recent from Signed Bands
3 Inches Of Blood – Long Live Heavy Metal
Something I’ve always wondered as a musician and a music fan is how much of your influences should be shown in your music. For instance, when I was learning to play, I learnt from the chunky, harmonic laden riffs of Zakk Wylde and I do take great joy in...
recent from Unsigned Bands
Beyond The Grave – The Human Tide
Over the years I’ve heard many demos and albums from unsigned bands. Generally they fall in to two categories, either they get recorded in a band member’s bedroom, recorded and mixed by one person and they end up sounding very amateur, or the band...
recent from Live Shows
Veil Of Maya/Betraying The Martyrs/Vildhjarta – O2 Academy Newcastle
It’s not often a troupe of hotly tipped metal bands makes its way through Newcastle. In fact it’s pretty damn rare that a trio of bands come through, let alone five at the same time. But, tonight, 5 young, enthusiastic and heavily promising bands packed their way into the upstairs room at the O2...
recent from Albums You Should Own
Steve Vai – Passion & Warfare
I think we all know that I’m a guitar geek. I’ve made it clear in many of my reviews that I love guitar work, especially when it’s done particularly well. It’s why I love instrumental music, in all it’s forms. From the melodic, smooth end that is Joe...
Posted by
admin on May 18, 2012 in
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Something I’ve always wondered as a musician and a music fan is how much of your influences should be shown in your music. For instance, when I was learning to play, I learnt from the chunky, harmonic laden riffs of Zakk Wylde and I do take great joy in playing like that. But I always worry when I’m writing if having such...
Posted by
admin on May 6, 2012 in
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The internet is an amazing thing. It brings people together from all over the world, provides us with unlimited information and even caters to the seediest underbellies of human existence. Over the past few years, the internet has also helped countless bands. From Enter Shikari’s shameless plundering of MySpace as a promotional...
Posted by
admin on May 6, 2012 in
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It’s not often a troupe of hotly tipped metal bands makes its way through Newcastle. In fact it’s pretty damn rare that a trio of bands come through, let alone five at the same time. But, tonight, 5 young, enthusiastic and heavily promising bands packed their way into the upstairs room at the O2 Academy for a night of riffs, screaming and a lot more singers than...
I think we all know that I’m a guitar geek. I’ve made it clear in many of my reviews that I love guitar work, especially when it’s done particularly well. It’s why I love instrumental music, in all it’s forms. From the melodic, smooth end that is Joe Satriani to the million miles an hour wank-fest (yes, that’s a term...
Posted by
admin on Apr 27, 2012 in
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So it was announced this week that Roadrunner Records will be closing offices around the world. On the hit list are the UK, Canadian, Dutch, Australian and German offices (with the potential for a few more to go) as well as a certain degree of staff at the main US office. A further casualty of the cull is founder/CEO Cees Wessells has stepped down as the head of the label that...
Posted by
admin on Apr 22, 2012 in
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Metal is one of the genres which has always been considered truly world wide. Bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden play gigs literally all over the world. In recent years bands have taken great strides playing gigs in areas where western bands rarely tread, such as the Balkans and the middle east. Western bands are starting to play...
Posted by
admin on Mar 23, 2012 in
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It’s strange how when you look outside of what’s familiar you can be pleasantly surprised. Last year, through a random email, I was exposed to the quite spectacular debut album from Italian band Xternals. If they hadn’t emailed me and asked me to do a review for them, then I’d have never been exposed to their...
Devin Townsend is an odd bloke. Having been kicking around the metal scene since he provided the vocals on the superb Steve Vai album Sex And Religion he’s been steadily (and fairly independently) releasing albums under a variety of projects and bands. From the crackers Strapping Young Lad band to his own Devin Townsend Project, he’s made a name for himself with...
Posted by
admin on Mar 1, 2012 in
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Six years. It’s been six long years since Rammstein did a full UK tour. I mean, yes, they’ve done the odd dates here and there, and a run of about 4 dates in 2010, but thats not a full UK tour, thats a hop across the Channel. But, on the leap day itself, Rammstein brought their Made In Germany tour to Newcastle and made sure that the wait was worthwhile.
Opening up...
Posted by
admin on Feb 22, 2012 in
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As a guitarist, I like to think I’m pretty good. I know I’m not as good as I possibly could be, but to be honest, I don’t have 9 hours a day to dedicate to playing. However, despite me knowing my limitations, I rarely ever listen to anything and feel inferior. I’m confident in my abilities and knowing that...
Posted by
admin on Feb 15, 2012 in
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By this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that I have become a massive djent fanboy, seeing as I’ve reviewed most of the djent big hitters, like TesseracT and Chimp Spanner, as well as the newer upstarts like Visions. To be honest, you’re right for thinking that, I absolutely adore the djent subgenre, I love the melody, the dissonance and the bonkers...
Posted by
admin on Feb 9, 2012 in
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It’s not always all about the metal here at MWD towers. Not at all. Variety is, after all the spice of life. I dabble in most genres of music, from rap, to dance, to ska and even indie (though it is mostly all about the metal). Indie music is often a little guilty pleasure for me. Sometimes the melodies and hooks...
Posted by
admin on Feb 1, 2012 in
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Lacuna Coil are a bit of a weird subject for me. They are one of those bands that are ever present to me, always in my periphery but never right at the front of my attention. I reviewed them last year on their last tour and at the time, I was quite impressed by them. They were great live, up there with the best of their...
Ah January. Traditionally, the grimmest month of the year. Christmas is over, new years is over, you’re broke, the resolutions aren’t resolving and (like this January), it’s bastard freezing. So what can you do to get over this annual affront to your sensibilities? Well, I suggest you crack on with some solid metal efforts.
Now, I know over the last...
Posted by
admin on Jan 31, 2012 in
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You have to have a sense of humour when listening to death metal. For me, its impossible to listen to it without smiling, the inherent silliness of some of the bands is more than I can handle some times. Take Cannibal Corpse and their ludicrous song titles such as Hammer Smashed Face or Followed Home And Killed or the...
