Great news for fans of prog band Pure Reason Revolution as they’ve just announced a new album and premiered the first single off it, “Spin Like Fire.” The new album Terrifying Angels will be out on September 25th, 2026 via InsideOut Music. Mark your calendars and listen to the full single below. Read more…
PURE REASON REVOLUTION announce new studio album ‘Terrifying Angels’; launch first single ‘Spin Like Fire’
UK tour dates announced for November 2026 with special guests Kyros
Photo Credit: Valentin Ottone
“My initial thought of an angel was the cute kind of cherub, but traditionally angels aren’t cute or comforting figures,” says Jon Courtney. “They’re often overwhelming, terrifying beings.”
Progressive alternative rockers Pure Reason Revolution return with their new album ‘Terrifying Angels’, their fourth since reemerging in 2019. The record will be released on the 25th September 2026, and is preceded by the single ‘Spin Like Fire’, the video for which you can watch now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_XAc8uk0U&feature=youtu.be
Following the somewhat gentler, moving themes of sorrow and transience guiding 2024’s ‘Coming up to Consciousness’, the new sound is dark and potent, full of savage riffs, ominous soundscapes, and thrashing, grungy layers – melded, of course, with the band’s signature transcendent harmonies. “The last record was more chill, so it just felt terribly natural to do something grittier, heavier and more aggressive,” Courtney explains.
The core trio of Jon Courtney, Annicke Shireen & Ravi Kesavaram are joined by a cast of collaborators for the album, featuring old friends and new partners alike. The eponymous song was born out of a jam session in Portland, Oregon, with founding bandmate Greg Jong, who also co-wrote “Rumination Ruin”. Meanwhile “Haywire Heart” and “Hold Your Wrath” – respectively the shortest and longest tracks in PRR’s discography – were both written alongside Paul Mullen, the alt-rock legend who fronted Losers and Yourcodenameis:milo. Finally, “Below Radiance” grew out of a section from a composition by Courtney’s mentee Kenny Fitzgerald.
The album also features bass contributions from Mariusz Duda (Lunatic Soul) and Kristoffer Gildenlöw, while mixing duties are once again handled by Bruce Soord of The Pineapple Thief.
The album (featuring artwork by Carl Glover), will be available as a Limited CD Digipak, Gatefold LP edition and as Digital Album. The full track-listing is below:
Wie bereits angekündigt gibt es wieder den Farmers Market auf dem W:O:A 2026
Im Angebot sind wieder mehrere 100 Produkte und damit ihr rechtzeitig wisst, was ihr vorab besorgen müsst und was ihr bequem vor Ort kaufen könnt (damit das Auto auch ja nicht zu voll beladen wird), haben wir nun die Farmers Market 2026 Preisliste veröffentlicht.
Die Preisliste haben wir wieder in zwei Varianten zur Verfügung gestellt – sortiert nach Sortiment und nach Partner.
Wie im letzten Jahr gibt es eine Getränke Preorder. Ihr bestellt online über das Eventportal unter cashless.wacken.com und holt eure Bestellung bequem vor Ort im Farmers Market ab.
Someone, somewhere knows something. It’s not a secret, but they’re keeping it from you. They know it and you don’t. Earlier this year Music For Nations signed Flesh Creep and re-released their debut album ‘We Need You To Bleed’. It’s because they knew. Listening to new EP ‘Glimmer’ you’ll know it too.
Despite their disgusting band name Flesh Creep aren’t a deathcore band or a grindcore outfit. Their music is based on hardcore in the vein of Sick Of It All or This Is Hell but with their mixture of breakdowns, lead guitars and spoken/yelled vocals a closer comparison is Feed The Rhino. Basically, if you like your music aggressive and slightly dangerous, you’ll love it.
Opener, ‘Flake’ tells you exactly what to expect. Shoulder-shrugging marching, a blast of hardcore then swirls of lead guitar, it’s vicious, snarling and surprisingly droll. Every song plays in this space, but each is different.
The band describe their music as ‘power violence’ but the songs are surprisingly melodic, not beautiful melodic, but you can feel yourself grooving to the chord changes, or at least you can until the breakdowns kick in, and they love a good breakdown, sometimes multiple breakdowns back-to-back. While this could be off-putting, they do have a trick, structure. Despite the songs repeatedly changing shape they’re also anchored, giving them a wild, barking-dog viciousness without becoming unchained. It’s that illusion of freedom which is so satisfying. This is particularly true of ‘Cheap Heat’ which goes around and around and around, clearly designed to start a circle pit while being underpinned by riffs. It’s very impressive.
