Loud opinions, louder riffs. One voice on heavy metal and hard rock with a European perspective.https://www.metalheadrock.com/https://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/led-zeppelin-since-ive-been-loving-you-cover/https://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/led-zeppelin-since-ive-been-loving-you-cover/Since I've Been Loving You is a slow blues in C minor, cut live in the studio for Led Zeppelin III in 1970. Nothing about it is technically extreme. Almost nobody gets it right. Kfir Ochaion's cover shows why: the guitar has to sing it alone.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTRiff PostLed ZeppelinUnited KingdomHard Rockhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/walg-vi-groningen-black-metal/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/walg-vi-groningen-black-metal/Walg is a Dutch melodic black metal duo from Groningen, formed in the stillness of the 2021 pandemic. Their sixth numbered album VI came out in June 2026, self-released, with lyrics in Dutch and a song named after a monastery. This is exactly the kind of band the big sites miss.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveWalgNetherlandsBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/mork-ferdamann/https://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/mork-ferdamann/Ferdamann means the wanderer, and that is exactly what this sounds like. Cold, patient, riff-first Norwegian black metal from a man who has been doing this alone since 2004. Monolitt is out now on Peaceville and this is the track to start with.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTVideo DropMorkNorwayBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/nile-execration-text-closing-lick/https://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/nile-execration-text-closing-lick/The last lick of Nile's Execration Text is one of those riffs where the technique is half the story and the scale is the other half. Dallas Toler-Wade explains the one-string string-cross trick in a 2026 reaction video. The Egyptian-mode melodic logic underneath is what makes it unmistakably Nile.Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTRiff PostNileUnited StatesDeath Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/black-spikes-imperatore-mama-2025/https://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/black-spikes-imperatore-mama-2025/Lithuanian modern metal band Black Spikes performing 'Imperatorė' at the 2025 M.A.M.A. Awards in Vilnius. A heavy band on a mainstream Lithuanian awards stage is its own statement. The riffs do not soften for the broadcast camera. Watch what a Baltic metal scene looks like when its national music industry actually pays attention.Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTVideo DropBlack SpikesLithuaniaHeavy Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/inbox/inbox-week-26-2026/https://www.metalheadrock.com/inbox/inbox-week-26-2026/Two through the feed this week, both in the patient-and-immersive corner of heavy music. Polish post-black metal band ZØRZA dropped a 44-minute Twilight of the Golden Star with Harakiri for the Sky and Karg guesting. Russian Circles announced their next album Nine with Empath as the first single, August release.Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTZØRZARussian CirclesPolandUnited StatesPost-Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/opinion/what-is-the-forbidden-riff/https://www.metalheadrock.com/opinion/what-is-the-forbidden-riff/The forbidden riff is the opening of Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven' — informally banned in guitar shops since the early 1990s because beginners learn it first, play it badly, and play it constantly. The term broadened to cover any overplayed guitar riff that shop staff dread hearing on a loop, including Enter Sandman, Smoke on the Water, Sweet Child O' Mine, and Wonderwall.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTOpinionLed ZeppelinMetallicaDeep PurpleUnited KingdomHeavy Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/bark-antwerp-groove-sludge-thrash/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/bark-antwerp-groove-sludge-thrash/Bark is a Belgian groove and sludge metal band from Antwerp, founded in 2015. Seven releases later they are signed to Suburban Music Group, fronted by Ron Bruynseels, with Martin Furia and Toon Huet on guitars. Their self-imposed bio is the most accurate one-line description of a metal band working today.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveBarkBelgiumGroove Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/graspop-metal-meeting-dessel/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/graspop-metal-meeting-dessel/Graspop Metal Meeting started in 1996 as a single-Sunday gig in the Belgian village of Dessel. Thirty years later it draws 95,000 visitors across four days, often sells out before the lineup is announced, and books a mid-card that headlines other festivals. The story of how Peter Van Geel and Bob Schoenmaekers built it.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveGraspop Metal MeetingBelgiumHeavy Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/sigh-tokyo-avant-garde-black-metal/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/sigh-tokyo-avant-garde-black-metal/Sigh is a Japanese avant-garde black metal band founded in Tokyo in 1989. Their 1993 debut Scorn Defeat was released on Mayhem founder Euronymous' Deathlike Silence Records shortly after his murder, and remains one of the first records to bridge second-wave black metal into something the genre had never sounded like before.