PR TRAIL

DESERTFEST LONDON Desertfest London takes place this weekend. Have you got your ticket yet!? Make sure to catch Praetorian on Friday and IAN on Saturday. Desertfest will be headlined by Hermano, Green Lung and Clutch. The festival boasts many killer bands across Camden, including Witchsorrow, Church of the Cosmic Skull, The Grey, Liquid Shit, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and many more! Praetorian play The Black Heart on Friday. IAN play The Dev on Saturday // @desertfest_london @praetoriankvlt @apfrecords @iantheband @humanworthmusic #desertfestlondon

DIN OF CELESTIAL BIRDS MAY SHOWS Din Of Celestial Birds will play three shows at the end of May with Scottish post-metallers Beneath A Steel Sky. This includes a stop off at CVLTFEST alongside the likes of @mastiffhchc , @sugarhorse.are.awful , @civilservicetheband , @thegreyband and more. MAY 29 - HUDDERSFIELD - The Parish MAY 30 - SCUNTHORPE - CVLTFEST MAY 31 - NEWCASTLE - Little Buildings (Matinee Show) Tickets are available now. // @dinofcelestialbirdsmusic @beneathasteelskyband @cvltfestuk #dinofcelestialbirds #beneathasteelsky #cvltfest2026

Check out the very first issue of OST Magazine. A brand new UK music mag celebrating leftfield and underground rock and metal. Din Of Celestial Birds spill the beans on their time recording forthcoming album no. 2 with Joe Clayton (Pijn, Leeched) at @no_studio in Manchester. “We wanted to make it more of a proper studio album. So we added more layers and other things that we just don’t do.” OST issue 1 also features @melvinsdotcom , @sugarhorse.are.awful , @unsaneband , @fagelle and many more. Available now to order in print and as a free digital edition. // @dinofcelestialbirdsmusic @ost_nullassembly @acheerywaverecords @athousandarms #dinofcelestialbirds #ostmagazine

⚡ New Review ⚡ . Harry explores Ghold ‘Bludgeoning Simulations’ – building on a loud foundation through uncompromised minimalism and dark ambient stretches . 👉 Read the full review at The Sleeping Shaman [🔗Link in Bio – tap 'Latest Reviews' on Linktr.ee] . @gholdband @humanworthmusic @prtrail . #MusicReview #Ghold #Doom #NoiseRock #TheSleepingShaman

IAN PLAY ARCTANGENT FESTIVAL 2026 🥳🤘 We’re delighted to see that IAN will be making their ArcTanGent debut this summer. The jovial post-metal quintet join a very impressive round of announcements including @civilservicetheband , @nordicgiants , @pupilslicer , @wildernessesband , @witchsorrow , @bandofnothing , and at last, the return of @leechedmhc ! ArcTanGent Festival 2026 will take place on August 19-22. Tickets are on sale now. // @iantheband @arctangentfestival @humanworthmusic #ATG2026 #arctangentfestival

AN INTERVIEW WITH ME ABOUT PR TRAIL Head over to All The Cores And More (or the PR Trail website) to read a brand new interview with myself. If you’ve ever wondered what the world of a publicist actually entails, hopefully it will be an interesting read. I also reminisce about some of my most cherished PR campaigns, share my thoughts on the state of the music industry today, and reveal my five desert island discs. “Charli XCX’s Brat had one of the best PR roll-outs I’ve ever seen.” // #musicpr #interview #prtrail

MY FAVOURITE RECORDS OF 2025 Time for a bit of fun. My 25 favourite records of 2025 can be found on the @prtrail website 👈👀 I wish everyone a happy new year and all the best for 2026. Cheers. // #AOTY2025 #prtrail