Flesh Creep write short songs. Despite doubling the length of those on their debut album, these are still short, but fleshed out and pointed. Indeed, ‘Straight Flush’ is all about momentum and its guitars sting like a swarm of bees, while the post-chorus riff on ‘Bubblegum’ swings back and forth, cutting like a saw. By comparison ‘Optics’ appears to be an outlier, slowing things down with an unsettling, slightly evil guitar part, and then tightens all the screws, making for a memorable rush of riffs and feedback. It’s choices like these that help distinguish the songs from each other and Flesh Creep from other bands.
Tom Bienkowski’s throaty yells are varied enough to hold your attention and work incredibly well with the rugged music. Spoken passages litter the verses with a delightfully condescending tone, particularly him muttering ‘the adults are talking’ or where he cries ‘Clean up on aisle five’ before a massive, massive breakdown hits. There’s also a knowing irony to ‘Straight Flush’ where he takes a Radiohead chorus and twists it into a ferocious spit-ball, completely changing its meaning. Between the joyful roar that opens ‘Flake ‘ and the wicked burst of laughter on ‘Bubblegum’ you can feel his energetic, fun performance.
They know it. Now you do too. Flesh Creep are a stunning hardcore band. ‘Glimmer’ tells you everything you need to know. It’s a blistering, exciting EP that froths with enthusiasm.
Next Wednesday, July 22nd, will mark the first-ever “Ozzy Day” in the city of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. This celebration will honour the life, legacy and Birmingham roots of the Prince of Darkness, who, alongside his bandmates in Black Sabbath, helped put Birmingham on the global metal map. Read more…
We at The Razor’s Edge are stoked to be covering the fourth edition of Offal Fest in Manchester later this month; two and a half days of the most disgusting music you could hope to hear, twenty-five awesome bands and a spanking new venue to show it all off in. Sadly, the north-west has waved goodbye to two of the area’s best extreme music shows, with the UK Slam Fest hitting its tenth anniversary and calling it quits, and the Bolton sausage fest that is Grind After Death going on an indefinite hiatus after this year’s fifth birthday bash.
Happening over the weekend of 24th to 26th July and no longer being hosted at the Bread Shed, rather moving to the unfamiliar confines of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Boundary venue, not a place I’ve been before, but they’ve got three-shots for £6 and will price match Guiness – so you can’t say fairer than that.
The weekend begins with a pre-show of half-a-dozen bands to get the blood properly pumping. While it might be additional to the weekend ticket, the cost / benefit analysis makes it a sound financial investment. Headlining this event is hometown heroes, Crepitation, who don’t have too far to come to attend, and have carved a niche for themselves following multiple shows at Slamfest, Bloodstock and Damnation; always a joy to behold and renown for levelling any stage they step upon – so much so that their recent back-catalogue features a number of live releases. The debut full-length, The Violence of the Slams, might well be more than decade old, but it’s still a blistering half-hour of slamming deathgrind.
Brutal technicians, Infected Disarray, have a patchy past, in regard to their active years. Formed in 2000, going on hiatus until 2004 and being operational until 2012, in which time they released their one and only – to date – album: 2009’s Disseminating Obscenity, which, as luck would have it is receiving a 2026 redux to be released mere days before this show. With a whole heap of song titles culled from a medical dictionary – Prenatal Excavation of Diseased Ovarian Atrocity, Demonstrating the Necessity for Extreme Prejudicial Infanticide Within the Vomit Filled Womb – the four-piece has been together since the first reformation in 2004, with Toms Carter and Broadfield of Twitch of the Death Nerve, joining the OG Joninsane and Paul Martin for what is sure to be a terrifying experience.
Mancunian slammers, Coprocephalic Mutation, have been issuing product since 2018 through a series of singles, demos and splits with the likes of Infantectomy, .357 Homicide, Traumatomy and PeelingFlesh, with only the 2020 EP, D.3.1.4., being a singular example of CM’s brutality. Catchy slams and mammoth beatdowns are the order of the day when these lads hit the stage.
Gore-obsessed Glaswegians, Scordatura’s career started back in 2008 with their Genocidal Maniac demo and had given the world three full-length records of fetid Dying Fetus-meets-Cannibal Corpse levels of sonic violence. Taking a break from his day-job in Party Cannon, vocalist, Daryl Boyce has been fronting Scordatura since the beginning, and the release of this year’s Led Into Oblivion album proves this is no side-project.
Popping across from the North-East, Ovulating Cadaver might be a new band, having only formed in 2024, but the members have cut their teeth in acts like Vulgar Dissections, Stone Cold Abyss and Plague Rider. With just a couple of singles to their name, OC is already showing themselves to be ones-to-watch as their journey through brutality develops momentum. Scottish brutal Dissolving Entity may only have been together a little over a year, but they’ve been granted the honour of opening the whole weekend. Their debut EP, Parasite Enthroned, is three blasting assaults in eight-minutes, so it’s best to get to the Boundary early so as not to miss out on them.
