Blog: Thrash Hits

It's Friday. You've had a crappy week. Right now you're stuck in front of a computer, probably doing some boring nonsense work when you'd either a) be in the pub, or b) like us, wish you were at Hammerfest. Well we're not, you're not, and we're annoyed about it. We've got a lot of aggression we need to work out. Which is why we're damn glad Cannibal Corpse have just released their video for 'Encased In Concrete' . However, unlike the subjects of Corpsegrinder's fictitious ire, [...]

Hevy Festival have made their second line-up announcement for 2012, adding nineteen more bands to their bill- including the identity of their Sunday night headliner: Descendents . Not only will the legendary punk band be headlining the punk and hardcore fest, but it'll be the only UK festival show they'll be playing all year. They're not the only UK exclusive bagged by Hevy either. Among the other eighteen names that have officially joined the Hevy 2012 bill today, H2O, Shai Hulud, Listener, Rise and Fall, and Reign Supreme will all be [...]

When Pelican announced they'd be doing their first UK shows in four years this April, the first thing Hugh Platt did was cry for joy. The second thing he did was call up their drummer, Larry Herweg , to chat about it. Whatever ludicrous post-metal tag you like to slap on Pelican , the power and presence the quartet's wield in heavy music's instrumental sphere is undeniable. Now that the band is gearing up for their first UK shows in nearly half a decade (spearheaded by [...]

Pythia The Serpent's Curse Golden Axe Records 27 February 2012 by David Keevill Shrill-enthusiast and intermittent bat botherer Emily Ovenden has returned with her bombastic rabble Pythia on their second full length album, The Serpent's Curse . Despite the record retaining a pace reminiscent of the thrust capacity of an Iranian Jurd, this is [...]

When Touché Amoré tore up London at the end of last month, Alex Andrews caught up with Jeremy Bolm to talk about the anxiety that comes with playing bigger venues and supporting a reformed American Nightmare . Jeremy Bolm sits perched on a sofa, devouring what's left of a sauce-covered chicken leg. Having only been introduced to Nando's the day before by the boys in Basement, the Touché Amoré frontman appears as fascinated with the restaurant as the flocks of [...]

Vice's No Sleep Till... documentary series has so far seen bands from the USA take on the "delights" that Russia and Sweden have to offer a hard-touring punk band, but this week they've brought everything about the show a little bit closer to home. For part three in the series, Vice joined crossover types SSS on a road trip from their hometown of Liverpool, to the bright lights of Hard Rock Hell in North Wales, taking in some of the grimmest roadside attractions along the way... [...]

3 Inches Of Blood Long Live Heavy Metal Century Media 26 March 2012 by Tom Dare If you're the kind of metalhead that reacts to that particular end of the metal spectrum – you know, the one draped in leather and fur, that's unduly fond of Vikings and loves the first four Manowar albums as much as it doe its own kids – the same as you would if your local served you a pint of horse's piss instead [...]

Conan Monnos Burning World 02 April 2012 by Tom Dare Just as thrash comes in degrees of ridiculously fast, the doom/stoner metal bands come in various shades of galactically heavy. Conan are from the end of that spectrum where you literally (in the correct, non- Redknappian use of the word) fear for your speaker cones. You'll probably have to turn their new album Monnos down a touch after your stereo begins to emit some worrying noises. [...]

Bloodstock Open Air have confirmed another four names for their 2012 bill - Dio Disciples - the band consisting of various ex-members of Ronnie James Dio's backing band, along with a clutch of guest vocalists that includes Tim "I was in Judas Priest and Iced Earth" Owens - join the bill (aptly enough) on the Ronnie James Dio stage, while Pythia, Primitai and Crimes of Passion have all been added to the Sophie Lancaster stage. So far, so-so, right? Well, what's more interesting is the information Bloodstock have released about their third - and as yet unnamed [...]

Coilguns Stadia Rods Dead Dead Dead Music 15 March 2012 by Hugh Platt One of the most maddening things about people's reactions to side-projects - particularly those involving members of their favourite bands - it's that people get the huff when said side-projects don't sound like the band that they're a side project of. So if you're [...]

