Devil's Horns Zine

ALBUM REVIEW: WEREWOLVES - "THE UGLIEST OF ALL" By Mark Jenkins. Rating: 9.5/10 Severed Heads Melbourne's most unhinged export returns with their sixth sonic war crime, and Christ on a cracker, they've really outdone themselves this time. The Ugliest Of All promises to be "a devastating album with zero let-up or mercy, a thoroughly unenjoyable assault of horrific battering that will bring no pleasure to the listener whatsoever." Finally, truth in advertising! Where previous Werewolves albums at least pretended to have hooks buried somewhere beneath the avalanche of brutality, The Ugliest Of All abandons all pretence of human decency. This isn't music; it's what happens when you feed pure spite through a wood chipper and somehow teach it to play blast beats. The opening track Fools Of The Trade immediately establishes that any hope of melody died screaming in a ditch somewhere. The production is so deliberately unpleasant that it makes their previou...

CHAOS INCARNATE: ARIF ROT ON WORMROT'S RETURN & THE ART OF SONIC BRUTALITY By Mark Jenkins. Devil's Horns Zine catches up with the multifaceted mastermind as the original lineup tears through Australia Today marks a seismic moment in Australian grindcore history. As Wormrot kicks off their nationwide tour with Pig Destroyer at Perth's Amplifier Bar, the underground is buzzing with an electricity that's been building since the Singaporean legends announced their original lineup reunion. At the centre of this maelstrom stands Arif Suhaimi—better known as Arif Rot—a creative force whose artistic vision extends far beyond his throat-shredding vocals into the visual realm through his graphic design work under the Rotworks banner. Our recent sit-down with Arif revealed a man whose artistic DNA is woven from the same chaotic threads that have made Wormrot one of grindcore's most essential acts for nearly two decades. The interview, diving deep into the questions that m...

RITUAL OF SONIC OBLITERATION Portal & Bölzer Deliver Transcendent Terror at Max Watt's Melbourne, August 16th, 2025 The palpable tension hanging in Max Watt's thick air before Portal even took the stage told the whole story. This wasn't just another Friday night gig – this was a pilgrimage for the devoted, a communion with forces that dwell in the furthest reaches of extreme metal's most unforgiving territories. VESICANT,  according to other punters( we didn't make doors at the gig was strangely very early-like doors at 7pm???), opened proceedings with a blistering set that immediately separated the tourists from the faithful. The NZ death/war metal outfit delivered a punishing 25-minute assault that had the early arrivals pressed against the barrier, sweat already beading despite the night's early hours. Their sound – raw, uncompromising, and mercilessly tight – served as the perfect gateway drug for what was to follow. But nothing, absolutely nothing, c...

Swan Grinder: Schkeuditzer Kreuz Perfects Their Dystopian Electronica Assault As reviewed by Mark Jenkins. 5 DIRTY, ANARCHO ANALOGS OUT OF 5. Three albums deep into his corrosive project, Blue Mountains' Kieren Hills has never sounded more unhinged—or more focused. Swan Grinder is a 38-minute descent into the kind of dystopian fever dream that would make Godflesh weep industrial tears while Front 242 nods approvingly from the corner of some abandoned factory floor. The titular opener Swan Grinder establishes Hills' intent immediately—programmed d-beats collide with acidic electronics that slice through the mix like razorwire through flesh. Hills, formerly of the glorious D-Beat institution Dark Horse, has clearly learned to maximise the potential of his one-man assault, layering sounds with the precision of someone who understands both punk's fury and electronic music's cold calculation. Trips and Trepidation pushes deeper into the project's self-proclaimed ...

MACHINE FLESH ASCENDANT Black Magnet - Megamantra Federal Prisoner | 25 minutes of surgical brutality as reviewed by Mark Jenkins. The machines are singing hymns of apocalypse again, and Black Magnet's third album Megamantra is their most focused sermon yet. Oklahoma City's industrial metal prophets have shed whatever fat remained on their mechanized skeleton, delivering nine tracks of refined terror that burrow into your cerebral cortex and set up permanent residence. Where 2020's Hallucination Scene was a sprawling nightmare and 2022's Body Prophesy felt like controlled chaos, Megamantra is laser-guided destruction. These aren't just songs—they're precision strikes against complacency, each track a perfectly calibrated dose of synthetic venom that hits harder because it knows exactly where to bite. "Wound Signal" kicks the door down with the subtlety of a sledgehammer through glass, but it's the controlled burn of "Endless" th...