Offal Fest 4 has pulled off a major coupe by bringing Dallas slam royalty, Devourment, to Manchester for their first UK show away from the south of England. Celebrating more than thirty-years and brutality and slamming, and the recent release of their first new studio material in five-years on the EP Pious Impiety, which shows the band is still as focused on the mission as ever they were. The band’s debut album, Molesting the Decapitated, might have been released in the last millennium, but its power and influence is still felt to this day. Following full-lengths Butcher of the Weak, Unleash the Carnivore and Obscene Majesty have been punctuated by periods of inactivity from the band, but what a unique selling point for any festival to boast, having these Texans topping the bill.
New York natives and brutalists, Immortal Suffering, make a swift return to Manchester after their May 2025 show at the Rebellion Music Bar with Stabbing and Emasculator, one of only three times the Queens crew have ever stepped foot on an English stage. This, if anything, makes their appearance at Offal Fest all the more mouth-watering, with the prospect of blistering tracks from Asylum and Preyed Upon, as well as newer material from the Extreme Torture EP of 2023.
UK debutants, Italian technical mob, Unbirth, take their name from a sexual fetish that – let’s just say – reverses the birthing process (Google it if you’re interested, but don’t blame me if you have nightmares). Their fixation on the cosmic scale and insignificance of humanity in the face of that can be heard across the band’s three full length records, beginning back in 2013 with Deracinated Celestial Oligarchy, up to last year’s Asomatous Besmirchment.
Tokyo grindcore/ goregrind terrors, Butcher ABC, is another band heading to these shores for the first time with history dating back to the mid-nineties and a discography heading as far back as 2002. The only full-length album in the ample back-catalogue is 2017’s confrontational North of Hell, with the remainder being a host of live recordings, demos, EP and splits with the likes of General Surgery, Coffins and, most recently, 100 Years War. Greek goremongers, Embryectomy, come to Offal Fest fresh from their show at 2025’s Flesh Fest with Amputated and Epicardiectomy, where their tales of torture, rape, murder and infanticide found favour with the locals. No new record since 2020’s Flamethrower Ecdysis but with drummer Jake Gamble having now established himself behind the kit since joining in 2024, expect a mighty barrage blasting across the Boundary.
Rarely a place you think of where brutal death metal is concerned, but Switzerland’s Kakothanasy have been bringing the sickness since 2012 – or 2010 if you count the early years as Genocide Farm. Last year’s sophomore full-length album, Metagonism, was thirty-minutes of ferociousness, all presented with dictionary-busting titles. Drifting to a Moderately Commutable Adjustment Without Fitness Supremacy, Foremost Biotic Constituents Conjoined for Analog Synthesis: An Irrelevant Recognition of Qualms? and The Hard Problem of Targeting an Irrefutable Endogenous Transmission in a Somatic Compound give you an approximation of where the band is coming from. Italians Inverecund have a new demo which includes a cover of Slayer’s Dittohead alongside two new examples of their old school brutal stylings. A continuation of the EP Engrossed in Horripilation from 2023, it takes mid-paced death metal and fills it full of dark, foreboding atmospherics and chilling horrors.
Northern Ireland’s Strangle Wire prove Belfast isn’t only responsible for top quality punk bands, with their take on rampant death metal from the early days of the genre. The quartet have been around for a decade, and their 2022 debut album, Shaped by Human Frailty is certainly a collection of tunes well worth a look. Manchester’s Disgracing bring slamming brutal death metal blasts and croaks, with 2026 debut EP, Descension into Despair, finding just the right balance between slams and brutality. Colchester’s Battle of the Slams winners, War Bastard opens proceedings with some classic old school death metal.
Whatever you have left after Saturday’s mammoth session of musical extremity will be stiffly put to the test on Sunday, with eleven more global acts specifically booked to remove the skin from your face and the cranium from your shoulders. Making their UK debut as Offal Fest’s Sunday headliner is Ohio wrecking machine, Regurgitate, whose sole studio full length, Tales of Necrophilia, might have crawled out of it’s grave in 1999, but still casts a significant shadow over everything that followed. The core personnel of Tipon, Baker and Baxter have been spewing the gore since the mid-nineties, with second guitarist, Steve Pedley, ex-of Emaciated Entrails and Embalmer, joining at the millennium. The on/off nature of Regurgitate means only Tony Tipton and Brian Baxter contributed to the 2011 EP, Clitoraldectomy. It certainly is a tantalising prospect to finally see these legends on British shores.
