American hard rockers Spread Eagle are excited to announce ‘The Brutal Divine UK Tour ’26‘, consisting of 11 shows across England, Scotland and Wales. Support on the tour will be rising UK rockers Star Circus. Tickets are on sale NOW! Tour Dates: September 23rd – Southampton, England – The Brook September 24th – St Albans, […]
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28th February 2026
Featuring: Golem of Gore, Vast Slug, Mordhau, Nagasaki Birth Defect, Dreor
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
Turning on to Bradshawgate I’m greeted by the sight of a full-blown fun fair, which leads me to think one of three things to be true: a) Grind Before Death has gone all Download Festival and put on extra-musical entertainment for the kids; b) that I’ve walked into a sort of Something Wicked This Way Comes type thing; or, and bear in mind it’s still February at this point, c) the good people of Bolton are nuttier than squirrel poop and will do anything not to have to endure Saturday night television.
As the warm-up to May’s Grind After Death, this curtain-raiser to the 2026 festival season takes place inside the almost two-hundred-year-old Grade 2 listed Alma Inn, with half the room given over to the stage and the other to punters. The reason for the Grade 2 listing is due to a large and historic fireplace and range, which just so happens to be in the area allocated to the audience. Heritage England may well be having an aneurism later when the pit gets feisty.
The carnival is in full swing across the road when Nottingham trio, Drēor take to the stage with their unsettling fascination with both cooking and death metal. It’s a recipe – pardon the pun – for disaster combining those two, I’m sure. Early on the band create some brooding atmospherics with groove and melody on openers, Living Cadaver and Three-Man Roast, the latter indulging itself in some serious cymbal abuse. Newbie, The Portal comes with some virtuoso bass tapping and a crawling creepy a feeling of dread, while older tune, 2023’s Buried, from The Terror Rises EP, is surprisingly sedate for such an evening as this.
Blood & Bourbon has some serious old school death metal energy and inspires the evening’s first participation in the form of a jaunty jig from a solitary attendee. Primitive Beatings hits with a blast of punk vigour, and set closer, Pan-Fried Man rumbles low and has a progressive vibe. Grind Before Death is up and running.
Fellow east-Midlanders, Nagasaki Birth Defect, have a more direct grinding approach, but the presence of Tom Reynolds of Foul Body Autopsy – sporting a guitar so complex looking that you’d be best off trying to suss out the workings of a fusion reactor – means there’s a fair amount of technicality to be found. Boasting just a single full-length, the 2015 self-titled, you may think NBD would base their set largely around that material, but no! Early on we get a host of tunes not on the debut: State Enforced Euthanasia, Victim Mentality, and Fuck Off with Your Witchy Bullshit blast and rage as good old-fashioned grind should. A small room in a pub and a bunch of rabid maniacs is just what the Dr ordered.
Just Stop Being a Cunt pretty much says everything it needs to in its title; Take Your Stupid Gimmick and Kindly Fuck Off and an untitled new tune tease another record, though the leaking of a previous recording seems to have soured that idea. Shotgun Blast Castration and the idea of feeding wrong ‘uns through a woodchipper on Woodchipper Death Sentence seems to get tacit approval around the Alma; Cycle Paths are to Blame and Spin Kicks Are For Cunts are big ticks from me. Tom’s “Thar she blows” intro to A Day at the Beach is the first of just three songs from 2015, the other two arriving at the close: Oxygen Thief and Fuck! end the set of blitzkrieg grinders played at a rip-roaring pace. Someone calls for Deicide’s Lunatic of God’s Creation, but the guitars have been unstrapped by that point.
Not to be confused with the US Black Metal band of the same name, Scarborough’s Mordhau find themselves in the usual position of replacing Dychosis, who themselves were replacements for Repel. All that really matters is Mordhau is here and ready to take on Bolton. You can tell before a note had been struck that this is going to be a trip down Memory Lane with the strapping on of a Flying-V guitar. It’s a gothic sounding build up then straight into Bereft of Rotting Flesh from the band’s sole album, 2020’s Immaculate Massacre. Machine gun riffing fires the crowd into life and puts that fireplace in mortal danger. Matty Andrews’ choppy barks go directly into the faces of the front row, Temporal Insanity comes with the incessant toiling of a bell, and it appears the band have their very own cheerleader, who’s perched on the lip of the stage for the duration.