2025 RIFF RECAP: GHOLD - BLUDGEONING SIMULATIONS It has been a real pleasure to work with a proper stalwart band of the UK doom/sludge scene. I remember catching the amorphous GHOLD play at Desertfest many moons ago. Even though they know their way around a sludgy riff, Ghold have always been stranger, more experimental and more explorative than most of their peers. Taking over five years to slow-cook, their latest full length Bludgeoning Simulations pushes their will to chart unexplored forms even further than before. Equal parts doom, sludge, dark ambient, drone, ritualistic chanting, percussive showcase, field recordings and imagined horror film score, Ghold refuse to let the listener get comfortable. Fortunately this gave me lots of scope to unleash something truly eclectic, challenging and frightening upon my trusty journalist friends, and it was pleasure to see so much variety in the reviews and articles that followed. “The score to a folk-horror movie yet to be made.” ~ @metalepidemic – 4.5/5 “Ghold’s latest is an expansive, trudging voyage through deep, dark reverie. The sonic landscapes shift between dramatic, brutal noise and deceivingly calm ambience.” ~ @thequietus “Eerie, unsettling, and sometimes scarily apocalyptic. You won’t leave this music without marks on your soul.” ~ @veil_of_sound Released on November 14th on Vinyl and Digital formats via Human Worth. // @gholdband @humanworthmusic @bearbiteshorse #ghold #bludgeoningsimulations #humanworth #bearbiteshorsestudio 📸 Simon Kallas

2025 RIFF RECAP: IAN - COME ON EVERYBODY, LET’S DO NOTHING! Ever stumble across an album that you could swear was made just for you? That’s the feeling I got when I first heard an advance of IAN’s debut album. This opportunity was gifted to me by Human Worth boss Owen who knew for certain that I would love this record, and that it would be right up my alley for working PR on. He wasn’t wrong. Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! combines the nail-biting intensity of @amenra_official , the desolate beauty of Godspeed, and the dedicated droning of @swans_official , mixed with a droll sense of humour and the essence of modern British living. And that only comes about halfway to describing how brilliant this band are. IAN are seasoned heroes of the underground punk/heavy UK circuit who mostly all got swept away by life’s demanding hand, and have only just come round to making music again. Their debut record is majestic, cinematic and even has a swag to it, sounding more thorough, confident and demanding than most debut records have any right to. We had a delightful WhatsApp chat set up to monitor the progress of the album campaign, which largely descended into discussions of legendary post-rock bands, afternoon TV, geese and crisps, with occasional lapses of professionalism. Maybe like the album itself. “A pitch-black cacophony of larynx-shredding screams, austere cellos, and queasy, distorted bass grooves.” ~ @bandcamp Daily – Essential Releases “A genre-splicing and immensely ambitious work which explores deeply the interplay of texture and dynamics; at times graceful and delicate, others face-rippingly furious.” ~ Aural Aggravation “The masterfully composed soundtrack to staring at the expanding sun about to consume Earth with nothing but a smile on one’s face.” ~ @noizzeuk Released on October 17th 2025 on Vinyl and Digital formats via Human Worth. // @iantheband @humanworthmusic @bearbiteshorse #iantheband #humanworth 📸 Live Photo: Robin Thomas

2025 RIFF RECAP: TRUDGER - VOID QUEST Trudger are back, and Void Quest is the perfect sequel to their 2014 debut album. More riffs, more tech, more heavy, and with a leaner running time. Void Quest is the final boss of riffs; a riff banquet if you will. Sadly I never really caught on to Trudger in their first leg as a band, even though I caught a few shows and all-dayers in Manchester which fellow COF Records acts would play on. The Barnsley neo-sludge-death quartet have put out this sophomore beast through their producer Joe Clayton’s new label Floodlit Recordings. It was great to work with Joe once again, and this album really turned some heads, with Trudger’s technicality, sound and performances being praised by critics. Trudger have no plans to perform live, but I so hope they do as I feel like these songs are just begging to be played in front of crowds, and I know they will be most welcomed. Let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed. “An absolute riff-fest, at different times bruising, slick, groovy, or just straight epic.” ~ Metal Storm “A little bit older, and a little bit wiser they may be, but the Trudger of today is also arguably even more aggressive than they were last time around.” ~ No Clean Singing “Void Quest is a much more urgent and momentous release than its predecessor, with each of its spiralling compositions confined to a consistent and compact length.” ~ @heavyblogisheavy Released on August 29th on Vinyl, CD, Cassette and Digital formats via Floodlit Recordings. // @trudger.band @floodlitrecordings @no_studio #trudger #voidquest #floodlitrecordings