Named after their countryman, movie director and generally considered Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci, Caserta-based death metallers, Fulci, offer a new definition of the genre by taking crushing riffs and abject brutality and infusing them with a cinematic atmosphere and stories of zombies and gore. Early albums, Opening the Gates of Hell and Tropical Sun are love-letters to Italian shock cinema, their most recent full-length, Duck Face Killings is based on the 1982 Giallo classic, The New York Ripper, and features unbridled raw aggression across its entire run-time.
Prague brutal slammers, Epicardiectomy have been bringing the violence since 2007, and come back to Manchester following last year’s Flesh Fest headlining slot. With album number four, Dismal Landscapes of Voluptuous Pustular Cadaverosis, locked, loaded and ready to launch in August we might well be getting a host of new tracks to accompany classics like Prurience in Putrescence, Horrendous Festering Transmutations and Fornicating in Pulverized Feces. If the 2023 EP, Exhumed Decollated Mutilation is anything of a signpost, then I’d suggest the upcoming material will be business as usual.
I cannot wait to see Danish Slam machine, Guttural Slug, again after their monumental opening slot on the Party Cannon / Internal Bleeding shows as recently as April. That night, the Slug were the bollocks, focusing on the recent Ulcers in the Flesh of Thought EP and, of course, the stone-cold slam monolith that is Megalodon. Need to get a shirt this time. Another band with a name related to the Italian horror scene, London trio Twitch of the Death Nerve is so-called due to the 1971 Mario Bava movie, aka The Bay of Blood. Like Fulci, their musical focus is to translate the intensity of the visuals and recreate them through slamming brutality.
Originally from South Korea, now playing out of Yokohama, Japan, Suffocation-inspired duo, Fecundation ooze and slither with a rank intent, their latest album, Moribund fluctuating between blasts and crawling riffs. Torture, suffering, domination and defilement are the of the day for Lille’s Darkall Slaves, who take the brutality of Disgorge and the technical prowess of Malignancy and stir it up into a cacophonous cocktail of sound.
Scottish band, Laceration had something of a purple patch between the release of their debut EP, Condemned to Torture in 2010 and the 2013 issuing of the Severing the Divine Iniquity debut and, to date, only full length. Blending slams, brutality and grind into a fetid musical concoction that is sure to pep up your summer Sunday. One-man noise-grind outfit, Lymphoedema, makes his way to Manchester from Limerick City in the Republic of Ireland, certain to bamboozle with his combinations of musical extremity, mixed with drone, harsh noise, trap and more. Likely to be a show for the ages.
Italian duo, Gorge, have barely a year of activity but have a couple of demos and a single to show off their old school, mid-paced brutality, all leading up to the launch of debut album, Deeds of Horror set for the end of August this year. Repulsed make the relatively short trip up the M6 from Milton Keynes to open Sunday’s shenanigans with some heavy, hardcore moves.
Offal Fest 4 is all set to be a worth iteration of the festival and a special weekend for extreme music. It your tastes veer away from the mainstream, I’m sure there’s something here for you to enjoy. I listening to all the bands preparing for this preview I can honestly say absolutely every band playing has the ability to be Band of the Weekend. Let battle commence!!!
So, there’s a thing that happens behind the scenes at Last Rites HQ called ‘Sunday Funday’ where we each pick a random album for the LR collective to listen to during the week, and then we reconvene over the weekend to offer up some words about said album. Any and all records are allowed entry, but so far the exercise does seem to sway toward highlighting releases considered to be lost / hidden gems. That, in a nutshell, is where this episode of Diamonds & Rust germinated and grew into the swollen essay you see below.
Prior to 1987, I was not terribly aware that punk was something I appreciated. In fact, based purely on the assumption that punk was the rebellious choice for those who “hated melody,” I figured I hated it because I loved, Loved, LOVED melodic guitar work. Still, with releases from bands like S.O.D., Zoetrope, Nuclear Assault, Whiplash, Tankard, Kreator, and even Slayer & Metallica in and around 1985 / ’86, I simply had no understanding of just how much influence punk rock had on the output from these ragers. Hell, even the fact that the NWOBHM bubbled into existence via the insistence of punk was 100% lost on me.
By 1987, though, I finally began to realize how strongly the two genres aligned, thanks both to the bands themselves making it quite clear via interviews, liner notes, promo pic shirts and because shows began drawing mixed crowds that included hair farmers, the mohawked and skins / shorthairs wearing flight jackets with orange lining. An Overkill pit in 1987? Not at all crazy to expect a ‘lockstep’ precursor to the wall of death where hardcore kids would lock arms and rush during “Deny the Cross.”
