Live Review : Unleash The Archers + All For Metal @ Club Academy, Manchester on July 9th 2025

Well, hats off to Unleash the Archers. Their one-off London show back in February was completely sold out, but instigated the usual online comments of "Why only London?” or “There is more to the UK than just the capital” or simply “Come North!”. Now most other bands would see these sorts of interactions as collateral damage and occupational hazards. But with Unleash the Archers, it struck a particularly empathetic chord. Hailing from the wastes of British Columbia, they were used to having to travel miles and miles to Vancouver or even over the Border into Seattle to see the bands that mattered to them. So, they listened to the impassioned pleas to come to Nottingham, Glasgow and Manchester, found three spare days in the middle of their European Festival trek, hired a cheap and cheerful van and headed North…

Live Review : Slayer + Amon Amarth + Anthrax + Mastodon + Hatebreed + Neckbreakker @ Finsbury Park, London on July 6th 2025

Let's deal with the leviathan in the room. Many of us took Slayer’s proclamation eight years ago that they planned to call it a day at the end of 2019, to heart. You see, Slayer had always kept it real and told it as it is, so it was only natural that we believed their insistence that this was it. It would therefore be understandable if there was at least some level of resentment to their rather speedy U-turn and return to action. But and here is the rub, Slayer are so good this evening that a) it feels like they never went away, b) it becomes obvious a world without Slayer is an incredibly sad place, we just hadn't realised.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Stewart Lucas8 July 2025Finsbury ParkSlayer, Amon Amarth, Anthrax, Mastodon, Hatebreed, NeckbreakkerComment

Live Review : Back To The Beginning @ Villa Park, Birmingham on July 5th 2025

Today is a celebration, it's a veneration and an ascension. Most of all it is an acknowledgement of the effect that four working class kids from Birmingham had on millions of lives. Without Black Sabbath there is no heavy metal. Yes, rock was getting heavier in the late sixties and both Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were experimenting with monolithic riffs but it was the opening track of the self-titled first Black Sabbath that solidified the genre and gave it material form. Without it, it is arguable that none of the bands or artists here today would have existed.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Stewart Lucas7 July 2025Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Back To The Beginning, Live Review, BirminghamComment

Live Review : Deftones + High Vis @ The Piece Hall, Halifax on June 24th 2025

The Deftones have always existed in a rather interesting netherworld. They emerged during the reign of nu-metal, but they were always too experimental and cerebral to be fully integrated into that scene. The frankly extraordinary “White Pony” and the 2003 self-titled fourth album, thrust them into arena land and festival special guest status, but try as they might, subsequent releases never seemed able to push them any further. That is, until now. After looking like, they were cursed to always be the bridesmaid and never the bride at a total of four Download and one Sonisphere, this summer finally sees them headlining open-air shows in the country.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Stewart Lucas26 June 2025The Piece HallDeftones, Piece Hall, Halifax, 2025, Live Review, Stewart LucasComment

Live Review : Iron Maiden @ Co-op Live, Manchester on June 22nd 2025

The fluidity of fame and fortune is incredibly fickle. We describe Iron Maiden’s late eighties period as “The biggest metal band on the planet”, as “Their Imperious Phase”. However, let’s be honest, they are more popular now than they ever were at their peak. Iron Maiden have transcended being a band and are now an institution, a cultural phenomenon. A national treasure with their own beer, stamps and merch that is sold in ASDA as part of its Father’s Day range. The Co-op arena is an inter-generational melting pot of different creeds, colours and cultural backgrounds. This selection box of diversity shares one uniting thread; they love Iron Maiden with a passion.

Live Review : Power Trip + Tortured Demon @ Academy 3, Manchester on June 18th 2025

The untimely demise in August 2020 of Power Trip frontman Riley Gale was tragic for two reasons. Firstly, the avoidable death of someone that young (he was 34) and that talented is always tragic. But secondly, Power Trip were on the verge of something truly special. Their second record “Nightmare Logic” had set the world on fire with its fresh and rejuvenating take on thrash. Live performances were equally lauded, and their mid-morning Bloodstock set was continually extolled as something rather special indeed. Riley’s death derailed a trajectory that looked unstoppable, and for a number of years it looked like the band would be buried with him.

Live Review : Dark Angel + Schizophrenia @ Academy 2, Manchester on June 9th 2025

The prevailing wisdom is that when thrash emerged in the early 1980s, it was a unified entity. A unitary sub-genre with a singular sound and context. This fits the narrative of thrash as the rejuvenative power that transformed metal, but if we are honest is more myth than solid historical fact. The truth is that thrash was a broad term used to describe an emerging hodgepodge of styles that shared a belief that metal was becoming too bloated, comfortable, and mainstream. Some purveyors hitched themselves to the emerging hardcore punk scene whilst others mined the back catalogue of NWOBHM luminaries Diamond Head, Satan and Venom.

