Belfast’s “friendly neighbourhood thrashers” Scimitar having been making quite a name for themselves on the local scene over the past year and a bit.  As the four piece prepare to rip up another stage, this time at the PlanetMosh-sponsored Helloween Havok this coming Friday (November 1st), I pull up a …

The latest instalment of the weekly RocKD’s epic 13-year odyssey brought together another damn fine trio of bands who once again demonstrated the extremely rude state of health which the Northern Ireland metal scene is enjoying at the moment (as anyone who attended the recent Highway To Hell event in …

With one of Belfast’s favourite night’s out, Helloween Havoc, returning after a year’s sabbatical this coming Friday (November 1st), PlanetMosh will be publishing exclusive interviews with the five participating bands over the next five days. First to step into the interrogation chamber is Mark Payne, bassist with Christian extreme metallers ForChristSake.  …

With the band about to release of a ‘Best Of…’ compilation, followed by a return to these shores on a co-headlining jaunt with Hardcore Superstar, PlanetMosh caught up with guitarist Keith Nelson (pictured right) in Massachusetts, on the last night of the band’s most recent US tour. What happened next …

There aren’t many bands who hang around for 30 years before releasing their first album, but German progressive power metallers Javelin most certainly fall into that category:  despite having previously released two EPs (with a 12 year gap between them, it must be said), the quintet have certainly taken their …

Music journalists are not supposed to get personal about things – but, then, a review is a personal opinion on the subject thereof, so we can’t really help but do what we’re not supposed to do, can we?  So, to speak personally at the outset, I find compilation albums both …

A little month to go before their official return to the UK, Aussie hellraisers Airbourne picked the best possible place outside their homeland to do what they do best, and that is raise the aforesaid hell… with plenty of merriment thrown in, as they stopped off for almost a full …

Having only completed the mammoth touring cycle in support of their ‘Murder The Mountains’ album at the beginning of the summer, Oregon quartet Red Fang have wasted very little time indeed in recording and releasing this follow up, their third full lengther. The one thing that comes across with this …

Italian quintet Holy Cross claim to be “breaking new ground” by attempting to cross traditional power metal and classic thrash: unfortunately for them it’s a cross-pollination which has been attempted many times before – with varying degrees of success. Equally unfortunately for Holy Cross, their attempt is by far one …

Over the past half a decade, Los Angeles’ Warbringer have produced three of the best new age thrash albums of recent years – a triptych of work which has taken its inspiration from the sound of genre pioneers such as Exodus, Exciter and Testament and brought it up to date …

Hailing from my native Belfast, Nomadic Rituals play sludgy doom so dark and dense it sounds like it has been buried deep in a peat bog a hundred or so miles south of the city and then dragged, slowly and inexorably, to the surface by a team of unsuspecting musical …

A band who first came together when the two guitarists – Jansen Press and Vincent Martinez – jammed at a music industry event back in 2009, Carousel Vertigo will be well-known to the Status Quo fans among our readers, as they were the support band of choice on the latter’s …

While I’ve often bemoaned poor attendances at gigs on ‘school nights’, it always pleasing to see some shows buck the trend, as it were, and so it is a genuine pleasure to be able to report, right at the outset, that, despite it being a Sunday, there was a very …

Berkshire five piece Primitai have been honing their particular brand of 80s-inspired traditional heavy metal riffery for a little over a decade years now, and this, their third album, is further consolidation of their position of the best young bands purveying this particular style of metal-foolery. While their 2007 debut …

I’m going to lay my cards on the table right from the off and state, with supreme confidence, that this was one of the best – if not THE best – live performances by a local band in front of a local crowd that I have seen, certainly in a …

Tonight’s gig – unbeknownst in advance – turned out to be something of a victory for live music here in Belfast.  Despite its history as the premier rock venue in the city, the Limelight (now with the suffix ‘2’ to signify the fact that it is the smaller of the …

The Diamond Rock Club, buried deep in the County Antrim hills, seems to be the venue of choice for Glaswegian troupe Attica Rage to end up their tours, as this is the second such occasion they’ve chosen the best li’l rock club on the island of Ireland to host their …

Having released their excellent debut album in May – and despite vocalist Lyla D’Souza expecting her first child around the time of release – London quintet Kill For Eden aren’t hanging around with this hard-hitting triptych of an EP. The three songs are fiery and intense, filled with true rock …

Yet another all-star project by Italian brothers Amos and Pierpaulo Monti, this time recruiting Wheels Of Fire vocalist Davide Barbieri to their ranks, along with a veritable who’s who of guests from the entire spectrum of the European AOR scene, this eponymous debut album is nothing more and nothing less …

Dresden’s Beissert may be deeply steeped in Satanism but they have the ballsy bravura needed to take their belief system out of what would many would regard as the traditional format for ‘black metal’ and take it to a new dimension, combining groove metal, industrial and thrash in a way …