2010 according to SetList.fm), “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings” (2013) and “Thunderbird” (2019).
The BFG shows also feature a more organic sound, particularly comparing Layton’s stripped-down, club-friendly kit to the one ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard uses to replicate the band’s digitized post-Eliminator sound. You can hear the difference in the fan-shot videos of “Gimme All Your Lovin'” from both tours which are embedded below.
Flanigin switched to the Hammond for a couple of songs to further expand the BFG’s palette, and he tackled the late Dusty Hill’s vocal parts very nicely on “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers.”
Gibbons will be on the road with the BFGs until a Feb. 20 show in Bristol, Tennessee, and will then once again team up with Beard and bassist Elwood Francis for a ZZ Top tour that kicks off March 5 in Dothan, Alabama.
Alice in Chains’ 1996 performance on MTV Unplugged was a monumental moment in the band’s history, yet during the performance Jerry Cantrell was ready to puke.
“I was sick as a dog,” the guitarist recalled during a recent appearance on the Broken Record podcast. “I was not feeling well. And if you look very closely, there’s a trash can at my feet for me to vomit in.”
Thankfully, Cantrell was able to hold down his food during the gig.
“When the light went green and the cameras went on and we started playing, I got a little adrenaline rush,” the rocker explained. “So that turned out to be one of the greatest shows we’ve ever played. I was feeling like fucking shit until it started, and then soon as the show was over, I went back to feeling like shit and back on the IV.”
Alice In Chains’ ‘MTV Unplugged’ Remains Iconic
Alice in Chains’ appearance on MTV Unplugged is remembered for a multitude of reasons. For starters, it was the group’s first performance in three years following a period of inactivity, due largely to the ongoing drug addiction of singer Layne Staley. During the show, Staley appeared visibly weak, and it would end up being one of his final public performances prior to his death in 2002.
Still, the larger legacy of Alice In Chains’ MTV Unplugged set remains rooted in how incredible the group sounded. The performance is held in rarified air and is often the only MTV Unplugged set said to have matched – or even surpassed – Nirvana’s famous 1993 appearance on the show.
30 Great Quotes About Grunge: How Rockers Reacted to a Revolution
Pigeonhole Katatonia at your own peril. Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström’s tandem may have started as students of the death/doom movement, but since then they’ve flourished into a genre-busting singularity. Elements of traditional metal, prog, alt-rock and shoegaze have all played parts in the Swedes’ sound, with the only constants being addictive hooks and a deeply depressive tone.
In 2025, the band are nearing 35 years of miserable majesty. Pair that with the fact that they have 12 top-notch albums under their belt and figuring out where to start can be tough – so here’s some help. Below, Hammer details the five releases that, chronologically, best illustrate Katatonia’s unique story so far.
Brave Murder Day (1996)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
When singer/ex-drummer Renkse and guitarist Nyström formed Katatonia in 1991, they were teenagers enamoured with the nascent death/doom movement, especially Paradise Lost and Tiamat. Their earliest works, demo Jhva Elohim Meth and debut album Dance Of December Souls, paid obvious tribute to those pioneers. 1996’s Brave Murder Day, however, saw the duo start paving their own way.
With Opeth mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt offering lead vocals, the band stayed true to their roots on the sluggish but melodic Brave, then started to expand. Day layered exclusively clean singing atop haunting guitars and pensive percussion, whereas Endtime toyed with a lengthy intro that carried hallmarks of The Cure’s atmospheric magnum opus, Disintegration.
Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
During the mid-90s, Renkse’s screaming fried his throat and Katatonia were eager to explore their goth and shoegaze influences. They quickly released Discouraged Ones and Tonight’s Decision, which tightened their songwriting but slightly suffered from Renkse’s unseasoned clean vocals. As a result, Last Fair Deal Gone Down proved their true transformative masterpiece.
From top to bottom, album five marked this band’s most bulletproof arsenal of songs, each one shining through their mix of mood, melody and rock-solid riffing. Chrome, Teargas and Tonight’s Music flourished into fan-favourites, and side-by-side they demonstrated Renkse’s growing range, from whispered croons to arena-filling cries. After years of searching, Katatonia finally found their niche and delivered their idiosyncratic statement.
The Great Cold Distance (2006)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
If Katatonia were to have a single “essential” album, The Great Cold Distance would be it. Almost two decades after it came out, half of its 12 songs remain must-plays in the band’s setlists. The heartbroken My Twin became, as Renkse jokes, their only hit single when it cracked Finland’s top 10, while other tracks’ juddering riffs foresaw their later embrace of prog metal.
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This standout’s success wasn’t just the result of its myriad bangers – which also include July, Leaders, Deliberation and Soil’s Song – but the refined production of Jens Bogren. Having recently worked with Opeth and Pain Of Salvation, he gave Katatonia newfound density and clarity, exposing the chops behind their seemingly simple songs.
