Oct 232023
 

photo by Ester Segarra

(Last week we reviewed the new album by Iran-born, UK-based Trivax (recently released by Cult Never Dies), and today we follow that with a wide-ranging interview by Comrade Aleks of the band’s founder Shayan S.)

Trivax was started in April 2009 in Iran by Shayan S. (guitars, vocals) who moved to Birmingham in 2011 and reformed the band with a new lineup there. The first one who joined Shayan back then was the drummer Matthew Croton, as the current bass-player Sully get involved in Trivax in 2018.

While the first album SIN (2016) didn’t have a big impact, it seems that the new full-length blackened death metal manifest Eloah Burns Out will have it. Trivax came fully armed. Their new video “Azrael” is striking and kind of shocking; their performance at the Cosmic Void festival in London got its praise too; and Eloah Burns Out itself, released by Cult Never Dies on September 29th, promises to be one of most authentic extreme albums of 2023.

Let’s take a look at the modern world’s lunacy and satanic magic through the Trivax prism together with Shayan. Continue reading »

Oct 192023
 

(Andy Synn presents another collection of British artists/albums he thinks you should check out)

Good afternoon kids (and kids of all ages).

Are you ready to learn?

Well, today’s edition of the “Best of British” is brought to you by the letter “T” and the number “3”.

So shut up and start paying attention. There will be a test.

Continue reading »

Sep 132023
 

On September 29th the UK label Cult Never Dies will release Eloah Burns Out, the second album by the black/death band Trivax. The group have already made a notable name for themselves since their recording debut in 2012 with a scattering of demos and EPs and an impressive first album, 2016’s SIN (which we praised here as “a rip-roaring assault of burly (yet melodic) riffs, slithering tremolo runs, and punchy drum work topped off with Shayan’s surprisingly comprehensible mid-range snarl”).

The Shayan referred to there is the band’s Iranian-born founder and guitarist as well as vocalist. The founding occurred under challenging circumstances, as Shayan planted the seeds of Trivax‘s fruition in Iran, whose theocratic government has been hostile (to put it mildly) to the music and lyrical themes of extreme metal bands like Trivax.

Shayan managed to exit Iran and put down new roots in the UK, where he established the band with bassist Sully (himself an immigrant from Syria, where we’re told he faced imprisonment for his metal associations) and drummer Matthew Croton. Continue reading »

Jul 222023
 


Archspire

Someone wrote they get by with a little help from their friends… don’t tell me… it will come to me….

I got by with some help from my friends this morning. It was one of those especially distracting weeks when I had almost no chance to claw my way through the hundreds of e-mails we get every day, so I didn’t have much new music bookmarked to check out over the last 24 hours and really wasn’t eager to do the catch-up chore. However, DGR and Andy Synn pitched five new songs and videos at me, and I also noticed a few recommendations from some other valued influencers.

Collectively, those became my main targets… and like the blind squirrel who found an acorn, I did stumble across a few nuggets of musical nourishment myself. The result is the very big collection I’ve assembled below, organized alphabetically by band name and with fewer words than usual for Saturday round-ups. Surely you will find something to enjoy….

The Beatles! Continue reading »

Feb 192021
 

 

(In this article Andy Synn reviews three recent EPs from bands based in the UK.)

Huh… seems like a while now since I last did one of these “Best of British” columns (I’m not sure exactly how long, I haven’t checked).

And while it’s not like I’ve been neglecting my “local” scene – I heaped praise upon Thundering Hooves right at the start of the year, for example – it’s probably about time to catch up with what’s going on in our ever more divided kingdom. Continue reading »

Dec 082016
 

trivax-sin

 

(Andy Synn returns to his occasional series focusing on new releases by UK bands, with a trio of reviews and music streams.)

Just squeaking in under the wire before next week’s massive round-up, The Best of British is back once again with three killer cuts of prime metallic meat for your delectation.

Now you might be surprised to know that I still sometimes get accused of “not supporting the scene” enough, mostly in cases when Joe Douchebag is angry that I either haven’t covered his favourite band, or when I’ve had the temerity to suggest that his favourite band really isn’t all that good.

I suppose it doesn’t help that, despite playing in two bands myself, and writing for a couple of different publications, I still don’t really think of myself as part of “the scene”, which often tends to be too cliquey and insular for my tastes, with an unfortunate predisposition towards applauding bands just because they happen to be from the UK, and/or because they know the right people.

But I do feel that since I have my ear a bit closer to the ground than our other contributors (for obvious reasons) when it comes to up-and-coming acts from the UK, it’s important to use this knowledge to single out the bands who I feel really are deserving of praise and of wider exposure.

I’ve always felt that if you really want to “support the scene” then you should be asking, and expecting, more from it. You should be more, and not less, discriminating. If you want your scene to grow – rather than simply stagnate, producing the same interchangeable crop of bands year in and year out – you need to throw your support behind bands who can truly hold their own on the world stage.

And that’s the purpose of these columns. To bring these bands to a wider audience as best I can. Continue reading »