Live Review : Decapitated + Cryptopsy + Warbringer + Carnation @ Club Academy, Manchester on May 8th 2025

When is an undercard not an undercard? When the supporting bill seems to receive as much, if not more, love and adoration as the main feature. Tonight in Manchester doesn't feel like a typical package tour with several make-do filler acts leading up to the central event. For all intents and purposes, it has the air of a triple headliner affair as Warbringer and Cryptopsy are treated with the same level of reverence as nominal stage closer Decapitated. This doesn’t mean the Polish legends get short shrift, it means that every one of them receives a reaction fit for a canopy-topping act.

Live Review : Gama Bomb + Raised By Owls @ Rebellion, Manchester on April 20th 2025

Fittingly for Easter Sunday, Jesus has decided to make his long-anticipated return at tonight’s show. Gama Bomb vocalist, Philly Byrne, deadpans with surprise “Oh you're back, you should see what's being said about you and also what they are doing in your name and by the way after the show can we have a quick word about what's happening to kiddies in Ireland”. However, when “Jesus” gets on stage to dry-hump Philly during ‘Give Me Leather’ it becomes clear that he is a costumed imposter as opposed to the actual second coming. What it does show, though, is the sense of fun around this evening's proceedings. There is a general air of irreverence, as Sam from openers Raised by Owls eloquently puts it, metal is just angry panto.

Live Review : Ghost @ AO Arena, Manchester on April 15th 2025

The spoiler, that crucial bit of information that reveals the denouement and shatters the sense of surprise. Rosebud is the sledge, Darth Vader is Luke’s dad, and Bruce Willis is dead (for those who think the last one is cruel, I haven’t said in which film…). The curtain has just come down on the first show in Ghost’s imperialistic trek around the globe. No media were invited, no photographers were present, and everyone’s phones were locked away in rather nifty pouches. So how do we talk about it without giving away any of the surprises and preserving the intended air of mystery?

Live Review : Heriot + Grove Street + False Reality @ Rebellion, Manchester on April 13th 2025

There is a cavalcade of young British metal bands determined to break out of the underground into the open waters of the mainstream overground. Heriot are at the vanguard of that movement. Fiercely independent and uncompromising, they have their eyes firmly set on world domination, as opposed to eternal select appeal. There are two impeccable and remarkable things about this roster of new acts reshaping our music, the first is that they are diligently doing things with metal that we never thought was possible. The second is that they have broken up the macho monopoly and defused metal’s decade’s old fortress of toxic masculinity. This is metal reinvented but also simultaneously holding on to the aggression and nonconformity made it so exciting in the first place.

Live Review : Skunk Anansie + So Good @ O2 Apollo, Manchester on April 4th 2025

It's debatable whether the demarcation of "big in the nineties" is a term of endearment or code for select appeal. What isn’t debatable is that when Skunk Anansie were big in the nineties they were distinctly out of kilter with the rest of the Brit rock fraternity. Part of it was their stereotype-trouncing frontwoman Skin, who single-handedly upended the pre-held perceptions of what skin colour and sexuality a rock front person should be, but a large chunk was due to their unique take on nineties rock. They simultaneously melded grating heaviness with a swaggering, funky sensibility. They produced in your face music that you could dance to, when everybody else was busy shouting “sorted” and tending to their egos.

Live Review : The Darkness + Ash @ O2 Apollo, Manchester on March 31st 2025

It's easy to attribute The Darkness’s recent return to cultural relevance to appearances on the Michael Mcintyre show and viral Taylor Swift videos. However, this overnight resurrection is actually 14 years in the making. You see, the rehabilitation of Justin Hawkins and his erstwhile bandmates is the product of hard graft. Since their illustrious return in 2011, they have worked their collective socks off to not only avoid the nostalgia treadmill but also to reclaim the street cred they briefly held aloft in the mid-noughties. Relentless touring has paid off, and here they are at the tail end of a sold-out trek that has seen them reclaim the venues that they last haunted nearly twenty years ago. To top it all, they are promoting a new record that has collectively out-sold everything between it and “Permission to Land” (though as Justin testifies later, it won't be number one due to going up against Mumford and Sons). By the sheer power of never actually going away, The Darkness are back.

Live Review : The Wildhearts + Jim Jones All Stars + Dirt Box Disco @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on March 9th 2025

The wheels have come off The Wildhearts juggernaut so often that it is a wonder they are not sponsored by kwickfit. Ginger Wildheart is a self-proclaimed difficult man to work with, who has an undeniable knack of surrounding himself with difficult to work with people. The latest reunion of the classic line lasted 4 years, 1 pandemic and 2 rather spiffing albums, grinding to a halt in 2022 in flurry of mutual acrimony. Whilst lived experience has taught us to never count The Wildhearts out, this KO felt particularly final. So we were all really rather taken a aback when an all new version of the band arose from the ashes last year. Whilst Ginger is the one constant in this iteration of the band, it is a very different version of the Geordie workhouse. This is a happier, healthier Ginger who has shed both physical and emotional weight to look, god forbid, like he is actually enjoying himself.