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveSighJapanBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/wacken-open-air-1990/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/wacken-open-air-1990/Wacken started in 1990 in a gravel pit with eight hundred people. By 2024 the festival was selling out 85,000 tickets in under five hours. The story of how two friends from a tiny Schleswig-Holstein village built the template every European metal festival now copies.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveWacken Open AirGermanyHeavy Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/mayhem-european-legions-marseille-2000/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/mayhem-european-legions-marseille-2000/A 26-year-old live recording of Mayhem in Marseille, France, captured on the 'Grand Declaration of War' tour. By 2000 the band had already lost a vocalist to suicide and a founder to murder. That this performance even exists is the story.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveMayhemNorwayBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/bark-full-show-cinema-aalst/https://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/bark-full-show-cinema-aalst/Antwerp five-piece BARK doing a full set at Cinema in Aalst. Their own bio reads 'the bad way, but faster' and that is exactly right. Groove, sludge, thrash and hardcore tangled together. One of the Belgian underground bands that actually plays out.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTVideo DropBarkBelgiumGroove Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/khemmis-self-titled-full-album-stream/https://www.metalheadrock.com/video-drop/khemmis-self-titled-full-album-stream/Denver doom band's self-titled fifth album. Out 12 June on Nuclear Blast. Kerrang gave it 4/5 and called it 'an honourably cultured continuation' of the Candlemass tradition. Not European, which is supposed to disqualify the coverage, but Khemmis have earned the exception. Press play. Forty-eight minutes.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTVideo DropKhemmisUnited StatesDoom Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/inbox/inbox-week-25-2026/https://www.metalheadrock.com/inbox/inbox-week-25-2026/Three releases through the Bandcamp Following feed this week, and one of them buries the others on emotional weight. Warning are back. UK doom royalty, twenty years after Watching From a Distance, with the first single off Rituals of Shame. Plus Fires in the Distance's Circadian Promise, and Saidan finally releasing Fangdriller after the Avantgarde pre-order cycle.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTWarningFires in the DistanceSaidanUnited KingdomItalyUnited StatesDoom Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/darkthrone-siberian-thaw-fan-cover/https://www.metalheadrock.com/riff-post/darkthrone-siberian-thaw-fan-cover/Esoteric Order ov the Riff has 53 subscribers. He is out of practice. He still couldn't resist learning the new Darkthrone the day after release. The Siberian Thaw riff, from Pre-Historic Metal, is the kind of doomy slow-burner that pulls musicians back to their guitars even when life has pulled them away.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTRiff PostDarkthroneNorwayBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/opinion/acdc-bon-scott-oakland-1979/https://www.metalheadrock.com/opinion/acdc-bon-scott-oakland-1979/I have always been an AC/DC fan. The 1979 Oakland Coliseum performance of Highway to Hell is the thirty-three-minute proof. Bon Scott on vocals, the Young brothers in their prime, less than a year before Bon would be gone. Forty-six years later, nobody has written a better three-chord rock song.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTOpinionAC/DCAustraliaHard Rockhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/amenra-church-of-ra-kortrijk/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/amenra-church-of-ra-kortrijk/Amenra is a Belgian post-metal band from Kortrijk, founded in 1999. Their Mass series and the Church of Ra collective built one of the most influential heavy scenes in Europe. A deep dive into the country's loudest export.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveAmenraBelgiumPost-Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/darkthrone-pre-historic-metal/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/darkthrone-pre-historic-metal/Norway's most influential black metal duo released their twenty-second album on 8 May 2026. Forty years after they emerged in Kolbotn under the name Black Death, Fenriz and Nocturno Culto skipped polished modern black metal and went deeper into the genre's pre-history. The record sounds ancient and fresh at the same time.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveDarkthroneNorwayBlack Metalhttps://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/hellfest-the-festival-france-built/https://www.metalheadrock.com/deep-dive/hellfest-the-festival-france-built/Hellfest is a French metal festival founded in 2006 in Clisson, near Nantes. Six stages, 60,000 fans, four days. In 2026 it has overtaken Wacken as Europe's best programmed festival. Here is why.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTDeep DiveHellfestFranceHeavy Metal