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April 2025
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70 articles
- April 7
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- “Certain things force you to progress… I’m free to do other things, but how much of a leap do I take?” Matt Berry on whether he prefers making music to comedy
- "We haven’t adjusted it for the taste of modern kids. This is how it's meant to be heard": An interview with the makers of Becoming Led Zeppelin
- "Their music is as aggressively and pretentiously dull as their choice of band name": The Band's second album is an acknowledged classic, but there are some dissenters
- April 6
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- Watch video for new Babymetal track 'from me to u' featuring Poppy
- "We've been so very lucky to have had the Ace of Bass in our lives": Former Gang of Four and Shriekback bassist Dave Allen dead at 69
- “We started performing rituals to conjure entities. From that point on it was all about making music that would please these gods”: The unholy story of Morbid Angel and the birth of death metal
- “If somebody offered me something I’d take it first and ask afterwards what it was. I’d swallow a pill and have to be carried back to my room”: The life and death of Jimmy Bain, the bassist who brought the rock’n’roll to Rainbow and Dio
- "There will be no event called 'Fyre 2' in Playa del Carmen." Grand plans to revive disastrous event come as a surprise to the resort city supposed to be hosting it
- “I saw right away that he wrote a lot about urban culture, youth culture and violence. That inspired me to create moodier songs”: The story of Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith’s forgotten 2010s side project
- “People condemned us, attacked us because we weren’t the hip of the hip. But we held our course”: The epic story of Journey‘s Escape, the early 80s masterpiece that changed the course of rock
- The 10 best grunge album openers: a definitive list that is irrefutably correct so you're not allowed to argue with it
- April 5
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- “What did I know at the ripe old age of 22? I knew comics, horror and sci-fi. I couldn’t really write about heartbreak or a horrible upbringing”: How an iconic comic book character inspired Anthrax to write a thrash metal classic
- “It’s obvious that one day this’ll all die out, just like every sort of music does. There is no point in worrying about it”: How Bring Me The Horizon made their mark from the start with Count Your Blessings
- “I don’t want to sound pro-drug or anything, but there is something about being high that makes you look at things differently”: How Aerosmith made their first great chemically-fuelled masterpiece Toys In The Attic
- The best metal albums of 2025 (so far)
- “I told Jimmy Page: ‘Come on! People want to see Zeppelin back together!’ I won’t say I was responsible, but after that they did play that reunion gig”: Mick Fleetwood’s wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Arnold Schwarzenegger and more
- “Once James Hetfield said he liked the album, that was it. He said that it kicked his ass”: How Machine Head’s The Blackening became their own Master Of Puppets
- “It’s such an interesting life he led”: The Waterboys’ Mike Scott on why he’s written a whole album about Easy Rider star Dennis Hopper
- "It's out there. I don't have to hide behind it anymore": Judas Priest's Richie Faulkner reveals he suffered a stroke and it's affected his playing
- April 4
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- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- I asked a death metal supergroup to name the most brutal death metal albums of all time – this is what they came up with
- "Ramones perfectly represent and encapsulate the essence of the underground." Napalm Death, Thurston Moore, Wayne Kramer, Ihsahn and members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rammstein, Gogol Bordello and more to appear on two forthcoming Ramones tribute albums
- More is all you need! Metallica’s Master Of Puppets has been streamed one billion times on Spotify
- How power couple Paula and Dave Lombardo traded thrash metal for sultry alternative: "Venamoris is a rebirth."
