Following on from last weekend’s event, organizers of the Steelhouse Festival have announced that early bird prices will be frozen at this year’s price of £55 for the first 500 bookings. The fifth anniversary edition of the festival, which takes place at Hafod-Y-Dafal Farm, just outside Ebbw Vale in southern …

When fiesty Scottish trio The Amorettes pulled into the backstage car park at the Steelhouse festival this past Saturday, they were fully expecting to able to relax with a few beers and catch a few of the other bands before their opening slot the following afternoon. What they found, instead, …

Scheduled to play Saturday’s early evening slot at this past weekend’s Steelhouse Festival, flight delays resulted in Electric Boys‘ 15 hour journey from Stockholm to a Welsh mountain top ending just as they were due to finish their alloted set… A bit of juggling with stage times resulted in the …

Half of PlanetMosh’s Belfast team endured flight delays, endless roundabouts and hikes up and down mountains to enjoy the various delights of the annual Steelhouse festival in Ebbw Vale. While there, we took the opporunity to sit down for a cold beer with our fellow countrymen, Paul Mahon (pictured right) …

I seriously think it says something about heavy metal gigs when there is one thing you notice which is conspicuous by it’s absence – and that is security!  Apart from one guy nonchalantly leaning against the DJ booth, and another languidly lazing at the top of the steps leading to …

The opportunity to catch the charismatic former double World Superbikes champion James Toseland live for the first time was one of the highlights of this past weekend’s Steelhouse Festival in south Wales, for the PlanetMosh Belfast team at least. Before he took to the stage in the glorious sunshine of …

With the launch of their new album, ‘Sunset On The Golden Age’, scheduled for August 1, PlanetMosh pulled up a tri-cornered stool, cracked open a bottle of the finest liberated rum and fired up ye olde telephony thingymajig to the captain of the good ship Alestorm – vocalist Chris Bowes …

As part of our continuing build up to this weekend’s fourth annual Steelhouse Festival, PlanetMosh chatted with the beautiful Skarlett from Skarlett Riot about the event and her band: Skarlett Riot play Steelhouse on Saturday (June 19), alongside Black Star Riders, Sebastian Bach, Electric Boys, The Graveltones, Tax The Heat, …

As part of our continuing build up to this weekend’s Steelhouse Festival, PlanetMosh grabs a chat with Jack Taylor, drummer with Bristol’s Tax The Heat, who’ll be popping over the Severn on Saturday to appear alongside the likes of the Black Star Riders, Sebastian Bach and Buffalo Summer. We started …

According to those who know about such things (in this case Wikipedia), ‘metal fatigue’ refers to repeated progressive and localized structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loadings.  In the case of tonight’s gig, it could equally refer to the damage caused to the local metal …

This box set is one of those kind that brings together a number of a particular band’s album in a cheap and cheerful manner… In this case, the collection marks the latter stages of hugely under-rated German melodic hard rockers Fair Warning‘s career, from 1997’s patchy ‘Go!’ through to 2000’s …

Europe headline the second night of the fourth annual Steelhouse Festival, being staged just outside Ebbw Vale in south Wales, on Sunday July 20.   As part of our build-up to the event, PlanetMosh put in an early morning call to frontman Joey Tempest to discuss the gig – which …

The over-riding question which immediately springs to mind – as it inevitably does with any act with a pedigree stretching back some 45 years, plus a back catalogue which is one of the most iconic and influential in heavy metal – is “are Judas Priest still relevant today?”.  It is …

Like most self-respecting music fans, I have a real bee in my bonnet about so-called “celebrities” attempting to jump on the rawk ‘n’ roll bandwagon and establish their street creds by recording an album and playing a few gigs before returning to their various degrees of infamy and disappearing back …

The line-up for the second stage at the PlanetMosh-backed Monsters Of Rot festival, being held in Letterbreen in County Fermanagh on Saturday August 16, has now been completed. This is the first time the festival has featured a second stage, which will feature sets from Phoresy, Cthl Rdgrs, Maximum Terrorem, …

Northern Ireland metallians Cursed Sun return to action this summer, with a new EP, ‘The Fall And Rise’ (artwork pictured right). The band will precede the release with a pair of new videos.  The first of these, for the song ‘Unleashed’ – from the band’s debut album, ‘Premonitions’ – will …

This lavish re-issue of VS’s 1998 opus is very much – as it was originally – a companion piece to the also re-packaged ‘The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell I+II (reviewed here:  http://planetmosh.com/virgin-steele-the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell-iii/) – and indeed serves as the third instalment of what eventually would become a quartet of themed …

There’s a saying about first impressions being misleading, and this certainly was the case the first time that this reviewer listened to the latest, sixth full-length offering from Atlanta’s finest musical export.  The initial wave of reaction which not so much swept over me but lapped mildly at my ankles …

It could be argued that, over the past 30 years, Virgin Steele have been one of the most maligned, under-rated and controversial – the latter in respect of the fact that they divide fans straight down the middle of the love ’em or hate ’em divide – metal bands of …

The sun may be beating down outside, and Belfast threatening to enjoy some some of (quite possibly foreshortened) summer, but that doesn’t stop the hardiest of the city’s black clad metallians gathering (not quite in their masses) and heading indoors to the sanctity of the equally darkened Slimer for another …