It’s been nine months since the last installment of ProgTology. That’s partly due to James “Metal” Monteith touring the world with his excellent band, TesseracT, but also because we’re lazy. Either way, let’s talk about the significant goings on…

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Like any artform, music is not a competition. There is only good and bad music and that categorisation in itself is all down to subjective taste. However, in a bid for scientific rigour; some quantitative analysis to fortify the qualitative spiels, we’ve asked all the Thrash Hits contributors to list their favourite albums of 2013. Yeah, it’s here to boost our egos by claiming what we say is best and it’ll surely get some good clicks and you may (rightly) point out that it’s just another list but, at the very least, you might see an album that you’ve never heard of and think about buying it. That would be cool.

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One of the best things about music is its unpredictability. Sometimes, those moments can cause true horror but the best moments are just ace. That’s why we spend so much time caring so much – for those moments. It’s worth the risk. Most of the time. Here are all of the Thrash Hits contributors’ biggest surprises of 2013. They’re mainly bad, actually, but whatever…

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Life is funny. Music is fun. Life is serious. Music is serious. As in life, it is in music. There are moments that are hilarious and others that are much less so. Either way, they stick in your mind. Whether you revel in having fun or in poking fun, you will have had a Favourite Moment in 2013 and that’s what this list is. Some of them are utter abominations of class and style but that’s why you’re on this pitiful excuse of a website. Hooray.

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As much as it’s The Right Thing to say that music isn’t a competition, it’s also fair and correct to point out that music is not your children. You’re allowed to have a favourite and you usually do. That’s why we like to focus on our favourites. here are some brief explanations as to why our contributors’ favourite albums are their favourite albums.

Of course, all of these favourite albums were compiled and democratised into an overall Thrash Hits Album of 2013. If you’d like to read TH Editors, Raziq Rauf and Hugh Platt‘s Top 3 albums of 2013, you should click here. They’re special and one of them is writing about himself in third person right now.

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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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After he returned from his weekend at the UK’s version of Warped Tour, Gavin Lloyd requested special dispensation to write a 1400-word missive on his experience at Ally Pally with a few thousand other grebos. If you’re an emo, feel free to call this longform journalism. If you’re not… go and read a real website.

As a teenager I spent many summers flicking through music magazines in awe of the Warped Tour. It was always a dream of mine to head over to the States and take in this travelling punk rock circus in person. Alas, I never actually got to go and I watched as the Warped Tour evolved into something of a mismatched monster. While they’d still invite the likes of The Bouncing Souls along out of what I guess is a sense of respect, things were different. The internet gave birth to ‘crunkcore’ bands being booked and isanyoneup.com getting stalls in the merch village. Still, it’s not all bad, Katy Perry played one year. With that in mind, I welcomed the fact that Warped now comes to the UK’s shores and headed along to Alexandra Palace to check it out, obviously disappointed Katy Perry wasn’t present.

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Those Sheffield tykes, Bring Me The Horizon, played their biggest headline shows to date when they took on two nights in a row at London’s infamous Brixton Academy. Tomas Doyle was in town to check out Oli Sykes and co.’s first night.

6 things we learnt watching Bring Me The Horizon in Brixton…

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Sometimes the planets align. Hallowe’en was such a night for our resident Finnophile, Catherine Morris as she sat down with Ville Valo to talk about the relationship between HIM and Satanism on the eeriest of evenings…

What most people don’t know about the Finnish love metallers, HIM is that at the heart of the band, underneath all that soppy stuff, is a deep love and appreciation for all things weird and dark. That started in singer and principal songwriter, Ville Valo’s youth and continues to permeate both the band’s aesthetic and sensibilities to this day.

With that in mind, and with it also being Halloween, I sat down with Ville before the band’s sold out show at KOKO and decided to pick his brain about Satanism, the occult, and the celebrated day itself. Here’s what he had to say on the subject. (Clue: a LOT.)

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What’s worse than doing an interview you don’t want to do? Interviewing someone who clearly doesn’t want to be interviewed. So when Karma Bertelesen had to settle for Children of Bodom keyboardist, Janne Wirman rather than Alexi Laiho, the result was as stilted as you’d imagine.

A couple of weeks ago I jumped at the chance to interview the most influential melodic death metal band in my universe. I’ve loved Children of Bodom since I discovered them in early 2007 and have fantasised about dry humping the leg of shredding god, Alexi Laiho many a time. Unfortunately, my dreams did not come true. Maybe some other time.

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