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'We Have Flames Now!': Employed to Serve on the Arena-Sized 'Fallen Star' and Heavy Metal Unity

Wednesday, 02 April 2025

Written by Matt Mills

Photo: Bethan Miller

A little under three years ago, Employed to Serve pulled up at the Forest National Arena in Belgium for the first stop of a tour across Europe opening for Gojira. Looming above them was the biggest non-festival venue they’d ever played, with 8,000 fans soon baying for their metalcore anthems. For a band more accustomed to levelling clubs, what was going through their minds as they laid eyes on the enormous building?

Wednesday, 02 April 2025

Written by Emma Wilkes

Photo: Nedda Afsari

Though it remains a divisive record, Deafheaven’s ‘Infinite Granite’ might be remembered in time as a worthwhile experiment. The blackgaze pioneers sanded down their spiky edges into something softer and fuzzier – less ‘black’, more ‘gaze’ – and came the closest they’ve ever come to sounding genuinely soothing. But if it would be wrong to call ‘Lonely People With Power’ a return to form it is a restating of purpose: here they are back to sounding lethal yet beautiful and, crucially, heavy.