There’s a companion I haven’t properly introduced yet. It screams, growls, bleeds all over the place—and gives the silence in my head something louder to compete with.

I went to Hanover for Amenra and returned with grievances. Several of them. There was good music, bad organisation, worse manners, unexpected kindness and one increasingly irritated woman trying very hard to call this journalism.

Day Two involved selling merch, borrowing an artist pass, talking my way backstage and actually talking to people. It ended with Gallowbraid’s first-ever live show, a blue moon over Scarborough and the certainty that I would be back.

Back at Fortress Festival in Scarborough for twelve hours of black metal, camera-related despair, unexpected cosmic joy and one headlining set that reduced my notes to "Omg".

This review wasn't planned. It started with a photobook, one quote and a vinyl I couldn't stop playing for a week. Turns out the last thing in the parcel was the one that stayed with me.

One week under the Tuscan sun left my brain fried. Literally. Emotionally. Possibly structurally. So, naturally, I listened to the new Maladie album on the flight home. I was already fucked in the head. Might as well make productive use of it.

Slagmaur lured me in with sheep, hit me with distorted forest madness, and somehow ended up as the first item on my Fortress 2027 homework list.

Mork’s Monolitt landed in my inbox two days before release. I accepted it blind, because apparently black metal brand loyalty is a thing I do now. Here’s the Keeper entry. It includes crushing riffs, excellent diction, one very large rock, and a deeply undignified amount of excitement about Hamburg.

Back to England, back to Scarborough, back to Fortress. Before the music, there was Heathrow chaos, Google betrayal, sea-view swooning, beans on toast, sunburn, Whitby crowds, dog-hair beer, and a Dracula purchase that was absolutely necessary.

Friday night in Billstedt began with basil lemonade that tasted suspiciously of pesto and ended with me asking a drummer for a picture of his white cowboy boots. I had a fantastic time.

A reel. A Florence Welch lyric. And the realisation that shame had slowly convinced me emotional honesty was something to hide. On longing, feralscripts, and refusing to become emotionally silent.

I was at Atmospheric Arts Festival in Speyer last weekend. Here’s the field report. It includes a poncho, a bathrobe, singing bowls, Riesling Schorle, a bat t-shirt, an emotional breakdown courtesy of a Canadian post-black metal band and the phrase "Hansi Kürsch of depressive black metal". So yes. I had a good day.

Carefully staged misery, dressed in violet and turned all the way up. Works like a charm.

A writing update I didn’t plan, sparked by irritation. This is how Blackmore. Pembroke. became a romance — and what romance actually means to me.

The one that took its time—and then knocked me sideways. Final day of Maladie Week. Five tracks, infinite dissonance, and more jazz than anyone asked for.

A delirious journey through saxophone-fuelled black metal chaos. Maladie’s Symptoms IV is equal parts seduction, violence, and pure exhilaration.

The one that dethroned Symptoms IV. Personal, raw, and painfully human—Symptoms III sits with you and names things you are taught not to name.

Four tracks. Thirty-four minutes. Latin titles, cello, and one particularly doomy epic that shapeshifts until it breaks you just a little.

We kick off Maladie Week with Symptoms: the unplanned, sprawling 41-minute EP that started the series. Saxophones, blast beats, and no middle ground.

Lost my mind over the midpoint kiss—the one that changes everything. Slow-burn writers, you know the pain. Chaos, tension, and emotional devastation ahead. Send help.