It’s rapidly becoming a full-contact environment in the pit, bodies slamming into each other with reckless abandon, yet it’s safe as houses in there; good friendly violent fun, as Exodus once said and the ladies are certainly holding their own in this battle of the sexes. Through Religion Denied, Duty Be Done and set closer, Pig Society, the floor is a mass of colliding figures, with not a single person willing to quit before the band run out of time and the curtain is drawn on the show. ‘Tis but a temporary ceasefire, with hostilities to be resumed upon the arrival of the next band.
That next band is Norwich grinders, Vast Slug, whose thirty-track debut album, Driving Music, was one of the finest slabs of extremity in musica from last year, in my humble opinion. Former Nervewrecker vocalist, Ed Bell, compares the Slug’s set with the perfect amount of confrontation, both to the music and the crowd. Early tunes include the minute-long Flat Earth Fuckwit, You Don’t Believe in the Theory of Evolution So I Hope the Theory, and You Act Like Butter Wouldn’t Melt, Bitch. Ed calls Bolton, Bristol, much to the chagrin of the locals, dedicates Your Boyfriend has a Micro-Penis to the Annotations of an Autopsy guitarist, Sean Mason – maybe beef, maybe an East Anglia thing…
Further colourful subject areas getting the Vast Slug treatment today come in the form of Chris Beniot’s Family Values, Phillip Schofield is a Fucking Nonce, and Harold Fish N’ Chipman; and Lolita Express: Under 16’s Fly Free couldn’t be more current if it tried. The crowd are strangely subdued early on, but that changes after a cajoling from Mr Bell, which seems to whip them back into the Mordhau frenzy of earlier. You’re a Fucking Cunt is dedicated to Dani Filth, there’s a cover of Napalm Death’s You Suffer and the set closes with a ride with the Vengaboys.
The pit gets fierce, putting the blood pressure of any English Heritage officer through the roof; there’s the smallest of circle pits and it all ends with Ed recommending we check out the band on “MySpace, or wherever.” The Slug play the role as special guest to perfection, cranking the enjoyment level to the maximum, yet leaving the crowd with just enough energy for the headliner.
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
Italian three-piece, Golem of Gore, is the epitome of the goregrind ethos. Playing tonight without a bassist gives the set a raw and uncultivated sound, meaning Grumo, Logic of Denial and Psychostasy guitarist, Marco Carboni, is covering both bases. Making a swift return to English shores after their British debut at last year’s Chimpyfest, these goremeisters ensure things get real spicy, real quickly with the opening salvos of Supportive Necro-Parotitis In my Dying Little Girlfriend and Esophagus Obstructed by Loneliness and Purulent Fecal Matter, both taken from the 2021 debut, Madness Is the Beginning: Beyond the Darkness of the Brightest Gore. Interspersed are tracks from last year’s Ultimo Mondo Cane full-length: Withdrawal Crisis – Through the Keyhole of Madness and the insanely titled, In the Cold Room of my Restaurant, You are Dog Food.
Vocalist Riki barks and snarls his way through such delightful ditties as Sucking the Abscess and Savouring the Necrotic Material, Chronic Obstructive Vomit and A Prayer from the Filthy Creatures of the Deep. Brutal slams and ruthlessly effective grinding wring the last drops of energy out of the Saturday night crowd; someone waves a shoe at the band as the Golems turn their attention to their vast number of splits. The 2022 record with US goremerchants, Lipoma provides An Open Wounded Corpse and Secreting Sperm into…; Septic Shock Factor, Ripped By Fury and closer Crippling Vomit Hydrocephalus come from the disc shared with pathology obsessed Texans, Ischemic Necrosis.
As the final notes fade, so too does the opening shots of the 2026 festival season. The main Grind After Death event takes place on 30 May 2026, out in the main arena – aka, the beer garden – which will play host to Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition, DeathCollector, Berenice and many more. Celebrating the festival’s fifth anniversary, if this warm-up show – and last year’s event – is anything to go by, then that is one not to miss.
Will the fun fair be there? Who knows… if Michael McIntyre or Ant & Dec are on the telly that night, it could be a real possibility.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
The post Live Review: Grind Before Death appeared first on The Razor's Edge.
