When Mikael Åkerfeldt announced his intention to step down as vocalist of Swedish death metal supergroup titans Bloodbath, we feared the worst. Sure, Åkerfeldt was done with the death growls and was happy wearing lots of corduroy and disappearing down the Prog hole, but the hole he left was still pretty bloody massive.

Then the news came out that his replacement was to be none other than Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes. Suddenly we were more excited about Bloodbath than we thought it was possible to be. Anyone who has ever heard those early PL records knows just what Nick Holmes is capable of when it comes to harsh vocals – Grand Morbid Funeral shows us that he’s lost none of that rub come 2015. Which is why we got him on the phone and asked him to break down just how this whole wonderful hook-up came about.

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Another Sunday, another Slaylist dedicated to the line-up of one of the UK’s upcoming summer festivals. This week it is the turn of Alt-Fest – a brand new festival taking place over the weekend of 15-17 August, in the Boughton Estate near Kettering. It’s still got a fair whack of metal and rock in the line-up, but Alt-Fest separates itself form the crowd with a healthy dollop of goth and industrial music as well. Go stuff this week’s Slaylist down your ears and you’ll see what we’re talking about.

Oh dear. Alt-Fest has been cancelled. Still, you can still enjoy our Spotify Playlist, right?

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The Sheffield old hands are 25 years old and to celebrate, they played a big old gig at the Roundhouse with Lacuna Coil and Katatonia. Not bad, eh? David Keevill popped up to Camden to see the whole shebang unfold.

6 things we learnt at Paradise Lost’s silver jubilee

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Next week, Yorkshire’s gloomiest, those not-so-cheeky chaps in Paradise Lost, are releasing Tragic Illusion 25 (The Rarites) – a brand spanking-new collection of rarities taken from throughout their 25 year-long career. There’s a new song and a couple of re-records in there too, and it’s a pretty damn sweet package. In order to mark its release (and encourage you to go pick up a copy of Tragic Illusion 25 (The Rarities)), Paradise Lost have given us a copy of every bloody album they’ve ever recorded to give away to one lucky, lucky, son-of-a-gun reader of Thrash Hits.

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Is there anything better than a Thrash Hits Festival Splash Page? Yeah, loads of things but you won’t find the best online festival coverage on any of them. You’ll find that right here. All our work from Bloodstock Open 2012 is going be linked to from this page (eventually), so give it a bookmark or just don’t close it, because it’s all you’re going to need. Interviews, photos, setlists, rumours, and who knows? – maybe even some tiny reviews – it’s all here. [Read more →]

We love a bit of gloomy atmospheric metal on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon. Given that Paradise Lost played a blinder at Bloodstock Open Air, we needn’t have worried. Nick Holmes has also cut off all his hair, meaning those Nickelback jokes we used to make no longer work.

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With (hopefully) a painful and debilitating hangover in tow, we forced David Keevill back out into the drinking pits of Hammerfest to report on Day 2 – the first full day of the festival. Little did we realise at the time that one of the band he would see would result in him getting “spermy pants”. Jeesh….

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It’s time for the first Thrash Hits festival splash page of 2012! This dubious honour once again falls to Hammerfest. All of our Hammerfest 2012 coverage from the weekend will be linked to on this here post, so make sure you bookmark it as it’s all you’re going to need. That means individual band coverage in the form of photos and setlists, as well as reviews of each day’s highlights. Every scandalous rumour and dirty bit of gossip that our man David Keevill overheard, and every outrgeous photo of Pontins-based debauchery that Gary Wolstenholme snapped, will be here.

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By the time Paradise Lost took to the stage at Hammerfest IV, control of the photo-pit had gotten so out of control and over-crowded with amateur-hour snappers, that the band ordered every single photographer to get out. EVERY SINGLE ONE. That’s why our man, Gary Wolstenholme, was only able to get one photo from their set.

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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 Prestatyn, someone ends up puking. That’s not us trying to sound like a bunch of lads-on-tour kerrrrayyyzzzyy drunks either – that’s the raw statistics of Hammerfest talking.

In any case, we figured we’d put together a Hammerfest-themed Spotify Slaylist to start getting them in the mood nice and early.

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