Our photographer Matt Thomas likes big displays of stoner riffs, hence this gallery of photos from Karma To Burn’s gig last week at The Live Rooms in Chester.

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Sometimes, things go wrong. Things went wrong when we sent our man in Liverpool, Matt Thomas, along to photograph the Limp Bizkit-headlined Kerrang! Tour 2014. Some wires got crossed somewhere, and whole everyone else in Liverpool with a camera was allowed into the photopit to snap Fred Durst and co., we were barred and only allowed to snap the support acts – Crossfaith, Nekrogoblikon and Baby Godzilla.

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The weather might’ve taken a sudden turn for the better here in the UK, but the one thing we can always count on is that we’re never far from gangs of young men making surly, dark, and altogether stormy music. Such is the doom thrown out by Bongripper and Conan. Our man around the North West, Matt Thomas, was on hand to snap the lot of them when they came to Liverpool.

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We’ve talked about how punk rock Enter Shikari are before. Right now they could be playing massive venues, raking in the cash, and generally have a bloody nice time of it being the world premier whatever-you’re-calling-it-this-week-core banbut-it’s-got-lasers-and-electronics-core band. But instead, they’re off playing deliberately much smaller venues than usual, just because they bloody want to. That’s how our photographer, Matt Thomas, was able to get so up close and personal with the action when they played the New Brighton (not near the Brighton you’re probably thinking of) Pavilion last week.

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So yeah, you’ve checked out Part 1 of our contributors’ Albums of the Year lists, and you’re hungry for more, right? Well, stop reading this and click the ‘Read More…’ link to find out what the other half of our contributing writers and photographers thought were the best releases of 2012.

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Liverpool Sound City is what happens when a load of people get together and decide to host a 3-day music/tech conference in the North of England. Basically – it’s what The Great Escape is to the South, and what In The City used to be for Manchester. It’s pretty damn sweet.

When we heard that one of our previous Future Hits subjects, the sleazily, diesel-powered heay blues duo that is Wet Nuns, were one of the bands playing over the weekend, we shouted at our Liverpool-based snapper, Matt Thomas, to go snap us some photos.

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Those not-nearly-as-praised-as-they-ought-to-be Reading metallers, Sylosis, finished their final UK tour before releasing their as-yet-untitled third studio album. Okay, so Sylosis do get a lot of praise, but that’s because they a) awesome, and b) they keep getting more awesome, which means c) that they deserve even more praise than they get already.

Anyway, we made sure our Liverpool snapper, Matt Thomas, was in place to snap the whole shebang when it rolled into his hometown.

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We’ve shown you what Raz and Hugh’s albums of the year are, but they’re not the only ones responsible for the Thrash Hits Top 20 Albums of 2011. Oh no. We’ve got a whole load of contributors – writers, photographers, and miscellaneous behind-the-scenes types – that help keep Thrash Hits running smoothly, and the albums they loved the most from 2011 matter just as much as those favoured by the boss men.

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When the Kyuss Lives! dates were announced last year, you may remember we looked at reasons for and against such a legendary band reforming without one key member. Obviously the resounding success of last year’s ‘Garcia Plays Kyuss’ tour was enough to tempt Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri back into the ranks. In retrospect it seems most that were against were those who caught the original incarnation of the band and didn’t want their memories tarnished. That didn’t stop most of the Kyuss Lives! dates selling out and us going out for not one, but two nights of stoner mastery.

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If Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary and Deicide are the ‘Big Four’ of death metal, it’d be nice to think that Nile are like the Machine Heads of that sub-genre. Sounds weird but think about – strong influences from the ’80s movement but also very popular for bringing something different to the table, eg. more blast beats, Ancient Egyptian mysticism. With all the political upheaval in Egypt over the past few weeks, we thought it’d be a great time to go and catch some Middle Eastern-flavoured death metal.

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