Devil's Horns Zine

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...

VVARP - Power Held In Stone Album Review  ★★★★★ Melbourne's occult doom trio VVARP have conjured something genuinely unsettling with Power Held In Stone – a 34-minute descent into folk horror that feels like discovering a cursed artifact in your grandmother's attic. This isn't just another fuzz-laden trudge through familiar doom territories; it's a meticulously crafted nightmare that burrows under your skin and stays there. From the moment the opening track unfurls its tendrils, you're pulled into VVARP's imagined folk horror landscape – a place where ancient rebellions echo through stone monuments and forgotten rituals bleed through the cracks of modernity. The band's vision is remarkably cohesive, each of the five tracks functioning as chapters in a story that exists somewhere between Wicker Man dread and cosmic horror revelation. What sets Power Held In Stone apart from the endless parade of Wizard worship is VVARP's willingness to embrace genuin...