The Nopes – Nectar of the Dogs EP
If your vision of California rock n roll begins and ends with lap dancers on the Sunset Strip, riding your steel motorcycle into the romantic sunset or worrying about dockside industrial relations,...
View ArticleJessica Lee Wilkes – Lone Wolf EP
For those of you with a forensic eye for detail, you’ll probably know that Jessica Lee Wilkes has spent the past few years plying her musical trade with JD Wilkes (her husband) and the Dirt Daubers....
View ArticleWar Waves – War Waves
If art is a manifestation of the human spirit and the human heart, then I wouldn’t have liked to have gone through the emotional pain and heartache that War Waves lead singer and chief protagonist Marc...
View ArticleLamb of God – VII: Sturm Und Drang
About halfway through Lamb of God’s magnificent new album, 'Sturm Und Drang' (Nuclear Blast) vocalist Randy Blythe screams into the microphone: “How the FUCK did you think this would end?!” It’s both a...
View ArticleEcstatic Vision – Sonic Praise
There used to be an old gag doing the rounds of bars and clubs. It went a bit like this: “I see that Rollin’ Stones guitarist Keith Richards has joined the campaign against hard drug use. Don’t do...
View ArticleTrailight – The Primitive Mountain
What are you supposed to do when you’ve got a love of Rush, progressive metal, Tool and all things prog? That’s right, you head off and make one of the most immersive and complete prog rock escapades...
View ArticleSoulfly – Archangel
So, the facts: 'Archangel' (Nuclear Blast) is Soulfly’s 10th album. It has 10 tracks of thrash based heaviness with occasional flourishes of groove metal. It has a lead off single called ‘We Sold Our...
View ArticleYear Of The Goat – The Unspeakable
In this album reviewing game, and it is a game, most new releases tend to fall into two distinct camps. Camp One is the camp of the major releases from established artists that everyone falls over...
View ArticleGhost – Meliora
It is testimony to how far our favourite Scandinavian Satan botherers, Ghost, have entered the heavy metal consciousness that that much of the internet chatter regarding their latest album of curiously...
View ArticleIron Maiden – The Book of Souls
The arrival of a new Iron Maiden album is nearly always something to be celebrated. Probably the most consistently inventive and compelling heavy metal band of the past thirty years, the band’s new...
View ArticleBetween The Buried And Me – Haken: Live at Electric Ballroom
There used to be a misapprehension that “feel” and technique were mutually exclusive, particularly if your act was of the progressive nature. Musicians were either in a deep, trance state where...
View ArticleThunderMother – Road Fever
Sometimes, it’s a relief to go back to basics and consider a record as unfettered entertainment: no airs, no graces, just solid rock n roll that makes you bang your head and punch the air in vicarious...
View ArticleNew Day Rocks – Mikko Von Hertzen of Von Hertzen Brothers
On their latest trip to the UK, Ghost Cult caught up with Mikko Von Hertzen of the Von Hertzen Brothers where, over very strong espressos to nurse away hangovers, we talked about touring, more touring...
View ArticleCross Country – Dustie Waring of Between The Buried And Me
It’s been a long two years of waiting for UK fans of prog metal pioneers Between the Buried and Me. Now, fresh from the summer release of the widely acclaimed 'Coma Ecliptic' (Metal Blade), Ghost Cult...
View ArticleClutch – Psychic Warfare
Most modern music careers go a little bit like this. Write a good (or even great) record. Become popular. Have that “difficult second album” syndrome. Get less popular but retain a fan base. Record a...
View ArticleThe Winery Dogs – Hot Streak
The Winery Dogs self-titled debut album arrived back in 2013 to little fanfare - it was (yet) another side project for the hardest working man in music, the ridiculously prolific Mike Portnoy....
View ArticleBehold! the Monolith – Architects of the Void
For all the talk of sophisticated song structures, syncopated rhythms and harmonised vocalising that can often dominate reviews of records nowadays, sometimes it’s just nice to sit back, relax and be...
