(Andy Synn has a lot of history with Heaven Shall Burn, which now includes their new album, Heimat, which is set for release this coming Friday on Century Media Records)

Way back in the year 2002 a young man who would one day come to be known (in certain dark corners of the internet, at least) as Andy Synn fell in love with an album by the name of Whatever It May Take by German Metalcore icon(oclast)s Heaven Shall Burn, who would go on to have a major influence on his music tastes for the foreseeable future.

That same year he also encountered an outstanding (some might even say seminal) piece of cinema named 28 Days Later, from director Danny Boyle, which would also have a huge impact on the media he would choose to consume going forwards and set the standard for what home-grown Horror could be.

And now, here we are in 2025 with new releases from both band and director demanding our attention once more… but while one of those has proven to be a crushing disappointment, let’s hope that the other one lives up to its legacy, shall we?

Continue reading »

(This is Andy Synn‘s review of the new album by German’s Heaven Shall Burn. It’s set for release on March 20th by Century Media and features cover art by Eliran Kantor.)

Heaven Shall Burn are, undeniably, one of my favourite bands,, and it sometimes seems like their instantly recognisable, and instinctively appealing, brand of “Death Metal-core” – equal parts Bolt Thrower, Earth Crisis, and Kreator – was tailor-made just for me.

Of course I’m far from alone in my love for the band, whose crossover potential means that they could just as easily hit the stage alongside Cannibal Corpse as Code Orange, Unleashed or Unearth, Darkest Hour or Dismember, and comfortably hold their own, and sometimes it seems like the only thing preventing them from a major, mainstream breakout is their stubborn refusal to compromise their ethics, or dilute their heaviness, to suit the demands or expectations of others.

Still, I have to admit that when the band announced that their next record was going to be a double-album I was a little bit sceptical. Continue reading »

(Andy Synn reviews the new album by Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn.)

Recipe for success: one part Bolt Thrower, one part Earth Crisis, one part Swedish Death Metal (of the more melodic variety), and a heavy helping of Germanic thrash. Garnish with relevant philosophical and socio-political themes and roast for 15-20 years in a blaze of righteous fury.

It’s a recipe which has served Heaven Shall Burn extremely well over the years, and, though there have certainly been some valid criticisms of the band for sticking too closely to their own formula at times, it’s one that’s been responsible for keeping the German firebrands right at the forefront of the European Metalcore scene (which, with its slightly more raw and Death Metal influenced sound, I’ve often considered to be subtly distinct from its eventually more commercialised American cousin).

So I don’t think it would have surprised anyone if, on their eighth full-length album, the band had simply elected to continue with the same sound which made Iconoclast, Invictus, and Veto so successful. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?

But… unexpectedly… that’s not exactly what happened… Continue reading »