Gary’s albums of the year venture away from our more standard metal selection with a bunch of stellar punk releases from bands like The Bar Stool Preachers, Grade 2, The Darts, The Dollyrots, Rumkicks and Rancid, but also sidesteps into other music like the special brand of rock that Public Image Ltd. brings, blues rock with Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton, an acoustic Dropkick Murphys and a trip back into time, reminiscing about London’s legendary Batcave Club!
While we are still regularly looking back at what 2023 brought us, we of course also need to look forward. So here is the first edition of our 2024 series of articles where we bring the editorial team’s most anticipated releases with Escuela Grind, Green Day, The Empire Strikes, Saxon, Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Static-X, The Gems, Lucifer, Manticora and Hiraes in January!
With Glenn’s selection of his albums of the year, there is a bunch of metalcore, deathcore, djent and some surprising entries with Thy Art Is Murder, Avenged Sevenfold, Within Temptation, Tesseract, Avatar, In Flames, Sleep Token, Periphery, Invent Animate, and Chelsea Grin!
Our resident extreme metal reviewer Mazen has a selection of stellar (mostly) black and death metal releases as his favorite of the year with Sulphur Aeon, Varathron, Moonlight Sorcery, Cruciamentum, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Asphodelus, Marduk, …And Oceans, and Cirith Ungol!
Annet’s favorite albums of the year 2023 involve a mix of punk rock and modern metal, bringing in loads of emotions going from deep and intense, to fun and light with albums from Green Day, Enter Shikari, Hexa Mera, Chris Maragoth, Powerwolf, Nanowar of Steel, Angus McSix, Blink-182, Gloryhammer and Bury Tomorrow!
The summer festival season is over, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of exciting fests happening over the next couple of months this autumn/winter in Finland with Helsinki Techfest and Kaamos Metal Cruise already this weekend, HKI SKEPU FEST V, Lost In Music, Steelchaos, Hellsinki Industrial Festival 2023, Fall Fest 2023, Black Box Mikkeli, Melancholy Mass Festival 2023 and Unholy Winter Fest!
For the third and last day of Alcatraz 2023, our team picked out 10 more bands we believe you shouldn’t miss out on with Serpents Oath, Archspire, Psychonaut, Mantah, Gaupa, Stake, Blind Guardian, Brutus, Killswitch Engage, and Holy Moses! Who are you especially looking forward to on the second day of the festival?
For the second day of Alcatraz 2023, our team picked out 13 bands we believe you shouldn’t miss out on with Schizophrenia, Crystal Viper, Brand of Sacrifice, Twilight Force, Gaerea, Predatory Void, Midnight, Tribulation, Belphegor, Biohazard, Godflesh, Exciter and Amorphis! Who are you especially looking forward to on the second day of the festival?
Alcatraz 2023 is getting really close now! This Friday is the first day, and our team picked out 10 bands we believe you shouldn’t miss out on with Eleine, Wind Rose, Frozen Soul, Gnome, Kludde, Svalbard, Gaahls Wyrd, Possessed, I Am Morbid and Mad Sin! Who are you especially looking forward to on the first day of the festival?
With less than 2 weeks to go, we put together 10 reasons why we think you should consider to still get yourself a ticket for Alcatraz 2023 and join in with the fun!