2025 RIFF RECAP: WHY PATTERNS - SCREAMERS Why Patterns are an exciting and most excellent band I’ve followed since their inception. I’d already been a fan of two of the band members’ other projects, @disciplesofwren and @warren_schoenbright respectively. I was very excited and taken aback when their next album Screamers landed in my inbox. I was surprised to hear something completely different to Regurgitorium. Screamers sounded like the same band if they’d been played on the wrong speed on your turntable. These songs are lightning fast, and the entire album lasts a mere 16 or 17 minutes, about half the length of their debut. Yet I didn’t feel shortchanged. Screamers packs in everything and more. Sounding like an abstraction of grindcore and powerviolence, Screamers sees Why Patterns exploring cartoon violence, abstract art, rodeos, clowns, medieval weaponry, you name it. But beyond the absurdity lies a more tragic and personal dark heart, dealing with loss and grief. It’s always a pleasure teaming up with Owen at Human Worth, one of the most exciting underground labels operating right now, and it was a real pleasure to get a closer glance at one of the strangest bands in the UK right now. I really didn’t know what impression this album would leave. Would it be too strange, would it be over too fast? But everyone seems to have eaten it up, and it’s the kind of record that you just want to play over and over, a real adrenaline rush housed on a piece of plastic. “They summon distressing mental images via what sounds like a clave keeping time while someone weeps in the background.” ~ @thewiremagazine “At no point would anyone be left thinking, ‘This band could do with a guitarist.’ Why Patterns compensate for this lack with a bass sound that is similar to Lightning Bolt’s in terms of how pounding it is, but if anything, features even more abrupt tonal shifts than that band does.” ~ @treblezine “A noisy, short bastard of a record.” ~ @veil_of_sound Released on July 11th 2025 on CD, Cassette and Digital via Human Worth. // @whywhywhypatterns @humanworthmusic #WhyPatterns #screamers #humanworth 📸 Ajit Dutta // Talie Eigeland // Simon Kallas

2025 RIFF RECAP: INDIFFERENT ENGINE - SPECULATIVE FICTION Indifferent Engine are a wild bunch. The quintet-sometimes-a-quartet (not to be mistaken as a quartet-sometimes-a-quintet) are very ambitious and passionate, sounding like the torch bearers of At The Drive-In colliding with the kind of glossy synths and obscure samples you might hear on a Warp Records compilation. Not only did the band have an album in the works, but the quintet also build their own pedals, tape delays, and a fully functioning pixel-art retro inspired video game as an extra promotional item. You know, just because. There’s many layers to this Cambridgeshire band, and the album they have produced is absolutely phenomenal, visceral, chaotic, and yet beautifully controlled and nuanced. I’m glad I was able to help share it upon the music media masses. Not long after the release of the record, Indifferent Engine played a triumphant @arctangentfestival debut set, armed with a wall of static CRT monitors. I’m very excited to see just where this band can go next. One of the sets of the weekend. The gang deliver bleeding-edge post-hardcore in the vein of At The Drive-In. Goosebumps raised.” ~ @kerrangmagazine_ “Blending emotional post-hardcore with progressive metal and moments of ambience, this is an enthralling statement of intent.” ~ @metalhammeruk “Given the right breaks, this album could potentially have the same respect as Relationship Of Command in future years. An excellent debut.” ~ @echoesanddust Released on May 30th 2025 on Vinyl, CD and Digital via Church Road Records. // @indifferentengine @churchroadrecords #indifferentengine #speculativefiction #churchroadrecords 📸 Robin Thomas