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1 week ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie |Oswaldo Cepeda
Following a string of releases that spanned everything from Disney to spooky season, Magnolia Park have taken their storytelling talents even further with their fourth album, VAMP. The follow-up to 2023’s Halloween Mixtape II, guitarist Tristan Torres explains that the band’s new LP chronicles “an insane, cyberpunk dystopian world, Nocturne Nexus, where vampires have to fight against a Final Fantasy-type organisation to save the world.” So far, so intriguing, right?
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4 weeks ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
In Welcome To The Darkness, the 2023 documentary chronicling the rise, fall and mighty comeback of Lowestoft's finest, Justin Hawkins reflects upon his initial, rather short-sighted vision for the band. “I used to have a very clear idea of how everything would play out,” he recalls, shirt unbuttoned to the naval, his legs crossed to reveal a pair of yellow leather shoes.
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1 month ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
Let's face it: for sheer impact, it would be nigh on impossible for Tsunami Sea to possess the same gut punch as Spiritbox’s debut album, 2021’s Eternal Blue. Heralding, as it did, the emergence of a breakout force in metal that, lest we forget, didn’t actually play a show in the UK until 2022, it set them on the road to becoming the stars of their generation.
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1 month ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie |Andrew Lipovsky
March 5, 2025Words:James HickiePhotography:Andrew LipovskyWhen it comes to storytelling, do you need to know more about the author to have a greater appreciation of their creations? It’s a question Coheed And Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez is pondering today – and has been for some time.
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1 month ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
If you've avoided the fangs of Raging Speedhorn’s decidedly British, rather dastardly, brand of sludge metal up to now, then Night Wolf is unlikely to grab you. That’s a shame, though, because since returning from their hiatus in 2014, the Corby louts have been on the upswing, with Lost Ritual (2016) and Hard To Kill (2020) providing increasingly enjoyable soundtracks to heavy sessions.
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1 month ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
Here it is, then – the latest pendulum swing from Architects. With their last two albums, For Those That Wish To Exist (2021) and the classic symptoms of a broken spirit (2022), the Brighton heroes did the one thing no one had expected of them: diverting from the musical and thematic heaviness of the records that had come before, paring down the technicality in order to do more with less, which, for them, presented a fresh challenge.
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1 month ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
DETOX arrives in conjunction with ONE OK ROCK’s 20th anniversary as a band. During their career, the Tokyo rockers have wowed the Warped Tour, released their own documentary, and played enormodomes in their native Japan – as well as sizeable venues far from home (including London’s OVO Arena Wembley last October). Listening to DETOX, a record full of assured anthems, it’s easy to see why they’ve achieved that success, even if this is far from their best effort.
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2 months ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
And just like that, we have a new A Day To Remember record. And while it hasn't quite come out of the blue, given the release of tantalising single Feedback last May, that was nine months ago so you can imagine that even the most ardent followers waiting for album number eight may have cooled their heels by now.
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2 months ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
Back in November, just as Killswitch Engage unleashed barnstorming single Forever Aligned, its creators lifted the lid to Kerrang! on the record it heralded. Their ninth album, it soon became clear, had many questions about the unjustness of a world where, as Leonard Cohen once wrote, ‘Everybody knows the fight was fixed / The poor stay poor, the rich get rich’.
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2 months ago | 
kerrang.com | James Hickie
Single take.one.minute., for instance, is the answer to the question of what it would sound like having members of Linkin Park guest with My Bloody Valentine, but is way more refined than that description suggests. Evelyn is shoegazing prog as festival headline slot – ebbing and flowing around the ears as if band mastermind Cameron Humphrey were rendering his efforts live in front of you.