28th February 2025
Featuring: Golem of Gore, Vast Slug, Mordhau, Nagasaki Birth Defect, Dreor
Photos: Rich Price
We look back at the epic Grind Before Death show through the eyes of our photographer Rich Price!
All photo credits: Rich Price Photography
The post Live Gallery: Grind Before Death appeared first on The Razor's Edge.
In writing this article, I was more than a little surprised at just how many Heavy Metal bands have done cover versions over the years. Then I was even more surprised at the sheer breadth of songs that have been re-imagined. The hardest thing was actually narrowing the list down to twenty, and the second hardest thing was putting them into some kind of order of preference.
It certainly was not an exact science, and as I was writing this piece, the pecking order changed repeatedly. By no means exhaustive and definitely not authoritative, here is my best pick for the Top 20 Heavy Metal Cover Versions.
Italian rockers Vision Divine took A-ha’s ’80s pop classic and turned it into a very credible Metal track. It’s still got a poppy feel, and yes, keyboards as well, but the galloping guitars and drums announce this version’s genre trip, and Fabio Lione’s vocals absolutely nail this.
There are stranger songs for a Metal band to cover than a Bond theme performed by Wings, but maybe not many. Guns N’ Roses really go for it with their version of this song, much less restrained than the original, and with a fabulous pre-grunge over-the-top-ness that made the late ’80s and early ’90s a great place to be for Metalheads.
This is a cover of the Quatermass original version, which actually gave the original artists a shot in the arm and shifted an extra twenty thousand copies of their album. Anyway, Rainbow really let rip with their version of this song, with lots of nice bluesy licks from Blackmore, and on-point vocals from Ronnie James Dio.
Much like the Quo themselves, this is a song that’s been around the block, and then some. Previously recorded by Tom Jones, and then as a duet by Glen Campbell and Rita Coolidge, the Frantic Four’s incarnation is by far the most, well, frantic. This song really sits well with Status Quo’s signature sound, and it’s no surprise that A: it was released as a single, and B: it did rather well in the charts.
Tantric really updated and beefed up this Fleetwood Mac classic from the ’70s. Deeper, more threatening vocals, dirty guitar and tight, encircling drumming keep this song intense and an absolute pleasure to listen to. And while the original always seemed to me to be two songs stitched together, this version effortlessly combines both acts into one awesome whole.
Biff and the boys from Barnsley crank up the volume and do what they do best with this reworking of an old Sweet song. And that’s not to say the original wasn’t chock-full of jumping beans. It was. And sure, I may be showing my bias here, but Saxon took that hot rocking powderkeg that is this song, gave it an added kick in the guts, and sent it into orbit, in a very good way.
The Cult went right back to Heavy Metal basics with this album, and especially so with this song, with the riffs even more pared down than the original, although the solo is immense. Covering a bona fide Metal classic is always taking a risk, but The Cult hit gold with this one, combining respect for the original with a twist all of their own.
The Eurythmics original was an edgy, synthy ’80s song that showed that pop music could still have real depth. Marilyn Manson took that canvas and gave us a truly terrifying, slime-soaked, gruesome version in a way that only he can. Combine that with the visuals of the video, and you’ve got a truly phenomenal musical statement.
Elton John playing the original was a real curveball, but in a good way, and so Nickelback’s galloping Metal version is, in some ways, more predictable. The foursome from Hanna really let rip on their version, playing it in their very familiar style. Nickelback are truly, really awesome, and turning their talents to this song proves why.
Black Sabbath covered this on their debut album, and it sits perfectly alongside their own songs. It’s doomy, it’s stark and dark. It’s an ideal complement to the Sabbath sound, and in 1970, it allowed the band to make their mark in a truly original way.
Saxon took this Christopher Cross song and gave it one almighty injection of late-’80s Metal. In fact, it was so damn catchy it was released as a single, and jolly good it was too. A lot heavier than the original, it really fitted in with Saxon’s style, and unusually for our down-to-earth Yorkshire lads, even their music video was, well, pretty cool for its time.
Framing Hanley covered this Lil Wayne rap song and played like it was only ever a rock song. It appears as a bonus track on their debut album, The Moment. It’s a great, thoroughly entertaining song, and the video will raise a smile to every under-thirty who watches it, and remind everyone over thirty just what it meant to be young.
