The bands you need to see at Mad Cool 2025From Weezer to PVRIS to Refused and beyond... here are our picks of the bands you need to see at Mad Cool this year. It's gonna be a hot one!
Doom, death, the roots of metal, and a band of frogs: This month’s highlights from the undergroundWe round up the latest and greatest from heavy music’s underground. Here’s some returning legends, amphibious riffs, and genuinely obscure heaviness from the 1960s...
YUNGBLUD: “I needed to get my fight back. I’ve always been a fighter, and I’ve found it again”On 2022’s self-titled third album, YUNGBLUD felt “more lost than I’d ever been”. Since then, though, Dominic Harrison has been putting in some seriously hard work, and as the 27-year-old gears up to launch a determined and defiant new era, he reveals how he’s coming back swinging…
Martial arts, impulsiveness, and doing the unexpected: How Machine Head continue to fight and winThree decades in, Machine Head are bigger than ever. It hasn’t been an easy road. But that isn’t stopping Robb Flynn challenging fans and purposefully taking the hard road on new album UNATØNED…
Blood Incantation: “You don’t need to have drugs to take a trip with our music. But if you do, it’ll be even crazier”Mystical visions, magic mushrooms, space-rock freak-outs – all part of Blood Incantation’s DNA. As the death metal visionaries hit the UK on the back of their mind-bending Absolute Elsewhere album, they take Kerrang! into their weird universe, and explain how music can unlock your consciousness…
“It’s equal parts epic, great songwriting, and completely unhinged”: Inside Halestorm’s new album EverestIn what could be the peak of Halestorm’s already-stellar career, the Pennsylvania quartet are set to release sixth album Everest in August and take to some seriously big stages. Lzzy Hale tells Kerrang! about writing in new ways, beating depression, and hitting the road with Iron Maiden and Sabbath…
PUP: “I wasn’t even trying to write a record. I just wanted to let what came out happen”As Toronto punk heroes PUP gear up to release their typically candid fifth album Who Will Look After The Dogs?, Stefan Babcock unpacks the unique context from which it came – and how creating without an agenda for the first time resulted in a healthy, much-needed change of perspective…
Demons, hip-hop and redemption: Inside LANDMVRKS’ “painful” new albumMarseilles’ LANDMVRKS are set to explode. But when it came to making their new album, The Darkest Place I’ve Ever Been, they struggled. As the band explain of the depression of writer’s block, “All the demons that are speaking to you become part of you, and so you become that creature…”
“You can never predict what we’re going to do next… this is our law now”: Inside WARGASM’s independent new eraAs WARGASM return with breakbeat-metal scorcher Vigilantes, Sam Matlock and Milkie Way tell Kerrang! about taking back control of the band, how smashing up LEGO sets embodies their new chapter, and the 30 new songs they’ve got in their locker…
twenty one pilots: “It’s full-circle. This was the first time I felt okay coming back to where we started”Almost a year on from its release, twenty one pilots are finally ready to peel back the curtain on their sensational seventh album, and The Clancy World Tour. Joining K! in Barcelona, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun reveal why their fans have been a guiding light, how they’ve brought this latest chapter to life, and if there’s even more to come…
Bond, bowling and brutal honesty: How Luke Spiller made the solo album of his dreamsLuke Spiller is the king of rock’n’roll in his world-dominating band The Struts. But with a Lana Del Rey-inspired itch to branch out and do something totally different, on his debut solo album Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes And Wine he’s putting himself out there in a whole new way…
Meet HIMALAYAS: The riff kings on the ascentHIMALAYAS have jammed with AC/DC and supported Foo Fighters at their Cardiff hometown’s biggest stadium. Now they’re about to go supernova with bombastic second album BAD STAR, and remind the world of the importance of The Riff…
10 reasons why you need thrown in your lifeFor rising Swedish metal crew thrown, things have been blowing up almost since they started, with most of their forthcoming UK tour having already sold out. Singer Marcus Lundqvist reveals how they’ve done it…
From grungy shoegaze to Japanese hyper-metal: Bilmuri on the bands to check out right nowBilmuri is constantly devouring new music. Who better, then, to round up five essential artists you may have slept on?
Who are Ghost’s fans?As Ghost begin their phenomenal Skeletour, we head to the sold-out AO Arena in Manchester to meet their fans and find out why they love the band, if they’ve ever seen a real-life ghost, and which Papa has “a bit of sauce…”
Bury Tomorrow: “Life is about those tiny moments of hope, isn’t it? Hope is the only reason we have to continue”Consistently one of British metalcore’s finest bands, Bury Tomorrow aren’t in any danger of losing that title with their killer eighth album Will You Haunt Me, With That Same Patience. And as frontman Dani Winter-Bates asserts, it’s connection, belief and absolute faith that keeps them pushing through…
