At the beginning of October 2025, Soho Dukes released ‘Sunday Magazines’, an unashamedly British sounding single that celebrated the past with a namecheck for Whispering Bob Harris and a rollocking arrangement that borrowed liberally from Mott The Hoople and early Quireboys. With a vocal hook on loan from Cockney Rebel, it was anything but subtle, but in terms of pushing those “feel good” buttons, the Dukes served up a winner.
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Listen: The Last Bastion deliver a rallying cry on new single ‘Legion of The Damned’
In June 2025, Brit metallers The Last Bastion released their debut album ‘Who We Are’, a collection of songs driven by defiantly old school riffs. The songs may well have paid homage to the genre’s forefathers, and the material often sounded like something from the late 80s, but at its heart, the album had a lot of power. The ghosts of the slower, black album era Metallica cut through some of ‘Screaming In Silence’s heavier moments; a massive twin lead guitar creating a vital musical hook during ‘Medusa’ drew influence from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal but, when presented with a slower, heavier edge, also gave a nod to Slayer’s slow numbers, and that track’s featured solo showed how tight the band could be when delivering a raft of fretboard melting sounds. Perhaps most importantly, the huge crunch present during the slower parts of ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ suggested The Last Bastion would be a force of nature in a live setting.
Acid Bath to play in the UK for the first time ever!
In 1994, just before the arrival of KoRn and the rise of what would soon be dubbed “nu metal”, the US metal scene was already thriving. Thrash had started to wain, but a whole world of band’s plying doom, sludge and hardcore elements helped to keep music fans of a heavier persuasion more than entertained.
Watch: Tempest Saint share new video for ‘The Cursed’
Metal has gone through many different fads and fashions over the decades. No longer just limited to a world of hair, studs and leather, it has taken in a world of different riffs, sometimes exploring musical landscapes that are heavier and more complex than ever before.
There’s still time for tradition, of course, and Tempest Saint – a band from the Greater London area – understand this very clearly. Their current single ‘The Cursed’ opens with a riff that draws heavily upon a 1984 Judas Priest vintage, setting a great – and somewhat familiar – sound in place. Bringing in a heavier, speed driven rhythm, the whole of Tempest Saint latch onto a sharp edged yet melodic barrage of riffs that really captures their unwavering commitment to a classic 80s style.
Listen: Stephen McCafferty unveils new track ‘I Am The Buffalo’
Scottish singer songwriter Stephen McCafferty is one of the best artists to emerge in 2025. He’s released a succession of great singles, showing off a writing talent that refuses to be pigeonholed.