Download Pilot review – a joyful noise for fans and bands

Exuberant scenes at the rock and metal festival test event find its 10,000 guinea pigs leaving Covid blues far behind

While She Sleeps: Sleeps Society review – magnificent metalcore for a fractious world

The noisy Sheffield band fully realise their pop potential on their fifth album, as they vent thrillingly about society’s manifold ills

Continuing to subvert the politics of a lot of hardcore metal, the band look back to early material, energising it with melodic invention and anger

The Sacramento band’s ninth album streamlines their experimentalism and adds a hit of 90s nu-metal

From Nairobi’s metal scene, Martin Kanja and Sam Karugu add techno to doom-laden guitars and distorted vocals on this exciting album

The underground supergroup bin their guitars in favour of obscure sound-making – and conjure a gloriously hellish mood

The elegiac lyrics on Osbourne’s 12th solo album stand in contrast with the off-the-cuff vibe of its music

Blending thrilling theatricality with skilled musicianship, the metal megastars unite their ‘maggot’ followers against the forces of darkness

Breaking free of her rigidly controlled persona, the former YouTube sensation’s new album is repetitive but sincere

The band who rose from the ashes of Creed pack a bombastic, bludgeoning noise – but are best when they allow their songs space to breathe

Over heavy riffs and double kick drums, the folklore-obsessed Swedish band deliver a thundering theatrical spectacle

The flamboyant Swedish band fuse rock bombast with pop classicism on their most ambitious tour to date

Still triumphantly unhinged after 25 years, the US duo break all the rules of what punk and, indeed, live music should be

Anyone can play loud, but the Seattle masters of slow metal turn noise into an overwhelming physical experience

The band’s third, and possibly best, album combines their familiar sugary pop melodies mashed with thrashing metal