Festival Republic have tonight officially confirmed the first batch of 41 names playing their flagship festivals - Reading & Leeds Festivals. Although their arguably the UK's biggest festivals taking place in 2012 (since Glastonbury is taking a year off), admittedly most of these names will be of little or no interest to the majority of our readers here at Thrash Hits, but there are a few heavier highlights in among the indie-fodder. The most obvious of these is of course, Foo Fighters. They've played (and indeed, headlined) Reading and [...]

This time next week, our intrepid representatives at Hammerfest IV - The Hammer of Thor , will be slowly trying to recover from a weekend where the level of attention paid to the many heavy metal bands playing is directly (and inversely) proportional to the levels of booze being imbibed by them. How do we know they'll be getting smashed rather than getting their mosh on? Well, because even if you headline your event with Anthrax and Skindred, we know for a fact that whenever more than one Thrash Hits contributor ends up in the same room at Pontin's in [...]

Uh-oh. Remember when John Garcia and Brant Bjork announced their plans to tour the world under the Kyuss Lives! moniker, playing songs written when they were both members of Kyuss? They even recruited Nick Oliveri on bass (until he, err, decided to take on an LA SWAT team in that is) on bass to make it seem even more legit. Well, news has arisen today that Josh Homme, the only absentee member of the classic Kyuss line-up not included in Kyuss Lives!, and Scott Reeder, the Kyuss bassst who KL! recruited after Nick Oliveri...err... decided to pick a [...]

As far as we're aware, March 10 (that's the day we're publishing this, for anyone who's late to this particular party) isn't a particularly important date in the calendar for any of the four members of Slayer . It isn't any of their birthdays. It isn't the anniversary of the release of any of their records. As far as we're aware, it isn't the date of their wedding anniversaries, or their children's birthdays, or the anniversary of the first time Kerry King realised that it's better to shave your head entirely once you start going bald, rather than suffer [...]

Take Me Out is quite funny, isn't it. It's got him from Phoenix Nights being northern and funny with his catchphrases and whatnot. It's got 30 pretty girls in a line who dance and whoop and choose whether they wish to procreate with a man whose entrance music could define his life. At 8pm this Saturday, 10 March 2012 , that man will be a bona fide heavy metaller. Renny Carroll from Essex metallers, Forever Never . They played Download Festival 2009 , where Raz interviewed Renny in the [...]

Exotic Animal Petting Zoo Tree Of Tongues Mediaskare Records 07 May 2012 by Ruth Booth Did you ever wake up from some wonderful, hyper-surreal dream, and every time you tried to explain it to someone, it all sounded a bit naff? That's what it's like trying to describe Tree of Tongues , the new album from Exotic Animal [...]

Usually when a someone quits a band, more often than not they do so not on the best of terms with their former bandmates. Obviously there are exceptions to this (after all, sometimes people just want to quit the music business altogether to spend time with their family), but if someone quits to start another band...well...you only have to look at Max Cavalera and Andreas Kisser to see that things do not normally end well in these situations . Not so Josh Scogin and the guys in Norma Jean though. Not only [...]

The new single by Marilyn Manson , 'No Reflection' , the first full track anyone (apart from those in the former king of shock-rockers' inner circle) has heard from the band's forthcoming eighth studio album, Born Villain . It debuted on LA radio station KROQ yesterday, so of course a radio-rip has already found its way online. Check it out after the jump - though you better be quick, as it's bound to get taken down before long. Listen to 'No Reflection', [...]

It's the way bands make a lot of their money. It's a way of proudly displaying that you like a band. It's a piece of clothing that every right-thinking person owns at least one of. Yeah, the humble band t-shirt. I have two deep drawers full of the damned things. Six of which have Every Time I Die emblazoned upon them. Here's a crap story about how I came to own them all... -- 1) November 2005: Eagle Props: [...]

David Keevill studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge. That means he knows his stuff when it comes to actual, really-real Vikings. Since both we and he are pedantic sorts, we browbeat him into writing an explanation as to on why anti-Christian imagery in Viking Metal is a horrible anachronism. Yeah, serious intellectual stuff! Bet you weren't expecting that on Thrash Hits, right? In rejecting Satanism and the occult, Viking Metal came about as an alternative to the Luciferian socio-religious music that defined the late 80s. Whereas bands like Venom, [...]