I have spoken of this before in these halls, but I owe a hell of a lot of my introduction to Hardcore with a capital ‘H’ to a friend of a great friend that tape traded with us for the better part of a year or so. We had some commonality via the bands mentioned above, but this dude bettered our lives with introductions to crews such as Agnostic Front, English Dogs, Attitude Adjustment, Token Entry, S.O.B., Murphy’s Law, the first Crumbsuckers, etc., and we floated him heavyweights like Nuclear Assault, Warfare, Zoetrope, Carnivore, Whiplash, Wehrmacht, et al. Suffice to say, it was a rather fruitful union, and both scenes seemed to cross-pollinate right alongside us, with the peak and sudden decline hitting just before we all careened into the ‘90s.
Was any of the work now commonly referred to as ‘crossover’ called ‘crossover’ before DRI released Crossover in March of 1987? Negatory. But like most any over-analyzed sub-genre floating in our sphere in the modern age, the term is now used to throw an overwhelming amount of bands / albums that simply meld any form of punk with some form of metal under one convenient umbrella. For me, and I assume for a number of others, most of what is now considered crossover from the mid-to-late ‘80s was actually a proper introduction to Hardcore with that capital ‘H’, and it felt different than straight-up punk because it was interested in both thrashing very metallically and occasionally being melodic. The second half of “The Eliminator” right out of the gate on Cause for Alarm (1986)? Oh, that was for me. So was Age of Quarrel, Attitude Adjustment’s American Paranoia, Crumbsuckers’ Life of Dreams, etc., all of which were widely accepted as Hardcore, pure and simple.
So, yeah, by 1987 the cross-pollination was very noticeable, with D.R.I.’s Crossover leading the charge and only getting eclipsed by Carnivore’s landmark Retaliation later that year. As a relevant aside, I cannot express just how much hubbub Retaliation garnered back then, both because of its strength as an effective Hardcore crossover record and because of how controversial some of the lyrics were. “These songs are simply a very dark and satirical social critique,” many would argue, and perhaps that was true, but it’s still the first time I recall feeling outwardly uncomfortable with the music I loved, which was significant. Blatant Satanic imagery and underscoring the glory of regurgitated guts just didn’t feel… quite as real, I suppose. Anyway, Retaliation also seemed to drop during a time when, as the two scenes became more and more hybridized, hostilities also appeared to rise, and I distinctly recall seeing the Crumbsuckers (with the desperately unheralded Joe Gizmo and the Spudmonsters) in early ’88 and watching bouncers levying strict rules to anyone in line with a shaved head.
A little more about 1988: I’m really not sure how even I found the time to care about Hardcore / crossover at this particular juncture on the timeline because straight-up metal was delivering banger after banger after banger, along with a handful of total disappointments that I still managed to obsess over (Candlemass, Celtic Frost, Death Angel and Metallica). Point being, in 1988 I was still largely metal-minded and metal-obsessed, but I absolutely did fuck with the following albums from that year that managed to connect with both sides of the metal and hardcore divide:
Beast On My Back, though? What a fucking wEiRd curveball that record managed to throw back in ’88. Clearly it was meant for the more adventurous, so it’s not all that crazy to assume that someone who was equally excited by a menagerie like, say, No Exit, Leprosy and History of a Time to Come would willingly dive in headfirst, which I absolutely did. But that album cover didn’t exactly help its cause when stacked next to loads of other records that understood just how much we all judged books by their covers.
Release date: 1988. Label: Combat Records.
Predictably, B.O.M.B.’s arrival produced rather mixed reactions, particularly within hardcore circles. To be fair, that side of the fence was no stranger to Hardcore / hardcore punk bands going too far with hard rock tendencies, thanks to hairpin turns from the likes of SSD (How We Rock in ’84 and Break It Up in ’85), The F.U.’s (who became Straw Dogs and released We are Not Amused in ’86) and Uniform Choice (Staring Into the Sun, also ’88). But what the Crumbsuckers brought to the table following a debut that resonated very loudly with Hardcore crews was just flat-out flipping strange.
Firstly, that album cover…
Band shots as cover art wasn’t exactly rare in punk, but metal-minded folks knew that if an album cover depicted just the players, something probably went wrong at label HQ (*cough* extremeaggression *cough*). B.O.M.B.’s cover essentially looked like a candid shot of five guys that worked at the local pizza joint near the harbor, and I’m guessing guitarist Chuck Lenihan (far left) was the delivery driver because he didn’t want to wear a goddamned hair net. The photo was taken in Long Beach, which is where Relativity sent the Crumbsuckers to record with the same feller responsible for Megadeth’s Peace Sells. Per an interview with bassist Gary Meskil:
“The idea for the cover basically came about as a result of some record company boardroom mumbo jumbo. They wanted the cover to be a band photo because ‘facial recognition’ was something they wanted to achieve for the band.”
Yeah, that did not work as expected. But the cover does feel weirdly iconic today because of its peculiarity.