View ArticleShining – International Black Jazz Society
Shining’s striking breakthrough album 'Blackjazz' was routinely namechecked by people who know about these sorts of things as one of the records of 2010. Its follow up, the more industrial soaked...
View ArticleChron Goblin – Backwater
Canada’s Chron Goblin may be a new name on you (well, they were a new name on me, anyway) but they have plied their trade for a few years now and 'Backwater' (Ripple), their third full length release,...
View ArticleThe Ghost Cult Album of the Year for 2015: Ghost – Meliora
The Ghost Cult Album of the Year for 2015: Ghost - Meliora Continue reading → The post The Ghost Cult Album of the Year for 2015: Ghost – Meliora appeared first on Ghost Cult Magazine.
View ArticleDVD Round Up – The Rolling Stones, The Jam, Black Stone Cherry, Ritchie...
If the surfeit of Christmas tinsel, chocolate and nostalgia is enough to drive you to immerse yourself in a VAT of Jaegermeister, or if you have already had enough of Christmas “specials” of television...
View ArticleGhost – Dead Soul: Live at Koko, London
Ghost are the sort of band that attract a huge diversity of fans, all with an intensity of support and admiration for the Swedish occult rockers and their penchant for matters Satanic and enormous,...
View ArticleThe White Buffalo – Love and the Death of Damnation
According to those who are, supposedly, in the “know”, the album is dead and the only thing that we are interested in now, whether on our streaming service of choice, our iPods or laptops are the hits,...
View ArticleMetal Mark McPheeters Joins Ghost Cult, Mat Davies Promoted To Senior Editor...
Metal Mark McPheeters Joins Ghost Cult, Mat Davies Promoted To Senior Editor in the UK Continue reading → The post Metal Mark McPheeters Joins Ghost Cult, Mat Davies Promoted To Senior Editor in the UK...
View ArticleChuck Billy Of Testament Talks Brotherhood Of The Snake
It’s the hottest day of the year so far in London and before you start imagining a lovely picture of a sundrenched European capital with happy citizens, joyfully going about their business, well, think...
View ArticleGod Damn- Everything Ever
When you release an album as strong and visceral as "Vultures" as your début calling card which British rock band God Damn did in 2015- then you might forgive the band for heading their bets when it...
View ArticleIon Dissonance- Cast the First Stone
Whilst many in the world of heavy metal will have been spending the last few weeks speculating and gesticulating about whether the new Metallica album is any good (spolier alert: it is), a fair few at...
View ArticleZeal & Ardor – Devil is Fine
How open-minded are you? I mean, really properly open-minded, not just trying to be too-cool-for-school open-minded? I ask the question because this beguiling, genre twisting and highly evocative...
View ArticleMachine Head – Catharsis
If it feels like another lifetime since Robb Flynn invited us all to let freedom ring with a shotgun blast that’s because, well, it is. In the intervening years, Flynn and his Machine Head bandmates...
View ArticleFuneral Shakes – Funeral Shakes
This eponymous début album from Watford’s Funeral Shakes (Silent Cult) is the sort of record that could be part of rebuilding your faith that your favourite rock’n’roll band can still be the last gang...
View ArticleBlack Moth – Anatomical Venus
Anatomical Venus (New Heavy Sounds), the third album from doomy Stoner Rock outfit Black Moth is the sort of album that can get those usually jaded rock critics very excited indeed. It has a number of...
View ArticleThe Dead Daisies – Burn it Down
In the ever-changing world of rock and metal, where scenes and trends seem to come and go as quickly as fashion seasons, there is an argument for reliability and consistency; a bolt hole for knowing...
View ArticleBetween The Buried And Me – Automata 1
Surpassing expectations is never an easy thing to do. In the case of North Carolina’s Between The Buried And Me, the speculation over what this most idiosyncratic of bands would do next has ranged from...