This song has long been regarded as proto-Metal, one of the first Heavy Metal songs ever, recorded by none other than The Beatles. Then, after fifty years of Heavy Metal, Misters Zombie and Manson gave us their own take on it.
The end result is deeper, slower, and oh so much heavier. Take nothing away from the original, but the revamped version remains something very special.
The Headless Children was most definitely W.A.S.P.’s first grown-up album, showing a depth and maturity that remains a pleasure to hear. None more so than this, their cover of The Who’s classic from Quadrophenia.
You can feel Blackie Lawless’ paranoia and desperation as he sings the tortured lyrics. Overall, it’s not that much heavier than the original, but it’s a whole lot darker.
I’ll hold my hands up and say that this was the first version of Stairway that I heard. Yes, I also heard all of the outrage from my mates, many of whom were Led Zep fans, who, like quite a few Prem League footie fans, probably took things a bit too seriously.
Let’s face it, Far Corporation treated this song with respect and delivered it in the mid-’80s style. In and of itself, it’s a really good version of the song, and I loved the video, which, if I remember rightly, had two drummers. Rock on!
Ugly Kid Joe went very deep with this cover of Harry Chapin’s song. It’s a heartbreaking song about a boy who resents not being able to spend time with his father, and then turns out to be the very same father himself when he grows up.
You can’t help but be hit between the eyes by this song, and Ugly Kid Joe gave it a whole load of feeling with their version. Excellent stuff!
Not so much a cover of a specific band’s song, more of a traditional Irish folk song that had been sung by The Dubliners and then The Highwaymen before Phil Lynott’s legendary band took hold of it, way back in the ’70s.
This version is electrifying, and simultaneously takes you back in time to the Cork and Kerry mountains, and also front and centre at a rock concert.
This is a reworking of the Shondells’ song from way back in ’68 (a very good year). Billy Idol recorded a studio version and then released a live version, which absolutely cleaned up in ’87.
Complete with some corrosive Steve Stevens guitaring, Mr Idol absolutely took this song into another dimension, and all of it was Metal.
This was one of the first Heavy Metal songs I ever heard, and I was sold from that moment on. This song was first recorded by The Arrows, with whom Joan Jett toured during her time in The Runaways. Joan Jett’s version is one hundred per cent Heavy Metal.
It’s dirty, it’s sleazy, it’s truly addictive. It’s got a riff that will stay with you forever, and if you get to see the video, there’s a bona fide neck bend on the guitar.
Rainbow did an instrumental cover of the Yardbirds’ song on their debut album, but they absolutely owned it with their live album. Literally everything about this version is on point, from the soaring vocals to the sublime guitar attack, and just when you think it’s all over, the drum reprise at the end is just absolute Heavy Metal heaven.
And there we have it, a short, very short list of the many excellent Heavy Metal cover versions that are out there. You could so easily have a top 40, and you would still just be scratching the surface.
Of course, a list like this will only ever be subjective. Any one of us could have a whole different 20 songs as their pick, and that’s always something to celebrate.
The post Top 20 Heavy Metal Cover Versions Ranked first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.
Book of Churches, the solo project from the breakthrough alt-country band Divorce’s co-vocalist and guitarist Felix Mackenzie-Barrow, today releases its self-titled debut album via Gravity / Capitol Records.
When Book of Churches was announced at the top of the year with lead single ‘Song By A Stranger’ – a song that Felix describes “as the blueprint for how I wanted to make the album” – a candid, and profoundly raw body of work began to come into view. While touring extensively with Divorce through the last few years, Felix was snatching moments away in isolation, pressing forward with a writing process that describes as “incredibly DIY” and “kind of naïve.” Each song was written in one day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until the album was handed over to Richie Kennedy (Interpol, The Last Dinner Party) for mixing. Charting lost love, dread, grief and anger, ‘Book of Churches’ was about breaking some of his own creative rules, trusting his own singular voice, and committing to “the raw contents of my brain.” The result is a timeless minimalism in the tradition of folk singer-songwriters like Nick Drake and Fionn Regan, or Leonard Cohen.
As the album is released, so is a video for new song ‘All The Good Things’, which Felix comments on “All The Good Things was written shortly after a break up. It recounts memories that resurfaced at that time and was an attempt to find peace in myself and in the shared experiences I had been through with that person. I recorded and mixed it in a few hours in the room I was staying in at my parents’ house about eighteen months after I had written it. This was by far the longest gap between writing and recording on the album.”