Live Review : Rivers Of Nihil + Cynic + Beyond Creation + Dååth @ Club Academy, Manchester on March 8th 2025

Never has a tour title been so fitting and accurate in its description. Aggressive progressive ‘25 brings together four of the scene leaders in pushing the envelope of death metal. Dååth, Beyond Creation, Cynic and nominal headliners Rivers of Nihil, in their own unique ways each retain that brutish aggression that gives Death Metal its potent uncompromising force, but each band splices it with a spellbindingly intricate slice of progressive opulence. Basically, this is victory parade for the innovators that have evolved Death Metal into the complex and undefinable beast that it is today.

Live Review : Opeth + Grand Magus @ Albert Hall, Manchester on March 1st 2025

There are shows where the venue plays an integral part in the beauty of the endeavour. It becomes an additional member of the band, adding to the ambience and the majestic nature of the performance. Tonight is one just instance. The Albert Hall is the jewel in Manchester's proliferation of venues. An abandoned Wesleyan Chapel, it had stood dormant for 40 years until it was rescued last decade and restored as a multi-purpose auditorium. It is a fantastic space, surrounded by large ornate stained-glass windows and dominated by an imposing organ. It provides the perfect setting for Opeth’s extraordinarily unique take on metal. There are some compromises to be made, Mikael Åkerfeldt recounts a Spinal Tap moment when they realised that the video screens that had been a focal point of the other shows on this tour were too big to fit and had to be left in the van, but all in all the Albert Hall provides an immaculate canvas for Opeth to unfurl their magic.

Live Review : Kvelertak + Urne @ Academy 3, Manchester on February 23rd 2025

With even the greatest bands in the World, it is quite easy to forget just how good they are. It has been six years since Kvelertak last visited this country (Download 2019), eight years since they last played this city (supporting Metallica at the arena) and nine years since we got anything resembling a headline tour. Tonight is very much a case of "Hello! Remember us?" as they grab us by the lapels and forcefully remind us why they were the band on everybody's lips last decade. This evening also, inexplicably, gives us our first opportunity to witness “new” vocalist Ivor Nikolaisen up front and personal. We say “new” but he has actually been in the band since 2018, but as the stats above illustrate these are his first UK headline shows with the band. Replacing a “name” vocalist is always a Herculean task, but when it is in the colossally charismatic shape of Erlend Hjelvik, you would suspect it would be rather a hiding to nothing. However Ivar Nikolaisen sidesteps the need for comparisons by being a completely different school of frontman with his own energy, charisma and style.

Live Review : Green Lung + Unto Others + Satan's Satyrs @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on February 21st 2025

Let's put this marker down now. Green Lung will headline Bloodstock, they will headline Download and they will eventually, and potentially eventfully, headline Glastonbury. Now we at ROCKFLESH aren't in possession of a crystal ball but we are steadfast in our certainty of this for three reasons. 1)They are utterly incredible this evening as will be attested further on in this diatribe. 2) Their speed of evolution as a band is frankly astonishing. Midway through tonight's show, Tom Templar recites a roll call of the venues that they have played in this city during their journey to the Ritz headliner status. Green Lung have done their growing up in the glare of the public eye and the band before us now is a completely different beast the one played Star & Garter in 2019 or even the one we witnessed supporting Clutch at the Academy in 2022.

Live Review : Tribulation + Livgone @ Rebellion, Manchester on February 18th 2025

In this austere times, we are all looking for value for money in our gigging experience. This would explain the rise in popularity of the package tour as the allure of four bands we have heard of is more of a financial incentive than one. Swedish Goth-metal pioneers Tribulation, have gone for a different approach. For their rather extensive jaunt around Europe and the UK they have bought only one support act with them and in the shape of French/Polish/Swedish hybrids Livgone, it is not particularly a household name. Where they are providing bang for our bucks, is in the length of the set. At a meaty one hour forty minutes hour it towers above the usual hour maximum fair that we are served by bands of our ilk in venues such as Rebellion. It is a luxuriously elongated tour de force, allowing them to effortlessly wander across most of their recorded output (only 2009 debut “the Horror” doesn’t get a look in).

Live Review : Countless Skies + As The Sun Falls + Opia @ Star and Garter, Manchester on February 14th 2025

Why do we do this? Its Valentine's night and we have left perpetually patient partners back at home to stand in the blistering cold of the upstairs room of a shitty pub (the owner's description, not ours). The reason is that we love this music, eternally, triumphantly and truly. The bands on show this evening love this music, it flows through their veins. The audience that has braved the hostility of a Mancunian winter to get here, love this music. Even the characteristically grumpy owner pumping out classic punk downstairs loves this music. It has enslaved us all and it demands both sacrifice and complete obedience.