• Silent Hill 2 – A Psychological Horror Masterpiece

    October 31, 2013 - By 

    Silent Hill 2 is a masterpiece. It’s not a masterpiece in the traditional sense, where every aspect of the work is perfect. It’s a masterpiece in the sense that, despite being fundamentally broken in many ways, it still feels like a brutal, cohesive, human experience. Silent Hill 2 is not perfect – but it’s alive. This sequel is, for all intents and purposes, a reboot. Removing the B-movie cult storyline that the original was based on, Silent Hill 2 unshackles itself from the continuity of the franchise. The foggy town of Silent Hill is no longer the manifestation of tortured…

  • Classic Album: The Wicker Man OST (1973)

    October 31, 2013 - By 

    What is the sound of fear? Over the years, musicians and composers have tried various things, and certain tropes have emerged: the stabbing strings, the gothic grandeur, the discordant noise, or the Theremins and strange electronic sounds. But back in 1973, Paul Giovanni and Magnet took a completely different path, tapping into an altogether more earth vein of horror, capturing the cruel majesty of The Wicker Man. For many people, The Wicker Man is one of the towering giants of horror (if you’ll pardon the pun), a masterpiece of sustained dread that digs deep into our hearts to unearth a…

  • Horror songs: The Intense Humming Of Evil

    October 30, 2013 - By 

    There is no denying that the Manic Street Preachers’ third album, The Holy Bible, is a distressing listen. The album represents some of the final days of Richey James Edwards and gives us an insight into a mind that is as unsettling as it is compelling. Edwards penned songs about self-destruction, societal breakdown and the holocaust with a level of poeticism seldom seen in rock music. This poeticism gives way to terror on more than one occasion and is best typified with the gut-curdling holocaust themed ‘The Intense Humming Of Evil’. We begin with the sound of clanging metal and gaseous release. We begin…

  • Exclusive EP stream: Katharine Philippa – Broken To Be Rebuilt

    October 30, 2013 - By 

    Ahead of its release tonight at Belfast’s McMordie Hall, we are delighted to present an exclusive stream of the spectacular Broken To Be Rebuilt, the eagerly-anticipated new EP from singer-songwriter Katharine Philippa. Co-produced, mixed and master by Matt Duke, the six-track EP features extra instrumentation from five different musicians, including Duke himself. The closing track is an orchestra quartet version of the album’s title track, bookending a release that perfectly captures Philippa’s spectral and sublime craft. Stream the EP in full below.

  • Inbound: A Bad Cavalier

    November 1, 2013 - By 

    In the latest installment of Inbound, Brian Coney talks to And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist and ex-Panama Kings frontman Niall Kennedy about his (essentially) new solo project A Bad Cavalier, the release of his superb debut EP, Ex Libris, and trying to make the time to make the whole solo thing work. Hi Niall. You’ve just released Ex Libris, your first solo release under the moniker A Bad Cavalier. How long has it been in the making? It’s been in the making for quite a while now. I started A Bad Cavalier when I was 16 and I have been…

  • Getting re-acquainted: Blue Öyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (1976)

    October 30, 2013 - By 

    A coiling guitar figure wraps itself around your consciousness, drawing tighter and tighter. And then… and then… the cowbell comes in. This, my friends, is as good as it can ever get. Blue Öyster Cult had been a rather gnarly biker-rock band, all greasy hair, leather trousers, and weird, occult imagery. They even had their own runic symbol, man. Their first three albums are packed with post-Altamont death jams, best summed up by the fantastic ‘Career of Evil’ from their third album, Secret Treaties, a song that begins with the lines, “I plot your rubric scarab, I steal your satellite, I…

  • The Perfect Hallowe’en Song: Public Image Ltd. – Poptones

    October 29, 2013 - By 

    Hallowe’en is fast approaching and what better way to celebrate it than to listen to horrific music. While a hearty debate on what is the scariest song can be had, for me, no song is scarier than ‘Poptones’ by Public Image Ltd. What becomes immediately apparent while first listening to ‘Poptones’ is the disturbing feeling that this is something that has happened to you before. It recalls the tale of a woman taken to a wooded area in the English countryside to be raped and beaten and left for dead in the cold, wet foliage. It was first released on…

  • That’s The Story of my Life – The Life and Death of Lou Reed

    October 28, 2013 - By 

    When all is said and done, Lou Reed was never the easiest figure to love. For someone who is so intrinsic to the very notion of what we consider popular music to be, for someone who tore up the rulebook so fundamentally and set us all free, it’s rarely been an easy ride. And now that he has moved on, that journey will only become more difficult. Like all the truly great artists, to be “into” Lou Reed is to be “into” a variety of different personas, of different masks, of different ideologies. The snarling twenty-something, sunglasses strapped permanently to…

  • Lou Reed: A Tribute Playlist

    October 27, 2013 - By 

    Arguably punk’s greatest ancestor, Velvet Underground founder and uncompromising solo artist and collaborator for the last five decades, Lou Reed has passed away the age of 71. One of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century (and, for many, beyond) his songs and art traversed genre, sentiment and style, dividing critics and fans from his 1972 self-titled effort right up his notoriously at odds collaboration with Metallica in 2011. From heroin and the NYC underground to Diet Coke and t’ai chi, Reed came a long way from the sixties, constantly re-affirming his right to be restless and fearlessly re-inventing his musical manifesto…

  • Interview: John Carpenter

    October 25, 2013 - By 

    As movie directors go they don’t get more legendary than the pioneering, inimitable and boundlessly influential John Carpenter. From his 1978 landmark horror debut Halloween to innumerable other cult classics including Escape from New York, Dark Star, Assault On Precinct 13, The Fog, The Thing, Starman, Big Trouble In Little China and They Live, his ever-increasingly legacy as one of the most important directors in the history of cinema is beyond refute. With Samhain lingering just around the corner, Will Murphy grab a few words with the man himself, touching on comics, composition and Kickstarter campaigns. Firstly, I’d like to ask about new…