- Ghost fans! Get this world-exclusive bundle featuring Skeletá on vinyl, Metal Hammer’s new issue with a cover you can’t buy anywhere else, and more
- “Bob Geldof said, No, Queen have peaked. I don’t think they should play.” Queen would never have performed their iconic set at Live Aid if Band Aid mastermind Bob Geldof had his way, and Freddie Mercury initially wasn't that keen either
- Every Bleed From Within album ranked from worst to best
- “Despite having settled into an MOR-leaning sound, highlights cut through of-their-time instrumental traits”: Camel’s Nude and Pressure Points remixed
- "This is the best day of my life!" Watch Kelly Clarkson cover Foo Fighters, then help Jack Black make a dream come true in the most joyous and pure TV segment of the week
- Sleep Token drop another new single Caramel – listen here
- "Classic late-period sleaze rock, all chugging guitar and tomcat howl": L.A. Guns appear impervious to age on Leopard Skin
- These 9 metal bands paved the way for Sleep Token
- Lynyrd Skynyrd announce live album recorded at Gary Rossington's star-studded final show
- April 3
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- “How could it possibly hang together? But it does, brilliantly”: Steven Wilson has remixed Chicago II in Dolby ATMOS
- "I've seen people younger than him in wheelchairs on stage, he probably doesn't want people to see him that way." Ritchie Blackmore's wife Candice Night says the guitarist had a heart attack 18 months ago, won't be onstage in Europe any time soon
- “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now.” Bruce Springsteen is almost ready to share Tracks II: The Lost Albums, featuring seven records and 82 previously unreleased songs, 74 never-before-heard
- "Our manager gave us each $1000 and put us on the plane, economy class. We later found out we had received $250,000 for the show: he kept it all." The true story behind Black Sabbath's biggest show ever
- Bruce Soord details 10th anniversary edition of debut solo album
- “Many names are familiar; a lot of material isn’t. An evening in with the lava lamp beckons”: Middle Earth: The Soundtrack Of London’s Legendary Psychedelic Club 1967–1969
- "Quitting alcohol cost me friends, but quitting nicotine was much harder": Bob Mould on addiction, reconnecting with his audience and social media confusion
- “I thought, ‘This is boring. I play these songs all the time! Where’s the audience to cheer me up?’” Richard Thompson’s battle against barking dogs, overhead planes and leaf blowers to make Acoustic Classics
- This is the Metallica song that makes Kirk Hammett cry – and it’s really not the one you’d expect
- April 2
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- "Lots of my records melted in the blaze": John Lydon lost part of his vinyl collection after his kitchen was accidentally set on fire - right after his insurance was cancelled
- Tobias Forge says most Ghost songs aren’t about the Devil: “They’ve always been about mankind’s relationship with the concept of life and death”
- "I am the Pistols, and they’re not.” John Lydon is getting ever more salty about the success and acclaim currently being enjoyed by his revitalised former Sex Pistols bandmates
- The Hives announce new Josh Homme/Mike D-assisted album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, and share punchy new single Enough Is Enough, plus UK and European tour dates
- This WWE icon once invited a fake Sammy Hagar backstage and watched him snort so much cocaine his nose bled
- More than a shredbot: The Joe Satriani albums you should definitely listen to
- Machine Head toured America six days after 9/11: “Everybody in the front row was like, ‘Why am I here? Tell me it’s gonna be OK’”
- A new trailer for "the Citizen Kane of British pop movies" has been released
- "I'm not a dictator. I'm a good king": Tobias Sammet on the democracy of Avantasia, the late Tony Clarkin, and whispering Bruce Dickinson
- “I didn’t just walk away from Nightwish. I walked away from everything, so I could figure out what the problem was”: Marko Hietala had to adjust to a new normal, and the result is Roses From The Deep
- “All these men were like, ‘Lose your brother, lose the band, lose your buddies – you should be in pop’”: Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale reveals industry pressure to start a solo career
- Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox promised fans a new version of a King Crimson classic but gave them bunny rabbits
- April 1
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- "How anyone can be 'deeply disturbed and hurt' by this is beyond me": REO Speedwagon charity show bickering continues as Bruce Hall fires back at Kevin Cronin
- “If I talk about Donald J. Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor” Neil Young thinks Donald Trump is the worst president in US history, but fears that saying so could have consequences
- “Contains love songs of every stripe: stressed-out, gooey-eyed, gratuitously horny, blissed out, obsessive and mysterious.” Wet Leg announce second album Moisturizer, share new single Catch These Fists
- Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan lines up shows to celebrate the anniversaries of three classic Smashing Pumpkins albums, but he'll be performing with his new solo band, not Smashing Pumpkins
- The new issue of Metal Hammer features Ghost on the cover – and comes with three exclusive gifts!
- "Touring Australia with the Sex Pistols was horrendous. Seeing the audience doing Nazi salutes really wore me down, and Johnny Rotten didn’t say anything." Skunk Anansie's Skin recalls "violent" 1996 tour with the Sex Pistols
- “It’s getting ridiculous. We’re the last men standing, unless some new wave of rock comes along…” The rise, fall and resurrection of The Darkness, the band on a mission to save rock
- King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce unique UK and European tour, split between 'rave sets' and orchestral shows
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- Mixing Sepultura groove with Gojira stomp, Alien Weaponry step up into the metal A-league with Te Rā
- "So much happened during those 12 months that it's hard to pack the impact into mere words": The greatest year in heavy metal history, revisited
- “If it wasn’t for those four guys, we might still be wandering around in the dark”: While Kirk Hammett hails Black Sabbath as metal’s founders, Ghost’s Tobias Forge names the “neglected” aspect of their sound
- A beginner's guide to Sweet in 10 brilliant songs, from chart hits to deep cuts
- “With deference to everybody in Beat, my function is to amuse myself and hopefully you. I can’t do music from 45 years ago”: Why Bill Bruford demoted himself from the King Crimson, Yes and Genesis league
- "The thing about rock, if it’s real, is that it will always be relevant": Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills on mass psychosis and the best way to solve writer's block
- "There's not a doubt in my mind that when I'm gone that song will live on forever": Dee Snider on the Twisted Sister song that transcended its era