Continuing about the album he says: “It feels a bit like a travelogue. In some ways, when I wrote these songs, I was talking to the person I was no longer in a relationship with – just saying hello. Sometimes, the songs were attempts at looking for a North Star that I could speak to. It’s this idea of how big the world is, and how precious those few connections that you have with people are, and how you can feel those so acutely across vast spaces and times. Book of Churches is basically a metaphor for how I felt making these songs. These songs are like my version of whatever church is.”
Stream / buy the debut album Book of Churches HERE
Book of Churches – Book of Churches album tracklisting
1. Song By A Stranger
2. All The Good Things
3. There You Go I Love You
4. North Atlantic Ocean
5. The Quiet Was A Heron
6. I Lean
7. Big Love
8. Hard Dride
9. Catalpa In The Sky
10. Stones In Your Bag
*****
Book of Churches UK headline tour dates 2026
Tickets are on sale HERE.
23 April – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton, UK
25 April – The Castle, Manchester, UK
26 April – The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, UK
28 April – Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds, UK
29 April – The Cube, Bristol, UK
30 April – St Pancras Old Church, London, UK
01 May – Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
*****
More about Book of Churches
“It started out as a way of staying sane, then it began to form its own identity,” Felix Mackenzie-Barrow says of his new solo venture, Book of Churches. The co-vocalist and guitarist of Nottingham alt-country quartet Divorce has spent most of the last few years either building up to the band’s acclaimed full-length debut Drive to Goldenhammer, released in March 2025, or touring Europe and North America in support of it. In rare snatches of downtime, he began working on his own material – initially as a way to hold on to his sense of self while travelling and spending so much time in a group, but partly to scratch an itch that sat outside the Divorce world.
Book of Churches is intimate at every level. With Felix squirrelling away on the songs in isolation, its self-titled debut is a collection of campfire songs laid out in the order in which they were written and produced at home on GarageBand. The arrangements are warm but stripped back; the kind that lend themselves to being played impromptu while travelling with just a guitar case and a tank of petrol.
Each song was written in one day, recorded the next, and left largely untouched until the album was handed over to Richie Kennedy (Divorce, Interpol, The Last Dinner Party) for mixing. Overthinking and perfectionism were abandoned in favour of intuition and looseness. “Because no one was teaching me, I invented this school of production for myself,” he chuckles. “But what’s amazing is [Richie] is really amplifying that and allowing for the idiosyncrasies of the way I’ve worked on it to come through and be celebrated.”
The lyrics were pulled from notes he kept on his phone while on the road, and in the aftermath of a breakup. Caught between people and places, there is a transitional feel to Book of Churches; a meditative acceptance to the snapshots, impressions, and memories that are part personal diary entry, part letter to a former flame. “It feels a bit like a travelogue,” says Felix. “In some ways, when I wrote these songs, I was talking to the person I was no longer in a relationship with – just saying hello.
“Sometimes, the songs were attempts at looking for a North Star that I could speak to,” he continues. “It’s this idea of how big the world is, and how precious those few connections that you have with people are, and how you can feel those so acutely across vast spaces and times.”
The moniker crystalised when Felix noticed that he had been repeatedly drawing tiny churches in bleak settings and couldn’t quite explain why – though he suspects he was longing for a feeling of safety, and making that place for himself using the materials of a place where he was never able to find it. Book of Churches, then, turns the idea of a place of worship – a presence that bears down on you, rather than a presence you bring to it – on its head. There is an almost spiritual sense of peace in these songs about memory, loss, and gratitude even in sadness.
“Book of Churches is basically a metaphor for how I felt making these songs,” he says. “These songs are like my version of whatever church is.”
Book of Churches: Instagram
The post BOOK OF CHURCHES Releases Self-Titled Debut Album appeared first on The Rockpit.
Review: The Gems – Year of the Snake Napalm Records (March 13th, 2026) Reviewer – Jason Hopper Having risen from the ashes of their group departure from Thundermother, The Gems are back with their sophomore release, ‘Year of the Snake‘. Their debut album ‘Pheonix‘ (review here) was terrific and adhered close to the sound of their […]
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