More importantly, I don’t think anyone was expecting a Hardcore record that sounded… so proggy? Falling in line with crossover, thrash was of course there—you can definitely tell these guys listened to Master of Puppets and Peace Sells as often as they did Negative Approach and Siege. But this was like taking what they’d done with their seminal debut and filtering it through the PMA and sharpness of Bad Brains’ I Against I, plus the sheer boldness of a band like Mekong Delta.
The result: A much more crisp, melodic and swift approach to the riffing, a purposeful positive slant (doubled down via vocalist Chris Notaro’s religious upbringing), and a clear hunger and willingness to take crossover to places no one expected. I Against I might’ve been the closest living relative to B.O.M.B.—listen to the sheer optimism behind a track like “Charge” as an example—but I’d also say the record was tailor-made for anyone who jumped at DBC’s equally unexplainable Universe one year later.
So, yeah, beyond virtually every song’s willingness to turn on a dime and muddle time signatures to explore odd little riff ’n’ rhythm patterns, what you’ll find here is a work that unwittingly seemed like a precursor to… Rust In Peace? Is that fair? I mean, no, it’s really not, but holy crap does Robbie Koebler—a local guitar teacher who also happened to be an understudy of STEVE VAI—ever find a lot of room to shred like a bastard on this thing. The weirdly bright production really boosts his brilliance, too. There’s still plenty of HC stomp and punch to be had, particularly inside the first two cuts and with that wonderfully bruising title-track closer:
Sandwiched in-between, though, we get a smorgasbord of twists and turns that seemed rather opposed to Hardcore circa 1988:
» “Charge,” a song that sounded as if it belonged on Quickness before the Bad Brains managed to release Quickness.
» The instrumental “Initial Shock,” which lands like a legit gesture of pure reverence to Metallica’s “Orion.”
» A total head-scratcher in “I Am He” that twists and turns so often it feels like four different songs inside a very scant 3 minutes and 23 seconds.
» “Rejuvinate,” the forever unheralded cousin of Powermad’s equally unheralded thrash feel-good anthem “Nice Dreams.”
» And of course, whatever the collective decides to call “Remembering Tomorrow”—new age cyborgcore?
Also awesome: The fact that the album manages to reach all manner of strange new worlds and still operate under Hardcore’s strict “keep it under 35 minutes” rule. Get in, hit it, get the fuck out. Amen, sisters and brothers.
The band folded a year after the release of Beast On My Back because of the tried-and-true (and fully understandable) “musical differences.” It was a bummer, really, because they opted to hang it up it up amidst a really spectacular year for crossover, with 1989 not only producing the off-shoot’s apex predator in the Cro-Mags’ Best Wishes, but also slayers such as Excel’s The Joke’s On You, Killing Time’s excellent Brightside, Leeway’s leveler Born to Expire, Sick of It All’s cracking debut Blood, Sweat and No Tears, and Wrecking Crew’s under-appreciated Balance of Terror. So, 1989: Crossover’s peak? Quite conceivable.
The Crumbsuckers saw the writing on the wall, though, so bassist Gary Meskil, drummer Dan Richardson and guitarist Chuck Lenihan (current guitarist for Carnivore A.D.) went on to form a new project called Heavy Rain, whose purpose was to further plumb the depths of the Crumbsucker’s proggier face. Sadly, that venture produced such a quick collapse that nothing ever managed to be officially released, so Meskil and Richardson opted to return to crossover in the early 90s with a new project called Pro-Pain. That venture, plus Biohazard and the further musings from SoIA, continued to fly crossover’s flag for years to come. For many, though, our attention shifted to punk’s influence on metal in the more extreme realms of grindcore and death/grind. Still, for a relatively brief moment on extreme music’s timeline, crossover found its footing, embraced its spotlight, and whooped all our asses. And inside that span, no one did anything even close to what the Crumbsucker’s accomplished with Beast On My Back. A true unicorn of an album.
L to R: Robbie Koebler, Chuck Lenihan, Gary Meskil, Chris Notaro, Dan Richardson
As the sun set over Knebworth House, standing on an elevated section of the field, overlooking the stage, it almost resembled a scene from the film The Wicker Man. All that was missing was Christopher Lee and his followers singing and laughing as they looked on at Edward Woodward screaming inside a flame-imbued, burning wicker Eddie. I am sure there was am Iron Maiden song about that.
The field was packed, several different generations of people, all vying for prime position to watch the biggest Metal band on the planet. After 50 years and thousands of shows, it was hardly surprising that Iron Maiden’s audience range was from 2 to 92 (probably). But they are far from just an audience. The Maiden faithful are family, over 60,000 of them. God help us all at Christmas.