The Fall Of Hearts (2016)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
Across the 10 years after The Great Cold Distance, Katatonia’s prog undertones grew into overtones. 2012’s Dead End Kings stacked itself with symphonies and electronica, but followup The Fall Of Hearts pushed even further, becoming almost labyrinthine in its complexity.
All seven minutes of opener Takeover put the band at a new peak of maximalism, but their emotional core remained intact thanks to Renkse’s increasingly dramatic voice. The Night Subscriber dropped from lush strings to hellishly heavy metal, whereas Serac dedicated much of its bridge to a rare, extended guitar solo. Old Heart Falls and the all-acoustic Pale Flag gave fleeting glimpses of simplicity during what was otherwise the most ambitious Katatonia outing to date.
City Burials (2020)
(Image credit: Peaceville)
When touring for The Fall Of Hearts wrapped, Katatonia shockingly announced a hiatus. Mercifully, though, the break was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, with their comeback confirmed in early 2019 and a new album, City Burials, set free the following year.
Plainly, the band knew they couldn’t outdo their previous effort in the ‘epic’ stakes, so what they delivered was more episodic but still adventurous. Where Behind The Blood and Neon Epitaph threw back to the off-kilter but tight-knit metal of The Great Cold Distance, Lacquer was entirely new, emphasising sombre piano and agonised vocals. By the time finale Untrodden built up from sparse keys to blazing virtuosity, City Burials satisfied both casual listeners and prog diehards alike.
“I remember it like some people remember the Kennedy assassination. It made me want to be weird.” How watching one episode of iconic US TV show Saturday Night Live in 1980 changed future Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl’s life forever
(Image credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage)
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has been added to the line-up of the star-studded SNL50: The Homecoming Concert spectacular being staged in New York on February 14 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of US TV institution Saturday Night Live.
Grohl holds the record for the most musical appearances on the satirical late night entertainment show, having performed on SNL 15 times since 1992. And his appearance at the Valentine’s Day concert, being hosted at the storied Radio City Music Hall, will be of special significance for the 56-year-old musician because he’ll be sharing the spotlight with a band whose appearance on the show back in 1980 gave him a glimpse into an alternate reality and changed the course of his life forever.
On the evening of January 26, 1980, the 11-year-old Dave Grohl sneaked out of his family home in Springfield, Virginia to hang out with his big sister Lisa, who was babysitting for a local family. Having packed the children off to bed at the appointed hour, Lisa Grohl was watching Saturday Night Live when her little brother showed up, just in time to see host Terri Garr introduce the night’s musical guests.
The B-52s, to young Dave, were odd, so alien to his understanding of what a rock band should be that they could have descended from Mars rather than Athens, Georgia. Vocalist Fred Schneider seemed to be speaking in tongues, the two big-haired women flanking him – one blonde (Cindy Wilson), one a redhead (Kate Pierson) – were shrieking and wriggling as if they had ants in their pants, and guitarist Ricky Wilson was playing using just two strings. Then, two minutes into their performance, Schneider and Wilson tumbled to the ground, and lay twitching on the studio floor like they’d been struck by lighting.
“I remember that moment like some people remember the Kennedy assassination,” Grohl told me in 2009. “When the B-52s played Rock Lobster, honestly, that moment changed my life. The importance and impact of that on my life was huge. That people that were so strange could play this music that sounded so foreign to me and for it to be so moving … growing up in suburban Virginia, I had never even imagined something so bizarre was possible. It made me want to be weird. It just immediately made me want to give everyone the middle finger and be like, Fuck you, I wanna be like that!
“But the B-52s thing really had an impact on me, because it made me realise that there was something powerful about music that was different. It made everything else seem so vanilla. I didn’t shave a mohawk in my head, and I still loved the melodies and lyrics in my rock ‘n’ roll records, but that sent me on this mission to find things that were unusual, music that wasn’t considered normal.”
Speaking with UK music magazine Melody Maker, Grohl expanded on this musical epiphany.
“Those guitars! Two strings! How cool! Those drums! Slap slap slap! Dead easy! The women looked like they were from outer space and everything was linked in – the sleeves, the sound, the clothes, the iconography, the logo, everything. I think when you’re a kid, that’s what you’re after, a real unified feel to a band, and that’s what the B-52s offered. Their songs were so easy to learn, they got me into playing really easily. This was definitely the first thing after Kiss or Rush that totally absorbed me like that.”
Alongside the B-52s, the SNL50 show will also features appearances from Eddie Vedder, Jack White, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Devo, Post Malone and more. The show will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon, and streamed live on Peacock.
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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
Prog has teamed up with UK Steven Wilson to celebrate the release of his great new concept album The Overview to bring you this special, limited edition bundle.
