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Kerrang!
by rackerss
Kerrang is a weekly rock magazine that has been around for over 30 years and currently comes out on a Wednesday. I subscribed to it when I was a young teenager, but stopped renewing my subscription when I was about 16 and thought I had outgrown the music. More recently I have started subscribing again as my taste in music has reverted ... back to the heavier variety.
The current price is £2.20 per issue which is about 60 pages (including a fair few full pages of ads). The adverts don't annoy me quite as much as adverts in other magazines as they are usually for music tours and are quite informative.
The music covered in the magazine is mostly rock. Occasionally the odd hip-hop or acoustic act will creep in if the editor sees fit. The range is huge which means a lot of the content will be irrelevant if you have a very niche musical taste. Genres range from pop-rock to heavy metal to thrash to punk so there really is something for every rock fan.
Some of the regular features (at the time of writing) include live reviews, live listings, album reviews, introducing (showcasing new music), gossip, the K! quiz (rock stars answering trivia questions), posters as well as in-depth features of different bands. There is also a feedback feature where readers send in letters and pictures; unfortunately now that I'm older I see that these are usually from young teenagers and I find it makes me feel a bit old! However the magazine often features a lot of swear words, drug and sex references which makes it unsuitable for a lot of its younger readers.
The reviews of gigs and albums are all honest and informative. The magazine clearly isn't trying to suck up to bands by giving unwarranted good reviews, but at the same time the reviewers don't unnecessarily slate the hard work of the musicians. However, after subscribing for a while it can be seen that there a few clear "favourite" artists that regularly feature in a positive light. The writing style is often comedic and sometimes tongue-in-cheek, making it a very entertaining read, but a lot less technical than some other music magazines.
If you are looking for a magazine solely containing features on the heaviest of the heavy Kerrang! is not for you. There is relatively little on black and death metal (although almost all albums of this genre will be reviewed even if it is a bit short). The majority of features will focus on more 'mainstream' artists in the rock community.
Overall, I really enjoy this magazine and will keep subscribing for the near future. The subscription offers great discounts and usually a free gift!
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Total Guitar
by AwesomeForrest
Total Guitar is my personal favourite out of all the guitar magazines available as it appeals to players who are both new to the guitar and also the more experienced players.
I would definitely say that the majority of the time the focus in the magazine is largely on rock or metal music.
Throughout the magazine is a well ... balanced mix of music reviews, band interviews, guitar lessons, guitar tablature, guitar tips, gear reviews and relevant advertisements.
The music reviews in the magazine are always a good way to find out about new releases you otherwise might not go heard about. I particularly like that with the magazine being guitar orientated you do find a lot of guitar critique in the reviews so for someone like me who appreciates music with impressive guitar work no matter what genre it's based in you know what albums are going to be appropriate for that.
Also a major plus is the CD which is included with the magazine this includes various versions of the songs taught throughout the magazine so you can play along with just the backing track or too the entire song. Also included are video lessons which are very helpful if you have trouble following some of the positioning during the songs which you are learning.
The guitar lessons for both songs and skills are given in both the musical notation format and the tablature format.
I personally benefit from the tablature and it's great that they offer it to you in both ways as learning to read music is extremely difficult and not something that everyone is able to pick up.
Towards the back pages of the magazine you will find a range of gear reviews I have used this many times in the past for reference when picking out new guitar equipment for myself as they tend to be spot on with the descriptions and also the individual ratings given at the end. One great thing is that they balance it out between the high end gear and low end gear because in some of the similar magazines you tend to find most of the reviews are for equipment that is £1,000 plus and lets face it as much as we would all love too that's just not in the price range of every single reader.
The magazine definitely has helped me a lot as a guitar player to expand on the skills and techniques I already had so that I could improve them or learn new things that would otherwise of been difficult for me.
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Terrorizer
by Dirgette
Terrorizer used to be my lifeblood. A genuinely extreme magazine that left the core kids and nu-metal to likes of Kerrang (I assume I shouldn't post its nickname on a site like this) and Metal Hammer.
Oh how times have changed. Gone are the days when you could open its covers without fear of Joey Jordison's gurning mug glaring ... back at you. No longer can you play the sampler CD without listening to some deathcore monkey sounding like a teenager attempting Corpsegrinder at karaoke.
Obviously some decision up high was made that to boost sales, and get the kids interested, they would need to heavily promote mainstream metal. And promote they do, with approx. 50% of the magazine taken up by bands who would have never got a look in 5 years ago. The letter page is used to smite down any of the older members of the scene who dare to complain and the genuinely extreme music is left to lurk in the corners of the reviews page.
It's a sad state of affairs, but still my metal magazine of choice. The likes of Zero Tolerance really need to get their game up if they want to be a true contender for the extreme metal crown.
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