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Author Nick Griffiths

Having grown up on a diet of ABBA, The Carpenters, Leo Sayer (Mum), Cream, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and The Beatles (Dad), it was a stormy night under canvas in the wilds of Wales where I first heard the Winston Churchill speech that proceeds ‘Aces High’ from Iron Maiden’s ‘Live After Death’ where life changed for the better. That’s not to say that this was THE pivotal moment of my life (the good lady indoors and two children may get slightly truculent if I were to suggest as much) but it’s certainly up there. Listening, wearing, watching and being into Metal is one of life’s great honours and whilst it may be far from conventional and not a broad representation of the society where we live, I think that’s the point. We are different, we like it loud, noisy, nasty and in your face. Hearing that first chord, feeling that first double kick drum, that initial growl, your first t-shirt (Anthrax Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)) …moments of pure majesty that endure for a lifetime. Luckily, I get to ramble on here after doing so in Raw, Kerrang, Metal Hammer, NME, Rock Sound, and Terrorizer over the last 25 years. It’s still as much fun reviewing music today, as it was for my first ever published ramblings (Nuclear Assault ‘Live At Hammersmith Odeon’ - never has a 140 word review been so drastically sub edited) to the last one I did 5 minutes ago. Nice Fucking Life!

Full Of Hell – Coagulated Bliss (Closed Casket Activities)

There are bands that you like, there are bands, that you love, there are bands you may despise and there are bands that are simply…meh. That’s the beauty of the wonderful world of metal that we live and breathe. Such… Continue Reading →

Mastiff – Deprecipice (MNRK)

Emotions and the ability to act on said emotions, feelings or thoughts is one of the core components of our DNA that differentiates humans from almost all other forms of life that we share this beautiful world with. That’s not… Continue Reading →

Azell – Death Control (Rottweiler Records)

On a morning that has all the characteristics of the impending apocalypse, as gun metal grey clouds disgorge their pregnant bellies of water onto the unsuspecting populous of the United Kingdom as gales flail, wind lashes sodden garden fences like… Continue Reading →

Haystack – Doomsday Goes Away (Threeman Recordings)

Formed way back in the mists of time (1994), Haystack should be castigated as one of the laziest bands in Christendom (other religions are available to be used in this catchall statement to describe scale before you start flinging your… Continue Reading →

The Oldest House – A Worm Through Time (I, Voidhanger Records)

So, for the first time in 2024, I am putting the metaphorical quill to parchment and that sound you can hear, is the creaking and popping of wordsmithing cartilage and bone, as my scrambled mind attempts to decipher music from… Continue Reading →

ORO – Vid Vägs Ände (Hammerheart Records)

Rather than worry their band name sounds like some Ikea equivalent of a branded pack of dehydrated gravy granules, Sweden’s ORO, have pretensions above a particularly crude segue of an opening sentence attempting to breath life into a review of… Continue Reading →

Warcrab – The Howling Silence (Transcending Obscurity)

Plymouth’s finest return with this their fourth album as well as having one of the finest band names in heavy metal, this album has come skidding into my inbox with a trunk full of hope and a tank full of… Continue Reading →

Throat – We Must Leave You (Svart Records)

There can’t be many things in life that are less embarrassing than looking back at past version of yourself and realising that hubris, although a word I rarely deploy in any shape, way of form, is not something that you… Continue Reading →

Go Ahead And Die – Unhealthy Mechanisms (Nuclear Blast)

Like the rise and fall of the sun, leaves that fall from the trees in the autumn and grow back in the spring, Max Cavalera will release new music at least four times a year. Belying his age (fifty-four, although… Continue Reading →

Carnifex – Necromanteum (Nuclear Blast)

I’m sitting here at the end of the garden on a misty, damp, grey looking morning pontificating on starting this review and wondering why I put my hand up for it. I know exactly why and it’s not a hard… Continue Reading →

Harm’s Way – Common Suffering (Metal Blade)

Having been around since 2006, Harms Way seem to have bypassed me in much the same way as life seems to do these days, just in the outer reaches of my peripheral vision, things happen, birds swoop, cars drive by,… Continue Reading →

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