Dom Lawson

How Angel Witch wrote one of the great overlooked metal anthems of the early 80s

By Dom Lawson Published 26 July 26

Angel Witch’s Angel Witch was one of the great anthems of the NWOBHM era – so why didn’t it turn them into stars?

The Iron Maiden album that was “locked in a vault” for two years

By Dom Lawson Published 25 July 26

Iron Maiden finished their epic Senjutsu album in 2019 – but the pandemic meant it wouldn’t be released for two more years

“It starts clear, gets hedonistic, and the weird stuff goes on at night”: Ozric Tentacles and Lotus Unfolding

By Dom Lawson Published 24 July 26

As they launched 2023 album Lotus Unfolding, Ed Wynne considered his band’s four-decade career – but not too deeply

XTC mixed prog and punk, and it was named ’prunk’

By Dom Lawson Published 22 July 26

Their heyday wasn’t the best time to admit it, but Andy Partridge confirms the band were driven by Yes, BeBop Deluxe, Captain Beefheart and Todd Rundgren

How The Damned embraced the darkness to make a classic 80s goth album

By Dom Lawson Published 19 July 26

With 1985’s Phanasmagoria, The Damned made one of the great goth-punk albums

“If I’d known the albums would last I’d have done better!” Genesis artist Colin Elgie’s year in the limelight

By Dom Lawson Published 18 July 26

Even though his squonk was nothing like the band’s squonk, the Hipgnosis stringer’s work on A Trick Of The Tail led to a return gig, while he also created art for Renaissance and Al Stewart

The rise, fall and triumphant return of Corrosion of Conformity

By Dom Lawson Published 4 July 26

80s crossover pioneers, 90s stoner metal icons... and then tragedy derailed them in the 2000s. But after a triumphant return in 2015, CoC are stronger than ever

The 50 best rock albums of 2026 (so far)

By Fraser Lewry Published 2 July 26

Six months of classic rock, prog rock, stoner rock, southern rock, country rock, blues rock, psychedelic rock, hard rock, power pop, heavy metal, punk and all forms of rock'n'roll

“My career has been about getting it slightly, wonkily wrong”: Peter Hammill’s maverick life in prog

By Dom Lawson Published 30 June 26

Standing apart from the crowd can be a hazardous business, but the Van der Graaf Generator veteran has always made it look easy

“We’re giving people candy with razor blades in it!” Crippled Black Phoenix on radically caring about the world

By Dom Lawson Published 24 June 26

Rejecting efforts to silence and define them, their new album Sceaduhelm is more thoughtful than ever – but also more accessible

The “really evil” bandleader who was more challenging than Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp

By Dom Lawson Published 13 June 26

Despite a huge range of experience, bassist easily identifies the person he found most difficult to work with

The story of Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes, the game-changing album that revitalised 90s metal

By Dom Lawson Published 5 June 26

Machine Head’s Robb Flynn looks back on the making of his band’s classic debut

How a deteriorating DevilDriver made Clouds Over California

By Dom Lawson Published 3 June 26

Even as Dez Fafara’s melodeath riff-slingers were falling apart, they masterminded one of their era’s most enduring singles

The pioneering European metal queen loved by Dio, Lemmy and Gene Simmons

By Dom Lawson Published 29 May 26

The life and times of Doro Pesch

If you can’t connect Sunn O))) with King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis, let them explain

By Dom Lawson Published 12 May 26

If you can’t connect the drone metal heroes with King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles Davis, allow co-founder Greg Anderson to explain

“I saw Frank Zappa sit in with Pink Floyd. He was terrible”: Swans’ Michael Gira

By Dom Lawson Published 9 May 26

The lifelong experimental rocker believes only the first three Mothers Of Invention albums are worth listening to, because after that Zappa succumbed to “unfortunate prog tendencies”

Mikael Åkerfleldt still doesn’t know what Storm Corrosion is about, and won’t ask Steven Wilson

By Dom Lawson Published 7 May 26

When the Porcupine Tree and Opeth leaders got together in 2012, they were prepared to defy fans. And Åkerfleldt only wanted one thing out of the collaboration: a copy of their record

How Mikael Åkerfeldt fell in love with prog, even though his friends hated what he was doing

By Dom Lawson Published 17 April 26

Making up for childhood poverty, the Opeth mastermind championed classic bands of the 70s when no one else cared – which made him a strange figure on the 90s Swedish metal scene

It took nearly 50 years for Happy The Man to hear their music the way they’d intended

By Dom Lawson Published 4 April 26

Tripped up by record company machinations, the American pioneers – who nearly became Peter Gabriel’s backing band – didn’t think their first two records would ever sound like they had in the studio

Peter Gabriel wanted to hire them. They preferred their own music

By Dom Lawson Published 18 March 26

The ex-Genesis singer wanted them to be his backing band exclusively, leaving them to choose between his ambitions or their own

The turbulent story of Anvil, the band who claim to have brought heavy metal to North America

By Dom Lawson Published 15 March 26

Anvil should have been huge, but fate had other plans

"We were like, ‘What if we take speed? Maybe we can play even faster!’ We were definitely better without the drugs." How Europe's biggest thrash band went from getting their mum to sign deals to satanic metal mastery

By Dom Lawson Published 5 March 26

"When we heard Venom, all our songs became satanic."

Every Megadeth album ranked from worst to best

By Metal Hammer Published 25 February 26

The metal icons have released their final album and are on their last-ever tour – here’s how they got here

The trailblazing German thrash queen who inspired a generation of female singers

By Dom Lawson Published 14 February 26

Holy Moses’ Sabina Classen is one of metal’s great pioneers – but she rarely gets the credit she deserves

“If I find him haunting me, I’ll know I did something wrong”: How Cardiacs completed late leader Tim Smith’s album LSD

By Dom Lawson Published 11 February 26

A brother who took over the band, a singer who struggled to keep the secret and a determination to do exactly what their late leader would have wanted led to the end of an 18-year journey