View ArticleIhsahn –Ámr
Confession time, part one. Ihsahn has been one of those artists that I have found much easier to admire than love. Whilst that admiration has been sincere and deeply held from his time in Black Metal...
View ArticleFive Finger Death Punch – And Justice for None
If there is one phrase that is certain to make your humble scribe’s blood boil, then it is that oft-used lazy epithet, “guilty pleasure”. This particular phrase became common currency at the start of...
View ArticleSvalbard – It’s Hard to Have Hope
When someone uses the words “It’s a grower”, it is invariably journalistic shorthand for a record that they wish they liked more than they did on first listen. There are lots of reasons for this: the...
View ArticleZeal & Ardor – Stranger Fruit
It would be fair to say that Zeal & Ardor’s arrival in the conscious of the metal scene in the early part of 2017 was greeted with a combination of surprise, incredulity and excitement. There...
View ArticleLucifer – Lucifer II
Whilst there is no pre-requisite for nominative determinism in music, when you call your band Lucifer, you do set a bit of an expectation that your sound is going to, at the very least, a bit dark and...
View ArticleRise Against – The Ghost Note Symphonies Vol. 1
In a move that shouldn’t have surprised anyone given the band’s long standing modesty, the sudden appearance of new music from Rise Against still feels like it came out of nowhere. 'The Ghost Note...
View ArticleAlice In Chains – Rainier Fog
Even if F. Scott Fitzgerald’s maxim that “There are no second acts in American lives” has anything approaching a ring of truth, then, clearly, no-one told Seattle’s Alice in Chains. It is now sixteen...
View ArticleTherapy? – Cleave
'Cleave' (Marshall) marks a return to the sound that was perhaps best exemplified by their 1994 classic album 'Troublegum' (A&M). Songs as infectious as a cold on the first day of school and an...
View ArticleBlack Peaks – Bossk – Gold Key: Live at The Underworld
It’s a sell-out. This won’t come as any surprise to those who have followed the rapid, upward trajectory of Brighton’s Black Peaks but this is, as they say, a bit of a “moment” for a band that many...
View ArticleArchitects – Holy Hell
Well, prepare to buckle your swashes, gird your loins and grab yourself a massive thesaurus because you are about to go on the hunt for the lost superlative. 'Holy Hell' is a record of sublime fury; a...
View ArticleFever 333 – Strength in Numb333rs
Confession time: I came late to the letlive party. So late, in fact, that the band were just about to call it a day when I decided that they were, you know, more than just pretty good. Yes, that kind...
View ArticleArchitects: Live at Wembley Arena, London
And so, to Architects at Wembley Arena. You start off with one of those angel/devil on your shoulder conversations about how this could be a really great way to spend a Saturday night or, conversely,...
View ArticleIthaca – The Language Of Injury
Those of you with a keen ear to the underground Metal scene will doubtless already be familiar with Metallic Hardcore outfit Ithaca. Whilst it has been several years in its genesis, The Language Of...
View ArticleO.R.k. – Ramagehead
No, I have no idea what a Ramagehead is either, but this quixotic and enigmatic title seems entirely apposite for a third album of psychedelic Progressive Rock from this most discerning and intriguing...
View ArticleAC/DC’s – Highway To Hell Turns Forty
It was a very different world in July 1979 when AC/DC released their sixth album, the iconic slab of tune-filled granite we have loved and revered for 40 years. Jimmy Carter was President of the United...
View ArticleA Letter to Neil Peart
Dear Neil, I’m writing this letter and Permanent Waves is playing in the background. You don’t know me and, with your passing on the 7th January 2020, I guess we will have to make our acquaintance in...
View ArticleGhost Cult Mourns the Loss of Writer Mathew Davies
We are terribly saddened by the news today that our beloved veteran scribe Mathew Davies has passed away after a long illness. He was 49. The news was shared by his wonderful wife Susan and many...
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