The menacing overture of a cacophony of sound, the tapping of somebody strolling down a tired old East End street, the rattle of a tube train – then The Ides Of March blast through the speakers like a death march for the damned.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Meanwhile, the graphics on the big screens accelerate and decelerate like a Formula 1 car, stopping at various Maidenesque waypoints. The Cart & Horses, Acacia Avenue, The Blind Beggar, and The Ruskin Arms, all hidden down those dark and dirty little streets. OK. A bit of artistic licence going on there, given that the three pubs are actually on busy main roads
Then gentle, melodic tones fire up before a drum roll heralds the breakneck barnstormer that is Murders In The Rue Morgue, the first of four songs that originally featured the mighty Paul Di’Anno on vocals.
Let’s be honest, Wrathchild, Killers and Phantom Of The Opera are bona fide classics. It is hard to believe that these songs are around 50 years old. To put that into perspective, 50 years before they were written would have been 1926.
Think about that for a moment. Heavy Metal did not exist, the bass guitar would not have been born for another 25 years, and Laurel and Hardy would have just embarked on their career as a double act. Those tracks have not just stood the test of time. They have become more popular than ever.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
The musicianship was a masterclass, as you would expect from a group of Iron Maiden’s stature and as for Bruce’s vocals, they were excellent given the difficulties that he faced from the heat and humidity. The legendary vocalist was not averse to having a bit of fun with the audience, with a bit of the devil-may-care about him, Dickinson addressed the audience, saying, “Apologies to all the Norwegians in the audience. We can argue about it after England have won.” The crowd then erupted with a mixture of laughter and cheers.
“Anyway, here we are at the end of the first bit of the Run For Your Lives Tour,” he continued. “It has been 50 years, and here we are in this amazing place with all this grass. The stuff you stand on, not the kind you smoke.” The crowd erupted yet again, breaking into laughter and cheering before ‘Arry and the boys broke into Number Of The Beast.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Those who have regularly attended will know that this number is the very soul of what Iron Maiden are. Fast, vibrant, it does not matter how many shows this track has been played at, it always sounds as fresh as the day it was first played. It iis the ultimate crowd-pleaser, and although the lads are getting older, and some of the set is played at a slightly slower pace, when playing live, Number Of The Beast just does not alter or shift.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Then came the song that had not been played on tour for 38 years. Out went The Clairvoyant and in came Infinite Dreams. This was a real omission in my opinion and should have featured decades earlier, on other tours. It is a brilliant live track, and despite the vocal challenges of the song, Bruce absolutely batted it out of the park (or field).
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Make no mistake, it is an incredibly difficult song to sing, but the vocals were flawless. The beautiful guitar intro, from the Hendrixesque feel to the verses, was pure perfection. Maiden did not have to alter any of the graphics when swapping out The Clairvoyant, which was a bit of a bonus too.
With old familiars such as Powerslave and Two Minutes To Midnight, following, the crowd erupted. The opening drum sequence on Powerslave does differ from previous live performances over the decades, and the guitar solos differ from previous ones, but Powerslave is one of the great live numbers and is adored by the fanbase. This was never more apparent than at Knebworth. Then down it came – THE BIG ONE.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Now, I love Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, every single note of it. But playing this at Knebworth, with the most incredible graphic display you will ever see, just catapults it to another level. The audience was utterly immersed in a display of sheer wonderment. And those six lads up there on that stage? Well, there are not enough superlatives to describe the performance and the display.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
With such a striking graphic display, it does draw your attention away from the band themselves. But that is not a criticism. So much work and care has gone into the track that the audience were quite frankly, blown away by it.
Another old favourite in Run To The Hills was served up, prompting the usual crowd interaction and high-octane bass-playing from possibly the best bass player on the planet. This was, however, followed up by something quite extraordinary.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Now I want you to sing a high single note and then hold it for 25 seconds. Now do it with a bug, in heat and humidity and in a field. Not quite as straightforward, eh?
Bruce ended up apologising to fans for his raspy voice, saying he had picked up a bug in Spain. Yet even while struggling with his voice, he still managed to perform a massive setlist that singers half his age and fully fit would struggle with. He was immense.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Here, they stand, brothers them all. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son erupted with that wonderful keyboard intro. This number had only been played on one other tour since it was first played in 1988, so it was time for this one to have another run-out. Messrs Smith, Murray, and Gers, with their triple guitar attack, were all on top form as you would expect, but it was Bruce who once again shone like a beacon in the fading light.