You can get the brand new issue of Prog featuring Steven on the front cover, along with a mint green vinyl edition of The Overview and an individually signed art print.
Inside the new issue of Prog, Steven says of The Overview: “To pre-empt a question you’re maybe going to come to, why have I gone back to a more progressive style, it’s because that’s what the theme suggested to me. It all comes down to this idea of perspective. That immediately suggested something more longform, more conceptual and dare I say it, more progressive. It’s a prog record, yes.”
Also in the new issue are the results of the 2024 Readers’ Poll; Bill Bruford discusses his return to active music duty, as well as the Winterfold/Summerfold era of his career; Dream Theater tell us all about their first new album with Mike Portnoy since 2009; White Willow look back over their career of making music and discuss what we might expect next; Tiger Moth Tales celebrate a decade of the Cocoon album.
And Neal Morse, Matt Berry, Marko Hietala, Mogwai, Dorie Jackson and Alex Carpani all get 2025 rolling with new albums to tell everyone about.
(Image credit: Conquer Divide: Jim Louvau/Faetooth: Autry Haydon-Wilson/Avoid: Press/Defences: Press)
January is over – and good riddance! Alright, it wasn’t that bad, but we’re just itching to get stuck into the rest of 2025 with plenty of brilliant new albums to come. In that spirit (pun half-intended), we’ve got rising stars Spiritbox back on the cover of Metal Hammer ahead of the release of Tsunami Sea in March.
But while that’s well and good, we’re also bringing you fresh faces you perhaps haven’t heard of. Much as we did last month, we’ve scouted far and wide to bring you some of the most exciting sounds from across the metal and heavy spectrum, this month unearthing everything from pop-infused metalcore to self-styled fairy doom.
You can read about those brilliant bands below and also listen to our massive playlist of the hottest bands of 2025, containing the latest releases from every band featured in the New Noise section of Metal Hammer. Enjoy!
Conquer Divide
Cross-continental quintet Conquer Divide are on their second life and determined to make this one count. Formed in 2013 by Michigan-based guitarist Kristen Sturgis, she carefully handpicked her bandmates from the US, UK, and Canada to execute her ambitions for an all-female metalcore band. The fact 2015’s self-titled album has amassed more than 30 million streams proves Kristen’s vision was worth pursuing. However, with its follow-up readied, the pandemic and personal issues condemned the band to the gallows.
In hindsight, the death of their first era was a blessing. With their second album, Slow Burn, they’re back from the dead, refined and reinvigorated. Their gnarly riffs are augmented by sharper pop sensibilities for songs that can open pits and garner mainstream radio play in equal measure.
“We’ve gotten away from that classic metalcore sound,” explains Liverpudlian co-guitarist Izzy Johnson. “We have a more modern and polished sound.”
Via breakdowns and seven-string riffage aplenty, Conquer Divide get seriously heavy. Yet their pop-centric approach to songwriting means that, no matter how bruising, their music is always infectious.
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“We always start with a chord progression,” explains Izzy. “Once you take away all the instruments and effects, genres don’t matter. Some of our songs sound heavy as hell, but they’ll share a chord progression with Taylor Swift. We use the pop element to our advantage.”
The band have also worked with esteemed songwriter Johnny Andrews (Halestorm, Buckcherry, Motionless In White) and collaborated with Electric Callboy and Attack Attack!. While Izzy admits that metal bands bringing in outside help can be deemed as “taboo”, she says working with others “really helps your art flourish”.
Two UK tours, with New Years Day and Ankor, and a “heavy radio rock” single, Bad Dreams, will see the band start 2025 with a bang. Conquer Divide are hellbent on making up for lost time. Phil Weller
The Deluxe Edition of Slow Burn is out now via Mascot. Conquer Divide support Ankor on their UK tour from February 7.
Sounds Like: Gut-wrenching modern metal getting seduced by heart-churning pop hooks For Fans Of: We Came As Romans, Parkway Drive, Demi Lovato Listen To: system_failure
Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings. In the twisted literary world of The Brothers Grimm, these fantastical stories often involved harrowing ordeals, offering a reflection on the true, darker nature of reality. In a similar spirit, California’s Faetooth combine “the trials and tribulations of life” with ethereal imagery, often seeking to blur the distinction between them as they transform from moments of light, mystical shoegaze to “visceral and unsettling” heaviness.
“In these tales there is usually some kind of moral, lesson, or deeper meaning,” explains bassist/vocalist Jenna Garcia. “We’re definitely inspired by that.”
Jenna formed Faetooth in 2019 alongside guitarist/vocalist Ari May and drummer Rah Kanan. The trio – who met at high school and on Los Angeles’ DIY music scene – classify themselves as “fairy doom”, which Jenna summarises as a kind of “magical doom that is sparkly but heavy”.
So far, they’ve released the 2019 EP …An Invocation, and one full-length, 2022’s Remnants Of The Vessel. From its gossamer cleans and delicate, gorgeous riffs to its murderous, sludge-backed screams, it thrums with treacherous magic and potent rage.
“Life can suck sometimes, and not even in just our personal lives, but the world is constantly on fire,” says Jenny of what informs the album’s darker side. “So I think there are a lot of reasons to be pissed off.”
As well as fairy tales, Faetooth feed off their many interests, such as witchcraft, the occult, European folklore, psychology and horror films, including Robert Eggers’ The VVitch.
“There’s a lot of inspiration in terror and it can be so beautiful too,” says Ari. “It’s often really poetic.”
This year they’ll release their second LP, which they’re currently recording. “We’ve somehow gotten heavier and softer at the same time,” says Jenna of the album, while Ari promises it will be “depressing in the best way possible.” Liz Scarlett
Faetooth play Roadburn Festival in April and Download Festival in June. Their new album is expected later this year.
Sounds Like: Being lost in the woods of another realm, sword-in-hand, surrounded by bloodthirsty creatures For Fans Of: Chelsea Wolfe, King Woman, Thou Listen To: Echolalia
Avoid have one of the more eyebrow-raising biographies on Spotify. Described as what would happen “if Dale Earnhardt, Guy Fieri and Steve-O started a Spinal Tap cover band”, it somehow manages to be completely spot-on yet massively inaccurate. It conveys their infectious enthusiasm and the general goofiness of their catchy metalcore anthems, even if they sound nothing like Derek Smalls and co.
Formed in Seattle when its members were just 14 years old, the band spent their school years as “the local opener for every metalcore band coming through town”, according to singer Benny Scholl. After graduating, they realised that continuing the band would be a good excuse to keep hanging out together, so kept playing. They’ve since built a wave of momentum and are entering 2025 with a new album on the way. They’re also branching out beyond what would traditionally be considered metalcore.
Avoid’s music incorporates hip hop and electronica influences, and Benny sees no problem with pushing the boundaries.
“We’re not gatekeepers,” he says. “There are no rules with music. If you’re having fun and being creative, you’ll figure out something that hits for you. People say, ‘You can’t put a blastbeat there.’ Why not?”
It’s a wide-eyed, genre-hopping approach with a keen sense of fun, but it’s not all silly, lightweight fluff. Avoid use positivity as an act of rebellion and want to be a light in the dark.
“I hope that we can continue to create a space with our band where everyone feels welcome, even though our country isn’t doing a great job at that. Sometimes you have to be able to find the humour in a sad thing, and smile through the pain, or else the other shit wins, and that’s when it gets real scary.” Tim Bolitho-Jones
Burn is out now via UFND.
Sounds Like: Upbeat and catchy metalcore with a smattering of hip hop and electronica For Fans Of: The Word Alive, Fall Out Boy, Bleed From Within Listen To: Burn
When asked to give an elevator pitch for Shadowlight, their latest full-length album, the members of alt metal band Defences strike decidedly different tones. Vocalist Cherry Duesbury declares the record is “a journey towards acceptance”. Meanwhile, with a cheeky grin, guitarist Calum Wilmot suggests it sounds like “Silent Hill if it had breakdowns and choruses”.
It’s one hell of a juxtaposition, but one that isn’t entirely unfounded. Taking its title from Jungian psychotherapy, Shadowlight is fixated on contrasts: darkness and light, melody and heaviness, internal and external.
“It’s an amalgamation of all our personal influences from within alternative music,” Calum explains. “We wanted to say something very honest. Although it’s very personal, I think fun was also probably more at the forefront of this record than perhaps it has been in the past.”
This desire for joy translates to some of the Hertfordshire quintet’s most urgent material to date. Whether it’s through Perish’s quaking riffs crashing against soaring melodies, Gold In The Dark’s harsh screams and synth lines dancing around metalcore progressions and pop crescendos, or the towering heights of Cherry’s angelic clean register on The Almost, Shadowlight proves the group have what it takes to stand with the UK’s current alt metal vanguard.
Ultimately, however, the strength of Shadowlight hinges on seeking authenticity through storytelling, as Defences seek to channel vulnerability into a creative vessel for personal growth.
“I was ready to make changes and start a new chapter of my life,” Cherry explains. “I had this vision of a different version of myself that was a bit more whole than I was at the time. I started to take steps to go on that journey, and that’s essentially what the album is: a journey from darkness into light.” Owen Morawitz
Shadowlight is out now via Long Branch.
Sounds Like: A seductive modern metal serenade For Fans Of: As Everything Unfolds, Sleep Token, Gore. Listen To: The Almost
Defences – The Almost (Official Visualiser) – YouTube
Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token.
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