Features

Heather Baron-Gracie: “From day one I’ve had the grandest ambitions for Pale Waves, and I always will”

Having transitioned from slinky synthpop into the far punchier world of pop-punk with thumping third album Unwanted, globe-straddling Manchester quartet Pale Waves are long overdue their Slam Dunk debut this year. As vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie explains, arriving at one of the UK’s most riotous festivals is just the next step towards total domination…

“I’m really glad that we got back to that playfulness, there was no pressure to write the perfect record”: Inside Les Savy Fav’s long overdue sixth album, Oui, LSF

New York art-punks Les Savy Fav are back with their first full-length in 14 years in the form of Oui, LSF. A record that rages from playful to painful, and everything in between, bassist Syd Butler and vocalist Tim Harrington take us inside its inception and why now is the right time to make their return…

“This band is therapy, family, fun, work… it’s all together for us”: Blackout Problems on new album RIOT, the power of personal progression and standing up for what’s right

Blackout Problems have ideas, some grandiose, some personal, but they’re all wrapped up in new album RIOT. To dig into the record and what’s really inspiring the German electropunks, we headed to Belgium to find a band reckoning with everything from the departure of a member to complete environmental collapse…

From custom creepers to hardcore fleeces: The best in alternative style this month

Spring is just around the corner and your wardrobe needs some serious attention. Allow K!’s resident style advisor to guide you through what’s hot this month – from Fred Durst nostalgia to high-end goth couture…

The People Vs. Ash Costello: New Years Day’s vocalist on finding confidence, making music for Rhea Ripley, and her odd choice of comfort movie

Ahead of New Years Day’s fifth album Half Black Heart, we invite you to become honorary K! interviewers and find answers to all those questions about Ash Costello that have been keeping you up at night…

Anger is an energy: How queer punks Shooting Daggers are turning rage at music’s boy’s club into a strong community

“We’re talking to our sisters and the queer people in our scene who need that positive message; take that rage and turn it into love…”

“When you’ve cheated death, it changes your outlook on life”: Rob Halford takes us inside Judas Priest’s powerful, emotionally real new album

Judas Priest have always taught us to look adversity in the eye. When serious illness hit three of them, they had to do just that. As Rob Halford reveals, it’s fed into new record Invincible Shield. “The survival instinct is there more than on any other album…”

The Chisel are the UK punk band you need right now

Armed with riotous new album What A Fucking Nightmare, London mob The Chisel are taking punk back to its no-frills, in-your-face roots. Look out...

“You’re getting your ears and head assaulted by heavy metal for three f*cking hours”: Matt Tuck and Matt Heafy take us inside the biggest metal tour of 2025

Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium are joining forces for an epic 20th anniversary tour, taking things back to where it all began with The Poison and Ascendancy, and, as frontmen Matt Tuck and Matt Heafy explain, it's going to be "absolutely massive"...

“It’s only rock’n’roll. Only it’s not”: This is Inhuman Nature’s relentlessly real tour diary

As they prepare for their UK tour with Crowbar this week, Inhuman Nature bassist Daragh Markham’s tour diary from their last jaunt gives us the sights, sounds and smells of life on the road with the Brit thrash crew…

High On Fire: “It feels like a storm has been building… and now sh*t’s hitting the fan”

After 25 years, High On Fire have little left to prove. Roaring back with ferocious ninth album Cometh The Storm, however, frontman Matt Pike and bassist Jeff Matz tell us about why they’ve got to keep pushing limits, learning Turkish instruments, and how the state of the world continues to feed their music…

“I challenged myself to let the song kill me”: Infant Island on their crushing new album, fighting apathy with activism, and an unlikely blood ritual

Meet Infant Island: the Virginian blackgaze crew who’ve just dropped an apocalyptic new album and – quite literally – leave their blood on the stage...

NOAHFINNCE: “There’s always going to be people that can’t see me as anything more than an influencer, but they’re not worth worrying about”

Having spent nearly a decade baring his soul online, now NOAHFINNCE is finally ready to do it through his music. And with debut album GROWING UP ON THE INTERNET he’s pulling no punches, showing the world that he was born to do this while opening up about everything from transphobia to mental health…

In pictures: You Me At Six’s intimate BRITs Week 24 for War Child show

Here’s a little look at You Me At Six’s special headline date at Brighton’s Concorde II for War Child earlier this week.

Pest Control: “We said, ‘Let’s go for it: let’s do the thrash band that we’d always talked about’”

With their incendiary Don’t Test The Pest album, Leeds ragers Pest Control have made the finest UK thrash debut in aeons. Balancing their hardcore roots with a foot in the metal world, they’re a band big on both riffs and smiles…

“It’s about having a good time, doing cool shows and getting people together”: How London Doom Collective are feeding the capital’s heavy music underground

For fans of all things slow and heavy, London Doom Collective are a key part of the city’s scene. Ahead of the third of their Masters Of The Riff fests, they explain how a lockdown compilation turned into a growing DIY community…

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