Just before the quieter mid-section of the song, leading into the spoken word part, Dickinson held a single note for almost 25 seconds. That is not his personal record, incidentally. He has managed 30 seconds before. But to hold a note for around 25 seconds is extremely difficult, yet he manages to make it sound easy.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Knebworth went ballistic, and rightly so. Then the chugging, staccato, distorted guitar, Harris’s melodic bass playing, always leading, Dawson’s high hat and symbols leading up to an explosion of light-speed fretwork. An awesome track, brilliantly played. Then came the Trooper and everybody’s favourite decomposing corpse entered
Look, we’ve all seen him turn up, generally during the same song in the set, but we all love him, wielding his sword around like a guitarist flinging his axe around (yep, that means you, Janick). Obviously, Maiden absolutely rocked this one as they always do, playing with their usual sense of urgency and vigour, Steve Harris playing those triplets like a man possessed, Murray Smith and Gers with fingers flying around the fretboard.
A sight to behold, indeed. Maiden loved it, the crowd loved it, Eddie loved it.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
For me, the next track was one of three which stood out, not just because of the absolutely thunderingly brilliant musicianship, but the sumptuous graphics. Alongside Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, that £2m digital backdrop made you feel like you were on an epic film set. The way that Dickinson disappears into the screen and emerges as an avatar fighting the image of death itself is utterly enthralling. A magic trick worthy of Simon Drake of Raising Hell fame, himself.
There was a little disappointment at this point in the night’s wonderful proceedings as a bit of an exodus started to take place to watch the Norway v England World Cup quarter-final. The lads, however, were not deterred from putting on a blistering performance of Iron Maiden, followed by a three-song encore led by Churchill’s Speech, breaking into the third standout number of the night, Aces High.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Again, those graphics enhanced an already brilliant song. The display of Squadron Leader Eddie T Head flying his Spitfire, rolling over and spinning around to come up behind a Messerschmitt or two and blast the bejesus out of them was incredible. In fact, it was so convincing, it would not have surprised me if one or two members of the crowd tried to get a sick bag from an air steward.
Fear Of The Dark was then followed by the ever-popular Wasted Years, bringing up the rear.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
After half a century of not just leading the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal charge, not just dominating the rock and Metal genre, but actually influencing the entire music industry worldwide in some way, it is impossible to overstate the importance of this band and their incredible team.
From Rod Smallwood and Dave Shackleton in the management team to crew members like George Marinov and the Killer Krew, everything is done with precision and purpose. Otherwise, they just could not function in the way they do. The whole EDDFEST weekend is a testament to that.
Iron Maiden – EDDFEST – 11 July 2026. Photo: Manuela Langotsch/MetalTalk
Iron Maiden do not just produce songs, they tell epic stories that demand your attention. Festivals do not come any bigger or better than this.
Iron Maiden are the Rolls-Royce of the music industry.
I have spoken of this before in these halls, but I owe a hell of a lot of my introduction to Hardcore with a capital ‘H’ to a friend of a great friend that tape traded with us for the better part of a year or so. We had some commonality via the bands mentioned above, but this dude bettered our lives with introductions to crews such as Agnostic Front, English Dogs, Attitude Adjustment, Token Entry, S.O.B., Murphy’s Law, the first Crumbsuckers, etc., and we floated him heavyweights like Nuclear Assault, Warfare, Zoetrope, Carnivore, Whiplash, Wehrmacht, et al. Suffice to say, it was a rather fruitful union, and both scenes seemed to cross-pollinate right alongside us, with the peak and sudden decline hitting just before we all careened into the ‘90s.
So, yeah, by 1987 the cross-pollination was very noticeable, with D.R.I.’s Crossover leading the charge and only getting eclipsed by Carnivore’s landmark Retaliation later that year. As a relevant aside, I cannot express just how much hubbub Retaliation garnered back then, both because of its strength as an effective Hardcore crossover record and because of how controversial some of the lyrics were. “These songs are simply a very dark and satirical social critique,” many would argue, and perhaps that was true, but it’s still the first time I recall feeling outwardly uncomfortable with the music I loved, which was significant. Blatant Satanic imagery and underscoring the glory of regurgitated guts just didn’t feel… quite as real, I suppose. Anyway, Retaliation also seemed to drop during a time when, as the two scenes became more and more hybridized, hostilities also appeared to rise, and I distinctly recall seeing the Crumbsuckers (with the desperately unheralded Joe Gizmo and the Spudmonsters) in early ’88 and watching bouncers levying strict rules to anyone in line with a shaved head.
Band shots as cover art wasn’t exactly rare in punk, but metal-minded folks knew that if an album cover depicted just the players, something probably went wrong at label HQ (*cough* extremeaggression *cough*). B.O.M.B.’s cover essentially looked like a candid shot of five guys that worked at the local pizza joint near the harbor, and I’m guessing guitarist Chuck Lenihan (far left) was the delivery driver because he didn’t want to wear a goddamned hair net. The photo was taken in Long Beach, which is where Relativity sent the Crumbsuckers to record with the same feller responsible for Megadeth’s Peace Sells. Per an interview with bassist Gary Meskil:
